Tea Dyed Chicken Wire Valance

Sometimes having a messy craft room can create a happy accident.  Like a few weeks ago when a piece of chicken wire I'd left on the floor got all tangled up with some old gauzy drapery material.  

I kinda had one of those chocolate in the peanut butter, Reeses Peanut Butter Cup moments and I knew the chicken wire and old drapes were meant to be together.
  

But that fabric was white... I mean tighty-whitey white.  So I decided to tone it down a bit with some tea dying.  I used about 4 bags of black tea in a big pot and left it in the bath for 10 minutes.  Just enough to take off the tighty whiteness. 

 Then it was rinsed with vinegar to set the color and run through a gentle cycle in the washer with no detergent.  While it was drying I cut my chicken wire to size. 


Although I think there is something you should know about.   Political correctness has come to the barnyard.  When I asked for "chicken wire" at the hardware store I was corrected and shown the "poultry netting".

 So what has happened here, did our feathered friends get fed-up with the derogatory use of the word "chicken"?  Have they had it up to their beaks with people saying,"Come on, I dare you,  what are you chicken"? Seriously, the chickens must have gotten all up-in-arms, oh pardon me, up-in-wings over the issue. 

source

Hey I'm all for respecting our farmyard friends so I cut my "poultry netting" 10 inches wide and the length of my kitchen windows.

After the fabric dried, it was cut into 2 1/2" strips and the fun was about to happen.  I wove the fabric through the wire holes up and down the rows and just tied on a new piece when I reached the end.  To avoid having all the ties in the same location, I cut some of the strips into different lengths.

It still wasn't quite right so the last few strips went back in the tea dip to darken a bit.  They were dried and tied on the edge of the valance and in some random spots to give it a more aged look.  The "poultry netting" was then stapled to a long board and attached to the window frame....done!

It turned out almost exactly as I pictured for once, a barely there valance that lightly filters the western sun in the afternoon.  I think I'm really going to like this practically free, accident of a window treatment.

As for my new found respect for the plight of the poultry, I think the first meal in our kitchen with the new valance is going to be  Chicken a la King!  After all every chicken deserves to be treated like royalty.  

Cluck, cluck, cluck

PS:  Just for fun I thought I'd show you where this kitchen started when we moved in.  It has a pretty amazing renovation story here   and here.

Sharing at Funky Junk, DIY Showoff, Debbiedoos, Stone Gable, French Country Cottage