I've been working on the Take It Further Challenge project for January, although I have no pictures to show my progress. I successfully transfered the ink jet printed images of Emma Bell Miles and her illustrations onto a thin, bright-white cotton. I've decided to make 13-inch quilt blocks, and I've found that there's only room for one image per block, even though I thought I'd made them quite small. I intend to use the quilt blocks to make window quilts, so they must be soft and thin enough to drape like curtains. That means avoiding embellishment or quilting that would make the resulting fabric too heavy or stiff to drape well.
I'd planned to use my rayon and polyester fabric scraps, and also my hand-dyed fabrics, but I've found I don't have many hand-dyed pieces left, and what I have are bright floral colors that overwhelm the delicate, vintage images I've transfered to fabric. I'm not going to have time to replenish my hand-dyed collection this month, so I thought I'd take a few small pieces and mute them with tea dye. Because I always check the Web for directions, here are some links with a wide variety of (sometimes contradictory) advice on tea and coffee dyeing.
- Tea Time--Natural Dyes.
- How to Tea Dye
- Tea Dyed Fabrics from The Crafter's Attic.
- How to Tea Dye. This recipe has you add a bit of vinegar to the dye bath. Others suggest using salt to help set the dye.
- Tea Dyeing FAQ's: This is a compilation of QUILTNET postings about tea dying. Some of the contributors speak from experience, and some are passing along things they've heard, so read carefully and take the advice with a grain of salt (not coffee).
- Tea Dyeing and Aging Techniques for dolls and other hand-made items from Country Cupboard primitive folk art patterns, and many how-to's and links for various "old-timey" crafts.
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