I had this bright idea to tea-dye some muslin to use as sashing in a vintage quilt project I’m designing. I bought some wonderful original feedsack material, circa 1930-1940, that I want to make into a Disappearing Four Patch quilt and then try my hand at hand quilting.
I usually tea-dye in the bathtub but had a “Eureka!” moment and decided to use the washing machine. I threw a couple yards of unbleached muslin in the machine, turned the water temp to hot and added eight tea bags. Then I let it stew overnight. All was well until I set the machine to rinse and forgot to take out the tea bags.
At first I couldn’t imagine what all the little dark specks were all over the fabric until a dessicated tea bag fell on my foot. Jeez, I had a horrible flashback to the day I took my 3-year old’s jeans out of the washer and a very dead, but clean, frog fell out of the pocket. That day the little specks were frog eyes and other disgusting particles. Anyway, I rinsed the machine several times with cold water, shook out the muslin and dried it (changing the filter several times) and, voila! My tea-dyed muslin has just the vintage look I wanted.
This DIY project turned out much better than earlier this week when I tried a Pinterest natural solution to clean my oven. I made the paste of baking powder and water & smeared it all over the inside of the oven door, but then forgot and pre-heated the oven to 425 degrees for pizza. I’ll let you know how the quilt turns out.
Wander Woman 