*Tutorial by Catherine @ CathGrace for her win of the RIT Dye challenge of season 14*
Oh my goodness you guys, thanks for all the votes this last week, I was so excited to win this week, and I am so excited to be here to share my tutorial for my quilt with you!
Because I am here in S. Korea, I can’t just go into a store and buy RIT dye, but luckily I had dye supplies already on hand. (I didn’t have any RIT, but I figured the brand didn’t matter!) The dyes I have are not an all in one like RIT is, so I had to take a couple of extra steps to dye my fabric. (The dyes I used were Procion cold water dye, by Jaquard.) I had to make up some
chemical water (click on the link for a recipe) and then I thickened the chemical water with sodium alginate, in order to make a pudding textured goop. After letting the thickened chemical water sit for a bit, I put half a cup of the chemical water into a cup, and mixed in brown dye (made from 2 tsp. of dye powder mixed in about 2 Tbs of tap water) and then just a sprinkle of soda ash (the soda ash activates the dye so it will actually permanently stick to the fabric. RIT dye doesn’t need to be activated, and would in theory only need to be thickened) OKAY now I am ready to begin putting color onto fabric!
Just kidding, I am totally not. First I had to pin my fabric to my print table (a board covered in thick industrial felt, and then canvas, in order to give me a pin-able surface.) The fabric came from one 3 yard length of white cotton fabric that I ripped into 1 yard sections, and then used t-pins to pin the fabric to the surface of the print table. NOW we are ready to dye!
For the first yard, I used a picture frame (I use the glass as a pallet,) a foam paint roller, and a Lego base plate.
I began by sliding the Lego plate UNDER my fabric, and then I loaded my paint roller with the thick brown dye (don’t forget to activate it with soda ash!)
And then gently roll over the Lego base plate, you can get a feel for the amount of pressure you want to place on the roller, as you go. I moved the plate around randomly so that sometimes it was skew, and overlapping where I had already rolled. I covered the whole yard of fabric this way. (My other two base textures, not pictured here, are the suction cups on the bottom of a $1 store, rubber bath mat, and just rolling on the surface of the fabric with the foam roller, alternating the amount of pressure.)
After laying down all of my brown, I mixed up 12 other colors (one at a time actually) in the same tap water, powdered dye, thickened chemical water, soda ash, mix as the brown dye. I ripped all of my yardage into four fat quarters per yard, (for a total of 12) and pinned 2 fat quarters to my print table surface. (does that make sense?) I laid my color down, by smearing it onto each fat quarter by hand in a swirling motion. (I definitely recommend the rubber glove unless you want a very excitingly colored hand)
Here’s what the pink and green fat quarters look like once smeared and waiting to dry. By the way, the print table has a couple of old flat sheets pinned to it, so that my canvas surface doesn’t get Read more
Hi! I'm Missy and I'll be your host. “So You Think You’re Crafty” is a head-to-head crafting competition - the first “reality” blog. Every 10 weeks a new group of crafters is selected. Each week the crafters are given a theme and YOU vote for your favorite. 
