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Stamped Project Round-Up

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Here are a few lovely projects that I’ve seen made from my Stamped fabric.

Runaround Bag from Anna of Noodlehead. You can buy her pattern here.

Oliver + S jacket from Gail of Probably Actually, which she made for her swap partner. You should check out the link to see all the other projects this group made.

Some shorts from Miss Matatabi (and a beautiful top made from Nani Iro fabric).

And a 241 Tote made by Krista of Poppyprint (another pattern by Noodlehead). Stamped is paired with Melody Miller’s typewriters here.

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Don’t sew? Above are a few items that you can buy made from my fabric:

Coin Pouch from Octopurse.

Ladybug Cushion from Hunkydory Home. She also has this fabric available as a lampshade, which I just love.

And Jenny Bartoy has some fabric buckets made from Stamped fabrics.

 

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Folk Modern for Kokka

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Here are the strike-offs for my new collection with Kokka, Folk Modern! There are six prints in three colorways, all in the cotton/linen blend. Inspired by American and European folk art, the collection features motifs such as sawtooth flowers, tulips, horses, and fruit trees — all interpreted with simplicity in a bright color palette. I’m excited about this collection and look forward to getting some yardage so I can sew up some samples! This collection will be shown at Spring Market in Portland and should hit your local fabric shop sometime this summer or early fall. Fabric shops may contact Kokka’s U.S. distributor Seven Islands to order the collection.

In the meantime, Miss Matatabi just stocked the full Stamped collection. You can also find some prints left here, here and here. I hope to sew up some more things with Stamped next week when I finish working on school auction projects!

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Fabric Dyeing with Kids

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In a previous post, I mentioned that the fabric used to make the school auction quilt, which is still in progress (finished quilt top here), was dyed by the kids at my children’s school. In order to get almost 400 kids to dye fabric and attempt to make each piece unique, we used a small batch dyeing process using plastic bags. Sarah from Intown Quilters here in Atlanta told me about this method. I ordered my reactive fabric dye from Dharma Trading. They have a great variety and an educational website to help you with the process.

First, I cut all the fabric into 7″ squares, then pre-washed it, dried it, and gave the pieces a quick pressing. For this project I used a white Kona cotton and some other white and neutral cottons and linens, but you might want to use fabric that has not been treated. I mixed several colors of dye, each in a small cup and mixed  the soda ash with water in another container. We then folded plastic bags over larger clear plastic cups, filled them with warm water and let the kids squeeze in some of the concentrated dye with a medicine dropper (another parent thought of using the medicine droppers so the kids wouldn’t spill and it worked out very well). We then added the soda ash mixture, dropped in the fabric, sealed the bag, removed the bag from the cup,  and let the kids squish around their bag, gently. That word “gently” is key when working with five-year-olds. Out of almost 400 kids, we only had two minor spills, so not bad! Many of the kids enjoyed the sensory input of squeezing the bag of warm water and didn’t want to give it up.

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Some of the bags we let sit for just 10 minutes and some a couple of hours. I changed the dyes up frequently, varying the colors and intensity so we could get the widest possible range of blues, greens, and yellows. Then I rinsed the fabric, let it air dry, then ran it through the washed and dryer. I think I bought nine different colors, but mixed them together in various ways and changed the concentration with each batch. Here is an Instagram photo some of the fabric drying on a rack at the school. The very patient art teacher let us dye fabric with the kids during art time.

Hopefully I’ll get this project basted and quilted soon!

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Fabric Dyeing Experiments

I have foolishly volunteered to make the school auction quilt this year. Two years ago, I spent a lot of time working on this quilt that was embroidered by all 400 of the kids. It took me about 6 weeks at the school sewing with each kid. Though it was lovely to introduce the kids the kids to sewing, I have learned a few lessons. This time around, we are having each kid dye a piece of fabric which will then be incorporated into the quilt. A much faster and easier process. I’ll post more later about the process of dyeing each piece individually if anyone is interested.

But above you can see some experiments that my kids and I did with patterned fabric. Ultimately we’re using only those with subtle or small-scale pattern and skipping the fabrics that grayed out too much in the dyeing process. I am using a kaleidoscope quilt design, so I think the quilt will be busy enough without too much additional pattern. Here’s the stack of fabric we have so far, and I think we’re close to halfway through the almost 400 kids who will be dyeing fabric. You can see I am sticking with shades of green, yellow, and blue and striving for lots of color variation. I’ll keep you posted on the process.

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Stamped Projects

Well, I turned on the sewing machine and made a pillow! This started as a quilt top, but being the practical person I am, I cut it into pillows because that’s what I need most right now. This is a simple half log cabin design turned at a 45 degree angle. I mixed the linen cotton blend of my fabric with shot cotton and some Kona solids. For those of you who haven’t quilted with linen or linen blends yet, I find Kokka’s fabric really great to work with because it doesn’t pull or become distorted like thinner linens. Wrinkles are not a problem and I almost never pre-wash it.

This pillow is visiting Intown Quilters here in Atlanta, so you can head over there and see some of my Stamped collection from Kokka. I have a shipment of fabric on its way to me now, so I hope to make some new things with it soon to give you project ideas. If you’ve made something with the Stamped collection, I’d love for you to add it to The Long Thread photo pool over on flickr.