Thinking Out Loud On The Blog

Kayak trip cancelled due to perfect weather.

The forecast called for rain and the trip required earlier than normal waking.  So when I did finally wake up and saw the forecast was wrong, the weather was perfect and we cancelled the trip for no reason, it was too late to get moving.  

Bummer.

But, looking on the positive side, I had some time to sit down and sew a bit.  

I finally finished that last quilt top square. 

Woohoo!

Oh yes, you have to suffer through at least one gratuitous close up.

That's how much fabric was left over.  Not much.  

Which is another bummer because I need more fabric to make the squares all fit together.  

WHY did I make those napkins when this fabric told me it wanted to be a quilt?!?!?!?!?

I do love my napkins, though. 

Anyhoo, my lack of indigo dyed linen led to me making a bunch of silly looking piles of fabric under my smallest square to try and find something that worked.  This one is dyed light blue with indigo but has a print on it which might be distracting.

Linen lavender remnant of a jacket.  But also thicker than the other linen in the quilt.  Hmm.

A linen/cotton blend skirt.  Beige.  

Olivey-brown linen pants.

  

Linen shirt.

Other pair of linen pants, grey.

Hmm.  I guess I'm just thinking out loud on the blog here.  

I often get a different view of something after posting it here.  

The extra fabric I pick will also show up here and there between squares to make them fit together.  I'll let you know what I pick.  Either I make a point of it all being blue or I have another color peeking out here and there.  

Win win, I'd say.  

She Caught Me

My life is changing.  Not in a bad way, at all.  I'm not done blogging either.  

I just have to figure how it all will fit together.

I've been having tons of fun.  I've started a website for our business.  I'm actually really proud of it because I know NOTHING about coding.  It was very confusing and weird but it doesn't look completely embarrassing.  

RustedThread.com

There's still more for me to do but at least it's a start.  

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to a "Drawing Jam" run by Lynda Barry, who is amazing.

That's her brain on the left and mine on the right.

It was a blast.  My daughter got to discuss her drawing with Lynda Barry,  

Here she caught me taking her picture.

I STILL haven't finished the last square of my quilt top but I'm close, just as close as I was last time I posted.  Today I finish our chicken coop, tomorrow I kayak.  

I just need time to sit down.  :)

Left Alone With the Dye Vat

It all started out so innocently...

We had all this indigo left over from our dyeing day and thought we'd knock some more out.

We were deep into experiment mode.

A little of this

A little of that.

Everything looked so awesome!

I'm starting to appreciate the hippy dippy tie dye look that really, as a Madison resident, I should like already.

Cuz it's dang pretty

Dang Pretty.  I mean that's just beautiful.

 

Then, Jennifer had to go home and I was left alone with the dye vat...
My conundrum was that I don't own any white napkins; I sew my own out of funky colored cotton and linen.  I had already dyed any of my light colored dishtowels.

Then I had this sudden realization:  I can always buy more undershirts!

 

I also threw some of my regular every day clothes in there.

This shirt was looking very faded and worn

 

Not any more.

 

And this white shirt was too sheer - I never wore it.  

Honestly, I only bought in the first place it because it's a large (the XL was too big) and I'm a sucker for vanity sizing.

 

 

 

That's ombre dyed, people.  Thanks to Tanya, I know how it works.

Perhaps I went overboard.  I started at about about noon.  It felt like I worked for an hour.  When I went into the house, it was 3:30.  No wonder I was so hungry.
I learned a ton about how indigo behaves and ways to tie things and about good ways to get different hues.
I love learning new stuff!! 
And I had the chickens for company.  

I did exactly this much to finish my linen quilt. So...basically nothing. 
Also, all my clothes are now blue. 

Worth it!

I still haven't finished my quilt top.  But for a good reason!  We ran a test indigo dye class with friends.

 

We have dyed on our own but really want to share the fun with more people so we experimented on some of our friends

 

Don't we look organized?  

We happen to have amazing, creative and fabulous friends so it was bound to be fun even if we did everything wrong.

  

We set up a Shibori (tie dye) station.

When collecting scissors, marbles and other fun stuff starts to feel like work, I'll let you know.

To me it just looks like treasure.

Why else would I take a picture of rubber bands?

We had some Shibori half way put together to share some techniques.

There were samples to show and, because I just have to be me, library books for reference.  

The library is an amazing resource,.yo.

 

Then we were ready to get serious. 

This is about the time that Miranda (of Miranda Beyer Photography) started taking pictures.  You can tell which ones are hers because they are beautiful.  She specializes in newborn baby pictures but every picture she takes looks awesome, she has a great eye. 

I make my own Kombucha but I happened to have a bunch of Nessalla Kombucha for some guests.  I decided to forgo getting my bottle deposit back so we could use their growlers to tie fabric around. 

When I see what folks made using the bottles...

...all I can think...

 

...is...

  

Worth it!

We tied.

We dyed.

We untied.

We revealed and then...

...we smiled.

 

Check out these socks.

We were all in it together.  Here three people are undoing the shibori stuff because we can't wait to see...

This!

This yarn is ombre dyed and knotted so that it achieves a kettle dyed look.  None of us quite knew how to do it but Tanya was willing and excited to experiment.

And it worked really well.

Here are three pieces made by a woman who said she wan't a crafty person.

 

...seriously...

What was she thinking?  Her work is awesome and creative.

Another woman who said the same thing.

I'll never believe them again!

Everyone felt really comfortable trying out new techniques.

Indigo is a great medium to play with.

A great and messy day was had by all.  We plan on offering an indigo dyeing class this fall in Madison WI.  You can follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter to get an announcement closer to the date if you're interested.

Now get out there and make a creative mess.  I will too.  I'm gonna finish that quilt top, dang it!