Fabric Dyeing

Another thing I played around with last week was fabric dyeing.

I have always wanted to try this. I did a very small bleaching experiment a few years ago, but nothing since. And I love the idea of dyeing my own fabric to get a certain color- plus, it’s your own fabric when you dye and create it’s color, right? But I know nothing about dyeing fabric, seemed a little scary until last week. I had recently picked up this book and just decided to go for it. Order the supplies and give one of author’s simpler projects a try, the dip dyed placemats. All my supplies were ordered from Dharma Trading, with the exception of the plastic buckets, gloves, mask, I grabbed from Lowe’s. Friday was the perfect day to give it all a try.
Following Kim’s instructions, I accordian folded my PFD cotton quilting weight fabric, rolled it, and put it in the first dye bath (above) which resulted in this-
 

 
Then I accordian folded the fabric the opposite way, and put it in a second dye bath-
 

 
Which gave me this-

 
It was all such a thrill, I did a second colorway!

Overall, much easier than I expected. Proper preparation is definitely key (wear old clothes, mask your face when handling the dye powder, cover your surface area well, etc…).
I’m trying to resist ordering more dye, but now that the dyeing has been demystified, those colors are like a bowl full of M&M’s.
I’ll share what I am doing with the fabric later this week. Have you ever tried dyeing? Did you love it? Hate it? I’d love to hear!