Charles Mackintosh Shirt

I bought a purple flannel shirt in a sale for almost nothing ( 3 euro). When the bright cellophane came off the color was not so purple as I had thought. A drab misty purple-grey. Boring! Now more than a year later I only put it on once, and my colleagues wondered what had been gone wrong in the laundry. "Nothing I said, its purple". They looked at me with eyes that spoke:"Yeah, and the moon is purple too!".
So the shirt had to go, or with some arts and craft brought back to life.

Here is what i did to revive a not so old but unloved shirt.

1. A boring shirt
2. A sewing machine
3. Yellow cotton ( crochet) thread
4. Yellow sewing tread
5. A seam ripper
6. A hand needle with a big hole
7. Bleach
8. A small plastic bottle with pointy nozzle
9. A white pencil or tailors chalk ( not on the picture)

I didn't buy any of these. All were in the house. The small plastic bottle I once bought in a artist's shop, to make lines on canvas with very fluent paint.

I took off the pocket with a seam ripper. It was a bit fiddly and I had to practice my ZEN skills, but without any damage it came off in 15 minutes. With a white pencil (tailors chalk would have been more professional) I drew a circle and made some lines to mimic a Charles Rennie Mackintosh flower design.

On the shirt, over the place for the pocket I drew 5 parallel lines ( as in the Mackintosh example).

Later I made 5 horizontal lines on the back, to cover up a bleach mistake I made, but all for the better.

Over all lines I stitched a yellow crochet thread with a zigzag stitch on the machine. The red yarn in the pictures is only to show more clearly. I used yellow yarn on the shirt. This sound more complicated than it is. It seems like the tread wants to stay in the middle on its own, and the zigzag runs smoothly over it.

When beginning with a new thread stitch a little backward, and then follow the lines forward. Do the same at the end of a tread. Leave some yellow thread hanging over. With a hand held needle I pulled each end to the inside of the shirt

I filled the little bottle with some bleach. It would have been wise to wear rubber gloves. I survived without. I cannot be held responsible if you do the same! Put the shirt flat on a table on a newspaper. Pour bleach lines on either side of all the yellow threads. Wait for some minutes, for the bleach to take effect. Prepare some water with detergent to wash the garment. Very, VERY! careful pick up the garment. If any of the bleach touches a wrong part of the shirt there will be a stain.

I made a stain on the back, so I made the horizontal lines on the back to cover up. And I'm glad I did!

With bleach the result will always be a surprise ( unless you test on a secret corner) . The reddish brick color appeared because there was a purple tone to the otherwise "grey" shirt. I think its a good combination with the bright yellow lines!

After a hand wash I put it in the washing machine on a short program to remove all bleach. Don't ask me why the yellow thread did not change color, in contact with the bleach. Its cotton with a very strong dye I presume.

I'm very satisfied with the result. Sometimes the lines seem like a strip of neon light. There is no way anyone now will say its a boring shirt!