Back in Action!

Now that both my sewing machine and I are back from Thanksgiving vacation it's time to get sewing! I finally finished my batiked potholders!

The quilt top to the t-shirt quilt is also finished. Now it's time to quilt it! 

Onesies Galore!

Today I worked on making onesies for my shop. I'd had a lot of people ask "Why don't you make rock climbing onesies?" Quite frankly I never thought about it. It wasn't until this week that I got a custom order for one! I also looked at my Etsy shop stats and saw that people were actually searching for rock climbing onesies! Who knew!? 


Here is what's new at my shop: 

Inspiration

I batiked a couple onesies today. In addition to them, I was inspired by my potholders and decided to make batik potholders. They will be a set of two. Here is stage one of the batik process: 

So far I love them! The tomatoes are my favorite!

Many have you have heard about the terrible fires in the Austin Area. It's such a shame and prayers go out to all the families. This is what Austin looked like today (no I didn't take the photo). 

While looking at this photo, my music teacher self just broke into song "Fire in the mountain, run boy run! Cat's in the cream jar, run girls run!" For those who know the reference you get 10 points! For those of you who don't, it's from the good ol' folk song "Jim Along Josie". 


I was working and dealing with extra crazy children because they were not allowed to go outside for recess due to smoke in the air. I had one 4th grader today who just couldn't sit still. I asked him several times to stop rolling on the carpet and his response "I can't help it. I'm extra wiggly today! We didn't get recess!" At least he was honest.


I have been suffering from horrible allergies because the air quality is so poor right now. I feel like I have a cold it's so bad. In the midst of everything I made more progress sewing the quilt binding onto the quilt. I also made two new onesies.


This one is for sale on my etsy shop.

This was a custom design for a friend of mine. 

I will be resting the rest of the night. No sewing, no batiking. I am even skipping samba rehearsal because I feel that bad. 


Sewing = fun 
Sewing + feeling bad = no fun


Stay healthy Austin. 

Labor Day Weekend

I have finished quilting! Now all I need to do is add the binding onto this quilt. Guess what I'll be doing for the next week or so? 

I also finally finished a batik project that was sitting on my sewing table for weeks. It's a baby counting book that is for sale at my Etsy shop. 

I have a couple other projects I would like to get started on: a knit sweater, a couple fabric landscapes, and the quilt I started a while back, but just got put on the back burner. We'll see how soon I can get started on those...

What a Busy Weekend!

This weekend was full of craftiness! It started with dying a custom shirt for an Etsy order.

Saturday I made origami snowflakes for the wedding. Thank you to my awesome friends for helping me out with wedding things this weekend! You all rock! 

Today I told myself was quilting day. It was finally time to sit down and sew this quilt together. I decided to free motion meandering loops all over the quilt. I started in high spirits, but gradually got frustrated. My thread kept breaking and my top stitches were too loose. I was getting close to throwing my machine out the window. Amazingly mom called in the middle of all of this, so I was telling her what was going on. I suddenly realized that I very stupidly did not drop the feed dogs on my machine! 

Feed dogs: (n), A set of feed dogs typically resembles two or three short, thin metal bars, crosscut with diagonal teeth, which move back and forth in slots in a sewing machine's needle plate. Their purpose is to pull ("feed") the fabric through the machine, in discrete steps, in-between stitches.

When free motion quilting you do not want the fabric to be fed through the machine. You want to have control of it and feed it through manually. 


One of my problems was solved. Now what about the breaking thread? I was sewing with Coats & Clark Star cotton machine quilting thread. I switched to Guterman polyester sew-all thread. Ta-da! No breakage. I'm thinking the free motion movement was too stressful on the cotton thread and caused it to break. The polyester thread seems to be more sturdy. I've read about plenty of people free motion quilting with cotton thread, but I just don't think my machine likes it. 


This week's project: finish quilting. 

Busy this Weekend!

I have had a very productive weekend! One new t-shirt and two sets of baby blocks are now up on my Etsy Shop.

I also have been working hard on this twin-sized quilt. It's still got a ways to go before I can start assembling the entire quilt, but here's a preview!  

On an exciting note, a friend of mine brought be back this awesome fabric from Qatar! Now to decide what to make with it. Suggestions? 

Skirts, thread and quilting, oh my!

Completed the navy wrap skirt! It is available for purchase at my Etsy shop here.

On a different note, I need to always remind myself that when I start a big quilting project that I need to have enough thread on hand! There is nothing worse than starting to sew a quilt block and then run out of thread half way through. Ugh. Luckily I live 5 minutes from JoAnn Fabrics and boy it's convenient! I swung by there after yoga all sweaty and gross just to pick up thread. I know I spend too much time in there because I was at the cutting counter a few weeks ago and the woman cutting my fabric asked "Weren't you just in here the other day?" Yes. Yes I was. 

In the middle of all my batiking fun and starting my scrap quilt, a friend of mine wants me to make her a custom made twin-sized quilt for her daughter. All the scraps are from leftovers from custom diapers she had made for her. I am really excited because this is my first custom made quilt for someone! Usually I'm making quilts for people as gifts, never have I been asked to make a quilt for someone. Thanks Julie for making my day and giving me a quilting challenge!  What an eclectic bunch of fabric and what a fun quilt it's going to be! 

Etsy Shop is Now Open!

It's official! My Etsy Shop is now open HERE. I have my wrap skirts as well as a climber's knot t-shirt up. All are custom order items. 


I'm in the process of batiking a new tank for me and a guitar t-shirt for my fiancé. I also have another wrap skirt in progress. It will be dyed tomorrow. Here's a sneak peak at my new tank and the skirt...


My tank: I painted some dye onto the flowers to give them some more color. I will let the dye sit over night and then I will rinse the excess dye out. After it dries I will put wax over the dyed spots , so when I do the final dying the colors aren't affected.

Here's the skirt before it's dyed.

On another note, yes, I am still working on my quilt. Slowly but surely I'm getting it done! 

Completed Skirts

The batiked skirts are completed and I am in love with the purple skirt! It's very comfortable.


I ordered more dye today so I can make some more of these skirts as well as more climbing t-shirts for my fiancé. 

My introduction to Batik

One of my goals this summer was to teach myself how to batik. So for the past 3 days I have set aside my quilting and have immersed myself in this new technique. Everything I learned about batiking came from looking at pictures and reading various instructions including: 


Dharma Trading: Batik Instructions 
Paula Burch's How to Batik


For those who don't know what batik is: Batik is originally from Indonesia and is a method of producing designs on fabric by dying them having first applied wax to the parts to be left undyed. 


I'm hooked! This is such a fun technique. I have previous experience with dying fabric, so luckily that part was pretty easy. I did try to do some low water immersion dying (see blue skirt below). Unfortunately, I let the dye sit for too long, so it bled together more than I wanted. 


I dyed 4 shirts and 2 skirts. I originally was going to make a reversible wrap skirt, but after dying the skirts I decided to just make 2 different skirts. The skirt pattern came out of Chic and Simple Sewing by Christine Haynes . 


Here are the two skirts that I'm going to sew this week: 

I also made a shirt for my fiancé. 

He is a rock climber so I thought a double figure eight knot would be fitting for him. As soon as he tried the shirt on he immediately asked me: "Can you make me some more of these?" I told him that I don't have a lot of dye. I directed him to the website where I buy the dye and he immediately picked out several colors that he wanted. I guess I have a bunch of shirts with knots, carabiners and quick draws in my future...


Important things I have learned about batiking: 

• Buy a melting pot like the one here.  Using a double boiler sounds simple enough, but it's hard to get the wax to the right temperature and maintain it. I learned this the hard way. Besides, you would have to stand by the stove to apply all your wax.
• When you first put your tjanting (pronounced chanting) in the wax, let it sit for a couple minutes so the wax heats up the tool. 
• When boiling the wax out of the fabric, weigh your fabric down. I happen to have some large stones that worked great! 
• Have some Goo Gone. It takes wax out of pots, spoons, etc!