Merry & Bright Fabric Dyeing

This year may kick off a new Holiday tradition:  Christmas Eve fabric dyeing!!  In the morning, I mixed up four different dye concentrates--inspired by the holidays:  Fuchsia, Cerulean Blue, Emerald Green and Chartreuse. 

What a joy it was to extend the Christmas morning gift giving fun by unwrapping these colorful parcels!!

In my last dye session, I experimented with solid dyeing but did not track massage times prior to layering the fabric between Duralar plastic sheets.  For this session, Doug helped me label and track massage times for each fat quarter:  1 min, 3 min and 5 min.  Thanks to Doug's help, I managed to complete all the dyeing and clean up prior to the rain storm we experienced.  While I did my best to keep the flat dyeing out of reach of the rain, the heavy rainfall combined with the wind did cause a little bleeding between layers along the edges.  You can see how some of the emerald dye bled into the chartreuse layers below. 

Tracking Time and Texture

In several of the 1 minute fabrics, I observed a slightly lighter coloring, as well as more mottled patterning.  However, I did not notice any significant difference between fabrics massaged 3 vs. 5 minutes, which will save me some time and effort moving forward.

Fuchsia Findings (top to bottom):  1 min, 3 min, 5 min

The remainder of the dye was poured over fabric scrunched into quart sized containers.  In these first two fat quarters, I poured either the chartreuse or emerald dye--both of which are mixed dyes.  It is always fascinating to see how the various dye particles split apart and new colors emerge!

Splitting of Dye in Scrunched Fabrics

Brilliant color bursts created by mixing fuchsia and cerulean blue...

Spectacular Patterns & Colors

More earthy colors were achieved by combining chartreuse, emerald and cerulean blue.

Earthy Tones

These last few fabrics involve both fuchsia, blue and one or both greens.

Multi Color Mutations

I hope your Christmas day was just as merry & bright!!  Cheers!