Year of the Hand Dyes

I've deemed 2009 the year of the hand dyed fabrics. I really have been obsessed with hand dyeing and want to do some more. I am hoping that I will get it all out of my system and then I'll have to deem the next 500 years the Years of Sewing the Hand Dyes.

I want to get it all out of my system for many reasons. 1)I don't want to buy 5,000 yards of PFD fabric to dye, 2)I can't make fruity, sweet beverages out of any left over dyes, and 3)I will eventually run out of shelf space in my studio for displaying my lovely art hand dyed fabrics.

And to make matters worse, I've now got on order some bulk perle cotton to dye along with my fabric. You know, a girl needs to have matching thread to go along with those luscious hand dyes.

So the last couple of days I've been using up the last of my IDyes. In case you don't recall, these are the dyes you use in your washing machine. I had about 8 colors left and wanted to get them used up. In the first photo you see here, I combined IDye colors to create these two batches. I ended up with some mud colors in the lefthand group, but I guess sometimes you might need some of those huh?


Here are two groups of blues I created.


And here are two groups of greens.


And after all that, I still have a couple of colors of IDye left, although not complete packages as I like my colors a little lighter than if I'd used the entire dye packet. So there they sit, still waiting. I could throw them away, since there isn't much left in each package, but hey, I can't throw good dye away. So hmmm, I could give it away!

Here is a project I started yesterday. It will be a small wall hanging. My next step on this is to add color.


I had been working on a quilt for a few days and suddenly I decided I'm not liking it anymore. I wasn't enjoying it and wondered if it was worth continuing. Have you experienced these thoughts on a project? I decided to set the project aside and perhaps one day I'll see some potential in it. But I just didn't want to waste my time on it now.