Fabric, fabric and more fabric

My fabric arrived this week from Hancocks of Paducah and I am excited about starting  new quilt/s.

40 fat 1/4's Mod Century by Jenn Ski

Yesterday it was time to break out the dyes and fill some of the back orders from the British Club.

2 sets of clear brights

2 shibori dyes

Also I had done some bleaching earlier in the week and these were overdyed.

overdyed with red and purple

Needs to be redyed as I wanted it to be more green

3 x Onsies were also on the dyeing list:

All this dyeing was made much easier by the fan that I got for my birthday last week.  The kitchen was only a balmy 29 degrees instead of the usual 40 degrees.  Very pleasant!

Also for my birthday was a book by Pokey Bolton:

Oh what a great week!

Happy Quilting!

Birthday blocks!

My last post was about the British Club Challenge - and for those that would like to see photos of the quilts, check out the ANZA Quilters.

This Sunday it is my birthday and the ladies from the ANZA Quilt group surprised me on Tuesday with Birthday blocks that they had made in my favourite colours.

LOVE the black white and red!

Thank you all for the lovely blocks - can't wait to put them together!

Last Saturday we had our school carnival and my friend Jesse made this gorgeous quilt for the raffles.....

and Guess Who won the raffle!!!!!!!

Isn't this fabulous!

The last couple of weeks I had been trying to do some more fabric bleaching with a clorox bleach pen without much success.  I have done this before and it worked great but this time the bleach just dried on the fabric and nothing else.

I went and bought a new bleach pen and it worked wonderfully.  Maybe the bleach was just too old?

I will do a few more and then overdye them next time I do some dyeing.

Happy Quilting!

Fabric Postcards and Rusty fabric

Yesterday my DH took care of all the "householdy" type chores so I could spend the day in the sewing room.

The British Club Quilt Challenge is approaching fast (October 16) and there is still so much to do and make:

 I achieved 12 fabric postcards (some have duplicates) :

I have also been working on another "rusty" fabric piece

This one needed to be rusted two times as my rusty rack is not quite big enough to cover the whole fat quarter.

My aim is to make "interesting" and "different" fabrics.  I think these would look great in a wall hanging!

Found this rusty gem a while back.....I have great plans for this!

Happy Quilting!

Flour paste resist

Today seemed a good time to get some "play" in before the Christmas school holiday rush and  having to tidy up my sewing room in anticipation of guests.

Lately, I have been experimenting with different types of resists with varying results:

I have been using Colorstop by TextilDesign and Jacquard water based resist. The fabric was then painted  with fabric paints.  The Colorstop was fantastic and as soon as I washed the fabric the original colour came to the surface.  The Jacquard resist however was not visible (after washing) from the front of the fabric and only slightly on the back.  I have done this twice now thinking that maybe I hadn't shaken the Jacquard resist properly the first time but the results were the same.  I will now try both with fabric dyes and if that doesn't work the Jacquard resist will be heading for the bin!

I also decided to try my hand at using a flour resist.  I saw this technique on the Quilting Arts dvd that a friend has lent me and it looked pretty cool.

 Mix equal parts flour and water to make a smooth paste.

 

Stretch fabric on a board and secure with clips.

Add paste to fabric and smooth out with a spatula or knife. 

 Make marks in the paste with the end of a bamboo skewer and let dry.

Once it is dry I will paint it with fabric paints then remove the resist by soaking in warm water.

I will post more when the results are in.....now to study for my Mandarin exam next week!

p.s don't forget to check out the www.quiltinggallery.com for their birthday "blog hop". 

 Lots of great giveaways to be had!

Dyeing Frenzy Week

This last week I have been busy dyeing fabrics.

I dyed no less than 76 fat quarters (50 x 55cm) and one half meter.  That is a whopping 19.5 meters of fabric!

Colours dyed are:

Muted blue

Muted blue to black

Muted yellow

Muted yellow to black

Muted red

Muted red to black

Muted dark coloured rainbow (12)

Muted light coloured rainbow (12)

2 light blue (these will be painted later to make sky fabric)

2 overdyed previously discharged fabrics

3 direct application purple/pink with salt effect

and one purple/ yellow shibori

Not a bad effort for 3 days work!

I will be listing some of these for sale on my etsy page, or you can email me.

On Wednesday I am flying home for 2 weeks to see my parents.  I am not looking forward to the long flight but I am looking forward to spending some time at home with family and friends.

Not sure if I will have time for any quilting.....will have to see

Happy quilting!