Dip-dyed children’s pool dresses with Dylon

I always have an issue with holidays. You can’t just walk around in a swimsuit when other people are around: it’s not polite. But neither do you want to commit yourself to changing ‘inside a towel’ by the water’s edge. The same applies to my children. Last year they had towelling dresses which are too small and they don’t seem to keen on new ones because they are too hot.

 

I was in Primark recently when I saw that they had vests on sale for £1. You don’t turn something like that down- there’s not much you can buy for 100 English Pence these days. So I bought two size 6 vests and took them home.

Dylon very kindly sent me some dye a while ago, so I dug out the packets and followed the instructions to make them up. Dimples helped by dunking the new vests into the paddling pool and pre-wetting them.

Then we dipped one end of the vest into the dye, about one third of the way up the vest, and hung it up to dry.

After it had dried, we dunked the other side of the vest in the violet dye, and hung it up once more. Because the t-shirts were wet, the dye ‘travelled’ and thinned out in colour, so that the most concentrated colour is at either end of the top.

Once thoroughly dry, I measured the vests against The Girls, and pinned the straps of the vests in the appropriate place for shortening. Then I just turned the vests inside out, sewed across a few times and trimmed the excess fabric. Now they have simple sun dresses to throw over swimsuits for our holiday.

 

*Note that this is a picture of me in a dip-dyed vest because since I made the sun-dresses it has poured with rain incessantly. And The Girls won’t wear them ‘because they are for very sunny days, Mamma.’ Sometimes I wonder if they understand blogging…..*