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.
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