Traveling to Puyallup, WA

Today we are traveling from the San Francisco Bay Area to Puyallup, WA. We're on the way to the Sewing & Stitchery Expo which is this Thursday - Sunday at the Western Washington Fairgrounds.

One of the pluses to driving from one place to another is the scenery. This picture of Mt Shasta was taken as we drove through Dunsmuir, CA. Since it is cloudy today it is hard to see where the snow ends and the clouds begin.

Sew Expo is one of the largest sewing shows in the United States. There are classes, fashion shows and of course LOTS of shopping opportunities. Alex Anderson is the special guest this year. 

People come from all over to attend this show. Someday I'd love to attend as a consumer because we are always so busy I don't have a chance to see much of the show. Visit their website for class and show information http://www.sewexpo.com/. 

From Tea Towels to Tote Bag

I just finished a tote bag made from two of our red Dunroven House tea towels and a piece of heavy weight muslin. The pattern is from Bird Brain Designs.

I chose to embroider the "big bird" Bird Brains Designs logo onto mine like the pattern shows. If you don't like to hand embroider, you could certainly applique a design on it or use your machine to embroider a design. You can even leave it plain if you want.

The pattern shows how to fussy cut the towels to make the most of the striped design. The bag is lined with heavy weight muslin. There are pockets on both the inside and outside.

Tote Bag Front

Tote Bag Back

We are sending everyone who purchases 2 towels in any color and mentions this blog post in the Comments section at Checkout the tote bag pattern for FREE.

To Wash or Not to Wash

When I do my "Accurate Rotary Cutting" lectures, I'm often asked this question. This is definitely a personal preference. It also depends on  if you usually buy more fabric than you need for a project.

Some reasons to pre-wash:

1. Check for colorfastness of fabrics
2. Allow it to shrink before putting it into a quilt
3. Get rid of chemicals from the dying process
4. Fusible applique works better when the sizing has been washed out of the fabric

Some reasons not to pre-wash:

1. Like working with the crisp fabric
2. Don't want to press wrinkles out of fabric that has gone through the dryer (if you take it out when it is slightly damp it is easier to get those wrinkles out)
3. The quilt will never be washed so bleeding dyes aren't an issue
4. The fabric isn't for a quilt, it's for an embroidery piece that I'm going to frame.

My personal philosophy is that you either always wash or you never pre-wash. Here is why. If I have washed everything in my stash, I know that everything has been shrunk and excess dyes have been removed. I used to work in a shop with someone who said if she was making a quilt that is meant to be washed, like a bed quilt, she pre-washed the fabrics for that project. If it was going into a wall hanging, there was no need to pre-wash them since you don't normally wash that type of quilt.

The problem I see with that is that leftover fabric from one project ends up in my stash. It is hard to remember what has been washed and what hasn't. So when that perfect fabric that was intended for a wall hanging will work in my scrappy bed quilt sometime in the future, now I am mixing fabrics that have been washed and shrunk with others that haven't. What will happen when the unwashed fabric shrinks after it goes in my quilt? What if that same quilt has a light background and one of the fabrics bleeds?

If you are working with hand dyed fabrics, they have already been washed in the dying process. So you should always wash any other fabrics that are going into that project. 

Sometimes when I'm doing an embroidery project, I don't pre-wash that fabric. However, any extra fabric I may have, goes into the washer and dryer. So if I use it for something else later, it has been washed and dried.

If you don't like to pre-wash your fabric and are a little concerned that one of the fabrics might bleed if and when it is washed, there is something you can do to try to prevent that problem. Add one or two dye magnets to the washer when you wash the quilt. An example is Shout Color Catchers. These will absorb excess dye. The are found in the laundry aisle.

I use these when I'm pre-washing suspicious fabrics. They are also great when you buy a new outfit and don't want to wash that item separately. If you do stitching or quilting with rayon thread, you might want to use them if you wash that project. Rayon is not a colorfast material so it can bleed when washed. I have heard of many cases where red thread bled onto a white background which then became pink in places.

Whatever your decision, consistency is the key to a great finished project.

Vendor Friends

We meet lots of people in our travels, both customers and fellow vendors, who become friends. Our friends Bruce and Diane Magdison own Sew Batik. I love their fabrics and use them in some of my samples. Here's one example of a table runner I made with one of their Tiki Rolls.

Bruce loves our little dog Rex who travels with us. His face lights up every time Rex comes to visit him at a show. When we were in Tucson a couple weeks ago we had a great idea. We'd make Rex the official Sew Batik Mascot. My husband asked Bruce for a piece of fabric for a secret project. Between that show and the one in Phoenix the following week, I traced their logo onto the fabric and embroidered "Sew Batik Mascot" onto a triangle of their fabric. It was a great way for me to practice my satin stitch.

I tied the doggie scarf around Rex's neck and my husband and I took Rex to see Bruce. He was so excited to see him and was even more excited when he saw his official mascot uniform. You can tell these two love each other!

Getting Fabric Ready

We are so fortunate to carry Rainbow Fabrics hand dyed fabric. We carry all of their three yard Rainbow Packs as well has hard to find skin tones and gorgeous individual fat quarters. However, I choose to display most of them differently than her other shops. So there is folding and bundling and labeling to do before we put them out at a show.

I received my order for the upcoming Tucson and Phoenix shows about a week ago and have been playing in 250 yards of hand dyed fabric since then. Here are some before and after examples.

This is 150 individual fat quarters. They actually come rolled up. So I unroll each one. Open them up and refold them so we can display them in shallow boxes.

These are the same 150 fat quarters (minus a couple that were just too gorgeous and they jumped into my personal stash) all folded and banded. Now those are ready to go.

Diana ( the gal who dyes the fabric) sends me each color way of the Rainbow Packs in piles of pressed fat quarters. I then go through and compile them into their sets of 12. Those are then rolled into the packs that you see on our website and in our booth at shows.

These pictures are of 10 sets of Tropical Rainbow, which happens to be one of my favorites.

This is what they look like straight out of the box.

Now they are in groups of 12 and are ready to be rolled and banded.

Here are 10 bundles of Tropical Rainbow fat quarters all rolled up and ready to set out at the show next week.

Now you have an idea of another part of what's involved in the before part of doing shows.

Hand Embroidery? Who'd Have Thought?

If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd be doing hand embroidery again (and enjoying it), I'd have laughed and said no way. My idea of embroidery used to be watching my sewing machine stitch it out and change thread when necessary. It always comes out perfectly and goes so fast.

When we decided to expand our product line to include Bird Brain Designs RedWork patterns and accessories for them, I knew I'd better try my hand at RedWork. I used to do needlepoint, cross stitch and embroidery but hadn't done any of that in 20+ years. Thanks to the patience and guidance of Robin Kinglsey from Bird Brain Designs, I started my first ever RedWork piece in October. While there is plenty of room for improvement, I have stitched three projects since then. I started another one last night. I try to spend 30 minutes to an hour working on something every night while watching TV. I find that I look forward to that time every night and really miss it when I can't fit it in for one reason or another. Who would have thought?

Here is a picture of what I've been doing. I still have to do borders and cut the angels apart so I can add their wings but the "hard" part is done.

The patterns are Guardian Angels and Friends and Family RedWork.

I never thought that I'd go back to stitching and it would be fun. There is a lot to be said for putting a needle and thread to fabric. Whether it is hand quilting, hand applique or embroidery, it is very therapeutic.

Guardian Angels

I'm working on a RedWork pattern called "Guardian Angels." These little angels would be the perfect little something for a friend or family member who needs a little watching over. They also make great Christmas tree ornaments.

A very close friend of mine just lost her dad. If only I had these made up at that time. What a perfect little token for her to bring some comfort and a smile every now and then.

If you read my blog post about the Sign Language Quilt, you saw a picture of my granddaughter, Tristyn. She was born with bilateral cleft lip and a partial cleft palate. She is in for a lot of challenges in her life. I'm going to give her one of these when she has to go in for her first surgery in about four months. While she won't be old enough to understand at that time, it is a small something that she can take with her each time she has to face that. It is also something that will let her know at any trying time in her life that a special angel is watching over her.

You can make your own flock of angels with the pattern.

If you want to make it really easy, instead of tracing the design with a micron pigma pen and a light box, try Sticky Fabri-Solvy. You can print the design from your 3-in-One printer and start stitching in a matter of minutes.