The tea dye experiment
I’ve been wanting to have a go at dyeing with tea for a while now.
I had an old white cotton skirt with a broderie anglaise hem that I wanted to incorporate into my current project (using up the pant legs from the green jeans) and needed to be less, well, white!
I also wanted to try it on this cream rayon dress mum gave me with cool embroidery details
and a vintage (gulp) wool cardigan that had become yellow with age to see a) if it would work on rayon and wool, and b) what colour would cream go in a tea bath?
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| From 2010-06-11-teadye-experiment |
I boiled a big pot of water and then added LOTS of old tea bags, most of which had been sitting around in the kitchen for years as we drink coffee!
I let the tea brew for an hour or so and then removed all the teabags – or so I thought!
The pot wasn’t big enough for all three garments at once so I soaked them one at a time. The cotton skirt was first, I left it in for about two hours giving a stir every now and then, and took it out for a rinse.
I left the rayon dress for a bit longer, as supposedly it it harder to dye. The great thing about a tea bath is that you can use the same liquid over again. I put the wool cardigan in last and left it over night (about ten hours) as I wanted to see how brown it would go.
Unfortunately, when I took it out the next morning it was very blotchy. It was a lovely caramel brown colour, but blotchy. I couldn’t understand how this happened when the other two were fine? Was it because it didn’t get stirred?
When I emptied the pot of tea I discovered the problem. Teabags still at the bottom of the pot! Arrrgg! If you want a nice even colour, take out ALL the teabags first! And give it a stir now and then.
I also gave the garments a spin in the dryer to “set” the dye, hence the slight shrinkage of the cardigan. I’m not too worried about it as I was planning to try and felt it anyway.
Here’s my after shots of the skirt and dress:
They came out a kind of pinky brown colour, they look a bit washed out in these photo’s, you can see a more true representation of the colour in this one:
Now it works better with the other fabrics I’m using.
Simple dress-to-skirt refashion
My Mum gave me this dress when she was clearing out her wardrobe.
It has two layers, the top is a lovely lace patterned tulle with a bordered hem. I decided to make it into a princess/dress-up style skirt for my niece.
In the spirit of wardrobe refashion and anti consumption we are trying to have a less commercial Christmas this year by avoiding buying our gifts retail, ie we want to make them or buy slightly used, or just be really original. So all my nieces will be getting some girly princess/fairy outfits made by me. To my family if you are reading this, please don’t spoil the surprise!
Here’s what I did:
1. Measured the length I needed plus seam allowance for the top to turn over the elastic.
2. Marked with chalk and cut.
3. Repeated steps 1 and 2 for the underneath layer.
4. Zig-zag stitched the layers together at the top edge, then folded it over a loop of elastic (cut to the waist measurement and joined together) and stitched down.
Easy!
I’m going to use the top half of the dress to make a ruffled wrap.
Wedding dress for my sister
I was honored to be asked by my sister Janelle to make her wedding dress (the wedding was in November 2007) even though it was going to be tough with her in Auckland and me in Paraparaumu at the time. She designed it herself, I interpreted the drawings, made the pattern and sewed it.
Not the best pose, I know, but it was the best view of the front.
She wanted the front to be ‘pretend’ lace up and the back to be real lace up as the opening.
The skirt was made to sit on the hips to show off her tiger tattoo on her back (can’t see it very well in photo) although not far enough down for her taste as it turned out, she lost weight before a crucial fitting 
and it ended up a little tight, even after I let the seams out as much as possible.
I also helped to make the flower girl dresses for my nieces. Janelle had made the skirts, with lovely layered chiffon petals, I did the top bits (On the big day, like seriously) and Mum joined them up after I started having a anxiety attack about the fact that I was still sewing dresses when I should have been putting on my own bridesmaid dress as we were already late for the ceremony – aahhhhhh!
They weren’t exactly how my sister envisioned them to be, but at least the girls had something to wear, and they still looked very cute.
The main thing I learned form this experience is how very important it is to listen to your client and keep communicating until you are 150% sure of what you are doing!
I also learnt I had too much stress in my life and I could no longer bear living so far away from my extended family. Luckily for me my wonderful husband was sympathetic and got a job in Auckland six months later.
BTW isn’t my little sister just beautiful? I am always flattered at any remarks of similarity.
Quilt for Pip and Dave
I made a log cabin quilt for my friends Pip and Dave, using up a heap of scraps I had been storing for a while. This was my first attempt at doing a real quilt, so I learned a few things on the way. The most important thing was why quilts are traditionally made from cotton fabric - the synthetic ones are so much harder so sew! Cotton fabrics are stable and flow through the machine like they’re supposed to. The man-made fabrics, well they just have a mind of their own. Combining them in a quilt was kind of interesting.
I printed a wedding photo onto some printable cotton designed to go in your computer’s printer, to use as the centre panel and then worked a pattern around it with the log cabin blocks. The border around the photo is made from strips of Pip’s dress. I machine appliqued 4 red heart motifs to frame it.
I machine quilted around the blocks for stability, and hand quilted heart motifs where there was a need.
Oh yeah, Keith helped me by colouring the bouquet and Dave’s tie and buttonhole in the photo before it was printed. Ok he kind of helped with the printing part too. Thank you dear!
We hope Pip and Dave enjoy their quilt and think happy marriage thoughts when they use it 
Wedding dress for Pip
I made this Wedding dress for my friend Pip. Thankfully she made life easier for me by purchasing a pattern, so all I had to do was sew it.
The lace has an organza floral trim and border. I used the tricky snip-and-hand stitch method on some of the seams near the hem so the flower motifs weren’t caught up in the stitching.
I don’t have any full dress shots unfortunately, but if I ever get hold of any then I will put them here.
