Wandering Wednesday: Needles Studio

Last Saturday was a CQFA meeting and we met at Needles Studio in Palo Alto. It was a great meeting and a very nice space. It's nice to try out new places like this with friends.

This is a picture of one of our members, my friend Sonja (Colorific on instagram) who is meticulously dyeing all the fabric she needs for an upcoming Nancy Crow class. She wheeled in a giant suitcase and showed us her efforts, very impressive right? Can't wait to see what she makes at the workshop.

There was a lovely amount of sunlight in the shop, a bit much at one point, which made me think this would be a nice place to come in the wintertime.

The space is set up very well, a huge counter height table with comfortable stools, and many sewing machines, one of which was an industrial strength type. There are clothing patterns, a small amount of fabric and notions for sale too. 

I bought this embroidery kit, the picture makes it look like it's already done, doesn't it?

Fourteen Years Later

Fourteen years later, it seemed like the time to work on this round-robin project again. I dug it out and got it ready for the CQFA retreat. While I was there I added the final borders and pieced a back together. I had intended to baste it but the batting I brought was the wrong size.

So now I'm home and I have plenty of batting so no excuses, right?! I'm going to quilt it, it's just at the upper range of the size of quilts that I'm able to do, but I'm going for it.

It was wild going through all the fabrics I had gathered together for this quilt, they're allll "celestials" so they have suns moons stars, etc. You really don't see these much anymore.

I'm basting it today and then it's off to my machine get this baby quilted.

Wandering Wednesday - Asilomar

 The CQFA retreat was held at Asilomar this year, and I was thrilled to finally get to go and stay there. First of all, is that font awesome or what?

The main hall is a beautiful space. Hard to believe this is a State Park. 

 I'm glad the new "Edison-look" LED bulbs suit the classic lighting fixtures so well.

 The chairs were very comfortable places to sit and admire the ceiling as well as the view.

The kind of space you just want to hang out in. Very comfortable, and usable, even though it is grand and impressive. To me the very definition of a Julia Morgan designed public space.

My First Apron

 Last weekend I was at the CQFA retreat, and the very first thing I finished was this apron. I used the open tables before everyone got there to lay the fabric out and cut the pieces out.
 I just realized that I've never made an apron before, and I'm glad it was this one, and that it's actually for me.

I bought the pattern and fabric from Heartway International/Patpourri at PIQF last year.

I made sure that the pocket was the right size for my cellphone!

 The pattern was super easy to figure out, the directions were clear, and I loved that it wasn't a paper pattern, but instead a lightweight interfacing.

 I used a two-sided printed fabric with the idea that it could possibly be reversible. It is a very lightweight canvas feel, so it has a nice weight to it, and I think it'll stand up to being washed. As you can see it is quite bright, sooooo....no one will be running into me in the kitchen with this thing on.

Apparently I was so pleased with myself for actually finishing something I couldn't manage to keep my eyes open. Photo credits to friend Jaye.

CQFA

CQFA meets at A Work of Heart now, and I just love the workspace.We finally have roomy to make an authorized mess. I took this picture of the basket of hairdryers used in drying painting/stamping work. 

 We had a great activity with materials of all sorts, wire and fabric and paper. There was a lot to choose from and my workspace got messy quickly.

I had a hard time narrowing it down and I don't have a final picture of my piece as I'm still fiddling with it. Let's just say that it involves a map of Yosemite, pictures of butterflies, a lot of green and some wire and curtains. It's sort of a mess really, but I had a ball making it.

Incoming ATCs

 What a fine selection of ATC's I was happy to trade for at CQFA meeting.

Maureen Lardie's painting on paper, I would love a large version of this to hang on the wall.

 Diane Carver, brightly painted silk.

 Nancy Riffle's painted canvas. I really love the way the stitching on the edge looks so much like a frame.

Jaye Lapachet's clever applique.

Indigo-a-go-go 2

Finally, a long week of anticipation had passed and it was finally time to unfold everything and hang to dry for a day before washing out the excess indigo. I chose a corner of the yard that wouldn't matter if any indigo dripped off the fabric, it was pretty dry by that point.

This is the t-shirt, which seemed to be the brightest, possibly because of the knit t-shirt fabric vs. the tightly woven cotton fabric taking the dye so differently.  I liked how the shapes I made with the clothespins turned out on the t-shirt.

This one was folded (obviously) and then clamped on the edges with clothespins and rubber-banded together tightly.

 Here's the stitched-resist while it was still wet and before being washed and dried. I can't get over how gorgeous this is, I even love the thread holes. It looks like topographic maps doesn't it?

 This piece was accordion folded on the diagonal and then clamped much too tightly so that it resisted the dye getting inside the folds a little too well.

 Here's the circular rubber-banded piece while it was still wet.

I really like the linear parts of this folded design. It reminds me of cathedral windows.

 Here's the t-shirt after washing and drying.

 The rubber-banded piece, look how much the color changed!

 I like how this one turned out, even though there is so much white overall.  Maybe a shirt made out of this would be nice?

 I think this one changed the most after being washed and dried. It's become more interesting, there are more subtle patterns you can see now.

 The stitched resist part was still beautifully folded and I know I will have a hard time ironing out those wrinkles. Perhaps I'll find a way to use them as-is.

 A close-up of some of the details that are now visible in the circular patterns, So much depth to it, fascinating.

 My absolute favorite part out of everything is the bit that I did the stitched resist on. Oh how I wish I'd done an entire piece of fabric with this technique. If I go back to try the workshop, I'm definitely going to try that.

Here's a close-up of the t-shirt after being washed, it's just such a soft and pretty blue, like a blue sky after rain. I'm very excited about getting to wear this one. Thanks for giving me the shirt, Rhonda.

Indigo-a-go-go

 In preparation for an indigo dyeing workshop at the last CQFA meeting, I managed to stitch-resist exactly four lines of stitching. And obsessively rubber-banded the remainder of that piece of fabric. I tried to be fairly regular with where the rubber bands were placed but of course that got harder as the space between the rubber bands disappeared.  I was very intrigued to see how this one would turn out.

 In Maureen's sunny backyard, she'd set up a great space for us to get to work, dipping and sloshing the indigo all over with abandon. Our workshop teacher, Zoe Umholtz was wonderful, clear instructions, presented with a lot of energy. She does does a regular drop-in indigo workshop at the New Museum of Los Gatos. I might just have to head over there and join in, because this was very fun having everything set up, so we could just play.

 Here's how the pieces I dipped and dyed in the indigo buckets looked after a week of drying in a plastic tub. The instructions were to keep everything still bound up and clipped. We were warned not to forget about it and let it get molded/mildewed. No way, was I forgetting, I was dyeing (no dying!) to see how it would turn out.
  I wish I could have taken an in-process picture of how it all looked as the indigo dye soaked up the oxygen and went from green to blue, it was super pretty, but my hands were rather messy at the time. I dipped each item at least three times, some were probably four times.

 The clothespins got very nicely dyed, huh? The raw birch wood just soaked up the indigo. And the clean-up paper towels as well. Those will get used in collage at some point I'd imagine.

So I ended up dyeing three lengths of fabric, and one t-shirt that Rhonda so very nicely gave me at the workshop. I did a lot of folding and binding with clothespins, popsicle sticks and rubber bands.

It was a long wait to see how it would all turn out...a whole week, but you'll just have to wait a day to see how it all turned out once I opened it up and washed it out....

New ATCs

 Another 4 lovelies added to my ATC collection at the last CQFA meeting. Aren't these great?

 Maureen Lardie made this one using indigo dyed fabric and lace.

 I really like the stem stitching on this one by Jaye Lapachet.

 Beautiful painting from Nancy Riffle.

Angela Obeso has been working on this stitch-sketching technique, love how cute and happy this one looks.

August ATCs

The ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) that I made for CQFA this time were a mixed-media collage process as usual.


I started out with a mottled dark green fabric and stitched it to a batting/backing in parallel lines.

Then I started changing the fabric, first with big dots of Tee Juice in gray.

Then using the fine point Tee Juice I connected the dots.

 I then added some dots of gold with a Zig leafing pen and lighter green splotches with a Seta Skrib marker. I liked the overall look especially when chopped up into ATC size (2.5 x 3.5")

 Here's all 6 that I made.

 Measuring tape printed cotton knit ribbon was chopped up to show one number in each section.

 I dug through my button stash and found a bunch of brownish buttons that looked good with the green fabric.

 Lastly I stitched some X's on by hand with lime green cotton thread.

 There were a lot of buttons in my stash that worked, plastic, wood, metal, leather.

This wonky-edged one with the messed-up button was the one I kept for my collection.