I have been holding into this nautical themed beauty for about 2 years. I had plans on doing a bleach stencil upscale on this dress but somehow never got around to it…until today!
Keeping with the nautical feel of this dress I decided on an anchor stencil.
I printed out a clip art picture of an anchor and cut out the design with an Xacto knife. Next, I painted in the stencil with a bleach pen. (I did place a brown paper bag wrapped with wax paper underneath the working area). And I waited 10 minutes, not done…20 minutes….still not done and then another 20 minutes. I waited a full 50 minutes for this and all the tutorials online said it should only take about 20 minutes!
Fustration aside…. I took off my handmade stencil and rinsed off all the bleach gel with cold water. Then I put it straight into the washer with a load of wash.
More waiting…
Finally after my dress was dry I cut a circle out of the back. I sewed around the border of the freshly cut circle with my sewing machine using a Zig-Zag stitch. It was incredibly annoying because the dress was a jersey knit material and kept stretching. All in all I believe it turned out great!
Happy Refashioning!
TheRefashStash 