Natural Dye for traditional Romanian Point Lace
Natural Romanian Point Lace Dye
It all started on a Thursday evening …. I wanted to dye some RPL pieces, and was not sure if I had all the right ingredients. The idea that I wanted to dye with natural items was logic to me from the start. From the beginning I was fixated on pink shades.
It’s Friday morning and once the little one went to take a nap it was time to start the dye process……
To dye doilies, lace, point lace is as old as time…. I am very much interested in natural dye and always experimented with it, from teas, to coffee dye…..
I had three white natural Romanian Point Lace doilies. You probably have seen them in one older post or on social media…
Here they are before, the dye adventure!
You do not need much for a natural dye. A few bowls, pots to bring it to a boil, and of course vinegar. I use the very cheap one dollar vinegar.
That’s about I guess and yes like with every dye, X fingers, that it comes out ok! LOL
Since I dye only 3 pieces to experiment with colours, I do not need much.
For the onion dye I used all the left over onion shells red and brown that we had left in the house. In this case it;s about 2 hands full. The more the better, but like I said it;s all left overs.
I used two hibiscus and one rose hip teabag to dye the second Romanian point lace doily. For the last doily I used two bags of Billy teabags. It;s Australian Bush tea. The colour is dark brown.
Step One!
I soaked all three doilies in cold water for at least 15 minutes.
Step Two!
After that I started to boil water and to get the pots ready.
You will need three posts and half a cup f vinegar in total. Add to each pot a bit of vinegar and let it boil. Make sure that the water is not over boiling. I add wooden spoons to each pot.
Step Three!
Bring it to a boil and make sure that the doily is deep in the hot water. Stir is a bit and also be careful when you turn it. It need to be in hot water and in the dye all the time. If edges of the doily is out, you will have a weak dye. Love how the dark red actually looks like.
The Billy Tea is fantastic , a gorgeous colour, very elegant 
almost like cognac.It looks nice so far. I can imagine that it will turn way lighter of course. It’s never easy to say if you experiment and if you do it with Romanian Point Lace pieces. If you are not sure, I suggest to experiment with a simple Romanian Point Lace cord. Cut it in pieces and add into each colour. That way you will not loose or damage a doily if you need it later on. After all you were quite busy creating it. 🙂
Make sure that the stove is on medium to high but watch it all the time. While the doilies are wet, the dye looks darker, see images below. Once it;s dry they will lighten up!
Hibiscus, has a light colour once dry and a very soft smell. It will not smell once it;s dry. The onion dye is stronger in colour. The tea is quite faded but a good outcome. Soft, and delicate with a vintage touch!
Step four!
Once ready, you can hang them outside on the line to dry. But if you can’t wait, you can iron them dry. That way you are one step ahead and you do not need to block it, since you pressed them while wet.
E voila…. this is the result of this dye. Have you tried to dye your Romanian Point Lace? If yes, please let me know.
As you can see the hibiscus tea resulted into a very pale pink. It is gorgeous, but soft. If you would be interested in a deeper pink, you might need to add more hip rose tea bags, or avocado seeds and shells.
I enjoyed to dye all three, but I think I would be very interested to dive deeper into natural dye on the pink side. I hope you all had fun reading this blog post and please so share it, pin it, like it and comment!
I like the idea that I can do Romanian Point Lace in light or white colour, due to the fact that the fillings are easier to create on lighter thread. It also means that I have the freedom to experiment and change colours as much as I like by changing the dye. It’s easy if you look for a specific colour that you can;t find in the store.
Saturday I had another look at the result of pink and I was not really happy with it. Starring at it while eating blueberries gave me the idea to actually dye the same piece in blueberry.
Once finishing with making blueberry juice for Andrada, I used the left over and added vinegar. The doily was 30 minutes in the hot juice and this is the result….
The pink is darker, more into a purple note…. I love the result.
XO,
Lorena
