Doily dying fun! Part 1

Playing with doilies is something I have taken a liking too lately and I thought that I would give using food colouring to dye a doily a go! I haven't found any tuts on the web exactly aimed at this so I hope that what I've extracted from here and there will work. This is only part 1 of my experiment/tutorial so you'll have to bare with me!

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Dying a doily - Part 1

1. Start off with a lovely crochet doily of your choosing. I found this pretty and delicate one in my doily stash and thought it would suit being pink! Although it might look white it is actually an off white/light cream colour and I couldn't be bothered with washing it. I buy my doilies from a charity store and I am presuming that they wash everything before selling it.


2. I put the doily in a measuring cup of water (or any other microwave safe bowl/cup/thing) and put it in the microwave for around 1-2min. Apparently warm water helps with dying stuff. So once I had done this I sat it aside while I got the next step set up.


3. This step involves water, white vinegar and food colouring (Rose Pink). I got a saucepan and filled it with water until it was around 2inch in depth. I then added around 4 tablespoons of white vinegar, you can use distilled vinegar as well apparently. Why add vinegar? I thought the same thing and was worried my doily would be all smelly but apparently the vinegar helps the material to take on the dye and the more vinegar you add the more vibrant the colour. Yet another fact found with my awesome research skills. I then turned the gas on "High" to get the heat going.

Adding the food colouring. I thought on my first attempt I should stick with something easy so went for the Rose Pink food colouring by Queens. To be honest I don't know any difference between food colourings, just get it from Woolies or Coles...or any other reputable supermarket. I used a straw to add my food colouring (you know the old dip, hold the top, release trick) and I would say I added around 20-30 drops-ish. Mix it in so it's evenly distributed.


4. By now you should be getting some bubbles going. Turn the temp down to "Low" so that you get just a nice simmer and pop in your doily! If you keep it on High and bring it to the boil your doily won't sit in the water properly and could get dyed unevenly (trust me).

I used two big spoons to hold the doily under the water but remember metal does get HOT after a while.

I kept the water simmering for around 20-30minutes. I'm not sure if this did anything more than usual but it didn't hurt. I then turned off the gas and let it cool.


5. Once the steam had gone and the water cooled down a little I took a sneak peek at the doily to make sure all my hard work had paid off. So far so good, right!?!

In total I would say the doily was in the water for around 2hours, possibly a little bit under. Me being impatient I probably should have left it in there another hour or two just for good measure.


6. Once the water had cooled ( i.e me not being able to wait any longer) I lifted the doily out onto a couple of sheets of paper towel. I will be leaving it here to dry overnight and then onto part 2!

To be continued........