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Still staying with the palette I have been playing with this summer -- Intense Blue, Grass and Leaf Green and Sun Yellow with a little Basic Blue. I have continued the stacking of two mandalas and with this batch, I smushed them a bit as well (not laying them perfectly flat as before). This one was a nice Kona cotton and the one below was an old piece of muslin which I used as my top piece. These were pretty close in color but you can see the effect of the ice more on the top piece.
You can actually see a couple of spots on this one where the soda ash didn't take for some reason even though soaked for a day!
These next two were a pair also, muslin on the bottom..
You can see those little spots here as well.
Again another pair but I like both of these a lot!
This is one of the top ones that I thought was really effective!
The next two were not a pair but the better of the two pieces in the pair (although they were all pretty good in my estimation).
This is one of the muslin pieces. Definitely like the Kona cotton better. It was heavier than I usually use and it seemed to take up the dye very well through all these layers (16 + the drop cloth which is smushed up).
This is the array of all plus one (couldn't find a format for the collage that allowed all the pairs to be shown to their best advantage). You should be ale to pick out all the pairs here!
This was one of the mandalas from the other day that was really not symmetrical so I cut it into fours squares and will insert the green and blue pieces and then hopefully will square with something to be determined. It certainly improves the piece IMHO. I also switched the pieces from their original configuration and cut off edges (it was one of those not carefully cut pieces that was much longer than wide).
In the afternoons waiting for the mandalas and t-shirts to "age", I am continuing to work on purses with a fall theme. These are the latest two. I had the camera settings a bit off so the color is a little off on these. I am working my way through Inspector Lewis while I am doing this. I have recently gotten a hearing aid, so am actually falling the plots a lot better than before even though the sewing machine sounds a lot louder!!
I have made two of each of these purses (although their are differences in the linings most of the time). I have four more to go before I have to buy some more fusible fleece and decide what fabrics to use. I have quite a stash of upholstery faux suede at this point and noticed the latest Joanns ad said that all drapery fabric was on sale EXCEPT the faux suede! Hope that isn't because of all I have bought lately and it is not a new trend! When on sale with another 20% off the total order, it is very reasonably priced -- I even ordered some online of the more popular colors.
This is a collage of the most recent purses that I have completed. Four of these use some of my marbled fabric, one uses commercial fabric and one uses a hand dyed fabric that I purchased from another dyer (upper right hand corner). It was different than anything I had so I purchased it just to see if I wanted to do this. It basically is dye powder sprinkled on a soda soaked surface which is at an angle so the stuff moves around.
This is a closeup of one of my favorites of the bunch. Each of these purses uses a heavy duty pseudo suede in the handles, the bottom and on the sides of the purse. Each purse (except for the one with the commercial fabric) has a zipper on top. All have two zippered pockets inside and I believe I have solved the drooping problem by sewing the pocket to the lining instead of letting it just hand down from the zippered opening.
This is also one of my favorites and utilized one of my favorite marbled fabrics.
Can you believe I made 55 of those cosmetic bags and actually made a dent in the zippers and marbled fabric stash? If I get my act together, maybe I can sell some at our quilt show. Need to figure out how to label them though.
Anyway, decided to switch to purses again as I really needed to try to see if I could figure out a solution to the "top sagging" problem. I like to put zippered pockets in the lining of the purses and this has caused the top to sag down which is annoying. I know I could do a line of stitching above the pocket sewing the outside to the lining, but this would be awkward and show. My new solution which will hopefully work is to not let the bottom of the inside pocket be free to sag down when full. I have sewn a line of stitching at the bottom of the pocket attaching it firmly to the lining. I will have to use the purse to see how this works. You can see I am using more of my nice marbled fabrics.
Here is the beginning of the next purse using commercial fabric this time. I brought down much of my half and quarter yard stash down with me. I love using the pseudo suede in the purses as it really holds up extremely well. I can get it cheaply down here and it must have repellent on it as it still looks like new in a lighter color on a purse I have been using for months. I am going to head to the shop where I purchased it and get some in every color they have!!
The birds all seem to be pairing up as well! Spring must have arrived. The Laughing Gulls are all laughing and showing their summer colors already. Here are the beautiful mallards.
Buffleheads.
Lesser Scaups.
Hooded Mergansers (which were not in their usual place).
The weather has been gorgeous down here with temps in the high 70s so much time has been spent outside these past few days but must get my act in order as guests arrive on Monday -- a full house!
This is a collage of six of the pieces that I did the other day. I used sun yellow, golden yellow, strong orange, basic brown and a touch of grape to create these. You never know what you will get. These all sat together and you can see how different they are.
This and the following three images were done the other day with some extra wide fabric I got from a supplier in Arkansas. It was supposed to be PFD and I had excellent luck with the narrower version but even though the fabric feels the same, the colors are much more pastel. I may try scrubbing it to see if I get better results although I kind of like these pastel pieces even though a lot of dye is wasted!
I like the more vibrant colors I got with these other pfd fabrics. I had tested them the other day as I had no idea whether they were pfd or not. Several of these are a sateen that I bought (not cheap) on speculation that it would dye well. It didn't disappoint!
The rest of the pictures are from this same batch.
Last but not least, I finally finished two purses using some of my mono-printed fabric (using a heavy bottom weight fabric) and the pseudo suede that I bought with my sister last spring down in Wilmington.
Before leaving Rochester, I made up "kits" for making purses using my modified pattern. In many cases, I didn't put in any extra fabric so had to improvise on the straps from what I had on hand. These were all made with 1/3 yard pieces of "Japanese" fabrics I bought in a bundle in California many many years ago. I knew I had to do something with them and am relatively pleased with how they turned out. I tried to "fussy-cut" to put the best pattern on those middle panels.
Of course, afternoons are still for my walks and trying to find birds of which to take pictures. This was the closest I have come to a Horned Grebe on a very cloudy day. He popped up right in front of me!
You can see a closeup of his face here with the red eye and the peculiar red stripe that goes down to his bill.
My Oystercatchers have been particularly entertaining this last week making lots of noise and chasing each other around.
These three were particularly talkative. These were really far away and I am so pleased with the new lens and the ability to capture pictures I couldn't before!
While I was watching the Oystercatchers, the beautiful Great Black-backed Gull flew over. He was huge! Wish I had caught him sooner with his graphic plummage. The next day I saw a juvenile version of this gull.
This bird was really far out and even through the lens of the camera I couldn't make out what it was. I was amazed at how good the photo came out. I believe this is a Common Loon. There was also a flock of Red-throated Loons flying through as well.
Last but not lease, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this beautiful female Boat Tailed Grackle. They are so common down here but the light was just right and you can see all her shades of brown. I ran into some of my new birding friends and they told me of another site I have to investigate as well -- where the woodpeckers hang out also right down the road! There will be a Civil War re-enactment this weekend so I have a feeling that will scare away everyone as they will shoot off the canons which even shake this house a mile away!!
Just for a change of pace, I thought I would put in a sunrise picture instead of a sunset one. We now have more of a horizon than before since they tore down that house! It just amazes me how far south the sun comes in winter. I hadn't taken a sunset picture from my porch in months. In early fall, I would have to lean way out to capture the sunset as it was almost behind the house. Now it is really far south and the foreground is entirely different -- houses instead of woods. We certainly do have pretty sunrises and sunsets down here though!!
This was a late afternoon sun obscured by lots of clouds but enough to shine on the basin and I thought it was worth capturing!
I am back to making some purses with my adaptation of a pattern I had. Years ago when in San Diego, I bought a whole bunch of 1/3 yard pieces of nice Japanese fabrics probably from Moda. I am finally using these up with the purses. These purses have nice deep pockets on the sides, a zipper on top and 2 deep zippered compartments inside. I sometimes include a hidden zippered pocket on the outside as well.
Another utilizing the Japanese fabric and some batiks.
Just one more and my least favorite as I think I like a jazzier print for the main part like the above one. I am going to try to use some of my marbled fabrics to make some bags and will try some new designs as well.
Had to add a picture of my Christmas cactus which is blooming right on schedule for the first time ever. I left it outside for all the fall months to encourage this good behavior!! Usually I get two flowers around Mother's Day!! All but a few flowers were blooming for Christmas.
Birding has not been good this year but there have been a pretty consistent flock of Horned Grebes down at the basin. The last week, there have just been too many people hanging out at Ft. Fisher. There have been lots of beautiful Buffleheads in their usual spot by the gazebo.
Lots of gulls hanging out at Ft. Fisher now. I noticed that they were not there in the fall as usual but there are certainly back in numbers now -- lots of Ring Billed Gulls and Laughing Gulls with a few Herring Gulls thrown in.
It has been pretty hectic but there was still enough time to do a little more ice dyeing. This time I decided to use up some of my Pro Chem Black 602A which is at least 14 years old. I bought a pound back then and it is a mixed dye that I only use in very small quantities. I also decided I would throw in some of the Grape (purple) that has also been languishing since the first year it was offered at Pro Chem as I didn't think it was a dark enough color.
This is a picture of one of the two pieces I did. It is about 75 inches by 45 inches and thought it was pretty cool. This black breaks down very nicely with lots of pretty blues. This was on the Egyptian cotton but I think it will be great on the sateen as well. I had it folded the way I fold my fabrics after scouring and I forgot to unfold it before doing the soda ash soak so just left it that way and scrunched.
This is the second piece using the same dye colors.
I finished the purse that I used for the demo on Thursday. The more solid piece is an old snow dyed piece of fabric and the brightly colored one is a commercial batik. This is a Lazy Girl pattern that I enlarged to make a bigger purse.
This shows the inset zipper on top that didn't get quite done during the demo.
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