Today’s project: tea dying 27 yards of cotton canvas to be made into curtains for my back room.
I did some test swatches last week.
And today I emptied out my fabric storage totes to dye the fabric in and made some super concentrated tea.
I let the tea steep for 30 minutes, and then added it to some water I had already put in one of the totes so as to not melt it.
I wet the fabric in some vinegar water, and then let it sit in the tea for an hour.
Then I put it in my washing machine on a rinse and spin cycle and dried it on hot.
Now I am repeating the process twice more because the 27 yards came on three bolts, and I don’t want to crowed the fabric in the dye bath. I am starting with fresh tea for each batch, hoping that keeping all factors as similar as possible will result in minimal color variation across the three lengths of fabric.
Can also be used for paper. Professors love when you use interesting methods for color in your projects.
Materials:
tea bags (I used 12 from National Cup)
pan
salt
Spoon
Time ( It took about 4-5 hours to completely dye my Tshirt. The darker you want the garment the longer it needs to soak
NOTE: This will only work on Natural fibers. For example Cotton, Linen, or wool. It will not work on synthetic/articial fibers like polyester.
1. I suggest cutting your fabric/garment to size before dying. I'm sure its probably fine either way but I know it worked well for me to cut my shirt first.
2. Boil water in a pan. You can look at what I used for reference as to size and what I used. I used about 9 cups of water.
3. After it is done boiling Turn off the burner and add in your tea bags. I used 12 for my shirt. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes and I suggest poking the bags with a spoon to make sure the coloring is getting nice and rich.
4. While the tea bags are sitting, put your garment through cold water and wring it out. You don’t want the garment dry when you put it in the pot.
5. Take out the tea bags and add in salt. I put in about 3 Table Spoons. I per every 4 cups of water. This will help hold the coloring through washing. Another tip I found was to put the garment in fabric softener before hand. I did not have fabric softener so let me know how that works and if it works better. I'm curious. Mix the salt in until it all dissolves.
6. Put your garment in the still warm tea water. BE SURE THE WHOLE GARMENT IS SUBMERGED. This is important so the whole thing will be dyed equally. If not, some parts will be darker/lighter than others. I used other spoons to keep all of the fabric submerged. Let it sit for at least 1 hour. I let it go for 2.5 hours. In order to make sure everything dyes evenly, move the garment around every half hour or so.
In the mean time go do something else and mess around with everything. I decided to try eye liner from Devilman Crybaby and later use the remnants I cut off from the t-shirt to just make a stupid fun outfit haha. Gotta love the Joseph Joestar shirt. Seriously go have fun.
7. Hang it up and let it dry. Remember that when it dries it will be lighter so it may not be as dark as you want it. Just keep it in the tea longer. Don't be as impatient as I am haha.
8. I started to blow dry my shirt because I was very very impatient. In the end I put it in the dryer until it was dry. It did not hurt it as far as I know but its best to let the shirt air dry. I had to go back to college soon so I wanted to make sure I got it done to later paint on.
Basically you’re done after this. If you’re dying paper you will do the same thing with the tea bags but without the salt. get a baking sheet with rims to soak the paper in. If you want it blotchy lay it flat to dry with extra tea dripped on it in areas.
I went on to then paint an all over print. This was more of an experiment to see what tools I could use. I highly encourage others to experiment as well. It may not always turn out the way you want it but when it does, you'll be glad you decided to give it a shot.
Fun Fact: I based the design off of the paneling of a robotic dragon named festus. Love PJO.
im tea dying white cotton for a skin tone shade for my 10” raggedies. This is 6 tea bags in a medium pot. I let it sit in the dye bath for about ten minutes, then rinsed with cold water until the water ran clear.
The tea came loose from one of the bags, but it does not seem to be speckled at all. Yay! All that’s left now is for it to dry. I hung it outside, because this small cut of fabric would not act well in the dryer.
iPhone camera color balancing being what it is, this fabric looks completely different depending on what it’s next to. Left is before and after, and right is with the other fabrics I’m using for this batch.
When tea dying can I use any type of tea? Does it really matter if I use black tea or not? Like can I use tea that's used for making sweet iced tea? I already have some of that and rather not go out and buy more. If I have to do that I'd rather just go buy some fabric dye. Help.
