I'm Dyeing To Show You!

For the last few years, I have drooled over hand-dyed fabrics. That was one of the major highlights of my trips to Houston and Paducah--especially the Ricky Tims hand-dyes. To be able to see stacks and stacks of those beautiful fabrics and take home ones that were too beautiful to resist.

Well, as much as I love hand-dyes, I have mightily resisted the urge to do my own. I viewed it as just one more thing to interfere with my quilting. However, the desire to have a piece of red hand-dyed fabric just when I want it has overcome my better judgment and, so, I signed up for a class on Quilt University. I have had all of the supplies for several weeks but have been unable to start because all of the things that have occured in my family of late.

BUT, yesterday was the day. I began with the first lesson(I'm having to remember that thing about baby steps first!) . This was about using primary colors and just doing solid dyeing. Those are the 3 on the left. And then, after that was done, the colors on the right resulted from mixing the primary colors into secondary colors. These are more on the pastel side because the first pieces took up most of the dye. I really like both results.

The next lesson was on scrunching the fabric and producing a mottled effect. I REALLY liked this lesson. The paler piece resulted from mixing all three secondary colors together.

I realized after yesterday that it was very reminiscent of my days as a potter. I would mix the chemicals together to make the glazes for my pots; I would then apply them to the pots and put them into the kiln. After many hours in a VERY hot kiln, I would wait for it to cool down and then the hour came when I could open the door and see what magic had been wrought when the glazes turned from powder into flowing color. Most of the time I was very happy and other times there were some surprises. The process of dyeing is very much like that and I am so happy that there have been only good surprises so far.