On summer days, slow stitching, and fabric dyeing

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Hello friends, 

Here we are in the beginning of July. We have had some beautiful summer days, but today is dark and gloomy ( although still "soupy", as we like to call the super humid days here in Pennsylvania), so it seems like a perfect day for a new blog post!

My star quilt came back from Texas and the quilting is just gorgeous! Cynthia did such a nice job and I am so happy with the result!

I have the binding all ready to go and should have this finished by the next blog post so I can share it in all its glory!

In our Facebook group I am hosting a challenge AND exchange project. I love hosting these. They are fun, encourage us to be creative, and allow for many new friendships to be made.  Our project this summer is to make a simple What-Not, or ( as someone named it) Doodle Cloth Embroidery, where we use little bits and bobs and sew them together to make little pieces of ART.  Here are some examples from Pinterest  that I have been sharing for inspiration:

And here is one that was sent to me by a new member of our group~ thank you B.!

So sweet, right?!

I am making 2 little What-Nots for our exchange, and just this morning signed up to do an exchange for a similar type of project through a magazine I subscribe to called UPPERCASE. 

This is a quarterly print magazine, with NO ads( yay!), and every issue is filled with inspiration, not necessarily for quilting, but for simply being creative. I guess I best get busy! Luckily my weekly jaunts to my local re-use shop have me well-stocked in all kinds of little pieces of lace, crushed velvet, buttons, and vintage-y fabrics, so the hardest part will be deciding what to use! And maybe, just maybe, I will use a piece of newly dyed fabric, if my needed resources arrive on time and I can find some sources to dye with!

I recently took a introductory fabric dyeing class through my online quilt guild, Meander, and am completely intrigued by the process of using natural sources like plants and flowers to dye my own fabric! So I have been researching online and taking all kinds of notes so I can learn more and can delve into this process a little deeper. I of course had to try to dye immediately and used what I had on hand ( red onion skins and carrot tops and peelings) and came up with these results: 

Both of these fabrics were white based, and you can really see how the color took on the selvedge on the butterfly fabric.  I didn't care for the blueish green that the fabric was before, but after dyeing it I LOVE it! The color on the white cotton is very pale, but to be fair, I didn't take the time to prep it properly and my results will probably be way better when I do take the time to do that. Be prepared to see more fabric dyeing posts in the future! :D

Until next time~happy creating!

Monique