Halloween!

There's been a break in my normal work habits to make up some Halloween costumes for me and my boyfriend. I changed my mind from Wesley Crusher (wearing a jumpsuit is not a good idea if you're going out and have to use the rest room) to Mick Jagger, specifically this outfit:

Along with this hat:

The hat is made of cardboard and masking tape, then covered in quilt batting and fabric. Not bad for a rush job, though I think I made it a bit too tall. 

And the shirt, belt, and scarf. I'll just be wearing some tight black jeans I already own, and I can't quite find a picture with his shoes visible, so I guess I'll just wear some black oxfords.

And for Seamus, he's going as 80's/90's wrestler 'Big Boss Man'

His shirt, I couldn't find a confederate flag patch, but otherwise not too shabby. Still need to find him a night stick and handcuffs. 

Also last week I taught a dying and shibori class, I always love all the different samples the kids make!

I also demoed ice-dying, but I tried it with organza this time. I think because organza absorbs dye so easily and doesn't really 'spread' the liquid throughout it like a thicker cotton, I got a very different effect. Still very pretty and painterly though. 

A Large Quilt!

Well, I think this is officially the largest thing I've ever sewn. It doesn't fit on the floor, and it juuuust fits on the wall. I think it's about 108" x 108" I'm going to have to bring it to school to baste it on the print tables. Right now I'm waiting to purchase the backing and batting (since I'm pretty sure those will cost way more than the quilt itself did) I was going to back it with muslin, but I realized it's so big I'll have to turn the edge down on my bed, so I want to get something a little more decorative. 

And here's me for size reference. I'm looking awkward! On the bright side, it is certainly big enough for both me and my boyfriend. All my previous quilts have been sort of one-person sized. 

So I worked on the quilt the majority of this week (I'd really like to finish before it gets cold) but I also did a little dying--I still have a lot of this silk/wool blend from the first Mariah coat. The top row are the colors I dyed originally, the bottom ones I just did. There's a bunch of regular cotton thread left too, I really want to dye a full range of colors and get back into embroidery. Because I need another thing to be working on. 

Current things-in-progress:

-Irish Chain Quilt (top done, needs to be quilted)

-Braid Coat (still making braids)

-Dear Jane Quilt (nearly done Row D)

-Red Cableknit Scarf (haven't been taking pictures, but it's about 2/3rds done)

-Repairing old Cape (going to start over)

I'm sure there's other things I'm forgetting too. And I'd like to make some clothes to wear for fall too-I donated/threw out a lot of clothes due to our short-notice move. 

Summer School Is Out!

As much as I had a fabulous class this semester, it's going to be nice to have a little bit more free time for myself again. At least the prep for the fall class is mostly already done! It was just trying out a totally new project this summer that really ate up time. But it was worth it, I'm really pleased with how it worked. And the fall class is 4 sessions (12 hours!) longer, so I think it'll work even better. As a reminder, all of the students started out with this: 

And through dying, seam ripping, new pattern drafting, gathering, and adding elastics and zips, we ended up with these radically different garments:

Students were really into the poof this year, lots of gathering! And of course the one time I just decide to go ahead and draft them trouser bottoms to begin with, they all want to make big skirts. Oh well!

But now I'm back to my various (too many right now, I think) independent projects. Dear Jane is still chugging along. D-9 was a nice easy put-together. One of my favorite color combos too. 

D-10, on the other hand..well, I made a mistake, the little HST patch in the lower right hand corner is upside down. Don't care enough to take it apart and re-sew. 

Dyed a bunch of things black. I've had a hard time finding nice sturdy cotton/linen thread in black or gray, so I dyed a few different types, probably for use in the shoes I'm working on. The tape is for the braid coat, to join the panels. I found the perfect thickness and material of tape-at Jo-Mar of all places--but it was a sage-green color, so I top dyed it gray. 

Speaking of shoes (I mentioned I have too many projects right now?) I dis-assembled the prototype shoe and marked everything out. 

I started cutting out the soles and adding the groove to stitch them onto the upper. I know a lino cutter isn't exactly the proper tool for that, but it gets the job done pretty well.

A little more frivolous, but I worked a sidewalk sale in Haddonfield, NJ recently, and there was a fancy yarn shop there selling weird half-balls and bits in grab bags for cheap so I bought a couple random things. I normally can't bring myself to spend money on fancy (read: new) yarn but it was really cheap! So I made myself a Waffle Hat for when it cools down. Still need to finish my poor neglected cable scarf, I'm just a little afraid of trying to figure out where I left off. 

Back in Place

It feels so good to get the Dear Jane back on the wall. Now I feel like I've moved in. I've been so busy getting things ready for my class and fixing up the new apartment, I haven't really worked on anything for myself, and now that I'm ready I've found that my little ruler is missing. Ugh. But at least it's here to cheer me up. 

Speaking of class, seven of these guys went with me tonight, the kids are going to transform them however they'd like. Of course, every other year everyone wanted to make shorts/rompers, now that I've done the hard part for them they all want to make gowns. Soooooo we'll see. 

And I did a little more ice dying. I'm just tickled with how well the broadcloth I bought is dying. I'm so used to cottons dying very washed out so it's great! I'm going to dye the scraps from cutting out the jumpsuits for quilting.

I love when it gets all fractal-y, which I could get this effect more consistently. 

Ice Dying and Shibori

So that plain white shirt from the last post has now turned into this! I'm super pleased with how the ice-dying came out, I will definitely be trying it again. 

I sort of want to do it again on a shirt that I didn't just throw together in a few hours, the collar's a bit messed up. 

The marbled effect is so cool! Also it's good to see the cotton broadcloth dyes so well, that's what the kid's jumpsuits are made of. 

We also did Shibori dying in class on Wednesday, these are some of the samples I made up. I love the gradation that the Thiox gave to that purple piece, I really want to dye a whole shirt that way. 

Some of the kid's samples. A lot of green this year!

I also dyed a chunk of silk in the ice-dye bath, it took the color a little darker. This I'll cut up and give a piece of to each student.