Gammaldags torg 2013

This is an announcement mainly for my Finnish readers, but if you scroll down I'll provide an explanation in English too.

* * *

Mamma och jag kommer att delta i Jakobs dagar i Jakobstad genom att vara med på Gammaldags torg lördagen den 27.7 mellan 9 och 16. Observera att platsen har ändrats och att torget i år hålls mellan Stadskyrkan och Skolparken. Även om du inte ska handla av oss, så får du gärna komma förbi vårt bord och hälsa på! Vi kommer bland annat att sälja

Hemstickade pulsvärmare

(se mammas blogg för flera modeller)

t.ex. med pärlor och paljetter

eller volanger

Börsar i linne 

med mina egna färgade och trycka tyger som accent

 

Mobilfodral i linne

med mina egna färgade och trycka tyger som accent

Påsar för smarttelefoner

i linne och med mina egna färgade och trycka tyger som accent

Välkommen förbi!

 * * *

Mum and I are participating in a fair ("Olde Time Fair") during a yearly festival in Jakobstad called Jacob's Days. We'll mainly be selling beaded wrist warmers and the purses, pouches and cases I've made this summer. The last ones are all in linen and with my own dyed and printed fabrics as accents. It'll be fun, and I wish you could all come and meet us there!

Here's a link to Mum's blog, where you can see what she's been up to in front of the telly.

- Annika

Iced Parfait on the Menu

Today was supposed to be a sunny day, but something obviously went wrong in the weather department. So I'll keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow instead. Meanwhile, I'm going to share with you a cool technique I tried a few weeks ago on a sunny day: ice cube dyeing.

I followed Carol Ludington's directions for iced parfait in issue 57 (June/July 2012) of Quilting Arts Magazine. What you need is soda soaked fabric, ice cubes, fiber reactive dye in powder form and a tall container with a lid. Scrunch, pleat, fold or twist the fabric, and place it in the container. Add a layer of ice cubes and sprinkle dye powder on top of the ice cubes. Then add another layer of fabric, ice and pigment. There was room for three layers of fabric, ice and pigment in my container. This is what it looked like with all three layers:

A close-up

 

One more close-up, just because of the yumminess

At this point, when all the ice had melted, and there was a lot of muddy water in the container, it was time to feel a bit worried:

But there was no need for worry (top layer):

 

Ok, admittedly the middle layer is pretty wild:

The bottom layer, to my surprise, wasn't mud coloured:

Iced parfaits will definitely be on the menu again. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by, and more fun stuff soon! - Annika

Summer Party with Confetti & Tea

There are so many fun things out there to try that I don't know where to turn. When I opened the June/July issue of Quilting Arts Magazine I immediately found three things I wanted to try. I've tried two of them now (confetti dyeing, and discharging soy wax resisted fabric), and I'm sure I'll try sand painting very soon. It's one big fabric design summer party at the moment.

Today I'll show you the results from the confetti dyeing I tried recently, as well as the beginning of some tea dyeing I was inspired to try after reading India Flint's book Eco Colour.

Confetti dyeing is a ridiculously easy and fun dyeing technique, if you have dye pigment in powder form. You soak a piece of cloth in soda solution, place the fabric on a surface, arrange the fabric into folds if you want to, and then sprinkle dry dye powder on top with the help of a mesh. Batch as normal, rinse and wash. For more detailed information on the technique, please refer to Carol R. Eton's article in the June/July issue (#63) of QAM, pages 26-28.

On the first sample I sprinkled Procion MX dye on a flat piece of fabric:

On the next sample I did exactly the same thing as in the first sample, but then I used a pipette to drip soda solution over the fabric. When the liquid spread over the fabric, it moved the dye around and created blurry starbursts:

On the third sample I pushed the fabric into folds before sprinkling on the dye:

Pretty wild stuff. Another reason I was very pleased to see that it worked was because I used some old dye that had been lying around for ages. I've heard that Procion MX dye shouldn't be kept too long, but at least these dyes have aged gracefully. There's definitely nothing wrong with the colour saturation here.

Finally, let me just show you a dyeing experiment in progress. I read the section on solar dyeing in India Flint's book and decided to try it there on the spot. So I made some tea with a bunch of old tea bags that I've saved for tea dying. Then I accordion folded a piece of fabric, and in the folds I snuck in more tea bags, this time a herbal tea that produces a red liquid.

I crammed the fabric into a glass jar, poured tea on top, sealed the lid and put the jar in a sunny spot. Now I -only- have to wait a month before I can pull out the fabric and see what's happened. Luckily I have a lot going on at the moment, so a month will pass in no time.

Thanks for visiting my blog! There will be more fun adventures in the world of fabric design soon.
- Annika