Dye Painting Experiments and a Giveaway Challenge!

Posted on July 13, 2009 by katyquilts

I LOVE LOVE LOVE to dye fabric :). I became obsessed with it last summer and I think I love dyeing about as much as sewing! It finally got warm enough here in Michigan for my first dyeing session of the summer. I tried some new (to me anyway) techniques  and for the most part, loved the results!

“For the most part”…….hmmm…..you know what is coming! But that goes with the Giveaway challenge so I will leave you in suspense for just bit and come back to that.

First, look at this luscious stack of mottled colors that read as solids from a distance:

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 I also love to dye multicolored pieces though I rarely use them in my own work! I love the element of surprise I guess. So I have decided to see  if any of my readers would be interested in them. Here goes!

1. Yellow/Blue/Green 20″ x 30″ , Kona PFD $16

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2. 16″ x 21″ Kona 200 Muslin Turq/Blue/Moss Green $8

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 3. 22″ x 24″  $12

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4. 24″ x 22″ Multi – this picture is pretty darn close to the actual colors. It is on the dull side. $10

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5. 19″ x 21″ This  piece I love. It is very much multi colored but I love the way it is muted. It would make an awesome background piece for sure.$8

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6. 22″ x 23″ If you think  this looks a bit like #4, you would be right! This was the second piece in a layered technique.  They end up looking slightly different even from one side of the fabric to another! Pretty cool, I think. $10

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7. 21″ x 34″ $12

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8. 22″ x 23″ This was layered with piece #3 above. The bubbles create a lot of texture. Reminds me of the pics from the Hubble space telescope :). $12

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9. 32″ x 44″  Brown This piece is not quite a full yard. The colors in the detail shot are the most accurate for this piece. Browns seem to be hard to photograph! $18

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Detail:

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10. 20″ x 34″ Green/Blue $12

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I have listed them by numbers (the  number for each  is given first and the fabric it refers to is below)  so you can e-mail me here and refer to them by number to see if they are still available. Prices do not include shipping. Since I have no way of knowing how these pieces look on your monitor, I have decided that any piece may be returned for a refund within 7 days. I will refund the total price you paid to me, including shipping though you will be out the cost of shipping the piece back to me. Fair enough?

Also my one disclaimer, I rinse and wash in VERY hot water until everything is colorfast with the detergent/water/machine that I use here at home. However, I cannot guarrantee wash fastness as your soaps/water/etc may vary.  I use Procion fiber reactive dyes from Dharma Trading Company and either KauffmanKona  200 count bleached muslin or Kona PFD (78 count) 100% cotton fabrics. In this lot,  all are the Kona muslin except for pieces # 1 and #10.

Now for the  GIVEAWAY CHALLENGE!

Here are three dog pieces. Three “what was I thinking?” pieces. Three won’t you PLEASE use me pieces! I overdyed two and still think they are ugly.  But you may see something in them…..somewhere…….maybe? I will give one piece each to three lucky (unlucky?) people  with the challenge that you send me a photo via e-mail by September 1st with the results. I might even throw in a scrap of something a bit nicer :). You can stamp it. shred it, paint it, dye it, quilt it, make a coin purse out of it, just send me a picture when you are done so I can post it to my blog. These all three measure approx. 16″ x 22″ and are crying out to be made beautiful by someone!

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Okay, just to make this a bit more fun, to get one, leave me a comment sharing one thing you do to foster creativity in your life. I will pick three from the comments to receive one of these doggy….er….lovely bits of hand dyed fabric for the challenge.  Then we will wait to see what you can do with them!

Posted in Fabric For Sale, Give Away, Give AwayChallenge, Hand Dyed Fabric, Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Baby Quilt Complete!

Posted on July 12, 2009 by katyquilts

I finished the baby quilt finally. Just in time too as the shower was today! My daughter suggested I quilt it this way to resemble water or lily pads. Here is the front:

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Here is part of the back:

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It is actually a brighter yellow than this shows but I took the pic sans flash to see the quilting better. The mom to be liked it!

I did realize while quilting this that I am very out of practice as far as my free motion skills go. I think I need to do a few whole cloth quilts or something to get up to speed! I am very rusty but I guess the baby isn’t likely to care much :).

Posted in Baby Quilts, Free Motion Quilting | 2 Comments

Second post this week!

Posted on July 3, 2009 by katyquilts

I actually got time to sew yesterday too! Woo hoo! I am on a roll :). It seems there is a plethora of babies being born among my local circle of friends and family and I am in need of baby quilts. This top is likely the most simple baby quilt top I have ever put together. Six inch squares. That’s it. It took about an hour to put this together once I decided what to do. This is for a friend that is decorating her nursery with …..gulp….frogs. I can’t stand frogs. I could not bear to make a froggy quilt of any sort. So I decided to go with froggy colors.

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These are fabrics I dyed last summer. I presoaked my fabric in the soda ash solution then stuffed it in a plastic shoebox. I poured lemon yellow dye at one end and turquoise at the other end and let them run together. So in actuality, I only used two fabrics to make this top. Couldn’t get any simpler than that! This mom-to-be is not an old fashioned girl so the typical 30s repro fabrics that I often use for baby quilts just wouldn’t cut it.

I am struggling with the fact that this was TOO easy. I never make gifts that are this easy. It feels like cheating. But then again, I only have a week and a half until the shower. Not sure how I will quilt it yet. I am thinking random wavy lines from top to bottom, maybe with a varigated thread or perhaps using a number of different colors pulled from the dyed fabric. I keep thinking it needs something that looks like sea weed.

Tomorrow I hope to find a backing fabric and get it basted. Until next time.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Finally!

Posted on July 2, 2009 by katyquilts

For the first time on months, I am finally getting back to sewing…..at least a little bit! It is vacation time around here and after a long weekend of camping, I stole away to the sewing room for a bit and started to play with some strips of hand dyed fabric I had laying around. I think these pieces could be considered my very first landscapes. Here is the first one:

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This one actually measures about 5″ x 7″. The color here is not exactly right, something I need to work on. Here is the second:

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This one is a litle bigger, probably 8″ x 12″ or so. Too lazy to get a ruler :). I foundation pieced both onto a piece of Warm and Natural batting. Now I need to decide how to finish them. I am thinking about mounting them to canvas and adding a frame. Any ideas? Not sure I will add any more quilting but I reserve the right to change my mind!

So this is a start. I hope to steal a fe more minutes today to do something. I need to get past the idea that everything has to be a masterpiece and just play again. It has been too long.

If it ever warms up in Michigan, I want to dye some fabric again. Yesterday, on July 1st, 2009, I wore sweats and wrapped up in an afghan to stay warm while reading a book IN MY HOUSE! This is ridiculous! Where is that global warming anyway?

Until next time…..

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Hello World!

Posted on May 26, 2009 by katyquilts

I am still alive! I have been substitute teaching quite a lot though and haven’t done much of any sewing. Here are a few pics of my daughter’s new room that we redecorated for her after her brother left home:

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The fabrics are from IKEA as well as most of the furniture. We bought the bulletin board at a garage sale and recovered it. She also has a book shelf for her books and we are thinking of decoupaging old maps all over it.

I have done some knitting, a few pair of mittens and several sets of baby booties and a pair of socks for myself. I forgot to take picutes of the knitting bags I made for my nieces before I sent them off!

I am back to cleaning out the sewing room in between working and preparing for daughter #2’s graduation in a little over a week. 

If you need any vintage Singer Sewing Machine manuals, check out my for sale page. If you don’t see what you need, ask. I have a lot more manuals than I have listed right now. I would love to find good homes for all of them!

Posted in For Sale, Knitting, Sewing Machines, Vintage Singer Sewing Stuff | 1 Comment

Finally back to the blog!

Posted on April 18, 2009 by katyquilts

My son has left the nest! It was a lot of work getting him ready to go. As soon as he drove away, my youngest daughter was ready to redecorate and take over his room! So the week my DH was gone driving out to AZ and getting our son settled into his first apartment, I was playing interior decorator. Who knew that tan walls would take FIVE coats of paint to cover???? What is up with that??? Craziness. Plain and simple. Needless to say, the project took far longer than I planned and I never did get any art done that week. The room looks great and there is greater peace in the house now that all three girls have their own rooms :).

Time to sew, right? Not quite. My sub teaching papers finally went through and it is time to go back to work. At least part time. My first day back in the classroom was last Friday. It went pretty well. I have my sketchbook packed in case I get time to doodle next time I get called.

I did get a little knitting in. My first baby sweater:

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All I need to do is add some tiny buttons. I am wondering if I have enough pink yarn left to make a matching bonnet or booties. I have a couple friends who are expecting so hopefully someone will have a girl!  I also made a couple kniting bags for my nieces that have learned to knit. I will post pics tomorrow of those. I think they turned out well.

I also managed to enter thre pieces in our local State of the Arts Show in my town. It is juried. The last two times I entered, two of my three pieces were accepted and each time I took home an award. Here’s hoping I can make it three in a row! I will find out next week.

Until next time …. which will be sooner rather than later!

Posted in Knitting | Leave a comment

Where have I been?

Posted on March 24, 2009 by katyquilts

My poor blog has been so neglected! I have been busy getting my oldest ready to move out of the nest. He leaves for Arizona in two weeks to start school at UTI in Avondale. He will be gone for at least a year and it is highly likely that he won’t move back home when he is done with school.  He had been working full time until the end of Feburary and since then we have been getting everything in order for him to go. His youngest sister is already redecorating his room….at least in her mind!  He has most of his stuff packed away and no doubt little sister will have a paintbrush in her hand before he reaches the end of the driveway!

The only thing fiber related thing I have  accomplished lately is the pair of socks I finished knitting:

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See that little ball of yarn in the picture? That is all I had left when I finished the second sock. Whew! That was close! If it appears that one sock is bigger than the other, you are very observant…..grrrr. This hasn’t happened since the first few pair I made. I don’t know where I miscounted but I must have gone to many rounds on the foot of the second one. They also look a bit out of proportion. That is because I make short cuffs on my socks. For some reason, I don’t like knitting the cuff so I tend to make them short. I also tend to make my socks too big no matter how hard I try to get it right.

I have decided I need to learn “toe up” sock knitting. I have been watching some youtube videos to see how this is done. I made a practice toe tonight. Not bad.  The best part seems to be that I don’t have to do that pesky Kitchener thing. I will have to work more on this.

I can’t handle wool next to my skin so I always make cotton socks. Anyone know of any great cotton sock yarns?

Until next time.

Posted in Knitting, Socks, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

What’s on Your Design Wall?

Posted on March 13, 2009 by katyquilts

This is the question I intend to pose to the Quilt Art List! And I will go first. This is what is up right now:

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And this:

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And just for fun, this is what is on my main work table:

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And this is my latest knitting project, another pair of socks:

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These are size 4 needles. The pink is much brighter than this picture shows. I just love varigated yarn! This is Sinfonia, a 100% cotton yarn that I bought at Hobby Lobby. I have never worked with this before but so far so good. I am not  the greatest knitter in the world but I love making socks. The only thing I DON’T like is not really knowing if they  will fit until I have put  a bazillion hours into them. Hopefully I will have the first one of the pair done this weekend.

Until later….what are you working on?

Posted in Knitting, Ladders Series | 4 Comments

New Work in Progress

Posted on March 7, 2009 by katyquilts

Thanks for all the congrats on getting in to Sacred Threads! I am amazed even yet.

I did get back into the studio today but I am letting the painted quilt sit for a while. I moved back into more comfortable area and started working on another ladder quilt. Here is where I am so far:

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This measures about 16″ x 20″ at this point and it is tentatively called “Corporate Ladder”. The greens are a bit more intense than this picture shows.

The other day I started this one:

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Not sure at all where this is going. I got stuck and that is why I started the one above. Obviously, it is much farther along. Both of these started with strips leftover from other things. I may work on them more later today and maybe not. I am feeling very antsy for some reason and can’t seem to stay focused for very long on anything!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Posted in Ladders Series | Leave a comment

SACRED THREADS!!!!

Posted on March 6, 2009 by katyquilts

I am so excited I can hardly breathe! My first entrance and first acceptance into a real, important, juried quilt show! I got a big envelope from the Sacred Threads show to be held in June in Reynoldsburg, Ohio in June.  My quilt Long Dark Night of the Soul was accepted and my Justice quilt was denied.

I am not sure when my feet will finally touch the floor and my kids say I have perma-grin :).  They are right!

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments