How to Dye Your Own Clothing
Knowing how to dye your own clothing is a useful skill that is not only environmentally friendly, but also allows you a fun activity to do with kids when you have old clothes that you would otherwise get rid of. Before the fashion industry really picked up steam, almost all clothes were dyed organically by different sources, ranging from spices to cold tea, which means that it's not difficult to buy these ingredients yourself and use them to dye your clothes on your own. Check out the process which you should follow to dye your clothes easily on your own, so you can get some use out of clothing you would otherwise throw out.
Decide on What Color You Want to Dye your Clothes
First decide what color you want to dye your clothes so that you can go and buy the necessary ingredients. Red dyes can be found in strawberries, madder roots or other red foods while yellow dyes can be found in natural ingredients like onion skins, rhubarb, cold tea and rhubarb. Once you decide on this color and begin the dyeing process, you can't go back and change it so do some research as to what you will need to naturally dye these clothes and what the colors look like on the clothes before moving forward.
Gather Ingredients
You will now need to gather the ingredients to do tha actual dyeing at home which will include vinegar, panty hose, salt and whatever ingredient you need to get the color of dye that you want on the clothes. Buying all these natural ingredients will be about the same cost as using chemical dyes, as you can get about three or four different articles of clothing out of all these ingredients. So when it comes down to deciding between natural and chemical, stay green and go natural, as you'll be wearing natural ingrdients on your skin rather then harsh chemical dyes.
Preparing Your Dye
The idea of making home dye is to pull the color our of your dye ingredients and then soak your shirts in them. So let's say you are using strawberries to dye your shirts. You will want to cut the tops off the strawberries and mash them up in a bowl. Then you will want to put water into a pot and heat it up and put pantyhose over the top of the pot. Pour your mashed strawberries over the top of the pantyhose and allow the red to color to flow into the water over night for about 8 to 12 hours. Then pour salt into the pot with the dyed water and bring it to a boil.
Dyeing Your Clothes
Once you have boiled the dye and salt mixture, you need to test your dye. Take a piece of fabric to test the color first. Once you are happy with the darkness of the dye on the fabric, wet your article of clothing you want to dye and put it into the pot of boiling dye and salt. The longer you leave it in the darker it will be and when you want to take it out, have a bowl of vinegar to dip it into, allowing it to agitate for a a few minutes and cool down. Your article of clothing will now be dyed whatever color you chose.
