Dip-Dyed Ombré Onesies

During the last week of my holiday I had an inspiration lightning bolt hit me. If I found some plain white onesies*, I could dye them myself and iron on some custom silhouettes!

*Also known as: All-in-ones, Stretch n' grows or vests.

One shopping trip and three days of effort later and we have some very cute newborn onesies for Baby C to wear a couple of times each! (here's hoping!)

Day 1 involved the Shopping Trip. With Dave at work with the car I decided on a casual walk to the local mall. Turns out buying a pack of plain onesies isn't as easy as I thought. I found this 3 pack at The Warehouse hiding behind all of the sale items. These weren't on sale. BUT I was set on my idea so they were bought.

My next stop was Lincraft, the local fabric etc store. I hunted down the fabric dye and tried to decide on a colour. I needed a unisex color and the TEAL packet leapt out at me. A quick stop at the supermarket to buy some rubber gloves was the last item on the agenda.

Once I got home I tried to decipher the fabric dying instructions. I didn't want to waste the whole dye packet on 3 tiny items of clothing so I guessed at halving the 'recipe'. I wanted to do an ombre type dye (fading gradually from light to dark) but the result wasn't quite what I had planned. After the first total immersion I held the top of the onesie and 'bobbed' it up and down in the dye to darken the lower half. The instructions told me that the desired colour would take up to half an hour of soaking to be dark enough - but who has time for that when you have to keep dunking it in and out of the mixture? Not me apparently. Five minutes later and I was done with onesie number one.

The second and third attempts were a more 'dip-dyed' approach, leaving half the onesie white. I still tried to fade the colour but again, who has the patience to stand and wait?

I rinsed the dye out with cold water and put them through the wash to set the colour. The result was one very nice teal colour that I am happy with!

 

Day 2 was Design Day. I trawled the interwebs looking for some cute silhouette images and settled on three. A fox (of course), some swallows and a fantail in a frame. I printed them out and traced them onto some black fabric that I had previously bonded with an iron-on glue type thing. After some very fiddly cutting out I ironed on the images.

 

Day 3 was Stitching Day. The transfer paper I used needs extra help to stay bonded so I started the mammoth task of stitching around each image. I used a simple running stitch around the edge to secure it onto the onesie. This one small task took most of the day to complete.

I'm really stoked with how these came out. It was definitely a labour of love but that is part of what nesting is all about right?

xx