Whew

I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! This has been a busy week, but still...

So, what have I been doing? Taking lots of pictures for one thing.The helicopters are fun as we have this little helicopter that has a solar battery. My goal was to capture the rotors in blur motion and stop motion.

 

And sewing. Haven't done anything earth shattering with my sewing but I did make a tea cozy for our daughter and then thought that she likely needs some placemats as well. Isn't that pink fabric great? I painted it with dye ages and ages ago and have just been waiting for the right place to use it.

All of the fabrics in this project are either hand dyed or painted with dye. If you've never painted with dye, give it a try, it's a lot of fun!

I even stepped right out of character and have been doing some housecleaning. Amazing how everything seems to be totally coated in cat hair when you get in there and do some genuine cleaning. Thank heavens the cat is a short hair!!!!

And what's next? I'm looking at doing some clothing. Yes, that's right, clothing. I rarely make clothing these days since it's so easy, and cheap, to buy clothes. But I was given two really nice pieces of fabric and I would like to do something with them. One will become a top and the other, I think should become a dress. I love dresses!

A day on the town

Thanks to my photography class, I'm having to get out and use my camera. Yesterday was a day to take advantage of some warmer weather and capture some outdoor images. Not being a fan of being cold, this has been quite a challenge for me.

However, I think that yesterday yielded some interesting results which I will share with you here. No studio work being done when I'm out with my camera, but I do seem some images here that inspire me to get sewing.

I love all the textures and lines that these photos have. And the tight palette also calls to me. Yup, I can see some interesting things happening in my future.

Sewing

What fun it's been around here! I've made 15 pillow cases from some lucious fabrics I bought at the Fabricland "Buy One Get Two Free" shelf. The pillow cases go together quickly, yield a very nice product and are terribly satisfying to make. For the pattern, click here.

We've had horribly cold weather recently, prompting a local shelter to add 15 beds so it occurred to me that they might need some pillow cases. Hence, the sewing frenzy. They're all made, and delivered and I had a great time doing it.

Of course, that left me with lots of scraps from trimming the bits off so I got busy and made some cushions for the Humane Society. They take these cushions and put them in the cages so the animals have something other than the cold, metal floor to lie on. I now have nine to drop off some time next week.

These couldn't be simpler to make. You just find a suitable fabric you don't want for some wonderful project and sew up some bags of whatever size suits. Then, stuff with all your snippets and bits of fabric, batting, worn out tights, whatever is soft and clean. Sew the bag shut and you're done!

These cushions save the Humane Society from having to buy cage liners and can be tossed when they get soiled. So, yes, they still end up in the landfill, but not until they really have done their duty!

This little burst of activity has filled me great joy and I can feel the desire to get active in art quilts again. We'll see where it takes me.

About pain

When I was in my 20's I was sent to a physiotherapist to treat a severe case of tendonitis. The pain was unbearable, the doctor had my arm in a sling and I was on some kind of prescription anti-inflammatory. Prior to that, I had the usual assortment of stiff muscles from a long bike ride or digging a garden or hiking or whatever. I had lower back pain from lifting heavy objects with my back rather than my legs. None of this really slowed me down very much.

I owned, and continue to own, any number of support bandages for wrist, ankle, knee, elbow, you name it.

You get the picture. Pain was a frequent visitor. And I certainly cannot claim to be unique; everyone I know has had pain, and lots of it over the years. What's interesting about this, though, is how we approach the pain. As a young person, it was almost a badge of honour. "Oh yeah, I've been doing some cool thing and now I hurt!" And from there we would get on with life. Often, there was even laughter as we tried to stand up as our muscles were screaming Nooooooooooo. Pride in feeling muscles we didn't even know we owned until they hurt.

The scenario today is quite different. If I, or one of my friends, has an ache, the immediate response is "Getting old isn't for wimps." Then a fear takes over, a kind of pyschological torment occurs as we wonder what this is a sign of? Is there something happening that is signalling a serious medical condition? Should we worry?

I don't get it? After all these years of injury and sporadic pain, what happens to the human brain for this shift from "Hey, I'm amazing, I hurt like the devil!" to "I can't go today, I have a sore ankle."

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating pushing your endurance and doing serious injury. I'm just wondering what happens to get this shift in attitude from the exuberance of youth to the moaning of the older adult?

The last of the dyes

And here they are, the last runs of fabric that I put through the dye pots. These are the third, fourth and fifth runs and none of them should have worked as there was a soda ash solution in the dyes which should have rendered the dyes inert.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to get the extra colour, but it just goes to prove that dyeing is a magic art. When you are using dye, you really have no idea what your end product will look like. When using paint, what you see is what you get. Blue is blue. Pastel is pastel. Bright is bright. With dye, you might have an idea, but the proof does not appear until after the dye is set and the fabric is ironed. Fun.

I told someone that I feel rather like the Medieval alchemist, Paracelsus, when I'm dyeing things. I mix and stir and wait and wonder. Unlike Paracelsus, I usually strike gold. The fabrics rarely let me down and if they are boring, just re-dye, or overdye, or print or paint. Or stitch until the thread runs out. There is always a solution.

It just doesn't get any better than that!

Colour, colour everywhere

Wow, this adventure with the snow dyes has really got me going. I knew that the dyes would be rendered inert once I put in some soda ash but tried putting more fabric in the leftover dye. It worked! Some cool fabrics and more colour than I could have dreamed possible.

Then, I decided to try it again, a third dip and, what do you know--they worked as well. And then I did a fourth and right now there is a fifth round of fabric in the dye. I've been pouring some of the colours together to try and give me a little wider band of the rainbow to work with.

I haven't taken any pictures of the third, fourth or fifth runs yet. They are waiting for their final rinse and a good ironing.

One interesting note is that I recall, in an early article I read on snow dyeing the author cautioned against using turquoise. She said it wouldn't work. Well, most of the third run of dyeing has yielded beautiful turquoise. And if you check my last posting, you'll see turquoise in some of the pieces. Guess I have a different brand of snow here. Whatever, I'm happy a turquoise is a favourite colour of mine.

This has been a fascinating experience and certainly supports the adage "What if?" Dyeing is one of those activities that really gets my soul fired up. I'm ready to approach my studio seriously, once again.

So, you might ask, what got me dyeing? My quilt group decided to learn a new technique and it called for strips of fabric about 42" long. My fabrics tend to be shorter, so I dyed. And this is what I made, using only fabrics that were dyed in the first batch of snow dyeing...

When finished it will be a table topper about 22"  long and 12" wide. And, I have someone who wants it so I'd best get it quilted, trimmed and bound.

Snow day

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So that's what I did. I embraced that blinkety blank snow and did some snow dyeing yesterday. I've done it one other time and swore I'd never do it again. There was a ridiculous amount of mess, I thought I was going to go mad trying to control the dyes as they tried to take over everything.

I happened on an idea to not use liquid dyes, just the powder, and I thought it was worth a try. Yay! It worked beautifully. It's so simple, so fast, yielded great results and I'm delighted.

How did I do it? Well, first I soaked some prepared for dyeing fabric in a solution of soda ash (for details refer to Ann Johnston's wonderful book Color by Accident) and then arranged each of them in the bottom of a plastic container. I used ice cream buckets. Heap on snow. Then, sprinkle on the dye powders (be sure to wear a mask for this step!!!!!!) I use Procion dyes which are easily available from a variety of sources. Email me if you aren't sure where to look.

Then, cover the pots, let them sit for 24 hours.

I put one bucket at a time in my laundry sink and carefully lifted out the fabric and then rinsed it well with cool progressing to hot water.

I did this with each of them and when the water was running clear, threw them in the machine on HOT with 2 tbsp of Synthrapol soap and ran them through the whole cycle. Toss them in the dryer and iron.

A tip I learned from Ann Johnston is to never, ever judge your dyed fabric until it's ironed.

You will be totally amazed at how the fabric comes alive with ironing. Another of her tips is to put a white cloth over the dampened piece when ironing. If there is any colour transfer, put it back in the washing machine to rinse.

When ironed, take a bow. You've created something original that can not be duplicated. Fun!

When I took the fabrics out of the dye, there was still a considerable amount of dye solution in the pots, so I took a chance and stuck some more fabric in, just to see what I would get. Stay tuned as I get them ready to iron and I'll show pictures next time of how they turned out.

And here it is

I've given the quilt to my friend who seemed delighted with it which, of course, has delighted me. It's always a good feeling to have someone like what you do. While it wasn't a delight to make it in response to her impending surgery, it was a delight to make it for her.

Funny how it only seems like work when you don't want to do it, isn't it? I loved making this piece. It all went together quickly and was a bit of a magic quilt. I had no preconceived notion of how it would look. I started with some 5 in. squares that a friend had given me a number of years ago and were just waiting for the right project to join.

Then, I rummaged through my bin of hand dyed cottons and pulled out the ones that tied in with the colours of the commercial squares. From there, I cut the hand dyes into 2 in. wide strips and started sewing. The only rule I had in my mind was that two of the same fabric could not abut one another.

I sewed one strip on each square, ironed, trimmed, sewed on another strip on each square, ironed, trimmed...  When I ran out of hand dye strips, I rummaged some more and found others that would work. When I ran out of appropriate hand dyes, I rummaged in my commercial cottons and found a couple that worked and pulled them for use. This meant that I really had no idea how the squares were developing. When they were all of a size that I thought would make a good sized quilt, I stopped sewing.

Throughout this, my ever present chaperone watched to make sure I didn't go off on some unrelated tangent.

Then, it was putting the squares on the design wall and seeing how it all looked. It wasn't until the last moment as I was arranging the squares on the design wall that I realized I had no idea what I was going to see. To be honest, that brought on a moment of panic.

This was the point where I was able to see how it all looked. Bright, happy, cheerful. Perfect! Just what I was hoping for. And just how lucky was that. Hurray!

Final size? A little larger than I had originally thought, but too big is better than too small. It's about 54" wide and 79" long.

Done is good

Okay, it's true--I stole that title from Judy Morningstar. It's her mantra. But you know what? It's a good mantra and I'm very happy to report that I've finished the quilt for my friend. I'm quite happy with it, it's bright and happy and cosy.

I'm including a sneak preview of the quilt but not the whole picture as I've not given it to her yet. She's facing some surgery so I figure she needs something snuggly to recover under.

I put a micro chenille on the back and I was pleased that it was quite easy to work with. I had images in my head of it being so slippery that it would skitter all over the sewing machine making my life way too hard. For some reason, I forgot to drop my feed dogs when quilting it and I can't help but wonder whether that helped to keep things from moving around too much. It didn't interfere with the quilting process so all was good.

I love how the quilting lines show up in the micro chenille. Wow!

Between this quilt and the bed quilt I made for our bed, I've managed to use up quite a lot of my hand dyes so now I'm thinking it just might be time to do some more dyeing. I might even try some snow dyeing since I have no shortage of snow.

Stitchin' away

Can't talk right now, I'm quilting my friend's quilt. It's one of those wild and wonderful conglomerations of colour. Until I had the top together, I had no idea what it woud look like. I simply piled up a whole lot of fabric that seemed to go well together and started sewing. I won't post a pic until she has it. After all, she should be the first, right?

Gotta go!