rit | Peppermints & Honey Bees

As I mentioned earlier I am all about dyeing so when I saw some thing similar to this on pinterest from a blog called http://www.vitaminihandmade.com/. I thought I would give it a try to add some color to my boring white living room. I went with sunshine orange in the Rit dye and bought some inexpensive white curtains at IKEA. I didn’t want to spend a lot in case it didn’t work out.

I got the curtains wet in my double kitchen sink and filled one side up with hot water and the dye. I kept both curtains together at the top to make sure the dye pattern was the same on both. I wanted the top to have a little color so i dipped the whole curtains in for a few seconds and then removed all but about a foot, leaving the rest in the empty sink. I soaked it for about five minutes and gradually kept putting more and more in for about half way up.

After I had what looked to be good I rinsed the curtains in cold water and washed and dried them in my washer and dryer. They were a little lighter than I had hoped they would turn out so I bought one more box of Rit, just to do the bottoms. After this time I liked the way it looked. I guess it just depends on the look you are going for and the color, so you may or may not need two boxes of dye. I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out!

If you’re like most people you have your nice towels and your old towels that you use for dirty stuff like dying your hair and washing the dog, and I am no different, but I have been making my “good” towels last a little longer recently because well, I have better things to spend my money on, like shoes! I have pimples and use a face wash with benzyl peroxide, which as you may know bleaches any fabric it touches so I get nice bleach stained towels along with the general fading that goes along with washing towels. Fun stuff I know!

Instead of buying new towels all the time I started dyeing them with Rit dye. Rit is the kind that comes in the box of powder or the little bottle of liquid. It can be found at most craft and sewing stores, and I think some stores like Wal-Mart carry it. I usually buy the powder because it’s cheaper, usually around $2-3.

I just pour it in a sink full of hot water and let my towels soak for about 15 min. I always do my dyeing in my kitchen sink so I can use both sinks, one for dyeing and one for rinsing. Oh and always wear gloves when dyeing, or you will have dyed hands! After that I rinse it our and wash the towels in the washing machine on normal settings. I use black because all of my hand towels are black, it’s easy to match to and easy to dye. I would recommend dyeing your towels a dark color because it is easier to dye. Hopefully this saves someone from having to buy new towels!

My next post will be about the curtains I dyed. I’m a big fan of self dyeing if you can’t tell. I just started using it about a year ago and wish I would have started sooner. I can’t tell you how many pairs of jeans I’ve redyed!