Tag Archives | Dyed Fabrics

Over Dyeing Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on June 15, 2021 in Uncategorized

When dyeing fabric, there are always a few fabrics that don’t quite match my intentions. When that happens, I consider over dyeing them. Which simply means dyeing the whole piece a second time.

The background color on this one was just too pale for my liking.

So, I over dyed it with a diluted red.

Truly. It really was diluted! But, apparently it was stronger than I realized. No worries. I like it better than before and I’ll definitely be able to use it. Maybe I’ll soften it with a subtle stamped design in white.

This green fabric was not bad except for the red lines I had drawn on. They made it really ugly.

I decided to embrace the red theme by over dyeing with orange.

Hmm, well it’s better, I think. Very usable, but not that exciting. I think I’ll draw on some dark blue or black circles.

Did I mention that dyeing fabric requires patience? Yep. Patience to wait to wash out fabrics and then patience when additional steps or corrections are needed. It sure is fun, though!

Ellen Lindner

Updated July 1, 2021:

I used white transparent fabric paint and stenciled a ginkgo leaf design onto the red fabric.

I also used the stencil as a guide for drawing additional leaves with a permanent marker. I really like the effect. I think I’ll be doing more of that.

Dyeing Fabrics in Beet Colors

By Ellen Lindner on June 12, 2021 in Uncategorized

After seeing a photo of a red beet along with a yellow one, I got the idea to make a quilt in those colors. I set out to dye fabrics in a variety of beet/berry colors, along with some dull yellow ones. Thankfully, I had already done quite a bit of color swatching, so I was able to refer to my results as a reference.

These are my final results, and I’m quite happy with them.

I was really thankful for the color swatches. That’s because wet dye always looks different from the washed and dried version. Especially with strong colors.

Take this piece, for example. I was aiming for a variety of beet/berry/grape colors, all in the same fabric. Although it was hard to see the variations in colors, I trusted my swatches and mixed the fabric dye colors accordingly. This is what it looked like. NOT reassuring!

But, this is what it looked like dry – almost exactly what I wanted.

It turns out that my dye mixture was a little thin, so the stencil motif blurred somewhat. But, actually, I like the imperfect effect quite a bit. Here’s a detail shot.

I’m looking forward to using these fabrics!

Ellen Lindner
P.S. The color swatching is an exercise in the book Colour Your Palette, by Leah Higgins.

“Party Chatter” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on May 30, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’ve been having fun working on my “sour dough” quilt.

First, I decided on the placement of the leftover blocks. I cut a few of them into smaller units.

I’m a believer in this quote from Sally Sellers, “It only takes a little ugly; just enough to make the other colors sing.” So, should I add a little ugly? I decided a small amount of yellow would do the trick.

A nice start. Then, I added even more.

I like it. What do you think?

Finally, I added the skinny dark teal strips. Because they’re so high contrast, they add a lot of drama, and really make the composition.

In the photo above, I started quilting it. I had lots of good suggestions about a title. But, to me, it seemed to represent some sort of social interaction. A lively, happy one. So, the name “Party Chatter” seemed to fit. Here’s the finished piece.

Check out my website for a detail shot and other information.

What do you think about adding a little bit of ugly?

Ellen Lindner

A “Sour Dough” Quilt

By Ellen Lindner on May 29, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’ve never made sour dough bread, but I know that it requires a starter. And also that some of the ingredients are reserved for a future loaf. With this in mind, I think my current project is a “sour dough” quilt.

It all started with these blocks that were leftover from an earlier project. These were the starter. (Each mini composition is held together with glue.)

I didn’t really have a plan, but I put a piece of muslin up on my design wall and started slowly adding the blocks.

I immediately liked the colors and the energy of the oddball shapes. However, it was clear to me that I wouldn’t want to butt the pieces right up next to each other. Doing so would make all the shapes merge together. Instead, I’d need a dark or light fabric separating the colorful shapes.

That made me think of Susan Lapham’s quilts. She often uses white between here blocks and connects them with skinny black strips. I decided to emulate her style for this one.

Initially, I added white blocks as I was creating the composition. But, I realized it would be easier to add the white at the end. The white fabrics are also starters, since they were torn for an earlier project, but never used.

I switched to dark teal strips pretty earlier on. (And I fused the back of that fabric: very unusual for me.)

At this stage, I can see that I need some smaller pieces. Maybe I’ll cut some of my blocks or maybe I’ll add some fresh cut little squares. And what about adding an accent of a new color? It’s all up for consideration.

I’ve really been enjoying this little project. What fun things have you been working on lately?

Ellen Lindner

“Indian River Fruit” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on May 9, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’m really happy with my latest quilt, Indian River Fruit.

With the exception of one piece, I hand dyed all of these fabrics. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve found it somewhat challenging to use these high-contrast fabrics together. This time, though, I think I hit the sweet spot. I love the contrast between the large circles, the near solid sections, and the grids.

I quilted it to show off the various fabric designs:

I’m looking forward to working with my hand-dyed fabrics some more!

Find more details about this piece.

Ellen Lindner

Fabric-Led Design

By Ellen Lindner on April 18, 2021 in Uncategorized

My latest quilt has been coming together nicely, even though the fabrics are a little bit diverse. The colors, patterns, and values of the fabrics have dictated what looks good where and the fabric sizes have determined what will actually fit where.

Things evolved on the design wall as I folded and auditioned fabrics in different locations. I didn’t cut them until I was pretty sure about what I was doing!

As you can see, I was trying to move the colors and patterns throughout. I was getting close, but I thought the two yellow fabrics on the right, below, needed a darker spot between them. This is one of the fabrics I auditioned as a solution.

You can see that I decided to use it, but in a much more narrow piece.

And the big surprise: I decided I liked the quieter parts of the quilt the best, so I removed the busy patterned piece that was on the far left.

This is the final version, before quilting.

BTW, the construction time on this quilt was very short, due to the large pieces of fabric. But, it’s taking me quite a while to quilt it!

Ellen Lindner

Using Large Scale Fabrics

By Ellen Lindner on April 3, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’ve finally done it: I’ve cut into some of my favorite fabrics.

This is where it all started. I wondered if I could successfully use some/all of these hand-dyed fabrics together.

The one with the large orange circles is my favorites. Because of it’s scale I knew it would have to be used very purposefully. I looked for other fabrics with the same colors and threw them up on the design wall. I could see that the top fabrics provided nice “clean” lines and could probably add the needed contrast. I was less sure about the busy ones a the bottom.

(These fabrics are mostly 44″ long, larger than I’m used to working with. As you can see, they pretty well took over my 5′ x 4′ design wall.)

At any rate, I was confident enough to make the first few cuts, and to begin arranging things on the design wall.

Ooh, I was immediately loving it! The central fabric with the navy (by Pat Pauly) added needed value contrast. I knew I’d need more of that, but I didn’t have any other dyed navy. No worries: I own A LOT of commercial fabric!

Gee, I’ve been having fun with this. Stumped on what the name might be, though. Any ideas?

Ellen Lindner

“Water Dance” Complete

By Ellen Lindner on February 12, 2021 in Uncategorized

I’m really happy with my latest quilt, Water Dance.

Water Dance

I wanted a lot of energy in the piece, and I think I achieved it.

The detail shot shows how I added double black stitching for emphasis. I use this technique quite a bit and I think it’s effective. I always do it in a rather loose sketchy sort of way.

For this quilt I used exclusively fabrics that I dyed myself.

See more information about Water Dance here. And see it in progress here and here.

Ellen Lindner

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

By Ellen Lindner on January 14, 2021 in Uncategorized

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a specialty fabric or two can be the primary inspiration for an entire quilt. And that’s what I wanted to try.

This is sort of what I had in mind. I had intentionally dyed some large scale fabrics in order to try my hand at this. Plus, I had a few from earlier dye sessions. I thought I could do something with these, keeping the large scale pieces more or less intact, so their designs would still show.

I put my muslin support fabric up on my design wall (nearly 4′ x 5′) and started auditioning fabrics. I almost immediately removed the large circles from the mix since I thought the colors looked a little muddy.

Hmm. I could see that the light blue fabric with fuchsia leaves was standing out A LOT. What to do? (Note that all fabrics are just folded and pinned in place at this point.)

I made the highlight fabric smaller. And, of course, added the circles back. (Can you say “trial and error?)

I was loving the colors, but the composition was definitely lacking. I thought it needed some variety of scale, so I made some small units with scraps. (These are just glued to one another.)

Well, they look pretty exciting don’t they? But, how to best use them?

Those little pieces definitely added energy, but everything was looking pretty messy at this point. I decided I needed to commit to CUTTING fabrics, so I could see it all better.

Which is when I realized I had gotten way off track.

I was loving the colors, but I was having a terrible time using those large scale prints. Finally, I decided that my fabrics just weren’t large enough for this size quilt.

So, I started again, at about one quarter the original size.

I could immediately see that this was much more viable. On to round two.

BTW, I don’t fret when I have to rework something. Each “detour,” as I call them, has value. I learn from them. Typically, I’m excited to use that new knowledge as I plow ahead into the next thing.

How do you react to restarts?

Ellen Lindner

Dying Specialty Patterns

By Ellen Lindner on January 10, 2021 in Uncategorized

Dying specialty fabrics is a lot of fun. Having said that, I don’t think I’m that good at it. And I DEFINITELY am challenged when it comes to using them.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

During my recent dye session I tried to create some specialty fabrics that could either be used together or that could be used as “anchor” fabrics for a quilt.

Like these two.

I was hoping to use them together. These are each 45″ high, so you can see that the scale is pretty large. I was excited about trying them.

I thought this one could be a good anchor fabric. The motifs are smaller, so it will work more like yardage – but not entirely.

I sorta love this blue/green one, below, on the left. It has the feel of yardage, but the large scale “spades” make it less so.

The one on the right looked better when it was wet. The yellow/gold background was much darker and richer. Maybe it will need some over dying down the road.

This fabric was made with something new to me: a mask. A mask is similar to a stencil, but the pattern doesn’t extend all the way to what would be the corners of a printing screen. Which means I didn’t want to screen print with it, because I’d get bit rectangles of color, with the delicate design masked out. Instead, I applied the dye loosely with the sponge. This allowed me to merge one color into another.

As you can see, I wasn’t careful about preserving the masked designs. Instead, I sponged over some of them with a later color. This gave interesting results. See what I mean in the detail shot below.

I was delighted with the results and will definitely play around with masks some more.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. Do you have tips on working with masks? I’d love to hear them.

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Tag Archives | Dyed Fabrics

Over Dyeing Fabrics

Dyeing Fabrics in Beet Colors

“Party Chatter” Complete

A “Sour Dough” Quilt

“Indian River Fruit” Complete

Fabric-Led Design

Using Large Scale Fabrics

“Water Dance” Complete

A Fabric-Inspired Quilt

Dying Specialty Patterns

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