It got to the point where I even bought a cheap fabric for $10 from Joann's and made my own "A-line" dress, but I cut it too short so you could see my butt even when I was standing. I was not going to a convention with my booty hanging out.
I finally came to a good decision! About a year ago, I had a formal presentation in my English class and I had to go out and buy a dress for it. I decided on a dress from JC Penney. I spent $30 and it's called a "Sleeveless A-line dress" by B. Smart. I bought it in a denim-looking blue color (it's actually 97% cotton) and wore it for school. I only wore it once, but I still kept it. I was looking around in my closet the other day for good dresses for my cosplay, and I found that one. Of course, though, it was not even close to the navy blue dress San wears.
I bought the Rit dye from Stop and Shop for about $5 and it was a small packet:
So it took me a couple days to finally suck it up and start dying the dress. You could see how light the color of the dress was, and the box of dye says the final color will be something like the box color, and I was happy with that dark of a color. So I started by getting in yucky clothes. I pulled on ripped, old jeans and a shirt I didn't care about in case the dye splashed on me.
I used the bucket method to dye, but I put the bucket in my sink to make it easier to pull the dress out and rinse it afterwards. First, I collected everything I needed.
TIP: 100% COTTON FABRIC WORKS BEST, BUT ANYTHING ABOVE 60% COTTON WILL WORK TOO. ANYTHING OF HIGH POLYESTER COUNTS WILL NOT HOLD DYE.
I got some gloves, the dye, a bucket, HOT water, the dress, and some paper towels just in case I would splash dye everywhere.
I started by filling my bucket with HOT water, enough to make sure the dress would move freely in the water. Then I filled a Pyrex measuring cup with 2 cups of hot water to pre-dissolve the dye.
I got a mini whisk and stirred the dye until it dissolved completely in the water. At this point I had gloves on so I didn't get the dye on my hands.
Before I put the dress in the dye, I got it wet with hot water to get it ready to soak up dye.
I added the dyed water into the main bucket of water and mixed it up. I then added the dress and now it's time to stir!
I stirred continuously with my hands for 30 minutes to achieve the richest and darkest blue color.
The camera doesn't do it justice here, but it is a dark blue color, much darker than it started out with.
I pulled the dress out of the dye water and now it's time to rinse out the extra dye. Run the fabric under warm water for a bit, then gradually make it colder and rinse until the water runs CLEAR (you shouldn't see any blue dye coming out)
I spread out the dress in the sink just to get the dye out of the crumples and wrinkles.
Now it's time to wash out all the other dye using a washing machine! I set my washer to WARM then to a SMALL load, since it's only one thing and it should wash for about 30 minutes.
Add MILD detergent into the dress and water and you should see some extra dye come out (even after rinsing to clear) since the detergent will draw out some more dye.
Hang to air dry and then fluff for about 5 minutes in dryer or iron.
BEFORE
AFTER
Viola! You're done! Now you have a dark dress for Princess Mononoke!
Tip: You don't need a blue dress to make darker. You can use any color. White works best, but it you have like a pink dress and you want it blue, buy Rit's color remover and remove as much color from it first, then use the dye to change the color.
