The bag I made last week used fabric I bought in Ikea. At the same time I picked up a metre of a similar pattern with birds on. It was a lot thinner quality and quite cheap and it was white with black and grey line drawings on it. Well, you can see what I did to it today. On a whim, as ever, I was reading an article about overdyeing pre-patterned fabrics and thought 'Aha - I could do some of that today.....' So, in my usual serendipitous fashion I prepared a dye bath and although I always wear a dust mask until the dye is in solution, I forgot to put on my gloves so my hands are a lovely pale blue colour at present.
All dyers know that fabric should be prewashed before dyeing to remove size or dressing but this material was so cheap I just went for it and omitted this step. The first piece went in a terracotta dye bath but I didn't like the result. It was a bit patchy and although I am happy with 'patchy' usually, this did not suit. The second dye bath was a bit of Peacock Blue and a touch of Riviera Blue added - as you can see, I'm not a great measurer either - hence the fact that most of my dyeing is non-repeatable! I think it will dry quite a touch lighter than it appears on my washing line but I also put the terracotta piece into the blue dye for a quick dip. This changed it to a patchy brown which will also dry lighter. When they're both dry I'll decide what to do with it.
Right now my priority is getting my hands back to their normal colour.......
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