Velvet handmade felt and the food dyes.

Top of the morning to everyone who reads this little blog.

In my previous post you saw I was experimenting with kool-aid to dye stuff, well I moved quickly on to Wilton's cake icing dye. Success!

I browse the Internet regularly for inspiration generally I love texture, color, fiber, sewing, and vibrant items. I came across an English Artist I find intriguing, check out her blog here.

She combines wool and velvet, huge color and embroidery in delightful and fabulous ways. So I found my muse.

Here is a tray of the velvet and wool felt scraps I dyed this weekend, sort of pretty don't you think?

It is really to bad I do not have 100% silk velvet to dye I think it would be much brighter, but since I don't, I'll make do.

The wool really took the cake dyes well, the colors are rich and deep, yeah! Possibilities seem endless right now.

Anyhow, now I am playing with ideas and testing out my applique skills. I am not certain what I am creating.

You can see in the first photo where my musing has taken me. I am thinking of cutting the design out and sewing it to another piece.. maybe a tote bag or a journal cover. my mind is still wandering and I don't know where it will end up. Yet just having the possibility of creating something new and fresh gets me out of bed each morning. I just wish I had a studio so I could spread out all my projects.... basically I want to make a big mess and revel in it.

On another note, my angels are selling quickly, got an order for 12 of them yesterday! yeah *clap, clap, clap*

Kool-Aid Dye for Fabric, Experiments in Color.

Last night I began some new experiments. I have a number of creative ideas involving fabrics, but I need color combos that are unavailable.

So I thought I'd try Kool-aid, I have heard of this method it can be used with any protein based cloth such as cotton wool, linen etc. I choose silk/rayon velvet because I want the lush texture for my plans. I also wanted cheap and easy in case I hate the results. So Kool-aid is the answer, all you need is vinegar, water and the color of your choice. Plus it smells very good.

Here is where I got my instructions

Here is a color chart for those of you who want to try this yourselves.

I think this is a very affordable alternative to expensive dyes for when the kids want to Tie Dye.

You can see in the above photo some of the colors I chose, I bought them before I saw the color chart.. so I have a small selection of color. Also please note the right hand side the "INVISIBLE" Kool-Aid.. yeah that's for making magic cloaks, it is of course it is invisible just as it states. I guess I did not see those large capital letters while I was buying. I also found the "Lemonade" to be to faint of a yellow so I dumped it and choose a brighter blue for that bottle.

Anyhow the process is very simple, soak your fabric in hot water, lay it on a large saran wrap in a pyrex. Paint, pour, drip your dye over the fabric and then secure the saran wrap. Microwave in two minute increments until the liquid in your item is clear.

Bam! You have dyed fabric.

In this last photo you can see the results of the dye over the white silk/rayon blend velvet. The pink piece farthest to the left is so pretty, I am

very pleased. I dyed it twice with the reds, once

would have been enough if I had followed instructions and microwaved until the liquid was clear. In the end I nuked that piece 6 minutes and the color is lush.

All in all I like the dyes I will be doing this again, I want richer colors in the blue and greens... It may have been my choice of fabric, silk dyes easy but rayon must not. My next experiment will be dying wool felt with the same colors. All these fabrics are for the same project, So I would like similar colorways.