Shoes to Dye for: Part 1

My boyfriend and I found these shoes for three dollars at the Goodwill Outlet--barely worn Vans! The only issue was an eensy bleach stain on the canvas. It was barely visible when the shoes were being worn since most people don't scrutinize footwear from 5 feet up. But, as it turned out, my boyfriend didn't like the original bright blue color of the shoes. So he added more bleach.

I don't have a before photo! Bleaching the shoes was going to be the only step, but then he decided to go above and beyond. For an idea of the color, the royal blue in the Vans logo was the blue covering the entire shoe.

Our local craft shop had a few dye options, but we narrowed it down to RIT and DYLON. I've used RIT dye somewhat successfully--my RIT garments have always turned out patchy, but I've never cared if the color took to the fabric evenly. Plus the RIT dye leaks when the fabric is wet. So we went with DYLON dye... hopefully it doesn't bleed in the rain, but he's prepared if it does!

He went for a galaxy-esque color theme with a tie-dye-like dye job. I already had the condiment bottles on hand from when I used to dye yarn, but I think they cost about 99 cents at WalMart. We also put down large trash bags because this project gets messy.

We used about 1/3 of the dye packets and around a tablespoon of salt in each bottle.

We filled the bottles the rest of the way with warm water and made a big mess when we tried mixing the dye... the condiment bottles weren't air tight, so my boyfriend added electrical tape to the rims. That didn't completely solve the problem, but it was good enough for our needs.

Sorry for the blurry photo...

To get a galaxy effect, we used a technique similar to tie-dyeing, but the condiment bottle nozzles were so large that we had to be patient and let the color drip out of the end and not apply very much pressure. When we were impatient, huge blobs of color popped out. That didn't matter so much because we started dyeing the shoes with the lightest color.

 This is during the dye job. We taped around the sole to try to prevent dye from pooling in it. I'm not sure if it made a difference...

 And there they are! Almost all finished. He's not a fan of how much black is on the back shoe, but I can't decide which one is my favorite. I'll give an update on how they wash and wear.

Happy making!