I'm Home

Been a while since I posted.  I just returned from a 2 week vacation that was a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and very little sewing... well, no sewing, but some fiber art!  Which I will tell you about first... I'll start with the fiber art which was the most recent part of my vacation.

I went to the Long Beach Quilt Festival.  I love this Show because it's less traditional and more artsy!  I took some fabric painting and fabric dying classes.  The first class I took was called "Twist and Shout" with Diane Ricks.  We twisted, knotted, and dyed some silk chiffon; opened it up and shouted!

We each dyed 2 yards of silk chiffon by making knots using string and/or rubber bands; twisted the fabric; knotted some more; dipped and/or injected our knots with dye; then carefully added dye to the unknotted areas; placed in a zip lock bag, and put in a microwave for 5 mins.  Took out of microwave, cooled, undid our knots, and opened to some beautiful colors.  I plan on making Vogue 1245 with my chiffon.  I bought some Palmer Pletsch Perfect Sew Fabri Stabilizer and hope that that will make sewing with chiffon easier.

ASG Los Angeles is going to have this dye workshop in January. So if you are local, I highly recommend it, you'll make some beautiful fabric which you can use for a garment!

The Long Beach Quilt Show  is at the Convention Center which is a great location, just a block from the beach, the Aquarium, Queen Mary, and a huge selection of restaurants (I need my elastic pants after this vacation) and nice hotels.  The weather was perfect and the quilts were fabulous!

I wish I would have taken more photos.  But I was so busy with classes (and shopping).  I did get a few using my cell and no flash (sorry for the bad quality).

The next day, I took "Printapolooza" and didn't take ANY pictures!  We silk screened, color discharged, and sun printed.  I have lots of little 8x10 pieces of different techniques.  Not sure what I will do with them, but thinking eye glass cases for Christmas gifts.