The Circle Quilt LIVES!!!!!

December was a month to either remember or forget. Finishing up Chemo (22 days to go) and trying to do two blogs was a bit overwhelming. 

When I last blogged or thereabouts, I mentioned that I thought I had made enough fabric but ran out a few blocks from the end. I dyed 4 more yards of the purple which wasn't too far off from the original and I could fussy cut the pie shaped greens I needed. The rest of the green fabric (3 yards) was WAY too yellow. I knew I needed to over dye it but was so unsure of myself.

Now let me remind you, I needed this fabric for a 2 inch border around the square of 36 circles with a 4 inch purple border outside of that. Then I would add a final binding. As you can see by comparing these two greens, the second fabric was WAY too yellow.

I opted to make a very weak deep navy solution. I think the Universe led me to deep navy and not wanting to be overpowering lead me to a weak solution.

This was tree yards of fabric and I whetted it with 3 cups of water and 3 cups of dye solution that was 3 cups water and one TBL dye concentrate (not powder). The dye concentrate was 2 TBL power to one cup of water so you can see this was VERY weak dye.

Here is the fabric in the dye solution to which I later added 3 cups soda ash solution. The Navy did an amazing job of knocking back that yellow and I was loving the color.

What happened next was a disaster (I thought). 

After massaging and opening the fabric to get a nice even color a friend stopped by and it sat there an additional 2 hours UNTOUCHED. When I finally rinsed it out it looked great but when it came out of the dryer I could see all sort of dark navy figuring on it. Well, when you don't follow directions, that happens. I knew whatever this turned out to be it WAS going to be the border no mater what. When I started ironing it, I had the most beautiful marbling effect of the navy (not so bold) on the now lovely olive fabric. What a happy surprise

In my next blog post I will start to do the 1 block by 6 blocks strips with batting and backing. Each of the circles will have it's own free motion quilt design including one with my signature image!!