sewing with vintage linens

A few days after we came home from California, Adam was gone for a week on a 50 mile backpack trip with the scouts. It was raining for some of that time** and I decided to take the week off from painting shiplap and use my personal time at night to sew and eat chocolate. I like the two items I made: linen zipper bag and linen tote. How do you like my shiplap wall? I love it :)

I have a collection of embroidered vintage linens, which I added to this summer from my favorite antique store in Ithaca (next to Moosewood Cafe). Here are some of the recent spoils:

I will use the "knives" and "forks" rolls to store my extra silverware. The embroidered runners will be project bags (to protect current knitting projects) for me a la Dottie Angel. I have been inspired by her beautiful project bags.

shell/ivory? belt buckles. I see these on a sweet, belted blouse for me....

Detail of the white and blue embroidery; it has a Japanese feel. I thought it could be nice to use the embroidered part as a collar on a girl's dress or a pocket detail on something for me....or both, I have 6 crescents. 

White handiwork looks stunning with natural linen backing. I could frame this.

 Elliott helped me put the "fences" back on the toddler bed to make it a crib for Arlin. Right off, Elliott showed Arlin how to use his new crib: throw out all the blankets, jump and shout. Arlin took careful notes.

I mentioned Dottie Angel...another fun personal treat was to visit her at TOLT, the new-ish yarn store in Carnation. I bought a few prizes for me which hurt Elliott's feelings. The black yarn is for my skotthufa!  

**The first night on the 50 miler, it rained. Second day, huge thunderstorm terrorized the scouts and some ill prepared leaders. Third day, all but 2 scouts and 4 leaders went home early. Sixth day, the rest of the crew came home and I heard many colorful stories. Here is a photo of the food I lovingly packed as per Adam's precise directions. 

Skandia Midsommar 2014

Yesterday, we went to Skandia Midsommar Festival at Saint Edward State Park. First off, I love that park, it is beautiful, has lake front beach, trails, large grassy fields, huge playground. Second, I love folky stuff, especially Scandinavian and there were many authentic costumes to oogle over since Skandia is a folk dance group. I have been learning more about traditional Icelandic costumes (you must check out that link!),  and it was great to see the similarities and differences between the Swedish and Norwegian ones. However, there were no Icelandic costumes, so I will take the challenge to make something wearable by next Midsommar to show off. Most likely it will be the peysufot since that is the simplest and has elements I can use in all the other costumes. My goal is to eventually make the 18th Century Faldbuningur, 19th Century Upphlutur, and 19th Century Peysufot. It's very ambitious, and who knows where I will end up in the process, but we will see. I love folky stuff and felt a connection to the Icelandic Costumes.

Here are some photos from the event:

 I liked the Viking booth. Great costumes, props, interactive peg making and grain grinder.

 Viking stone grinder and sifting bowls.

 Kids Maypole: 

 Buckets of flowers to make flower crowns: 

 The maypole before decoration:

 The musical procession:

 Wreath bearers:

 Garland bearers:

 Beautiful (Estonian?) costume:

 Decorating the maypole:

 Audience participation to raise the maypole:

 Dancing

Costume presentation:

These Norwegian ones were my favorite. I liked the intricately embroidered yoke with full skirt attached above the bust line. Optional belt. The grandma in the center had a lot of silver jewelry somewhat similar to the Icelandic style.

 Showing how the felted skirt border (to make the skirt spin while dancing) can also be used as a rain hood.

Little (Norwegian) embroidered dress.

 Troll sightings

Various goods for sale. I liked the cross stitch panels.

 I was tempted to buy these wooden food tools ... and regret not doing so.

Various 'viking' dry goods.

Happy Midsommar!
Here's to a new year inspired by folk embroidery.

Sashiko lesson #1b Uroko - fish scale

Here is another variation on the Uroko (fish scale) from the first sashiko post.

I like it a lot better.

Adam, the tree peeps quality control manager, said that after seeing this new version, he thinks the original looks like an unfinished product and would not let it pass inspection...

Good to know :)

This sashiko was sewn on 100% cotton dyed in copper penny blue.

sashiko lesson #1 Uroko-fish scale

Sashiko embroidery is a Japanese quilting method that produces beautiful, simple, geometric patterns that have (in my opinion) a calming and inspiring effect.

The patterns are typically named after an element of nature that inspired them such as Kikko (turtle shell), Yarai (bamboo fence), Inazuma (lightning flash), and Uroko (fish scale), etc.

Here is my version of Uroko (fish scale) on copper penny blue cotton:

As you can see, I am making a headband out of this sample.

If I was naming this pattern after something in my environment, it would be UW Trash Can pattern:

*Like many Japanese techniques, there are many rules and ritual behind this craft. I definitely am no Sashiko expert and I probably broke a lot of Sashiko rules while making these samples. Oops, I just like to try things out!

Want to try?

Definitely check out this online Sashiko book! (free)

Some Sashiko rules

Asanoha stitch tutorial

Copper Penny Blue III

Copper penny blue strikes again! I love this dye.
It sat untouched for a few months and the copper adhered to the glass jar :(
I shook the pennies around and added more ammonia.

Since I have been dyeing cloth lately, I dipped in a piece of 100% cotton. Tomorrow I will post what I have been embroidering on this copper penny blue cloth...

educational headbands

In an attempt to make a useful object out of the cotton I dyed with fig leaves...I created a monster.

It's not that crazy, actually, but Adam said it reminded him of Sufjan's idea of making an album for all 50 states.

So:

On these dye swatches I've been posting, I am going to embroider a motif from the dye plant I used and turn it into a headband. Then I will have a unified method of displaying and highlighting natural dyes. They will also be educational and more appealing to look at than my dye notebook.

Here are figs and fig leaves embroidered on 100% cotton dyed in fig leaves.

Here are yellow onions embroidered on 100% cotton dyed in yellow onion skins.

The possibilities are endless!

More to come :)

fig leaf dye

Somehow I read online that you can get a dye from fig leaves....

There are a few fig trees on UW campus, so I of course had to try it out.

The dyebath had a beautiful red/purple in it...but I got a pale green/brown with alum on 100% cotton. Not much to speak of.

I have plans of how to turn this dye trial into a useful product, but it will take a few more days to get ready...stay tuned.

p.s. The fig leaves produced a strong, sweet, coconut? odor when cooked. It is very persistent; I can still smell it on the wooden spoon I used and on the fabric I dyed.

I don't think I will dye with fig leaves again...but I'm glad I tried it :)

gift for me?

Wow, I would really like this sewing kit as a gift :)

Seattle

I went on a road trip to Seattle!  

Adam was moving all his things to start life after college and I got to come, too! 

We stayed with Adam's sister's family and did all kinds of things together.  Andra and Robbie have two kids, George and Oliver.

Here's Adam at Pike's Market with Oliver.

Here's Andra with George.

We went to the Seattle Aquarium!  There was a cool sea anemone that looked like a mushroom :)

This was my favorite fish at the aquarium!

We ate 4 piroshki's and were still hungry.

We went to lunch at a delicious place in Capital Hill.

Seattle: from the Elliott Bay Book Store
.

Adam and I went to Mushroom Maynia at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

We saw these mushroom crafts:

and these beautiful colors from mushroom dyes.  We're going to try this soon.

Here is Oliver right before I left for the airport.

Here is me and Adam when i was nervous right before I met with Dr. Ammirati, the Mycologist!

Lunch at Agua Verde, close to where little Candice's new dorm will be!

I had a great vacation to Seattle.  I'm excited to move there this July :)  

Thanks Robbie and Andra for letting me stay with your family!