Playing with Color

Who doesn't love some rich, mottled, hand dyed fabrics?  Well I spent some time last week enjoying the day under the canopy of trees with friends learning how to dye my own :) 

Our friend Ray graciously shared her home and lovely backyard deck area, and six of us took a class with Karen Amelia Brown who was a wealth of knowledge, and very patient with those of us who didn't have a clue what we were doing (eh hem...me).  

There was a lot of measuring, stirring, a bit of shaking, dipping...dripping and pouring going on  (This was my workstation before I really made a big mess out of it).  Then later we had to follow up with rinsing, rinsing, rinsing...and rinsing...then washing and pressing.  But it was all worth it because...

I learned how to make a rainbow!

 ...And gradations... (I chose blue for my gradation experiment, because one can never have enough "sky" fabric).

...And we did some manipulations ~ folding, twisting, rolling, tying and rubber banding.  Every one came out different, and seeing how each piece turned out was the most fun.  My friend Mary at Keep Me in Quilts blogged about it Here, if you want to see how her fabrics turned out, (and she caught a photo of me in my messy clothes). 

From our day playing with color, we each came home with about 6 1/2 yards of new dyed fabrics ~ Yea, I'm feeling another quilt project coming on :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn