Why did I hand dye my fabrics?
I don’t consider myself to be a fiber artist necessarily. While I’m great with print design, this is more art/digital art. So when I was faced with the challenge of dying and painting fabrics, I wasn’t sure how this was going to go.
The quilt pattern, Endless Summer was created for a specific fabric collection (soon to be shared June 30!) where all the fabrics were small, cute multi-colored motifs. I wrote the pattern using solid colors in the same color families as the original prints, and since I don’t have the company fabrics, I thought it made sense to use solids for the sample. However, as I picked my solids from my stash, I was so uninspired.
I couldn’t afford to have custom artwork printed, and I also couldn’t afford to even purchase new fabric. I have done a little tie dye in school and I learned a lot about the different folding/scrunching techniques from when I designed a batiks/hand-dyed collection for Craftsy way-back-when. So I thought, “Maybe I can just do some fun dying and fabric painting.”
I did a few tests with dye I had on hand, and it took me a couple of tests to understand how the color would apply to already colored fabric.
I decided to just do it. I’d rather take the risk and have some motifs and enjoy the process than use solids. Sink or swim for these fabrics!
The Process
I headed to my local craft store and bought 4 dyes in similar color families to my solids: pink, yellow, emerald, and teal. The most important thing was to pick vibrant colors, none of the desaturated versions. I really had to use my color theory understanding to take the best educated guess as to what colors would dye complimentary to the solids.
When I got home, I did a few folding, tying, and wrapping techniques to create a few different motifs. I had a general idea as to what they should look like, but there’s always uncertainty the first time around. Then we got to dipping and soaking!
With the few colors I had, I knew it would take differently to the various solids colors, but tried to keep everything in their color families, so all the pinks were dyed with fuchsia and all the aqua-teals were dyed with teal or emerald. I did have to do a little color mixing to get a coral/orange which was really a bit of a gamble (I mixed yellow and fuchsia together in various quantities to hopefully arrive at a pretty shade of coral - this was not easy and cost a few fabric cuts.)
There were a few fabrics that I didn’t let soak long enough or the color solution was simply too diluted, and therefore the motifs were simply not visible. This is where I learned a bit about painting directly onto the fabric with dye. The more water, the more the color will seep throughout the fabric which is why the super tight tying/folding/wrapping will help get high contrast motifs. The looser the wrap/fold, the blurrier the design.
Using the dye directly onto the fabric dry, actually allows the opportunity to paint or draw motifs onto your fabric as the lack of water allows the color to not bleed throughout the fabric. The hardest part about this is that the dry application does not allow for smooth brush strokes, so you are limited to more “stamped” designs. The shorter the brush strokes, the better the color will apply.
I did have to redye or re-apply dye to many of the designs to make them more visible or to create a more dynamic motif, but overall, I learned a lot and was able to create new designs from otherwise solid fabrics.
I never have to use solids again!
