I have seriously lost my mind but I'm having fun at it. I never thought I'd say this but I need to get back to making doll dresses!

Here are the two newest ones and they are made from the very first fabrics that I ever dyed when my best friend made me dye fabric one summer against my will. These were made with glue resist. The one on the left is red on one side and black on the other. I made these bags as big as the fabric allowed. That's why I love these projects. I can finally use my special fabrics and can use the whole piece because size really doesn't matter in this case.

Of course that created another project.

Here's one of 2 drawers of some of my earliest dyeing. Anne and I did lots of print paste, resist and other special dyeing techniques and created some really cool fabrics. But I don't use the fabrics because I know for a fact that they will all bleed.

I've decided that it's finally time to fix that and to soak all of these fabrics so that I'll use them in future projects.

​

In case you didn't think I was being accurate about the bleeding here's the first group that I put through soak cycles. That's only 12 fat quarters!

We were following the conventional wisdom of that time so we didn't know better. It took me several years to figure out that I could actually fix bleeding fabric.

These fabrics have already been processed and are back in the drawer and ready to be something someday. They will not be drawstring bags, I promise.

Because I've already cut all of these fabrics to make into bags in the coming days. Some of these are earmarked for gifts but most are for me.

99% of you will already know how to make these but if there are any new sewists reading I have created a tutorial. I've read through the tutorial 3 times and I think I've corrected all of my errors but if you see something let me know, I can easily fix it.
​

This is a quick quilt that I quilted for Mom this week. When she lived in Farmville her neighbor was also a quilter. Rita and John were very nice, very funny and were really kind to Mom. Shortly after Mom moved away Rita died and, of course, left behind a packed sewing room and tons of UFO projects. Mom has taken on a couple of them to finish for the family. This quilt is one of them. 

Rita was really organized and had her projects packed away with the fabric and pattern together so Mom knew that she planned this pattern for this fabric.

Funny story, when she brought the top over we put it up on the design wall and we both commented that it's not one of our favorite quilts. We aren't particularly fond of the fabrics or pattern. But just as we were expressing our opinions Chris walked through, glanced at the quilt and said that he really like it. So there you go, different strokes for different folks.

I quilted it with an Urban Elementz pantograph called Carnival and used pink So Fine Thread in the needle and bobbin. It was nice to do something a little feminine for a change.

​Next on the longarm is the big green quilt.

Sewing with my quilt club each month is always a great start to the weekend.

I am using my quilt club sewing days to work on veterans quilts for the next several months. I started this one last month and finished it this weekend. It's ready for quilting but I don't know if it will get quilted before we leave for vacation in August. I have a couple more quilts ahead of this.

Back at home my first priority was to finish cutting up ALL of my patriotic fabrics. I decided on 4.5" squares, 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares. Anything smaller than that went in the trash. I also had a stack of fabrics leftover from hand dyed quilt backs for veterans quilts and I cut all of the blue ones in the same sizes. I put them all in a box and this will likely be the last veterans quilt kit that I cut/sew for many months! I think I have 15 - 17 kits cut and ready to sew.

This effort cleared one pile off the cutting table.

The table is now about half cleaned up so I'm making good progress. 

On the quilting front I loaded a quilt for Mom last night and got the first row quilted.

This is just a weird side story. When I first got into longarming I did the normal thing that people do, I bought TONS of threads. Instead of buying one or 2 cones of a thread that I thought I would like and trying it out, I started collecting just about every line that Superior carried at that time. As expected, over time I've grown to favor some and not others but I'm determined to use even the ones that I don't prefer. They are all good threads but they don't all fit my aesthetic now. I'm no longer a big fan of King Tut but I'm using it on veterans quilts as much as possible. I also bought a lot of Masterpiece thinking that I would use it in the longarm but I don't really like it on the longarm. It wasn't designed for that in the first place. It's not called Masterpiece for nothing! I stopped using it for the longarm and brought it all upstairs to use for piecing and I'm going through it at a pretty good pace. But let's face it, some colors just aren't going to be used for piecing and here are 2 prime examples. But I do hate waste and wanted to still find a use for the bright colors that don't work so well for piecing. I picked the magenta one and started using it to baste quilts and now it's almost all gone! I didn't think I'd ever get through that cone of thread but the veterans quilts are keeping the machine busy. Soon I'll be basting in orange thread. That's the kind of thing that makes me happy.

I'm determined to only buy 1 new cone for every 2 that I empty so that I can reduce the massive inventory that I have. Aside from blue and cream for veterans quilts I shouldn't need to buy any thread for several years and I haven't really bought any new thread for several years.

This week I'm determined to get the project/gift bag tutorial done and posted and possible even the ice dyeing tutorial. I'll get Mom's quilt quilted and get the big green quilt loaded. I also want to finish clearing the cutting table and doing some other organizing in my sewing room. Things are generally kind of messy in there and that interferes with my creativity.

This week's inspiration comes from Patricia Caldwell. She made this complex quilt overlapping circles and paths. She used Shades Packs for many of the elements and added lots of quilting and yarn couching for her trademark texture.

For sharing, Patricia received a 20% coupon for the shop that's good for 3 months! If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery.  The only rule is that projects have to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount. ​

But first, I'm happy to report that I found the missing socks! They were in the dryer and it seems that I dyed 4 pair, not 3. I'm a little bummed that they are all blue or purple but I do have more plain ones to dye and I can do them the normal way (without ice) so I'll know the colors.

I also got a start on cutting up the remaining patriotic fabric. I decided on 4.5" squares and 2.5" squares and strips. I've got a big bag of various light blues from trimmed veterans quilt backs so I'll cut a bunch of that too and eventually make all  of this into 4-patch blocks.
​Note to self: Do not buy more patriotic fabric until 2023.

On to crochet, I have a finished project! This is a wheelchair blanket. I bought the yarn for a baby blanket because the photo only showed the pastel blues. When I received the order I knew it could not be a baby blanket, but I only had 3 balls. My options were limited. I checked the donation website and saw that they collect wheelchair blankets and the desired dimensions are 27" x 36". I've been wanting to try corner to corner so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I have been hesitant to try C2C because I didn't think I'd like it but now I see the appeal. It's very easy and very fast and the effect from self-striping yarn is awesome. I t really worked great in this yarn, Cascade Cartwheel. I absolutely LOVE this yarn and already have more in my stash. It was on sale at Webs (yarn.com) so I bought more for a couple of blankets. It's really similar to Premier Puzzle and Universal Major if you have used those.  

The C2C patterning created wonderful texture and the marled effect of this yarn makes the striping pretty subtle. I used a K hook and 3 balls of Cascade Cartwheel.

Now on to the topic of loom knitting. Loom knitting is quite fun and is a great "take a break" activity from crochet. My hands are getting better and better every day. I've bought almost ever kind of brace and glove on the market but the one that seems to be the best is the Copperfit Compression Glove. That's been a big surprise to me, but it does work for me.

I can crochet about an hour a day right now and then I pick up the loom knitting. The first set that I started working with is this Boye set and it worked fine but I needed a bigger ring for men's hats. The largest ring in this set will make a hat that's my size. Online I found another set branded as Cousin. It was the cheapest one I could find and that's how I made the decision to get it.

While I was waiting I've been watching all sorts of YouTube videos on loom knitting and one was about tips for beginners. One of the tips was "don't buy the Boye looms". I'd been using mine and couldn't figure out what the lady was going on about.

Well, there is a difference. Here are the 2 looms together. The green one is Boye and the purple one is Cousin. There's a huge difference! See where the head of the Boye peg has a hook? The yarn gets caught there so it's more work to move the loop down the peg for the next round. Also that tiny  slot on the front of the peg makes it more difficult to hook the loop up and over the peg. Within 5 minutes of starting a new project on the Cousin loom I knew that the lady had been right. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Cousin look is about 50% faster than the Boye loom. The Boye set is packed and ready to be dropped at the thrift store soon.

THis scarf is the last thing I finished on the Boye loom. It's 6 feet long and is done in straight knit stitch so it really wants to curl even after I blocked it. I probably won't be making another that way again. The yarn is Premier Serenity and it's incredibly soft. I got it on sale and have several big balls of it. I think it's making a nice scarf and hat set. I'm afraid it will pill but there's nothing I can do about that.

The matching hat is the first project on the new loom and it will probably be done by the end of the weekend. I'll be able to make a ton of hats in the car ride to Maine.

​Today I'm off to sewing with my quilt club so the weekend is getting off to a great start!

Yesterday was "dyeing day" but it was also cleaning day. When the cleaning lady is coming I try to at least get the piles of things off the floor so that she van vacuum the space underneath. While doing my "maid preps", as Chris calls them, I tripped over a pile of things that I dyed last week with the Crystals and Galaxies. When I ice dye I want every inch of the screen covered so I often add whatever dyeable things I can find to the mix.
These are 2 sets of napkins. I had  2 boxes of thrift store napkins that a friend gave me. I still have a ton of them left but I always dye a set to go with any new set of placemats. At the moment I have a bin of dyed napkins that need placemats. Maybe my next obsessive sewing weekend can be a placemat weekend. I do use them a lot and have several that are in need of retirement. These will be fun to work with to design matching placemats.

I always seem to have a bunch of aprons around and I think I've given some to all my friend and family. I heard about a charity collecting them recently so these might go there.

There are some of the leftover golf towels that I dyed for my husband and his high school golf buddies in March. I'll save these in the gift closet.

This is the funniest part. I dyed 3 pair of socks but I can only find a pair and a half. Hopefully the others will show up at some point.

Then there were some white tshirts left from the ones that I dyed for Eli for his birthday. He'll get these too.

Finally, just for me, I dyed some 12" squares. I feel a 3rd Groovy quilt coming on.

Yesterday was a very long dyeing day so in the evening I just sat and did some crochet and loom knitting and listened to a book. I have a finished crochet project and some thoughts on loom knitting that I'll probably share tomorrow. Today I might get a quilt loaded to quilt but first I have a little bit of dyeing to do for a custom order. It's a little complex so fingers crossed that I get the effect that my customer wants.

This weekend is sewing weekend with my quilt club so I'll be packing up my veterans quilt sewing tomorrow morning and heading to our meeting place. Yay!

This nonsense needs to stop.

First, I finished the last of the mini zipper bags. There are 12 here but Mom took one so I made 13 in all. What a great use of this special fabric because I only had small pieces. They were way too stiff for quilts but perfect for these little bags. I think most of these will be Christmas gifts, possibly filled with handmade soaps. Click on this link for the tutorial for these pouches.

​It probably would have been good if I had stopped there but two other ideas/thoughts came together to make a bigger obsession

In the Spring I made some "boy" things and made gift bags with the leftovers. I never really thought about making drawstring bags for myself for anything other than gift bags. I mostly use totes or plastic grocery bags as project bags for my crochet and travel sewing. But I do watch quite a few YouTube crochet channels and they often talk about making/buying drawstring or zippered totes for their crochet projects. That seems to make a lot more sense than open totes because things can't fall out of a closed bag. So that idea has been in the back of my mind recently.

Then Monday I told you about cleaning off the cutting table and finding the Spam fabric. I made the pink bag for Anne with her leftover fabric and then I made the mistake of looking thought some of my bins of "special" fabrics and things got crazy from there. I made the National Parks bags first and shared those in Friday's post too.
I should have put everything away right at that point and gotten back to my other projects.

​But I didn't. Yesterday I went absolutely insane.

I had 2 fabrics like this that were gifts to me several years ago. I made a large quilt tote from one piece of this fabric. I made 3 of those totes and use them all the time. They are my Show and Tell bags for quilt club meetings and I use then for travel bags for towels and bedding. The other piece has been sitting in my stash waiting for a "special" project. I love this fabric made into project bags! These are big bags that will easily hold everything for a baby blanket crochet project.

Then I found this fabric that Anne gave me at Christmas. She carved the bird stamp and printed this hand dyed fabric for me. A gradient scrap was perfect for the cuff of the bag. I love the bird fabric so much and it's going to be great to actually see it from time to time when it has a crochet project in it. There was only about 4" left of that fabric so this was a perfect use.

Then I found a piece of fabric that was about 5 feet long and 14" wide. I made it from the leftovers of the Fireworks quilt. I took all of the leftovers, cut them into 2.5" strips and sewed them together kind of like a jelly roll race. It's been in my stash for almost 2 years. It seemed like it would make fun bags too and I was right. I actually made 3 bags with this fabric but one is already in use.

​Then I thought I should write a tutorial so that I will remember how I made these should I ever need another bag. The tutorial needed to be done on a small bag and that sent me off to another drawer with smaller fabrics.

That's right, 3 more bags! The tutorial will probably be ready next week and is done with the metallic and orange bag but I found the sun printed black denim and it was just big enough for a bag for my  crochet hook cases (which I can't find at the moment). The little orange bag was made only because I found that little scrap of fabric and had a yellow zipper nearby. 

I finished the last bag just before dinner last night and them I put everything away. I am done making bags even though I found at least 10 more fabrics that would make great bags!

After dyeing today I'm going to get back to cutting out the last of the patriotic fabrics and get a quilt loaded to quilt. Making doll outfits is even seeming a little more sane at the moment so I might cut out a couple of those too.

I had big plans for the weekend to get back to my list of projects. I was going to load the green quilt for quilting and cut out the very last of the veterans quilt kits. But before I could do either of those things I had to clean off the cutting table.

Squirrel!
The first thing I picked up was these scraps of fabrics from Anne's quilt. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she left it behind by accident because she LOVES this fabric. I really wanted to just toss it because I don't keep much in the way of commercial fabric in my stash. But then I got an idea from the crochet YouTubers that I follow. They are big into drawstring project bags which makes a lot of sense. Crocherters and knitters travel with their projects more than us quilters do so drawstring bags are essential. I thought that maybe I could make a quick drawstring bag for Ann with her Spam fabric.

And so I did. The cording is Craft Cord from Hobby Lobby. I had bought some because I was thinking of project bags for my travel crochet. FWIW, this bulky weight craft cord is really nice and also inexpensive. 

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I have a bin of "unique" fabrics in my fabric closet. Some are special because of the print, some are special because they are heavier weight and some just don't have a logical pairing with any other fabrics that I have in my stash. I eliminated a good bit of these fabrics when I used them to make walker caddies in May.

Squirrel!
​In that bin I found a panel of this fabrics that Anne gave me right after it came out.

There was enough for 2 project bags. The big one is big enough for my loom knitting projects.

Squirrel!
Also in the bin are these 2 fabrics that are also going to become project bags. The batik one is a heavier African fabric that I bought about 18 years ago when I was working in England. I've had both of these fabrics for more than 10 years.

Squirrel!
​But also in the bin were a stack of these fabrics. I expect that I bought them in England too. It's a pack of pieces with none of them bigger than 14" on any side. They are clearly a scrap bundle. They are from a South African company. The fabrics are VERY stiff and I have no idea what I intended when I bought them. But I started thinking about what I might do with them.

The stiffness of the fabric makes them ideal for some sort of storage item. Well, why not a little zipper pouch for loom knitting, sewing or crochet tools? I used this tutorial and had one sewed up in no time. Is that not he cutest thing?  I'll use this one for my loom knitting tools. 

​Let's make more, I thought! I have a huge stash of zippers and it's time to use more of those too.

So very cute. Mom was here when I was working on a couple and we figured that the sewing of each pouch takes less than 10 minutes once it's cut out. Cutting each one probably took about 2 minutes. Zipper colors are based on what I have in the stash.

I know that because I cut out ALL of that fabric into pouch kits. These will be really cute gifts. For Christmas I could fill them with candy. They would make great little travel medicine/vitamin packs.

I'll get back to my original plans in a day or so but for now I'm having fun using up some fabric making bags and pouches. I'm so happy to be using some of these "save for something special" fabrics.

This week's inspiration comes from Teresa Ballard. I love all of the colorful birds in this quilt! She says that all of the birds and backgrounds are from my fabrics. The background is a discontinued gradient called Sea and Sky. It was replaced with Midnight. These birds show the variety of colors that you get from gradients. They are great for fussy cutting for specific effects like the wings of these birds.

For sharing, Teresa received a 20% coupon for the shop that's good for 3 months! If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery.  The only rule is that projects have to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount. 

Yesterday wasn't ALL ironing, but it was close.

I started off the day visiting (and sewing) with my friend, Marcy. She also has an Innova and we provide moral support to each other when things aren't going quite right. She helped me when I tried timing my machine the first time and I went over yesterday to help her with tension issues. I took this quilt kit to work on using her machine. I started this in February when I got to go to the beach with Kim. I'll take it to Maine to finish putting together. I think I'm going to really love it. It's got kind of a soothing vibe. If this one works out to my liking I'll make more with my hand dyed scraps.

Eventually I had to leave Marcy and come home to the giant pile of ironing. Here are all of the ice dyed fabrics except for the quilt backs and the few pieces that are already in the shop. My plan is to get all of these in the shop by Monday. I'll work on the quilt backs next week.

Aside from editing fabric photos I think I will tackle the bin of batting scraps left from the June quiltapalooza. I'm seeing my Richmond Animal League friend tonight and it would be nice to get these made and out the door today.

I haven't done a yarn update in a while but I have been slowly plugging away on my projects. The blanket is almost done! In this photo it's folded in half and there's only the upper left corner to finish. I let myself crochet twice a day for 30 minutes each and I have 3 left hand fingers taped up (thumb, pinkie and ring). It's working and my hand continues to improve. I absolutely love this Cascade Cartwheel yarn. It's a bulky weight (great for my hands right now) 100% acrylic roving yarn. It is a little splitty but it's so beautiful that I don't mind the sporadic splits. I want all of the colors!

Once my crochet session is done I switch over to loom knitting. I'm working on my first scarf and I will make a hat to match. The scarf will be blocked. It's not the best scarf in the world but it's good for a first try. The yarn is Premier Serenity Chunky and it got it because it was on clearance. It's super soft and easy to work with. I'll talk more about my thoughts on loom knitting (good thoughts) when this scarf is done.

It's time to get busy on some dog beds.