Here’s a fine design by Marybeth Wujcik of Colorado Springs. She took my 3-day workshop in Santa Fe in 2011 and created this design, accented by couched Angelina fibers.  Marybeth owns Nana’s Quilt Cottage in the Springs. Check it out next time you are visiting that area!

Dragonfly Dress

Here’s the dragonfly dress that required several days of pasting using my favorite stencil, Donna’s dragonfly.  Each time I pasted a section, I had to wait for it to dry before moving on to another part.

Charles Dips in Indigo

My friend, Charles, also loves indigo dyeing.  He pasted several items and came over so we shared a big dipping day in the vat!

Canoe Rack for Drying

Here are a few of his treasures drying in the sun.  Charles was making holiday gifts, well in advance of the season.  Actually, in 2011, we discovered that the best time to dip was on a blisteringly hot day.  That’s because the pieces with resist dry more quickly so we can get more than one dip in an afternoon.

Dragonfly Dress – Early Dips

Here, you can see the graduated colors that occur with multiple dips.  However, since the dress is long, dipping only the lowest portion required a little help.

Getting Taller

Every home should have a tallish step stool so the dipper can be taller than the vat!

Dragonfly Dress – back view

Here’s the back view of my dragonfly dress.  It was finished in time for me to wear it to the costume party for my dance group.  The theme was “the blues”.  I love this dress.  Having an indigo vat inspires me to buy white garments so I have more stuff to dip.

I hope that I can keep this year’s vat going into next summer.   I’ve never before gotten such dark blues from one of my vats!  If you have a chance, think about taking a class from John Marshall or Karen Miller.  You will be glad you did!

Sandhill Crane resist on cotton.

I know I’ve been lax in posting to my blog lately!  But, although I haven’t been posting, I have been doing!  And, doing lots of different stuff!  One of my favorite types of dyeing is making up an indigo vat to get those lovely shades of blue that only an indigo vat can achieve.  I took a class from John Marshall a while back and with thee help of my good friend, Donna Barnitz, we cooked up a new vat in late July!

Cooking up rice paste resist

The next step is to mix up a batch of rice paste resist.  After the first mix, we form donuts of dough and put them into the rice steamer.

Stirring rice paste resist

Almost done now!  After the steaming, we add a few more ingredients and stir it up into a smooth paste – ready to apply to the fabrics.  We made stencils for pasting in a previous class with Karen Miller.  I only made one stencil but Donna made several! Sorry, no images of the pasting part — I forgot to take photos.  We pasted and pasted.  And then set the pasted pieces aside to dry.  Sometimes the pasting can take several days as we wait for one part to dry before pasting more on the same piece.

A good, oxygen free indigo vat

So, we began by dyeing socks!  A good indigo vat has a wonderful, earthy smell and is oxygen free.  Here, you see the white sock, either bamboo or cotton, scrunched up on a PVC tube.

Sock Dipping

When the fabrics are immersed into the vat, they turn an emerald shade of green.

Scrunched Socks

Once they are pulled from the vat and exposed to oxygen, they turn that gorgeous shade of blue.  To get a darker color, multiple dips are necessary.

Drying indigo dyed socks

Here are our first six socks, drying in the shade.  I love this technique. Thanks, Donna, for thinking it up!

A Girl’s Weekend at the cabin!  I love to retreat to my cabin in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico for a sewing weekend.  This time I asked my friend Lizzie and her daughter Rhianna, and my friend Chellye and her daughter Lindsey to join us!  I think it’s very important to pass along a love of sewing to the next generation.  Everyone brought whatever they wanted to sew.  It was Lindsey’s first time making a garment – a wrap skirt.

 

The girls show off their new totebags.

And here’s Lindsey’s stunning skirt, all finished in one day!

Chellye made a denim skirt with fringed edges, also completed in one day!

And, Lizzie completed the bag she had begun on our previous sewing day.

Our sewing finished, we took a break to go down to the local swimming hole.

Wet kids, wet dogs, and a hot afternoon.  It was time to retire to the deck for libations!

Ferrug says Please vote today!    Click here to vote!

Ferrug says Please vote today! 

Tomorrow,  Saturday, July 28 is the day! The day to vote for Hawks Aloft in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good contest!

As you know, in my non quilting life, I am Executive Director of Hawks Aloft, an Albuquerque organization that works to conserve indigenous wild birds and their habitats through conservation education, avian research, and cooperation with other bird oriented and wildlife organizations. We are a finalist in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good competition. The day to vote for us is TODAY!

We need this vehicle for an avian ambulance and to transport our educational birds. For more information on how we will use this vehicle, please watch our video on Facebook.

Click on the link below to go to the Facebook page and vote. THANK YOU!!!

http://100CarsforGood.com

Tote bags are the perfect way to express yourself in a small project! I just finished these two bags for my friends, Ruth and Charles, who both participated in my November birding trip to New Zealand. We had a blast. Each bag features a hand-screened print of one of the native species. For Charles, I selected the Kiwi because we watched a Kiwi foraging in broad daylight for over 20 minutes. It was a thrill. I wanted his bag to be more masculine so I put the funky New Zealand fabric on the inside of the bag. For Ruth, I selected the Kereru, or Wood Pigeon a beautiful large bird that we saw often.

I hope they like them!