Overdyeing

During the pandemic my in person Art Cloth Mastery program with Jane Dunnewold was moved to zoom meetings. During one of the lessons we were learning about dyeing with primary colors, and how overdyeing those colors affects other colors. It was fascinating and I had a lot of fun creating my pieces. I had decided to manipulate my fabrics using a folded Shibori technique: a double fan fold, and then rubber banding them together to create little bundles. 

By doing this there were areas of the fabric that the dye didn't reach (resisted) and so when I overdyed them the dye was overdyeing the dyed and not dyed fabric. I ended up creating a plaid-like design. I had been very good at labeling everything and taking photos of my samples which were long strips of fabric. 

Two of my 15 sets of overdyed fabrics.

A few years later I was going to teach a few Shibori techniques to my local quilt guild, Quilters Holladay, and I thought I could use some parts of my samples to create a quilt top. The top was bright and made a great table topper for the presentation.

Now a few years later I decided to pull out the quilt top and use it to make a quilt for my bed (btw I have never made myself a bed quilt! Lots for other peoples but none for me. I keep saying I'm going to make one for myself but then I don't. Now I will?). When I pulled out the quilt it was much smaller than I remembered. Really only big enough for a good sized baby quilt in my estimation. This meant that if I wanted to make it larger I would need to dye more fabric. I thought I could get away with dyeing two different colors, overdye them and create two more large borders. I dyed 5 yards of fabric in 10" strips. About half in Navy overdyed in Neutral Gray, and half in Turquoise overdyed in Neutral Gray. I didn't want things to be too complicated. I just wanted to finish the project.

Finished Fabrics

However, when I showed my idea to my friend Sonja, she had other ideas. She printed out colored copies of the quilt and showed me what it should really look like! Her idea was fantastic and I knew I couldn't "just make it simple." 

  

Of course this meant I needed to dye another 3ish yards of fabric in 5 different colors, and then over dye them in 5 different colors, ultimately creating Ten 10" stips of folded and overdyed fabrics. This took a few days but was totally worth it.

First rinse after first dyeing

Ten strips in five colors for the first dyeing.

And here are all ten overdyed.

Now I'm in the process of sewing it all together to create my bed quilt. I'm pretty sure I have enough fabric to either make a front and back, or I could make two quilt tops and use another fabric for the backs. Who knows what I will end up with! But for now it seems I keep getting distracted from finishing. It's up on the design wall at least. 

A simple block pattern that will be finished - eventually.