Reinvented

As anyone who has fallen down the spinning 'rabbit-hole' has probably discovered, when one gets involved in a 'hobby' that others they know are passionate about, generosity often abounds and occasionally stuff just seems to show up on your doorstep.  With spinning, it's usually some sort of delicious fiber, but with babies, it's often clothes and toys.   Sometimes it's clothes for you (and really, god bless the gifted and/or hand-me-down maternity clothes.  They're a life-saver.), and sometimes it's stuff for the wee bairn.  We have had the fantastic good fortune of having really amazing friends and family with lots of kid stuff and, usually, not a lot of storage space.  So, when we announced that we were pregnant, many of our friends and family seemed to ecstatically come forth with a plethora of wonderful, wonderful things for us (Oh man, not to mention the FANTASTIC and unbelievably useful stream of tips and advice. Not kidding here, it's been utterly invaluable.), and we have been, quite honestly, overwhelmed by this generosity.   We will not discuss the misty-eyed gratitude and excitement, lest things get overly-sappy around here, nor will we discuss the amount of time that we have spent playing with Weebeastie's new toys ourselves, because that would just be unseemly.    Or something.   

Instead, we will talk here today about the joy of rejuvenating or re-purposing kid's clothes.  One of the things we've received is a ton of GREAT clothes, most in perfect condition - here's where that growing-too-fast-to-wear-out-the-clothes thing pays off for the next kid in line.  This is also where the gender-neutral thing pays off for us, because I'm certain that I'm planning to put this little guy in stuff that his dad would never buy for him, if you know what i mean.   Occasionally, however, we've received some perfectly useful, even lovely, clothes that maybe have a teensy bit of food staining, or maybe they're just too girly for me to be able to overcome dad's objections.   Enter:  a bottle of RIT dye, the dye pot, some fun fabric prints and some fusible web. 

One Saturday, while we were doing a whole bunch of other work on the house, I literally threw a handful of clothes into the dye pot with a bottle of Navy RIT dye, stirred for a bit (like...5 minutes, just to make sure everything was saturated) and then walked away for an hour or so.  Now, mind you, I know that the bottle says to stir constantly, but I just wasn't going to do that, so ....you know....should you try this, I would never recommend that you do anything other than what's in the directions on the bottle,  etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, I didn't have time (or inclination) to stir them, so I didn't.  Please don't report me to the crafting/dyeing police. 

Then, once I'd pulled out the first batch to drain and cool in the sink, there still seemed to be a TON of blue dye left in the water, so I figured, what the heck, I'll do another batch.  How bad can it be, really?  If it sucks, I can always just get another bottle of dye and redo them, right?   RIGHT.  And it worked!  Once the rinsing was all done (I just ran them through the rinse cycle in the machine a couple of times until the water ran clear), I got one batch of almost perfectly uniformly dyed navy blue stuff, and one batch of just lightly splotchy denim-blue stuff.  The denim-blue actually turned out to be my favorite, just because it's so damned cute.  It turns the plain onesie into something sort of hip and fun and shabby-chic, and makes them look like your favorite faded jeans.  Here, look:

Aren't they the cutest?  I would have been happy to stop there, and did for most items, but a few things had stuff on them that maybe needed disguising.  For instance, the onesie on the left has the phrase "Daddy's Little Princess" printed on it.   Now, the father of the house is pretty liberal, it's true, but I was pretty sure he'd draw the line at that, so out came some stashed fish print fabric (from the clearance bin), the scissors, and the fusible web.  LITERALLY less than 10 mins later, voila.....instant, machine-washable cuteness. 

Just wait 'til his onesies are big enough for the pin-up girls.

Comments

[Carole]

Truly very clever!

[Kathy]

You are one creative chica. Those onesies are very cute.

[PumpkinMama]

So inventive - that will serve you well in your mommy-hood.

[Manise]

Awesome job! Very cute!

[Juno]

I love you. I mean, I loved you already, but please, please , PLEASE make a pin-up girl onesie for the WeeBeastie. I'm begging you.

[sarah b.]

Great idea! I was just thinking about this sort of thing on the way to work this morning for our beast on the way. I think a trip to the thrift store may be in order to pick up some gently used onesies!

[The Feminist Mafia]

Nice work mama. I have to confess, I never thought of the Rit dye + fusible trick. Tis a great idea!
I have a liberal, but not that liberal in my house too. I bought a red onsie from Gap that was so on-sale, it was practically free. But I was forced to return it after Wifey took one look and spotted two very small pleats at the shoulder (that I didn't even notice) and she deemed them "puffed sleeves." It's still a joke in our house.

[Chris]

What a great idea! And well done, to boot. Now just wait until your weebeastie starts coming up with his own great ideas, like driving to Maryland in a major winter storm when he's old enough so you can't tell him no. Aaaiiieeeeee!

[Sara]

What a wonderful idea... I've never thought to do anything like that!

[Kim]

Brilliant! Those onsies look so cute (and would be big$$$ if you bought them in a boutique). I'm getting out the RIT dye to extend the life of my son's favorite (but grossly stained) white t-shirts.

[Jackie]

Damn that is a great idea - they look fantastic.

[benedetta]

i did that with some toddler/preschooler clothes, few years back, and a bunch of neighborhood children came by and tossed their old clothes in the pot too, and we had one of best afternoons ever! thank you for the memory flash back! and keep having fun, that's what it's all about!

[claudia]

I like the denimy ones too. Great idea.

[Chris]

I love making personalized onesies! Bless the RIT. Rebel Ink Baby is great for onesie saying ideas, too: http://store.rebelinkbaby.com/

[Kristen]

fabulous; now he'll not only be the cutest kiddo in a 15 mile radius, he'll be in the running for "best dressed."

(Leon's back two legs and tail are looking lovely these days; how is he adjusting to the addition of small clothes that are not for him? Is Josie ready to share your attention?)

[Bookish Wendy]

I'd like to know why the kid has to wait for the pin ups?! Hell - he's old enough for them now!

[Teresa C]

Hey! I remember doing that with the girls' clothes when they stained them or they faded. I love a t-shirt, fabric and fusible web. I'd make a skirt or shorts and then dye a t-shirt and cut some of the fabric to make a top to match. That was so fun and I had totally not brought it to mind in a long time. Thanks for bringing back the memory.

And that stuff looks so cute. The blue onesies? To dye uh, I mean die for. You could easily do that and make a few bucks on Etsy or at a craft fair.

[Beth S.]

You're so poly-craftual. I love it. :-)

Every baby should be welcomed into the word with fishie onesies.

[Kim]

Wow, that looks like so much fun!

[Iris]

What, you haven't figured out that the friends with kids but "not a lot of storage space" have just been dying (pun intended) to unload their stuff on someone else?

Seriously, I've donated a ton of stuff to various charities, but at one time an acquaintance (since moved away) had twin girls about 2 years younger than my daughter, and I'd give her anything I had multiples of. This worked great because her girls had totally different ideas about clothes - one liked brights and one liked pastels, and if I had multiples, they were of course in different colors. I hate to shop and if I found something I liked for everyday, I'd always buy more than one.

One time we ran into them and both girls had on pink-and-white-stiped OshKosh overalls, and I knew I'd only ever had one. Turned out someone else had given them the other.

The one thing about giving this kind of stuff though, was that the recipient has to take it when I'm ready to get rid of it, although I might hang onto it for a while if I didn't have a good place to send it. Nowadays, I don't have a good place for it to go, so it generally goes to the battered women's shelter.

I've been contemplating the overdying now that my daughter isn't outgrowing everything so rapidly. What I really need to do is to overdye the navy stuff that has faded out. I've about reached the point of refusing to buy anything black with cotton in it.....