Give Linens a New Lease On Life

My new-to-me Ikea couch was truly a bargain because the cover was a little worse for wear. So I bought a new cover that matched my chairs from the as-is department, only that cover was missing the covers for the seat cushions. A few weeks later I happened upon covers for the seat cushions, only they were white, not beige.

“Not a problem” I thought to myself, reluctant to pass by a bargain. “I’ll just dye them to match.”

So I did.

They don’t match, exactly, but they’re close enough. I kind of like the variations on a tone theme I’ve got going on, with many different shades of brown. This afternoon I decided to darken the color just a bit and so I dyed them again. Only this time, I forgot a washcloth in the washer from the previous load.

What was once a ratty, faded and stained washcloth now has a new lease on life. This has given me an idea: why not dye linens that are faded but still in basically good condition? It won’t make them as good as new, but it will spruce them up a bit. I did this once with an old rug. It’s now on it’s third color and still looks nice enough to grace the living room floor. What’s to lose? You weren’t using it anyway!

I think I’m going to do this to some bath towels I have. Fifteen years ago they were my nice towels, then they became my everyday towels. Now they’ve been downgraded to the towels we keep in the swim bag. They’re in pretty good shape as far as the quality of the fabric goes, it’s mostly the color that betrays their age. I think I might dye them a richer, deeper shade of their original aqua. They’ll still be towels for swimming, but they might have a chance of making it back into the house after autumn arrives!

Have you tried this? What have you dyed?

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