Dye Job

I've dyed my hair many, many times, starting in high school when I was in Damn Yankees and they wanted my character to have red hair. That first time we did it at a salon after finding the color of my normal hair in the chart so it could be dyed back after the show. But I didn't go back to my natural color for a very long time. Off and on for the next 6 years or so I dyed my hair various shades of auburn, red, chestnut, etc. and even had blonde highlights at one time (bad idea in hindsight). For the past 5 or so years I have stuck to my natural dark brown even though I'm now seeing a gray hair or two. Or ten.

Other than my hair and Easter eggs, I've never dyed anything (though I suppose I used to put food coloring in my milk occasionally as a child). But I have two tablecloths from my grandmother's house that have stubborn yellow stains in a few places. No amount of stain treatment or bleach will get rid of them, so I decided that the solution to extend their useful lives was to dye them. And to tell you the truth, it's quite like dyeing Easter eggs, only on a larger scale.

So on Sunday afternoon, with two aprons on (because I did not want to stain my dress) and my hands begloved in rubber, I filled the stainless steel kitchen sink with hot, hot water, mixed in the dye, and added the less precious of the two tablecloths as my guinea pig. I stirred and agitated for 30 minutes then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed for what felt like an hour, until the water was mostly clear. I ran it through the washer and dryer (then ran an empty load in the washer with soap and lots of bleach just to be safe).

This is what I came up with:

Whoa. Are you blind now? That's seriously bright. Now, this is not really the color I would like in my home on the scale of a tablecloth, but it does seem to be exactly what I should have expected using Sunshine Orange and Golden Yellow Rit dyes. What I wanted was more what the dye bath looked like: rusty. Never fear! I just got more dye (wine this time) and went through the whole process again.

I didn't leave the fabric in the second dye bath as long as the directions said, and I also didn't stir it constantly. (An hour! That's what the directions said. An hour of constant stirring for the darker colors.) And that was a problem. What looked like far darker than I wanted ended up being too light once I rinsed and washed it. Better than the blinding yellow, but still too light. And there's the little matter of the color not being even because I didn't constantly stir it. Oops. Lesson learned.

Now, I was getting a little peeved at this particular tablecloth, so I decided to switch gears and dye the second one. This seems foolhardy since the first one didn't turn out, but . . . I guess that's just me. This time I got two blues (teal and royal blue) and mixed the dyes together to begin with.

I stirred (nearly) constantly and left the fabric in for the required time and this is what I got for my efforts.

It looks just like the clear blue sky of fall and has no blotches (any you think you see are just the shadows of the chandelier. Still lighter than I wanted (the blue was gorgeous before washing), but servicable and nothing at all like the tablecloths I already have. I'm tempted to try to dye it darker, but I don't want it to come out blotchy like orange one. So I will restrain myself.

Now what about that blotchy orange tablecloth? Should I dye it again and follow the directions this time? Or should I call it a lost cause and cut it up to make dish towels or something?