Another Alabama Chanin Skirt

Back in October I started to cut out this stencil for another Alabama Chanin Bloomer Skirt. I really like the leaf pattern and I wanted to try to airbrush the pattern instead of screen printing the ink. 

I finally completed the cutting of the stencil because I was going on vacation and wanted to take a skirt to work on while out camping. The air compressor that a friend lent me was missing a hose so I had to figure out some other way to get ink on the fabric. I decide to check out Michael's Craft store to see if there was some sort of fabric paint that was in a spray can. 

 I found two different spray's that I liked and said were for fabric. The Colormaster is more of a spray paint and is probably better for more solid items, it's a little stiff on the fabric. The Color Shot by Tulip was decent, it covered nicely and I liked the color. The only issue I found was it took the entire bottle to do one skirt. At $5 a can that can get a little expensive. I can a $5 bottle of ink that will cover about 10 or more skirts. I guess I paid for the air. I have to go get a hose for the air compressor so I can use the airbrush.

I used the Color Shot blue on the rose fabric because it was not as stiff as the Krylon spray paint on the fabric. I think it turned out OK, there is a little fuzz around some of the edges of the stencil, I have also not washed the fabric so I don't know how it will feel after a couple of spins in the washing machine. The Color Shot also stayed tacky for longer than I thought it should. The package stated it would be dry in 24 hours, the spray painted fabric stuck other fabric and I had to pull it off like sticky tape. It did not leave color behind which was good. 

Next I made some samples. I have found if I question my colors or stencil choice it's best to do a small sample. I tried the pattern with the reverse appliqué and appliqué. The sample on the right and on the top left have a dark blue for the bottom fabric. I thought it was a little too strong for the murky rose color of the top fabric. I asked a couple of people and they both said they liked the bottom right combination the best. I had already cut both top and bottom piece for this project so I had to set aside the dark blue and cut the dusty blue for the bottom layer of the skirt.

So that is what I took camping with me last week to Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. I did finish one panel while out there but I spent more time rockhounding with friends and just enjoying the silence of the area. It was hot the first two days of camping so it was easy for me to sit in the shade and sew while talking. The second two nights of camping it rained so we all sat under the shade structure and played games. I have 3 of the 4 panels done so far and since it should be about 100 degrees out tomorrow I have a feeling I will be sitting in the air conditioned house and finishing this skirt. I already have another one planned...I just need to learn how to use an airbrush. 

Storage

It seems that I never have enough storage. I try to purge items but things pile up and then I scramble to find ways to store what has come into the house. One thing that keeps coming in is fabric. I'm addicted to fabric. My husband refers to my sewing studio as his own personal fabric store. 

I try to store my fabric in plastic tubs but those look kind of ugly. I like to have pretty containers for storage. Recently I revisited the idea of using old drawers for storage, it was something I saw in a Martha Stewart magazine years ago...accept she used the drawers/boxes under a bed and added covers so items in the boxes would not get dusty. When I first moved into my house the kitchen had 6 very large drawers for storage, the drawers were 16x28 by 8" deep. Some items went into the drawers never to be seen again. When I finally remodeled the kitchen I kept the drawers to store framed art work. The drawers proved to be a little too large for some of the art work so I recently bought some smaller drawers for my art and I wanted to use the large drawers for storage of glass wear and other items such as fabric. I attached wheels to the bottoms of the drawers so I could wheel them under metal shelving and under my sewing table. 

The drawers above were my first attempt to see if the idea would work. The top storage drawer has a lot of glass objects that were sitting on the floor in our basement. Putting the items in the drawer made it easier to find something with out having to pull everything out and risk breaking something. Now I just roll the drawer out from under the shelving unit and look inside. I can also stack a lot more items in the drawer and not risk breaking items. The second drawer was used for my large bin of fabric scrap. The large blue plastic storage container lives under my sewing table and now I can wheel it out and look through the container. It makes life so much easier. But they are ugly drawers....I did not want to put a lot of effort into cleaning up the drawers unless they were going to work. So I left the drawers "as is". Till last weekend......

I pulled out another large drawer to convert to rolling storage.  First thing I had to do was add small pieces of 2x4 to the bottom of the drawers. The 2x4s were attached from inside of the drawer and are going to be the base for the wheels. I thought for some reason that these would look nice refinished & I started to remove the paint. It turned out to be  a lot more work than I wanted to put into this simple project. The paint was difficult to get off the drawer and I was impatience. So I ended up sanding a little to get a smooth finish and started to paint. Inside the drawer was a cute drawing...Not sure what it is...a B B and a heart? 

I had to put on 3 coats of a light aqua paint on the drawer before it looked good. I added the wheels, cleaned the drawer pulls and voila...I now I have a nice storage drawer for my scrap jersey. It rolls out of the way under the shelving when necessary and it looks nice. Now I may have to go back to the first set of storage drawers and get them cleaned up. A nice light coat of paint makes a HUGE difference.

I finally completed the ABC Quilt. Some friends were expecting their first baby and they live on a house boat that can get quite cold so I thought a quilt would be a perfect gift. I wash not sure what to make, but my husband thought the alphabet that I had made earlier this year was the perfect thing for our friends. The alphabet if from the book "Quilt Talk" by Sam Hunter. Her book has all the patterns for upper & lower case letters as well as numbers and punctuation. If you have ever wanted to put text in a quilt this is a great book. It has simple and complete directions for her letters, and some great projects to start you out. I could not wait to make a quilt with letters so I just went through and made the alphabet. I have another quilt planned using text, I hope to get started on it very soon. I kept this baby quilt simple using simple lines across the quilt, the only thing I would do different would be to use blue thread on the lines under the alphabet...kind of like old school paper. Oh well next time. I just wanted to get this completed as our friends had their baby on New Years Day. 

Another friend showed me what he had been up to lately with a box of christmas ornaments he found on the street. He fills the ornaments with paint and throws them against a wall. The results can be very interesting looking. The one above had green paint and the ornament was red, so the glass from the red ornament sticks and dries into the paint. I think this would make a cute christmas card that says have a smashing christmas...next year I think I will print some of these. 

I also received a $20 credit from JoAnne Fabric to Shutterfly. I have always been a little suspicious of photo mugs as they can look terrible when they fade and well let's be honest people sometimes use awful photos of their family members. I decided to upload some cat photos and test the mugs that Shutterfly offers. I used 3 of my favorite photos of our cats and tested the look with different color mugs. I liked the black background the best. I had more photos but they got so small and looked a little distorted so I kept it simple and only used 3 photos. I ordered the mug on January 4th and received the mug on January 9th. Very quick turn around time. The mug holds 15oz, I could have ordered 11oz but l liked the larger mug. The total cost was $21.99 for the mug + shipping, I paid $9.98 for the mug because of the $20 credit. Would I pay $30 for a mug? maybe if it was something special, but for the price of $10 I think I got a great deal. My husband used the mug for coffee the day after we received it.