tea dying fabric to make it folksy or primitive

[drj2athome]

Is this a good idea and will I get better colors than if I hunted for them? I have a few fat quarters of really red red and tree green, and one fat quarter of bright blue. I love the colors but they are not subtle or folksy, Primitive. Maybe I should experimeht with small swatches of the fabrics ih some tea to see what happens. I am also having trouble printing out the wedding pictures in sepia. But at least I could do black and white. I am doing a sampler with Eleanor Burns' book called it's El-ementary. That has a heart a wreath and a pinwheel and a maple leaf and a star. I figure I'll do the heart and wreath and maybe the star and put in a wedding picture and the reading from Colossians that they read at the ceremony. It's off to experimenting wih tea for me. any advice welcome. Jan

[cindyg]

Tea-dying was a topic here a long time ago. If I remember correctly, the tea has acid in it that will make your fabric deteriorate more quickly. Someone suggested using fabric dye to get the color you want.

[Cathy32078]

I have some cheapo fabric that was tea dyed 12 yrs ago and it is still strong as can be. Just be sure to rinse it well. Coffee can give it a diff. color too. You be the judge though because I would hate for it to weaken your fabric & just because it hasn't mine? Dye would be a better choice if you can get the color you are wanting.

Hugs & Love

[knitnoid]

I went to a guild meeting and heard the ladies from Blackbird Designs talk about 'tea' dyeing their fabric. Of course now I can't remember the specifcs. I seem to remember they used Rit Dye -- taupe and orange(?) maybe. It was two different colors, not the whole box of each and the 2nd color was unusual to say the least. I'll ask the ladies I quilt with if they remember how they did it.

[grammiequilts]

i bought a specific product by Dylon It is called "tea dye" If you will pm me your address I will send it to you since i probably wont use it XXXOOOjudi

[sewcarolyn]

I do tea dye and coffee dye for costumes there are pros and cons but tea does add acid to the fabric. Both coffee and tea need to be heat set or when it is washed you lose the color. The commercial products do work well.

[knitnoid]

I just thought of something else about using tea and coffee. In an heirloom sewing class I took, the instructor tea dyed the lace we used to match the silk we were sewing with. She said she did that all the time on her garments. Since we prewashed both the lace and silk, the finished garments are machine washable (gentle cycle). Anyway, she said she had spilled something on her blouse and then used a stain remover on the spot, or an OxyClean type additive in the wash - can't remember the entire story - it's been too long. Anyway when the blouse came out of the wash, she had white lace on an ecru blouse. Whatever she had used to clean the spot had removed the tea dye from the lace. Now it may be possible this was because she was in a hurry -- maybe ran out of lace or something - and had not heat set the tea dye -- again I can't remember, but it's definately something to keep in mind. I really think I'd go with a commercially available dye if you have a choice.

[AmaraAnn]

I had this link saved from a while ago. It is actually meant for doll makers to get flesh colored fabric but it might work if you played around with it to get what you are looking for.

http://www.dollstreetdreamers.com/back_ ... ecipes.pdf

Hope it helps...