Sunday, April 27, 2008

Turq & Lime Bag & The Shower

I'm trying to find the ideal bag (for me and others) and I keep trying different sizes, weights of fabric, color combos etc....I'm real pleased with this one. It's reversible...both fabrics are a heavy-weight cotton canvas that I dyed. I made the bottom larger also.


The brown webbing works well with both colors...and the whole thing can be thrown into the washer and dryer.


Here's my daughter at her shower (Baby Monster Bash actually....she was married on Halloween after all! It was more of a party for Mike and Keri, and men and women were invited) ...this turtle themed quilt was made by the mom of our good friend Gail...along with little hats and booties....so cute.


We asked everyone to bring (or send) a favorite book for Logan's library...Keri loves books (she hopes to write and illustrate some of her own someday soon!) and it was fun to see what people's favorites were.



Keri plans to draw and paint some things on the wall...Franklin the Turtle is her theme. The quilt I made for Logan hangs on the crib.



Marcia





Thursday, April 24, 2008

Eye Candy!

As promised...a few of Doshi's beautiful pieces of wearable art...crazy good!!!











Later today or tomorrow I'll have the pictures ready from the shower...it was great.
Marcia



Monday, April 14, 2008

Fabulous Class...Doshi !

Pro Chem in Massachusetts (http://www.prochemical.com/workshops.htm ) hosts some of the best classes I've taken...and this past weekend was a real highlight! Doshi ( http://www.doshifiberart.com/index.htm ) came from So. California to teach 14 of us the magic of shibori with acid dyes on silk and silk blends. I am so in awe of the beautiful fabric that we all created...below are some of the results. I can't remember who did what on all of them....so just enjoy the eye candy. The first picture is the last couple pieces I did...the richness of the colors is amazing.


















Next piece done by Doshi.




Doshi and Nancy hamming it up!










Scarf done by Brigid who came from Durham, No. Carolina.



This piece was done by the only gentleman in the group, Barry, who with his wife Linda came from Iowa.



Detail of Barry's piece.











Doshi demonstrating using a syringe with dye.



Linda using the tool to help tie those tiny knots in the fabric that produce such beautiful designs...kumo knots, I believe they are called. Barry's piece had many.


I hope to post some more pictures later today....mostly Doshi's beautiful clothing samples. But if I don't get to it I'll do it next week. I'm off to Orlando tomorrow to prepare for Keri's baby shower Sunday....it's getting so close!
Marcia














Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sleeve Bag ???

Well...I quilted a piece of the floral patchwork with the intention of starting a little girl's jacket. I cut out a sleeve, encased the edges in binding to finish it nicely and then decided it was too bulky for a little jacket...but it was too nice to just discard. Sleeve-shaped place mat? NO! I played with it...folding.... manipulating....hmmmm.....would make a cute make-up bag or something similar.
So I sewed up the side seams...took the excess fullness at the top of the underarm of the sleeve and folded and tacked it...put on a large button and made a wrap tie from some of the bias binding...voila!
I now see a larger bag out of this fabric......
Marcia

Monday, April 7, 2008

New Baby Quilt

As I sit upstairs in my sewing room watching TV (dancing, loser, idol, model, survivor etc), I am trying to grab a prepared project and work on it. Since I often cut out clothing patterns, or strip up fabric for quilts, I usually have something that can be done just at the machine....so I can watch and listen and work at the same time....works for me!
Last week I started to put together what was supposed to be a queen-sized quilt. When I had this much done (center light-colored piece) I decided I needed some baby girl quilts more than I needed a queen quilt (I can get 5 baby-size from the same pieces)...so this is the result of that decision. I added the borders and machine-quilted straight lines...that much quilting I will do.


I love these fabrics...I may make a couple little girls jackets from some of this too....stay tuned.

I'm off to Pro Chemical in Mass. on Thursday for a 3-day class on shibori dyeing with acid dyes on silk....teacher is Doshi... http://www.doshifiberart.com/index.htm ...she's fabulous...I have some of her wearable art as I admire her work tremendously. Of course, I'll take pictures.
Marcia

Sunday, April 6, 2008

New Quilt

With a little push from a friend (thanks Eileen :), I managed to get another quilt top put together...this one is made from Judy Robertson's gorgeous fabrics. I started collecting her hand dyes many years ago when I went to a class at Quilting By The Lake in Morrisville, NY... she was a vendor there. I had never seen anything like them and bought a bunch....now it's time to use them. I can make the simplest quilts and this fabric supplies the magic.

I've just sent it off to Desiging Quilts to be quilted...I'll show you the results when I get it back.

Marcia