Natural Dyes

[bliss]

Does anyone have any experience with using natural dyes (ie even coffee/tea) on fabrics? I have a white linen blend skirt that I would like to tye-dye so it was brown/beige with white in it. . .can anyone walk me through using a natural dye to do so?

[bostonsmama]

my experience with tea staining/coffee staining, is that they dont come out a bold, solid color....... we tea stain all of our muslin that we stitch on for the "primitive" looking pillows. i have left some in overnight and it still doesnt come out solid, which, to get a nice tie dye look going on, i think you would need it to be solid on the dark parts? although, it could be the muslin also.....ive never used it on anything else. you might just need to buy some dye from dharma or even rit, although i know a lot of mamas here hate rit dye ;) but i bet it would work just for your bed skirt, since it wont get washed near as much as say, a tshirt. i use rit on our chenille and it has worked fine......so far, lol


anyways, if you do want to try it.......here's what i would do....

get your bedskirt nice and wet ----- oh my :wow i just re-read your post and you said blend skirt, not bed skirt.....lol :lol

ok, so get your skirt nice and wet...tie it off with your rubber bands or string, whichever you are using......fill your machine with enough warm/hot water to give the skirt plenty of room to be constantly covered w/the water. add a TON of coffee or tea, whichever you are using.....let it get mixed up in the warm water, then add your skirt. let it run for a few minutes, then stop it, let it sit for a few hours.......fully submerged under the water......then let it finish the wash cycle. rewash it, with a little soap on the small sized load cycle. take out, undo your bands or string, and see what it looks like! :) good luck!

[bliss]

I have a professional-depth stainless steel kitchen sink, which I thought about using because then I wouldn't have to use SO MUCH coffee/tea to get the desired color - kind of a "stainish" look would be fine with me, actually what I had in mind. (Not a solid, dark brown on the colored parts.) Thank you so much - one more ?? - is there anything I need to do to "set" the color? (Like first wash in vinager or something?)

[bostonsmama]

i dont think so....i never do, with any kind of dyes. actually , i did once with kool aid, i dont know if it helped or not--

i dont mean "dark" when i said solid....when i dye with tea, its never dark, but its also never solid, its always very 'washy' does that make better sense? like, the part that is dyed looks like it was sprayed on. hard to describe??

you should post pics when youre done, i bet its gonna be cute!!

when using your sink, just make sure to still use LOTS of tea or coffee, and still make sure to put enough hot water in so that your skirt can be fully submerged!! :) good luck!!!

[Mia]

Does anyone have any experience with using natural dyes (ie even coffee/tea) on fabrics? I have a white linen blend skirt that I would like to tye-dye so it was brown/beige with white in it. . .can anyone walk me through using a natural dye to do so?

Since it's linen, my guess would be that it's really going to "take" the color, so if you want a subtle variation, I would make your tea bath fairly weak (you can always do it again and have 3 dimensions of color).
The reason I say this is because (years ago) I let my sister pick-out the bridesmaid's dresses for my wedding. She fell in love with a dress that was actually "cream" (it was a wedding dress and didn't come in color) but I let her order them anyway because I didn't really want color in my wedding anyway (in keeping with the white, airy look of this little chapel). When they arrived a week before the wedding, they were whiter than MY dress! :mad (I could have killed her)
My dress maker (who is a brave soul) suggested that we give them a "tea bath" to see if we could lose some of the white, but wasn't sure what would happen to them. :/ We decided to go for it and they came out a great "ecru" :tu
These dresses were almost all polyester... that's what makes me think the linen is going to "drink" the tea in!

[bostonsmama]

mijita-- really!?! wow, i hope she see's your post before she takes my advice of putting in lots of tea! maybe my tea is weaker than yours? i figured the linen would be like the muslin...which i just cant get a solid color on, but, for the primitive look its fine, i just didnt know what she wanted for the skirt...

great idea on the bridesmaids dresses btw! i wouldve been terrified they were going to turn out a crazy color! thats awesome :)