Adventures in Dyeing

I have been wanting to do a paper pieced project with velvet for awhile now. One of the great things about that technique is you can use fabrics other than cotton since the paper gives you so much stability. I really wanted some uniquely orange dyed velvet, but wow can I tell you that is a way under filled niche. The few pieces I found were priced way beyond their value. I was pretty sure that you could not dye polyester fabric and looked into ready-to-dye velvet online. Again the price was pretty high and I have trouble waiting - patience is not my strong suit.

I was beyond thrilled when I found that Jacquard has an easy peasy way to dye nylon & polyester fabric!! They sell these packets of dye that you simply toss in a metal pot with your fabric. Here is what I did...

Here is my 100% polyester velvet panne from the local fabric chain & 1 iDye packet in Orange.

Find a metal pot that you can easily fit your fabric into.

This pot will now be your crafty pot - no more pasta in here please!!

Toss your fabric into the pot and enough water so that the fabric can swish around easily.

Toss the whole packet in - it all dissolves!

I swished it about with some chopsticks.

Turn the heat up on the stove and simmer it for about an hour.

Here it is simmering..

After an hour, I carefully placed my fabric out on the grass to dry a bit before the rinse.

Now the dye is intended for man made fabrics, but I wanted to dye

some lace and thought I'd dunk it in the pot while it cooled down outside.

Here is my delicious velvet panne after a rinse with some baby detergent!

Isn't it wonderful??

I can't wait to do some fall quilting with it.

And here is that bit of lace I dunked.

I love that it is not solid and there is only a hint of orange -

it is exactly what I was hoping to achieve!

This was so easy and I was amazed by how well the dye worked on 100% polyester! Initially I wanted to do more resist options with the velvet and I couldn't figure out how with a dye packet. If you have experience with this - I would love to hear how you did it! I personally didn't have tons of time (I did this during Baby & Kiddo's nap) and I didn't want to mess with harmful chemicals either.. so it was perfect. I may try altering the color a bit with fabric paints before I quilt it.

Hope you try this! So much fun and way easy!!