Supplies
- Inexpensive area rug
- Rit all-purpose liquid dye
- Preval sprayer or paint sprayer
- Garden hose for water
Time
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Difficulty
Intermediate Total: {{ partial.t2EA.total }}
Instructions
- Here is the “before” shot of the rug. Again, this rug was purchased new on Amazon for the sole purpose of dyeing it. It is a wool blend- mostly wool but mixed with synthetics. This means that it is unlikely to dye very dark. An ALL wool rug (or other natural fiber rug) would be a much better choice but we wanted a budget rug. And again, we would NEVER dye an expensive or heirloom rug that has sentiment. Overdyeing a rug is all about fun- not stressing over something pristine or valuable.
- Put the rug directly in the sun on some grass. Best practices would be to thoroughly pre-wet the rug. A hose would work well.
- An electric tea kettle was used to quickly heat up water for the various batches of dye. We used 1 full bottle of Aquamarine all-purpose liquid dye. We also used a paint sprayer. This Preval paint sprayer works well for this project.
- Mix about 1/4 of the bottle of Aquamarine dye with a full jar of very hot water. You’ll need to refill the mason jar several times, adding about 1/4 of the bottle each time. Saturate the entire rug with the dye. This process took about 15-20 minutes.
- When the rug is saturated with dye, let it dry in the sun for about an hour.
- Then pour straight Rit ColorStay Dye Fixative into your paint sprayer and sprayed the entire rug again.
- Let the rug dry outside on a very warm and sunny day until it’s completely dry (about one and a half days).
- Here is a close-up of the new color. Again, it’s not as vibrant because it was a wool blend. If the wool content had been very, very low, the dye would likely have washed completely out. However, we are happy with the results, it’s a vibrant color but not too bold.
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