I consider myself an environmentalist. I plant native, run my local recycling gift economy, reduce, reuse, recycle, the whole lot of doing my part.

A more fun way that I take care of the environment is through thrifting. I’ve loved thrifting since I was in middle school, when my upstairs neighbor, two years my senior and so cool, would take me with her to Value Village. We’d scour the racks in the children’s and adult section alike for ironic workwear or children’s T-shirts with sayings we’d turn into innuendo, all for cents rather than dollars. Nowadays I live in an area where people travel far and wide to hit up the Goodwill, as most of the items there are brand name and there are often still tags on items.

I prefer to honor off-the-wall finds at the thrift store that may require mending. Also, sometimes mistakes of my own happen to articles of clothing. Like with this dress and shirt. One of which certainly suffered from aluminum in the deodorant I used to wear (thanks impulsive gardening urges), the other with a splatter stain going down it that I can only assume occurred as a result of the acne products I sometimes use on my face.

This dress was one of my favorites!

I love the fit of both of these pieces, so I initially decided to all over dye them with some RIT dye. I followed the instructions on the bottle, submerged them in a bucket of dye…and it occurred to me that the stain may show through after it was all said and done.

As the clothes were soaking in their dyebath, I thought to google:

Does RIT dye cover stains?

NOPE.

I halfway abandoned the project. After more than the appropriate time had passed, I drained the dyebath. The color was wild, and the stain was still apparent on both articles.

So, I did what I do when I seemingly easy, insignificant project becomes one that requires multiple attempts: pushed it aside and moved on to other things.

When my son’s 5th birthday party came around and it was Mac and Cheese themed, I had the idea to tie dye some orange and yellow “cheesy” shirts for our family. I decided to throw that dress in the mix, and make it tie dye navy to match the Kraft boxes that were the inspiration for the party decor. New to tie dye, I found a youtube video to make sure that I could do it with RIT. I didn’t use a spray bottle as recommended, I just microwaved the dye and I even microwaved the article of clothing as suggested in a different video to ensure that the dye set.

And, viola!

Here’s from the day of the party, macaroni necklace and earrings and all.

There’s a product to use with RIT, a dye fixative, that I didn’t have the foresight to use (as you can tell from the initial dye story, foresight isn’t my forte) and the dye slightly faded after a few washes. I’ve worn it even more than before it could have been considered “ruined” by the bleach stain!

Making something or making something your own by altering it makes it more valuable to you. We live in an age where abusive overseas labor allows for cheap clothes. It’s simple for many people to toss away clothes that didn’t put a dent in their wallet initially, but when I see an article of clothing, I see that labor, I see the cotton that took so much time and water to grow from a seed, and I know that all is interconnected and nothing is disposable.