Quilting Immersion

Summertime is always a great time to expand our quilting skills.  Life is a little slower and there are some opportunities to immerse yourself with other quilters to learn new techniques from world renown teachers.  It can be anything from fabric dyeing to modern piecing to making art quilts.  I was reminded of this when Sarah Bond visited our quilt guild the other month.  On her "Growth List" was to spend time immersed with a single instructor.  And isn't it a dream to be able to leave the cooking, cleaning and family behind.

Recently, I started thinking about the retreats that I have attended and started making a list of these 5 day retreats in the US.  I have participated in a couple of them over the years.  I want to share them because maybe you'll have the means and the time to tale advantage to grow your quilting skills.  Accommodations range from college campuses to retreat centers to visiting the artists studio and staying in a hotel.  There's a lot to choose from and the roster of artist/instructors is constantly changing.

It may be too late for this year, but it's good to start planning and saving for next year. Take a look at the websites to see the selection of workshops.

Quilt Surface Design Symposium:  www,QSDS.com

4 sessions of workshops are held at the Columbus College of Art and Design in downtown Columbus, Ohio and accommodations are in their dorms.

Quilting By The Lake: http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/qbl.cfm

2 sessions of workshops take place at the Onandaga Community College in Syracuse, NY.  Lodging and meals are on the college campus.

Hudson River Valley Art Workshops:  http://www.fiberartworkshops.com/

There any many sessions throughout the year at this all in one workshop environment held at historic  Greenville Arms in the Hudson River Valley/ Catskill Mountain region of New York.

Pro Chemical & Dye: https://prochemicalanddye.net/workshops.html 

Fabric Dyeing and surface design workshops are held thought the year in their Fall River location.  You are responsible for your own lodging and meals.

Empty Spools Seminar:  http://www.emptyspoolsseminars.com/

Located on the picturesque Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California.  Fee includes classes, lodging and meals.  Sewing machine rentals are available.

Crow Timber Frame Barn Art Retreats: http://www.nancycrow.com/artretreats.html

Study with Nancy Crow or a limited selection of other artists in Central Ohio in Nancy's timber frame barn  retrofitted to accommodate quilters and or fabric/dyers.  Lunch and dinner are cooked and provided by a professional chef.

Craft Napa: http://craftingalifellc.com/craft-napa/

Located in the Napa Valley of California, Craft Napa offers several week-long retreats thoughout the year focusing on sewing, quilting and mixed media, organized by Pokey Bolton, past owner of Quilting Arts magazine.

Quilt Gallery: www.quiltgallery.net

Located in Kalispell, MT,not far from Glacier National Park, the Quilt Gallery offers  a variety of week long quilt retreats with internationally recognized instructors.  And if you've read this far, I am excited to share that I will be teaching Mini Mosaics there July 31-Aug4, 2019!!!! After learning the technique, you'll be able to design and  start to create your own with my help!!!

If I've missed any (and I'm sure I have), let me know and I'll add it to this list.

Indigo Fabric Dyeing @Whitney Lake

I dabble in dyeing, fabric dyeing that is.  It's in my DNA.  My college degree is in Chemistry, so it's rewarding to combine my academic knowledge with my love of fabric.

I just returned from a 3 day getaway with some of my quilting buddies at our lake house.  It's the perfect place to dye fabric outside because there's not a whole lot of grass.  The weather was perfect.  I was not sad that Autumn was not in the air.  It was really a summer extension.

Other than quilting and eating, indigo dyeing was on the agenda.  It has to be the easiest type of dyeing that I have ever done and it seems to be a non-discriminatory type of dye.  Every type of fiber we tried, turned blue! And indigo is such a rich, beautiful shade of blue.  Blue is my favorite color and it's making a comeback in Home Dec and fashion.  I've seen it in a bunch of magazines and in the stores.

Indigo is a plant based dye and the fabric comes out of the dye bath green.

 and as it is exposed to the oxygen in the air, it turns blue!

I made the dye bath up the day before.  We twisted and clipped, tied and stitched the fabric and then dampened it before placing it in the dye bath.  5-10 minutes was all that was needed.  Then the fabric was rinsed, untied and placed on the clothes line to dry.  Easy - peasy.

Everything we tried took the dye.

Denise even took the shirt off her back and dyed it! (It was a white t-shirt.)

Helen brought some very cool fabrics including some doggie bandanas for Bailey

and this sheer curtain type fabric came out beautifully.  I think I'm going to make mine into a scarf.

I bought my dye from Pro Chem as a kit.  It came with very clear instructions.

Make sure you wear gloves or your hands will be blue for days.  Click on THIS LINK, if you want to buy the kit and give it a try.

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NEWSLETTER

Quilt Camp

Have you heard of MAQ? If you're a regular reader of my blog, you probably have. For those of you who have not, it's 3 days of quilting immersion where quilters can make friends with people who speak the same language and renew that friendship each summer. I just returned yesterday. This year there were 300 quilters who had the choice of 60 some odd classes offered by 20 different teachers.

Some people call it Quilt Camp. We sleep in the dorms at Mount St Marys University in Emmitsburg, MD, located not far from Gettysburg, PA. We eat in the cafeteria where I love to table hop. Sometimes I eat with my students. Sometimes I eat with other teachers and sometimes I eat with my friends from my quilt guild.

There are evening programs too. On Friday night, we are introduced to the wonderful volunteers who put on this 3 day quiltaganza. There are vendors, door prizes and a speaker.

This year I taught a silk applique class, the Curvalicious backpack class and fabric dyeing. I had the most wonderful students. I love the bond we form spending so much time together. Here are some photos from my classes.

The irons are set up outside of the classrooms for all to share.

Some students brought items from home to dye.

Here's a reincarnated pair of gardening sneakers.

And a t shirt.

Saturday night is Show N Tell. Students show what they have made during their first two days of classes.

The teachers present what classes they might teach next year.

It's such a great time. You should consider joining us next year. I promise that you will leave with new friends. You can check it out at www.MAQonline.org.

 

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Fabric Dyeing My Way

I have been juggling many, many quilty things. Soon I'll be able to share a magazine article about my mosaics and some news about teaching on a quilting cruise. I'm also excited and nervous at the same time about a trip to Houston at the end of October to exhibit Curvalicious at the largest wholesale quilt industry show. Right now I am working on prepping for a 3 day educational seminar in MD that starts on Friday. Oy!

On Sunday, I have a full class for my Fabric dyeing workshop. This is what it looked like as I was putting the kits together.

Most of the fabric in the kit is PFD cotton (Prepared for dyeing). That means there is no sizing or any additives that would interfere with the chemistry of dyeing. The black and white fabric is off the bolt from a fabric store. It needs to be scoured before it is dyed to remove any additives.

Yesterday was a dry run. Here's my dyeing set up. I used 3 different dyes from the red, yellow and blue family and combined them in varying amounts. It's important to be very organized. However, I'm quite messy, so I try to remember to wear gloves.

 

I use sandwich baggies to add the different combos of dyes to the fabric. I let them batch (sit) overnight.

Today was washout day. After rinsing until the water ran clear, everything went into the washer and then the dryer.

 

Here's a beautiful stack of fabric. I love all these colors.

I used a combination of PFD fabric, white on white prints and black and white prints. This is what it looks like when I divided them into the three piles.

PFD

White on white

 

And the black and white prints.

This was one of the black and white fabrics I started with.

I love the way this fabric dyed. I haven't seen any other fabric dyers starting with the white on white or any B&W fabrics. I love the results and think they are so interesting. I have been experimenting like this for a lot of years. It's fabric dyeing, my way.

My workshop is this coming Sunday. I think my students are going to love it.

 

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A Fun Diversion

I was approached to offer a fabric dyeing workshop where I teach during the summer. I was so excited because I love to dye fabric. I don't quilt with hand dyed fabric a lot, but I love the process of creating it. It merges my love of textiles with my background as a chemist. It brings back memories of my days spent in the lab.

I thought a great place to start teaching fabric dyeing would be with a gradation kit from Pro Chemical & Dye .  It comes with 3 fabric dyes and it results in 30 fat eighths of fabric in 30 different colors.

First I numbered each Baggie and each piece of fabric and put the appropriately numbered fabric in each The appropriate baggie and made up the dye. 

The dyes were mixed according to the directions and added to each baggie. 

After batching overnight, the washout begins. 

That's my kitchen sink. I always get excited at this point. Fabric dyeing is sometimes a bit of a mystery. 

After washing and drying the fabric, I find it hard to wait to iron, fold and stack the fabric. 

Just luscious. I couldn't help playing. 

I usually donate my hand dyed fabric to guild auctions, but I think I'll make a quilt.  Solids are hot now especially when paired with white or grey. 

Do you sew with hand dyes?

It's All Fun!

What could be better than a workshop where you don't have to bring a sewing machine, fabric or any sewing supplies?  How about a workshop where you don't have to stress about color choices or if you have the exact seam allowance?  What if you got to choose from lots of colors to dye yards and yards of fabric?  It's a no brainer and it was lots of fun today as Calico Cutters Quilt Guild had a fabric dyeing workshop - at my house. 

 

I spent a day making up about 10 gallons of dye in about 20 different colors for my fellow guild members to play with.  I'm so happy I didn't have to schlep everything to a different location.  The workshop was Chez Lynch. They just had to bring lunch and come in clothes that they didn't mind were splashed with dye.  Fiber Reactive Dye is just that - and it's permanent. OOPS!   Holly didn't mind! Who spilled that dye on her???  I won't tell.  It matches her shirt.

 

The plan was to dye outside.  No mess indoors and if something spills, the grass would hide it.  But Mother Nature wouldn't co-operate.  It was chilly, the grass was wet and the forecast called for some intermittent spritzing.  So I waited for the last minute to clean out my garage.

 

 We started the day by ripping 4 yds of fabric into fat quarters.

Soaked them in a soda ash solution and started dyeing.

 

Everyone had their own dishpan to keep their baggies.

it was a beautiful thing to watch them fill up.  Everyone went home with 18 baggies each with its own fat quarter.  They would sit overnight and washout would come in the morning.

 

We did single color dyeing, single color gradation dyeing and 2 color gradation dyeing. We had some extra time and those who wanted dyed some cotton thread.

 

Our guild meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that some of my new dyers wake up early enough to do a washout and dry their fabrics in the morning. This reveal is the best part of dyeing your own fabric. And,  I'd love to see some hand dyes at Show & Tell.

 

I do really enjoy sharing the fabric dyeing experience.

Fabric Dyeing For Quilters

I have returned from my 5 whirlwind days in Fall River at Pro Chem and have tried to debrief my brain. The amount of information that Carol Soderlund has in her brain and has accumulated over the years is mind boggling, and she is willing to share it all. I’m not sure where to start, so I will just begin.

I will try and recap the remainder of the 5 days to give you a feeling for the overall experience . At the outset, I want to say that this is THE BEST workshop I have ever taken and Carol Soderlund is the most organized, generous and knowledgeable teacher. That being said:

A bird’s eye view of the classroom which is also the dyeing room for us.

Including a washer and dryer, along with many sinks.

Every day, Carol would lecture at least part of the morning and usually again in the afternoon, and then demo what we were to do. Her explanations covered making up dye solutions, preparation of the fiber, dye setting, mottled, solid, low immersion dyeing, depth of shade, dyeing by calculations as well as dyeing using her charts and the most fascinating of all was the 3D Color Theory. We learned about dyeing to get the exact color we wanted as well as dyeing to achieve various effects and to explore.

The ultimate goal for most was to assemble the bible of fabric swatches.

This notebook contains over 1000 1inch color swatches. This can be used to precisely dye fabric to the desired color.

We would begin our day between 8:30 and 9AM. Before you knew it, it was lunch time. Lunch was included in the workshop fee. It turned out to be a wonderful cross-section of the ethnicity of the area, which has a very big Portuguese population. Lunch ranged from pizzas, subs, wraps,lasagna and pockets along with salads and chips and cookies. It was well needed energy and a respite. We often continued our explorations at least until 6PM when we were all told to GO HOME!. One night we did stay for dinner and another night we worked in the conference room at the hotel working on our books.

Oh the books. It would have been an insurmountable task to dye all of that fabric, cut it and create the book by your self. We were put into 3 teams to do the dyeing and cutting. Carol’s instructions for keeping the swatches in an ordered manner with labels and envelopes and pre-printed sheets was instrumental in compiling this compendium.

Carol is demonstrating how to prepare the dye solutions for gradation dyeing,

and the resulting fabric strips.

Here are some fabrics that were dyed during the week by various class members. Below are pieces dyed by my deskmate Angela. She’s a weaver and wasn’t as impressed with her exercise of 2 different shades of the same color as we were! She was showered with ideas of what to do with that beautiful fabric.

Anne, another non-quilter, produced a beautiful piece of cloth using low immersion dyeing. You may know Anne from her company that produces hand-dyed threads, only available through retail needlepoint stores. If you go to her website you can see the various threads and where you can buy them.

Gloriana Threads

Susan wanted to share with us what happens when you dye a shirt without soaking the dye in fixative! Oops!

And just in case you didn’t think we had any fun during the week – our fearless leader:

Thank you to ProChem for their hospitality. Thank you to Carol for sharing her knowledge and techniques in a format that all could learn. My recommendation is if you have an interest in dyeing cloth or threads, this is the place to learn and Carol is the teacher to learn from. Go to Pro Chem’s website and get on their mailing list. Once the class is open for registration, it does not take long before it fills up. I am planning on attending Part 2 next Spring.

And here are some snippets of other gorgeous fabrics:

Carol’s samples.

My rick rack and thread experiment:

A pile of dyed T-shirts.

And here is a piece of Brilliance dyed by Liz on the right. It’s a blend of cotton and silk. One side is shiney and the other side is dull. Look at the difference in color between the 2 sides. So rich! Jackquie has the other beautious purple cotton fabric.

And here’s a piece by Sally – a prof at Rhode Island School of Design.