I am preparing for a new quilt using my all-time favorite traditional quilt block: the Ohio Star. The first step to starting a quilt is pulling fabrics together for the perfect palette. This time, I am creating the color palette with plants, fabric-by-fabric. In this blog post, I’m breaking down how I created a color palette with natural ingredients.
Interested in reading about other quilts I made with naturally dyed fabric? Check out these past posts:
Why I Choose Natural Dyes for Quilting
I make quilts with synthetic dyes and with naturally-dyed fabrics, and I love both versions. For the quilts I am most excited about and want to pour every ounce of energy into, I slowly and lovingly dye each fabric by hand. Natural dyes offer unique, subtle color variations that can’t be replicated with synthetics. The ability to play with the color to make tones more or less saturated for my color palette is exciting. The magic of natural dyes is also in the lack of consistency. I’ve been dying fabrics for years, but I still have the occasional piece change color in a way I was not expecting – both good and bad. Using plants and getting my hands immersed in plant dyes connects me to my quilt but also brings a slower, more mindful creative process.
In today’s world, I feel like emphasis is constantly placed on getting more in less time. No need to read, just ask AI. No need to remember anything, just place it in Google. No need to grow your own food or make your own clothing, just buy it for less at a box store. I enjoy the convenience of all of this and use it widely, but I am also aware of what we are losing and missing out on as a society. As I was picking raspberries last week, I was thinking of the cost of time and labor to plant the bushes, pick the raspberries, and wash them. Keep in mind, my kid eats 1 cup of raspberries in less than 1 minute, ha! It would have been more logical to just buy raspberries. However, during the 15 minutes of picking raspberries, my mind and body were calm, I reflected on my day, I thought about what I’d like to grow and bake next, and I listened to the enthusiastic cries of my kids and their neighborhood friends playing in the backyard. It’s a simple moment, but it brought so much of what I long for these days in my rush between Target, asking ChatGPT, and endless schedules.
Time spent in creating and harvesting beauty is worthy, every time. Slowing down to allow myself to create color through plants, to make quilts, provides a value to me that goes far beyond the finished quilt.
Planning the Color Palette
For this quilt, I started with warm, subtle colors, hues that remind me of a desert or a cold night in winter. These dyes are mostly included in the Natural Dye Kit:01 with the addition of Madder root. These are hues that are earthy and grainy and look like they are oozing out natural color. These colors are so difficult to mimic in synthetic dyes, and you can’t quite capture their magic without looking at them in person. I knew that these colors alone would provide me a good start for my quilt color palette, but the extension of how well they can mix or be overdyed creates even more possibilities. Here’s a breakdown of what I used:
- Cutch
- Pomegranate
- Wattle
- Madder Root
- Iron and soda ash for adjusting color
Prepping and Dyeing the Fabric: Scouring, Mordanting, and Dyeing
To achieve lasting color, I made sure to prepare my fabrics. You can learn the full step-by-step process of how to prepare fabrics in the Guide to Natural Dyeing.
Scouring: I prefer to scour in a large batch using my top-loading washing machine.
Mordanting: There are plenty of ways to mordant, but for these fabrics, I prepped with tannin and aluminum acetate.
Dyeing: Both Madder root and Cutch are wonderful dye stuff because their bath can be used multiple times. This time, I started with Cutch, making a strong color, followed by a lighter hue, and a third fabric turned russet red with the use of soda ash. Even with little color left, a Cutch pot can still be combined with other dye pots to create color. This time, I wanted to try a Cutch/Madder combination. After exhausting my Madder dye pot withe three rounds of fat quarters (delivering a new color each time), I mixed these two dye pots to create a new color. This is the part that I love: mixing and trying and documenting and trying again. All of these ventures and experiments bring us to the next step before we jump into the quilt: documenting.
Keeping Track of Your Progress
I am the first to admit that I am absolutely terrible at documenting my results with natural dyeing. So do as I say, and not as I do. Keep track of your process and results each and every time. Journaling on your dye trials is not only a wonderful keepsake of time, but it is also helpful in reminding you how to achieve certain colors. The best example from this dye session is my Madder dyes. If you look at my swatches in the image below, Madder started with a more saturated coral color, fading to a less saturated coral, and then surprising me by turning orange. If you are immersed in natural dyeing, you may be aware that Madder is well known for achieving the broadest spectrum of color from Christmas reds to corals, pinks, oranges, and purples. This was the first time I had such a dramatic switch from one fabric to the next.
Ready to Begin
It took me two days of prepping fabric and two days of dyeing to create 10 fat quarters for my quilt. Scroll down to see my finished fabrics. I am using a white background to help my subtle hues pop out, which means I need much less fabric than a quilt completely painted with natural dyes. I have my fabrics washed, ironed, cut, and I’m ready to start constructing my Ohio Star quilt. I’m looking forward to many slow hours of sewing, pressing, and trimming that will pull these fabrics together into a treasured quilt.
If you are interested in dyeing your own fabrics, we have some useful guides and kits in the shop.
