Manipulating Fabric Making The New Look Old

I have a love affair with fabric! I love looking at it, buying it and making stuff with it. The fabric, whether it's a clothing object or a household item already made still holds magic to me. I get giggly with the idea of what it can become, the unseen potential.

Take a look at these pillows! Love the fabric, love the worn look of them

Source

These pillows are so pretty to me. I know that they look old, possible civil war old but they are not. The fabric I  believe has been manipulated to look worn and old.

The idea of this had it's hold on me and I decided to give it a try. . So I had some scrap fabric that I wanted to make a pillow out of and thought why not try it with this.

New Fabric

So off into the washing machine the fabric went and I gave the pieces a bath times 2 thinking that one wash wouldn't make them soft and used looking as I wanted.

Fabric is soft but still wet here

Out they came and the crispness finish that is on new fabric was gone and it did have a softness to it but I just didn't think it was enough. It didn't look old like the photo of those pillows.

So then I thought lets try some bleach and off they went into the washer again with the addition of bleach. The color I liked on the solid linen piece changed from a steel blue to a sort of khaki color. I wasn't pleased with that but what did I think would happen?

After the bleach

So it still wasn't what I wanted so I took out the old tea bags and gave the fabric a tea bath.  So the fabric went off to have a tea bath and came out looking like this

Tea bath done, fabric dried, needs a good ironing 

What I wanted was some fabric that looked old, had some character to it but I don't think I got that look. Again I can't be sure until possible I make something out of it. I did this to enough fabric to make one small 12" x 16" pillow. There's a really good chance that I'll use this fabric to make some sachets. I think that would work out better than a pillow but we'll see tomorrow I might change my mind.

Here's a great look of before and after of this fabric.

I'm in love with adding something to the fabric I'm working with whether it's fabric over dying or washing the heck out of it or even tea dying it I want to do it. It's creating, it's fabric manipulation and I love it.

My Repurposed Life