Hand Dyed Fabric for Mom

My mom's birthday is coming up again (happy 60th!) and I wanted to make her another batch of hand dyed fabric for her quilting projects (see here and here). I made her some fabric last year and she like it alot, so I thought I'd do it again.

Right after the dying process, each fabric piece is sealed in a plastic bag and let to rest for about 24 hours.

After resting, the excess dye is rinsed out and then the fabric is washed in the washing machine.

The colors are very vibrant when the fabric is wet, but a lot of the color usually washes out in the laundry.

Here are the first six fat-quarters (a quilting term meaning a quarter yard roughly in the shape of a square).

And here are the other six fat quarters.

I think this is one of my favorites (it combines my two favorite colors).

This one also turned out well. I was experimenting with using raw powdered dye sprinkled on to the fabric at the last minute. I think it looks pretty nice.

Mom's Quilts (Part 2)

Here are a few more examples of my mom's quilts. Some are original designs, some are from patterns. She has a huge fabric collection and it has been fun watching her taste and style change over the years.

Here are some close ups on the previous quilt:

She also went through a Kaffe Fassett phase (I think she still is in this phase):

Mom's Quilts (Part 1)

Both of my parents are retired, but they keep busier than most people who work! My dad is crazy about golf, while my mom is crazy about quilting. My mom is a very talented quilter and I wanted to show off some of her work. She gets asked to do trunk-shows (a quilt show-and-tell) quite often, has had a show in a local art gallery, and she also volunteers a lot of her time making quilts and stuffed toys for charities.

This last one is currently hanging in my living room. It goes perfectly with the blue and cream paint job:

Where Have I Been?

So my blogging has definitely slowed down the last few weeks due to several reasons:

1. The garden is slowing down (and frankly, it looks like crap this time of year)
2. I've been busy working on a manuscript at work (that will be morphed into the first chapter of my dissertation)
3. I've been spending some time getting back to my crafty side (something that gets put on hold during gardening season).

I felt the urge to haul out the old sewing machine that my mom handed down to me. I learned how to sew when I was in elementary school and I've made a number of quilts over the years. The real quilter, however, is my mom. She's very creative and dedicated to quilting. I'll try to post some photos of her creations soon.

The old Singer sewing machine works pretty well considering it's from the early 1970s (and yes, its seafoam green). They definitely don't make sewing machines like they used to. The housing of my machine is entirely metal (no cheap plastic housing like modern sewing machines). Of course it also weighs a ton due to all the metal, but who really lugs around their sewing machine on a regular basis anyway?...oh wait, my mom does all the time.

I decided I would experiment with sewing on paper instead of fabric (partially because paper is so stable and easy to work with, and partially because paper is much much cheaper than fabric). I'm having so much fun working with the whole sewn-paper concept, that I decided to open a shop on Etsy. Head on over to my shop and take a look at some of my other projects.

Here are a few examples of what I've been making lately.

Notecards:

Paper garlands:

Hand Dyed Fabric

My mom is and art quilter and has a huge fabric collection. For her October birthday, I asked her if there were any particular colors of fabric she was in need of. She said she could use green and turquoise. She thought I was going to buy her fabric from the craft store, but since I enjoy dying fabric and yarn, I decided to make her some hand-dyed pieces.

Turquoise and green hand dyed fabric for Mom's birthday.

Since the fabric was so much fun to make for her birthday, I decided to make some more for Christmas. This time she requested blues, purples, and “sky pieces” (for using as background fabric for landscape applique projects).

I have collected a lot of dye over the years and I have quite a few colors to choose from. I had a lot of fun mixing colors, dipping the fabrics in multiple colors, and splattering various dyes to make a variety of mottled fabrics.   

After dying the fabric, I let it set overnight

After sitting overnight, the excess dye is rinsed out before putting the fabric in the washing machine

Before washing, the fabric is very vibrant. Unfortunately, it loses some of its color in the wash. 

The fabric gets very wrinkled and frayed a lot in the washing machine, but it's fairly easy to iron and clean up.

A variety of blues and purples.