Make Your Own Muslin Ribbons!

Do you love to wrap your gifts in sumptuous ribbons? Do you prefer cloth ribbons over the shiny kind? I’ve got just the tutorial for you today – make your own muslin ribbons by hand-dyeing them any color you’d like!

In my last post I shared that my theme for Christmas decor and wrapping this year will be Juniper and Cream. I adore the combination of rustic juniper sprigs with gray/blue berries along with farmhouse cream neutrals. While planning for this theme, I also found some wonderful budget-friendly finds which you can peek at here.

Once I found my Christmas theme this year, I started planning a million ideas in my head. One of those ideas was to make my own muslin ribbons for gift wrapping. I wanted to dye the muslin the perfect shade of gray to match the juniper berries, and wrap them around rustic packages wrapped in brown Kraft paper.

What do you think?

Did you know how easy it is to make your own ribbons? I researched the process and used these exact steps to make my ribbons in two different shades of gray.

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Supplies

To hand-dye your own muslin ribbons, you’ll need to gather the following supplies:

• 1 yard (or more) of 108″ width white muslin fabric. I found mine here.
• Rit liquid dye in your choice of color. I purchased 8 oz. of the Pearl Gray color.
• fabric scissors, fabric pen, measuring tape, iron

Hand-dye Muslin Ribbons

To make muslin ribbons in the same color shades as mine, follow these instructions below. If you’d like to make your ribbons in different colors, feel free to use these steps as a guide.

For instance, if you know you want all of your ribbons to be one uniform color, you could dye the entire yard of fabric prior to cutting the ribbons. (You’ll need a large container/washing machine to do this).

Cut ribbons from fabric

To start the process, you’ll want to prepare your muslin fabric. Pre-wash and dry the fabric.

Using the fabric pen, mark 2″ (or your desired width of ribbons) from the bottom of the fabric, all along the long 108″ edge.

Using fabric scissors, cut a length of ribbon along these markings. Continue marking 2″ from the bottom and cutting ribbons. Each ribbon will be 108″ in length. (Some folks just rip across their muslin fabric instead of marking & cutting, but that didn’t work for me so I stuck with measuring & cutting.)

You can see my white muslin fabric and cut ribbon strips (folded) on the settee here:

Dye fabric

Next you’ll dye the ribbon strips. I followed the directions on the Rit package, customizing a bit as follows:

First, wet the muslin ribbon strips.

Next, fill the container you will use for dyeing with 2 gallons of HOT water. (I filled 1/2 of a 4-gallon/16-quart plastic bin)

Add approximately 1/8 cup of Rit fabric dye in the Pearl Gray color to your hot water and stir.

Add 3 or 4 ribbons to your container, which will allow room for them to move freely when stirred.

Stir the ribbons gently every so often, keeping them in the container for 30 minutes total.

Remove the ribbons and rinse with cool water.

Set them on an old towel to dry a bit.

At this point, I decided to add more white ribbon strips to the same exact bin of water & dye that I already used. I repeated the above steps to stir gently and wait another 30 minutes. For this second batch, the water wasn’t quite as hot and there was less dye to absorb. Therefore, my second batch of ribbon came out in a lighter gray color. (If you’d like your next batch to be the same color as your first batch, you’ll need to start with fresh hot water and add the same original amount of dye.)

Continue making as many batches as you’d like using the above steps (be sure to start with fresh water & dye if you want the darker color).

Wash and Iron ribbons

Once you’re done dyeing the ribbons, you’ll need to run them through the washing machine on a delicate wash cycle with an old towel.

Dry ribbons with the towel in the dryer.

After your ribbons come out of the dryer, they’ll be all bunched up and wrinkled like this. (You can see my darker gray ribbons in the center, and the lighter gray to the right):

At this point you can iron the ribbons and trim any excess threads so they’ll look a bit smoother (but still rustic):

Showcase your dyed muslin ribbons!

Now comes the fun part – showcasing your hand-dyed muslin ribbons! Gather your gift packages, gift tags, and sprigs of greenery to wrap Christmas gifts with these ribbons. They would also be lovely for wedding gifts or decor.

Tie the ribbons around simple Kraft paper-wrapped packages or use them to hang a lovely wreath…

I tucked sprigs of (what else?) juniper under my ribbons…

I also incorporated twine and these gift tags (which you can download for free here!):

My soft gray-themed Christmas gift tags were chosen for these packages…

All this planning is getting me excited for the Juniper & Cream decorating theme this year! I especially enjoyed styling this photo shoot with my handmade cream knitted throw on the settee and yarn pom-poms on the mini tree. The gray, green and cream colors blended perfectly together and the ribbons’ rustic look fits well with farmhouse style. And do you spy my faux shiplap in the background? Learn more about how I added that to our living room wall here.

What’s your color scheme this year? Are you having fun planning gifts & decor? Advent will be here before we know it…