Thursday, September 27, 2012

Coffee Anyone?


Very early this morning, I was laying in bed but my brain was up and about. Perhaps you've had this happen to you...your body says, Just go back to sleep for a couple of hours! But your brain is starting to think about the next project...How many products in the kitchen could change the color of fabric? Wouldn't that make a great chapter in the book? You could call it Kitchen Kolor (okay, well maybe that's a bit much!).

Well, it just so happens that today was an unusually warm day for the end of September. The hot coffee I offered to my Doll Bee just wasn't selling. So this evening I thought, okay, here is an opportunity to throw a few pieces of fabric into the coffee to see what kinds of browns I can get. One bowl has just the coffee. The other the grounds with a bit of water.

I'm sure there are some of you out there who have much more experience with this. So here are a couple of questions...How long have you left fabric in coffee to dye it a nice brown? Also, how permanent is a coffee dyed piece of fabric? Would love to hear from those of you with a bit more experience in this department.

Tomorrow will be my 200th blog post. I'm going to offer up a little free gift. More about that tomorrow.


4 comments:

  1. I am really looking forward to the results of your experiment, Julie. We both seem to be in a fabric-dyeing mood lately :) And what are you going to do with the dyed fabrics? I can't wait to see that too!

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    1. Hi Ersi-that coffee was just too tempting...especially since I don't drink it anymore. I soaked the fabrics in a little diluted white vinegar, rinsed them out and then dried them in the dryer. I'll try to post something about them soon...nothing too exciting (not like your wonderful piece). Not sure what I'll do with it yet. I want to test out a bunch of different "colorings" from the kitchen in hopes of making it a chapter in my book.

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    2. Maybe you could try adding some rust stains to the fabrics, or even tea stains. They are different from coffee and may render surprising results.

      I am not trying to interfere in your process, I got carried away because it looks so promising :)

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    3. No worries about interfering...I'm happy to have a bit of input. The fabrics are on my ironing board ready to be ironed. Then I'll figure out what's next. I have thought about playing with some tea. I want to keep some of the fabric as is as a reference point. Trying to get into the studio today to do some printing. I have several projects pulling at me...

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