Brown and Blue

I am working with the strike offs for my new fabric line, Little Pink Stars, sewing a project for my Schoolhouse presentation at Quilt Market this coming week.

In previous blogs, I have shown you my favorite pattern, the rose/brown mill engraving, and a classic double pink (there are 18 pink reproductions in the line). When Bette started to put all those little pinks stars into a quilt---it was too pink, even for Bette. She went back to her vintage stash and made a few more stars. Some were taupe or brown, a few others were Indigo. Here are 2 more prints from the line in document colors.

A brown/ pink design was easy to create with madder dye by using 2 different mordants. In this case alum was used for the pink and a mixture of alum and iron for the shades of brown.

19th century Indigo prints were done with a different method. Indigo does have a natural affinity for cotton and so does not require a mordant. This design was probably done with the discharge method. A length of cloth is dyed with indigo and then 'printed' with a discharge paste. This removes the indigo dye and gives a white design on a deep blue background.