She's a Grand Old Flag

Somewhere between taking care of my husband as he recovers from cancer treatment and trying to get myself well after a hysterectomy followed by sinus infections, not to mention homeschooling, cooking, and so on, I finally managed to get some projects going and a few almost finished! For now, I'll show you the almost finished Tumbler Flag Quilts I've been working on:

 They started like this. I sewed pairs of "tumblers" together, then sewed the pairs to each other and finally made rows. Then the rows got sewn together to come up with this:

As you can see, it needs a good pressing with some steam or spray starch (my favorite is Mary Ellen's Best Press). Then I'll trim the edges even and add borders. Finally I'll quilt them and put binding on the edges to list in my Etsy Shop.

I first saw this idea on Missouri Star Quilt Company's youtube page. You can see the tutorial here if you like to sew:

Did I mention my 14 year old is going to church camp and it took us over 10 stores (and many long hours) of hunting to find a one piece swimsuit that fits her, covers her, and doesn't look like a Grandma suit? Plus we had to find shorts. We found some but then got jeans at Good Will to cut into shorts. We'll add lace to spiffy them up. And I have to alter the swimsuit. She leaves Wednesday morning so my goal is to SEW and let Bethany craft to her heart's content for the time Natalie is gone! Look for updates soon!

I've been Dye-ing to Tell You

Have you ever taken a class at Craftsy? Check out www.craftsy.com and you can see what I'm talking about. These are online classes you take, but you do it on your own time. It's all pre-recorded. The teacher responds to questions as well as other students responding. Some cost money and a few are free. Some are kind of steep in price, but they offer specials frequently.

After Christmas they had a huge sale. I used some gift money to buy a few classes. Two of the classes are about how to dye. I am so glad I'm typing that and not saying it. LOL! One is simply about dyeing fabric and the other is about batik. I don't have the equipment yet for batik and I don't have the official fancy dye for either course (which is actually cheaper than the stuff I have, but the shipping is high & no one sells it locally). I have been playing with the dyes I do have at home. The teacher has shown us how to fold the fabric for different effects. I have no idea which folds I did on these, but thought I'd share a couple of my first attempts.

 As you can see, the first two have vibrant color and cool patterning. The bottom one, well, I'm chalking it up to experience. Or lack thereof. I used a pale blue shade of dye then added a touch of purple to the water. It pretty much did nothing. I think I later redyed it with some other colors. I have other pieces I've done different things with. Bubble wrap makes a really cool almost honeycomb design! Spare pennies wrapped up make, well, dots! LOL!

It's not as if I have nothing to do, but I enjoy this and hopefully can make some pretty enough dyed pieces to sell. Natalie said I should make charm packs out of them (packs of 5" squares). It's an idea!

I have several purses in the middle of construction. I need to get those finished & listed on Etsy!

Hope you have a splendid day!