Cool Colors, Hot Summer

It's still hot here, just barely starting to cool down. It's a real tease, feeling the whiff of cool air in the early morning before it heats up for the day!  I have two quilts this week in a cool color palette.  This first one is a do. Good Stitches NURTURE circle quilt from a few years ago.  

Everyone made about (8) 1" wide strips joined into a panel and these were joined into the quilt top by Briawna. Ultimately life happened and the top didn't get quilted, so Pam was kind enough to finish that step.  This would be a great use of scrap strings; 1.5" is one of the sizes I cut my leftover strings to, which is what this is made with.  But I think it would be a real bear to tackle as an individual instead of a group!

This quilt came from the Sunshine Guild, who have started to support CiL.  The top was made by Peggy, quilted by Beth, and bound and mailed by Carol.  Thank you ladies, it's lovely!

I've got my annual tie-dye bug again.  I made these shirts for the sons of a friend of mine. 

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 800 so far! The September/October drive is running now, check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

Cyanotype Sun Dyeing (Etsy)

A post on Tuesday! How odd! Not to alarm you, but I just wanted to share the results of my latest dyeing experiment.  I made 3 sets of onesies using flowers and plants from the Texas spring bloom and Sun Reactive Dye.  I've put them in my Etsy shop if anyone would like one (or two!)

You can see in this image how the dyeing process works.  I work inside in low-light conditions, similar to developing photos, to apply to dye and place the botanicals where I want them. The dye goes on completely clear.  A pane of glass helps hold everything in places while it is exposed to the sunlight for ten minutes outside.  

Where the dye is exposed to sunlight it "activates", fading slowly from clear to tan to purple and into a deep indigo.  Wherever the sunlight is blocked the dye remains invisible and is able to be washed out with a special detergent.  Using objects that are taller or more 3-dimensional can create shades  with different degrees of blue-ness.

This is a really fun method of dyeing. I like all the variables that the "natural" elements bring.  If a cloud passes over while I'm exposing the blue may come out lighter, or later in the day when the sun moves fast the edges of the image become less distinct.

For some of the more delicate images, like these pink flowers, I placed them down with tweezers.  The cats were *way* too helpful with this as you can imagine.  The presence of plants inside the house was too much for them to pass up.  

If any of you would like one of these for your family or as a gift I made 12 in a variety of sizes and they are listed for sale in my Etsy shop.  (FYI - Sales from Etsy don't support CiL (except indirectly, as they support me)).  I have ordered some more dye and looking forward to playing more soon!

Hooray for Louise

Louise has been putting her time at home to good use finishing quilts for Covered in Love at quite the rate! For anyone who is unfamiliar, Louise and I have had an arrangement for a while where I ship her UFOs and orphan blocks donated to CiL and she recombines them to make beautiful finished quilts!

You can read more from Louise about how she put together the first 3 quilts on this post on her blog here.

She has a real knack for matching different projects and fabrics and I love her FMQ!

These Christmas Geese and coordinating Christmas fabrics came from Priscilla.  Holiday themed quilts can be hard to place with the right family, but Christmas quilts have landed in just the right place before. 

So many beloved family matriarchs make Christmas such a special time of the year that Christmas memories are tightly connected to that loved one in family members' minds.

This jelly roll race top also came from Priscilla and the blocks down the middle came from Jan.  Amazingly, the colors are a perfect match!

For the final three quilts in this post you can read what Louise has to say about them here.

I LOVE this ocean-y blue quilt. The hunters star blocks in the middle are leftover from a CiL block drive a few years ago. The FMQ around the boats is too cool!

This red, white, and blue quilt combined a lot of different people's blocks to make a homey sampler.

Scrappy centers in the middle of these stars.

Lastly, this string quilt with the nine patches in the corners favors red, white, and blue tones and the sashing has fireworks on it.

You probably already know that I love string quilts because of all the different little scraps of fabrics there are to spy!

As always, Louise is one of my quilting heroes!  I hope you all had a very happy holiday. I found time for some fabric dyeing experimentation, my first time using sun reactive dyes.

Covered in Love is a 501(c)(3) charity that donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 700 so far! The Nov/Dec drive is going on now.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved. 

 

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

Patriotic & Pretty

More finishes for Covered in Love!  Susan and Theresa sent in these two tops and Angie and I quilted them.

Susan from California made this lovely patriotic top with vintage-looking fabrics.  She also sent along backing and binding, so it was a quick finish for me.

This pretty pink and green top is the second to last of Theresa's tops.  I thought we were done already, but I forgot I'd given a couple to other quilters to finish. Angie from Texas did this one.

The tops is flannel and quilted up lovely and soft with swirls by Angie.

Sandra had sent in a perfect pink backing that found a home on this one!

Thanks Susan, Angie, Theresa, and Sandra!

Summer means experiments with tie-dye; I was going for a fish scale design

Covered in Love donates quilts to patients dying in the hospital, over 300 so far! Our block drives are back on track and July/August is the annual "Oh My Stars!" drive.  Check out the main post HERE if you want to get involved.

Linking to  Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday

More Baby Shibori

You may have seen my post a few weeks ago about my experiments with Shibori dyeing.   You can either look at my previous post or Google "nui-shibori" to see more about how these designs are made.  In the meanwhile I've I added a bottle of red dye to my stash and have tried a few more techniques.

For both of the onesies above I sewed through only the front or back of the onesie at a time, rather than through the front and back layers together. The designs come out a little bit finer when sewing through only one layer and it allows to put different designs on the front and back. The back of the heart onesie is below.

The heart onesie has already found its baby and is in use, along with the jellyfish onesie from the previous post :)  Nothing makes a crafter happier.  The faded heart t-shirt below is getting regular use already, too.  The fade is created by clipping the shirt to the edge of the dye bath and lowering a bit more in every ten minutes. 

For this one I did sew through all the layers at once, so you can see above how the back looks.

The t-shirt above was purely an experiment, with a stitch pattern in sort of a zigzag. It didn't come out like I expected (when do they ever) but after rinsing I liked the effect.

For both of these I sewed through the front and back layers.  You can see their backsides below.  I wasn't aiming for an American flag effect with the one on the left (I was actually thinking of those sliders on a sound control board), but I think now that I know the technique I could probably make one. 

Fixing up this post has given me several new ideas and inspired me to get back to stitching!  I hope you're all having a fantastic summer. I'm going to be back to my sewing machine and a considerable stack of mail very soon, so you can all brace yourselves for plenty of CiL posts coming soon!

Please enjoy these photos of Jovie, the prettiest princess

The new Covered in Love block drive is running now and it's a red, white, and blue star free-for-all.  This drive will run until the end of August if you want to help out.  More info here! 

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Listening to... I was introduced to Tex-Mex music this summer. A mix of traditional Mexican music with Bavarian influences that German immigrants brought to south Texas.

Shibori Dyeing Experiments

I've been away from my sewing machine, except for one week, since mid-May.  I'm getting itchy fingers to say the least!  Last week I decided it was time to do some therapeutic crafting and hit up Walmart for some white onesies, dye and thread.

I've been wanting to experiment with the Shibori thread resist technique, called Nui Shibori, for a long time. I wasn't sure it would work well on fabric with such an open weave since it's usually done on fabrics with a very tight weave similar to what is used for batiking.

Happily, as you can see, it worked well! I drew the designs first in washable marker and then stitched over them.  The pic above is of the jellyfish onesie.  After stitching you draw the threads up tight and tie them (like cinching the rubber bands in regular tie dye.

For this one, with the "tentacle" looking stripes I sewed through the front and back layers at the same time.

I really liked this "fish scales" one with a faded dye technique. I just clipped the onesie to the side of my dye bath and lowered it further in every ten minutes until it was done.

The tentacle-looking stitch pattern inspired this onesie called "Octo-hug" or "An Octopus Ate My Baby!"  Can you see the octopus on the back wrapping his tentacles around? 

Front of "Octo-hug"

I learned a lot from making this one and I will definitely do another version, which will hopefully come out even better.

There is at least an hour of stitching and tying in even the relatively simple designs so I am working on these slowly and doing small dye batches of about three at a time.  This week I'm going to pick up a new dye color and hopefully find a bottle of Retayne to help set the dye.  Can't wait to gift these soon!

The new Covered in Love block drive just began and it's a red, white, and blue star free-for-all.  This drive will run until the end of August if you want to help out.  We gift quilts to the family member of patients dying in the hospital. More info here! 

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Listening to... OK GO (those guys with the killer music videos)