I have been wanting to learn how to dye for the longest time, now; many years, in fact – it’s on my Bucket List.  I’ve looked in to classes, but they either don’t seem to work out with my schedule or they cost too much.  An acquaintance of mine said she’d arrange for a dyeing class so I could finally learn, but it hasn’t happened yet.   So, I got tired of waiting and decided to do some research and teach myself how to dye.  I found a 6-shade value kit that is reasonably priced at www.handsonhanddyes.com so I bought it and set to work learning how to dye today.  Cindy Lohbeck, the owner of Hands on Hand Dyes, does an excellent job of explaining the process in writing.

Dyeing can be a messy process.  One of the suggestions was to put the cups for dyeing into a large plastic bin.  I am so glad I did, as you can see how the dye spilled over the edges.  You can also use a plastic table cloth and newspapers to soak up the drips, too.  Can you already see that there are 6 shades of the same color?

And, here are the finished products; 6 gradations of the Red Red Wine kit from Hands on Hand Dyes.  I had a hard time choosing just one color/package, because they all looked so yummy.  But, in the end, I chose this color for one reason.  I am making the Opportunity Quilt for one of the quilting guilds I belong to, and I haven’t been able to find the right color.  I thought maybe this would come close.  A few weeks back, when I went to Colorado, I bought fabric at 3 different quilt stores in hopes of finding the right color of rose to match some of the flowers in the main fabric of the Opportunity Quilt.  When I got them home and compared them to the base fabric, only a couple of them would work.  Well, guess what?  These dyed fat quarters will be perfect for the applique I will be adding to the quilt.

An added surprise that I found in one of the fat quarters I had dyed was that the scrunching I had done to produce the mottled effect made 2 hearts right in the middle of the fabric.

Cool, huh?