Why does nobody talk about using old coffee grounds for fabric dye?

I was trying to get a specific tan color for a linen shirt last week, and after three tries with store bought dye, it still looked too orange. My grandma in Phoenix said to just boil the fabric with used coffee grounds, and it gave me the perfect, muted earth tone I wanted. Has anyone else tried natural dyes from kitchen stuff and had it work better than the chemical ones?

3 comments

3 Comments

emerychen1mo agoMost Upvoted

Guess grandma's coffee trick beats the store stuff, and now I'm eyeing my tea bags like taylor_flores said.

abby_henderson13d ago

Eyeing my tea bags" yeah I get that. Last week I tried dying some old white socks with leftover black tea and they came out looking like I'd been walking through a muddy puddle for a month. Not bad, just not what I was going for. @taylor_flores had the right idea though, I bet blue would work better. My grandma used to do something similar with onion skins for a gold color, smelled like soup for days.

taylor_flores1mo ago

Try tea bags for a faded blue, it's way easier than you'd think.