Friday, November 16, 2012

Special Dye for Jack-in-the-Pulpit

So my friend Alice was making a special  hand-appliqué quilt featuring Wisconsin wildflowers and she needed some "purple and green striped fabric" for her jack-in-the-pulpit block.  

"Anything you do will be just fine," she assured me as I went into extreme-dyer's mode and wanted to know how large to make the stripes, what shades of green and purple --olivey green? limey green?  grapey purple?     "I'm sure I will love anything you do," she calmly told me as she smiled her pixie smile.


I really like her and her work (she has been a most prolific quilter, only recently venturing into the art quilt realm -- about which I am extremely excited!) and I wanted this fabric to be special.  "I just need a little bit -- it's for a tiny part of the flower,"  she said.  Well, I can do that.  So I got out my stuff and decided that thickened dyes would be just the thing.  I had great fun painting them on the fabric using the little squirty thingies (pipettes) that I find so useful for all kinds of art projects.  I could hardly wait until the next class to see her and give her the fabric. 

And it took a while, but she came to the last class with this.  She said she started with a book, but some of the flowers were "incorrect."  So she had to change them.  



And here is a closeup showing the fabric I created in the center of the flower.


I am linking up with Nina Marie at Off the Wall Friday.  

7 comments:

Lisa Chin said...

The fabric you made is perfect! It really makes the center pop. Your friend's appliqué is fabulous as well!

Beth@IHaveANotion.com said...

Feels good to get back in the studio.... wet or dry.... doesn't it? I'm still not there yet!!!

Lynne said...

How exciting for you!

Robbie said...

Well you met the 'challenge' perfectly, Karen! Fabric turned out great!! Nice work from your friend as well.

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

WOW!!! You nailed the inside of a Jack with the dyes!
I love those flowers so~~there are variants in their coloring (I don't know if it is variety or soil nutrients) as a woods that is gone now used to be full of them, and I would walk through patches where they were as tall as my knee~~and that's tall.
Beautiful work, both of you!

XXOO~~
Anne

straythreads said...

the purple and green stripe is perfect JIP's have always been a favorite.
Ann

Alice said...

thanks again for the wonderful fabric and to all who commented on the applique it was fun making the blocks now to get it quilted....