Dip Dyed Curtains

I've had plain cream colored curtains from Ikea hanging in my living room for many months.  I came up with the idea that it might be cool to try and dip dye the curtains to create an ombre effect.  Friday I finally decided to tackle the project. What I had in mind was something like these curtain panels: 




Gorgeous, right? The final result of my dying experiment was this: 




Not quite as gorgeous.  I had originally wanted to leave the top of curtains white like the ones in the photo above but I touched them with my dye covered hands so I had to continued the gray color all the way to the top of the curtain. You might also notice that my curtain panels are not exactly the same. I attempted two different dye methods which yielded slightly different results. With the panel on the right I submerged all of it in the dye and then slowing removed the panel so that the bottom would be darker than the top. For the panel of the left I worked from the bottom keeping each section submerged for about 30 seconds. I think I had more success with the second method but should have kept each section submerged for longer periods of time. 


I would also like to try one other dye method. I'm interested to see what would happen if I just dipped the bottom half of the curtain in the dye and leave it there for several minutes to soak up the dye and have it organically travel up the panel. In my head it would look really cool but I have no idea how it would actually turn out. Which is why I would suggest experimenting with inexpensive curtains like these (I believe these curtains cost $15 for the set) because I'm not too upset that they didn't turn out exactly as I hoped they would. 


Photo Credits: Top Photo - The Connaught Mayfair Hotel, Bottom Photo - Me