Tea-dyed and gone to heaven...

One of my summer projects is to make curtains for the large window in front of the house. Over the years I've played with various curtains for that window - black velvet, an old shower curtain in a floral pattern, and most recently, a heavy, white cotton job making use of binder clips to keep it from dragging on the floor. But finally, I hit on some great fabric at Ikea (of course).



Just one problem. It's so very white. I thought it would be too stark of a contrast with the more neutral and burgundy living room palette. I wasn't up for regular dying, but tea-dying seemed just the thing. I just wanted to take the edge off the white, and I just happened to have a ton of extra tea bags in the house.



Theorhetically you can use a pot on the stove filled with boiling water to do the job, but I wanted to do all of my fabric at once to keep the color even. So there was only one possible place - the bathtub.

In go the teabags!



When the tea was fully steeped, it was time for the fabric to take a bath. In it goes...



I made use of a random, wooden kitchen implement to submerge it.



I sat in the bathroom for over an hour swirling the stuff about so that it colored evenly with no mottled affect.



The color is getting close...



Out of the the dryer...



...and onto the ironing board!



Done!



Next, to turn long pieces of fabric into curtains...



Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment...