Don’t Put All Your Eggs In A Basket, Put Some In A Cube Instead!

Happy Easter!

MySpace Generator

Rotating Cube - Variations Of My Fabric and Quilts

MySpace Generator

It has been quite some time since I shared a rotating cube on my blog.

This just seemed like a perfect time to use it.

Colors Change

One of the fabrics I have available to purchase on Spoonflower is a great black and white design that can be used in so many ways and with so many colors.

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1826928

I decided to show you how it could work with several colors.

I made a quilt with the fabric and showed it to you on this blog.

I am using the same quilt to show you what the fabric could look like with different colors.

Lime green looks great with this fabric.

A deep green is also so effective used with this fabric.

Turquoise used with this fabric makes a WOW quilt.

Red always is exciting used with black and white.

No matter what design or pattern you choose for your quilt you make with this fabric, the possibilities of what you can combine it with are endless.

To me that is what makes a GREAT fabric that WORKS!

And just in case you forgot, this is the original quilt that I made with this fabric.

Knowing how the fabric works with so many things I have more on order and can’t wait to get it.

Please share your projects with me using this fabric and I will post them on my blog. Thanks.

Lunch At B D Beans

You can see how excited Greg and Julie were to meet the Belle of Belleview after lunch!

It’s pretty hard to tell whether Nicholas or Jared was more excited to be able to be in the company of The Belle!

The food was good as always, and Greg, Nicholas and Jared all had room for a big piece of their delicious cake.

Shibori–Black And White Continued

This is another one of the black and white pieces that I was very pleased with.

This was yellow before I overdyed it with black.

This piece with the colored arcs is one I wasn’t particularly pleased with. I shibori overdyed it with black.

I am still not particularly pleased with it.

I started with a piece of red and white that was not particularly interesting. Doing a black overdye gave me a very interesting piece of fabric. It is one of my favorites.

This concludes the black shibori dyeing. There are more, but they are not exciting!

Hand Dyed Fabrics: Black And White And Shades Of Gray

Usually when I do shibori dyeing I prefer to have little or no white in my fabrics.

My goal this dye session was to get black and WHITES.

The two examples you see here were my experiment to see the difference between wetting fabrics first or dyeing the fabrics dry.

The top fabric was dyed dry and the lower one was immersed in water before I dyed it.

The water acts as a resist and allowed me to get white (or close to it).

Do you think this one was dyed wet or dry?

Wet or dry?

You are doing a good job figuring this out!

I am always fascinated by the infinite number of ways you can wrap a pole and the results you get.

Stay tuned as there are more black and whites to come.

Racine Washington Park High School Class of 1957 - Reunion Spring 2013

It’s always so much fun to get together with long time friends.

We did a last minute impromptu get together this weekend before Pat and John head back north.

Brunch at our clubhouse!

Brunch was delicious but the real star of the reunion was the company!

Hand Dyed Fabrics – Second Group

I think the lime is even less visible in this piece, but there are some interesting shapes that came from the way the fabric was manipulated.

I have a feeling the first layer on this piece was paint rather than dye. The lime is showing up much better on this one.

The first layer for this piece was dye painted and I used a variety of different resists to get the designs. It was originally a dark aqua or turquoise before I overdyed it with the lime. It has some “interesting” things happening.

The rest of the fabrics I dyed with the lime dye are not anything I care to even show you, so this is the end of the lime dye session.

Stay tuned as I will be showing blacks next.

Hand Dyed Fabrics–The Most Recent

I had a lot of fabrics I had dyed with red dye. There was just too much white for me so I over dyed them with lime green.This was not quite what I was expecting. It looks more “lemon” green. I am not sure if I will leave them like this or overdye with another color.

When you see this one in person you do see the pattern created from dyeing it red. You also faintly see the texture created from the lemon green dye.

This piece is almost a yard. It has some interesting textures. It also is really more lemon than lime in person.

Are these pieces less than lovelies? That depends. I didn’t get what I was aiming for, but if I study them I may find what I got was better? Or I may not!

TIme will tell.

A Time To Dye!

This is a major part of the palette of fabrics I have dyed in the last 2 years.

Can you see what colors I am missing?

These are some of the fabrics I have prepared to overdye. I am not quite sure what colors I will be overdyeing them with.

I have these rolled on poles and ready to go.

I will attempt to prepare a lot more fabrics today so I can load up the dye pots.

Wish me luck!

Elegant Spirit Quilt Created With The Fabric I Designed

This quilt top is done using the fabric I designed. The fabric is available to you to purchase through Spoonflower: see the link at the end of this post.

This is the fabric I started with. It is the one I designed and had printed at Spoonflower.

I made these 4 cuts which gave me 4 strips of fabric to use for borders. The remaining fabric was used in other parts of the quilt.

I put the borders and the blocks I cut for the middle of the quilt on the design wall.

I then tried to decide which of these fabrics I would like to use with the main fabric.

The fabrics I pulled from my fabric palette first were not the ones I used.

The final answer for me was to use only this mottled dark blue.

I built the quilt from the center out adding blue strips and more of the black and white.

Eventually I added the final border and filled in the open center to create the quilt top.

I choose black and white for the design as it is crisp, interesting and airy. You can combine this fabric with any color  that appeals to you.

You can create your own design utilizing the fabric in your OWN way.

This makes a great whole cloth baby quilt which is great when you need a quilt in a hurry and don’t have time to piece it. Babies see black and white first so it’s a perfect choice.

If you don’t sew you can mount it on a stretcher frame, foam core board or put it in a picture frame to hang on the wall for instant wall art. Every home has a place where you can use black and white.

This fabric would also make a perfect duvet cover, pillows, drapes, a table cloth or many other household items.

You can order this fabric in a quilting weight cotton, silk, cotton sateen, a cotton/silk blend,  a linen blend, canvas  or an organic cotton knit.

What a smashing scarf it would make printed on silk!

To order it just click on this link and it will take you directly to the page to place an order.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/1826928?view=for_sale

I can’t wait to see what you design  with this. Please add a picture of your project to the page where you ordered the fabric when you finish it.

I just made time to design a puzzle for this quilt.

Great News For the Quilt And The Fabric!

I am almost done creating this quilt with the fabric I designed and had printed.

The difference you see between the quilt and the fabric is because of the lighting where I took the photographs. The back ground is pure white.

MORE GOOD NEWS!

The fabric is now available for you to purchase at Spoonflower. The photo above shows 1 yard of 42” fabric.

You can buy it by the yards, fat quarter or even purchase a sample before you order a quantity.

Here is the link to buy it:

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1826928

When I choose a fabric I want to choose one that works and inspires me. This one certainly works and inspired me.

There are so many possibilities with this fabric.

You can cut it in strips either lengthwise or crosswise. Cutting it in either 4 or 8 lengthwise strips will give you strips you could use as borders.

You can cut the individual design units to create blocks. You can also cut these blocks into triangles.

And lastly it makes a great whole cloth quilt.

One yard makes a prefect baby quilt. The first color’s babies see are black and white.

If you don’t sew you could mount this on a stretcher frame or foam core board or even frame it with a picture frame and hang it on a wall.

Every one can use black and white somewhere in their house or apartment.

It would make a great duvet cover, pillows  or drapes.

It would make great clothing – shirts, dresses, etc.

I ordered more of it as I have some other great ideas.

What other ideas do you have to use this?

In a future blog post I will show you how I designed this.

I will also be filling in the open center before I show you how I did the design!

I hope you will enjoy this as much as I am enjoying it.

Improv 1–White Quilt

I decided this Improv quilt could be improved with a little color so I did some quilting in red and also in black. It worked.

This photo is before I trimmed the edges and added the facings.

It’s done and I do like this. The quilting on each strip of the white was done with a zig zag.

The colored quilting just begged me to do it! It too is improvisational and irregular.

I left one small section of the quilt unquilted for contrast.

The design is minimal and clean.

This white silk faille was my inspiration for this quilt.

This could be hung on an all white wall, adding another dimension - texture and subtle pattern.

It could also work on a colored wall and the contrast would be very striking.

It is 29 inches wide and 37 inches high.

The Beginning Of A Quilt With My Own Fabric Design

If you follow this blog or my Facebook page you know I am working on designing fabric.

I would like to share the beginning of the quilt I am making with one of the fabrics.

I cut the fabric between the design rows. By cutting it like this I have 3 border strips on the left and one on the right.

This will allow me to have complete design units from the wide strip.

I have the border strips loosely pinned to the design wall to give me an idea of how the border will work.

I haven’t trimmed 2 of them to the width yet. Disregard the different colors on the strips as that was caused by the lighting in the room.

I realize it is unusual to design a border first, but this is what the fabric is telling me to do.

Stay tuned as I will show the quilt as it progresses.

This is the fabric I designed and had printed at Spoonflower. I had asked your thoughts on whether or not I should have it printed and available for you to purchase.

Your responses were so favorable I have decided I will make it available. I will let you know as soon as I have make the necessary arrangements.

My Fabric Designs

This is one yard of 42 inch wide fabric. I designed it and had it printed at Spoonflower.

I am so pleased with it. It could be used as a border around a quilt. There are 4 vertical repeats and to the best of my knowledge most quilts have 4 sides. If you wanted a narrower border you could do half a repeat and get 8 strips.

You could also cut the individual motifs and use them as alternating blocks or featured blocks in a quilt or wall hanging.

I had it printed on Kona cotton and it is wonderful. I am sure I will be ordering many more yards of this.

This is a close-up of the design.

My granddaughter is taking a black and white photography class at the Glasgow (Scotland) School Of Art. I am thinking her photos printed on fabric could be awesome combined with this fabric.

I also would like to see it combined with bright colors.

Rather than iron this and iron out the fold lines I have left them visible so you can see this actually is a piece of fabric, not just a design.

I have also had several other fabrics printed.

I am considering whether or not to make some of them available for sale through Spoonflower.

If any of you would purchase this if I made it for sale let me know. That will help me make my decision.

Wearable Wednesday

As I was thinking about the Violet Vest I made I remembered I had made another vest years ago with almost the same colors.

The design and fabrics are quite different. At the time I made this one it was very hard to even find good solid colored fabrics.

I think this one was sold.

Here is another vest I made in similar colors. This is my Texture Vest pattern. It has “wrinkling” and stitching with heavy thread in the bobbin, a slashed band and a shirt tail hem.

The length and styling make this a very flattering style for all sizes.

One of the presentations I used to do was a style show of my wearable art. This is a group of models from one of them.

You may recognize the Almost Crazy Vest from the pattern front.

I hope I am inspiring some of you to create your own wearable art.

Velvet Vest

This vest was a bigger challenge to photograph than it was to make. It is a very drapey garment and I did my best draping it without it being on a body. I haven’t mastered taking photographs of myself without my looking absolutely ridiculous!

For the back I was able to feature the circular design off center and towards the top.

I used my Prairie Point vest pattern as the basic shape for this.

I know, it looks nothing like the pattern, but that is the advantage of using patterns that feature basic shapes that can be changed to fit your ideas.

The fabric is a dyed cut velvet from a well known wearable art designer.

I am really enjoying wearing this and feel great when I do.

Violet Vest Visit!

This is the front of the vest. I think you can see that I used all the fabrics I used in the vest for the binding. I sewed them together and did a bias binding which allows you to shape the binding to the curves.

 

Here you can see the back. You can also see the lining as the points from the front hang below the back in the photo.

I’m quite pleased with it.

I think the fact that I made it with what I would call zero waste (after squeezing a pin cushion and a small quilt out of the scraps too small to use) makes me even prouder of what I accomplished. I do not intend to make zero waste a habit though.