Using coffee to Dye Fabric

Staining or dying textiles with organic products such as for example coffee-and tea is a cheap, non-toxic method for changing cloth. It's a simple way to produce a vintage look, or to disguise those terribly stained kitchen towels—not to mention, the process smells a lot better than making use of commercial dyes!

Materials

• Cloth (We used 100% cotton)
• Tea bags or coffee

Tools

• Large pot for soaking
• Utensils for stirring and the removal of textiles
• Stovetop, tea kettle, or coffee cooking pot for making the coffee or tea

Guidelines

For tea: Unwrap tea bags and take off the strings and tags (or perhaps purchase generic beverage bags without tags!). Brew heated water in a kettle or huge cooking pot and let the beverage bags steep. I used 40 beverage bags and allow them to steep for quarter-hour.

For coffee: Brew in a cooking pot or break down immediate coffee in hot water. I used 1/2 cup instant coffee and included it towards pot of liquid after turning from the heat. Be mindful whenever including the coffee— it can sometimes cause the water to boil up and overflow.

Step one: If staining pre-used material, make sure you launder it to eliminate any soil or meals particles prior to the staining procedure; try not to dry. When working with brand new fabrics, let them have a good wash and wring them aside, but don't allow them to dry prior to progressing to a higher step.

Step two: switch off the heat and insert the moist cloth into the brew that you choose. Swirl the cloth around and try to obtain it down seriously to the bottom of the cooking pan such that it's totally submerged. If pieces start popping up, utilize additional kitchen area utensils to keep all of them under.

Step 3: allow the cloth steep for at the very least 1 hour. The more powerful the coffee or tea as well as the longer you allow cloth steep, the deeper the stain. We allow both my coffee and beverage bathrooms soak in a single day.

Step 4: When the cloth is finished steeping, remove it from the brew and briefly rinse in a cold water bath. Add a splash of vinegar to set the color and let soak for 10 minutes.

If you want to remove the tea or coffee scent (which will be mild), try washing your cloth in the sink with Woolite, or you may wash it briefly in the washing machine. Washing and rinsing the material will require the colour “down, ” so you might omit this task if you need a darker shade.

If you decide the stain is simply too light, duplicate the measures and stain it again.

Step 5: allow dried out and metal if required. After wringing out the extra water, we popped my towels into the dryer on reduced heat for around 30 minutes.

Pictured above (L-R): undyed bath towel, tea-stained bath towel, coffee-stained towel. Both dyed towels sat within their baths for similar period of time, using the tea producing a darker stain compared to the coffee.