Twenty colors

Here are the 20 colors that I dyed for the group challenge I mentioned yesterday.  Included here are a few pieces made with primaries I haven't used before, Grape (bottom of middle stack), Boysenberry (the middle fabric in the middle stack) and Strong Orange (bottom of right stack).  Before, to get these colors, I would have been mixing some combination of yellow, red, and blue; it's nice to have this quicker way (just one dye in the solution) to get these colors.

Then I sorted the piles into the colors requested by each of the participants, adding some other colors from my stash as well, and marking which participant each little stack is for.

I look forward to cutting into these fabrics, thinking of each friend as I make a small composition in these different arrays of color.

Two quilt backs and two shirts

The first things I worked on when I got back into the dye studio about ten days ago were large pieces for the backs of two quilts.  Above is a light blue and green piece prepared for a queen-sized quilt.  I'm happy with it now, but it took two rounds of dyeing.  No pfd (prepared for dyeing) fabric comes wide enough to make a large one-piece backing, so I used a regular bleached muslin.  I forgot to factor in how much paler the colors turn out on this non-pfd fabric; the first pass, below, was just too light.

After I told a couple of people, "If it was for the front, I'd do it again," I realized I should do it again.  This quilt will be on my own bed, and I know I'll be seeing the back as well as the top.  So I overdyed the whole thing with more blue, and I am happy with the results--still light but much more pleasing:

Yes, the back will be a nice companion to the top:

Now this quilt is ready to baste up, in preparation for the hand-quilting I have planned.

Next in line was the back for a quilt that was pieced by my group of quilting friends, a quilt that will be donated to help with a fundraiser for the Loretto Center, where we have our annual retreats.  For this back, I dyed a circular pattern, done by folding the fabric as one would for cutting snowflakes from a piece of paper.

Below is the back with part of the top pinned to it.  The rust color is fine, but the gold color is not fully on target.  I could improve this by overdyeing the whole thing with a small amount of red and blue.   The fundraiser is a long time off, so I'll put this aside for now.

 I do love the color movement that happens in this kind of dyeing:

I also tray-dyed two shirts--so easy to do compared to the big backs!  One is a three-quarter length sleeve from Chico's that my sister got on sale.  She picked colors and a pattern that I had used on a T-shirt for myself.  Here's her shirt (on the left) and mine (on the right).  I'm delighted that I was able to reproduce the color/design quite successfully!

I had some black and red dye left over, and it occurred to me in would be interesting to try out another shirt with the proportion of the colors reversed.  I tried this out on one of the many shirts I picked up at Salvation Army last summer.  I like this combination too:

Back in the dye studio!

It's been a few months since I've been in the dye studio, which is in my basement.  This winter was so cold that the ambient temperature in the basement was about 40F, and even a space heater wasn't enough to get me down there!  But spring is finally here, and also a project that spurs me to dye a bunch of colors.  I'm part of a small group of quilters who get together for a four-day retreat each year in the Chicago area.  We've recently undertaken a challenge:  to make a small work (just sewn, not quilted) for each member of the group, with the colors determined by the recipient but the style/composition determined by the maker.  As the end result, each member will have something in the style of each other person, but in colors of their own choosing.  We can then do what we want with what we've received--perhaps put them together in a quilt, pin them up on a wall, or just keep them in a drawer.  Anyway, having a list of colors requested by nine other people stimulated a week's worth of dyeing!  I dyed a half-yard each of a number of different colors; five of them ranging from turquoise through aqua to green are in the photo above; all will be lighter once they're washed out, dried, and ironed.  I'll only use a small amount of fabric for each person's block, so this will give me a lot of new colors for my stash.  While I was at it, I dyed a couple of T-shirts with tray-dyeing; one of them is in the skinny white container above.  I also dyed a couple of large pieces for quilt backings.  The last batch of 5 half-yards is sitting in cold water now.  Once that's done, I'll start the washout procedure on the week's work and will have a big reveal in a couple of days.

(By the way, if you get notification of my posts by e-mail, I updated a couple of previous posts that marked guest posts on another blog by adding the content to my own blog--so, old information for those of you who previously followed the link.)

Quilt accepted in a publication

I got the happy news recently that a quilt of mine has been accepted into a forthcoming book by Sherri Lynn Wood, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters.  Sherri solicited quilts from volunteers, who were assigned one or another improvisational quilt "score" set by Sherri.  Even though I've done quite a bit of improvisational work before, I learned a lot in the process of making this quilt, and I look forward to sharing more about it, including photos, once the book is published in winter/spring 2015.  (Until then, contributors are legally bound not to share any photos online.)

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To give you a photo of something, though, here's the fabric I've just cut for a small project--a runner to put on the top of the buffet in my dining room.

This is a selection of Japanese daiwabo fabric, quite different from what I usually work with, but it is such lovely material.  Here's another view of the fabrics, uncut:

Several years ago, I bought a dozen pieces of daiwabo at a quilt show, and made a few placemats from them.  I really like the subtle variations in texture and color.   Here's one of the placemats:

Another quilt back from scraps

I had quite a few scraps of patterned fabric left over when I finished the quilt I made from Carolyn Friedlander's "Focal" pattern.  Rather than re-sorting them into my scrap bins, or just discarding them, I decided to piece them together, along with some hand-dyed scraps, making some blocks that I would use in some fashion for the back of the quilt.  Preliminary sections are in the pile above.  Below, I've sorted some out into blocks, next to the finished top.

Not sure yet where I'll go from here.  I could separate blocks with solid fabric, or I could piece everything together.  (And if I love what I come up with, I'll change it to a top rather than a back.)  I've got all the scraps sewn into units with at least three or four pieces.  Now I have to put this aside for a while, as I need to prepare for a retreat I'm going to in 10 days, including a couple of new idea-based projects that need some extended thinking and sketching/planning.

Guest post on Techniques, Tools, & Materials for Hand-Stitching

I recently posted my last guest post on the blog ". . . And Then We Set It on Fire".  You can see it here.
http://andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com/2014/03/techniques-tools-materials.html  I've also posted it below.

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Penny Gold again here, with my last guest post.  Many thanks to Beata and the other guest bloggers for all of this month's posts!

I know I appreciate hearing about specific techniques, tools, and materials used by others, so I thought I'd share some of my own favorites here.

TECHNIQUES:
Stitching without a hoop or frame:  Learning to quilt without a hoop or frame made a big difference to me.  I like hand-stitching to be portable, so didn't want to be tied to a frame, and even a hoop is awkward to carry around.  I learning the method I now use from Suzanne Marshall.  I have not seen it described in her books, which focus on applique, but this Youtube video shows the method I learned from her.  The key thing is that most of the movement is in your left hand, moving the fabric up and down, rather than in your right hand that holds the needle (reverse for lefties).  One key thing that the video doesn't show:  When stitching in the center of a larger work, with too much fabric to gather in your hand and still keep your thumb on top of the work, you can move your left hand underneath the work and grab a kind of pocket of the fabric near where you're stitching.  You can see a photo of what I mean here (Suzanne Marshall) and here (Tonya Ricucci).

Stitching in limited stints:  For the first few years that I was doing hand-quilting and hand applique, I would stitch for an hour or more at a time.  I started developing hand pain, then numbness, and also a ganglion cyst on my wrist.  I was reassured that the cyst was not dangerous, just ugly, and I could live with that, but the pain and numbness were troubling.  I learned a number of hand and wrist exercises through physical therapy, and that helped a great deal.  But I was also instructed to stitch for shorter stretches of time.  It was hard to cut back, but I knew that keeping hand function was important!  So, I started timing my stints of handwork to the length of one side of an LP record, treating myself to listening to some old albums while I sewed.  I continue to limit myself to about 20 minutes of hand-sewing a day.  It is a little island of quiet for me.  The work goes slowly, but it progresses steadily.  I have accepted the slow pace, knowing that the work still will eventually be complete.  Here's a link to a substantial piece on hand health for stitchers.  It focuses on arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome; my issue was repetitive strain injury.

Threading multiple needles at once:  The part I like least in hand-sewing is having to thread the needle time and again.  I find this annoys me less if I get multiple needles lined up with thread at the end of a session, so I'm all set to go when I sit down to sew.  This also serves as another way for me to time a limited stint--sewing 6 needles is, for me, about 20 minutes.

TOOLS & MATERIALS (needles & thread):
When handquilting with thin quilting thread, I've used a size 8 or 9 between needle, with most any make satisfactory.  But I've had more trouble finding a needle I like for doing bigger stitching, with heavier thread or multiple strands of thread.  I like a needle thin enough to go through the fabric easily, with a big enough eye that I can thread it without a needle-threader, and a comfortable length (not too long).   The two brands/size of needles detailed below fit all three criteria when I'm using DMC embroidery floss, up to three strands.  In my current project, I'm using one strand of 20/2 pearl cotton from Halcyon yarns, recommended to me by a weaving friend as a thread that dyes well (as I was dyeing thread to match the fabric).  The roundness of this thread (as opposed to embroidery thread, which seems flat) prevents it from easily going through the eye of the needle, so I've reconciled myself to using a needle threader with this thread.  I did try a needle with a larger eye, but since the whole needle was larger, it was a lot more difficult to push through the fabric.

Mary Arden Embroidery needles--in a packet of assorted needles ranging from size 5 to 10, there seem to be three sizes.  I use the middle size.  I bought them at Colonial Needle.
John James Embroidery needles in a dusky pink "pebble."  I also use the middle size needle in this pack.

I would be very interested to hear about what type of needle you prefer to use--please leave a comment (or e-mail me directly) if you have one you like!

And here's Beth Berman's great tutorial on dyeing thread, including how to make up the skeins from a larger ball/cone of thread, and how to take individual threads off the dyed skein.

Adapting Carolyn Friendlander's pattern "Focal"

I really enjoyed sewing this version of Carolyn Friedlander's quilt pattern "Focal"--my version above and hers below, and a link to the pattern here :

I made several changes in the pattern beyond the obvious one of colors (though I like her colors very much).  I arranged the spikey bits to edge up on the center--I like the contrast there, and didn't want to lose any triangles in the binding.  I used my own hand-dyed fabric rather than commercial; I wanted a bit of movement in the central piece, which I get from the mottling in the hand-dye.  I arranged the corners differently--a by-product of sewing on the first border all around, without thinking of the consequences.  But the main difference is not so visible:  instead of paper-piecing the border, as called for in the pattern, I did only two 10" segments with paper-piecing, and then switched to improvisationally cutting and sewing the small pieces for the border.  I know some people really like paper-piecing (involves sewing fabric upside down onto paper printed with the pattern), but I'm not one of them, so I was really glad that a different method worked.  Here are a few photos of the process.

The top row shows about 8 different colors, cut 2-1/2 x 6", for the "stick" part of each border piece.  In two rows below that are smaller scraps of patterned fabric.  Bottom right are four orange sticks lined up with scraps that will become the corner triangles.  My favorite part of the process--choosing scraps for the corners, looking for an array (doing 3 or 4 sticks at a time) that would be interesting together, and also contrast with the stick.  I do love playing with color. . .

Some scraps were sewn to the left side of the stick, others to the right.

After scraps were sewn on and the flap ironed out (pile on bottom left), I squared up the stick (under the ruler, bottom right).  Top left is the finished sticks plus triangles.  Top right is the cut-offs from the scraps.

Photo below shows audition of sections for the second border, before all were trimmed.

Checking values with a black/white photo.

Finished top again (for true colors, see details below)

 Details from the borders

Now I have to piece a back, and figure out how I want to quilt it.