Weekly Post...a little late this week.

Last week was a whirl of excitement with grand baby # 1 being born.
What's a grandma to do but take every opportunity to help out. So we spent time holding and cuddling, baking and cooking and spending time as a family!

This week I have still managed to sneak in some cuddle time but also brought out the MX dye on
Monday.

My friend Karen was up for an impromptu dye day with me. 

Here are some fabrics placed in a baggie to create some leaf fabrics. 

Karen made up a bunch of baggies of her own mixtures of dye combo's . 

Then we tried some ice dyeing.   Hot summer day resulted in the ice melting quickly. 

We remembered to take a picture of what dyes we put on our ice. 

I wanted to make some ice dyed scarves. I used Sea Glass MX from Dharma Trading. 

And I used Pewter from Dharma on some others.

All in all I have a number of pieces made. Next I have to add the after pictures. 

I really need to write down what I try to see what works and doesn't . 

Today I am going with leaves that are in my garden and echo printing on Silk Habotai , Rayon and Cotton Jersey scarves.  

Part 2 of this weeks post will be after the bundles are unwrapped and dry. 

Other sewing this week included altering hems on a friends daughters wedding dress and some hand quilting on # 1 baby's crib quilt. 

We are taking a few days holidays so my sewing machine will come with me so my daughter and I can work on some projects amongst the trees (on the covered porch) at the lake. 

Slowly but surely I am getting some of my goals reached for the year. When I am at the lake I tend to get reflective about life at home. 

How about you? Do you get reflective when you get away for a few days of down time? 

Have you any projects like dyeing you tend to do in the summer when your studio becomes your back yard? 

I am too late for the Needle and Thread Network this week but I am managing to keep up my posts to once a week. Soon I hope to be more intentional and post twice a week. 

Have a great week! 

Jo 

Weekly Post, Discharge Dyeing 2 and Homefront news.

This past week has been an exciting week.

On the regular sewing note I made this little bassinet quilt out of left over blocks from our grand baby to be quilt. (which I am still working on... hand quilting)

Due date was approaching so I made the top on Thursday/Friday and decided to tie it with a yellow pearl cotton and large quilting stitches in the borders.

I finished it Sunday night at 11 pm

I also cut and sewed binding for a large queen size quilt over 450 inches long and the binding for this bassinet quilt and the crib quilt. It takes a while to make it all. But now I have it ready to sew on. 

This little quilt was not on my list of to finish or make but will be a bonus. They did not have a blanket for the bassinet. 

Discharge Dyeing Part 2 will be able to be found on the page at the top of the header marked Discharge Dyeing. I figure if I do it this way it will always be a easy way to find the information and I can do edits and additions more easily this way every time I find new information or do some experiments. 

On the Home Front... 

We went to a wonderful wedding for one of my nephews. He spent a good deal of time here as a child and it is a blessing to see him be married to such a wonderful girl. 

This leads into our next part of exciting news. The above bassinet quilt could go yesterday to the intended recipient. 

After us all dancing up a storm Saturday night,  including our DDIL who was due that day, we got to meet in person our first grandchild. 

Little Abigail Heather
8 lbs 8 ozs
22 inches
2 hours old

Proud loving Grandma

Adoring Grandpa

Happy Family!

I have been told it is Amazing to have Grandchildren but it was such a joy to see them all well! 

I can see many cute outfits in Abbie's future! 

For the rest of the week I am not sure much will get done. I am babysitting the grand puppy  a 10 month old goofy Husky/Shepherd and combine that with my energetic English Shepherd I have two crazy dogs. When they do sit down for a few minutes I don't dare move or it will brake the peace! 

I am doing laundry for my DS 1 and my DDIL, some mending and some planning for next week to get in some dyeing. We also plan to go to the cottage for some R and R so I imagine we will be trying to help out our fair share  with the family next week. Our DS1 started a new job and his boss is great about him taking some time off. But it is building industry's busy time of year. 

I am hooking up with the needleandthreadnetwork  and ninamariesayre.blogspot.ca Off the Wall Friday....

Have a great week! 

Jo

Weekly Progress and Discharge Dyeing

Sewing this week has been limited to making nursing covers for soon to be arriving Baby V. Our first Grandchild. I also am making a quilt but I haven't even touched the hand quilting yet.  No pictures of the covers because I gave them to my DIL last night. 

The second amount of sewing I have been doing is curtains for my main floor. These are hard curtains to make and no pictures yet of them because they are boring. I am making panels and suspending them on curtain clip rings. 

So I thought I would share with you some pictures of samples I made for a group of friends who came once a month this past year to learn and play with me. I learn best by tackling a project and learning as much as I can about it. 

Discharge Dyeing with deColourant, deColourant Plus (no longer made) and a Bleach Pen. 

deColourant Plus on various fabrics using a wooden Stamp and a foam stamp.
I can't say I was impressed with the deColourant plus. The purpose of this paste is to remove the colour from the fabric and then to add back the colour of the paste. In this case blue.
Back row fabric: Commercial Batik, Hand dyed black, blue hand dyed flannel, hand dyed red/pink on cotton
Front row: Two commercial cotton fabrics.
The foam stamp was the stamp that shows up the best. 

This was the same fabrics (mostly) using the same stamps and used the deColourant. deColourant is a product that removes colour from a fabric in a past form.
Back Row: Batik, hand dyed black, commercial cotton
Front Row: Hand dyed blue flannel, hand dyed cotton pink/red
Here the deColorant worked on all but the flannel. 

deColourant Plus in Silver (discontinued) It seemed to work on all the fabrics but not as well as the flannel.
Back row: Batik, black hand dyed, blue flannel, red/pink hand dyed
Front Row: Two commercial cottons. 

Here I use the Blue and Silver deColourant on the first two pieces and the plain deColourant. All were the same commercial cotton. But this time I used a stencil and applied the deColourant with a brush.

.

This was a piece of commercial fabric that I played with a bleach pen with.
The bleach pen removes the colour well but a halo effect can be seen. It is hard to get the bleach to flow evenly.


I have some more experiments with the bleach and deColourant, some conclusions, sources and things to try with the products next post.

Until then I am off to sew my curtains.

I am linking to needleandthreadnetwork