Dying Canvas Chair Covers

Add salt to the dye bath for a better result.

Dying canvas chair covers.

Pour your fabric dye directly into the detergent dispenser. Add your liquid dye into the dispenser then flush it with hot water. Add covers to washer and agitate for 40 minutes. So we have two extra brown covers on hand in case something catastrophic sharpie scissors blood happens to any of the eight everyday covers that we have.

Fiber reactive dyes tend to be the best choice for the fibers in canvas. Dry the slipcover and voilá. Salt is a catalyst in the dyeing process and helps to achieve long lasting and intense results. That was hard to do since the canvas was attached to my chair and stool.

Follow up with some hot water. Fill washer up with hot water making sure the fabric can move freely and add dye to the water along with 1 cup of salt dissolved in about 4 cups of hot water. Adding one cup of white vinegar after the fabric has been in the dye bath for 5 minutes will also help dye the colours out more evenly. While my chair was still wet i saturated all the fabric in dye.

Oh happy dye day. I set a timer to go off every 10 minutes so i could start the heavy cycle over since my washer didn t have a timer. In a sweeeet turn of dye related events the brown totally took over and produced the identical color to the other brown covers even with the green dye under it. If you re using bottled fabric dye you can simply pour 2 bottles worth of water.

Real canvas is made from cotton linen or hemp and is therefore a natural or cellulose fiber. Otherwise 2 to 4 cups 470 to 950 ml of hot water will do.