Fabrics To Dye For

On Wednesday, August 20 (last week) I had the immense pleasure of participating in an Awesome Workshop by

Judy Simmons.

We met in Asheville, NC for a fun & color filled day.

Have you ever taken a class or workshop that Judy teaches?

No?

Wow! You should!

She is one of the most organized teachers that I had taken a class from!

She gave us a prepared packet of info with everything that we would need to begin dyeing our own fabric.

And copies to take to our tables to work with!

I will include pictures of all the beautiful fabric that I dyed...

including this one...

Dyed? Did I say that I dyed the above piece?

Yep...I just forgot to add the Soda Ash...

She warned us about that...

The ones that follow obviously had their soda ash...

I wanted some pieces of pastel colors,

so here are a few of those that I managed to dye.





These next few pictures were of microwave dyeing.

Judy taught us an extremely easy way to dye background fabric.

Isn't this Chocolate beautiful?

It looks like it has a pink tint to it...

This is another section of the Chocolate piece.

Look at the pink undertones...

This is one of my favorites (Judy's too!).

Havana Brown.

Look at the blue undertones...

only one color of dye used as well.

Here are more of the low immersion dyeing fabrics.

Don't you love this piece? It looks wonderful in person. I plan on using it in the 3 commissioned pieces that I have coming up.

I can just see all the different areas in a forest/landscape piece...

I had a great time that day and learned so much!

Thanks Asheville Quilt Guild for offering this class

and thanks to Judy for teaching such a fun filled yet educational class!

You wouldn't believe how much fun we had...

Hot Flashes and all...

New Things From Old Rusty Things...

I will preface everything with this comment...please excuse the blurry picture. I'll try to take more later...

Okay, most of you know that my husband and I have been rusting fabric...and other things as well.

I have been getting ready to go to the Creativity Retreat in Blowing Rock next week.

I am going to have a Participant Vendor Table with lots of rust fabric and packs of "rusty tid bits" to sale.

As an example, I made several pieces of fabric made out of strips of rusted "stuff".

I then made a wallet out of one piece

and plan on making an origami purse out of another.

Isn't this the coolest thing?!?

I love the texture, the depth of the fabric...

So, you take

one piece of fabric (I used a piece of PFD).

then add

Add a pile of rusted fabric, kimwipes, drawer liner, hand crocheted lace, vintage lace, panty hose, old tee shirts, scraps of other fabric...you get the picture here...I threw just about everything in my rust bucket!

Cut or tear strips of these items. The width or shape is totally up to you (or chance).

Sew these strips onto the piece of fabric that you started with.

Ta-Da!

New piece of fabric!

Make wallet out of this piece!

Purse next...

Check out my Etsy site for rusted fabric.

I will be adding the Kimwipes soon,

along with packs of rusted vintage lace and the like.

Thanks!

I'm a Winner!

I regularly read Quilting Arts Magazine blog.

On August 8, there was a posting from Pokey about leaving a comment to win a goodie bag of screen printed fabrics that she was going to create.

So, what is a Fabric Fiend like me to do...?

Right!

Leave a comment!

On the August 11 post, I read that

I WAS ONE OF THE WINNERS!

How awesome is that?!

Last Friday, I received the most awesome assortment of hand created fabrics

that you could imagine.

So many luscious colors, shapes and designs.

I am posting pictures and scans of every single piece so you can see just how wonderful they are!

I showed them to my son and he ask what I was going to make with them...

I hmmm around and he finally said...

"I'd be afraid to cut in to them."

Well, well, well...

and he's not even a quilter!

But, I am going to be

FEARLESS

and use them.

Wow...

I'll have to get past the Creativity Retreat first and them come up with something.

Hummers

Here at our house, we have several visitors each year. All these cute Ruby Throated Hummingbirds grace us with their presence. This year we have about 5 of them...it's a little difficult to count them when they are whizzing here and there.

It's amazing how they chase, taunt and just generally aggravate each other! We sit out on our patio and can hear them chattering and buzzing by our heads. We call these close encounters "Fly Bys"...and fly bys they are! More like "Mass Attacks" as my husband would say!

I have enclosed a few photo's I have taken from inside the house. We have a feeder hanging right outside the kitchen window , so some of these are from that view. The other location in the pictures is on the front porch, right in front of the "picture window" in our living room.

We actually have five feeders...three out front and two at the side of the house. The more feeders we add, the more hummers we have.

A couple of them appear to be baby ones...they are much smaller than the others...

Enjoy the pictures!