The grand experiment with the colored pencils went great. After drying for 24 hours, I ironed the whole thing and put it through the wash. I washed it on a gentle cycle, in warm water, with baby detergent, which is how I pre-wash all my commercial fabric. I also got the sunrise fabric for the Weeping quilt washed too so I can get started on the foundation piecing. Then I put it in the dryer with all of the other fabric. And the whole thing came through with flying colors (pun intended). There is no noticeable fading. And the areas that were treated with the fabric medium still seem soft enough to needle through. The whole piece of fabric has maintained it's drape and softness. Now I'm going to trim it down, layer it and quilt-embellish the whole thing. Probably by hand. First I need to decide how I'm going to finish the edges. I'm not feeling binding. But I can't picture it bound pillow case style either. I've never bound something by satin stitching the edge, so I might try that. Ahh, another project for the WIP pile.
2 comments:
Congrats on the grand science experiment. Who says we have to be only left or only right brained, right? :)
I have never dyed my own fabric. I can't let there be another obstacle in the way of me completing projects....cuz you see, then I would have a stack of UFO dye jobs, AND a stack of UFO quilt jobs. You see why I can't let myself go down that road?
There is also the small issue of I wouldn't know what the heck I was doing either.
The thing about dyeing, once you start the process you have to finish. So it's hard to have UFO's. Of course it's also hard to find the time to do it. I haven't done any dyeing since before I had the kid. Mostly because I was scared to use the stuff when I was pregnant. Now, because I just don't have the time. It can be time consuming. I'm trying to think of some quick and easy dye jobs I can do while the baby naps.
And it doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing because you can't mess it up. If you dye something, and it comes out ugly, you can just overdye it, or draw on it with paint or markers, or do some discharge work on it. Ask me how I know. If all else fails, dye it black. You can't have too much black.
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