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!
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!
Interesting projects.
ReplyDeleteI could imagine that would be a nice rhythm, to be dyeing in the summer and sewing in the winter. It would keep things fresh. Can't wait to see how they all turn out!
ReplyDeleteI love the way you used the same colors on your hanging tabs as in your wording - it really makes the quilt pop. And that's a great statement for a quilt with attitude. I know I've said that exact phrase at several points...
ReplyDelete