My dear sister in law celebrates this year a round anniversary. She loves sun, sea and Greece, therefore „a beach bag“ was my first thought, when I wanted to sew a gift for her.
A few weeks ago I spontaneously bought a layer cake from „To The Sea“ by Janet Clare, which suited perfectly to this project.
I like the result and I hope Martina will like it too.
Michaela
This year is rich in family additions in the circle of our friends. Three babies are due in July, one beautiful girl was born a few weeks ago already. Every child is a great gift and a big joy, I love it.
Could you imagine a better opportunity for sewing a quilt?
It took longer than planned, but all the four baby quilts are finished, hurray!
Ready for quilting:
The technical staff checks the quilting quality:
There are activities and projects that return every year. One of those projects is dyeing. During the whole year, I collect suitable pieces of fabrics, lace, threads, old ones but new ones too. I always dream about „one week dyeing“, but every year, my plans shrink inevitably to two or maximum three days. Nevertheless, I enjoy it every summer again and again.
Like last year, I used Jacquad Procion MX, thus fibre-reactive dyes again. My aim was on one side to achieve more vibrant colours than last year, on the other side to try out overdyeing of printed fabrics.
The first goal was achieved only partly – the colours are really nice, stronger than last year indeed. But I use the dyed fabrics in projects which have to be washed sometimes. For that reason I wash the dyed fabrics in really hot water (60°C) which makes a part of colour disappear. Nevertheless, I like the outcome quite well.
On the other hand, overdyeing of printed fabrics brought great results. I went through my fabric stash choosing prints (mostly black and white pictures or patterns), that I never used because they were somehow not inspiring to me. Maybe, I need colour in my life, because I´m really excited about the same pictures and prints, which got a new colour.
I mixed water with urea first, then dye powder was added. I had some rests of dye powders from last year and I bought some new ones, all in all I got 11 colour concentrates (black, medium blue, navy, aquamarine, turquoise, golden yellow, antique gold, cobalt blue, carmine red, magenta, deep purple). My favourite became cobalt blue, definitely.
Everything prepared on the table in the garden.
Dyed fabrics and threads need some time before they can be washed.
The landscape after the battle...
Let´s colour our lives!
Happy stitching
Michaela
