You know how there are different love languages?
I never considered myself a gift-giver, but when you combine it with acts of service to form a new sub-category of handmade good-making… that’s it. That’s my expression of love.
Last month, my lovely sister-in-law got married. She and her now-husband are excellent hosts and enjoy throwing dinner parties, so I (obviously) set out to come up with the most time-intensive, thoughtful thing I could: Naturally dyed dinner napkins from flowers found on the family property.
But to make matters even more heartfelt (or maybe more strange), I decided to source the fabric from nothing other than the pile of hand-me-down textiles she had given me a year prior. The specific thing I settled on was a linen/cotton blend shower curtain from her old apartment.
Here’s a peek at the process
Step 1: Cut the fabric
Step 2: Hem the edges (including mitered corners!!)
Step 3: Scour the fabric with washing soda
Step 4: Mordant the fabric with Alum
Step 5: Steep the flowers
Step 6: Dye, dye, dye!
For my first time naturally dying something from start to finish, I think they turned out pretty good!
This was an insanely valuable experience for me, as I want to dye wool for my upcoming One Year One Outfit project and have spent the summer collecting various dyestuff. I’m imagining a multi-colored knit/crochet top, but I still have to source the fiber!