Saturday, October 24, 2009

Fat Quarter Madness!


Guess what I did today?

My first task towards the end of the week was to prepare fabrics for the commission piece I'm doing. While I've promised not to post photos of the work in progress, I don't think it hurts to show you the fabrics.

The above three pieces were painted with Dye-Na-Flow fabric paints. They were a tremendous pain in the tush to color set, but after many runs through a hot dryer and some ironing, I managed to keep most of the color from washing out in the machine.

Along with these vibrant yellow/orange/red pieces, I've also finished a blue-to-teal gradation as a compliment.



The quiet, slow task of hand-dyeing fabrics always makes me feel a bit like an Earth Mother. Something about the feel of stiff white muslin in my hands, the puddles of jewel-toned dyes, the lengthy wash-out, hanging yardage outside to dry on the line- it all adds up to long, tiring days that leave me utterly blissed out and feeling connected to the women across the ages who labored similarly.

The weekend so far has been filled with such activity, and the days are perfect for it- sunny, dry, breezy and cool.

Today was spent washing-out, drying and pressing the results of a 30-step, 3-color gradation kit I bought at the ProChem booth of the IQF.


The kit I used was called "Prism", and is aptly named, as you can tell by the photos. The colors contained were the three primaries: lemon yellow, magenta, and what ProChem calls "Intense Blue".

It yielded 30 fat quarters (four yards of bleached, mercerized muslin that measured 108" from selvedge to selvedge- I got 8 pieces out of each yard) in a rainbow of jewel-toned colors. I'm very pleased with the result and now I have to get down to work and produce some quilts!

 




 Finally, I finished quilting this post card for Mom. The piece was painted in one of my IQF classes. She received it yesterday and yes, she loved it.


Next week I'll be spending much of my time at the sewing machine. Hope this old back holds out!

I posted some great shots of fluttery pretties over on my photography blog, Approachable Photos. Check them out!

Happy creating!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

very yummy fabrics!

Terri Stegmiller said...

What a wonderful rainbow of fabrics you have there.

Nina Lise@Mrs Moen said...

Fantastic colours; I'm looking forward to see what you are going to make from them even though I'll have to wait until it's finished!

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Judi your dyed fabrics are absolutely "to dye for" ... so wonderful. Have a lovely Sunday

Carolyn ♥

ps. having a little giveaway if you want to pop over

jojo said...

LOVE IT! Lots of work!

Robbie said...

Don't you love to see your fabrics hung outside!! Great inspiration!

Jan said...

Those fabrics are mouth watering! So fabulous!! That quilt is going to be stunning if these are going into it.

Deborah said...

The fabrics look fabulous!

grazzhopr said...

What wonderful colored fabrics.

Mary Helen-Art Saves Lives said...

Oh this post was so gloriously inspirational...It makes me want to get my dyes out tomorrow and play play PLAY! I am addicted to ProChem and they feed my addictions. Imagine and Live in Peace, Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart

laura west kong said...

LOVE the fabrics and the postcard! Wonderful job!

grazzhopr said...

Thank you for stopping by my site. I am new to Blogger and was clicking on the link that says next blog, and came across yours.
Aging is an adjustment and I am trying to make it an adventure. My son suggested blogging and meeting new people.
Have a great day.

Gina said...

Your lucky Mom - what a beautiful postcard! And those fabrics are gorgeous! I've been wanting to find some mottled solid colors for a quilt and telling myself to try dyeing some of that muslin I bought months ago. You're giving me the nudge. Now can you pass some time along? Oh and some expertise!

elle said...

Now that brightens up a grey day! WOW I liked the quilting on the post card. Satin stitched inner border??? Great job.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE that you hung them on the line in gradation order - something that I would have done, and most people would think is completely nuts!

For me, dyeing is like meditating...the need to concentrate on the task at hand drives extraneous thoughts out of my head...and when it's over, time has passed without a single worry!

deb did it said...

delicious, gorgeous, YUMMIE!