Sunrise Quilt Studio

The radiating patterns on these hand-dyed fabrics are some of my favorite designs. I'm not sure why they come out with so much more pattern and definition than the other fan-fold techniques I use, but they seem to. Once again, these were dyed with some of the custom mixed colors. I now have a large stack of these hand-dyed fabrics. The question is what to make with them.

I was behind on the Saturday Sampler blocks, but finally got caught up with the traditional set. Now, the bright set is another story! I believe we have one more block to go, and we'll get the setting kit in October.

For my last batch of hand-dyed fabrics, I decided to try custom mixing some colors. These were basic mixes of equal parts of 2 colors. In the fabric above, I mixed equal parts deep purple and fuchsia. This fabric is using a mix of turquoise and forest green. This piece uses the turquoise/forest green mix, deep purple/fuchsia, as well as a lemon yellow/deep orange mix.

At MQS this past May, I bought an arch guide ruler from Linda's Electric Quilters booth to use with my longarm machine. I haven't used it much since then, but this quilt I recently completed had great negative space in the alternate blocks to create a quilting design with the ruler. This is the design I choose for the quilt. On the pieced block on the right, you can see where I drew out the quilting lines with chalk. I like testing out an idea with chalk first before quilting it if at all possible. I tested both sides of the ruler to decide which would work best with the quilt. I like this design, but felt it left too much area unquilted in the center of the block.

This latest batch of hand-dyed fabrics was done using unbleached cotton. I wanted to see if the colors were less brilliant on unbleached as opposed to bleached cotton. I don't see a difference in the colors, only in the spaces that didn't take the dye. The piece above was dyed with fuchsia, turquoise, lemon yellow, and deep orange. It was fan-folded on the bias. This piece is a fan-folded piece and dyed with turquoise, yellow, fuchsia, deep red, and lemon yellow. Another fan-folded piece. It is dyed with lemon yellow, deep orange, fuchsia and turquoise.

I decided to use some of the hand-dyed fabric I recently made to make a new purse. This purse used 2 fat quarters for the outside. I used a piece of commercial batik for the lining, and a piece of white muslin for the innerlining. The pattern is Simplicity 2396.

These are 3 of the fabrics that I overdyed. All of them had too much white in them. I had experimented with dyeing 2 pieces of fabrics layered together and these were the fabrics on the bottom and the dye didn't soak through enough for my taste. Next time I try this method, I'll have to remember to use more dye. Turquoise, Fire Red, Bright Yellow. Fire Red, Deep Orange, Bright Yellow, and Deep Green. To overdye the fabrics, I soaked them in Soda Ash solution once again, wrung them out, refolded them and placed them in their dye containers. Then I applied the dyes to the areas that were still white and added dye to some of the areas that were already dyed to deepen the color. This is one of the overdyed fabrics that really deepened in color.

I'm slowly getting the bedroom redecorating done. The walls are all painted and the quilt rack back up on the wall. What I have hanging on the quilt rack is one of the tablecloths I found at an antique shop. Eventually I'll get around to quilting it, but for now I think it looks o.k. as it is. This weekend I may be up to reupholstering the vintage chair.

This latest batch of hand-dyes didn't have any hidden images in them, but I like the way the colors are playing together. This is one of my favorites. I love the fuchsia against the orange. This is a small piece - not quite fat-quarter size. I wish it was a larger piece so the band of purple would be larger. I'll have to try this color scheme again in a larger piece. Another piece with fuchsia and orange. I was fairly pleased with this piece too. Several other pieces did not turn out well and are currently being over-dyed. I'm anxious to see how they turn out. I'll be doing the wash-out tomorrow afternoon.