Quilt and Dye Results

First some pretty flowers that my co-workers gave me as I prepare to leave for a few months.  I'm lucky to have such a great bunch to spend my days with.

I started (and since finished) piecing together the printed and dyed fabric that I started last week.  You can see the yellow and pink from the flowers I found in the yard.  It's been a fun project so far - now for the slow part that I like the best.  I plan to do a lot of hand stitching and maybe some applique if I have any time.

Fabric Dye and Paint Part 2.

The second round of fabric manipulation was some experimenting with fabric paint and various household objects.  I watered down the paint quite a bit so that the effect became almost batik or watercolor like.  I like the effect for this project but I would like to keep experimenting for different results.  

These circles were made with the lid of a ball jar and the small circles with the cap from the fabric paint.

The squares were just a block of scrap wood I found in the garage and the zig-zag lines are a block with an elastic wrapped around it.

It was such a nice weekend I'm glad I had a few minutes to work on this while Eliot was busy digging in his dirt pile and tossing tennis balls on the roof.  I just love this birch tree, too.  Gives nice dappled shade and the birds have a great time singing up there.  Plus it doubled as a laundry line for this project!

Fabric Dye and Paint Part 1.

Some experiments were happening late last week with fabric dying and painting.  I have an idea for a baby quilt that I wanted to test.  I have always been inspired by people going out in their yards and finding useful things growing there so I thought I would do some testing of the things I found in my yard.  

I also had a bunch of leftover cotton muslin from making some curtains so I had a blank slate to work with.  Eliot is always game for foraging, too.  

The first step was dying the fabric.  Since I was feeling lazy I didn't do everything the way I probably should have.  First I simmered the plant material in about double the amount of water for an hour.  Then I strained it and added some vinegar.  I put the liquid in ball jars with the fabric, mixed and let it sit overnight.  After re-reading the dyeing suggestions I probably should have put the fabric back into the pots with the liquid and vinegar and simmered for another hour.  Next time I will try that.

From left to right: Grass, Iris blossoms, Pink flowering bush that I am still trying to identify, and Celandine.

I had mixed results.  The grass and iris were too weak - but the pink flower and the Celandine gave me a nice strong color.  I took the fabric that didn't dye and did some experiments with making my own fabric patterns.  I'll post more about that tomorrow.