Imprinting my personality, one step at a time.

One of the houses at the entrance to our subdivision has been sold and they've been having a yard sale out there all week. Arielle wanted to go for a walk the other day to see the ducks, so we wound up going right past. Naturally we came back with stuff!

One of the things I got was a complete set of king sheets, for only $5. Talk about excited! When I realized they were big enough to fit our bed I didn't care that they were this incredibly virulent purple. I figured I'd find an way to take care of that. I just really wanted new sheets.

King size sheets? Are incredibly expensive. It's nice having a bed that large, but it's very hard for us to get new sheets. We can rarely afford them, and even then, only when I get them for a really good clearance price. Which is why we are still using two sheet sets from when the husband was married to Michael's mother.

Ick. I hate using anything that used to be hers. Over the years I've managed to weed out most of the remnants of her personality, but those two sheet sets I just haven't been able to afford to replace.

So here was my chance! I just had to figure out some way to fix the color.

I wound up tie-dyeing it in reverse. I picked up some rubber bands at the store and after confiscating them back from the girls (primarily Arielle, who calls all rubber bands "ribbons" and loves them with all of her girly little heart) did a fairly typical combination of bulls-eye and spiral patterns on the top and bottom sheets. The pillow cases I pleated, fastening them with rubber bands on either end and the middle. Then I threw everything in the washing machine and bleached the heck out of them.

At first I was worried that I hadn't gotten a pattern. It looked like the bleach had penetrated too much and everything was just a bleached-out looking purple. Not bad, better than the original color, but not what I was hoping for. But, no, it did turn out well, although much subtler than I had envisioned, without much strong contrast.

What turned out the best, I thought (and the husband, too), were the pillowcases. If I ever do anything like this again, I'll either do everything in pleats, or try doing a marbled effect.

Now I can finally get rid of one of those old sets. I think I'll ditch the one with the giant man-eating pansies.