I just can't cut it

Have you got fabric hiding in your cupboard that you just can't use?

I bought this as an end of bolt from a closing down sale at my local quilt store.  That particular store closed down at least six years ago, so I can estimate how long it's been gracing my fabric shelves.  I had no idea what I would use it for, but I fell in love with it at first sight and every time I see it in my stash, I give it a little stroke.

It's a beautiful Japanese-style chrysanthemum print in an indigo blue on a silvery grey background with a natural fleck through it.  There was about 2.7 metres left and it's a standard width, so about 115cm wide.  Not quite enough for a backing for a large quilt, and too much to use as the feature fabric for a quilt top without having a whole lot left over.

It's got an interesting texture.  It's not a loose weave, but it does have a slighting uneven feel to the weave.  Almost 'slubby' but not quite.  And it has a beautiful sheen to it.  The selvedge gives me no other information other than the colours used to print it, so I have no idea of the designer or manufacturer.

What do you do when you have a fabric in your stash that you love but bought with no specific project in mind?  Do you search for the perfect project, or do you wait for inspiration to strike?

I've been waiting for inspiration to strike, but so far, even after six or more years, it hasn't.  I have been thinking of making a kimono style jacket with it, but my seamstress skills are lacking so I'm not confident I could do it justice.  I've also been thinking I need a new bed quilt, something made with all my japanese fabrics that I've been sort-of collecting - indigos and wovens and taupes.  

Got any suggestions?

PS - thank you for all your facebook input and blogger comments on my 'shall I cut' question I asked in my last post.  I think I'm going to go with the two for one deal, but it involves unpicking the binding, and since I love unpicking so much (not!) I'm just procrastinating on it a little.

Adding to the Fabric Stash

I'm not a big one for buying fabric.  I used to be and, probably like all beginner quilters, I was pretty indiscriminate, buying anything and everything, especially if it was on sale.

Now I make a lot of the fabric I use in my art - usually hand-dyeing and sometimes painting.  And I've culled my commercial stash over time down to fabrics that still appeal.  I use them to make more traditional quilts, gifts, or functional items.  But I still add to the hoard from time to time when something particularly calls my name.  After all, I still love a beautiful fabric!

One of my quilting BFF's and I took a trip to two of our closest quilt shops (an hour long drive) recently when I had to get my machine serviced.  Of course we browsed and of course I heard the siren call of some fabrics.

I think a lot of them are Alison Glass (but they are fat quarters so the selvedges are not always complete), there's a Moda Grunge fabric and the yellow flower print is a beautiful linen.

The Alison Glass fabrics caught my eye first and then I pulled fabrics to fit in with them, then added to the collection from the second shop.  Playing with fabrics can sometimes take me hours, but this pile only took about 30 minutes to finalise.  Something about it worked right from the beginning.

And now I have to find or design a pattern to use them with.  I've been looking at the quilt currently spread on our bed and thinking that it's time to change it up a little, and this collection will be perfect, as long as I can come up with the right quilt design.  Something that makes the most of the fabrics.

So, does anyone have any suggestions?  I'm currently thinking 60 degree triangles, with some triangles big and some made of several smaller ones - varying sizes but all fitting together - if that makes sense.  But if anyone has any other brilliant suggestions - let me know!

Meanwhile, if you need me, I'll be petting my new fabrics.....

Sometimes you need simple...

I just read a quote on Deborah Boschert's blog today:

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.—St. Francis

Deborah was talking about her workbook for developing your creative voice, called "Head, Heart and Hands".  I bought a digital downloadable copy for myself with the intention of starting work on it after my 100 days project is finished, I'll let you know how I find it.

Anyway.  The quote made me think about the sewing I did yesterday.  Sometimes you just need something to sew, something uncomplicated, something that just uses your hands, and maybe a bit of your head.  Something that will give satisfaction without any frustration.

At the recent Auckland Festival of Quilts, I bought a couple of half-metre cuts of Echino linen prints. I love Echino fabrics - a delightful mix of prints and colours.  I simply cut this piece in half, squared the pieces up and sewed them together into a tote bag.

For slightly more complexity and an increase in user-friendliness, I sewed it using enclosed seams.  Then I boxed out the bottom corners, added a simple outside pocket and lightly padded handles in a solid cotton fabric from my stash.  Done.  

Above is a snap of the bottom on the bag, inside out, so you can see the enclosed seams and the boxed corners.  

To sew enclosed seams, put the two pieces of fabric WRONG sides together and sew a 1/4 inch seam round the three sides, clip the corners, turn inside out (RIGHT sides together) and press.  

Then sew another seam around the three sides, slightly larger than 1/4 inch and this will enclose your first seams.  

Now you can box your corners as in the photo above, add a double fold hem around the top edge, add your pocket and your handles.  

I enjoyed it so much, and loved the final product that I might just use the other piece of Echino in the same way.

How I store my quilting fabric

Now that I work in an 'open to the public' studio, and my space is smack bang in the middle of an art gallery, I need to keep it tidy and attractive.  Back on the boat, my creative space could sometimes end up looking like below!  Not a good look when I'm trying to look organised and professional.

I have an upstairs, which I term my workroom, and it is a little bit more 'lived in' looking.  I have a plastic sheet on the floor with some dye pots, a kitchen bench with more dye pots, a collection of chairs and a coffee table for stitch and bitch nights (Tuesdays 7pm, all makers welcome!), and a few other odds and ends, but I keep it clean and tidy.

Downstairs is the main gallery space, but it is also where I have my sewing machine and design wall and where I do most of my work.  I can't really be hidden away upstairs if there are people looking through the gallery.

And I need to keep that working space downstairs clean and clear to the eye so that it doesn't distract from what is on the walls.  But where to put all my fabric?  I do have an under-stairs cupboard, but it has threads, UFO's, packing material, the rubbish bin and other essential supplies.

I have a trestle table that has my ironing surface on one end and my cutting mat on the other.  My sewing machine is set up on my sew-ezi table and is behind the trestle.  I covered the top of my table with a white cloth and then to hide the underside, I draped a length of white fabric around three sides of the table, tucking it under the white cloth at the top.  The ironing surface and the cutting mat are heavy enough to keep it it place without having to secure it.

If I lift up the draped fabric I can easily access the underneath of my trestle table and that is how I store my fabric. 

I have eight Sistema plastic tubs.  They are 49 cm x 63 cm and 15 cm high.  They stack nicely and are fairly easy to manoeuvre.  If I fold my fabrics into the size that fat quarters are usually folded to, I can slot these in on their ends and I can easily see all the colours at the same time.  This works for fat quarter to half-metre sized cuts  The tub above is filled with some of my hand-dyes.

I can also fit larger cuts of fabric folded the same height as the fat quarters but double the length.  These slot in on their sides and I can see all the colours I have of these too.  So many blues! (And just between you and me, all my Japanese indigos are kept in a special place upstairs, or there would be double the number of blues.)

I have to have one tub on the top of the stack turned sideways to accommodate the trestle a-frame legs, but that's no big deal.  The best system to store my quilting fabric would be to have some permanent shelves built in the cupboard under the stairs, but I don't have a long-term lease so I don't want to go permanent.  And I don't want to have these tubs in the cupboard because I can't easily stack and unstack them in there.  So, this is the next best thing and I'm really happy with how it's working.

How do you store your fabric?  Leave me a comment, I'd love to know!

What'cha working on Wednesday

I could kick myself!  I was in such a hurry this morning to get my 12 x 12 Purple Colour Challenge entries into the mail (they have to arrive by Friday, I think I'll make it) that I didn't take a photo of my heron one.  I called it Dawn Ghost and now we are all going to have to wait until January, when I will see the exhibition that it will be hanging in.  I'll take a photo to share then.

In the meantime, this is what I'm working on:

I'm putting together a fabric palette for a new project.  Blogger is doing something to the saturation of my images, bumping it up a few notches, and I'm not sure how to fix that.  So if you mentally turn down the colour just a tad...  

I'm also doing some article writing, which is a new thing for me, but I'm enjoying it.  It's a bit more intense than blog writing (break out the grammar police!), but I think I'll get into a rhythm soon.

And I'm being watched over by these little guys.  They had a nest this spring under the dock where we are moored.  I could never see it, just hear them, and see Mum and Dad flying in and out.  The noise has ceased so I'm presuming they've all fledged, but I still see them around, zipping fast and free.  Beautiful.

Northland Quilt Shop Hop and Podcast Episode 4

I don't visit quilt shops often, because I don't have any close to me.  I have to drive for about an hour to get to one.  So when I do visit, I tend to have a list of needs and wants and it always feels like a splurge!  Here are three shops I visited last weekend on my way to Auckland.  In my podcast episode 4, I talk more about each one.

These are photos from The Country Yard, my favourite quilt shop.  The staff are just the best and they even have blogs.  Click here for Raewyn's and here for Leeanne's.  I love their range of Stof basics.

These were my purchases, I think I was on a neutrals kick.  I also got some crushed walnut shells and a little bit of batting and a new rotary cutter blade - but they don't looks so pretty in a photograph!

I had to take a photo of my country bumpkin car next to the shiny city ones!

Above are photos from the Northland Sewing Centre.  The second photo shows you the fancy acrylic boards that they are wrapping their fabrics on.  It makes for a really clean look and much more room on the shelves.  And I bought clean modern looking fabrics to boost my stash.  The duck egg one is from Art Gallery Fabrics (I was trying to remember the name on my podcast).

And then The Apple Basket in Kaiwaka.  A cute little cottage with a nice choice of fabrics.  And here are the purchases I made from The Apple Basket, three subtle shot cottons, a linen, a Sweetwater fat quarter and a Lucien fat quarter.  I took a close-up of the Lucien fabric because it had a divine texture.

I also talk about what I've been up to, with some project updates, dyeing and running classes.  You can listen to Podcast Episode 4 here at Podbean, or wait a little while and it will upload to iTunes.  Thanks for listening and I love getting feedback, it's really helpful.

Hand Dyed Fabric - lighten up

I squeezed in a little fabric dyeing this weekend.  I need to get some lighter colours, some tints, to round out my hand dyed collection.  I also need to get some shades, which are blackened colours, but I discovered I've run out of black dye so that wasn't happening today.

They are very clear and bright.  I think I need to muddy some of my colours up a little to get some more interesting colours, but these definitely add a lighter aspect to my collection so I'm not unhappy with results.  I could also do another round of dilution in the orange and fuchsia, but I ran out of soda ash soaked fabric.

A brief explanation of how I dye my fabrics:
I take my prepared for dyeing fabric and rip it into fat quarter sized bits.
I write a number on the corner of each one for record keeping purposes and then put them in a bucket of soda ash solution, roughly 1/2 cup soda ash to about 8 litres of water.
I use procion mx dyes and I mix about 1 1/2 teaspoons of dye powder to one cup (250 mls) of water.
Then I pull out a piece of soaked fabric, wring it out and squirt on my dye.
If I want to make a mixed colour or dilution, I aim for about 1/5 cup (50 mls) of dye solution per fat quarter.
Leave it sitting for as long as you can (I often leave it overnight), then rinse and wash etc.
REMEMBER: use gloves, a mask when the dye powder is exposed, and utensils and pots reserved only for dye use.

The rest of the weekend has been taken up by the never ending housework, baking for lunch boxes, stitching with my quilting group (if you listened to my podcast yesterday, you'll know I got in a bit of hand binding), helping hubby build a deck outside our back door and painting another window frame (second to last one!!).

And now I think I'll settle in for the evening with my hand binding on my lap and a cup of peppermint tea and my hubby to keep my company.

Fabric dyeing a colour transition and big news

These are what I've been doing in my spare time recently - my play time!  I've been wanting to try this for a while and even just doing two has taught me lots.

These were all fat quarterish sized squares of plain white fabric.  I soaked them in a soda ash solution then wrung them out and crammed them into small plastic pottles and poured just enough dye over them to be able to squeeze it through.  It's called low-water immersion dyeing and gives quite a mottled effect.

I thought I'd show you a page from my dye workbook.  It's where I keep notes of all my techniques and recipes and samples so if I want to replicate something again, I have a record of how I went about it.  I think it's really pretty looking!  However the purple and green remind me a little of my eyes....

Oh yes, the bump got better but the eyes got worse.  Kinda scary looking!  (No laughing, Cat!)  I had to go to work today and lots of explaining had to be done!  I told one friend my botox went wrong ;)

Now, on to my impending changes that I hinted at.  Two major happenings - I am applying to study Art next year.  I'm comparing a couple of different courses that I'm interested in, but I'm definitely applying and I'm really excited!

The other thing is that we are trying to buy a new house.  Except that it doesn't really qualify as a house, I reckon it's a dump.  Hubby is desperately trying to make me see it's good points.  That's part of the driveway in the pic above.  There is no way you could get down it without a four-wheel drive and I wouldn't be brave enough to drive it even then.  The pic is of the good part, the other parts I was holding on too tight!  The couple of good things about it is that it's closer to town and it's water-front with a jetty.  Can you tell I'm not as enthused about it as Hubby?  I guess I can see the potential, it's not every day that waterfront property comes along in such bad nick that we could afford it.  But the amount of work to whip it into shape is daunting!  Wish me luck!

Repurpose men's shirts into a quilt

I supported our local op shop (charity shop) by buying some men's shirts.
"Lovely shirts." said the lady.
"Yes," I replied, "But I'm only going to cut them up!"
My man has to be attending a wedding or funeral to wear a proper shirt so there is nothing for it, but to cut them up and add them to my fabric stash.

They have to be 100% cotton with no nasty armpits and not too much wear.  Stripes are great, but a small check works well too.  Wash them well in hot water, then press them and cut out the collars and cuffs and any seams.  I add the buttons to my button jar.  Then I just use the fabric as I would any other. For $4 a shirt I get heaps more fabric than a fat quarter which typically sells for around $7 in New Zealand.

Shirt fabrics are great to increase your stash of 'man' fabrics.  You know, the fabrics that aren't too girly or floral and work well in quilts you're making for men.  There is at least four shirt fabrics used in this log cabin quilt.

And you can get both light and dark shirts, which help when you're making a quilt that needs light and dark fabrics.  I think I nailed the tonal contrast in this one!

This quilt is going to get bigger soon.  I have more blocks than this and my sister has been working on doing some too.  With any luck she'll post them to me shortly and I can work on getting the top together.  (Are you listening Sis?)

I like opening the mailbox...

I've been spending a little bit of time lately looking around and NZ fabric stores that sell on-line.  It started when I was looking for good quality solid fabrics and since I live in the boonies on-line is good for me when I can't get to my local quilt store (local means an hours drive).

Today I got a little parcel in the mailbox and thought I'd share the yumminess.

This is from Stitchbird www.stitchbird.co.nz

I'm impressed by anyone who spends the time to wrap nicely and includes some yummy little scraps/swatches!

They have lots of modern prints with some yummy linen as well as cotton.  They have a fairly small range of solids - Moda and Kona and some solid Essex linen - but enough to get a range.  If your order is over $50 they ship free in NZ.  So I had to include an extra fat quarter at $7 just to make up the $2 to get free shipping.....there's logic in there somewhere!

Sorry about the night time photos, but it gets dark early now, and the colours aren't too far off.

So now my collection of solids is nicely rounded out, all ready for my class at Taupo Symposium, only four weeks to go!

Rust dyeing for distraction

At the moment (well, in the few moments I have squeezed around all the other things that seem to happen at this time of year) I'm trying out some surface design techniques to make some samples for a surface design round robin that I'm planning to run next year.

So when the kids came to me with a fight disagreement, I employed my favourite parenting trick - distraction.

"Muuuuum, she broke my spaceship!"

"But Muuuuuuum, he wouldn't give me back my battle droid!"

"Really?  Oh dear.  Well, how about you come outside with me and wrap vinegary fabric around this big rusty metal thing?"

So they did.  Then I wrapped plastic bags around the wet fabric to keep it wetter for longer and took a cheesy photo of the kids.  It took about five minutes and, what do you know, the fight was forgotten.

Two days later, this is what we had.  Nobody was particularly impressed.  I think it looks like they are rags I've used to wipe up something nasty!  So I soaked them and wrapped the whole thing up again.

But it is only the first layer of surface design after all.  I'm aiming to do another four layers/techniques so I'm sure it'll get better.  I have two other pieces of cloth which I'm twiddling around with too, guess I might have to show them to you tomorrow.

More blues and fabric filtchers.

I've been using up the left over dye from yesterday.  Three cups of made up dye solution goes a loooong way!

These are the solid colour cottons I dyed yesterday.  The dye is squeezed through and the fabric left crumpled up in a pottle to batch.

These ones are the same dye but different ways of applying it.  The far left was laid out flat then smooshed up in a lengthwise pleat and the dyed dripped on top.  The middle one was laid out flat then dye poured on top till it was quite wet and then salt sprinkled on top.  The far right was laid out flat dry (having been soaked in soda ash solution and then dried) and all dye mixes dripped on top, then water dripped over it.

These are the silk habotai (left) and the silk organza (right).  The closeup is of my favourite piece.  It is silk organza twisted into a loose knot and then dye dripped on top.  The organzas and silks were not soda ash soaked to start with so I poured some soda ash solution over the top after maybe 20 minutes.

This morning I came out to the lounge and realised all the silk and organza pieces were missing from the clothes horse.  With some gentle persuasion, the kiddies confessed.  They loved the feel and look of them so much they had snitched them and hidden them in their pillowcases!  Fabric filtchers!