Thursday, May 22, 2008

Great information on natural fabric dying

I thought I'd show you my two favorite books on natural dying. I find these two are the most helpful. This weekend I hope to start dying wool fabric, I'm trying two plants, dandelion root and lily of the valley leaves. I've used lily of the valley leaves before but it was on cotton and it turned out pale yellow, I read on the internet its suppose to be green. We'll see. The dandelion root is suppose to be red/violet. (neither of these plants are in these books) I also have these 2 documentary's (DVD'S) on natural dying. They are great, I bought them on line from the Textile Museum in Washington D. C. Their web site is textilemuseum.org I've begun machine quilting this queen size quilt for our camper. This quilt is nothing like I would ever make. First of all I don't enjoy piecing and this quilt is full of pieced stars, etc. and I hate to use someone else pattern. Also, the colors are not me at all! Why did I buy the fabrics, I loved the vintage look of the collection, especially the sea shell fabric and the collection came with a little heavier woven bigger flower fabric that reminded me of vintage drapes (the star points are some of the fabric) and it has wonderful little polka dot fabrics for the backgrounds. So, some of us in my bee ordered the kit and pattern, then we swapped fabrics, I took the bigger print fabric and sea shell and gave away my little flower print . I'm practicing machine quilting feathers and organic shapes without marking them, I also do not enjoy marking quilting lines. I'm not that great at feathers especially in triangles but I figure by the end of this quilt I will be.
Detail.
Deb, Kay and Deb C. also bought this collection!

2 comments:

Deb Hardman said...

Kathy, your feathers are beautiful!
The quilt is beautiful! I could never piece that many blocks. You're way more driven than I am!

I wish I could do some dying with you! The books & vids look interesting.

Melodie said...

I'm impressed! I do like the design process & the piecing. I'm not thrilled with the quilting! It is , however, a necessary evil to get a finished product....... which IS necessary! I have this thing about finishing one before starting another!! (I'm always really impressed when I get something pieced from Deb.....I know how she doesn't like that process!)
You're doing fabulous work!

  • Deb Hardman
  • Allie Aller
  • Jenny Bowker Cairo
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