Okay, you've got your supplies out, you've got your fabric ready, it's time to start playing!
First, a few words on setting up. The dye will only stain organic material, but accidents can happen. Don't wear your favorite clothes -- this is DYE for pete's sake! And to be safe, it's best not to do your dyeing where food could accidentally get contaminated. A water source is nice to have around. I know many dyers who work in the bathtub, but I prefer to work outside if at all possible.
Now, put your gloves on. You'll keep them on until the fabric is in the baggies. Also put your dust mask on. You can remove it once the dye is dissolved and you've closed the containers that have powders.
First, we need to make our "chemical water". This is the water you'll use for making and diluting dye solutions. Take one of your 2-quart buckets, and measure a quart of luke-warm water into it. Add 1/3 cup of soda ash to this, and stir well. The soda ash will clump up, but as you keep breaking up the clumps it will disolve. Make sure it dissolves completely.
Now we'll make our full strength dye solution. Measure off 1 cup of chemical water. From that cup, pour a few tablespoons into the container where you'll make your dye solution. Then add 1 teaspoon of any of your dyes to the container. (You can start with more or less dye, but I find this is a good starting point for a dye I haven't worked with before.) Stir well, making sure every bit of the dye dissolves, especially any that is stuck on the bottom of the container -- add more chemical water from your original 1 cup measure if needed. After the dye dissolves, add the rest of the chemical water from your 1 cup measure, stirring well.
Now get out at least 6 zippered baggies, as many prepared damp fat quarters and "test strips" (see the fabric preparation page). Lightly crumple the fat quarters and test strips, putting one of each into a baggie. The crumples are what give you most of the color variation found in a hand dyed pieces -- tighter crumpling means more variation (and even some white areas), while looser crumpling means less variation. When I first started hand dyeing, I did this lesson several times, varying the amount of crumpling until I got a feel for what results I would get.
I work with color professionally, so I've never had a problem telling which piece is which later on. But you might want to label each piece of fabric with a permanent marker in the corner (1, 2, 3, etc.) so you can tell them apart after you're done.
Okay, take a deep breath - we're almost ready!
Measure out half of your full strength dye solution (this should be a half-cup), and pour it into baggie #1. Close the baggie, and, if necessary, moosh the fabric around so the dye can contact all parts of the fabric. Put the baggie where you can leave if for 4 to 24 hours. (I like to use a bucket in case of accidental leaks.)
Now add a half-cup of chemical water into your original dye solution to bring it up to the original level. Your dye solution is now half-strength. Put half of this into baggie #2, and repeat the proceedure until you have a total of 6 baggies. Each baggie will have dye that is half the strength of the previous baggie. (You could do as many baggies as you want, but I've found that after 6 you won't see much difference from baggie to baggie. Sometimes there isn't much difference between #5 and #6, either.)
You will end up with a half cup of weak dye you haven't used. You could toss this out, or use it to play with. Try tying a fat quarter with rubber bands before putting it in the baggie, rolling up the fabric, or folding the fabric into shapes.
Okay, now you have to sit on your hands for a while. (This is the toughest part of hand dyeing!) The dye needs to soak at least 4 hours, and preferably 24 hours for the best colors. I've been known to let it sit for more than 2 days when life got in the way.
You've let the fabric sit, and now it's time to rinse. Get the gloves back on, and take your baggies to a place where you have lots and lots of water available. (A garden hose in the back yard works great for me, and the dye hasn't stained the plants.) One at a time, take each piece out of its baggie, and rinse as much dye out as possible. Then rinse some more. Set the washing machine on low and start filling with hot water. Add a capful of Synthrapol and the fat quarters and test strips. (Putting the test strips into an old lingerie bag works well for me).
Look at the final rinse water in your washing machine -- if you see dye, you need to wash again. As an extra precaution, I also use Dharma's Dyehouse Fixative in the final rinse. Dry your fabric, step back, and admire your work!
What happens if there's a fat quarter or two you aren't happy with? Well, for one, you'll be the most popular member of your guild if you announce you have a couple of hand dyed fat quarters to give away! But you don't have to go that far yet -- just hang onto them for the lessons on overdyeing and "getting wild." (See, you can't make a mistake!)
What happens if you're convinced you did make a mistake? Try checking my troubleshooting page.
Now why did you make those little test strips, you ask? Because you're going to be ORGANIZED! (And this is coming from someone with severely challenged organizational skills!!) Cut a square off each test strip, and glue it to a piece of paper, preferably in the order that you dyed them. Then on the top of the paper, write down the dye color you used, that you started with 1 teaspoon of dye powder in a cup of water, and that each piece is half the strength of the piece before. Put the paper in a binder. If you have some page protectors around, use them.
Eventually, you'll do a page like this for each dye color you have. And you'll do similar pages for each lesson we do. Because six months from now when you want just the right blue-violet for a project, you can flip through your binder and either recreate something exactly, or at least know where to start ("Hmmm... I like this combination of Fire Red and Navy, but I'll make it a bit lighter.") My binder is my most important hand dyeing tool -- I really can't emphasize that enough.