Suggestions please.

The studio upgrade continues this week as I painted the stairs to The Underground. What should I do with the risers? Something artsy. I am open suggestions.

Week 2 of The Creative Cloth Bag Project

Linda Matthews shared tips on tye-dyeing a pre-made bag on her weekly Creative Cloth Bag post. I decided to take what I learned from the previous week’s Thirty Minute Tote Bag tutorial and make another bag out of muslin.

Using Tulip One-Step Tye Dye kit, I followed Linda’s instructions and dyed this bag. I love the colors and it was so much fun!

I had way too much dye mixed for just one bag so I looked around the studio and found some other things that needed color.

This is my favorite!

I still have left-over dye. The kit says the dye will “lose concentration and will result in noticeably weaker color intensity” if not used within 45 minutes of mixing. I can’t bear to just throw it away, so when I have a few minutes I may use the left-over dye to color some muslin, hoping for pastel colors. If I don’t like the color, I can cover it in a variety of ways.  

Formula for Happiness

On 10-inch burlap canvas. The text was printed on muslin with my Epson WF-3520 printer which uses Dura Brite permanent ink. With Dura Brite, the ink does not smear when it gets wet. After I printed, I decided I wanted a more vintage feel so I soaked the muslin in tea. Either the tea wasn't strong enough or I didn't let it soak long enough; I think it is still too bright.

Want to see my French Seam?

I loved making this simple little bag and I learned so much!

Linda Matthews at CreativeCloth has proclaimed 2015 to be the Year of the Creative Cloth Bag. Each Wednesday on her blog, she will be sharing “articles, tutorials, as well as some favorite tips and techniques that make bag-making easy, fun and creative.” She began last Wednesday by posting a SuperSimple Thirty Minute Tote Bag.  Perfect for a non-sewer like me! I have followed Linda’s blog for several years, mainly because I am fascinated by her artistic talent in dying cloth, creating thread art and digital printing on fabric. She is very generous in sharing her projects and free tutorials on her blog. I am so looking forward to Wednesdays, hoping at some point I can create an artist bag!

For the first time since I bought my simple Brother sewing machine (probably 5-years ago), I had a need to change the presser foot. Wow, how simple was that! I attached the blind hem stitch foot to guide the top stitching on the straps; much neater top stitching I must say.

I learned to make a sturdy strap without using an interfacing.

But my favorite lesson is creating a French hem. 

This is so neat! (I can hear the duh!’s from my quilt and fabric artist friends, but really I did not know to do this!)

Local friends, please indulge me if I slide up to you in the market and say “want to see my French seam.” It’s the little things, right?

My 2015 Word of the Year

Two years ago I decided to follow the trend of selecting a meaningful word to inspire me throughout the year. In 2013, I chose Strength as I was experiencing a devastating loss. Last year, realizing my inability to accomplish my goals was due in part to my tendency to have too many interests, I chose the word Focus.  This year I vacillated between Grace and Soul. Grace is such a wonderful attribute that I would so much love to acquire and for me, the soul is the basis for living. As I prayed about which word to choose, a theme kept surfacing in my prayer journal; purpose. I noticed I consistently asked God to reveal his plan for me; how am I to serve. During this time I visited a Sunday school class in my church and learned they would be studying Adam Hamilton’s book, Why?, Making Sense of God’s Will and had decided to join the class for this study. It became obvious to me; my greatest desire at this point is to find my purpose ,so I decided Purpose should be 2015 word of the year.

Over the weekend I painted a sign to hang above the entrance of my studio as a reminder. Details on the technique I used follows.