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Friday, January 25, 2013

Something New To Try ..

Hello my dear friends,

as you can tell by my little crochet tutorials that I do like to crochet ~ not too much but I do like to make a few little bits here and there like my little flowers that I just love using in many of my creations. To do so I have 2 or 3 different cotton yarns and they are in white/off~white or ecru. Why no colors? Well, I don't crochet enough to justify buying different colored yarns really that in the end it would take me forever to use up if at all. So I have come up with a neat way of fixing my 'little need' for different colors.
 
Everybody I am sure has tea or coffee dyed their muslin or another fabric, doilies or something at one stage. I did and still do too. I even tried teas like raspberry to get a soft lilac color. (To my sadness it did fade away after a while and now needs fixing again.)
 
What to do? ... improvise of course!
 
I opened my pantry cupboard and there was the solution to my problem in the form of food coloring!
Yes, you did read right... a little box with 4 tiny bottles of yellow, red, blue and green food coloring. Now I needed test subjects so out came the yarn and with in 15 minutes I had a little gathering of  'Flutter~bys' together. Next step ... a small shallow glass, a bit of cold water, my food coloring and now let the magic begin.
 
Adding only a few drops of food coloring to a small amount of water, I let my little flutter friends sit in the colored water for a few minutes or so. It didn't take long at all and when I pulled the first ones out I was quite content with them I must say. OK now another color ~ love it!

 Really for pennies you can give your little flowers, violets and now butterflies too color that will only take a very short time to do. The only thing that takes a bit longer is the drying of them, which is done best laying on a piece of paper kitchen towel (beware they do bleed color when wet!) and that's all. One last little tip is ... the side that is facing down onto the kitchen towel is the one that will be the more colorful side. That is all you have to do!
 
So ... why not give it a try? 
 
 
The flutter~by on the bottom right hasn't been tea dyed.


 
Don't you think that my little flying critters looks so neat now with all their new color?

 
Even my little flowers take very nicely to their new pale color.
 
I have only tried two different colors so far but I will be trying more in the future. I hope this tip gave you a little new idea to work with.
 
It would be nice if you were to visit me sometime soon again.
 
I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.
 
Have a peaceful and creative day,
 
 
Karen B.
 

9 comments:

  1. I never thought of food coloring, but what pretty butterflies you came up with. I see from yesterday's post you had a really good time at Michael's. We've been really really cold here too, but I've been staying in..guess it's time to go out and see what on sale here. Brave the cold.. although we're starting to warm up a bit.

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  2. ... that's so cute! You can also use natural colours , for example from beets, onions, carrots, flowers and so on... and to make them more stable use salt and/or vinegar. It is fun to experiment and you can obtain beautiful and unique tones!

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  3. These are wonderful. My girlfriend dyes her wool with Kool Aid crystals and gets the most wonderful colours. Here is a link to dying cotton with Kool aid.
    http://www.biscuitsandjam.com/index.php?firstID=1661
    You create the loveliest things!

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  4. Another great idea!! Regarding the fading on the raspberry tea dying. I think that after you dye your fabric, put it in a bath of white vinegar water and that will set the color. I do this for my embroidery projects especially with reds even though they say colorfast. I had a bad experience with bleeding color so always do the give my projects a little white vinegar bath.

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  5. Creative thinking..lovely results

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  6. I've used food coloring with vinegar, but my favorite is using the dye pills that come with Easter egg coloring kits. You can crush the pill and use just a tiny bit with water and vinegar to dye anything. I save the remainder in plastic zip lock bags. You get a lot of different colors with these kits....and after the holiday they go on sale really cheap and then I stock up on them.

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  7. How pretty Karen, I need to try this!

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  8. Every little Flutter-by and flower looks life-like with some soft color. With Easter coming up it is a good time to get lots of food color dyes very affordably. I have used these for years. Lovely crocheting. Creative Hearts are Happy Hearts...

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  9. I like the turquoise ones the best. Many many years ago I used food coloring to stain wood.

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