A Dyeing Day

 Wednesday was dyeing day for the monthly sewing group.  Diane has a nifty shed that is a good place to do messy work.  The big shirt I soaked in a soda ash solution, wrapped diagonally around a 4" plastic pipe, attached with rubber bands, scrunched together, and added dye in wide lines.  The small shirt I had completed before and thought it was colorless, so I redyed it after soaking it and tieing it up with rubber bands.

These two photos are from the same dyeing process.  We used gallon ice cream buckets, scrunched shirts into a layer, added soda ash solution to wet everything, and then poured on dye.  The top photo is the bottom layer.  The other t-shirts were other layers to fill the bucket.  Let the dye work into the fibers for 24-48 hours or more.  Then you are ready to see the results. It was a fantastic fun day!

Addition:  After rinsing two buckets of shirts and several single shirts that were each in a plastic bag, I have noticed that the bucket shirts absorb almost all of the dye.  There is very little color when I rinse those shirts.  The shirts we soaked quickly in soda ash solution and then gathered with rubber bands before adding the dye needed much rinsing because there was a lot of dye not absorbed. I find that interesting.

In the Beginning

I know I should have waited until I have the blocks stitched together, but I couldn't wait to show them to you. I first saw this pattern on Facebook and hunted it down through Pinterest.  The pattern is called Radiant Suns  from Cara Gulati for Doodle Press. I purchased the pattern and the acrylic templates.  The blocks            (approximately 10 inches) have five pieces and are easy to stitch without tucks.

I love the blocks and I know the quilt will be smashing!  The blocks have color and movement and life.  I can hardly wait to finish! 

Just a Corner

This is just a small corner of the Wonder Quilt that will be unveiled later this year at a meeting of the Wednesday Embroidery Group.  The challenge this year was to make an embroidery quilt and Sweet Pea has the design that I chose to make. The quilt is mostly applique and I used batiks from my stash for the applique.  The background is grunge grey.  I worked hard to get it finished because my challenge quilt last year was unquilted and not finished.  

A Mug Rug Day

There are times when I need a little gift for a friend, so Tuesday I put my machine to work on mug rugs.  They are easy and quick to make.  I used Insul Bright for the batting to make them heat-proof. It was a change of pace from the machine embroidery applique quilt I am working on. 

It's a Jelly Roll Rug!

The monthly First Wednesday Sewing Group had a lesson about making a jelly roll rug given by Terri Lassen.  Of course I waited until the last minute to get my supplies but Overbrook Quilt Connection had everything I needed.  My jelly roll is a batik with creams, brown, and blacks.  I used black thread throughout and it is hard to see that in the photo. All of the strips were stitched together before the class. After what seemed like never-ending hours of folding and sewing the jelly roll and batting, I was ready to make the rug itself.  I loved sewing the rug shape.  It came out very flat with no touching of the iron.  I am very pleased with it.  If I could just start with the third step, I would make a couple more rugs!

Starting aWonder Quilt

This is the newest quilt that I have started.  I am making the blocks with the black background but made a white background to see if I would like it.  It is washed-out in the photo but it is a pretty block.
The designs are from Sweet Pea Designs which has many colorful machine applique embroidery designs.  They have sizes for most hoops and all formats except ART.  The background is basicgrey grunge and the applique fabrics are all batiks.  One tip I would suggest is after deciding on the thread color, to put that color number on a piece of painter's tape and stick to the batik.  It will save time.  I lay my fabric on the placement stitch and then stitch down.  Sometimes the fabric does not lay as flat as I want and I give it a quick burst of steam to shrink it a bit.  Good luck with your embroidery applique.

An Old Skill

I know some of you won't believe this but I taught myself to crochet many years ago. (I did take knitting lessons in the middle 60's.) I have not tried it in a long time but I saw this pattern on an Operation Christmas Child post and decided I could do that. Google helps me me make sure I am doing the stitches correctly. I must say I am very slow but the cold this winter has given me time to get a few done.  The little bags will be for holding marbles and other treasures.