My friend has a saying "Fabric and Fiber need to be aged before use" just like a good piece of beef--let that stuff sit around for awhile before you decide how to make use of it.
So when I went to my scrap bin, I found these hand dyed fabrics that have definitely been properly aged--like since 2000 or before. Many moons ago I was member of an internet group of fiber artists--I was pretty isolated in my community as to knowledge of hand dyeing--turning to this group was enough inspiration to make my brain explore many avenues in the world of design.
The group would have challenges and exchange pieces every few months--therefore, I have various techniques in my stash. at one time my thought was to make triangle bags with mine--cut several triangles and that plan fissiled out--so they aged more.
half square quilts are easy to make and as a quilt you use many half square triangles.
but, I wanted something different--besides I had several triangles cut out and didn't want to discard them--these were special fabrics from many different fiber artists.
Then I settled on this layout--I could use other fabrics between each hand dyed triangle--
some of my pieces are cut from a pieced vest I made for an exhibit--the idea has formed and we're off and running to complete this top.
not only does my stash bin contain hand dyed fabrics--but numerous pieces of hand printed designs.
What to do with those? Not sure but my brain is circling around a quilt top that is sashed with my hand dyed fabrics--it's just circling, doesn't mean it will happen--these might need to age more
And I have a bin of natural and chemically dyed pieces--lots of indigo because I loved doing those for natural day demos on the plantation where I worked.--I have made one quilt using these fabrics but that was many moons ago!
Here is a view of the hand dyed fabrics I used in the quilt--I was given this darling
sheep fabric which was nice to use as borders and sashing.
Extra flying geese went to accent the backing.
I love my hand dyed fabrics and should use them often now that they are properly aged!
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