I feel like a professional!!

I did something! Wanna' see??

It started out like this:

Two cups of extra dark tea...

And a damp piece of cloth laying on some trash bags!

So I set out tonight to make me an ombre piece of cloth! (did you read my cowboy accent?? Ombre is so country sounding!) I set out a couple trashbags, marked the trashbags at 6 inch intervals and wet the cloth and wrung it out. I believe this cloth is about 2.5 meters long and maybe a meter wide (? - it's folded in half longways)

I put the tea in one of those restaurant salad dressing bottles... you know, the clear versions of those ketchup/mustard bottles at diners.

ANYWHOSITZ! I squirted my extra concentrated tea on the bottom six inches of the fabric, and as I expected, it didn't color the fabric as much as I had hoped it would; tea is not dye, so it doesn't stain fabric as well as I had hoped. But that's ok!

It actually worked out to my advantage: The tea didn't create dark blocks of color that made blending difficult.

Blending was very very easy! I just used my hand to push the tea up the fabric. I kept putting more and more on the bottom and pushing it upwards. I gradually diluted my tea and worked my way up the fabric, I kept putting more on the bottom to try and make it darker.

Finished product! Just a tip, I mean, not sure if it's a tip, not sure if it will make a difference, but I didn't wring out the excess tea, I rolled the whole thing in the trashbags and carried it outside. The tea drips downward, so it continues to the bottom to hopefully make it darker. I dunno' but I can hope. Well, I shouldn't even say that, I do like it the way it is, it's not so in your face or anything. I'm only worried about washing it making the color fade. We'll see!

In the meantime, I found a better place to hang it and there it will stay until it stops dripping tea all over the gall dern place.

Ta da!!! I'll take some better pictures in better light, I mean, I'll show it once it's actually ripped up and turned into a backdrop. This whole thing was ridiculously simple, I didn't even get dirty! I'm sure real dye would have given a much more defined ombre, but I like the subtle color and I really like how easy it was the blend the color up the fabric. The Marth Stewart link I posted a few posts ago (right below the picture of scarves) contains a video that was exactly my protocol. She's the man. I wish I could scratch this off the old to do list, but no so fast! There's a lot of fabric ripping to do yet, but I'm encouraged by how easy this was. Even if the fabric ends up being not dark enough for me, I think I can just do the same procedure over again to deepen the color, but we'll see if that's even necessary.

For now, I ombre-d!! I'm so excited!! Did anyone else tackle a new skill and surprise themselves??