A year or more ago my dear Mother-in-law gave me three jars of dyes. A Yellow, Fuchsia and Turquoise… basically the three primary colors. I pondered and pandered about how to use them, as there no instructions or even a brand name… what fabric would they work on? Anyhow today I decided to stop screwing around and just experiment.
I did not have any extra pots or pans to donate to become a dye pot so I decided to use a freezer Ziploc bags, a ceramic bowl and then microwave the contents instead of boiling them.
I think I have acid dyes, check out Dharma Trading company to order your own. So after seeing that acid dyes are for fabrics that come from a creature such as wool from a sheep or silk from a worm. I promptly went to my stash and cut the arm off an old wool suit, cut some pieces of tweed, cut chunks off my silk/rayon, a scrap of pure wool felt and store bought wool/rayon felt.
I say dying was a smashing success. The fabrics that contained rayon are the lighter ones in the photo, rayon is made of plant and acid dyes do not work on plant based fibers. Yet the wool part did take the dye, the silk velvet is so pretty. I can’t wait to make something from it.
The moral of this story is, I should have been playing with dyes long ago. The microwave worked great, I only nuked each bag about 5 min until the water was clear. I am now eyeing all my fabric wondering if I should throw it into the vat.
Now, what am I doing with wool and felt and silky soft velvet?
I'm making my holiday gift stash… these will become ornaments. I plan to make at least 20 and I’ve just started fleshing out patterns. I do love birdies, this will be fun.
Now imagine these cute little birds made from the colorful wool felt and tweed pictured above. So cute…
I’m off to create!
I love all the prints that went into this cute little table runner. I made a bunch of cute apron a years or so ago and the scraps from that project ended up cut into triangles. I have some grand plans for all those scraps, but I left then in a drawer until I don’t quite know what my plan really was….. So after a few layouts, I decided to just commit and make something cute, colorful, small and playful.
The results are so fresh and happy, I love it. It will make a fine little gift for someone special.
Project of the day, Paper piecing. I’ve never done it, but it looks doable. I made a pattern on a super cool freeware program called Quilt Assistant . You open a picture and you make your own paper piecing pattern. The website has a PDF tutorial that covers all the basics. I thought the pattern making was a cinch. What I have not found out is if I can actually make it.
My first project will be the farm house and red roofed barn. I think I made it 12”x9” or so.
We have some fun plans for this Labor day weekend, how about yourselves? Anyone going on a fun end of summer adventure?
We are going to head out to San Francisco in the morning with a couple of good friends, I get to drag my awesome husband and friends to Peapod Fabrics. Peapod has some fabulous, cuter than possible fabrics, and I will of course be buying something for a future project.
We are then heading to Cha Cha Cha for a divine Spanish Tapa’s style lunch. Seriously, this little restaurant rocks, I can’t wait. If you find yourself in the Haight & Ashbury area, GO THERE!
Then the real party begins, we are going to booze it up, go see some Giants and meet up with a bunch more friend's, party a little bit more…. at the end of the day we shall stumble to our hotel and pass out from exhaustion.
Have a good weekend my friends!
Cytel
