Sooo I've had this blanket for a while... We're talking like probably nine years?
At the time I thought a big orange blanket was super cool laid on the end of my black and white bedding but nowadays not so much! Lets just say my interior style and colour palette has changed
a lot in the past decade. The blanket itself is really good quality cotton and far too nice to throw away so I'd been thinking of dying it for some time to a) tone it down and b) get some more use out of it.
It's as if they read my mind, but DYLON recently got in touch and asked if I would review them- hell to the yes! Whenever I home dye things I use
DYLON as the instructions are super easy to follow and they have a huge array of
colours to choose from.
Dylon Pewter Grey*
My aim was to dye the blanket grey and have it on my new bedding which is a mixture of greys and lime yellow tones as it'd be a lovely extra layer for those chilly winter nights to come. The directions were easy to follow, advising you to pop the sachets into the drum of your washing machine with your fabric of choice being damp. I used three sachets on my blanket as its the size of a king size bed and needed plenty of dye to cover it! Once the cycle was done, you put it through a normal wash cycle and voila, it's washed and done! The dye doesn't remain in your machine whatsoever so none of my clothes have been effected since either, horrah.
Now as I say, the plan was to turn it grey (ooh that rhymes!) However me being me I encountered a few factors that I hadn't vouched for...
As you can see it's more of a brownish-grey (or just brown if you're a normal person but I am in denial.) What I should have done was used DYLON Pre-Dye before hand which would have stripped the blanket of it's original colour. Now because I didn't do this, the grey dye on top of the orange has given the blanket a brown hue. Another factor was the thread remained orange which I later found out was because it's synthetic thread as opposed to cotton which DYLON don't recommend you try dying. The orange thread definitely makes the fabric look even more brown than grey and I'd toyed with unpicking the thread but that's A LOT of unpicking to do!
I have since found a new and better use for the blanket and that is for adding to a cosy autumnal home. We have red sofas and cushions in our living room so the brown goes wonderfully with the orange thread adding to the autumn colours! I'll admit I as tempted to fib about my original intentions for this blanket and act like I'd planned for it to come out like this however I just can't lie to you lot. Regardless, I'm actually really pleased with the way it came out!
As you can see Harry is rather taken with it and enjoys a good snuggle on it so all is not lost and actually it's more practical now so win win all round.
Anyway besides my silly mistakes, the actual dye was really impressive. My mum had warded me off dying such a large piece of fabric thinking it wouldn't completely cover and would come out blotchy from the machine but DYLON know their stuff, giving you advice on your ratio of fabric to dye on their website. They have plenty of
helpful hints too.
I have a couple of other autumnal colours to try out as well such as
Burlesque Red, Tulip Red and Rosewood Red so watch this space for upcoming autumnal crafty posts!
Have you tried dying with DYLON?