Whole House Studio

It's been a while since I posted last and in a moment you'll see why.

We've been dyeing, pressing, trimming, & pricing fabric, making wool pincushions, placing orders for products and supplies, and staying quite busy around here. Our entire house has turned into a studio in preparation for the Pensacola Quilt Show in two weeks. It's also been a lot of fun!

This is our couch...it's covered with a white sheet and then the fabrics are spread on it when they come out of the dryer.


The dining room chairs serve as holders for the pressed fabric until I cut and price it on the dining room table to the left.


These are the 4" x 20" pieces that I cut off of almost every chunk of dyed fabric. Each dyed piece of fabric is cut larger than the finished piece will be, and then these 4 x 20's are trimmed off. They are sold loose in big baskets for appliquers and string piecers at our vendor booth.


These wool pincushions are drying in the sun. Wool is wonderful for pins; the lanolin in the wool keeps the pins slick for ease of use.


And finally, the piles are growing. The reds, blues, and brights are nearly finished, and the blacks, purples and browns need more. There are browns and blacks on the couch and dining room chairs.

In case you're wondering, the laundry room is housing the dye studio right now. We've had a cold winter, so my garage studio is too cold to use. The kitchen desk is where we've been printing business cards and class pamphlets. My regular studio is where I'm sewing and quilting, and the guest room is housing the quilts which will hang on the walls of the booth. The master bedroom handles the two tired folks who need to rest at the end of the day. So, yes, this is a whole-house studio.

I asked Bill if it bothered him to have "stuff" everywhere, and he said "We use our house more than anyone I know, so it was a good investment". Ha! On March 1 we'll be putting it all away ...until the next show.

Fabric Dyeing Results

Here are some of the results of last night's dyeing and this morning rinsing...

This next one was shibori style with rubberband resists and jar covers. I'd love to do this method again using oranges, yellows and a little green because the circles look like sunflowers.

Fun!

Fabric Dyeing Day

I dyed fabric all day yesterday, and this morning I started, bright and early, doing it again. I end up taking some good long breaks to rest my feet, which usually drags the day out a little. This is our garage where most of the dyeing process happens. I need three tables to dye comfortably: one to hold "stuff", another clean space to manipulate and fold my fabric, and a third for a workspace.

I started making my dye solution (fabric, not hair) in 1/2 cup increments to avoid waste. Whatever full-strength dye is leftover must be refrigerated in a non-food storage area, so the less I have leftover, the better.

Once the fabric is in the dye, I carry it to the laundry room to sit for some hours before rinsing out the dye. The fabric almost always looks better wet and I try to avoid being disappointed in the finished product (after it's rinsed and dried). Of course, it will look fine, but it won't have the depth of color that the wet fabric has.

The fabric comes out of the dryer a little damp, and if I don't have time to press it right away, I put a sheet over the couch and lay out the fabric pieces to make them flat. They came out of the dryer at 11:30 last night and I was too pooped to stand at the ironing board to press them.

These fabrics are being dyed for my sales booth at the Cotton Patch Quilt Show which is being held in Watkinsville, GA (just south of Athens) March 6-8, 2009.

Fabric Dyeing and More

It's been days since I last posted! This week I dyed about 50 yards of fabric for a booth I'm manning at Charmar's, Gaines School Rd. in east Athens, GA. It's only three miles from our house and it's an antique/retro/art market with lots of great items...including mine! Come by for a visit.

Here are some of the pieces I've dyed so far. The best ones are still waiting to be pressed following their quick trip in the dryer.

The piece above was dyed with Procion MX dye in grape and Havana brown; I discovered these colors at a Judy Simmons dye class. Aren't they beautiful together?

The next two pieces were dyed together in the same bath, but were folded differently (the color difference is because of my flash not the dye).

I tried over-dyeing a couple of pieces with some leftover dye to see what would happen. The original piece is the white with a blue flower print...

Not a bad over-dye, but the blue flowers still show. If that's not the look for you, take a look at the back of that overdyed piece...

The back is absolutely beautiful and the floral print does not show through. Here's a photo of the same piece with a flash for more detail...

Here's another over-dye job. I found this fabric on the 40% off rack and didn't like the colors at all, but the batik fabrics are so wonderful to dye with that I purchased it. The original fabric is on the right. I dyed it with a mixture of mostly red and some leftover grape dye. Let's see how it turned out...

Yummy! I'll definitely use this "new" fabric. I'll post more dye photos soon.