Properly Aged Fabrics/Fiber

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!