Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Head over to Facebook to enter a quick giveaway of fat quarters from the linen prints in my Charms fabric collection, which will be shipping to stores next month.
Waxed Canvas
Last week I experimented with making waxed canvas using my Kokka linen/cotton blend fabrics. It was a simple project and I love the results. Why would you want to wax your fabric? Well, this is how people waterproofed fabric for outdoor use many years ago, but the natural waterproofing and the distressed look of it is appealing to me. I am not a hunter or an outdoors person, but I do like the idea of a natural, waterproof tote bag. Most of the waxed canvas bags I’ve seen are made with solids, so I wanted to try it out on my patterned fabric.
First, I ordered wax bars from Otter Wax. You can read here about their petroleum-free natural ingredients. Note that it’s made from beeswax, so not vegan. I bought three small bars and used almost one full bar for about a half yard of fabric. According to the directions, all you have to do is rub it on and let it cure. I applied the wax using a bit of elbow grease, rubbing the bar back and forth in both directions to get it into the weave of the fabric.
Then I let it cure for a day, but it still felt sticky to me. There are quite a few tutorials out there that suggest using a hairdryer, which I tried. But naturally I was impatient. So I ironed on the wrong side of the fabric which instantly melted the wax completely through both sides of the fabric. Just make sure you protect your ironing board from the wax, but it didn’t gum up my iron at all. The wax definitely has a smell, which filled up my sewing room for a day or so after the project, but it’s just a beeswax pine type of smell that was perfectly acceptable to me.
You can see the before and after below. The wax does make the fabric look darker, almost like it’s wet. And it feels a bit stiffer, but still soft enough to sew or wear. Next up, a tote bag for all my outdoor adventures! Or just for a trip to the grocery store.
Emery Dress
I wanted to post another one of the samples that I made for Quilt Market — the Emery Dress by Christine Haynes. Lots of people asked about the pattern, so I thought I’d share. It’s now available in a .pdf version as well as a paper pattern. You can add the optional collar, bow at the waist, or longer sleeves. The fit of the dress is perfect and the instructions were easy to follow. It came together very quickly.
This dress above is made from one of my double gauze fabrics with metallic ink from the new Charms collection for Kokka. The double gauze fabric sews really well and makes the dress so comfortable!
Sheep
My friend Laura made these sweet needle-felted sheep for display in my Quilt Market booth. You can buy your very own sheep in her Etsy shop, Felt Jar!
You can see the sheep fabric colorways below. These are printed on cotton/linen blend fabric and the neutral colorway has gold accents. Again, this is from my Charms collection for Kokka which will be shipping to stores in December or January.
Quilt Market Booth
I’m back at home, but Quilt Market is still going on in Houston. Here’s a photo of my booth. I didn’t get a chance to look at many other booths this time, but you can see a few images over on Instagram. If you’re interested in ordering the Charms collection for your shop, please contact their U.S. distributor Seven Islands Fabric. It should be shipping in December or January, so it will make it to your local quilt shop in just a few months!
And below you can see some of the samples that I made. You can find my Framework collection now at Pink Castle Fabrics and Miss Matatabi.
