Vintage Bedspread Becomes DIY Dyed Shams

In my previous post I summarized the changes we made in our master bedroom. I mentioned that my mom (@thegoodhome) donated a vintage bedspread to make shams out of (score!) and I thought I would add a little bit more about that process. 

Here is what the bedspread looked like before. You can find these pretty inexpensively at thrift stores and yard sales. If they are damaged they will be even cheaper and they would probably still be good enough to make pillow cases out of. As it stands, my mom has enough left over to make at least one more set out of it and possibly a few smaller pillows. 

Plain white vintage bedspread.

I had two king size inserts on hand so she made them that size (20x36 inches). Once they were finished we dyed them using RIT Pearl Gray. I suppose you could (and possibly should) dye the fabric prior to sewing them but we didn't. Anyway, my parents have a really cool old washing machine that is perfect for dye jobs so we did it there. 

Seriously, how cool is this thing?

Unfortunately, when all was said and done, the color wasn't what I wanted at all. They were a light lavender color and not they rich gray I was hoping for. While they were still at my mom's I tried to convince myself they would be fine but once I got them in the room next to all the other grays I knew I wasn't going to be happy with them. 

The color was hard to capture but they were a very pretty light lavender which was not what I wanted.

After a quick google search I came across this blog post by Carrie at Lovely Etc. She had almost the same exact experience using RIT Pearl Gray to dye a comforter. Her solution was to dye them again using iDye Silver Gray and her the result was a beautiful darker shade of gray. So I ordered the iDye from amazon.com and a few days later we dyed them again. 

Despite having to do the whole process twice, dyeing was way easier than I expected. If you find yourself dyeing something, follow the instructions on the package. But for those of you who have never done it before, you basically just throw the dye and some salt into the washing machine and add the wet fabric. You don't need a washing machine as cool as my mom's, any top loader would function the same way. [NOTE: For front loaders the package said to go to their website for instructions.] We ran the machine for an hour and then rinsed them twice before putting them through a full cycle with a small amount of detergent.

The final result was EXACTLY what I was going for. I love the fabric. I love that it's vintage. I love the texture. I love the color. I love that they only cost me a few dollars in dye. Do you like how they came out? Would you have gone with a different color?

Thanks mom! xoxo

Kaitlin