Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Field Tripping the Web - Issue 128

 Eye Candy – Projects people have recently completed

• I don’t want to call Shirley’s “She” a quilt so just go see it and be awestruck. Read back in her blog to see even more detail photos.
• Linda’s Gordian Knot quilt 
• Victoria’s reversible pojigi table runner
• Debra’s Lady Aria in her Garden art quilt
• Monika’s memory quilt
• Wanda’s Zig Zag quilt
• Anne Ida’s combo Dear Jane/Sampler quilt
• Judy’s landscape quilts
• Summerset’s applique bag
• Diane’s Stargazing quilt
• Leslie’s Sunshine and Satin table runner
• Wendy’s Quilt Scrabble quilt
• Joyce’s Mystic wall hanging
• Shirley’s Indigo wholecloth
• Helen’s Askew Squares quilt
• Jaye’s Fabric of 2010 quilt
• Sonya’s Friendship Strip quilt
• Karen’s Bits and Pieces:Spring wall quilt
• Myra’s Country Sampler quilt
• Karen’s Faerie Forest art quilt
• Sue’s Stuck in the Middle art quilt
• Sue’s Lilypads at Sunset quilt
• Sue’s Swinging and Dreaming art quilt
• Carie’s Native American inspired quilt

  Longarm –specific Eye Candy

• Desley’s quilting on an applique quilt 
• Jan’s quilting on two customer’s quilts
• Desley’s quilting on Abbeville County quilt
• Gretchen’s quilting on a Baltimore Album quilt
• Kim’s quilting on a sampler quilt
• Jenny’s quilting on an embroidered quilt
• Kathy’s quilting on a Promise Ring quilt
• Gina’s quilting on a New York Beauty

  Fiber and Other Art

• Elizabeth’s beaded Ocean Spirits cuff 
• Robbie’s beaded Cardinal
• Linda’s Cherry Bomb necklace

  Surfaces

• Deb’s straw dyeing 
• Wendy’s freezer dyeing
• Cobi’s shibori scarf and dyed baby clothes
• Windy Hill’s experiments with silk dyeing

  Garment Sewing

• Shannon’s V1250 dress 
• Amanda’s NL 6774 dress
• Carolyn’s B5620 dress
• Sham’s Burda 3531 tunic
• Cennetta’s M6078 top
• Sharon’s M6294 jacket
• Debbie’s S3874 dress
• Sham’s Loes Hinse cruise pants
• Cennetta’s V1100 dress
• Shannon’s B4914 knit dress
• Summerset’s Burda knit top

   Tutorials and On-line Projects

• Kathy’s tutorial for getting a smooth edge when using curved bias binding
• Kim shows how she quilted her Heavy Metal continuous border design  
• Robin’s tutorial for marking a wavy border on a quilt
• Kim’s video tutorial for quilting a swirl ribbon candy motif

 Other Interesting Things

• Ruth continues her design series with a post on harmony and unity 
• Karen shares a tour of her newly remodeled quilting studio
• Leslie talks about thread tension and the back side of quilting

 Found on Etsy
 Usually I do this feature by doing a random search on Etsy and then sharing whatever I find. Generally, the sellers aren’t ones I am familiar with. Today I thought I would share 5 vendors that I have done business with that I love. These are vendors and products that I love:

• I love Adam’s quilting tutorial DVDs and have bought all of them from his Pink Text shop.
• You know that I love screen printing and you can trace that directly to Lynn and her FibraArtysta shop. She will even make custom screens for you.
• Every product that I use has to be fragrance free. I make my own soap but not my shampoo. I used to use a commercial fragrance-free shampoo. It was expensive and to dried out my hair. I searched Etsy and found Toadstool Soaps. Their unscented shampoo is the best shampoo that I have ever used. It’s really thick and concentrated so it lasts a long time and I rarely use conditioner anymore. She has scented soaps and shampoos too.
• I collect glass Christmas ornaments and found Fireworx Glass last year. It’s not ornament time yet but they have beautiful glass pendants. Check back in the fall for their very unique Christmas ornaments like the one in the shop.
• Folded Pigs makes new dinnerware from plain restaurant dishes. I found some very cool skull plates here for a gift last year.

 

Some custom dyed fabric

I don't often share the fabric that I custom dye for customers but this particular set was special and I wanted you to see it.

The request was for a gradient that was a dusty pink and brown. We started the design process with me sending her several photos of color samples. We worked througha few iterations to pick the right pink and the right brown. We made the gradient from there. Next I created some very dark version of the brown and pink and created the "solids" for the reat of the kit.

It was odd to be working on this just as the Spirea palette was about to be published! I know the customer has a plan for a quilt from these already and I can't wait to see it completed. I fell in love with it and I've decided to make this gradient available to you too. Look for the new Neapolitan gradient in the shop soon!

I can creat custom gradients for anyone and I can create fabric sets like this from any of the gradients that I have. 

Nest Box Watch

The Bluebirds have fledged. We saw them a couple of days ago flying around near the nest box and calling to each other.

Yesterday I took my niece to see the baby Tree Swallows and she got a bonus of seeing one of the parents too.  We only stayed long enough to snap this quick photo. This will be our last nesting family for the season.

 

Family fun

My niece spends a week with her Grandmother every summer and that week is now. This year they started it iff with a visit here to do some tie dyeing. What fun that was!

She decided to be shy for the camera this morning but here are the shirts that she dyed, including the one she is wearing. That one is 50/50 poly/cotton so only the cotton parts dyed which gave it a really cool effect. I think favorite one is the black one with the dots. We tied off the circles and then covered them with a peice of plastic before appying the black dye. With the colored parts covered we were able to do this without getting black spots on the colored areas. I also love the pastel Vee to the right and the one on the upper left. That shirts was folded into a triangle and the 3 sides were dipped in dye (red, yellow and blue). I think she was happy with all of them!

While the dyes were batching we discovered our mutual love of Angry Birds. I am far more addicted than she is but we both love them and wanted to see if we could make some plushie birds. Thanks to Gail M for pointing me to this site for the free bird tutorials.  This just proves that you have to have a big stash of a variety of materials on hand at all times. I never make plush toys but I had all the right colors of felt and some stuffing to get these done!

Now Chris wants me to make the whole set.

Design Wall Monday

Whole lotta ironing going on.

The end.

There's probably more fun being had on Judy's blog. You should check that out.

OK, it's not that bad. My niece and Mom are coming to visit today and we are going to tie dye some t-shirts and then I'll be getting things packed up for a 4-day weekend at the river. I'm also still doing SID stitching on the big quilt. But none of it is interesting to watch!