Rose Dyeing & Printing

I love roses and grow some in my yard.  My husband loves roses too but doesn't always buy them for me.  He likes to buy them but I protest because they are so very expensive for something so short lived.  Not to mention that the cats like to climb onto the table to eat them. 

On the other hand they are so absolutely beautiful and fragrant and always make my day.  And so some years he has bought them for Valentines and some years he has not.  This Valentines was a buy year. There were actually a dozen of these red beauties but somehow I managed to miss photographing them.)

Last year was also a buy year.  Maybe there is a trend here. 

As I sat and admired the roses in the pretty new vase I received from a friend for Christmas I wished the flowers would last longer.  I decided I would turn the petals into a dye and also experiment with wrapping some up in fabric to make prints.

So one snowy day I took some pfd fabric and laid the rose petals down in a row.

 Rolled the fabric over and put down another layer of petals.

And another

Until I filled up the entire piece of fabric and folded it as small as I could.

I then tucked it away into a space in my sewing room to dry for a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile I took the rest of the rose petals

 and boiled all the color out of them in a pot on the stove.

The color from the petals looked beautiful!

Such a rich color but I thought I would probably end up with a pink piece of fabric.

I will show you photos of the fabric when I post again on Monday.