Q: How do you dye a veil with tea or coffee? After a few frustrating days of wedding veil shopping, I finally found the perfect ivory wedding veil online. Or, I thought I did. When it arrived, I quickly realized my “ivory” veil was actually blindingly white, which is definitely not what I was going for. It was a great deal, though. And since I can’t return it, I’d love to make it work if I can.
The obvious solution is to dye it, but the ivory liquid dyes I’ve seen are just kind of… blech. I remember using coffee to make “parchment” paper for a history project in middle school, but I’ve never tried dying any type of fabric (at all). I feel like I might be able to create the natural warm tone I thought I was getting by using tea or maybe coffee? As I mentioned, the veil was a great (I mean, really great) deal, so if I mess it up, the loss isn’t huge.
But I have so many questions for folks who have tried this: Does the color stick to nylon? Does it come out evenly? (I’m imagining weird splotches and tea-colored tie-dye right now.) How strong did you make the tea? Or should I try coffee? What’s the difference between tea dye and coffee dye? And how long did you leave your veil in? Should I wash it after dying it? Just rinse it? Did your veil smell like tea days (or weeks) later? If the veil gets wet on my wedding day, will the color run onto my dress?
did you tea dye or coffee dye your veil? Which did you try? have you tea dyed other fabric? c’mon you crafters, spill. Share all your how-to secrets!
If you want the APW community’s two cents, send it to QUESTIONS AT APRACTICALWEDDING DOT COM, and we’ll do our best to crowdsource you some answers!
