Monday, September 19, 2011

East Cobb Quilt Show

We had a wonderful time manning our vendor booth at the East Cobb Quilt Show this weekend in Marietta, GA (metro Atlanta). Here are some photos:

This is the show floor with the vendors on the second floor overlooking the quilts. Perfect setup!


This is Bill being a very good booth Assistant Manager...


Our booth...


The rust dyed wall quilt is by Frances Arnold and the four needle felted and embroidered pieces are by Mary Ann Mauney.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Ice Dyeing Results

OMG, they're beautiful! See? No need for exposing yourself to powder dyes for no reason...just use yesterday's recipe for dye concentrate and put it in sprayers and hair color bottles with tiny tops. Again, don't breathe in the spray either; use a mask. Here are the finished pieces:


The one above was the accordion folded one in yesterday's photos.



Above is a close-up of the previous photo.





What do you think? I don't see much difference between the powder application and the concentrate application, and the concentrate is so much safer for our lungs.

Hint:
In order to use this technique for large pieces like quilt backing fabric, it may be easier to use the low water idea of pouring soda ash solution over the fabric. You can let the soda ash solution sit for 15 minutes, fold your fabric as desired and then add ice and color. Here's the formula for the amount of soda ash solution to add to your piece: 1 yard of fabric gets 1 cup of soda ash solution (perhaps slightly more), so a large backing would be about 9 yards with 9 1/2 cups of soda ash solution.

If you have any questions, just ask.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Ice Dyeing: My Safer Way

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a stickler for extreme caution when using powdered Procion MX dye and other dye powders. So when I saw Quilting Arts' ice dyeing article this month I liked the idea, but decided to give it my "safety first" twist.

I had some concentrated dyes already made up for low-water immersion dyeing (2 tbsp. dye powder + 2 tbsp. urea + 1 cup of water). I keep these dyes in dish detergent bottles with flip-up tops; they have never leaked because they're made to hold liquid.

Safety tips: ***We do not mix dye powders without a small particle mask, gloves, and safety glasses, and we mix them in an enclosed box that has been sprayed with water to catch loose particles. We also, after carefully spooning dye into the container with a funnel, immediately dip the spoon & funnel into water and cover the dye container and dye bottle and dunk them into the water to clean off any loose dye. Be sure to find directions for all of this online or in a class.

I know... I'm a safety nerd.

To prepare to ice dye, I poured different colors of concentrated dye into tiny spray bottles (found at Sally's Beauty Supply in Georgia) and hair color bottles with tiny pointed tops...


For the rest of the ice dyeing directions, please refer to the August/September issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I followed their directions, but instead of using loose dye powder (YIPES!!!), I sprayed and dribbled my dye concentrate onto the ice while wearing a mask (because of the fine mist of the spray). Here are a few photos of dyeing in progress:





The ice on this piece has melted and it will set until tomorrow. We'll see tomorrow how these dyed fabrics compared to the "powdered dye" fabrics.

Continued...

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Fabrics from Shibori Class

Okay, these are not the best fabrics from the class, but they are mine. On some of these pieces I used soda soaked fabric and that doesn't work as well as regular fabric for Shibori, but it was experimentation day. Having said that, I like my fabrics, and here they are...



This last piece is a heavy linen that was on the pole and tied for Shibori...

Cool!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Sewing Machines


Everyone who knows me at all knows that I love sewing machines.

While on a trip to Florida earlier this year my husband bought this gem for $15 at a yard sale. She just got a tune up this weekend and a new/used cabinet and she's the latest addition to my studio.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Shibori Class

Yesterday I took a wonderful Shibori class from Heather Allen-Swarttow at the Cloth Fiber Workshop in Asheville, NC. Shibori is the Japanese method of tying or stitching fabric for design before dyeing. I had taken a class from Heather previously and learned a great deal, and I wasn't disappointed yesterday! Thank you, Heather!

Here are some images from the class. When my fabrics are dry I'll post them...