The White T-shirt Onesie: The Results

Here's where it started:

Dressing room at Goodwill

Sporty Spice

As you know by now, I took this gem home with me.

My goal: turn this oversized cotton wrestler outfit into a ready-to-wear romper. Maybe distressed military green (olive)?

I started by cuffing the shorts and taking in the waist a little at a time (didn't want to carve it slim behind repair). I also had to find a way to shorten the body just a bit (or so I thought...) so I took up the straps just about an inch and and a half. I thought that would be easier than cutting the torso in half horizontally and shortening it that way).

I was hoping this mild crotch bunchedness was temporary.

A little more fitted.

From there, I played with RIT dye for the first time. My RIT dye virginity became immediately apparent.

I used about half a pack of brown powder and half a pack of dark green powder in about a gallon of water (in a pot on the stove). I set the timer for 30 minutes. After one minute, I realized I put WAY too much dye into the water bath. Whoops. My garment was a funky shade of dark greenish black. That's not the look I was going for.

Then I spent the better part of the afternoon rinsing (and repeating) my "project" to get some of that dye out! Two hours and 15 rinse, boiling and repeats and an hour of spinning in the clothes dryer later, I had a grey-ish green rumple of cotton.

Voila!

Okay, maybe not the grand reveal I was hoping for — but the husband agrees it's at least a little better than retarded.

These are my Diba sandals paired with a Limited blazer (care of Goodwill) and long strand necklaces from Express (care of Maria) and from Dots.

You can tell more in this picture than the previous... the fabric pulling around the "bottom half" of my garment is no bueno. Crotch pull. I think they refer to this in the animal kingdom as "camel toe."

I think we can safely say this will make a BEAUTIFUL painting romper or sleeping romper or swimsuit cover-up romper. Not so a much Saturday-night-out romper.

In trying to "tailor" this thing, I made it a little too fitted — so it's grabby in some areas. In retrospect, much of the trimming and hemming wasn't necessary.

But I'll let you in on another little secret...

I bought two of these beauties... Second time's a charm?