Dyeing with tea : any idea how long?

PoshPaws_3

DS has to attend school dressed as a red indian. Now I can do the feathers, loincloth and all that stuff, he even has a pair of shorts that will do the trick, but no t-shirts that are a buckskin sort of colour.

I figured I'd have a go at dyeing one of his white cotton t-shirts (of which he has a few that have seen better days at P.E.) using tea. Anyone ever done this, or know how long to leave it in the tea for??

I can just see my leaving it until its nicely browned, then washing it out in the WM and having it go back to dingy white. :rotfl:

CoD_2

I guess you'd leave it in the tea for an hour, then squeeze out the excess and dry. I guess if you soaked it, then put it in the washing machine with detergent that'll take all the tea out again! (well when i've spilt tea or coffee on stuff it comes out in the wash) coffee would also work to dye it brown i guess. )

janeawej

make up a strong brew of tea and soak for an hour, take out if it is the right colour dry and use if not soak for another hour , continue till right colour!

PoshPaws_3

Fabulous, thanks! I really wasn't sure whether to expect it to have done something within an hour, or within a day! :laugh:

kittiwoz

It won't dye it permanently no matter how long you leave it. As the other posters have said, leave it til it's the right colour then dry and wear. Don't wash it til after the day.

Jay-Jay_4

I made some insect repellant for our horses with lemon, strong tea and rosemary. I strained it through a tea towel before bottling and the tea towel is STILL stained after numerous washes. Don't know whether it was the tea or if the lemon/rosemary helped to set it?

martindow

This site has some information
http://www.serve.com/marbeth/dye.html
and suggests using alum as a mordant to fix the colour better. They also reckon that coffee gives a nicer colour than tea.

PoshPaws_3

Well, I wound up leaving the t-shirt in the tea overnight .. and although in the normal run of things it would have been a disaster, leaving the tea bags in with the t-shirt has left it dreadfully blotchy, but as a Red Indian's t-shirt, its just perfect!! A happy mistake.

I've rinsed it in a solution of vinegar with a couple of drops of essential oil (it smelled very "interesting", up until that point!) and its a perfect colour to represent a buckskin shirt. :j

Now all I need do is "distress" it a bit around the edges and we're home and hosed.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. I shall have to take some pics of the end result and post 'em up.

Herbaholic

Jay-Jay wrote:

I made some insect repellant for our horses with lemon, strong tea and rosemary. I strained it through a tea towel before bottling and the tea towel is STILL stained after numerous washes. Don't know whether it was the tea or if the lemon/rosemary helped to set it?

Sorry this is a bit late PoshPaws, but it may be of interest to others......

Make sure you begin with a hot dye solution (you can use coffee grounds not the granules from the instant coffee jar for a darker colour), depending how dark you want the t-shirt to be I'd leave it up to 90 mins checking it every 10 mins after the first hour to see if you have the colour you want. You can fix the tea dye albeit not permanently by imersing it in a 'setting' solution of 1/2 teacup white vinegar to 1 gallon of cold water. If that doesn't work redye and use salt in the cold water as a fixative.

The rosemary would have acted as a dye in itself, and the lemon would have set it, acting as a mordant. There are loads of natural products eg herbs and plants growing in the hedgerows that you can use to get different coloured natural dyes.

No natural dye stays forever to the best of my knowledge, they will all fade with washing, if you want a non tea brown you could use onion skins and use rhubarb leaves as a mordant. The colour you get will vary depending on what mordant you use and what type of thing you are dyeing eg cotton or wool (the mordant acts as a fixative for those that don't know). Hope that is of use to somebody

Jay-Jay_4

Wow, I had no idea I had been so inventive!