Another colour way

Yellow and Orange

I just boiled the wax out of another colour way. 

This one is really bright and citrusy.  I think the check worked out very nice in this colour scheme. 
Does the one on top look like those bugs you find in the garden in rotting posts and under pavers?  Do I need to add legs to them?

More Dyeing

Here's a light blue and green colour way being created.  The darker blue areas and the white areas have wax on them.  It's ready for the yellow dye bath.

 I started with white pfd fabric and made 5 different patterns.  I did two different potato mashers, a madras stripe and an argyle looking diamond one.  I dyed them a very light blue - hardly 1/8 tsp of dark blue dye for a gallon of water.  It came out a very nice pale blue, sort of robins egg blue.  A quilt  guild friend is making butterflies so I'm creating some butterfly wing looking fabric for her to use.  This strip will be blue and green.  I have more of this blue fabric ready to dye in red for a purple version and maybe a grey for a dark version.

Then I died them all a strong bright yellow.  Yellow in the dye bath turns orange when you add the soda ash, but it doesn't seem to turn the dye that's in the fabric orange.

Next step is to boil out the wax and see what I got.  I've got a bit of a green/blue vision issue so I may have to ask if this colour way is working or not.

After they have had the wax boiled out and are ironed, here's what they look like.  The one on the bottom still has the wax on it.  The pot was too small for all 4 pieces at once.

Here's the other two colour ways I did.  I think I like the red and grey the best so far.

Big Hexies for the May VMQG Challenge

I got my Hexies ready for the VMQG May challenge.  We were to make 5 1/2 inch Hexies in black and white and sew them into strips with one Kona bright.  Easy, peasy. 


I found some really old leftovers from a black and white quilt top and added in random bright Kona that I had had in a heap on the floor.  Quilt design decisions made by whatever I find close at hand.

These are so easy to make as strips of 3, but a real pain sewing them all together, even with the technique that was taught in a workshop at QuiltCon.  Who ever wins them at the guild meeting is going to have a lot of work ahead.

I play the Euphonium in a local community band.  We did a concert of movie tunes at a retirement complex on Saturday.  Our drummer lives there and his two arrangements of Latin melodies was well appreciated by his friends.  I was practicing for the concert and snapped this shot.

To Boston with Love

I got my banners for Boston done!

Here's a little about the project from the VMQG site:

When tragedies occur, quilters and crafters rally together and use creativity to comfort and heal those in need. There have been Quilts for Japan, Pillowcases for Newtown, and many other examples of the love and generosity of our community. Now as we watch the events in Boston unfold, again we are putting our hands together to do something for those affected. “To Boston With Love” is a collaborative effort of makers to bring peace and love from far and wide. What we’re planning is a public exhibition of flags strung into banners that will be displayed in Boston in early June 2013

Quilt guilds and individuals around the world are participating and the deadline for submitting your banner is May 21.  There is a Flickr group and tutorials with patterns if you want to participate.  Check out the VMQG site for links and instructions.  http://vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca/blog/

I made two more to send off.

I'm not sure if I want to write something on the back or not.  What can you say to a city and nation that has this happen to them?

To Boston with Love

Dyeing at Home: Palliative Care for Fabric

Let me show you my little set up for dying at home. I use Procion MX dyes. They are cold water dyes that use salt and soda ash in the process.  I got them locally here in Vancouver, BC, at Maiwa on Granville Island.  I'm pretty much following Malka Dubrawsky's instructions from her book and workshop.  Check out her great book "Color Your Cloth: A Quilter's Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric" for her complete instructions and great project ideas.

First there's the waxing.  I had started outside on the colonnade, then I moved into the kitchen under the stairs beside the hot water tank to be closer to the sink and less cold.  I use Kona PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric.

You can see the electric frying pan with the melted wax, my potato masher stamp and the fabric pinned over a cardboard box.  Since it's a big box, I keep the rest of the potato mashers and cardboard stamps in it.

Then the table gets set up for dying.  The cooled wax in the electric fry pan goes into the box and slid under the table and the dye vats (by Rubber Maid) come out.  This one has about 2 yards of waxed fabric soaking up the grey dye before the soda ash gets added.  The soda ash has been dissolved in that container with the blue spoon in it.

 Here's a turquoise vat getting fixed for a couple hours after the soda ash has been added.

Then the fabric is rinsed well until the water runs pretty clear, then hung up on a curtain rod in the hall at the top of the stairs.  I put plastic sheeting on the floor and up the wall to the rod height and an old towel on the floor to catch the drips. There seems to be great air flow up the stairs because the fabric is dry in 90 minutes.

Here's the grey ones drying
Next I waxed what I wanted to keep grey, then discharged most of the grey out of the rest of the fabric so that the red dye that I did next would be bright.  If I hadn't discharged, the red over the grey would have created a very dark maroonish colour and I wanted bright red.

Then I boil the finished fabric in a big pot for an hour, then let it cool outside so that the wax floats to the surface and solidifies.  I pull the wax off the top of the pot and give the fabric a quick last rinse and hang it up again to dry.  Here's the finished red and grey fabric.  I made 4 16 inch strips that all coordinate.  On these I stamped them with: a cardboard diamond stamp, a potato masher, a paint brush, and sun glass frames.

Here's a shot of the discharging process.  The two vats are diluted bleach and diluted vinegar. You soak and agitate the fabric moving it from one bath to the other bath.  The star fabric was all royal blue and the blue discharges almost completely.  Here it's just a light grey and once it dried it was hardly coloured at all.  The yellow does not discharge much at all.

Red discharges a bit and is quite slow.  Turquoise discharges very slow, and ends up a light light-blue.  Brown discharges to orange, which makes sense as it's the red and yellow in it that stay.  I made a nice dark plum colour with red and royal blue and it discharged to red, the blue almost completely came out.

So the process is pretty much Wax, Dye, Discharge, Repeat, then Boil out the wax.  The discharge is an optional step, but without it, you'll have to always dye from light to dark and the second colour will usually be a mix of your first and second colours.  For example red after yellow will be orange, blue after yellow will be green.

The fabric that I used three colours on usually didn't turn out that great.  They end up dark and muddy.  Two colours and one discharge give you great results and that limitation actually makes me more creative and gets me thinking about what will work out and look great.  

Fabric Dyeing

I haven't posted anything since QuiltCon in February.  It's not because I haven't been doing anything, it's because Ive been dyeing.

I got into Malka Dubrawski's batik dyeing workshop.  I was on the waiting list and got the call just a week before the convention saying a place had opened up.  YEA!

 

I was so sick that day and arrived late, but it was great seeing the process she uses.  I had bought her book last year, so I already had all the instructions.  It was great to work through it all with her there and although we waxed the fabric for most of the day, we did get it all in dye baths and picked it up the next day.  Since we didn't have time to dye it and get it dry so we could add more wax and dye it again, we all ended up with white and one colour on each piece of fabric.

When I got home from QuiltCon, I went to Maiwa on Granville Island and bought Procion MX dye, soda ash and brushes.  I got some Pima Cotton from Maiwa and some Kona PFD from Spool of Thread.  I added wax and more die to the 6 pieces from the workshop and waxed and dyed lots more.  From each piece I cut some off and made a Shoo Fly block.  I've seen it listed as Monkey Wrench too.  Here's the quilt top from my first month's dying frenzy.

 

Here's what I started for the back of the quilt.  Paula and Arita took a Hexie workshop at QuiltCon and shared the technique at the last guild meeting.

Most of the fabric is waxed using potato mashers for stamps.  I found 9 different mashers with great patterns and have been using them all the time.  I also made some cardboard stamps and have used the bottoms of candle holders as well.

VMQG Workshop - Gees Bend Style Blocks

I gave a day long workshop on Feb 3 for the VMQG where we all made some Gees Bend style blocks.  The group of 12 was great, everyone brought very unique fabric with very unique colours and patterns.

We started out looking at three quilts done in this technique and I put 2 blocks up on the wall showing examples of how to make the square bulls-eye and what level of wonkyness and strip width to try, then we all got started.

Most people brought several options for fabrics so I went around consulting on what could be used as background and what could be used as the colour strips.

Here's what the first block for each person turned out once they were cut in quarters and put back together.

 

Then we all started making the blocks 3 or four at a time.  Here's what they looked like once another block or two had been made.

Elsie's blocks

Victoria's blocks (Jo)

Heather's blocks

Gaye's blocks

Loretta's Gees Bend blocks

Arita's blocks

Terri's blocks

Anna's blocks

Michelle's blocks

Nikki's blocks

Michelle's blocks

I love how everything comes together so nicely with this technique.  Each block that is made and cut up ends up very different from the previous.  As you mix and match the blocks throughout the quilt, you get a very graphic effect.  Depending on the background and contrast of the coloured fabrics, you can end up with a very calming effect like Heather, Arita and Gaye or a more jarring excitable effect like the rest of them. 

Thanks so much, Terri and Arita for taking these pics throughout the day.  Just because we're only showing 1 block for some people, doesn't mean they are slackers.  We just didn't get a shot of their entire production.

If I have some mis-identified, let me know and I'll fix the names.

UPDATE:  Arita finished her top!

Mini Bento Boxes

I started sewing up these little quarter log cabin squares.  This idea is from Modern Quilts Illustrated issue 2, a mini magazine with patterns, design ideas, quilty information all from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  They are amazing designers and have great ideas to share.

The blocks end up at 3.5 inches square.

I sewed a 3/4 inch white strip to the sides and made an 8 x 8 square

Then I made more and added them along two sides with a white inclusion running through.

I think I'll make a whole bunch more and keep growing it bigger.  Perhaps as the "back" for this quilt. Curvy on one side, blocky on the other.

Low Volume Quilt

I got the top of this quilt mostly put together at the sew-in in Surrey.  Amy arranged a sew-in with the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild and the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild in Surrey, half way between the two guilds.  I made the blocks months ago.  I got Felicity to show me her technique for sewing blocks together once you have decided on the layout order.  You end up sewing blocks together and not cutting the joining threads.  Eventually you end up with the rows connected, but dangling below each other by the threads, then you iron the seams, then sew the rows together.

I used one fat quarter of the featured print, a matching blue, and 3 coordinating neutrals. It's a very low volume quilt except the blue.  Maybe I should have gone for a lighter blue.  I generally improvised each block, going with either blocks or strips, making each different.  Not all blocks have the featured print.

I have extra of most of the fabrics, so I may just make 3 giant blocks in the same style for the back.

It's a companion piece to this quilt that I blogged earlier.

I got off the waiting list and am now going to take a fabric dying workshop with Malka Dubrawski, the designer of the yellow print, at Quiltcon!  I'm so excited.  How am I going to travel with a cardboard box, a paring knife, a potato, a carrot, a green pepper and a stick of celery?  That's what's on the supply list for the workshop!

Finished my Gees Bend style Dirty Laundry Quilt

I actually made a back, then quilted and bound the jeans quilt.

Here's a look at the process.

I did a square overlapping stipple and tried to go over as many seems as I could to stabilize the fabric and hold those thick seams down.

The back is a warm flannel in a brown and cream hounds-tooth pattern.  I included a pieced strip of jeans off centered for a graphic punch.

It's really heavy with all those jeans.  The flannel back helps to soften it up and I think it's the perfect compliment to the front.

I'm giving a workshop on this technique this upcoming weekend to the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.  I've made some demo squares in green, gold and black - trying out a circuit board look.  We'll see what it looks like when I cut the blocks in quarters and rearrange them.

So, what should I call this quilt?  The two name I've been trying out are:

• Dirty Laundry
• Dirty Hippies

What should I go with?