The Offspring wanted new curtains for his bedroom this winter, being a fan of color and stuck with mismatched clearance-aisle beige curtains from Target. Colorful curtains are hard to find, and expensive when you do find them. Enter the notion of fabric dyeing. We've done tie-dye half a dozen times or more, and last fall I dyed three pairs of pants for the Fan of Color, so I've moved on to curtains.
Muslin was the first notion, but it wasn't thick enough. Then I saw something on Rit's website or on Facebook about using dropcloths as the dye base. So, we measured the windows in his room, and I spent some time on Amazon looking for cotton dropcloths in light colors. We need 4x6 foot curtain panels, so I found a 4x12 dropcloth. Cut it in half, hemmed it, washed it twice (lots and lots of lint), and put in a 3-inch hem on the selvage end for a rod pocket.
Then it was time for the dye. The 4x12 dropcloth weight almost two pounds, so I went with 2 boxes of Rit powder dye in Purple for the first curtains. Plus, of course, a dash of dish soap, a cup of salt, and a bottle of Rit's dye fixative. Oh, and the sacrificial plastic spoon for stirring. Ninety minutes of stirring later, and a third trip through the wash, we have curtains!
His bedroom has two more windows, so two more pairs of curtains are in progress - fuchsia and aquamarine. Two more dropcloths are on the way, and I need to see if I need more thread in similar colors.
