Quilt border dyeing

I came into a lot of fabric and various other items from a friend’s mother a while back, as some of you might remember.  Most of it I found happy homes for among friends and their connections, and through the Guild.  However, I did keep all the calico and other forms of plain, undyed natural fibre fabrics.  There was cotton sheeting, parts of calico sacks, pieces of cotton fabric from which some item or other had been cut, and some small pieces of linen that  might have been intended for embroidery.  There was one piece of raw silk, too, I  believe.  The cottons joined the other fabrics that have been queued up for the soybean bath.

I have also been re-mordanting fabrics that didn’t turn out as I had hoped, and some that I mordanted with tannin to no especially good effect in the past. Here is one such piece of cloth before dyepot.

I kept remembering India Flint’s wonderful statement at the workshop I went to.  Perhaps I am quoting freely, but it went something like : ‘Everything will be beautiful when it’s finished. And if it isn’t beautiful, it isn’t finished.’  So all manner of things hit the bucket, and then the dye pot.  Others are still waiting.

I think these fabrics will make a good quilt border, and hopefully I now have enough to get all the way around my quilt.

Even the over-dyed or previously tannin-mordanted fabrics came out more interesting than they went in.  I think they will make good binding for the quilt.  They should tone in nicely but offer some contrast.  Recent measurements indicate that I have more than enough so…. no excuses, it must be time to assemble this thing!