 Today is Christmas for is and I'm ready! We celebrate at my brother's house and it's a real treat to be around his and Karen's grandkids for the holidays. I got all the gifts packed last night after a couple of last tasks. This stack is for my brother. He likes the hand dyed t-shirts so I keep some around all the time and use the shirts for my leftover dyes. I've got 6 new long-sleeved shirts for him that I've been slowly dyeing for several months. I'll go and buy a pack of short sleeved ones next.  This is actually the first gravity dye that I did and I really like it a lot. I think it's my favorite of the group.  I then printed his logo on the back of all 6. The screen printing had mixed results as I was trying different inks and techniques. He just wears them mostly around the house so he won't mind the ones with not-quite-perfect prints.  The last task was to print off some heat transfer vinyl names for the kids. They can decide this afternoon if they want their names on one or 2 of their shirts. Ella's are really pink and purple (not red and blue) to match her sweatshirt. She'll have extras if she wants to put them on something else.
I've got to make cookies this morning and then we should have a fun afternoon. Next week I get to start quilting the Fab Farm quilt and I get to make a baby version of Fab Farm for my cousin's new grandson due in May.
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 Yesterday was sewing day and I finished sewing all the bow tie blocks. I came home and put them on the design wall. I think I'm happy with this but I'll study it for a couple of days to see what needs to be moved around. When I came home I got busy washing and drying the rest of the dyed items.  These tie dye shirts are for brothers, Sawyer and Lincoln. They are fans of the Washington Commanders and the Naval Academy (because they live in Annapolis). They will also get the orange gravity dyes that I posted yesterday.  These shirts are for their cousin, Eli. He's a fan of JMU and the Buffalo Bills. I did a gravity dye for him as well. I love the gravity dyes but I'm not sure how little kids will feel about them. If they like 2 out of 3 shirts, I'll be happy.  Their Mom's are sisters and both went to JMU so I made a set of bandanas for each of them. They can wear the to game or use them as I do, kitchen cleaning cloths. These are about 18" square and they come from Dharma Trading.  I have a big stash of tea towels and I like keeping them on hand for gifts. People love them. I like to use my old dyes on these because the exact color doesn't matter. I always dye a pair so these are ready for gifting. I have 4 more sets that were dyed with the leftover dyes from the tie dye. Those are plain and I will screen print something on them later.
There are a few more things but I can't quite share them yet. But, all in all, I'm really happy with everything. I also dyed 5 veterans quilt backs and the big quilt back for the Fab Farm quilt.  I ended up not posting yesterday because Mom and I ran a lot of errands Monday and I had nothing interesting to shows for my efforts. Unless you think new deodorant and toothpaste is interesting! But, today I have a few dyeing results! Most things are still soaking but I have some of the gravity dyes done. If you are interested in gravity dyeing I recommend checking out Facebook and Youtube. There are so many ways to gravity dye and lots of tutorials. That's where I learned about it. I wanted to do a sweatshirt for Ella but wanted to practice first to see if it would work on something so bulky. I did this one on a sweatshirt for me and, all in all, it worked good. That diagonal dark line is where it was scrunched up and placed on the rail. The dye and ice was put on that scrunched area so that as the ice melted, the dye dripped out to the edges. On this one I learned that I needed to compensate for the hood. It caught a lot of dye sprinkles and not a lot of drips. I'm still really happy with it.  This is the one I dyed for Ella and I'm really happy with it. I got the effect that I wanted. I hope she likes it. She's 11, so you never know! She will be sweet about it even if she doesn't like it. I will cut out her name in am iron-on vinyl so we can add that if she wants.  There are 3 boys and I dyed 3 tshirts for each. I know for sure that they will like the other 2 so I felt that I could take a rish with these. These are gravity dyed with the pole put through one sleeve and out the other. Apparently Sawyer and Lincoln like oranges. I don't know if they will like these but I'm also going to cut their names so that we can iron them on if they want. I do like this effect and would do it again. I'm just not sure it will appeal to young boys.  In the past few weeks I've stopped by a couple of Goodwill stores and picked up $2 frames. I spent part of yesterday afternoon getting them set up for some screen printing. They look a bit sloppy but they will work great.  I did this one last week to screen some bandanas for the kid's mothers. They both went to JMU. I absolutely love the Cricut for screen printing.
Today is sewing with my quilt club but I'll get more things washed out this evening to share with you tomorrow.  This weekend was nothing but dyeing. I should have been doing some of this over the past few weeks but it seems I saved it all up for one marathon weekend. Work started with a couple of hours of prep work Saturday. Then I could get started dyeing. I had several bottles of "expired" dyes in the refrigerator so I used them first to dye 5 veterans quilt backs, some tea towels and 2 t-shirts. When A dye is expired in my terms, it just means that it's not full strength. It's still good enough for things that don't have to be an exact color. I used expired dyes on veterans quilt backs all the time. Once the bottles were empty I could get started on some other things on Sunday.  On Saturday, I also set up 3 more ice dye shirts. I had several questions about this so I'll answer here. This particular version of ice dyeing is called gravity dyeing and I learned about it on Facebook and Youtube. You arrange the soda ash soaked item and put dye powder right on top of the item. Then put the ice on top of that. I top mine off with a little extra soda ash powder. Now, there are several variations on this and, if you are interested, look the technique up on social media. You'll find lots of different folding and dyeing techniques. Using ice bricks is another idea that I found on social media and it works great. I try to keep various size of ice bricks in the chest freezer ready to go. This type of dyeing is the most unpredictable. Sometimes it's a complete dud but it's still worth it. Even an ugly t-shirt can still be worn.  On Sunday I mixed up fresh dyes so I could get exact colors. I tie-dyed 6 shirts, 4 bandanas and 10 tea towels.  Then I dyed a large quilt back for the Fab Farm quilt. I need to get that quilted and bound soon so it can be donated in January.  Finally, I started one last gravity dyed shirt. I can't wait to see how all these things look over the next few days. After all these things were dyed, I started the washout of the things I dyed Saturday. There's lots of washing and soaking happening the next 3 days.
All of the t-shirts will be gifted this Saturday so I hope they turn out OK! Today I take Mom to an eye appointment and then will do grocery shopping for the friend that I took to the ER Friday and her Mom. They both live really close to Mom's apartment. Maybe I'll have time to get another pair of veteran's quilts loaded and basted. My plan for yesterday was to spend the day ice dyeing and tie dyeing. I have tshirts to make for some kids by Saturday. But while I was eating breakfast I got a call from a friend who needed to go to the ER. She wrenched her back several days ago and the pain had gotten worse. I was happy she called for help and was happy to take her. I was smart enough to take my crochet bag with me but not smart enough to take a crochet hook! But I had my phone for entertainment and a phone charger.  I did eventually get to start dyeing a couple of experimental things. This photo is from last night before I added a second brick of ice. This is a sweatshirt so I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. It's a sweatshirt for me so it will be OK, regardless.  This is a kid's tshirt and I'm doing a technique that I saw on Facebook.  This is how I'm able to do ice dyeing in the winter! It's well over 80 degrees in the basement.
I'll check on my friend this morning and then get back to dyeing.  One of the main reasons that I got the Cricut was to do some screen printing and I decided to start off with some tea towels. Tea towels are such a great gift. They are easy to make and so useful. People aren't as sensitive to the colors and patterns because they are just going to use them to clean up messes. My friend recommended ORACAL 651 vinyl for screen printing and she was right. It transfers easy and stays stuck. I followed some instructions I found specific to the Cricut for the first set but switched to my normal screen printing method using a credit card, for the second set and got a much better result, as you will see.  I screenprint Color Magnet onto the towel before it's dyed. The printed areas absorb a lot more dye than the rest of the towel to create the image. This set was created for friend we will visit in Beaufort SC in September. She refers to their home as Skeeter Haven.  Since their house is near the beach I went for beach glass colors. These did not turn out perfect but I don't think she will mind the mistakes too much.  The first ones were so quick to make that I decided to make some for our Maine hosts. This image is straight from the Cricut library.  I made 6 so I can give each person 2. They might also get potholders!
Speaking of potholders, I have 5 left to make and I'll be totally done. But today I'll be working on the last 2 veterans quilts. It's too hot to do anything outside.  After a couple of years away it was fun to be ice dyeing again. The best part is that I don't have to iron these fabrics and take beauty photos! I can just slide by with the lazy photos that I'm going to post for you today. I decided to ice dye again because I wanted to make a colorful backing for the houses quilt top that I made a couple of months ago. I sort of wish that this one had more purple in it but once the ice is on you never really know where the dye is going. I like the patterning and I really like having the white spaces in this one. But I couldn't dye just one thing. In for a penny, in for a pound.   I dyed some fabric, t-shirts and tea towels. Both of these were gravity dyed. I'm not going to explain any of the methods that I used. There are lots of YouTube videos and that's where I first saw these things. The shirt on the left is one of my all time favorite things and I'll do more of this. The one on the right didn't work as well but I can screen print something on this and I think it will be cool for a kid.  These were all incline dyed and that tea towel is AWESOME.  I think incline dyeing is pretty self-explanatory. My set up wasn't optimal. I have some better ideas for the next time. I like the mandala piece. The t-shirt will benefit from a strong screen printed image.  This is a really cool folding technique called "glitch". I really like this and I like all three pieces. I need a little more practice folding and tying but I'm pleased with these first results.
 I have 4 more 40" square tapestries. The one on the lower right will be cut up in a project. The others are all winners. I think the one on the lower left will be the focus of my next Groovy quilt.  Here are 4 tea towels. The one on the top left will certainly get something printed on it. The others are good as they are and that lower right one is a big winner!  These are all small blocks, about 13" square. I don't know why I included that tea towel again. But the small pieces are mostly used in the Groovy quilts. These are always a crap shoot because the pieces are so small and you never know where the dye will fall.
For now, all of these are put away. Today I pick up Ella for our 3-day craft camp. I'll share photos of the projects that we work on.  Last week, for the first time in a month, I decided to dye some fabric. It was nice to be back mixing dyes without much of a plan. The primary reason for the session was to dye a bolt of backing fabric for veterans quilts. These should keep me and Brenda stocked for a couple of months.  I also dyed some kids' tshirts. I made the mistake of buying 50% poly shirts but that will work out OK. My young friend, Ella, is coming to stay with me a few days for a craft camp and we are going to get the Cricut busy putting things on these shirts for her and her brother.  I also decided to dye some new Dharma primary colors. This one is called Raven Black. It's not black, but it's a nice blue. I'm sure I'll use up the rest of the small container but I won't order this one again. I have a recipe for a color like this.  The other two colors I tested are Atomic Fireball and Blue Abyss. I mixed the red too weak but, even so, it's not red. It's more like orange and I have a recipe close enough to this color. The blue is a beautiful blue and I have a blue close to this too. I will use the rest of these dyes but I'm not sure I'd order more of them.  This image right here is one reason that I'm happy to not be selling fabric anymore. Reasonably often there are "trash threads" in the fabric. I wouldn't sell fabric like this. Sometimes I can pull the threads out but sometimes I'd have to re-dye a piece. This one isn't so bad but when there's a white thread on a dark fabric, it really shows. For my own quilts, it doesn't matter. I can cut around it if I need. But it's sure annoying!  I also did a few parfait dyes. This was the first kind of dyeing that Anne and I ever did. I like all the texture that comes from this technique. Here's a tutorial that I found if you want to try it out.
 Not having children means that we don't' do a lot for Christmas but I do usually take the time to just take a few days "off". I don't blog and do want I want, not what's on my to do list. We did get invited to a friend's Christmas afternoon for a couple of fun hours and we spent Christmas morning on a lovely hike along the North Anna river. It was kind of a perfect day!  ON the craft front, I've mostly been watching football and crocheting. I think I'll have my purple sweater ready for an update photo tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have dyed the last of the beach towels. They will be gifted this Saturday. These two are for Ella and Eli. I got the color assignments from their Mom.  Sawyer and Lincoln wanted 3 color beach towels. I had to dye them in a way that the blue would not mix with the yellow and orange. My spirals do square off a bit and I think that's because of the way I tie them. I'll have to work on my tyeing technique for future dyes but I think the kids will be happy with these.  I had one extra towel so I dyed it with splotchy blues. I love this one and will either keep it for myself or set it aside for a future gift.  I still have the serger out from working on the postcards so I decided to start another donation project before I put it away. I'm going to make another big batch of surgery drain bags. With the serger and and production sewing methods, these can be done pretty quickly. I expect I'll have them done in early January. Then I'll make some pet beds before I get back to my normal sewing/quilting schedule.
I hope you had a great holiday weekend, even if you don't' celebrate Christmas. It's just a great time of year for rest and recharging.  I have some work friends that I get together with each month and we've been getting together at least since I retired 13 years ago. Every Christmas I like to make gifts for them and this year I chose dyed beach towels. I get my beach towels from Dharma Trading. They dye beautifully and are very soft. I used to always dye beach towels in a spiral design but I'm kind of tired of that so this year I decided to do something more organic and, honestly, it took just as long! I love the effect and might order some more towels to do some for myself. I each of my friend to tell me their 2 favorite colors and that's the guidance I used for the colors. I delivered two of them last night and will deliver the others next week.  I also dyed one for June. June works for Hanover County and she is the person who "manages" our group and she is the NICEST person in the world. She loves the color red because it's the color of her college sorority so I made her a red stripe beach towel. I have 4 more beach towels to dye for my SIL's grandkids and then I'll be all done with Christmas making. Chris and I don't exchange gifts but conveniently we are getting a new printer and new water filtration system for our "gifts" this year.  Yesterday I also got 2 more veterans quilts loaded and one of them done. I hope to finish off this one this afternoon. After that I have one more pair and I'll be done for the rest of the year! I might get one of my big quilts loaded and started.
Today I'm going to do something that I've never done before, participate in a medical trial. It's for a blood test for cancer screening. It's already commercially available but they will have to have a pretty extensive trial to prove it works for insurance to cover the cost. All I have to do is give blood and I get the test for free and they follow me for 3 years. That's it. If you are interested you could probably find a trial near you. It's being done nationwide in the US and they are enrolling thousands of people over the age of 50. It's a very expensive test and this is an opportunity to get it free. It's also being run in the UK by the NHS. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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