We've recently redecorated our bedroom and I needed a new duvet cover. After spending a small fortune on a linen bed set there wasn't much of a budget for a second bed set. I then decided to try and dye an old bed set to match the new colour scheme.
It has taken me a few attempts to get the bedding right so thought I would share my mistakes that I made so hopefully you won’t make them too.
The dye
There are a few dye makes out there but for this project I used the Dylon washing machine dye in olive green. As the bedding is so big it was the easiest way for me to ensure all the bedding got dyed as I didn’t have a big enough bucket to use the sachets of dye I would normally use.
The bedding
Before you dye it’s really important to look at what your bedding set is made up of. If your bedding is 100% cotton you should be fine with the Dylon dye. If your bedding is made up of polyester and cotton then you could try using a synthetic dye. I haven't tried this before and Dylon don’t seem to have that type of dye but Rit have a range of colours to choose from that will dye that type of material.
The mistakes
The first mistake I made was trying to dye polyester and cotton fabric with normal dye. This kinda worked but turned the bedding a very light green. Which was nice but a little too similar to our walls and definitely not olive green.
Here we have the 52% Polyester and 48% Cotton bedding set in the olive green.
Here is a comparison of the 3 types of pillow cases. The higher the cotton % the darker the colour.
Top tip: find out what materials you are working with before you dye
I then dug out an old brushed cotton white bedding set which was 100% cotton.
Here comes the second mistake. I’m not even sure how it happened but the bedding came out really patchy. I think this was because before dying the first bedding set I soaked the bedding in the bath in water. For the second one I just put the duvet in a quick 15 minute spin. I’m wondering if this didn’t evenly wet the bedding because when I tried to dye this bedding it was very patchy and some bits were even navy coloured.
Top tip: make sure the entire bedding set is wet before putting it in the washing machine
I resolved this by re-dying the bedding and it has corrected the errors. You can still see a few patches but as we always say, it’s adds character. Dying it twice actually made the colour deeper too so would recommend dying a second time if you aren't happy with the colour after the first dye.
Top tip: Be prepared to by dye the bedding twice
Hope this had been useful :).
Kath
Thank you so much for this. Having taken all your comments on board I feel more confident to give it a go :)