Something Brewing

I've been hoping to do some fabric dyeing, but the weather has not been cooperating.  Supposedly dyes take better when the temperature is over 70 degrees.  I'm not totally convinced of this.  It doesn't really matter anyway because I do my dyeing outside so it does have to be somewhat nice weather, which it hasn't lately.

I'm starting some new pieces and wanted an off white/tan fabric with some slight variegation but didn't find anything suitable in my stash.  Yesterday I decided to try some tea dyeing.  I've done it once or twice before and wasn't that happy with the results.  This time I just soaked some white fabric in soda ash water, made some strong tea and then put in the fabric.  I used different herbal teas.

I think this was a mixture of orange spice tea with something.

This one had chamomile and mint tea.  One of the bags had a hole in it. That's what all the little flakes are.

This had something like candy cane and sugar cookie flavor.

In the end, the flavors didn't make much difference, except the chamomile might have a slightly more yellowish hue.  They all came out as extremely subtle colors and very similar.  Black tea would probably work better. But I think they will work for what I had in mind.