I will admit I am a magazine reader. I love that you can pick it up read it and come back to it later to read another article. I general I love to read and never feel like I waste money on a book or magazine.
My good friend, Cheryl got me hooked on dyeing fabric. She would have the most beautiful colors and I wanted some of those too. This article was in the current issue of Quilting Arts Magazine, so I thought I would give it a try.
After a stressful week of this, I wanted to do something fun and creative!
My husband is a builder and it is amazing how many times his stuff comes in handy for quilting. He also uses my rulers for counting drywall on plans and has been known to wield a rotary cutter,so it is a win win! He set me up with some plywood on saw horses and even had plastic drop cloths needed for this method. I recommend doing this in the yard and not on your deck as my friend, Cynthia found out! It is messy.
I mixed up the dyes to make 12 different colors. I liked using the Ball canning jars as it was a little breezy and they worked as paper weights on the plastic too. You could also see the colors which was nice.
I used this book and liked it very much. The instructions are clear and easy.
The idea is that you lay down a piece of plastic and place your prepared fabric on top.
Pour the dye on the fabric, mush it in, smooth it out and place a piece of plastic on top of it, lay the next piece of fabric down and continue until all 12 colors are used.
When you are done you will have a stack of 12 fabrics. The plastic is big so the dye rolls off and does not get on the next piece, make sense? You then cover the last piece with plastic and let it sit until the next day.
The colors came out good and are very close to what they showed in the book. This picture is not a good representation!
Part of the reason to do this is to get a more "solid" looking color. These have a bit of a mottled look to them.
Overall I liked the technique and would try it again. It was a lot of work hauling everything out into the backyard. Clean up was a breeze using the hose and I didn't have to worry about dyeing the laundry room!
Kelly
