A Knitting Bag

A couple of years ago, I had Judy Coates Perez stay with me. She was the guest speaker at Rose City Quilters Tote & Gloat and also took a class afterwards. I made this fabric.
Later on I found a 5-day quilt challenge in a Quilting Arts magazine and used the fabric to do the challenge - then I got stuck! (well, I couldn't figure out how to finish it off).
Over the weekend I set up the overlocker and overlocked the edges (about 4 times), then stitched it into a tube, sewed up the bottom end and finished it off with sewing the bottom points so that it sits really nice (like a square bottom tote bag - see here for easy instructions).
Viola! here is my new knitting bag!

S.I.X. Challenge - Reveal - Sue's Block

Today I will show you what we all did with the gorgeous blocks Sue made for us. Each of us got a different 'animal' which was layered, stamped, drawn and painted as Judy Coates Perez did in the class she took after Tote & Gloat 2010.

my quilt with cave art, Incan art and Indonesian art

Dianne's fish with old designs burnt-out Yvonne Brown style

Rhonda's frog with dyed background and stamping

Cheryl's walls - woven, stamping and other art

Barb's bird on a great painted and stitched background

Sue has centered her block and made other animals in the corners and designs on the borders

All so very different!

Playing with Something Different

I thought that it would be fun to do some flour/water resist and painting. So here we go. An empty bench, and I'm going to be away for a couple of days.

I spread out my fabric on some plastic,

mix up some flour and water to a stiff paste and spread it over the fabric with a spatula,

draw a pattern - I used a teaspoon, because I really hate the slimy feel of the flour/water mix, then leave it to dry for a couple of days - well, the weather has been winter wet, so some things just take longer to dry!

So, a few days later, there is a window of opportunity with a bit of afternoon sun. Outside with the fabric and paint (I used textile ink). I encouraged some cracking by using a rolling pin and pulling on the edges of the fabric before painting. Once dry, it needed to be heat set - mmm! best way of doing that? I lay this piece upside down on a bath mat on the bathroom floor and used a hairdryer, then the iron! I then pulled off as much of the dry 'dough' as I could before washing it - this actually took a couple of goes, because the flour seemed to be quite sticky.
Anyway, this is the end result - the design doesn't show as much as I hoped, but I do like the crackle effect, and I can work with this.