Last Day for Free Shipping!

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day for Free Shipping in my Etsy shop using the code NOVFREESHIP at checkout. So shop your hearts out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

Hope you are spending time with family and friends, and eating something delicious!

I'll be back next week with a tutorial on embroidering holiday flour sack towels.

All my best,

Kate Spain's Terrain Baby Quilts

I've been a little MIA because I've been furiously sewing whenever I have free time to try and hack down this incredibly long list of sewing "to-do's" before the holidays and before baby #2 arrives. Two big accomplishments have been completing Quilts 2 and 3 of my life: 42" x 42" baby quilts made from one layer cake of Kate Spain's "Terrain" fabrics.

The first baby quilt (the Jill Quilt I talked about here), using hyacinth solid fabric for sashing and Sandi Henderson flannel for the back.

On the second baby quilt (the Sahar Quilt) , I used white solid fabric for sashing and Anna Maria Horner's "LouLouThi" fabrics for the back AND some Art Gallery dot fabric for the binding. I thought it would be interesting to see if I do the same quilt pattern but a different sashing color, one would stand out as a favorite - but I love them both!

I did a meandering free motion quilt stitch for the 1st Terrain Quilt - which makes it feel a little stiff. I tried random lines for the first time with the 2nd Terrain Quilt using my walking foot - it feels more soft and flexible, but the fabric got pinched a little here and there at some of the intersecting lines. So the verdict is still out on which quilting method I like best.

Sahar just had her baby girl a week ago on November 7th, so this is shipping out tomorrow. Hope she loves it!

Next on my list: 9 retro aprons for each female family member incorporating my Grandmother's vintage fabrics into modern fabrics. I hope to share some of those when they're done. And I keep forgetting to continue working on knitting that Vogue baby blanket I started before Parker was born, ohhh.... 5 years ago! I have a Feb deadline on that one! (at least I hope this baby doesn't come any earlier than that...)

The Glider Chair: Before and After

Alas, it is time to reveal my annual project from H-E-double-hockey-sticks. There always seems to be one thing I choose to do every year that I think will be easy-peasy... then it turns out to be a ding-dang nightmare. This year: The Glider Chair.

I found this smooth operator at a rummage sale in August for $25, thinking, "For a few extra bucks, I could breathe new life into this thing, no problem! Easy!" A little paint + a little cushion coverage = not too shabby. In theory, it didn't seem like a bad idea.

In reality: Bad Idea.

What I thought would take a few days took a month and hogged up a bunch of my beloved sewing time. This brought out the fury in me because I have a long list of sewing projects to finish by the end of the year, not to mention custom orders and holiday gifts to make!

After taking this baby apart, sanding for days, priming, painting in the garage late at night for many nights in a row with three coats of paint and then a coat of clear lacquer... then putting it back together (including painting the little wooden screw cover button things), making a pattern and sewing the covers for the cushions (including zippers)....

LOW AND BEHOLD!

She is complete for pity's sake!

And I better be spending every nursing moment in this gol' darn thing after the baby is born so that I may enjoy the fruits of my labor and come to some sort of reconciliation with my crazy old-but-new Glider Chair.

 

I found this fabric at good ol' JoAnn's for a good price at 50% off - LOVE IT. It's a nice Home Dec weight, it's an interesting pattern but not too cutesy or baby-baby, and I think it'll wipe off easily (I'm foreseeing spit-up in my near future...). I even had enough extra to make a matching bolster pillow for my back, too! Yippee!

So even though I wanted to light my hair on fire during the refinishing/repainting process... I can now extinguish that fire by enjoying a nice little rocky-rocky in my new fancy chair at night. More Yippee's!

Dying Clothing with RIT Dye (Tutorial)

It's fall and at 26 weeks pregnant my belly is too big to squeeze into most of my winter coats (sigh...). My friend, who is done having children, gave me her Gap Maternity cotton twill peacoat to use. I don't mind the loden green color, but I think it would be more versatile and current if it were in black, so I decided to dye it!

This is a great way to freshen up your wardrobe, maternity or not, and since I've been dying clothes, yarns and fabrics since high school I thought I'd show others how to make this work for them as well. This is a great way to make a faded piece of clothing look new again, or make a thrifted item your own, or change something you kinda like into something you love (or yarn... or fabric yardage!).

You only need 4 things that you can get at the grocery store:

• RIT dye (liquid or powder)
• 1 cup of salt
• stainless steel tub (sink or 5 gallon canning pot)
• rubber gloves (tall, thick ones)

Helpful Hints before you start:

• RIT dye's website has 500 color formulas to choose from - by mixing different colors, you are NOT stuck with just the few colors sold at the store
• You can only produce a "true" color if you're dying white fabric. When dying an already colored fabric, you can only dye from light shades to dark shades (ex: you can not dye from red to pink, but you CAN dye from pink to red)
• Have a thick stick or stainless steel spoon nearby for stirring in case water is too hot to handle
• I don't recommend using the washing machine technique - you don't have much control over the process and who knows how long the dye will linger in your machine or tint your next load of laundry. 
• Buttons, snaps, loops, etc. will not dye. Polyester thread will also not dye. 
• Wet, dyed fabric will always look darker and more saturated in the dye bath, so don't be fooled - the fabric lightens when dried. Rinse and squeeze a corner of the fabric to get an idea of how the color is turning out.
• Use 1 package of Rit powder or 1/2 bottle of Rit liquid dye and 3 gallons of hot water for each pound of fabric. Carefully pre-dissolve powder in 2 cups of hot water.

HOW TO DYE - Sink Method:

1. COVER UP! Prep your area and yourself with protective paper, drop cloths, an apron, rubber shoes or bare feet, and rubber gloves. Roll up your sleeves if they're long. And for goodness sakes, put on some good music! You'll be standing at the sink for a good 40 minutes.

2. Start boiling 5 quarts of water on the stove. Meanwhile, fill the sink with enough hot tap water for the jacket to move freely (but not to the top of the sink) then add the jacket. Soak & agitate for 5 minutes to make sure it's thoroughly wet and the cotton fibers have time to open up.

3. Remove jacket from water bath (no need to drain), add boiling water and 1 c. salt (salt helps drive the dye into the fibers). Make sure the salt is completely dissolved, then add dye to the hot water bath and stir thoroughly. Finally add the wet jacket to the hot dye bath. You basically want to "cook" the dye into the cotton fibers with as much heat as you can tolerate. Because I want this jacket to be as dark as possible, I'm using the whole 8 oz. bottle of liquid black RIT dye, which is good for 2 lbs of dry fabric.

4. Squish and massage the jacket constantly with your gloved hands (or wooden stick/stainless steel spoon) back and forth, up and down for at least 30 minutes. Feel free to dance to the music to make the time pass easier!

5. After 30 minutes, squish out all the bubbles so the jacket sinks all the way down into the dye and soak for 15 more minutes to ensure saturation. Take a break, then massagey-squish just a little more for good measure.

6. Drain the dye bath out of the sink and squish as much extra dye out of the jacket as possible.

7. Here's where you'll be standing at the sink for another 20-30 minutes. Music Jam session Part 2! If you have a double stainless steel sink, fill the other side with hot faucet water and add the jacket (if not, use a 2nd pot to make the rinsing process go faster... or fill-rinse-drain, fill-rinse-drain in the same sink). I just constantly run the water while swapping the jacket from one side to the other with the "fill - rinse jacket while squishing - drain" process as I gradually use warmer then cooler water until water runs clear.

8. Now it's okay to wash the jacket in the washing machine on warm water with mild detergent and rinse thoroughly in cool water. I do an extra "rinse and spin" cycle at the end of the wash just to make sure most of the dye is out.

9. Dry jacket in dryer as usual.

10. Clean sink or bucket immediately with chlorine bleach or scrub with chlorine-based powder, liquid, or gel cleanser.

***Lastly, it is very important that whenever you wash your dyed item after this, you wash it ALONE. The dye will gradually leak wash after wash for a good year until it's safe to wash it with your regular laundry. Sad but true. ***

Wah-lah! DONE!

Before I started dying the jacket, I had to be flexible about three things: 1) if the thread was not 100% cotton, there was a chance it would only dye to a shade of grey or not dye at all; 2) black RIT dye has a tendency to be a little purple-y, so there was a chance it would be a little more charcoal than black, or have a purple tinge, but I was hoping the original green color would counteract the purple-ness; and 3) I knew for sure the buttons wouldn't dye and that I may have to replace all 11 of them if the loden green ones looked barf-buckets against the black/charcoal.

In the end, all three of my theories were true: the thread didn't dye, the jacket turned out more charcoal than pitch black, and because the buttons matched the non-dyed thread, I decided to keep them on. Overall I'm very pleased with how it looks and could barely take the time to photograph the final product so I could wear it right away!

I know this is a super long post, but I wanted to include all factors, hints, and tips I've learned over the years to ensure ultimate success! It's certainly a p-r-o-c-e-s-s and as long as you follow all the rules and tips, it's an easy way to reinvent something old into something new.

If you have any questions at all, please comment or send me an email and I'll be happy to share my knowledge, give advice, or help problem solve! Good luck dying (I mean that in a non-death kind of way!)
Cheers!