Thrifty Thursday...

1 September 2011

No Op shopping for me this week.
I have been turning my focus to other little projects that have been on my list of things to do.

Now I'm a little embarrassed to even share these horrible faded towels.... but I'm so pleased with the end result so I'm being brave.
I had a stack of towels that were still in reasonable condition.....but were so faded from the sun and frequent washing that I no longer used them.

I decided that maybe dyeing them would give them a new lease on life.....and if it didn't work then Id just throw them out....which in their current state was where they were headed anyway.

I wanted this to be easy...no mess.....and so I bought a packet of  Dylon 'Machine Dyeing' dye.
My only complaint is that the colour range was limited to 3 colours...
navy....violet and black.
I chose the black hoping for a nice charcoal grey colour.....
and I was really pleased with the end result.


It was so easy....
I just added the dye...salt and towels to my front loader....then set it on a 40deg gentle wash cycle...
followed by a 40 deg cycle with detergent to remove the excess colour.
and finally another cycle to clean the machine after the towel were removed.

So....for $11.95 for the dye....$1.00 worth of salt I have 7 towels....4 hand towels and 2 washers.....all in a lovely fresh charcoal grey.
I then found some vintage trim and added to the edge of the hand towels to match the orange bath mats that are already in the bathroom.

I hope you had some thrifty moments this week too...
I know Janelle had some lovely lucky finds this week.

6 comments

  1. Anonymous12:35 pm

    great idea Mardi! I just spied your fabric map in the new issue of Etzcetera...LOVE IT!! I'm hoping you'll make some for the shop... hint hint!

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  2. These look amazing and don't be embarassed EVERYONE has those sorts of towels lurking in their linen cupboard he he! Does the machine RIT dye work with cold water as well??? We only have our machine connected to cold???

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  3. You are such a smart cookie, Mardi. These look fantastic.

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  4. Wow they look fantastic Mardi! So clever!

    Sheree xx

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  5. Anonymous9:40 pm

    cool idea ;)

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  6. You clever thing! What a great idea!

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