Day 161

The other day I was standing outside while volunteering at my kid’s school.  I was wearing my standard issue black yoga pants that I wear most places outside of work.  They are the kind of yoga pants that don’t see any actual yoga. I consider them more mommy couture and wouldn’t want to actually sweat in them.  It has long been my assertion that the best thing about yoga is the soft and stretchy clothes.

Anyway, at some point, during the part of the day when the sun is its most unforgiving, I looked down and realized my cute black pants had washed-out to more of dull dark grey.   To make matters worse, they were covered in various misshapen greasy spots, giving me the appearance that I was molting.  In a matter of seconds, in my mind, I had been downgraded from “put together, I may dash off to yoga” mom, to “unkempt, I set my sandwich on my lap when I’m eating” mom.

I had a couple of other items at home that had faded from their former ink black stature as well, so I thought I would try dying them back to their former ebony glory.  That would be a good Simple Year project, refreshing my old wardrobe.  How hard can it be, right?

At first I thought I might make my own dye.  But, I looked up the recipe and the ingredients included rust (yes, like the kind on a car), acorns or oak galls.   These are apparently abnormal growths in reaction to wasps that lay their eggs in the old oak tree.  I know it sounds like the plot line to some 1950’s horror film, but, but apparently galls have been used throughout history in the production of ink.

There was also some grinding with a mortar and pestle and several other steps that looked equally difficult.  The end product they displayed looked pretty mottled and more dark brown than black.

It was at that moment, I decided to call black dye a consumable and go ahead and buy it.

When I mentioned project JET BLACK to my mother, she warned me that she used to dye things (in the 70’s) and that it didn’t work that well.   Since the last time she  tried it, the cell phone, ATMs and YouTube hadn’t even been invented; I figured they had probably also made some innovations in dye technology.

So apparently the invention people were busy with all of those other things I just mentioned and fabric dye got overlooked.

I followed the instructions to the letter. I left them in the color the prescribed time. I added salt. I even weighed the clothes so I didn’t overload the bin.  I ended up dying the aforementioned pants and a pair of work slacks that I have had for about eight years, which fit well and are the right length.  When they were wet they looked pretty good, inky even.

Then they dried…

And in the very true words of my children, “Mom, they look the same.”

If only I’d had some oak galls.

UPDATE: If you are going to attempt at home, you should check out the comment section below.  There are some people who actually know what they are talking about.  At some point, I am going to try again using the suggestions below.