Fabric Postcard

I was asked to make a fabric postcard by Cindi for a group present.  She gave us instructions on how to construct it which I read and promptly forgot where I put the directions.  I did remember that it had to be 4 inches by 6 inches and to sew a paper backing to the fabric with satin stitching.  With this in mind, I took scraps from my current project and made a small version.  The Basket Weave pattern that I am working on calls for 2 1/2 inch wide strips.  For the postcard, I decided to use 1 1/2 wide strips.  This is how it came out.  Pretty good.  Postcards make nice small projects and it didn't take much time.

 This is a picture of the project that I am working on now.  It is still not done, but I love the way that it is coming along.

 After hand piecing the patches together.  I finally figured out a way to machine piece the patches.  This is a
picture of the basic unit.

  

If I have time, I am thinking of writing down the instructions on how to piece this quilt.  It is based on a picture of a beautiful quilt from the 2012 Tokyo quilt show.  Of course, that quilt used tiny tiny 1 inch pieces.

Marjan Klupfel Monday Workshop

 Marjan brought a lot of patterns and hand dyed fabrics  for her plantasy workshop.  She showed us how to trace the pattern onto the wonder under release paper.  Reminder, the pattern will be reversed when you do this.  All the fabrics that were dyed in the Saturday workshop, I used in the Monday workshop.

 I chose the simplest pattern.  The dragonfly.  I was able to trace and cut out all the pieces on Monday.  I was going to start sewing the pieces down, when I realized I forgot my darning foot.  Oh well.  I finished it today and just have the binding to work on.

 Marjan showed us how to use Angelina fibers and foiling using wonder under.  I made my dragonfly wings with the foil on the bottom and angelina fibers on top.

Another trick she showed us was to fuse two fabrics together and just stich it onto the quilt to make it three dimensional.  This gave the quilt a lot of movement.

Marjan Klupfel Saturday Workshop

Last week Saturday, I helped at a dye workshop held by Marjan (pronounced Marianne) Klupfel.  Her supply list said to bring 5 yards of pfd fabric or pre-washed white and 1 yard of pre-washed black fabric.  I brought 7 yards and wished I had more.

Her system of dying fabric in plastic bags made for a very easy fabric dying with a lot of results.  I made two sets of 6 gradation dying with.

Golden yellow gradation

Brown gradation

These two half yard pieces were either painted on with foam brushes or folded and the dye sprayed on then wrapped in plastic garbage bags overnight.

I used a 4 inch pvc pipe to pole wrap these 3 pieces.  Instead of string pole wrapping, I used about 6 rubber bands and squished it onto the pole.  Then they were dunked in the soda ash solution for a minute.  With a plastic bag protecting the table, I squirted or painted on the dyes.

With my last yard of black fabric, I cut it in half and pole wrapped each one lengthwise and the other width wise using the rubber bands.  I used a foam paintbrush to brush the clorox bleach on the black fabric.  This was Kona Cotton fabric and the brown color just came out.  Others who used Joann Black fabric had a brilliant red color.  The pole was then dipped in a bucket of water, then a bucket of water with sodium thioxide and then a bucket of water.  Beautiful.

Wheelchair Bag

This is the wheelchair bag that I made for Doris last year.  In less than a year this bag has been ripped at the handle base, the buttons were replaced 3 times and the small flower buttons are almost all gone.  Everytime she goes through close doorways, the bag would get tugged and pulled on.  The fabric held up, but the buttons and stitching needs to be reinforced.

This is her replacement bag.  It is made from marrimekko fabric with fused hula girl and turtle.  Doris really loved the hula girl and she said the turtle looked so real.  It feels so good to make something that is used every day and looks good.  This is the front of the bag

This is the back of the bag.  The buttons are put on the back so they won't get caught and torn off.  Hopefully this bag will last a little longer.