How to Tea Dye

If you're looking for a little help on how to dye your tea, you've come to the right place. But first - why tea tea?

Sometimes I get up before dawn and I want to make Christmas dolls or jewelry NOW! I stayed at least 40 minutes from the nearest fabric store and they no longer opened. While I may not always have commercially dyed tea to make my rabbits and deer, I always have meters and yards of ordinary, non-convertible muslin so I can change the perfect color with tea coloring.

Other Reasons for Tea Coloring:

1. It's an easy and cheap way to get rid of fabrics that look too bright or too new.

2. It's a way of unifying unrelated fabric.

3. It's a way to make any fabric look older or more antique.

4. It can mask the small effect.

5. The tea coloring process is more forgiving than dead, though not predictable.

6. Tea coloring is non-toxic.

7. It does not irritate the skin.

8. It can be done in stages: dye, dry and if you are not satisfied with the result, remove it again or bleach it.

Tea Dye Quirks:

1. Tea coloring works only on natural fibers such as cotton, silk, linen, wool. It should also work on satin (silk yarn) and rayon. I have never tried it on rayon, but in general, rayon takes a very good dye.

2. It can be difficult to get a large cloth for tea coloring evenly. But personally, I like the delicate look and sometimes the uneven colors are perfect for the project at hand.

3. Tea-dead will not take white cloth for white, eggshell or eczema. It's a distinctive color - the shade of rusty brown - though it can be very bright.

4. A wonderful feature of dead tea is that if you are not happy with the color, you can let it sit longer (for darker and more intense results) or you can mix some bleach in a rinse to lighten or remove the color.

5. Once the tea coloring is set, it remains halfway down. This means that the color won't be easily washed, but it may come out when washed with a little bleach or "oxy-clean" product. Although I will not use tea coloring for t-shirts or other clothes that will be washed frequently, they are ideal for soft treats like dolls and blankets.

6. Do not confuse tea with tea coloring. Dead tea is when the item is submerged in a tea dye bath. Tea coloring is done using tea coloring with a cloth or paint brush.

7. The dyed tea textiles will be lighter than they appear when wet.

8.Matching one batch of muslin tea dipped into another is almost impossible. Make sure you do enough yardage to complete your project.

Dying Tea Instructions:

First, collect the necessary materials.

o Fabric or natural embroidered goods (gloves, lace, floss)

o Tea bags (orange pekoe or black pekoe) Use the cheapest tea bag you can find)

o Boiling water

o Glass or stainless steel container

It is a good habit to start any dead project by washing the item / yardage with a mild detergent and rinsing it in cold water. This ensures that the size is washed and will not prevent the item from taking the dye as evenly as possible. Let it sit in cold water as you make a dead tea mix.

Start with boiling water. The general rule of thumb is 4 cups of water for 1 page of cloth. When the water is boiling, remove from heat.

Add 2 tea bags for every 8 ounces of water. So for 4 cups of water, you need eight tea bags. It will create enough tea coloring to decorate one page of fabric.

Let the tea bag soak for 5 minutes. DON'T ADD TO EATING.

After taking, your tea coloring ingredients should be a very dark reddish brown. Take out the tea bag. Depending on the quality of the bag, you can gently squeeze it out to make the last bit of tea, but be careful not to break and replace the wet leaves in your tea.

Take a wet yardage and gently squeeze the excess. You do not want to add water until it melts the dye tea. Rub into the tea. For those who are dying, slowly move and rotate your fabric periodically. However, if you want your fabric to take uneven coloring to look more attractive, just leave it wrinkled and surrounded.

When you feel your fabric is dark enough, remove it from the dye mixture and rinse in cold water. During the rinsing process, many colors are damaged. The great thing about dead tea is that you can go ahead and drop back into the dye if you want it darker.

There are two ways to set colors.

1. Fill another container with fresh water. Make sure the container is large enough to hold the tea-dyed fabric. For each gallon of water, add ½ cup of white vinegar. Let your cloth sit in this mixture for about 15 minutes. Then rinse the cloth and press it dry.

2. When you get the color you want, place the cloth in the dryer set on the highest setting. When it is almost dry, remove it and remove it with a set of iron at the hottest temperature the fabric can handle.

There is only one caveat I've heard about dead tea: The amount of tannins in tea dyes can affect the fibers and they will deteriorate. Tannins should cut the fabric life span to 30-40 years.

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