Dyeing Vintage Linens

After the wedding I had a substantial pile of vintage linens and lace table cloths. Most were bought on the cheap in thrift shops. One can, in fact, have too make cream linen and lace table cloths so I decided to dye a couple (the family heirloom pieces were spared this experiment).

I also tossed in a few napkins and doilies.

 I used Rit Dye, both the powder and liquid and I used my sink kitchen sinks. One to dye and one to rinse. This worked for most pieces except the bottom linen cloth. It was probably too big and a little heavy after wet and hard to rinse.

First up, the pink.

The darker tablecloth had a soak time of about 20 minutes and the lighter one was 5 minutes. I washed and dried all items in my machines so this is the final color.

The doilies were soaked for about 5 minutes and you can see there is some variation in color.

These napkins are the exact same yet very different colors. Interesting.

I didn't have much luck with the Teal or Aquamarine (both liquid versions).

The linen cloth on the left is Teal. The final color is very light.

The next lace piece is Aquamarine but turned out purplish. I might try and over dye it with pink some other time. 

The last piece is the Aquamarine again. The color looks pretty good here but it actually very pale.

I think I will stick to the powder versions of the Rit Dye. My local shops didn't have much of a selection so I might try and buy online for a better selection.

I might try dyeing white tone on tone fat quarters just to see what happens.

Have you tried your hand at dyeing?