I cannot claim original credit for most of the hand dyes, I bought a huge bag at the thrift store for $7.99! Sadly they had been starched but the dyes never properly fixed. I've been at home for the last two weeks while my car has been in the shop and I have been boiling the fabrics to heat set them and removing the excess dye. I think Rit dyes were definitely used but others I'm not so sure, pretty sure inks were also used. Most of the fabrics are cottons but some are rayon, they require different products to both dye and treat. The yellows look more orange in the photo, I made some of them myself using Rit Golden Yellow, because I'm a glutton for punishment and still have some white ready to be treated I might get some Lemon Yellow too.

If I had not been home without a car I would have given up on this project after the first day! When you look at each color pile, that's about 6 hours of boiling and washing and treating. Would not have been near the effort had it been done correctly for the products/fabrics used at the time of dying.

One of the ladies in my small group also went through a home dying phase and she still has plenty of the various chemicals along with Retayne and Synthrapol and I think I'm going to take her up on them to fix the rest of the bag. It's been at least 20 years since I got rid of my own supplies so I've been using heat, vinegar, salt, and lots of water.

Edit: I'm much more about using natural materials for dying and was originally going to just tea dye/vegetable dye the neutrals but with the artificial dyes of the colors, I decided that would just dull everything down and decided to go with school bus yellow to orange instead.

I always enjoy the people who go outside the box on their selections for a mystery quilt, and it just so happened I had a big bag of fabric in the right tones and an opening on my quilting schedule so this time I get to be one of the outliers -- wish me luck!

These are the colors I have, so far. Not much of a stash, so I have been shopping the local sales, mostly. I didn't include neutrals in the picture. That is one thing I have, plenty of neutrals. After I took the pictures with my phone, I see the colors are not really true. The raspberries are more purple than red. I did put the samples with the fabrics, so maybe that will help. Thanks for any feedback.

I think I have my fabrics. Toppling over but what else is new? They are the ones on my ironing board.

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Looks like everybody is getting there. I know I'm getting super excited and can't wait for the first clue. I love all the fabrics. This is going to be so much fun! In the meantime, is everyone ready for Thanksgiving?

suern3, your fabrics are lovely! You might want to watch out for that first med. blue being too light, and possibly the second (lightest) red as well, depending on what it winds up next to.

Wonderful fabrics, SusieQ!

Iceblossom, I'm so impressed -- with all your hard work and with your brilliant colors!

Howdy! I found my fabric! I need to take a picture, but I decided to swap some colors out. I'm excited about my choices and looking forward to next weeks clue! :thumbup: Oh...and my mom is giving me money to buy a new sewing machine...so I'm shopping for that on SAturday! Wahoo!

Kristi, so exciting! Let us know what you got.

Thanks, Lisa!

It's been a while since I've been on the board, but decided to check out this thread. I read all nine pages! Last year although I picked out the fabrics I didn't make the quilt. But this year since it is Texas themed, I'm in. My colours are not quite the same as Bonnie's and I'm using yardage, but I think they play well together. Plus the colours are the same value as Bonnie's. I decided against the aqua and substituted yellow daisies. Bonnie was here towards the beginning of bluebonnet season, but had she been here a month later she would have seen loads of yellow along with the blue and orangy-reds of the Indian paintbrush and Indian blanket. Please let me know if you think something doesn't work.
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Lovely array of colours. I see you are substituting yellow for aqua -- I'm doing the same. As to the reds -- they are a similar colour to winecups which grow at the same time as bluebonnets, so you are true to nature's colours.

I usually do 1/3 to 1/2 the units to end up with a large throw -- Bonnie uses such small pieces and hundreds of them that I usually don't want to make that many, plus I don't make large quilts. Since this quilt is supposed to end up at 82" square, I'm going to make 1/3 the number of units. I'll add more later if needed and/or add borders. Many times Bonnie incorporates a pieced border into the quilt but we don't know that until the very end.