Hand-Dyeing Fabrics

 After I finish the Trip Around the World baby quilt, I decided to make a star quilt.  I was inspired by the quilts that I saw on the blog, Ellison Lane Quilts.  I loved how she used bright color fabrics to modernize traditional blocks, and I wanted to make some quilts in this style.  However, when I went through my fabric stash, these were the brightest fabrics that I could find:

As you can see, my selection is limited.  The majority of my fabrics tend to be muted colors in the blue, purple and pink families or Japanese floral prints, which were perfect when I was making floral quilts.  Now that I want to make patchwork wall-hangings, I need to get brighter fabrics.  My basement was just renovated, and though it gets a lot of light, I want to brighten up the space with modern, colorful quilts.

Usually when I need to buy a bunch of fabrics, I'll make a trip to Lancaster, PA, but I don't have the time right now.  And since the local fabric stores' selections are limited, I decided to dye my own fabrics. 

I dyed some fabric years ago, and still have a good amount of the the PFD fabric that I bought.  I remember the process to be labor intensive, but I loved the results.  It took me a while to find the book that I used as a guide, but I wanted to use this process because the author uses very few dyes to make a wide range of colors and ziploc bags as containers. 

The book is called Hand-Dyed Fabric Made Easy, by Adriene Buffington, but it is no longer in print.  You can still buy it through used booksellers though.  I highly recommend this book because it's so beginner-friendly and the results are fabulous!  I'll share my fabrics once I receive my shipment of dyes from Dharma Trading.  I can't wait for the package to come!