Dye fabric with coffee

Keep things au naturale with this easy tutorial.

What you need: about a half metre (a little more than half a yard) Linen Fabric (or try any white or light coloured 100% cotton fabric) Turmeric Coffee White Vinegar Large Pot (I used 2 cups vinegar, 8 cups water) This process preps the fabric so the dye will adhere to the fibres. Machine wash in cold water and dry before sewing!

Keep things au naturale with this easy tutorial.

For the past two weekends, I’ve been experimenting with dyeing with used coffee grounds. I first read the idea in the Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes book, and since did a bit of research onli…

Learn how to dye all kinds of fabric and textiles with an all natural fabric dye!

A few days ago, I noted in my accountability post, that I would like to dye fabric using either coffee or avocados. Coffee sounded like t...

The coffee-based dye is a potential alternative to the two million tons of chemicals and synthetic dyes used annually in the textile industry.

Dye samples from the natural dye workshop I taught a couple weeks ago. On the left: Coffee beans on wool yarn, linen, silk, and wool fabric. On the right: Onion skins on wool yarn, linen, silk, and wool fabric. Undertones of yellow and green versus oranges and pink. Made by Katrina.

What you need: about a half metre (a little more than half a yard) Linen Fabric (or try any white or light coloured 100% cotton fabric) Turmeric Coffee White Vinegar Large Pot (I used 2 cups vinegar, 8 cups water) This process preps the fabric so the dye will adhere to the fibres. Machine wash in cold water and dry before sewing!

Tea is rich with tannin (good for gripping onto fabric), is inexpensive, and attaches well to cotton and linen. It typically gives you a light brown color if you don’t use any color modifiers. You can use an iron modifier on the fabric after you dye it with the tea, which will shift your colors to grey, and increase our fabric’s color- and lightfastness. At the iron sulfate stage, you will be able to experiment with different dipping and folding techniques to create patterns on your fabric.