About a week ago, I stumbled upon a
blog post about ombre tights. It was love at first sight! I had to give it try, so I purchased 2 pairs of opaque tights from
American Apparel (white and sangria). Through a series of trial and errors, I figured out how to achieve the ombre dye look on tights.
My goal was to have a clean gradient transition without any splatter
marks or obvious gradient lines. I also wanted the gradient to fade to
black. For the first dye job, I followed a video tutorial from the
Martha Stewart Show on ombre dying (click
here). This is a great video tutorial, however they dye cotton, where as I needed to dye a nylon blend. The end result was this...
Super cute, however my original intention was to have the gradient fade
to black. Instead, the black dye only darkened the pink color. I
believe part of the problem was that I used a RIT dye, which is better
for cotton than nylon. Another possible reason for why it didn't take
as well, could have been that I used hot water as opposed to the stove
top method that uses boiling water. From what I now know, nylon needs
to be really hot for the dye to take, which is why boiling water is
recommended. So, back to the drawing board I went.
I decided to ask my
facebook friends about dying nylon. Rebekah was kind enough to suggest
iDye. I followed her suggestion and used 2 packets of iDye poly, which is for polyester and nylon. This worked amazingly well!
Here's how you ombre dye colored tights with iDye poly.
1) Purchase color opaque tights and 2 packets of iDye poly in black. As I already mentioned, I used American Apparel tights.
2)
Decide where you want the color to end and the black to begin. Being
as black is a slimming color, I felt it would look best with black going
towards the thighs rather than a color. I wanted the color transition
to begin around mid calf. You can either pin where you want the color
transition to begin or you can eyeball the distance. I eyeballed it at
about 9" from the toe seam of the tights.
3) Soak the tights in clear hot water to remove any finish on the tights. Let it sit there for about 5 minutes or so.
4) Follow instructions on dye packet for mixing dye over stove top.
5)
Place tights in water waist first. Be sure not to dip the color
portion of the tights into the dye mixture (see pic below). Lay the
color portion over the pot and onto another pot. You don't want the
tights to dangle over the pot, because it may catch fire, which would
totally ruin the ombre look =)
6)
After about 2 minutes of the dying process, gently pull about 1 - 2" of
the tights out of the boiling water. This will help make the gradient
less obvious. However, don't pull too much of the fabric out of the
pot, because it will create a blotchy look (see mistakes to avoid pic below).
7)
Once the dying process is completed, turn off the heat and let the
fabric cool. Next, rinse the tights in cold water, making sure to not
let the dye run onto the color part of the tights. It's ok if the color
part gets wet and if the black blends with the color portion. You just
don't want it to drip and run onto the color portion. I held the
tights upright with the feet up, while rinsing the excess dye off.
8) With mild detergent, hand wash your tights. My washer has a hand wash cycle, which I used.
9) Dry your tights. This next tip is very important - Don't hang dry your tights! As
your tights dry there will likely still be some excess dye leftover.
If you hang dry them, the excess dye will make a lovely line down the
tights as gravity pulls the excess water towards the ground. Trust me I
know. No, I don't want to talk about it =(. You can lay the tights on
a towel to dry.
10) Voila!
Mistakes to avoid...
~ Don't lift too much of the tights out of the dye in step 6 or else it will look blotchy as shown below...
~ Don't hang dry or else you will have dye lines running down your tights.
That's about it! Be sure to share your ombre tight creations
here.
Cheers!
Jamie
