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DIY Soccer Jersey

It’s crazy how fulfilling I find it to be able to make certain things for myself. 

This weekend, I needed to go to the thrift store for a light blue shirt.  I need it for a soccer team I’m subbing on next month.  I was whinging to myself a bit about this trip; I was going to have to walk to the store, which I wasn’t in the mood for.  And then I was going to have to dig through their shirts for one that was 100% cotton and big enough and the right color and didn’t say anything too obnoxious on it. There are days where that sounds like fun; this was not one of those days.

Then I remembered that I had white t-shirts and blue dye.  Ten minutes later, a white t-shirt was submerged in a dye bath.

I used most of the same steps you’ll find in my Immersion Dyeing Tutorial, except that I didn’t paste the dye up in a dish, but added it to a squeeze bottle with some salty water, shaking it to mix.  I used a squeeze bottle because I figured I’d start the dye bath with a very small amount of dye in it and then slowly add more if the shirt was too light; the squeeze bottle makes that easy and safe. 

The trick to getting pastel colors is to have only a small amount of dye in the bath…it’s not like paints where you stir in white to get pastels.

After the dye bath and washing the shirt, I printed my jersey number on the back.  I contemplated getting a more polished look by using paint and a freezer paper stencil or maybe whipping out the fabric markers, but I decided I wanted a sort-of handmade dot-matix look, so I used a radish to stamp paint on the shirt. 

I like the result and am ready to play!

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Awesome! I'd do anything to avoid going to a store …. especially to buy clothes (horrors!). This is one thousand times better and totally original.

  2. Good for you on so many levels! Repurpose reuse recycle comes to mind, and then there's the fact that you have such a cool shop within walking distance, and that you did indeed walk. And of course, then there's the soccer…I say they contract with you to do all of their shirts for next year's team!

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