Small things for the Christmas market

I worked with wool felt and the sewing machine this week . Although weather is too beautiful to sit in my sewingroom to quilt, I wanted to do something..... Working with wool felt is easy and quick, I did not line the cases, only sewed some cute ribbon and velcro; the pencil cases have zippers. 

For the birdie wallets I uses the pattern for some decoration birds I made some months ago, i only enlarged the pattern and added some embroidery. 

Easy peasy...... 

Some phone cases.

Pencil cases.

Birdie wallets.

Fabric dyeing and shibori in Bordeaux 2

Warning, a lot of photo's!

I am back home , it was really an inspiring weekend. Beautiful warm weather, lots of stitching , experimenting and laughter.  And of course lots of color.
The indigo bath was amazing experience, the yarn and fabric were green when they came out of the bath, but exposure to air quickly changed them to indigo.
Do you remember the stitching I did at home?
This one is a piece of silk.

The other stitching I did.


This one i made in Bordeaux, it is on silk. I learned a lot this weekend , silk and linen is much easier to dye than cotton and yarn is  much easier than fabric. You saw the yarn absorbing the color immediately, the blue of the yarn was also  more intense than on the fabric.

This was the one that I first folded and than tighten with thread.

The yarn start already to turn to blue.

On sunday we did 4 other bath, coreopsis, broom, campeche(i cannot find the english or dutch translation) and madder.

This picture is the coreopsis bath.

The campeche bath

On the line!!!

I made some bags with the fabric dyed in the campeche bath.

And one with the indigo fabric.

the other side...

Fabric dying and shibori in Bordeaux

It was rather quiet on my blog these last weeks. I went to Holland for a week and i did not craft a lot because of pain in my arm. I knitted too much,  may be it is a tendon inflammation, arghhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Knitting is like a meditation for me, i miss it a lot......

Next weekend i'll go to Bordeaux for a workshop  Fabric dying and shibori technique.
Shibori is a Japanese tie-dying technique;

Techniques[edit]

Ne-maki shibori example.

There are an infinite number of ways one can bind, stitch, fold, twist, or compress cloth for shibori, and each way results in very different patterns. Each method is used to achieve a certain result, but each method is also used to work in harmony with the type of cloth used. Therefore, the technique used in shibori depends not only on the desired pattern, but the characteristics of the cloth being dyed. Also, different techniques can be used in conjunction with one another to achieve even more elaborate results.

(source Wikipedia)

I prepared some fabric pieces with shibori.

This piece is first folded and wrapped around with thread.

In the center is a flower with the leafs already tighten.

I sewed a kind of chess-bord, the thread need to be tighten before dying.

Two big leaves, i need to tighten the thread.

Another flower in another stitching technique and between the leaves a tighten some tiny stones from my courtyard.

For the fabric I uses vintage bed sheets in cotton and linen. Some are more than 100 years old.

I left for Bordeaux to morrow morning so in the afternoon I can explore Bordeaux. 

I promise you to make lots of pictures.

Tiny crochet mousies

This pattern is really addictive, you start with one and at the end you have ten tiny mousies.

You can find the pattern here.

Yoko Saito applique quilt finished

No words , only pictures.

More Japanese fabric......

I think you already noticed that I love japanese fabric . I made another logcabin quilt with the scraps I bought in Paris at Kaetsu. Each time when i visit Paris, I visit the boutique and there always are small scraps. The indigo blue is fabric that I bought on Etsy.
I only need to do the binding.

Japanese fabric that I bought in Nantes

When I was at the craft fair in Nantes this year I bought lots of Japanese fabric. I wanted to make a Yoko Saito pattern but could not find the fabric with the trees, searched on the www, phoned to quilt shops but nothing.
And YES i found it in Nantes. I started immediately with the applique work.
There are nine panels with houses and some trees. It suppose to be the peaceful countryside, Yoko used a lot of whites. I changed it it reds and greens. I am already busy quilting the panels.......
On the individual panels you can see the fabric i was looking for.

I also bought some indigo fabric with stamped design, so beautiful. I made a bag for myself....