Catching up with Freshly Pieced: WIP Wednesday

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday on Freshly Pieced, which has been on hiatus for a couple of weeks during blogger Lee's vacation.  While Lee was away, I finished my MQG challenge quilt, "Quilt with Attitude":

For the full story of this quilt, including the flip side and the circumstances behind the quotation, see my July 22 blog entry.  Alas, I did not win the fabulous year of fabric from Michael Miller, or even make the list of finalists, but my guild had a lot of good laughs.

The WIP of cleaning up my sewing room is still ongoing, but I've made a lot of headway and hope to offer a studio tour soon.  I also did more indigo dyeing at the end of July, which you can read about here and here.

That's the old news--time to move on to more recent developments!  On Monday, I had a couple of VMQG friends over for a day of lessons at the vat on the BC Day holiday, which meant that I did less dyeing, but had a much more relaxed time than usual, with lots of lively conversation.  No pictures of their work, alas.  I was too lazy to take the camera out, but they had some fabulous results, and we all had a lot of fun.

Since we didn't manage as many rounds of dipping as I thought we might, I had some leftover stock solution, so yesterday I spent another half day at the vat dyeing solids and trying to use every last bit of indigo.  Here are all of my fabrics, happily oxidating:

The fabrics included more stitched shibori, as well as some pole wrapping.  I tried some cotton gauze for the first time--lovely, lightweight stuff that dyed beautifully, as you can see in the last four pieces on the right in the third photo.  I dyed scarf lengths, so I will see how colorfast my indigo dyeing is.  If my neck and blouses don't turn blue, I'll do more scarves next summer and sell them in my Etsy shop.

There's also a lot going on in the garden right now.  I haven't obsessed as much about plums this year, because I'm too busy obsessing about indigo.  We also don't have too many plums--just a few dozen.  Unfortunately, the tree developed a lot of black rot fungus, so we pruned it pretty severely back in the late winter.  I can already see that we'll have to prune more, but I hope the tree will recover well and next year will be better.

Anyway, the first plums were ripe on July 31, and they were delicious!

We've also had a few of our wonderful brown turkey figs: about seven or eight enormous ones thus far, with more coming, I hope.

The end of summer is approaching all too rapidly.  But there should still be time for one more session of indigo dyeing, and then I will retreat to the sewing room for a winter of indigo quilts.  More news to come!

I'm also linking up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  Cheers!

From the dye vat: Last week's highlights

Here's a little show and tell from last week's dye vat:

Shirokage (white shadow):

Two techniques for circles: nui (stitched) shibori and kumo (spiderweb) shibori:

Nui shibori with overcast and running stitches:

My absolute favorite from this batch, with a combination of stitching and tying techniques:

I tried refolding and redyeing some earlier pieces of itajime.  They weren't terrific, thanks to my pH problems, but this piece shows some of the potential:

One piece of arashi (pole-wrapped) shibori:

Solids, mostly redyed from earlier sessions:

Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult to reproduce the true colors of all of these fabrics, especially the solids.  I'll try for better photos later on, when I say more about the different techniques involved.

But first, I'm getting ready for another round of indigo: I'm in the midst of tying of various FQs and prepping some pole-wrapped fabrics.   I will spend tomorrow's BC Day holiday at the dye vat!

There's always something...

pH matters.  Really.  Ask me how I know.

 
On Sunday, I did another round of indigo dyeing--mainly, redyeing of some solids and itajime FQs in order to try and build up more color, but also a few new pieces.  The stock solution looked good, and I thought I had a strong vat, but late in the day, it seemed to me that I wasn't getting nearly as dark a blue as I expected after six rounds of dipping.

I wasn't very rigorous about checking the pH.  I was reusing the stored solution from my last vat, and usually the problem is the extremely high (alkaline) pH that comes from continually adding in new stock solution.  Although the vat does get more acidic over time, due to chemical interaction with the air (specifically, the carbon dioxide, according to J. N. Liles), I figured that wasn't happening quickly enough to counter the new stock solution, and I didn't want too alkaline and corrosive a dye vat.

I did check the pH of the vat before adding new stock solution, and it was at pH 9--on the weak side for dyeing cotton, but significantly alkaline.  I therefore made the stock solution with less lye than usual and assumed it was enough, but didn't recheck the pH.  After three dips, the level of the dye solution in the vat was too low, so I added about 1-1/2 gallons of hot water, in addition to more stock solution.  Three dips after that, I noticed that I wasn't building much more color.  I checked the pH, and it was only pH 8!

Not good at all!  I mixed three tsp. of lye in water and added it to the bath, which got the pH up to 10.  After that, the final two rounds of dyeing for the day yielded much better results.

Every time I start to think I know what I'm doing, something else pops up.  I will just have to keep playing indigo whack-a-mole, but one of these days I will manage two unproblematic vats in a row.

Even so, although the final colors won't be as dark as I had hoped, I had a good day at the dye vat.  I'll do a full show and tell after everything is washed and ironed, but for now, here are a few scenes from the morning after:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  Happy sewing, everyone!

Hey!

"Hey!  You're supposed to sleep on the bed, not in the bed!"

Of course, as our cats know full well, we deny them virtually nothing.  *Sigh.*

Finished! "Quilt with Attitude"

I finished my MQG challenge quilt and showed it off at last night's VMQG meeting!  Here it is, "Quilt with Attitude":

"Quilt with Attitude" was inspired by all of the lively, fun-loving, and ever-imaginative people at the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, especially the delightful, smart, and artistically adventurous Amy.  In addition to making quilts in the "modern quilt" mode, she produces thought-provoking fiber art that explores fundamental questions about gender, sexuality, body image, and identity.  She also has a wonderfully candid and vivacious in-your-face attitude that manages to be no-nonsense, opinionated, hilarious, warm-hearted, and generous all at the same time.  Amy's descriptions of her projects during show and tell frequently crack me up completely, and when she talks about her modern quilts, her discussion of the creative process almost inevitably includes her signature technique: "And then I quilted the crap out of it."  I've always thought that should be the motto for our guild, as I've indicated on the reverse side of my quilt:

close-up

The quilt doesn't really bow in the way it seems to in the photos--the telephoto lens that I use produces the distortions around the edges.  The corners are actually squared off pretty well, and the quilt hangs straight, thanks to the overnight blocking that I did before binding it yesterday.  I'm going to have to try and take better photos (i.e., not zoom in so closely to avoid the distortion, and then crop) before posting on the challenge thread in the MQG community forum.  Click the link if you want to check out all of the challenge quilts!

Technically, "Quilt with Attitude" isn't a work in progress anymore, so this week's WIP is my studio:

Now that the challenge quilt is finished, I can try cleaning up my wreck of a sewing room!  I never finished last summer's Studio Makeover series, because I got stuck waiting weeks and weeks for shelving to arrive.  By the time it finally came in, the day job had kicked into high gear, and I didn't install the shelving until November.  I will try to get this disaster zone clean and camera ready for next week!  In the meantime, check out the studio tours over on Sew Canadian.

Freshly Pieced is on vacation until August, so for now, I'm just linking to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  I'll also post on some of the Friday finish sites in a couple of days, and do a retro post on Freshly Pieced once Lee is back in action.  Cheers!

7/25: Now linked up to Finish it up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts, Link-A-Finish Friday on Richard and Tanya Quilts, and Off the Wall Friday at Creations...Quilts, Art....Whatever.  Happy sewing!

I'm quilting! WIP Wednesday

I basted the MQG challenge quilt last night, and this morning I started quilting on my trusty Juki.  Here's a glimpse of the progress thus far:

I have family visiting this weekend, so it's going to be difficult to get this quilt done in time for Monday's VMQG meeting.  Fingers crossed that it will be ready, somehow!  I think it will help speed things up if I go buy some painter's tape to mark my quilting lines, as suggested by Tallgrass Prairie Studio.  The 3/4" masking tape I'm using isn't really the right width, and some 1/4" and 1/2" painter's tape would be extremely handy right now.

I also stitched up a couple more nui shibori FQs:

I'm hoping to be back at the dye vat no later than next weekend, once the challenge quilt is finished.  I need my indigo fix!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday on Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.  Happy quilting!

Progress: WIP Wednesday

I don't have much in the way of pictures to show, but I made plenty of progress this week.  In order to prepare for the next round of indigo dyeing, I stitched up a few fat quarters:

I need to finish my MQG challenge quilt first, and then I can get back to indigo dyeing.  The quilt is starting to come together: all of the letters and words are pieced together, and the first side is close to ready.  With any luck, the quilt will be basted this weekend, and finished next weekend.  Thirteen more days until the reveal date at the July 21 VMQG meeting!

For now, I guess it won't give away too much if I show one generic word:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday on Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.  Cheers!