This lovely vintage bag belonged to Mama Landis and my dear friend Cliff was generous enough to gift it to me so I'd have something to remember her by. The only problem was that the removable cover became heavily stained during travel and something had to be done to create a different look by dyeing the delicate fabric. Since I loathe chemical dyes, I decided to give good old-fashioned dark tea a whirl. My Nana used it to dye her delicate lace tablecloths, and it always looked so rich and beautiful to me. I followed her instructions (committed to memory years ago) and the results turned out perfectly.
What you do is simply boil water, add to dark tea bags in large bowl and allow to cool/steep. Remove bags. Then you rinse your fabric in cold water that has a bit of salt in it, wring and add to bowl of tea. Soak until desired color is found (I used a bowl on top of the fabric to help keep it submerged in the tea), remove, rinse and dry. That's it!
You can barely tell that this purse was stained, eh? The color will hold well too as long as you hand wash and gently dry the item...and try not to use any stain-removing detergent on your fabric because the color will fade a great deal.
Want some more color ideas? Go here. This website suggests simmering the fabric but I don't do that...just a personal preference especially in light of the delicacy of the fabric used.
So, what do you think? Willing to give tea/veggie dyeing a try?
