DIY Dyed Drop Cloth Curtains

DIY Dyed Drop Cloth Curtains

  So I have this big glass sliding door leading to my backyard and as wonderful as all the natural light is; it makes it very difficult to watch TV during the day. I looked into getting some pre-made curtains from different places, but they are so expensive and I’m a girl on a budget! I am currently without a functioning sewing machine so buying fabric and sewing them myself was out. After doing a little research online on different no-sew options I decided to attempt to just dye some drop cloths and hope for the best. If I failed miserably at least I wouldn’t be out too much money (only about $50) and I’d have an interesting DIY fail to share.

Here’s the supplies I used:

 6 of Rit Dye Liquid Fabric Dye, 8-Ounce, Black - $4.19 each on Amazon 

(1 bottle/lb of dry fabric for light colors or 2 bottles/lb for darker colors)

 2 Canvas Drop Cloth, 6 x 9-Feet, Natural - $11.95 each on Amazon

2 cups salt

Since I'm clumsy and uncoordinated, I decided the best option for me would be to use my top loading washing machine to dye the drop cloths. You can use your tub, but there is always the possibility that it will stain and why use the manual labor if a machine will do it for you, right?

First thing first, I had to wash the drop cloths! When I first opened the package I was hit with this awful smell. (Don’t worry, it goes away after you wash all those nasty chemicals off. Just don’t dry them, you will need them to be wet.) Once they were washed I set them aside and filled my washer with HOT water. Next I added 1 cup of the salt and 3 of the bottles of fabric dye. The directions say to agitate to mix so I just took a pole off one of my brooms and used that to stir it all together until the water looked consistent throughout. Once that was done I added ONE of the wet, unfolded drop cloths to the water. I didn’t want to add both at once and all of the dye since the bottle warns that any more than 4 bottles at once will just go to waste in the washer.

                           

As I put it in, I could see how well the dye was already taking. I extended the wash cycle for an extra 30 minutes, just like the bottle told me to. After that I did have to run the rinse cycle about 3 times before the water came out clear. Then I sat that one aside and repeated the process for the next panel. Once both were done and rinsed, I washed them together on warm with my regular detergent and threw them in the dryer. That was it! So easy! I just hung them with a couple packages of cheap drapery clips from Walmart. They didn’t get as dark as I originally wanted and you can tell there is a blue/purple undertone, but I actually like this color better. Even if I didn’t, I could always get more dye and run it through the process again.