Mandala Madness Continues

Retirement Quilt for Brenda

This was a special goodbye quilt to that beautiful person on the left at the top of the page. I've taught with Brenda for almost 25 years at our elementary school. Everyone on staff signed their names on the "rays". All the fabric is my hand dyed fabric with the exception of the batik "love" fabric. The center is quilted with crazy machine stitches, going round and round in a circle. The center is pieced and all the rays are fused on. Eric Carle I'm looking at you! Everyone thought it looked like an Eric Carle collage. Needless to say she loved it!

Mandalas 2

This detail shot shows the use of hemostats to pinch and hold the center. I bought several sizes at Harbor Freight fairly cheaply, they carry four sizes.

I'm sort of in love with making these. I counted them up this weekend when I was taking pictures of them, and I have about 100. OMG. Yes that's correct, I have over 100 of these babies. Not all are keepers for sure, the ones I did at the beginning were real experiments. But now I'm considering how some of the "rejects" might be cut up for quilting or other art projects. SO FUN.

Shibori

Shibori is a Japanese term for methods of dyeing cloth by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, and compressing. And its relatively easy and fun to do. There are many tutorials online to show the different folds and the patterns they create. Here are some of mine:

And then I shibori-ed this dress using some square blocks I had at school. Lets see how it looks on the model:

Very nice Amelia!

Mandala Obsession

This is what I taught myself this summer, how to dye mandalas. I spent the entire summer on this project. Once I started I couldn't stop and now I have stacks of these, maybe 80? Some are about a yard square, some a little bigger, and a few are about 60 inches square. I learned a lot about folding and mixing colors and using various techniques to create effects. Its my new obsession. I had a permanent dye station set up in the back yard which made it quite convenient when the creative bug hit me, I could just go outside and begin experimenting to my heart's content.

I also dyed a series of shibori pieces, traditionally dyed with indigo. I used Dharma procion dyes, color Indigo (I cheated). That will be a new project and I'll post tomorrow.

New Shawl

This is a ombre shawl kit from Purl Soho. It is truly exquisite. It is a wool/cashmere blend yarn and the kit costs $400! Ouch! I am sure it is totally worth it, but it would be hard for me to justify spending that much money for a shawl.

 This is the shawl, its rather simple, just a big seed stitch rectangle.

 So I bought some plain white dk weight superwash wool from Knitpicks and dyed my own with food coloring. I experimented for awhile until I had the approximately correct ombre. It looks a little pinker in the picture from the original kit but in actuality it is much closer to the Purl Soho color. I am so happy with it. Cost? about $70! That's for yarn and food coloring for dye.

It's so pretty, so much wooly yummyness.

I'm knitting another shawl now, part of the Dragonfly MKAL on Ravelry to celebrate the second season of Outlander of which I am a super fan. Clue 2 today.

Spring Is Here!

The backyard is looking nice right now. Beautiful weather too. It's spring break from school right now and it's a shame I have a cold right now, but there are still 5 days left to enjoy.

Still Painting and Knitting

Let the sun shine....

and may your feet stay warm.