How to “age” or fade fabric?
 

I need help from the experts! I’ve researched online about how to fade colors with bleach (using Martha Stuart’s three bucket method), but I don’t understand how to do it so the fabric doesn’t end up “splotchy”. I want my fabric to EVENLY fade, not look like a tie-dye project or a bleaching incident gone awry!

I’m planning a quilt which will have large alternating blocks of the US and UK flags. Both flags (Old Glory and the Union Jack) are red, white, and blue. I want to “mellow out” the fabric so it doesn’t have any super intense /vibrant colors.

TBH, the best option would be buying fabrics where the colors are already muted/faded looking. Trying to do a controlled fade to replicate aging is going to be nearly impossible and you may also weaken the fabric.

It is very difficult to obtain exact results when using bleach or "discharge" techniques. It is always darker when wet for one thing...

But the key is to have the fabric already wet when you apply it to the bleach bath, and that the bleach has been stirred into the bath instead of adding it after the fabric. Make sure it is evenly and well saturated -- that is, poke it down!

It's only going to be splotchy if you try for it, or don't thoroughly wet the fabric both before and during the treatment.

To change the tone of fabric, you can also consider tea dying colors. I do that sort of thing in the microwave, using a huge pyrex bowl I have. Again, first you make the tea dye bath, then you add the already wet fabric into it and make sure it is well saturated. Tea can take a long time to impact a red or blue... again, hard to tell when wet what the end results will be.

Bleaching will weaken cotton fabric. If you do use bleach keep a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide handy Peroxide will stop the chlorine bleaching process. What I would do is start with a light solid fabric and add color to it gradually until it looks like a darker color has faded. I will be the first to say go for it. It will be fun to see the outcome.

I totally agree with this.

Or you could try using the back/wrong side of the fabrics.

I have successfully 'gently' faded fabric by putting it through a wash cycle with a small amount of bleach added. I needed a bit more black fabric, but as everyone knows, there are a gazillion different shades of black. I had one that was just a bit darker than what I had already used. I ended up needing to do the process twice to get the right shade but it did work.

I like and use the tea dying method. There are lots of tutorials on doing this and Iceblossom explained it well.

I have tea dyed several times to give an aged look to my fabrics. It works great and is easy to do.