Have you ever dyed clothing at home?

Lots of times.

If you have a washing machine at home, it’s honestly as easy as dumping a bottle of black RIT dye and a cup of salt or vinegar (depending on the colour, the bottle will tell you) in the tub, adding your clothes, and letting it run. Do a load of whites with bleach afterward and there’s not even any cleanup.

@Seek it doesn’t leave a residue or do any damage to the washer?

Nope. Even a little bit of bleach will eat it away. I’ve never had a problem.

I’m dying fabric for a school project. It’s called Shibori. It’s mainly used for making designs in the fabric, you stitch the fabric to create a resistance to the dye, then you dye it.
I’m sure you could use the same technique without the stitching and all that. Just dye it. you would just use chemical dyes, put it in a bowl, and dip the fabric in the dye, then microwave it for about 1–2 minutes, then you wash it well and leave it out to dry. For my project, it’s taking about 5–10 minutes to dye each piece of fabric. It’s not too hard.
You could use natural or chemical dyes, but I don’t know where you’d get either.

Awesome. Thanks!

Yes, I love dying! Clothes, curtains, all kinds of things. Being the old hippie mama type I used to dye my daughters baby tees tie dye. I love tie dye to this day even if it’s kinda passe.

Easy peasy as long as you’re tidy.

Yep. Rit. Rinse your washer at least once before you use the machine again.

Hmm, you might also want to be careful washing the things you dyed later with other things, for a few washes. I once washed some whites in hot but accidentally had something in with them that IIRC had been dyed red recently, and it made all the whites pink.

Yes! I have some black jeans I dyed black again with RIT, salt, and vinegar, .I did it in a large pot on the stove. They turned out great! For fun I threw in a white hankie to see how dark it would get. It turned dark gray.
I wash all my dark jeans together anyway and never had a problem.
Definitely try it!

And if you do it now you are not wasting energy. The heat from the hot water is warming your house!

Do be careful about color transfer. Things may have improved since I last encountered home dye (the late 80s), but a friend’s mother had died the fabric on her dining room chairs a deep teal green…which proceeded to stain everyone’s pants at dinner! Make triply sure the color is set, so you don’t end up with black dye on your white couch or something.

^ It’s great to see your smiling face.

I just looked at the pot I used for this project. It was a 10 qt and if I recall it would have been easier if the pot was even bigger. By doing on the stove I could make the water really hot and keep it there for well over an hour. I’m guessing it was about 140 F, maybe more.
I washed the clothes in the washing machine after they had a chance to dry. I never had trouble with color transfer onto anything.

Thankfully, the odds of a transfer in later laundry cycles would be slim, I don’t have a “color load,” just black/grey/darks and whites. Any odd piece that doesn’t fit, I throw in when I do my husband’s laundry. My biggest concern was it rubbing off or lingering in the washer. This sounds easy enough to handle. Thanks, all.

I really like the look after my black jeans are dyed. After dying the leather label, that usually stands out like a sore thumb, is a nice muted black. I figure it’s like a murdered out grill on a hot car.

When dying things (tie dye, whatever), it helps if you wash the item once or twice first to get the starch out and any additives to the fabric’s surface out. Then the fabric will accept the dye better.

I bet if the people who covered their dining room chairs washed the fabric after dying it (which might fade it somewhat), it wouldn’t have rubbed off onto people’s clothes.