Upcycling: Dyeing to give old clothes new life?

Old clothes can fade, or they’ve had a spill you just can’t get rid off, or sometimes you might decide that shade is just not for you. There is an alternative to getting rid of them, which is to re-dye them and re-wear them.

It isn’t just for old clothes either: perhaps you want to re-dye a sun-faded tablecloth or cushion cover.

If you have never dyed clothes before, Art and Craft Valley are offering a range of Dylon Dye pods, gloves and other dying accessories. The instructions for Dylon machine dyes are very simple: you just need a washing machine. While the full instructions are in the pack, along with safety and allergy information, the basic procedure is:

1. Dampen the item you want to dye.
2. Put it in the machine
3. Remove sleeve, peel off lid and put the DYLON colour pod on top of the fabric.
4. Run a full cycle at 40°C.
5. Run another cycle at 40°C with your normal washing detergent.

Kids, make sure you get the permission of the washing machine’s owner first – and the person who owns whatever you are dyeing!

For batik, you’ll want a hand dye, not a machine dye. We’ll go into that in another post, but there are plenty of options with machine dyes.

Each pack is meant for 600g of material, so why not experiment by using more or less dye to get a darker or lighter colour? Just don’t use more than 5 dye packs in one load, it isn’t good for the machine! Natural fibres, such as cotton, linen & viscose will dye brilliantly, but synthetic mixes will have different results. Check the full instructions in the pack and on their website, as well as the item you are dyeing first.

We can’t guarantee the results – we don’t know what you are dyeing, what your washing machine is, or if there’s any other unforeseen complications – but if you can give old clothes new life, why not give it a try? Let us know how it goes!