Done Dyeing! Design Wall Monday

This week I blogged out my odyssey into the world of hand dyeing including a tutorial (Part One and Part two) on how Jane Dunnewold taught us how to do it.  It was a lot less intimidating then I originally thought.  I thought you might be interested in some of the results.  

 After 7 straight days of hand dyeing fabric I learned some things:

1. I need to make up recipes for chemical water and dye that suit 4 fat quarters so I'm not wasting either one
2. Dyeing this way is a lot less messy and time consuming than I thought
3. The muslin that my friend Julia had dyed and sent me dyed up just as well as the pfd fabric did
4.  Cotton easily took 6 dye baths and still changed every time
5. My recipe for rust needs less blue - it came out a really dark blue/brown
6. Adobe is really a pretty golden brown with a hint of red undertones
7. Twisted fabric makes a really cool pattern if you twist it super, super tight
8. Fabric dyeing is super addictive!

A lot of people have asked what I'm going to do with the fabric (I've been posting the dye colors of the day on Facebook LOL!).  Most of it will go into my stash - but I found that Quilting Arts is doing a surface design challenge that I might participate in.  It seems fun since you can use any original surface design technique you want, yours gets swapped with someone else's so you can see what work they are doing AND you have a chance of getting one of yours published.  Not to mention the deadline isn't till November so there is plenty of time!  Sound fun???  Who else is in???

I guess I gotta get back to my sewing machine - she's lonely without me - enjoy more great design boards at Judy's Patchworks.