Steep the applique in hot tea to create an aged look.
Appliques are pieces of fabric artfully stitched together to make a picture or design like a patchwork or layered heart. You can age the fabric before or after you stitch it together, depending on whether you want to age the stitching as well. To make appliques look old, use either staining or fading. Staining uses a dye to yellow the fabric. One of the most popular techniques is tea staining, but this will wash out over time if used on garments or washable quilts. Fading uses bleach to make bright, new fabric and stitching look as if they have been washed repeatedly.
Instructions
Staining
1. Mix three-quarters tsp. of alum and 4 cups of water in a bowl.
2. Soak the assembled applique or the individual fabric pieces overnight in the alum solution. Alum acts as a mordant, allowing the tea stain to become more permanent.
3. Steep 2 to 5 black tea bags in 6 cups of hot water. Steep them for 5 to 10 minutes for a light stain or overnight for a darker stain. The more tea bags you use and the longer they soak, the deeper the staining will be.
4. Remove the applique/fabric from the alum solution and place it in an empty bowl.
5. Heat the tea on the stove in a pot or in the microwave oven until steaming.
6. Pour the tea over the applique/fabric. To create variations in the staining, you can crumple the fabric and secure it with rubber bands as in tie-dyeing.
7. Check the color of the fabric every 1 to 2 minutes. Take into consideration that the fabric appears darker when wet than it will once it's dry. Remove the fabric from the tea once you reach your desired color.
8. Allow the applique/fabric to air dry. If the stain is too dark, hand-wash the applique/fabric.
Fading
9. Mix a 1 to 5 solution of bleach and hot water in a bucket to fade the applique/fabric uniformly. Mix a 1 to 2 solution of bleach and hot water in a spray bottle to create a splotchy or mottled effect.
10. Fill 3 other buckets with cold water. Add 1 part hydrogen peroxide per 10 parts water in the second water bucket.
11. Place the applique/fabric in the bucket of bleach water or spray the applique/fabric with the bleach solution. If you are spraying, the farther from the fabric you hold the spray bottle, the more subtle the fading.
12. Allow the bleach solution to soak for 2 to 5 minutes. Keep an eye on the fabric and place it in the first water bucket as soon as it has faded by the desired amount.
13. Agitate the applique/fabric in the water to rinse the bleach.
14. Move the applique/fabric to the second bucket containing the hydrogen peroxide and allow it to soak for 10 minutes. The hydrogen peroxide will neutralize the bleach and keep it from harming the fabric.
15. Rinse the hydrogen peroxide solution from the applique/fabric in the third bucket. Do not place the applique/fabric back in the first bucket to rinse or you will deposit bleach back onto the fabric.
