January 2010

Color Your Cloth: A Quilter’s Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric By Malka Dubrawsky. Lark Books (November 3, 2009).

I welcome Malka Dubrawsky, as guest author at whipup, author of Color your cloth, a wonderful new book on dying fabric using wax resist, and using your hand dyed fabric in some fun unique projects.

Hi everyone! That’s me knocking on your computer screen. My name is Malka Dubrawsky and I am so excited to be a guest blogger on Whip up, I’m popping into this space to tell you a little about my new book, Color Your Cloth: A Quilter’s Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric, and to offer you a free pattern as well as an opportunity to win something.

My book is all about dyeing cotton fabric with wax resist or batik. Now, before you say “I’d love to be able to pattern and color the fabric I use in my crafts, but I don’t have the supplies or space for that,” let me assure you that you do. How do I know? Because I do all my dye work out my garage and many of the supplies I use come straight from the grocery store. There are a couple of specialized tools, but, hey, that’s what the Internet is for. Really, the process is simple and fun and yields results that can’t be duplicated in commercial fabric – here are some examples of my recent hand dyed fabric.

[Malka's book features the shoo fly quilt on the cover - don't you love this quilt? the pattern is just one of the many easy patterns available in the book - using your own hand dyed fabric - see pic below. Kath]

There’s something special about sewing with fabric you’ve designed, patterned and dyed. I always get excited about the possibility of sewing something new out of my own fabrics and I wanted to share that excitement with you by offering Whip up readers a new sewing pattern crafted out of some of my hand dyed and patterned cottons.

Inspired by a wonderful knitted scarf I saw on Flickr, I created a fabric version. The original knitted scarf pattern called Baktus is free and offered by the very talented designer Strikkelise. With her permission, I’ve crafted a sewn version and am sharing it with you.

I’ve put together step-by-step, illustrated instructions for drafting a simple paper pattern and sewing your own fabric baktus. That way we can all get in on the fun of sewing baktuses (bakti?). Download the PDF for the Baktus scarf pattern HERE.

Since I’m on a bit of a sharing roll, I’m also giving away a copy of Color Your Cloth: A Quilter’s Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric to one Whipup reader. Just leave a comment and you’ll be entered into the drawing for the book [comments open for 48 hours - now closed thank you to those who entered, winner will be contacted]

Thanks for letting me visit here on Whipup.net.

[Thank you Malka - always a pleasure working with you - good luck on your next venture].

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