Using Tea as Dye

 Hello Readers. There are so many natural sources of fabric dye, let's try using tea and see what color we get. I am using tea bags in a large pan on my stove. Most people have these supplies so this is something you can try at home too. 

 Before and after. 

 I wanted to dye this white cotton dress. It is a lightweight gauzy material and cotton is a natural fiber that usually takes dye very well. I thought it would take the brown color of the tea well too.  

I used some Barry's Tea that I had in my pantry. This is my favorite tea to drink and I was really curious about how it would dye the dress. Would the dark brown color really stay in the fabric or would it be lighter? I thought it would be a lighter brown color, more of a tan color when it was all said and done, but I wasn't sure. I decided to try it and see what would happen.You can use any tea bags you have in your kitchen.

 I heated up some water on my stove in a large stock pot. When it was simmering, I added my tea bags. I used about 15 tea bags. I wanted the water to be really dark so that the dress could sit in that dark tea color. The steam made this picture a bit blurry. 

I stirred and "cooked" my dress for about 40 minutes. When using fabric dye, it is important to stir and keep the tea dress moving to get an even color. The longer the dress sits in the tea, the darker it will be. 

When I put the dress into the washer to wash off the excess tea I could see that the color was an oatmeal color. I liked that better than the stark white the dress was originally. 

When my dress was fully washed, I put it into the dryer. I dried the dress and waited to see the color when it was finished.

 

This simple dress was a much warmer off-white/tan color now. I liked how the tea worked and it is non-toxic and environmentally friendly too. 

 

 I dyed this dress for my daughter and she really liked the color it became. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.