Snow Dyes!

It is December 30 and I have less than a week to get all of my samples done for the new classes I am teaching this spring. I do not think anyone in my community knows I have a blog, so I feel safe in posting my pictures.

I belong to an online dye group who I think invented snow dyes. In fact one of our members who inspired us all to try it, recently published an article in Quilting Arts Magazine on snow dyes. We are sure proud of her!

I find that my snow dyed pieces look like Monet gardens--somewhat mid to soft tones. It doesnt matter if I use super strong dyes, I seem to get a really nice muted look on pieces. It contrasts nicely with my soda soaked deep parfait pieces I love to make.

I think all of us do the snow dyes somewhat differently. Some dye the snow, then add it on top of fabric. Others put the snow on top and then dye it. I even have a friend who lives in a part of the world where there is little to no snow and she uses shavings from a snow cone machine (Wil). Here is how I do snow dyes.



Gather dyes and get a syringe. I use about 110ml per fat quarter.



Put fabric (that has first soaked in SA for 20 minutes) in a small container, lay a layer of snow on top--about 4 inches, then lay on the dyes with the syringe In these examples I used older dye—some was at least a year old.



This is one of the pieces. It is wet in this photo. I am not happy with the look and I think the age of the dye played a role in the lack of sharp detail. I find that snow dyes, as opposed to other methods of dyeing, gets fabric to have a soft edge but with crazy sharp edges if one uses lots of colours. I think I will redo these pieces tomorrow.

I have a batch dyeing in a different manner (drained over a sink), with new dye and we’ll see if that makes a difference.

4 more classes to get going!

Christmas 2009

This year, as always, my husband and I went away to visit family. But I still needed to do some decorating, so I put the santa’s on the mantle and the little tree on the sideboard. Today when I flew home, I was very happy to see some Christmas still around.

 

I hope you all had a wonderful, stress free Christmas. And I hope to see you all in the new year.

2nd Annual Christmas Quilt Party

I don’t like parties. I don’t like the polite chatter, the awkward silences and especially the drinking. Last year I looked at my mountains of patterns and fabric knowing I needed to do something about it. So I hosted a quilt party for all the ladies at work.

I had the women pick a pattern and I made up the background pieces, they appliquéd the pieces, and then I quilted the pieces. A lot of work but a lot of fun.

 

 

Most of the ladies picked Pine Needle patterns. In some cases I hand-dyed the background if it was appropriate—like in the loon piece above.

 

 

Last year only 3 women were quilters, and no-one else had done appliqué. This year there was only 2 that had not done appliqué before. Last year we pieced the borders, this year I just did some painted borders. So much faster and I think it looks good for the bears.

 

 

Even the little ones, like this, took me more hours than I want to mention to quilt. But I love doing them. And they are always appreciated.

 

 

The lady who did this piece made a mistake and fused fusible web on the top of the piece. She called me almost in tears. No problem, I just added lots of layers of fusible to make it look like the piece was underwater.

 

Hard to see, but the fish really look 3-D.

 

 

I worked on this one, even though I didn’t need any more wall hangings. I decided to make it as a gift, then ran out of time to complete it… 

But I did complete these ones!

 

Has it been so long???

I cant believe the last post I did was October—sigh—time goes by so quickly.

I have been in Christmas mode for awhile and so that is what I have been doing.

I love Christmas fabric, I love pulling it out and just looking at it.

Then I had to get some ideas—I love surfing the net looking for patterns and ideas. I had forgotten I purchased a Kalea-ruler (or whatever its called) so I made a TON of table toppers.

OK—I need to get better pictures and show some completed ones. I have made 5 so far.

 

I didn’t complete it like this, so I need to check into this further.

This is the next wall hanging I started. Pattern by Pine Needles I think.

With borders:

I had to dye the large blue border with red so I got a nice purple. This was done because the blue in the main picture has a purple tinge…

I LOVE this one I made last year, and I will make a few Christmas ones with this pattern. Stay tuned!   :-)

My Birthday Present

Isn’t it the case that when one wants something, you get another ‘thing’ is more appreciated? This is the case of my birthday presents this year.

I wanted, and quite frankly, could use a new camera, but instead hubby got me this:

(This was started Oct 5 when there was a bit of snow.)

(no snow October23)

Then I bought myself a flat screen TV for my craft room that can just be seen in the last picture. The pink fleece is on top of Ripley’s pillow. I have wanted to get my vehicle out of the snow for years, and since hubby uses the double garage for his shop, both vehicles have had to live outside. Not anymore for me. :-)

If that wasn’t enough, the hubster finally got his 52” TV for his den:

This was taken when we were still setting up so please don’t think the room always looks this junkie.. 

Didn’t we both get great presents.  :-)

Another Shirt

So here is the white shirt I did. I realize I didn't mention HOW I did it, so here goes.

I drew a straight line across the shirt on the front and back, including on the sleeves. Then I used dental floss and ran a straight stitch around the shirt on the line. The floss is tightened and tied off. Then I applied the dye only on the floss. I also did the sleeve cuffs, but I used an elastic band around it. I didn't think to use an elastic band on the shirt, so whatever.

Here’s the shirt..

The blotches on the top band part is not permanent (I hope). If so, I will dye it the same blue..

That’s it for these shirts…

Week-end Shenanigans

It has been a while since I posted, so I thought I would show what I have been up to.

First, I found some great bargains on turtlenecks (which I love to wear) at Wal-Mart. All 100% cotton, so I knew they would dye great.

 

Here is a bleach discharge on a black turtleneck:

Here are some close-ups:

 

I LOVE the screaming ghost here! :-)

 

This is on the front and sleeve--just dribbled  down.

This turtleneck is great since it dyes to white. Yah! 

And of all things—I try on expensive clothes. I can afford expensive clothes. But I SWEAR the model for my size at Wal-Mart is my body double. All of the clothes I try there are a perfect fit. I just don't tell anyone where I get stuff, but in a small town like the one I live in, its hard not to have others know where you shop.

I have one more turtleneck, a white one, getting a little bling as we speak. I will post that one later.

 

My Walks Behind The House

I live in Northern Canada and fall is such an inspiration to me. I thought I would document some of the eye candy I see every day when I take little Ripley for her walk.

Here we are walking behind my house-this is in my yard:

Notice how the trail goes up slightly? About 2 minutes walk up this little hill from my back door I see this:

Is that fantastic or what??? I always pause at this point and just look around. I didn’t get a chance as the light was fading, but the mountains wrap around 3/4 of the way.

Although I have only seen about 5 people on the trails in over 3 years (seriously!), obviously others enjoy this area. It is on Queen’s Land, so open to all.

This bench is 6 minutes from the back door.

  See Ripley?  :-)

 

Fall is here and the leaves have changed colour or in this case, are gone.

About 10 minutes from my house, I reach this area. It is a small section of the Yukon River. There is also a bench here to rest, meditate or just enjoy the scenery.

The green trees are pine and evergreen. There are no green leaves left. In the North, you get yellow or orange leaves only. We do not have any (or few) native red leafed trees. 

 The area at the bottom is a clay cliff. We have a lot of them in the Yukon and the land is mostly sand based. Top soil for any lawns must be brought in.

Snow on the mountains. Winter is about a month away.

 

It was about 8pm when I went for this walk and it was amazing how quickly the light changed. This picture was taken about 5 minutes after the one above.

About 30 minutes into this walk, the sun was setting quickly and the sky was beautiful. I wish I could capture this in a dyed piece: 

 

And more sky pictures!

View Full Album

Here comes the moon! I went home right after this picture was taken. These last pictures are about 1/2 hour from my house.

And this is just one of the trails I can walk right from my back yard!

 

 

Monoprinting—My Way

I love monoprinting when I get a creative block—and whenever I fancy a fast, fun and totally rewarding piece of pretty fabric.

Here is how I make a fast monoprint.

First, I squeeze out a few Setacolours onto my table. I have placed a large piece of plastic on the tabletop.

Here I used some yellow, orange and red on top, and blues/purples below.

Then I use a regular paint brush and paint straight lines across the table.

And here is the first ‘pull’.

I do this several times and in this case, my piece ended up like this:

 

This is just my latest piece. Really, nothing hard or special about it, but it demonstrates how to make an easy monoprint..