Ice Dying

I started seeing ice dying a couple years ago on different blogs and thought "that looked cool". I never got around to trying it till recently when Anna Joyce talked at my quilting guild. She had some lovely pieces that amazed me and when she talked about the simple process, I was hooked. I had to try it as soon as possible.

So I soaked a couple of cotton t-shirts in 1 cup of soda ash and about 2 gallons of warm water for about 20 minutes. I also soaked a small piece of heavy canvas. I like to use extra pieces of fabric to test processes when I'm working with dye. Anna Joyce had also done a really pretty piece of fabric that she sprinkled some dye on the fabric and achieved a kind of confetti effect.

I used two different dyes. One was Dharma Trading fiber reactive dye and the other was Precion Fiber Reactive dye. Both are almost the same but since results can depend on the supplies you use I wanted to use these dyes separately so I could better judge the results.  I scrunched my shirts on wire racks & covered them with ice. I have seen other people use large Tupperware containers and I think that will work better next time as you need a way to hold all the ice on top of the fabric. Mine kept falling off the sides and so there seemed to me a lot of white showing around the edges of my fabric.

I used Dharma Trading Caribbean Blue #132 & Baby Pink #12A on the t-shirt.

I sprinkled about 1/2 teaspoon of each color sort of randomly on top of the ice, some of the dye went directly on the shirt. 

I used Procion Pale Aqua #210 Peach #180 & Aqua Marina #069 on the v neck t-shirt..about 1/4 teaspoon of each color.

The Peach looked a lot more orange than I wanted, and the Pale Aqua looked lot lighter that I expected when I sprinkled the dye on top of the ice. But since dyed items always change color a after the process is complete I waited and hoped that I would get something that I liked.

I used Dharma Trading Baby Pink #12A & Wedgewood Blue #76 as a sprinkle on the fabric
I put a 1/4 teaspoon of each color in a spice jar with lid that would sprinkle the dye sparely. I used less than a 1/8 a teaspoon of each color.

One thing that was interesting that Anna Joyce mentioned was that the dyes will separate in ice and when you sprinkle the powder because of the chemistry. You can see in the photo below that there are some yellow spots that appeared when sprinkled the Baby Pink color.

There was also talk of using different types of ice, grated ice would melt faster meaning that the dye would soak into the material a little sooner than the large pieces of ice. I also read that grated ice would leave a little different design. So I grated some of the ice that I put on for the v-neck shirt & used the Procion dye with the grated ice. But on the day I did my dying it was about 70 degrees and it rained ever so slightly. So the ice did not seem to melt any faster on the day I tried this process. I think a warmer day will produce a little different result but I can not be sure till I test it again.

Pieces after about 10 hours of sitting outside.  On the left are the larger pieces of ice, they are not completely melted.  On the right is the shirt that I used mostly grated ice and you can see all the ice has melted. You can also barely see the pale aqua on the fabric, it's below the orange and right of the aqua marina...where the large white spot is located. I love to test processes and sample patterns but the hardest part of this process was leaving the dye on the shirts for 24 hours. I get impatient waiting and really wanted to see how these shirts would dye. I left the pieces in place overnight and checked them at 10am the next morning.

You can see that the colors did lighten up a little over night so there was hope that the colors would mellow after a wash. I really was not looking forward to a patch of bright orange, I wanted a soft peach color. 

Once washed and dried the shirts came out nice, the peach was more of a peach and not so orange. On a scale of 1-10..I would give these a 7, as I think I learned a couple of things that I should do different next time. I do want to try it with all one color and maybe do a shobori design on the material. 

Sewing with Knits

I took a Craftsy class about 3 years ago called Sewing with Knits by Meg McElwee. I made a pair of yoga pants that were a disaster. The fabric I used was too stretchy and thus fell off me when I put them on. I liked the class, it gave me a lot of information about different types of knit material and how to work with different knits. Meg explained a lot about how to work with different knits, what to look for when choosing knits and how to do stretch tests to make sure your knit material with rebound. 
I was also surprised at all the different patterns that came with the class. There is a fleece hoodie, 2 different t-shirts, yoga pants and a dress. Printing out patterns and taping them together is such a pain in the ass I never printed out any other patterns from this class. A couple weeks ago I finally went back and printed out the pattern for the scoop neck shirt. I was getting tired of the old standard Jalie pattern that I have been using for the last 5 years and wanted something a little different. 

I usually do not add a neck band when I make t-shirts as they are always the first thing I cut off on ready made t-shirts. But this pattern is a bit of a scoop neck so I thought it would be fine to add a neck band...I'm glad I did. If I had not added a neck band I think the neck line would have drooped and looked shabby. 

I made another shirt to make sure I had the pattern down, this one I screen printed and gave to a friend. Actually it's a reverse screen print. When you use Soft Scrub as ink it will bleach out the material leaving an image in the material that is soft and part of the material. There is no ink sitting on top of the material. 

I wore my shirt a couple of times and decided I wanted the shirt a little longer. While watching the class again to get some specifics I saw a part about adding a hem band. I decide to add a band of material around the bottom of the shirt.  

I used a knit sheet that I found at a thrift store to make both of the shirts.  The sheet was an Amazon Basic King size sheet that was 100% cotton. There were a couple of small holes in the middle of the sheet, I have a feeling that is why it was donated to a thrift store...no problem for me as I cut around the holes. I have enough material to make one more shirt. It's an attractive grey color that will go with anything. I may try to make a v-neck or a longer sleeve shirt with the remaining material 

I think this scoop neck shirt is my new favorite. I expect to make more of these shirts and want to try making a dress version. I think this pattern will also work great in repurposing old t-shirts that are too large. 

Another shirt

Have I talked about how much I love this pattern for a long sleeve t-shirt? Well I had another jersey sheet that I got at the Goodwill and wanted to make a winter shirt from the jersey, but I thought the lavendar color washed me out too much. So... I decided to try to do some Shobori Dying for a little more color in the material. I had some blue gray from Dharma Trading that I had yet to test on any fabric & I was hoping for a nice interesting pattern of the blue gray on the lavender. 

I did an accordion fold that I sandwiched between a couple of boards. The fold was about 5 inches wide and I folded it over on it's self before sandwiching it between a couple of boards. I only used a few rubber bands because I did't want a lot of lines across. This is my dying tub and I know it looks fifthly, but it gets a lot of use from dyes and screen printing ink. 

The design was very sparse, I think I should have used a smaller fold or maybe even use an eye dropper to add the dye to into the folds a little more. I really liked the blue on the lavender. 

I really liked the blue on the fabric but I thought I didn't get enough of a pattern on the material to make a difference. You can see the blue on the lavender material as well as on some white cotton jersey and some random white material that I found in my studio. 

So I dyed the material again. This time in a amethyst color.  I did an accordion fold again but wrapped it in rubber bands. You can see that the folds are about 2 inches this time and I wrapped rubber bands about every inch across the folded piece of material. I did not sandwich the material between boards this time.

The first thing my husband said when he looked at the piece of fabric was it looks like a hippy wedding. I did have to agree. But I also thought that once I cut out the pattern it would look a lot different. I liked how this came out even though I think it's still a little sparse. There are some really nice colors that came from the lavender sheet, the blue gray dye and the amethyst. I still have another half of the this sheet I think I will practice some more with the Shobori dying techniques. 

I wanted more of the color on the arms so made sure to get the blue and pink dyed pattern  on the top of the  sleeve.

I did a rolled hem on the neck line and the bottom of the shirt. I like the way the rolled hem finishes the shirt. I also like the really long sleeves. This is a very warm & comfortable shirt that if I get it dirty or rip it at work I know I can make another one really easy. I think next time I will make the shirt then do the Shobori wrapping and dye. My husband said he was amazed that it came out so nice, he didn't think the shirt had a hippy wedding look anymore. 

Winter is here

When the weather starts to get cold and rainy I start to think about nesting and hibernating through the dark months of winter. I go to my studio and sew or I bake. The last couple weeks I have done a little of everything. I bought some nice pink burn out tissue jersey at mill end. I liked the drape and it was inexpensive so I bought a couple yards. I made a shirt from a pattern that has proven to be the best t-shirt pattern I have made so far. It's the Jalie 2805 shirt pattern that has a few different neck line varieties. I tend to like a nice v-neck but with the cold weather I decided to try the jewel neck line.  From this adventure I realized I do not like working with tissue jersey...it takes forever to get the pattern pieces to meet properly. I fussed a lot with this material. I did add a neck band to the pink material because it seemed very loose and I thought it would help keep the neck from stretching out too much. After my struggle with the tissue jersey I cut out a basic black shirt. I found a black cotton jersey sheet at the Goodwill and thought it was a decent material, very soft. I made the same jewel neck shirt, it's wonderful. It took me about 1 hour to make, no fussing to meet the pattern pieces it all went together beautifully. I decided not to add a collar band to the black shirt and instead finished the neck with a rolled hem stitch on the serger. I think this it my new winter shirt, its soft and warm. I had enough to make another shirt so I made a v-neck with long sleeves (the other shirts are 3/4 sleeve's). I really really like this pattern. I did a rolled hem on the v-neck shirt too, but it puckered a bit more than I wanted. It's a warm comfortable shirt and I'm already planing a few for more.

It was also time to get the last of the peppers from the garden. One of the gardeners in our community garden pulled all his pepper plants and left them in the garden to rot...so I took some more peppers and pickled the last of the vegetable from the garden. The peppers are great on sandwiched and in salads. I also found a recipe for Salted Cantaloupe Jam. I had made some Cantaloupe Jam from the book "Food in Jars" and I loved it. I thought the Salted Cantaloupe Jam sounded great. I bought a cantaloupe but it had to sit and ripen for a couple of days as it was very hard. I made the salted jam in my FreshTech Jam maker and it came out quite nicely. I was surprised at how different it tasted because of the salt. It really changed the taste, it was more of a woodsy and slightly sweet taste. I think it would go nicely on chicken or pork as well as on toast. 

Lastly I made another pair of pants for my husband. He wanted some wool pants. I found this nice balk wool at Scrap. It was about 5 yards of material for $10. I used 2 for the pants so that is a cheap pair of wool pants. I finished the pants this evening and my husband tried them on, he did not like that the pockets tended to stick out on the sides. Not sure why this happened or how to fix it with out taking the pants apart. I told him the flair to the pockets it has a slimming effect. We will see if the believes it or if he sends them back for me to "fix" the pockets.

I also had to go to the dump the other day and I found a box of photos. It's always sad to see someones life in photos tossed. Most of the photos were from a remodel of a 'Mary's Kitchen", but there were also several other remodel projects photos. Along with the remodel photos were several family photos, and photos of what looked like high school parties from the mid to late 80's. 

New Alabama Chanin Dress

I received the latest Alabama Chanin book " Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns" in early April. I was a little frustrated at having to print out the patterns myself.  I have copies of the patterns from earlier books, but I really wanted the A-line dress from the most recent book. I finally took the CD to Kinkos and had them print out the A-line Dress, the Coat, a circle stencil and the new leaf stencil. It cost about $40 for the 4 large printouts. One of the frustrating thing about multiply sizes on one sheet is that sometimes you forget what line you are following. I think I saw this tip in a Craftsy video...trace the size you want to cut out in a specific color. I decided that red was the easiest since I had a large red sharpie handy. I then put the pattern paper under the pattern and use the tracing wheel. The nice thing about the tracing wheel is it leaves a line of dots on the pattern paper...if you are lucky the color you used to trace your size will bleed through a little making the lines easier to follow. Once you have the pattern for your size cut out you can put the pattern away till you need a different size. 

I cut our a large dress because the jersey fabric I used was very stretchy. I think it had spandex in the material mix. That was nice because it will keep it's shape longer, where as 100% cotton jersey will stretch out too much sometimes. Anyway I added pockets to this dress and I'm kind of happy with the results. I cheated on this project because I didn't want to put a lot of time into the dress, so I serged the dress. I hand stitch the bias tape on the neck and arms. I will make this dress again. I also want to try some of the new tips that are given in the latest book. Things such as color blocking and pockets. These dresses are so easy to make and the most comfortable pieces of clothing I have in my wardrobe. I really want to try to make the coat next. I think a heavy jersey such as a sweatshirt material will make a fun short coat, it will keep me warm on chilly evenings but look better than a hoodie. I can also do some nice details on the coat to dress it up a bit.