An experiment..........

I have a piece of 40ct linen which was a white colour and I wanted to stitch a design that needed 40ct cafe kona coloured linen. This count linen is very difficult to get here and if you are lucky enough to find it, it is always a whiteish shade. I was too impatient to wait for an order to arrive from the US so I decided to cut a square from it, big enough for the design and experiment at dyeing it myself. It was very successful so I though I would share with you what I did.

The original colour of the linen

I got my pan out and into that I put just 3 decent sized teaspoonfuls of instant coffee.

The coffee in the pan

Then I added some cold water and brought it to the boil.

The boiling coffee water

Next I put in the square of linen and stirred it about so it was immersed and boiled it for 10 minutes.

The linen boiling in the pan

When the 10 minutes were up I moved the pan and carefully holding the linen with a wooden spoon I pored the coffee water down the sink.

Pouring the coffee out

Next I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed the piece of linen under the running tap till the water ran clear.

Rinsing the linen

As it was a small piece of linen I decided to iron it dry on a clean towel, this picture shows it still wet.

Ironing dry

This picture shows it all ironed and dry, the colour is actually very even which did surprise me and I was pleased about that. The actual colour in the end is just slightly lighter than the one above where it is shown still wet.

Ironed dry and finished

This picture is to show the comparison of the starting shade and the end result

To show the 2 colours

Hey presto........I have my own cafe kona coloured linen all in about 15 minutes, I was really pleased as the colour is lovely in real life. Now, if I get the time I will show you later today what I stitched on this, if not I will get it on soon.

Back soon ;-))