One of my Summer projects was to have some fun with DYLON dye. Dyeing is a great way to give your textiles a new lease of life, especially if you want to be on trend with the latest colours. These days it couldn’t be easier, all you need is some packets of fabric dye, salt, a bucket and your fabric.

Experimenting with fabric dye

I was looking back through my archives and it’s been a while since I dyed anything. Some of my favourite projects include dyeing a blanket for Little Sis and dyeing vintage wool blankets. I’ve used the dyed wool to make a fun badge blanket and bunting blanket both for my 4 year old.

I practised my technique on some napkins from Dunelm. First I did some dip dyeing then I dyed a white tshirt I bought from a charity shop. I rolled it up and bound it (I used loom bands as that was all I could find) then left it in the dye for 20 minutes. I rinsed the napkins and tshirt then left them to dry outside.

The dip dyeing was fun and looks really good. I tried to go for a graduated dip dye effect by bringing the napkins slowly out of the dye. It worked quite well but unfortunately the dye splashed the white part of the napkins when I was rinsing them so they are a little mottled.

The tie-dyed tshirt worked better. Next time I try this I’ll use something larger than a loom band (!) but you can definitely see the tie-dye effect. I used the Intense Violet shade but I think there are 24 shades for dyeing by hand so plenty of choice.

My next project might be a shibori quilt. There are lots of ways to dye fabric, you can bind, stitch or tie fabric to dye it. Did you know that tie-dye is one form of shibori ? Hopefully my little bit of experimenting with fabric dye will enable me to produce some really pretty patterns which will make an unusual wall hanging for my little collection.

I use DYLON hand use fabric dye which costs from £2.99 and value supermarket salt – don’t forget the salt as it should make the dye durable when washing!