Modern Scrap Squares, take 2

I made a quilt from some of my recently hand dyed fabric.  Here are the fabrics that I used, which were a range between yellow, green, teal, and khaki, and included some commercially printed fabrics:

The pattern is very similar to the one that I used Modern Scrap Squares.  I only changed a few things, and quilted it the same way as the first one.  It's 64" W x 76" L.

I hope you like it.

Improv quilt, part One

I looked for inspiration for a quilt that would use some of my hand dyed fabric.  This one jumped out at me.  The improv nature of curved pieces was really appealing.  Here was the inspiration:

I sketched up some blocks that I thought that I would like to make:

I wanted to use some of the fabrics from my hand dying experience.  Here is the pile that I started with:

I originally sketched up the blocks as 6".  But, no sooner than I started making one of them, I realized that it would be way too difficult (and not fun) to piece the tiny pieces.  So, I transferred the sketches to 14" and 18"  blocks, and drew up some overall quilt designs.

If I did the first design, the quilt would end up being 74" square, which may look pretty unique.  The second idea would be 56" square and would make a large wall hanging.  Stay tuned to see what I did.

Testing for dye fastness

I hand dyed almost 13 yards of fabric earlier in the year and did all the recommended rinsing and washing.  However, I didn't really trust that the washing had removed all of the excess dye.  And there is nothing worse than completing a quilt and having some of the fabric run the first time it's washed.  So, I tested the pieces that I was going to use on a new quilt.

I cut a small piece out of each fabric and sewed them to a larger piece of white fabric.  Then, it was sprayed with water and left to sit.

Here is what I discovered after letting it sit for an hour.  You can see that all of the hand dyed blues and red had issues.  Two of the commercial blue fabrics also had issues.  All of the commercial red fabrics passed the test with flying colors. 

When the problem with fugitive dye was discovered with this simple test, the plan of attack was to wash all of the fabrics that failed again in hot water with Synthropol and a color catcher sheet, and then do the test a second time.   Here is the second test:

All of the blue hand dyed materials failed this second time and so did the red fabric.  So, they were put back into hot water for another round of Synthropol and a color catcher.  As you can see the color catcher is getting more and more pale, which means there is less and less fugitive dye in the water.

The last round of washing was with hot water and Retaine.   I thought that I'd finally gotten all of the fugitive dye out.  But, just to make sure, one last dye fastness test was run. 

And, yes, finally, these 4 fabrics were ready to use!

I hope you check out the dye fastness in your materials too.  

Vagabonds Challenge 2021 - Two legs on a path - Emily's Boots

Vagabonds set up another challenge for 2021.  We were challenged to make a 24" high x 24" (or less) width art quilt that features a pair of legs walking on a path.  I remembered a picture that I took of one of my granddaughters helping me in the garden when she was about 2 years old.  She was wearing little yellow boots and blue jeans.  It was such a sweet picture!  I knew right away that it was the one I was going to use.

I printed the photo, traced the parts that I wanted to use, and had it enlarged at my favorite blueprint shop.   I don't know how many of you live in the Portland, OR area.  If you do,  Rose City Blueprint is fast and cheap.  It only cost $3.25 to enlarge my sketch to 24" x 24".  

Once the drawing was the size that I wanted, I traced the lines onto clear acetate film.  Notice that I had to imagine the bottom of the boots that couldn't be seen in the photo.  

The acetate tracing was taped to a board covered with a Teflon sheet.  I've used this board and sheet many times and I keep it on hand for art projects.  I tape it at the top so that I can flip up the film and place pieces of fabric.

For the boots, I picked 3 shades of yellow, fused them to Steam-a-Seam Light II and cut out the pieces, placing them to match the drawing.

For the pants, I picked 3 shades of blue, following the same technique.

And for the jacket, I picked 3 different shades of blue than were used for the pants, following the same technique.

When all the pieces were placed, the entire piece was steamed and allowed to cool.  Here's what it looked like on the assembly board.

The background started out with just a couple of pieces of fabric to test out the colors.

It seemed just a bit too simple, so I added some different colors into the grass.  I trimmed notches into the top of little pieces and layered them from top to bottom.

When that was complete, I fused the legs and boots on the top, weaving the grass around the boots.  I quilted it with a quilting stitch #1304 and a walking foot on my Bernina 570 sewing machine.  It was easy to start with lines 3" apart, then sew down the middle of those lines, and once more between the middle of all of the lines.  I liked the way that stitch looked like rain with it's two forward and one backward stitch.

The piece is 24" x 24" and is faced.  I added silver bugle beads to enhance the rain effect, which were added after I took the photo below. 

I hope you like it!

Baby blanket made from Minky fabric

One of my nieces is having a baby in October and I decided to make her a baby blanket out of Minky fabric.  It is so soft and cuddly.  I've used it before on a few baby blankets and have gotten really cool feedback; so here it goes again.

I bought two different blue fabrics from Fabric Depot's website.  The don't exactly match, but they will be on different sides of the blanket, so it doesn't matter.

I added a few tabs for the baby to play with:

Sewed around most of the edges, leaving a spot to turn the blanket.  Stitched the opening closed, and stitched around all the edges.  Here's one side:

And the other

I hope the baby will like it!

Shisha mirror embroidery quilt - Final

This is a continuation of two previous posts about the making of the Shisha mirror embroidery quilt.

I kept adding mirrors, embroidery stitches, and beads to the quilt.  I liked the process of adding mirrors to the quilt, and thought that the embroidery was relaxing.  Well, at least until the cat decided to play with my thread.  My 8 year old granddaughter said that she really liked it and wanted to buy it.  I asked her, "How much are you going to pay me?".  She said, "Well, I have a lot of pennies in my piggy bank and I think I have 20, so 20 cents."  Hmm, I thought a bit, and then replied, "Do you have any other money?"  She thought it over and replied, "I think I can find some one dollar bills."  "Do you have $20 worth?" I asked.  She said, "Maybe."  We left it at that.  I think I might have to make a smaller version and gift it to her.  Before she left, though, she drew a picture of a hot pink skort that wanted me to make for her.

Anyway, here is a picture of the finished piece, with some close-ups.  

The bird was sketched by Diane Stone, and I colorized it after I embroidered the edges.

This was really fun and different to make and I hope you like it.

Changing Binding Colors

I was originally going to share a technique that was developed and demonstrated on the Quilting Arts TV show by Sandra Bruce.  (It was on Season 22, Episode 8).  Her design is way more accurate than any technique that I've shown before.  Why it is so cool is that you are able to do regular binding and still get the effect that you would get with facing a quilt.  A couple of things to know is that the seams are very tiny close to 1/8", and they are pressed in the direction of the darkest fabric.  The other thing is that you can only work on one side of the quilt at a time.  But, after having this in my draft folder for so long, I decided that I would should you how to change binding at the corner, and let you look up her technique, if you're interested.

I'm pretty sure that I've shown this before, but here it is again.

I wanted to have green binding on the bottom edge of this little quilt, and blue binding on the other 3 sides.  I sewed the green binding first, leaving plenty of fabric hanging off both edges.  I then sewed on the blue binding, leaving a tail at the beginning and the end, but folding the two corners.  I stopped and started the sewing, backstitching at the all 4 corners.

Using a white marking pencil, I used my corner mark-it tool, and drew a triangle on both the green and the blue side of the binding.

I lined up and sewed right on the triangles, backstitching at the start, the stop, and the corner.  This was trimmed and turned to the backside.

Slipstitching was used to sew the binding to the back of the quilt.

I hope you have fun binding your quilts!