Category Archives: fabric dyeing

Wrapping Up Summer Fabric Dyeing

It was steaming hot here this past week. It’s the kind of weather that the cotton fabrics and dyes love. I definitely have been in love with my newfound knowledge of fabric dyeing after my Carol Soderlund class last May.

Processing the fabric in the barn

Carol recommends processing in a plastic bag for low water immersion. But I am way too messy with that. I can’t get manage to get the fabric folded without having the dye all over my legs while I fold it up for the plastic bag. Or maybe I am just too stubborn to not waste all my plastic containers.

Reds on the line

For the first time, I used full immersion for these two yard cuts of red. I ended up loving full water immersion for absolute solid coloring! It does take an hour of full tending to the pots though.

Lighter neutrals on the line

I need a few more neutrals but that will wait until a nice fall day.

Wacky over dyeing of the “ickies”

And the dry results…

Neutrals ready for ironing

Brights ready for ironing

No ironing until after I enjoyed the weekend with friends.

Hazy VT summer days

It’s summer after all.

From my garden

My husband has been with me in VT for longer than usual this summer. He said he’s amazed at how much time I spend working on my art. How did he not know this? 🙂

What are you working on? Can you settle into a summer time routine with your art or do you take break?

Done Times Two

Some things I really appreciate. And finishing the machine quilting on a piece is one of them! This weekend I finished Rooflines #15 which has been accepted into Artprize 2014.

It is always with a bit of trepidation that I commit an unfinished piece to an exhibit but the last three years I have done it. And each year there has been a moment of panic when there is a glitch. Not a devastating glitch- but a glitch. I pinned this up on the wall when I finished it before applying the binding to admire my work. And with a huge gasp, I realized I had a pretty significant skew and one of the main lines of the quilt was very “off to the left” . I felt like I needed to tilt my head to look at the piece.

major squaring needed

I just needed to be brave and lose a few inches in order for it to look right.

Rooflines #15, 63X64, ©Colleen Kole, 2014

All done and what a good feeling. I did a lot of procrastinating while quilting this because I had so many thread changes.

Details of Rooflines #15

Details fo Rooflines #15

I also wrapped up fabric dyeing and over dyeing about 130 yards. And of those about 30 were overdyes as I started off very impatient and just didn’t tend to them like I should have. I finished ironing last night and making some black and white sketches so today I will cut into theses pretties. I am ready to start something new.

Fabric Dyeing 2014

All Things Summer

I have been in VT for 16 days already and you haven’t heard a peep from me!!! So I owe you a quick re-cap. Marc, I and dogs arrived on May 31st which is the earliest I have ever come for the summer. Marc and I came to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary with out kiddos. However, i promptly came down with a tremendous cold…so good thing he still loves me.

Lilacs in June

It was beautiful here and I have never seen this lilac bloom in the whole ten years we have owned the house. I did a really hard prune of it about 4 years ago and Iam amazed that it has re-grown so quickly.

Yes, the cows are just across the street.

We had the house painted this spring and I have to admit, it has never look this pretty so I will share it with you. Off to the left you can see my chairs where I watch the sunset and have glass of wine. Come anytime and join me!

Vermont home

My sewing room is in the right front corner and I can hear those cows as I sew.

Lucy enjoying VT

The barn is in the back and to the right and that’s Lucy, my sweet one. The Lab, Mandie, is obsessed with the woodchuck and has pushed the word obsession to a new level. She is not in the picture because she can’t stop pacing… The dogs love it here as much as we do.

Crazy girl

Marc left after a few days and my daughter Hope joined me. I knew when I saw her get off the plane that she was really sick. An ER visit diagnosed the very sick kid with mono. She wasn’ t happy though as all her plans of milking cows and working as a deli were on hold. as were my plans of working away. But I was so grateful that she was home from college and not sick 11 hours away. Best case scenario if you have mono: Be with mom so she can take care of you. I am not sure she quite thinks so.

Nice neutrals in the bunch

I have been working hard. I started dyeing fabrics with my new dye knowledge. However, I had less than successful results with my colors turning out much lighter than the color swatches. I suspect old dyes and cold temps. I have replaced some of the older dyes and will see if my theory is right.

Lighter than expected-too cold and dyes old?

I am also machine quilting my Artprize piece. I did get accepted into Artprize 2014 this year and really look forward to it again.

Rooflines #15 under the machine

I try to take a walk each day and this is one of my favorite spots on the Stowe Recreation Path.

Stowe Community Church

And I always watch the sunsets here.

My nighttime view

Hope you are sinking into those long summer days. What are you working on?

What About Color?

At the beginning of the year, I set some lofty goals for myself. And one of them was to intentionally study color. I rounded up all my color books and lined them up in a nice, neat little pile. I opened the first book and realized most , if not all , of the exercises involved working with paint-either acrylics or watercolors. I made a list and saved my coupons to go buy some more supplies.

And then stopped before I bought the paints. The idea of paints really was exciting but I felt it would just be a huge distraction for me right now. Instead, I signed up for Carol Soderlund‘s Color Mixing for Dyers class at the Barn. I needed to know how to dye the colors I wanted and knew that Carol would be the best to teach me reproducible results on fabric. Not painting on paper or canvas.

So this is the week I am at the Barn.

Sorting of fabrics into buckets

Carol having fun teaching

Counting and checking before the next steps

the pretties all lined up for tomorrow

Carol is a most organized and excellent teacher. And by the end of the week, I will have 1029 samples of new colors and understand a lot more than I did before about color dyeing on fabrics.

It is worth waiting for and not jumping into the paints . Sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for the right class to come along.

The Last Hurrah

I had given myself an assignment last time.

Make something. Check.

I really made the made the most of my last week here. I finally made an indigo pot and dyed some samples I made after viewing this new DVD. Great DVD on stitch resist technique .

Beautiful scarf from Hank and Spool shop which I will add some hand stitch to. This was my functional item. I also have another baby quilt pieced made from scraps that will go to a guild charity.

I also overdyed a few duds and dyed some nice greys for my neutral pile.

And lastly, I made a huge mess and was really rusty on design. I took out another pile of scraps and spun aimlessly for two days. Then I cleaned it all up and packed it in the car to go.

I will see you after I settle back into Michigan! It has been a really great summer.

125 Yards Done!

I came back from vacation last Sunday, saw the weather forecast for the 90’s and decided to conquer the fabric dyeing. I had purchased some new supplies at the Vermont Quilt Festival and was really hoping this would improve my results.

Much better! I have already ironed about 85 yards and will wait until it gets a little cooler to finish up the ironing. I am not going to do any more yardage until I get home to MI but I do want to work with print paste and some stitch resist in the next few weeks.

But it has been sooo long since I have pieced that it is first up on my list next week.

Dyeing Days #1

One of my favorite things to do watch here other than the sunsets are the farmers cutting the hay. It has been a busy time on the fields around our home. We are here about two weeks earlier than last year and I am enjoying some of the blooms that I usually don’t get to see.

After about three days of getting settled in and walking around in kind of a foggy mood from the last month, I wanted to get busy dyeing fabrics. So I set up my dye studio.

Only to struggle with the process and colors. I wanted deep dark purples and ended up with lots of mottled and tired darks. I think I didn’t make my soda ash solution strong enough. Or I have old dyes.

I was unimpressed with my results with my results from the 50 yards I dyed. I overdyed about 15 yards and the darks still look washed out and grainy. Good thing I am going to the Vermont Quilt Festival this weekend for 3 days. I will have to replenish the dyes to see if this helps.

Winter Fabric Dyeing Fix

I needed an excuse to sink my hands into the dyes. I really missed it. With all the heavy, wet snow, I thought about snow dyeing. But I resisted. It took so much willpower to not get distracted by unnecessary fabric dyeing. And then, a friend twisted my arm to take a class with her.

Nope. That is absolutely not the truth. A friend reminded me about a class at our local sewing store given by the wonderful Betsy. So, I jumped right in.

We dyed fat eighths of fabric and I used fuchsia, deep navy and golden yellow from ProChem.

What a beautiful summertime rainbow. I didn’t spend any time smooshing and just went with the mottled look.

And this is the lovely Elizabeth Brandt who distracted me.

I came home relaxed and refreshed from my fabric dyeing fix. And then there is leftover dye to play with.

Wrapping Things Up

I finished machine quilting my Artprize piece last weekend and wanted to sink in to a really long nap. I procrastinated on the last twenty inches of the machine quilting and it just made it more painful. I will leave tomorrow for Michigan and can’t wait to see it all spread out. I don’t have anywhere here to hang it or block it in the way I like to. It is back in it’s ziplock bag for a 15 hour ride home and I feel at this point it could write it’s own little book about it’s journey this summer. 🙂

As my reward, I got out the dyes and, as a friend said, dyed a little more rainbow in my backyard here in VT. And even got them ironed and ready to use this fall.

I tried flat dyeing again as I wanted some really deep colors and wondered if I could get it by flat dyeing rather than over dyeing. It was really messy to clean up but I think it might have worked.