Portlandia, Vintage Linens, and my Feelings about Machine Embroidery

I have been bird craazy lately.  I know birds are overrated and overdone but I still love them.  I know Portlandia is a satire but obviously I am a true Oregonian since I want to put a bird  on everything. I have been making lots of birds lately, just for me.  I have a whole bowl full of birds in my living room.  I have also been osbsessed with vintage linens lately too.  I made this bird from a recent tea towel purchase.

I went to an estate sale a couple of weeks ago that was the motherlode for vintage linens.  There were stacks of doilies, emboidered tea towels, tablecloths, and table runners.  They had a box full of fine men's handkerchiefs, soft and white.  There was also a box full of lady's hankies.  Some were plain other were embroidered or had crochet trim.  It was amazing.  Being the bargain shopper I am I only bought a few pieces on Saturday knowing that on Sunday it would all be 50% off.  Sadly, when I went back late Sunday so much good stuff was gone.  Sad face.  But I scored some great items nonetheless which got all my creative juices flowing.

I have been poring over this book called Mixed and Stitched by Jen Osborne recently and she had a whole thing in the book about dyeing fabrics and how well vintage fabrics take the dye.  So I did the unspeakable and I cut up some of these great estate sale treasures and I got some iDye and cooked up some dye on the stove. 

This is a crocheted doily that I dyed red.  I love the way it came out.

All three of the above pics came from the same dye lot.  One of the things she said in the book is that you will get different shades depending on the fabric.  I was counting on that to be the truth and was thrilled to see the results.  Now I want to take these and turn them into birds.  Actually the bird above made from the embroidered tea towel has a wing from a bit of dyed-blue doily.

I have a whole box of vintage linens that I collect, many from my mother and grandmother.  When I was going through the box looking for things to dye I found this wall hanging that my grandmother had made for my mother when she was a child.  This one I will not be cutting or dyeing but may take it in and have it matted and reframed.  Machine embroidery looks as good my ass!

Banner crazy!!!!

So at my work the library got rid of all these old books, stacks and stacks of them, and crafter that I am I could not just let them get "recycled" aka shredded.  I literally have stacks of books waiting for a purpose sitting on the dining room floor.  I wanted to find something fun and easy to do with them so I could get some immediate gratification to make up for the scary hoarder scene taking place in my home.  I found this idea on Pinterest (where else?) and started with an old book.

We decided we liked them so much we would hang them willy nilly (that is a real academic term I am sure) around the house.

 

I loved them so much that next I used a Chinese newspaper I found.  Then it was the wrapping paper from one of my birthday gifts and some carnival tickets. 

  

After that I tried paint chips since we had stocked up at Lowe's last night.

All I did was cut out diamond shapes, fold them over the string and stitch them close together so as not to waste thread, and then cut the threads between them when done and hang.  Super easy.  Ayla says it looks like we are having a circus at home but I think there could be worse things!

Girls' sewing party!

There is so little time to blog about all the amazing projects lately.  I guess I would rather be a crafter than a blogger but people always ask me "how did you do that?" so I'm trying.  Last week my friend Jane brought her girls over for crafty grrrl day and we made my favorite layered fabric cuffs again.  What I try to do when teaching others is to give them the basic idea and let them run with it.

Everyone has their own vision of how to use materials and they did their cuffs in ways that would not have occurred to me.  I found myself wanting to control it, especially when Jane decided to cut one of my old hand-crocheted doilies in half, but that isn't how we make art, right?
 

Jane's cuff using half of an old, stained doily

The girls were very excited when they discovered they could finish two of these things in an hour, once they got the hang of it.  They were much more spontaneous in choosing materials than I am.  it was admirable.

Ananda's cuff

Ayla's cuff

Maia's cuff

Notice I didn't take time to make one.  I was supervising proper use of my good scissors and sewing machine turn taking etiquette.  Next time we do this I need to set up an extra machine for sure.  It was a satisfying day to watch my friends and the girls really get into playing with fabric.

Loving my stitched birdies

I am so far behind in my blogs!  I have been sewing like mad again and this part just slows me down But my friend jane called yesterday and said "Your blogs got me all inspired, can we come over and make something today?"  That is why I do this!  More about yesterday later as I am obsessed right now with my birds. 

True to typical Portlandia stereotypes, I am a crafty Oregon grrl who likes birds. I have making different stitched birds for a while but the last one is my favorite.  I used an old embroidered tea towel which I cut up for one side and the other side is another vintage fabric from the 70's.  I used some old lace  for the wings.

I made another one out of courduroy and old felted sweater aka wool.  I am challenging myself to use repurposed fabrics as much as possible as part of my repurposing campaign.

Clearly I have birdies flying all over my bedroom now.  I have some great driftwood sticks from the beach that I want to hang some birdies from and then hang that from the ceiling.  It looks like it's time to get out that Dremel rotary tool that  I have never used and drill myself some holes!       

Stitch Intensive Final Project

Last summer I took an amazing fiber art class called Stitch Intensive at Lane Community College with Robin Seloover.  She is basically the entire fiber art program at LCC but she is incredible.  The class ran for 10 hours a day for five straight days.
 I knew right away this was the class for me. This wasn't about sewing kitties on tea towels.  My mother had tried to get me to make those day-of-the-week dishtowels for my "hope chest" once upon a time (back in the 70's). I never finished one single towel but I did learn how to hand sew which I never regretted.
We learned that fiber art is real, viable art and stitching isn't just for "craft."  We had to complete a big final project and I made mine out of four old drawers that I found in a free pile after a yard sale. This is the whole piece from a distance.

The piece on the left is about my mother who died when I was twelve.  It's pieces from her youth, old yearbook page, school photos, a bit of a pillow case she embroidered for her own hope chest.

The one on the right is a page from the book Motherless Daughters, a shell worn smooth, and something I made using Solvy, http://www.sulky.com/stabilizers/solvy.php , which was a product I learned about from Robin. 

The piece on the left is about my mother's death and the one on the right is about myself as a mother.  It hangs on my wall today.  I could take this class every term and still learn something new.  It inspired me to stitch and stitch and stitch and.....

A Colorful Day at the Farmers' Market

We went to the farmers' market last Saturday to get some Red Wagon Creamery ice cream http://www.redwagoncreamery.com/# (the Salted Milk Caramel is the best and don't let anyone tell you otherwise).  We hadn't planned to stay but all of the color reminded me of being in the fabric store.  It started with the radishes.

Then there were piles of gorgeous, sweet, fresh carrots....

not to mention the first sweet, juicy, Oregon grown strawberries.

It inspired me to keep my camera out and see what was really going on around me  that morning.  Any one of these images could be a wonderful quilt or a stitched postcard.  This lady was making Dakota black kerneled popcorn.  Ayla and her friend Saeda found her by the smell.  Notice her hiding behind the popcorn maker.

 

I have always wondered if you could get a beignet in Oregon and if it would be anything like in New Orleans.  I think the experience is in the place, not just the food.  It's like why sourdough bread doesn't taste the same anywhere else as it does in places like Seattle or San Francisco.

Next week I am going to make artist trading cards using these images so watch to see them again!  And do go enjoy your local farmers' market.  Think globally, eat locally!

Tom's Shoes Revamp

When Ayla's grey Tom's got some bleach on them from a bag of laundry supplies, she was devastated. Everyone knows they aren't cheap so I decided to save them. Again, a crafty mom saves the day!   We started by painting them purple and cream with fabric paint.  Then we downloaded some images of Paris and printed them onto t-shirt transfer paper.  I stitched the Eiffel Tower on one and the Arc de Triomphe onto the other.  They each got a bit of old lace trim I found at a new thrift store. They aren't done yet, waiting for the 3d fabric paint to dry and then we are adding more embellishments. 



So far we are loving these!

Another marvelous cuff!

Here is another cuff I made last night for my daughter's friend's 10th birthday today.  I am trying to go without buying any store made gifts for a year.  We'll see how that goes when my son turns 13 in June but for now I am happy with the results.  I also used more of the old-book-pages-stiched-together wrapping paper I blogged about last week.  Reuse!  Repurpose!  Yay!

In love with cuffs!

There is either time to sew or time to blog and I know which I would prefer but I have to share my latest passion.  My attention defecit disorder serves me well as an arty grrl.  This week I decided to finally make these layered fabric cuffs that I found in a Quilting Arts magazine.  It was one of those Gift ones that they do every Winter.  I have had the pages floating around for at least six months now and I came across them on the balcony the other night and started then and there.

I took at least four fabrics with complimentary colors but different textures and tore them (crtitical for the look I wanted) into strips.  The bottom strip has to be the biggest and the softest.  I don't know about you but I don't want burlap rubbing up against my skin all day.  That's right, burlap.  I used oilcloth, burlap, old linen napkins, Indian cottons, mesh, lace, wool felt, you get the idea.  I had to play with each one until I got it right.  Then I sewed on Sew-On Snaps in black from my neighborhood fabric store.  Well, that's a lie.  There is no longer such a thing as the neighborhood fabric store but you get the point.  I know I could have come up with some really cool closure but I wanted to wear it right now!

I loved the first one so much I made 4 the first night.  After it was done I thought it was missing something so I took this great leather that I had gotten at Mecca, which is a local materials exchange for artists in Eugene, and I sewed it on too.  MECCA is all used supplies waiting to be repurposed.  I am happy , happy , happy.

Best birthday wrap ever!!!

Ayla had a birthday party today and I knew I wanted to give her friend a handmade gift so she found a design she wanted and we made a stuffie together.  I cut out the pieces and did the sewing and she did the stuffing.
 I didn't want to deal with digging through Xmas wrap for some birthday wrapping paper plus it just didn't seem right with my handmade gift.  I thought about what could I repurpose.  I love that reusing things in new ways concept.  I have a stack of old books they got rid of at the library at work and I knew I could find uses for them..  I saw the stack sitting there, picked the biggest one, an old book about birds, and it became clear.  I took two pages out (sorry bibliophiles) and stitched them on 3 sides on my sewing machine.  Then I put the stuffie in the package and stiched up the remaining side.  We added a bow made of vintage ribbon and a handmade card.  It was gorgeous.  I am definitely doing this again!

Up all night sewing....

Last night I stayed up until 1:30 finishing (I hope) the shirt I made of my mom's photo.  I used fabric paint to paint her sweater purple; it's the color of lilacs, which always make me think of her.  Then I sewed on some tiny buttons and stone beads.  I knew I wanted to put words on it but couldn't decide just what so I waited.  At about 11:30 it came to me.  I don't know any stories about my mother's childhood but I look at the photos all the time and wonder what she was like.  This is what I added to the shirt: "this is the story I don't know but can't seem to forget."

The fabric paint was messy and I made a big mistake on the second letter so I had to reconsider how to approach it. I got a small paintbrush and dipped the brush in the paint and lightly applied the paint to the stamps, one letter at a time.  I couldn't repair the first part so I restamped it on a different piece of fabric and stitched it on with lilac colored thread.  It gives it a little texture and dimension which I like and I have to remember it's not always going to be perfect. I love it only now it's too warm to wear it.

I am loving the sunshine today and thinking I need to finish the shirt I made of my mom.  She died when I was twelve and it took me years to deal with that.  Now that I have I want to honor her for inspiring me to stitch.  She was the one who taught me how to embroider.  I was supposed to be making those day of the week dischclothes for my hope chest (my father referred to it as my hopeless chest until I was 30!) but I never finished one single towel. 
In college I started patching peoples' jeans for them because we were all poor hippies who couldn't afford new jeans.  I discovered that I loved to sew and I loved playing with fabric.  I would go on Dea tour and people would give me their jeans in Minneapolis and I would sew them on the way to Alpine Valley in Wisconsin and then return them when we arrived.  No one had a pair that was like anyone else's.  I still do jeans today.  It wasn't what my mom had in mind when she taught me to hand sew but I use it all the time. 

I took a long sleeve black thermal knit shirt and decided to embellish it.  I used an old photo of my mom from the 40's and copied it onto iron on tranfer paper.  I ironed the image onto a piece of old cotton pillowcase that had been my mother's.  Probably from her own hope chest.  Then I hand sewed on a piece of vintage lace around the image.  After that I machine sewed the whole thing onto the black shirt.  It needs some color but I am waiting to be inspired before I add more embellishment.