Tray Dyed Fabrics

Part of the dyeing class I took had us do a few pieces of fabric in a tray. I have done some of this before. First I did the green fabrics on top. I ripped my 60" fabric into 11" wide strips. Why 11" it was the size of my tray. I folded the fabric like a loose accordion fold.  I did these two pieces. The first time I did it there was more yellow and some white areas that I did not like. So I did it all over again, knowing I would get parts even deeper. Love them, But I am not sure how I will use them now. 

I also did this 1 m piece in a tray. I pre-soaked the fabric in the soda ash solution, so it was wet. I then laid it over the tray and pinched the middle and gave it a spin. I tried to get all the outer edges to spin in to the tray, I think I had to help some corners in to the tray. I then poured the dye over the fabric in a cross like pattern. Let it sit and got the spiral. 

3rd Day of Dyeing Workshop

I have more photos of some of the fabric I dyed in the workshop. We did more dyeing like it was paint. Many of the fabrics are small pieces like 10 by 12 or so. I did some dye on dry fabric like the Gemma fabric, then some wet fabric like the one above Gemma, you can see the dye ran into each other so much more. 

I love this little sky with lightening. I let it dry on plastic so there are also bubbles. 

Lighter sky and no bubbles.

This is more like a fat quarter size of fabric. A good swishy fabric.

Swishy on a fat 1/4

Swishy on a fat 1/4 and not too much moving it around. I love pink and green together. 

Blue Stars in November

The Leduc Black Gold Quilt Patch has been doing Lotto blocks all year. November the theme was Blue Stars. I did the sweet little Friendship stars using some blue scraps. I love doing them. All of our blocks are to be finished to 12 1/2 inches. 

At the month meeting we post the blocks on the wall for all to see. Then in the second part of the meeting we draw a name from the tin. You get to put your name in the tin for each block that you make. I only made one block this month. 

Dye Workshop Continues

I have some more Colour to show you. These photos are from the first 2 days but were dyed by some of the other students in the class. 

Hope you are enjoying the colour!

Sara Judith was our teacher and the workshop was organized by the Focus on Fibre Art Association.

2nd Day of Dying

I started the 2nd dye day with picking the Red Violet. We did the shades, to the left is black added to the main colour. To the right is the pastilles made by using less dye and the white showing more.   

We also did contrasting colours and going though the colour wheel and not around it. So this was my red violet and yellow. 

This is my fabric when it was lightly washed and still very wet. It is hard to tell what was what in the darker colours. 

October Dying Workshop

Fresh out of the machine! I love the flash of colour everywhere. 

I took a 3 day workshop and these photos are the fabrics we dyed in the first day. 

Pastels colours

Shishy Colour

Mystery History

This is my Allietare Mystery (2015) so far. I have a small handful of blocks done. I thought as Bonnie Hunter has released the fabric requirements for her next Mystery quilt En Provence (2016) that maybe I better work on the last one. I get eager to start a new quilt but I have quilt guilt that I did not finish the last one and I want to sew! So I am digging it out and hope to get more done. You can see I made a lot of changes to the colours. Now this years mystery has so many of the colours I used here (no Yellow). 

Quilt guilt has kept me from pulling fabric out for En Provence. I love the colours she has picked out so far, so I am sure I will do it with the rest of the Bonnie Hunter Fans. I have a big enough stash and love the colours so I do not think I need to shop for more. Maybe next week I will pull fabric.  

I have started 5 of her mysteries and many are UFO but one. I have one fully complete - Easy Street (2013). I did change the colour just a bit. I used pink instead of the grey. My grey was too light and I really do not like Grey. I am so much happier with this quilt. 

Grand Illusion (2014) is a quilt top that needs to be quilted. I made another change and used a magenta print in the center of the blocks and not the yellow and blue four patch units. I think I like they way the block is a more striking. I had to do some ripping to fix that as I had half the blocks done when I changed my mind. 

Celtic Solstice (2011) has all the blocks done but needs to be a top. I really changed the colours around. I used the black as my neutral. I started to work on the rows and got lost so I have some ripping to do to fix it. So it is back in the box and needs help. 

Orca Bay (2010) is a top but needs the boarders pieced and put on. It is also in a box waiting. This quilt is a ton of little bits and pieces. 

October blocks

The Black Gold Quilt Patch had their meeting at the beginning of October, 1st Wednesday of the month. The lotto block theme for the month was Halloween and colours were Black and Orange. We had a nice selection of blocks turned in. We had one winner take them home. I hope she sews them up and gets a quilt done for next years quilt show. 

My pumpkin block, it all came from my scrap bins. I thought it was pretty cute. 

October Almost GONE?

I have so much to tell you. The summer was so busy and so was my fall. I looked at my oldest fiber photos that I forgot to share. Much earlier this year my Surface design group did some wool dying at my house and lead by me. I chose to mostly work on getting some of these silk roving dyed so I could use them in my felting. The blackish roving was yellow but there was some rust in the jar and it went a cool black colour. I am sure I can never do that again. 

I did each colour in a jar on the stove. I used the fast acid dyes that need the steaming heat. 

Outside drying is some of our wool and silk wool fabrics. 

It is out of focus by, here is a scarf Yvonne did, I think it also had rayon in it too. 

Look at this great green and turquoise strip.  

I had kind of a bad summer with my horse. Jester the Dark paint in behind has hurt himself and it was not looking good. Well I can keep him but he might not be sound enough to ride. He is finally off the medications but still has some swelling. This fall I when shopping and bought Ace the new horse in front of the photo. He is so much smaller. We are still working out some ruff spots and learning about each other. So far he is very quiet and good on the trails we did last weekend. 

I will try to get caught up in the next few days. I need to copy more photos off my phone and camera. 

Mid Summer Update

The summer is just half over and I thought I should show you what I have been working on. I have not finished anything for a few weeks but I have slowly worked on quilts and knitting socks. I have most of one sock done, Maybe I can get the toe finished tonight and then be ready to start the second sock. Pretty sock yarn colours!

Next I have been working on a bit of patchwork. Here is my very scrappy Pineapple Log Cabins. I started these maybe 2 years ago ( at least 1 1/2 years ago). I can say I am more then half done enough blocks for a big bed quilt. I will keep going. I do these in set of 20 to 30 blocks. I think after this set is done I still need another 50 or more blocks. 

I have the old singer set up in the living room again and can watch TV up stairs with the family and the dog. I hope to watch some Olympics and sew on my Pineapple blocks.