Working in a daycare means using bleach. A lot. Using bleach means possibly getting it on your clothes. Possibly getting it on your clothes means that cool new shirt you bought is now ruined. This has happened to me approximately four times. Thankfully it has happened with shirts that can be saved, except for this turtleneck.

I had been searching for a thin black turtleneck for a while and coming up dry. Finally I found one at Target last year for $5! I found it during the warmer months and wasn’t able to really wear it and still didn’t really wear it once it got cooler. I wore it to work on day and while washing the bottles I soaked the front with bleach. Yay. Thanks, belly.

There was so much bleach that adding anymore to make a design or change the whole shirt would just eventually eat holes through it. And no one wants a hole where their bellybutton goes. So here is the first of many installments of how to fix a bleached shirt.

1. Take your clean bleached shirt, preferably jersey for this DIY.
2. Cut a straight line across the shirt from bottom armpit to bottom armpit.
3. Cut off the turtleneck part underneath the seam to keep it all in tact.

4. Start cutting 1 inch strips from the bottom part of the shirt, first cutting off the bottom seam. Cut the whole part into 1 inch strips.
5. Here are your strips! Lay them out like shown above.
6. Start pulling and pulling. This will string them out to make the edges curl up and look better. To keep all the strings together, take the seam you cut off and wrap it around one part of the strings. Tie a tight knot and cut off the excess. Tada! A scarf!

Remember the neck part we cut off? Here’s what you can do with that!

Twist it all up and sew two ends to keep it that way. It will probably work better if you sew it in four places like 12, 3, 6, 9 o’ clock but I just sewed it 3 and 9. (Does that make sense?) You might have to twist it every time you wear it but because it’s the perfect head size for me the twist stays in place. Add a flower or wear alone! Tada! A headband!

 

What would you do with a bleached shirt? I’ve got several more coming at you so keep your ideas coming!

 

xx