Ideas how to dye this?

[amydidit]

I want to dye some fabric I have... it's muslin and 6 yards long... I can't cut it because what I'm making needs it in one piece.

I found this info on how to dye fabric with plants and fruits:
http://www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html
But it says to set the color the fabric first needs to be soaked in a color fixative. It gives directions on natural color fixatives, GREAT, but it says to add the fabric to the fixative and simmer it for an hour. Well, I don't think I can fit 6 yards of fabric in a pot on my stove! Same for the actual dye process... I can't simmer 6 yards of fabric!

Any other ideas? I want to do this all natural... plants, veggies, fruits, etc.

[lupineperriwinkle]

I dyed a huge piece of muslin (it filled my machine) with Rit dye for my living room curtains. They came out great, you just have to remeber to reset the machine so that the fabric gets lots of soaking in the dye time.

*sorry I didn't read the part about using natural dyes. Maybe you could still do it in a hot machine though and stir?

[ma2maya]

Maybe try a large canning pot or a big tamale pot. Wetted down, the six yards should fit.
Here is another informative sight about natural dyes.

Also the directions for natural dyeing at pioneer thinking are good but pretty basic. If you are needing washfastness and lightfastnesses(i.e. not easily bleached out by the sun) I suggest going more along the lines of the process in the above link or using a fiber reactive dye.

Kathy