How to Tea Stain Fabric

Whether you’re trying to hide a stain, or create an antique look on new fabric, tea staining is a fun and easy craft project. Here’s a step by step guide to get you started…

First, you’ll select the fabric that you want to tea stain. Tea staining works best on natural fabrics. Cotton or wool, muslins or linens all accept the tea stain very nicely. If you’re using brand new fabric, you’ll need to wash it first, to removed the chemicals left on by the manufacturing process.

If you do wash your fabric directly prior to tea staining, don’t bother to dry it. It’ll need to be wet anyway. If you’re starting with dry fabric, soak it in cool water briefly , and then squeeze out the excess water.

Use a pot big enough to hold your fabric (packed loosely) and your water. You’ll need a little room to stir it around, plus about 4 cups of water per yard of fabric.

Bring the water to a boil, and then add your tea bags. A good rule of thumb is one tea bag for each cup of water that you used. At that point you can turn off the heat. The boiled water will stay hot enough to steep the tea bags. Different teas will result in different tints and tones in the final product. Standard black teas will give a soft brown or cream color to your fabric, while some of the herbal teas leave more of a red tone.

Let the tea bags steep for about five minutes and then remove them from the water, and add your dampened fabric. (Leaving the teabags in the water can result in darker stains in the places where the bags touch the fabric. It can be an interesting look, if you want to experiment a bit.)

Stir your fabric to be sure that the tea dye is getting in between all the folds, and then let it sit and soak in. After about the first ten minutes, check the color. If it’s not dark enough, wait a few more minutes and check again. Keep in mind that the fabric will turn a shade lighter as it dries.

Let soak for approximately 10 minutes checking to see if the fabric is dark enough. Remember that your fabric will dry a shade lighter. Keep that in mind when you’re deciding if it has soaked long enough.

Once your fabric has reached the color you want, remove it from the tea stain dye and rinse it thoroughly with warm water and a bit of mild dish soap. The soap is to take out the acid that the tea would otherwise leave on your fabric. That acid will damage your fabric if you don’t get it all out, so do a good job rinsing out all out.

You can hang your fabric to line-dry, or you can put it in the electric dryer. If you use the dryer, keep in mind that you may need to wipe out the dryer afterwards. Otherwise, the tea stain can leave a residue inside your dryer. (You might accidentally tea stain your next load of laundry!)

After your fabric is dry, you can repeat the tea staining process if you decide that you’d like it a bit darker. Once you’re sure you have the color that you want, soak your fabric in a solution of one tablespoon of vinegar per gallon of cold water, to set the color.

You can tea stain all sorts of crafts, clothing, and decorations. Use your imagination, and have fun tea staining!

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