I Spent Friday Dyeing

As the title of this week's post tells you, my big accomplishment was FINALLY getting around to hand dyeing some fabric! My daughter and I joked all day about "getting around to dyeing" or "after we run errands, we're going to dye" and in her words: "that joke never gets old!"  She's hit the age where she LOVES a good play on words! Nonetheless, I posted about six months ago that I had bought dyeing supplies and PFD fabric but then I didn't want to do it inside so as not to have proper ventilation and once nice weather came upon us---well, it's "August Already" and here we are. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm spending the last two weeks of summer break home with my daughter, and so we "dyed!" Ha! Here's the breakdown: I had read plenty about the process, but reading and doing are two different beasts. I had already gathered my armamentarium, so we set up on my porch (aka future quilt shop and studio) and from there, it was messy and a little nerve racking. Of course, the labels warn that you should wear a mask and gloves, as procion dyes are known carcinogens in the state of California (haha, I love labels written like that) and so I figured it was safe to assume that the powders were carcinogenic in Ohio as well. So, there was just a lot of care to be taken.  My daughter dyed and painted a little t-shirt as well. In the end, it was one beautiful mess. I dyed five yards of fabric and the results look like this 

You'll notice you only see four bolts.  I have another bolt of green that was too light and had too many blotches so that becomes part of our next project.  More on that next week! ;-)

These did not come out perfect for my first rodeo.  The fuchsia has some grains, the purple has one really light blotch, but the green and blue actually turned out nice.  These are available by the half yard on my website www.quiltstorenextdoor.etsy.com for $5.50 per half yard. 

Would I do it again? That would be a resounding YES! In true Shelley fashion, I am hooked on this--it was fun, a little stressful, very messy, but the results were worth it. I ordered more fabric today and some new fall tones.  

It was a great ending to a great week with my girl. Monday, she took her first sewing class that taught how to make a pillowcase.  We came home and made a second one for her full sized bed and they are gorgeous! I'm very proud of her.  We visited the Columbus Zoo, had lunch with my husband, dyed fabric and signed her up for TWO MORE sewing classes for September and October.  That was our first week! We have one more week and LOTS of plans....I'll tell you more later--I've got a sleepover to get to.  Bye all, and as always, thank you for reading. 

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