A Note From Natures Colours

 About Annette: Born, raised, educated, and married in Alberta, Canada, where, together with my husband, Clark, we have raised two sons and are now the proud grandparents of six grandchildren.  I started weaving in 1973 and have been an ardent fan of fibre art ever since.  I’ve spent 20 years or so designing cloth, weaving, spinning, dyeing, knitting, stitching, and teaching.  After dyeing bales of fleece, piles of silk and cotton for spinning, it was a natural progression for me to move into dyeing my own fabrics when I started quilting in 1990.  In 1997 my family encouraged me to share my talent for dyeing fabrics, and thus Natures Colours was born.

 About the Products:  Natures Colours fabrics are 100% dyers cotton, carefully chosen for ease of needling and thread count, as well as for good colour clarity.  The fabric has been rinsed extensively during the rinsing process to remove any unattached dye molecules.  I suggest  using Synthrapol, LOC or Orvus paste to wash these fabrics & yarns.  Please do not use any detergents containing bleaching agents,  ‘whiteners’, brighteners, bleach or soda ash on the fabrics.

 About the dyes:  Our choice of dye for cotton is a fibre reactive dye, which is a class of dye, specially formulated for cellulotic fibres.  The dye reacts readily with cotton for more brilliant, clear colours, and excellent light and wash fastness.  The silk is dyed with washfast acid dyes, again in our opinion, the best dye on the market today for silk.   The majority of the colours are our own formulas rather than premixed formulas, thus enabling the colours all to blend with one another in the finished products.

 About the numbers:  On the selvedge edge of the cloth you will note there are numbers & letters , as well as on the wrapper.   These are colours that we have kept track of formulas for, and can come close to repeating, however, being another ‘dyebath’ there may be slight colour variations.  This is one of the unique aspects of hand dyed fibres.  Note the colour numbers of the fabrics you use so if you need to have more or would like to special order you can quote the number.  The series will change from time to time as new lines are added and subtracted.   The complex cloth pieces are hand painted, or require many steps in the dyeing process.   These are one-of-a-kind, cannot and will not be reproduced.  At this point, the same holds true for the yarns and silks.  We are pleased to accept special requests but please give us 6-8 weeks for completion.  Non-refundable deposit may be required.  Please call (403) 347-7099 for further information, or email us.  Visa and MasterCard are available for your convenience.

 Taking care of Natures Colours fabrics:  Probably our most frequently asked questions are how to care for hand dyed fabrics and if they should be washed prior to use. In our opinion, you should always wash all fabrics prior to putting them into any quilt or work of art.  Place the fabrics in a sink or washer with clear warm water and just let them soak overnight.  In the morning, rinse them and they will be ready for use.  Why?  Because the unattached molecules of dye will migrate into the water and bond with the water molecules.  This will prevent the dreaded bleeding problem.  When fabrics are produced in the volumes we produce them, time becomes an issue.   We rinse the fabrics 2-10 times to rinse off excess dye molecules and neutralize the fixer.  However, this overnight soak will ensure those pesky extra unbonded dye molecules are taken care of.   Please, do not use hot water or soap.  Just plain old water is just the ticket for the job.  Again, do not let these fabrics come in contact with household bleach unless you do it on purpose.

 We would be delighted to have you enjoy our beautiful new fabrics, yarns and silks in your quilts, wearable art, or wherever your creative hands take you.  And if you’ve made it through this whole note, thank you for your interest in Natures Colours.