Last night when I was soaking a blue stained white shirt in chlorine, it occurred to me that I should give dyeing fabric another shot. After the debacle of trying to dye the couch green – I ended up replacing the covers all together, I should really give it another shot. However I was not prepared to lay down another 9 euro’s for a package of dye. So, I hit google in search of natural dyes. My mother used to dye wool in her hippy years, meaning it should be possible. I found a couple of recipes using either vinegar or salt as a fixing agent, and various types of food and herbs as dyes. I even found a pretty good chart of what (easy) foodstuffs give which result (from Anjou).
This morning I pulled an old cotton pillowcase from the closet to give it a try. Since it had been used before I decided only to hand wash it briefly. Than I brought 1 cup of vinegar (the cheep one), 1/2 cup of sea salt, and four cups of water to a boil and added the pillowcase. Every recipe I encountered said to let the fabric boil for an hour.. I’m still waiting for that now. By the way, vinegar really stinks when boiled.
After thoroughly rinsing the pillowcase, I brought some more water to a boil and added about 1/2 cup of tumeric. I put in the pillowcase and stirred it through for about ten minutes. After that I rinsed it and dried it inside.
The color is really amazing! However I’m still unsure if the color will keep. I’ve been scouring the internet to find a way to fix the color, but no luck so far. We’ll be testing it out over the next couple of weeks, and if the color sticks we’ll have a winner method!