Really, though, when Tuesday Morning is selling it in packages of 10 yards for $5, how do you not buy all 4 available packages? (Don't worry, the lady at the checkout was a seamstress too so she totally understood).
Full disclosure, I've never dyed fabric before, and I'm pretty sure that I went about this the completely wrong way. In hindsight, I should have used RIT dye and just saved myself all the trouble and anxiety, but unfortunately I didn't have time to drive all the way out to the craft store and if I ordered it online it would have arrived last week while I was out of town, and I really wanted to get this done before I left.
Interestingly, there's quite the wealth of tutorials for dyeing cheesecloth, because apparently colorful cheesecloth wraps are a must-have for infant photography. So after quite a bit of research, I came up with a game plan: Kool-Aid.
Yep, everyone's favorite flourescent "fruit" drink. Seeing as this stuff can stain just about anything, including your insides, I figured it would be the perfect fabric dye, and most of the other bloggers I'd read agreed.
I started with one package (10 yards) of cheesecloth, cut into two just to make it easier to work with. Some people said to soak it in water first but others said to put it in dry; I ended up soaking it but wringing it out before putting it in the dye bath. I don't know if this actually did anything or not.
There was no real recipe for the dye bath - I was kind of making things up as I went along - but this is generally what I did:
1. Boil eight cups of water in a large pot.
2. In a large measuring cup, mix two cups of vinegar, three packets of lemon-lime Kool-Aid, two mugs of coffee and a little bit of salt.
This is when I discovered something really interesting: Lemon-lime Kool-Aid, coffee and vinegar smell really bad when mixed together, and this will end up perfuming both you and your kitchen. Mix at your own risk.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and add the cheesecloth, stirring to make sure it's entirely covered in dye. Cover and let sit.
From here I stirred it ocassionally to make sure the coverage was even; if you want fully even color you should probably stir it more often, but I was actually hoping for more of the natural variation look.
I let it sit like that for almost 24 hours, stirring every once in a while. A few hours in I was worried that it wouldn't be dark enough so I added about two bottles of food coloring, which I'd also read about as a potential dye.
Anyhoo, long story short it could only sit in the dye for so long. It was time for the moment of truth ... (drumroll please ...)
Look at that beautiful color!!
.... And look at how much of it washed off :(
I did manage to dye my hands and the pot, but the fabric didn't take it all that well.
This was okay, because I actually did need a very big piece of light green for the design - but it was clear that Kool-Aid wasn't going to cut it for the rest of the fabric. It seemed like I was going to have to push the project back to dangerously close to the deadline by waiting for RIT dye to arrive, but while in Tuesday Morning I stumbled upon a magnificent find:
A $7 Kid's Tie-Dye kit!! Have I mentioned how much I love this store? You can't go in expecting to find anything, but when you stumble upon a gem like this it's really, really exciting.
The kit came with six bottles of dye designed to be used on 100% cotton t-shirts, so this seemed like a much better fit for my cotton cheesecloth. I only used the blue, green and yellow dyes and then played around with it from there to achieve various colors.
(The kit also came with lots of gloves, which is even more exciting. No more green hands!!)
Since I wanted lots of different shades of green, I cut my three remaining packages of cheesecloth into two relatively equal pieces each. I then soaked each piece in water while I mixed the dye.
Since I wanted mixed colors, I decided to start with a bit of water in a chaffing pan, then pour color over the cheesecloth. I then kneaded it into cheesecloth, thereby breaking every rule of tie-dye but achieving some nice, even colors.
I dyed each piece in the same pan and just added new dye each time, playing around with the ratios of blue to green to yellow, so I can't say how much of each dye went into each color. It wasn't really a precise science.
After coloring each piece I put it in a ziploc bag per the tie-dye instructions and let it sit overnight. I decided to make five of my six pieces green, but for the last piece I wanted brown, so it was back to improvised dyes.
Since the coffee seemed to be what had taken the most to the cheesecloth with attempt one, it made a second appearance. To make it darker I added a few packets of soy sauce, an idea I'd read on this photography blog. This got to stew overnight as well.
When I washed these out, they definitely lost color, but not nearly as dramatically as the Kool-Aid. Interestingly, it seemed like the green dye was the weakest, as my teal batch washed out to mostly blue. Not a problem, though. My one regret is that I don't have any real forrest green. This could probably be achieved by RIT dye, but I have neither the time nor the cheesecloth for this.
Overall, this was a pretty fun process, and I'd love to try my hand at more dyeing in the future. I love the control I get over the colors, and it's much more cost effective then buying a bunch of small swathes in various shades.
Technically speaking, the due date for the Top Secret Project™ is tomorrow, but I still haven't begun any of the actual sewing part so we'll see how that goes ...
Anyhoo, in the meantime please enjoy another beautiful picture of my cheesecloth:
- Emma
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