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.

batik print banner!

The first success in my new mission to complete my nearly 100 unfinished projects....

It's a celebration banner made from beautiful batik scraps made by my friend, Annalisa, from my visit to St John, US Virgin Island. When I was working at the the textile studio there, this seemed like the best way to capture the bright variety of color and design in Annalisa's batik. These are all on retired bedsheets from Maho Bay Camps.

batik skirt

When my friend Annalisa was in town recently, she brought a nice surprise: the batik skirt I started last year in the Virgin Islands!

We ran out of time to finish dyeing and dewaxing before I left, so Annalisa kindly finished that for me (that's the hardest part of batik).

It's always a fun surprise to see the final result of a dye project-especially a batik project-and I love how this turned out!

Some photos of the batik process:

(sew skirt, sketch design in pencil onto fabric, then fill in with wax)

Emerging from the first dyebath:

Adding more wax to increase detail before dyeing again in a darker color

For Summer, this is great with sandals and t-shirts.

For Winter, I'm going to wear this with burgundy or navy tights and colorful sweaters!

See the Batik Tree Skirt with winter branches

See a Batik "lesson"

Fabric order!

I ordered myself some splashy new fabrics with my hoard of "personal money."

It came today!

I ordered from Superbuzzy.com a Japanese fabric supplier. My order came perfectly folded and with two candies :)

I have some house and baby projects planned with each of these pieces.

Flea Market report

Oh, my goodness...look what I bought for $5 at the Punk Rock Flea Market!!

It's a bundle of antique scraps from a kimono store!

A lot of these are handwoven silk and a lot of these are shibori dyed in indigo! I love indigo and I love shibori - I flipped when I saw these scraps.

I see an indigo sampler quilt in my future....wouldn't that look great? Then I can showcase each of the prints emphasizing the variation in texture and results from just one dye. I think it would look awesome with red-orange stitching/ties and binding. I can't wait to make it. More photos to come - each scrap is absolutely beautiful and deserves documentation.

Here's me at our Tree Peeps booth.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day - the first day we've had temperatures over 70 degrees since last August...and the whole city almost died of heat stroke (including me)! Hilarious.

A sampling of our wares (above) and the rock star seller beans and rice (below) I love how well this goes over every year :)

Shibori lesson #1b - Mokume

More shibori woodgrain (mokume) this time in black walnut with iron mordant. Black walnut is an aggressive dye, in this sample, it nearly wiped out the design after only ten seconds in the dyebath.

There are a few good sections I can use.

Next time, I will quickly dip or paint the dye on the folds instead of soaking.

Important Side Note:

This chicken chili was delicious and fed the hungry husband

and these peanut butter-nutella brownies were just what we were hankering for

I'm thinking of making these granola bars, but haven't yet.