Who Decided That We Shouldn't Play With Our Food?

I decided to try to dye some of the white onesies with various veggies today. Soph just hung out in her swing and watched me get down to business.

The original idea came up in a conversation with Ann, Kate's mom. We were talking about some of the tea dyed fabrics that I've done and she mentioned red cabbage. Of course! Red cabbage. It looks like a mandala when cut. I love it!
I excitedly threw red beets into the conversation. I thought they'd make a nice color and I love beets! When I went shopping I found the most beautiful Golden Beets. They had a blazing orange colored skin. I bought them instead of red beets. When I cut into them they certainly were golden.

I couldn't find any directions on using these veggies. So I was just experimenting. I figured that I dice them to increase the surface area and hopefully allow more of the color to seep into the water. First I soaked the shirts in cold veggie water. I didn't want to actually cook the vegetables. I figured the longer the shirt was in the pot with them the better the chances would be that they would come out dyed.

In addition to red cabbage and the golden beets I also did a batch of coffee dyed shirts. This wasn't so much of an experiment, as I've seen plenty of coffee stains on my own t-shirts. I was sure that they'd work. But, I was really excited to see what shade of brown I could get the shirts.


After about 2 hours I pulled the tester shirts out, rung them out and rinsed them with water. To see the progress.The bad news is that the shirt in the Golden beets rinsed right out. The good news is that it won't stain your shirt while eating them. The red cabbage shirt was a light lavender color and the coffee shirt is a dirty tan color.
I then turned the burners on low and let the concoction warm and 'brew' for another hour. I strained all the cooked veggies and coffee grounds out and then put the shirts back into the warm dyed water.

It doesn't look like the Golden Beets will ever work...but the red cabbage shirt looks good and the coffee shirt looks amazing. I'm leaving them in overnight to see if they'll darken even more.

I'll post pictures of the final product. For now I'm just going to leave you hanging....