More from the Last Dyeing Batch -- the Small Pieces

I decided to photograph the pieces in groups of nine from now on as I think it shows them off better.  This is the first grouping of the Intense Blue/Strongest Red/Sun Yellow batch.  My process (or lack there of) is to randomly pile the pieces on top of one another on the grids so I never know what I am going to come up with.  I am super pleased that I am getting so much differentiation of color on these relatively small pieces.  I tried to be selective with the dropping of the spoonfuls of dye.  As you can see from all the orange and green, the yellow spreads a lot and that was the third dye I laid down.

 There were 22 in the primary pile and 26 in the blue pile.  I tried to do even amounts but great care is obviously not in my genes.  I also was lazy and didn't clean the plastic tubs or the grids before this bunch and I paid the price in some of the small blue ones which have spots of red on them.  I am already planning ways to use them!!  A friend told me a long time ago that "dye dogs" are just golden opportunities and I truly believe that!!

The second piece on the top row is the only piece in the primary batch that I wasn't crazy about!!

You can see the renegade dye on the second piece in the top row!

The following are just closeup of some of my favorites from this last bunch.  Be warned -- there are a lot of them.  It will be hard to give any of them up!!

Last Day of Dyeing up North (Unless There are More Hurricanes in the Near Future)!

Okay, this is a leftover from the last batch in a potential setting for a quilt.  I have done this setting before but want to get the math down so I can include a pattern when selling the sets.  These were the grey, black and red ones.

This next bunch of pieces are all the 23 inch square pieces.  This time I was a little bit more scientific in my dyeing.  I have six dyeing spots and I dedicated three to one colorway and three to another yesterday.  This is a  little dangerous as if the colors don't work,  you have a lot more bad pieces.  Luckily, they worked.  You can definitely tell which ones were in one colorway and which were in the other!!  The blue/green ones were a combination of Intense Blue, Turquoise and Sun Yellow.

 The  other grouping was Strongest Red, Intense Blue and Sun Yellow.  I also basically "polka-dotted" the dyes on the batches over the ice, making sure there was no overlap.  I learned a lot from this dyeing day!!  The biggest lesson was that (and I know this with regular dyeing) yellow spreads like crazy over everything.  Turquoise also spreads.  I also expected the Intense Blue to be stronger.  It was basically not much stronger than the Basic Blue I have used.  I hate to use a lot of Intense Blue with this technique as you use a LOT of dye and it is very expensive!

Aotogether I did 12 of the larger pieces in this batch and 48 of the smaller pieces (11 1/2 square).  I also did six yards of "drop" cloth, half yard on top and half yard on the bottom.  I usually just grab random fabric for these and was pleased that some muslin I had from long ago dyed beautifully as well as some 90 wide 200 thread count muslin that I had just been using as a white fabric in my quilts.  It dyed really well which was a surprise.  You can really tell the difference in this batch between the fabrics on top and the ones on the bottom.

 This was a bottom piece from the primaries.  The colors are mixed together and the white spots are around the edges where the dye didn't reach and they probably didn't even have ice on them.

 This was a bottom from the blue/turquoise/yellow batch.

 This was a top where there are white spots all over and the colors have not mixed as much and there ay even be a few places where the dye powder hit directly.

 I think this is another bottom but might be a top.  Not as clear on this one.

 This is definitely a top.

This is definitely a bottom.  These pieces are all fat half yards (22 x 36 inches).  I use these for borders on the final quilts as the colors will match with the mandalas.  I am only showing a fat quarter and you can see the folds on all these pieces.  I love ironing these all!!

The next post will show all the smaller pieces from this batch!  I will be heading down south in another few days so posts will be a little sparse for a bit (especially if more hurricanes are coming).