Challenge Quilt and Days of Dyeing

QBTS  periodically  has challenges and I try to participate when I can.  I have liked a couple I have done and not liked some of the others.  This is one of those "some of the others".  The challenge for me was a difficult one.  You took one fabric (and only one as I read the instructions) that read as orange.  Could be anything.  You could only use a solid orange and white (or cream or a white with orange on it print) in addition to the main fabric.  The piece has to measure between 48 inches around to 144 inches around.  You could use embellishments as long as they were orange or white.  You could also introduce no more than 2 sq inches of another fabric.

I chose a print that was very even and a very poor candidate for stack and whack.  I had another print that was better but I would have had to do a lot of fussy cutting as I didn't have enough as it was in four fat quarters.

I did the stack and whacks and three came out with one look and four with another look.  The three and four were almost identical (not quite).  I decided to only use five of them and make a table runner.  You can't believe how many times I undid these which is so unlike me.  This was because I wanted to use just a tiny amount of the black between the blocks to give them an elongated Christmas bulb look I had seen on Pinterest.  I stayed within the 2 square inch qualification as each black square is 1/2 in finished!  I used some orange I had to finish off each end.  I am thinking I will  use more of the orange to do the binding.  

Well, here it is finished!  I followed the instructions.  I would have preferred, due to my scrappy nature, to have used a bunch of oranges (which I had) but the directions said "an" orange print.

Well, Dianne and I planned to do one of our massive overdyes where you get 35 different fabrics in two dyeing sessions.  However, when we got together, we decided that we would rather do some gradations and then maybe overdye.  We planned to do this original plan in two days as we are both a bit gimpy these days.  I ended up doing four gradations that first day -- strong orange, golden yellow (but starting with only a 3% concentration instead of my usual 6%), turquoise, and a mix of turquoise (2/3) and intense blue (1/3).    The second day we overdyed.  When you do these 8 step gradations, frequently there is little differentiation between those pieces sitting right next to each other.


My results were uneven!  My turquoise and turquoise/intense blue gradations were almost identical and I couldn't tell the difference when laundered except on maybe one piece.  I assumed that the ones that had a bit more mottled were the intense blue/turq mix but not sure as the color looked so much the same.  When I did the second wash of the orange and yellow, I threw in the turquoise as well which was a mistake as just a hint of the color greyed the yellows and oranges just a bit in the lighter hues.

One of the real successes for me was when we made a mistake.  Instead of adding plain water to the dry fabric before applying the color for the golden yellows, we used the soda ash solution by mistake.  This resulted in nicely mottled yellows which you generally do not get with yellows as the color seems to spread more than some of the other colors.  Turquoise is another color that tends to spread a lot and not get a mottled look.

Day 2 was overdyeing. I had dyed 35 yards the first day and overdyed 16 the second.  So I took a bunch of the turquoise and overdyed with sun yellow to get the yummy lime greens which are always useful.  I also overdyed several of the really light ones with neutral gray which is a very weak dye.  I also overdyed some of the strong oranges that were weaker with fuchsia which as usual totally took over but was not as mottled as fuchsia usually is because of some color already on the cloth.  I am going to take a couple of these fuchsias and overdye them with strong orange which in my experience gives the best reds ever!

I should also comment that we spray basted five of my somewhat large quilts.  We were both totally exhausted at the end of those two days!!  I am getting too old to be on my feet for hours at a time even with lots of sit downs!

My goal was to get a bunch of fabrics in lighter colors of which I have very little   --   although I certainly have tons of dyed fabric!!  I have already cut up one of the golden yellows as the first border on a quilt on my design wall -- the mystery quilt -- it is perfect!