Tea Dyeing Success!

Hey bloggers!

If you have been following my tweets lately (username: McKennaK1) you will have seen my many attempts, trials, and failures at tea dyeing one of my white skirts.

After hours of soaking, rinsing, drying and starting over, I finally achieved the exact tea-colored skirt I had been hoping for. :) I wanted it to fade from white to a light brown in a ombre fashion, and I think I succeeded.

I am going to share my process with you below. :)



 Photo info:

*Rings off & tea bags ready to go! :)

*The original whiteness of my skirt

*The tea I used to get the color I wanted

I began by testing out different teas in white cups to see how dark the water would become in the dyeing process. I ended up choosing the one above, because it wasn't too light or dark, it was kind of in the middle.

Then, I soaked my skirt in a salt fixative, which is only boiling water and about a cup of salt dissolved in the water. This will allow the dye to adhere well to the fabric and to make sure whether there are any "dry pockets" where the tea will not get in the dyeing process.

I then put in six tea bags and let them boil for about 20 minutes before letting the water simmer. 

I then submerged the entire skirt in the dye mixture for 20 minutes; I only did 20 minutes because I wanted the skirt to be fairly light, but the longer the material soaks in the tea mixture, the dark it will get.

 After the timer went off, I took the skirt into the sink and rinsed it completely until the water running off of it was clear. Next, I rung it out until it was barely damp. I then set up sort of a prop to hold up the skirt while I did the next layer (for the next layer, I kept about 4 inches out of the water).

I repeated the previous steps about 4 times, until I had reached the last four inches of the skirt.

And ABRACADABRA!
The tea-dyed ombre skirt was born!

Feel free to try this as well, and if you find out other ways to naturally dye fabrics, make sure to share them with me! :)

details:

skirt (original white color) // Gap

top (actually my favorite romper tucked in) // Target

see ya tomorrow.

mckenna k. xx