Tag: indigo

Linen Luxuries

I went shopping and brought home some linen treasures.  They are all glorious to look at.  I can’t wait to stitch on them, piece with them, and maybe dip one in the dye pot.  The textures, the colors, the glorious weaves inspire me.  

Yesterday’s haul included four linen tea towels from India, a vintage French tea towel (the checked fabric in the photo), a white on white woven towel, and a pristine square linen tablecloth.

I can’t know all their stories.  But I can imagine…

Some have memories of India in those huge indigo vats where they dip linen to get this rich vibrant color.  These textiles are new.  Woven and dyed to sell to someone.  How many middle men shared in my money before I got them home? I don’t know, but I know I love all the hands that brought them to me.  And I can’t wait to stitch on them.

Those indigo tea towels were so gorgeous, I bought all four that the store had to offer. I hung three of them in the kitchen so that I can just enjoy their beauty before cutting and sewing with them…I might even use them as tea towels…

One has memories of France.  In whose kitchen did this towel do its work?  I can imagine it hanging on a wire hook against a stone wall in a kitchen with a brick floor and copper pots all about.  This is the kind of textile that inspires the French General collection of fabrics from Moda.  I’ve loved making things with those reproduction fabrics, but there’s nothing like the real thing to stir my soul.

I couldn’t resist pairing the “new to me” French towel with some other things already in my stash…awaiting the right companion.
This bit of wool applique (from a Maggie Bonanomi pattern) is waiting for more companions to make a new quilt…it’s coming together with this new acquisition.

And a woven textile of white on white – I’m not sure of its origin.  It has stains to show it’s been a worker, but the beauty of the weave caught my eye.  I might have been hesitant at the price until I saw the “S” monogram.  Yep, it came home with me.  This one might get a bath in a dye pot.  The stains would disappear, and the weave would become more pronounced.

I love imagining the places these fibers have been.  And I love imagining the possibilities of what they may become in my hands.  I’m not certain of those outcomes yet, but I do know that when I see them, or parts of them, I will remember a glorious day of strolling, shopping, browsing, antiquing, lunching, languishing over coffee with my soulmate.  There’s nothing more beautiful than that.

Is it a coincidence that the fabrics I bought yesterday are red, white, and blue?  I think so…but it’s certainly a good time to share them.  Another red/white/blue story is here…and some of the Moda French General fabrics are in the quilt here.  The blue and tan quilt in the background of some photos is described in more detail here.

Little Pillow in Blue and Brown

What better way to spend rainy afternoons than playing with fabric?

We had a lot of rain last week, so I was inside the house more than usual in the summertime.

After weeks and months of working on big projects with other peoples’ styles and color choices in mind, I took a break to play.

You may remember some of these pieces when I wrote about walnut dyeing here and here.

I pulled out some pieces I had overdyed in walnut or indigo and combined them with others lying around.  

Bits of vintage fabric in browns and blues, some fun improvisational embroidery, and I had a little pillow. I used simple straight stitches, seed stitches, and a few fly stitches to embellish the pieces in the log cabin block.

The back of the pillow is made with vintage linen from South Carolina.
This is one of my doll chairs sitting on the buffet in the dining room. The chair is about 20″ tall and the pillow measures 7″ square (well, sorta -it’s a bit wonky).

A quick little project is always rewarding and the stitching is soul soothing. I love my little chairs – now they all need pillows. I’ve assembled some smaller blocks for pincushions, too.

My Buttonwood Farm wall hanging.

Note: Since this post was published, I’ve been asked about the quilt in the background. Here is a photo of the full quilt. And an earlier blog post here described its construction. This earlier post was when I only posted one photo per blog – but more on this is coming soon.

Before and After Blue

I recently promised more images of things from the indigo dye pot.  I love them all, but perhaps my favorite is the old embroidered tea towel you see above.  I bought this tattered piece at an antique store, and though the stitching is lovely, it was a bit pale, as you see in the next image.

The beauty of buying a towel with stitching at both ends is that I can play with one and save the other, so I at least have one intact bit of stitch with history to use.  So I ripped it apart, and dipped one in the dye pot.  Oh, my.  Isn’t it lovely?  Yes, now I know the other end just might go for a swim, too.

Here are more results from those recent days of dyeing.

a pile of linens fresh from the dryer
A beekeeper’s garden toile from a bargain bin is now happier in my stash – it’s blue!
some handwoven linen from Belgium overdyed…great for tea towels, placemats, who knows?

A bit of old barkcloth curtains is now brown and blue…my favorite combination!
And the blue roses I shared last week…they still thrill me. Here they are on a different background.

Ben’s Cow

Ben and friends went on a birding adventure.  As is often the case, they ended up in the countryside.  Ben is not a stranger to pastures and their inhabitants, but he was glad he had his camera to take this photo – this cow was not a breed he recognized.

When I saw the photo, I was entranced, too.  Ben gave me permission to play with his image on fabric.  At my request, he sent me a current self portrait to use, too.

When I’m working on art quilts, I try to channel my inner child – to remember that “it’s supposed to be fun.”  I think I nailed it this time!

I printed the photo on fabric and added batting and stitching to give the cow dimension.  I  pieced sky (a bit of some old linen I had overdyed with indigo) and ground fabric.  On a recent antiquing tirp (probably the day Ben was finding the cow) I had found an old pin shaped like a windmill.  So I added a windmill, quilted some clouds, and had an art quilt.

I ended up with a new quilt attached to a bit of an old quilt.  That’s not new for me.  But this time I added pages between those two layers.  This little girl had a blast!

I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but Ben uses words to tell really fun stories; so I thought words were important, too.  The cow’s quote is from Ben.

The piece is layered in more ways than just the physical, which is obvious.  Ben and I first met as math colleagues.  When I needed a back for the cow in pasture layer, the numbers fabric jumped off the shelf and said, “use me!”.  

The outer dimensions of the whole assembly are 14” x 20” .

To read about another cow quilt, check out Government Bird Going for a Ride.  Or Walker’s Pasture.

Dancing Hearts

Old spools, old quilts, old ticking, old buttons, memories in old clothes.  What’s not to like?

Put them all together in a new format.  Unroll to see fresh delight every time.

It seemed a perfect place to collect some old reds and make a Valentine’s project.

The old quilt was soiled and tattered, tan and white with red accents.  I love that the indigo dye subtly changed the backgrounds, but left the reds RED.  

The unfurled piece measures 7” x 30”.

I love the rolled format for story quilts.  The first one I did is the one above. And, I’m working on another one now. It has hearts on it, too.

Dipping in the Indigo

I recently gave a talk to a guild about using indigo fabrics in quilts.  I shared old quilts and new ones I had made.  I included purchased indigo fabrics from Africa (again, both old and new ones), commercial reproductions of indigo fabrics, and fabric I had dipped in the indigo dye bath myself.

Once home, I rearranged quilt displays so I could visit with these pieces more.

And, with warmer temperatures outside, I knew it was time to resurrect the dye pot and get busy.

So for the past couple of days, I’ve been dipping. Yes, even a lampshade.

This is a tablecloth my mother crocheted for me in 1985.  It was beige.  I would see examples of this in antique stores and think how beautiful these objects would be if they were blue.  

So I bought one to test my theory.  I dyed this one on Tuesday and I liked it so well that I dared to dye Mama’s handwork on Wednesday.

I dipped a lot of other fabrics each day, too.

Napkins are always a favorite.  The group pinned together is 9 matching linen napkins that had never been used.  All the same size, I think they will be great backgrounds for appliqué.


A printed black on white linen skirt takes the dye beautifully.  And, one of the most delightful pieces I dipped is a piece of Moda’s new line of barkcloth.  It’s 100% cotton, but beefier than quilting cotton, and dipped and washed and dried, it is soft and buttery and ravels beautifully.  Raveling well is important to me.

I’ve joined a new online group with Jude Hill, her latest adventure in soulful stitching.  Ragmates in this journey with me can expect to see some of this dye lot in future explorations.  I’ve written about Jude before in many posts, but she is the one who convinced me that I could explore indigo dying.  Thanks, Jude.

Loving Hearts

So the obsession for blue hearts outgrew the bowl. Bowls, actually; several are full.

It seemed the natural thing to do was to make more of those hearts to put in a quilt. I continued using bits of vintage linens, remnants of old clothing filled with memories, and remnants of overdyed linens.

I cut free-form hearts and stitched them to bits of background fabric and placed them on the design wall. Then a couple of days of trimming and filling in blank spaces with other beloved blue fabrics, and a quilt top was born.

Now it’s pin basted together, ready to quilt.

One of the old remnants I used included dozens of hearts like these and at least 40 of these birds. I found this gorgeous tablecloth last summer when I wrote about tattered treasures here. I didn’t appreciate the work some woman had done until I cut it up and stitched through the fabric myself.

It is a heavy cotton fabric, densely woven; what my mother would describe as “tough as pig iron” to stitch through. I realize now that the phrase makes no sense regarding stitching, but that’s what she said.

The woman who stitched all these crosses must have had sore fingers. Maybe she was a friend of Margene‘s, devoted to needlework, determined to finish.

The tablecloth was used, though. I know because of the stains and holes I found in it. That’s a good thing. I love stains and holes because I feel less guilty about cutting the piece apart and reusing the decorative stitching. And, I like knowing that the piece has stories embedded in the threads.

There are other stories in this collection of threads, as well. I bought some indigo and white homespun fabric at Elco Antique Market more than 30 years ago. My mother used it to make a dress for me. Now parts of it are in this quilt. Some of Jim’s shirts and some of mine have found their way here too.

And, those of you who make quilts are wondering about those blue dots and straight pins. I’m trying something new here, pin basting without having to close and then reopen safety pins. I like the pinning part. I’ll report on the removal process once the quilting is done.

A later post has been added with photos of the finished quilt and my verdict on the pinning dilemma. It’s here.

My Threaded Needle

bluebird on linenSaturday night finds me stitching through layers of delight:

A photo of Eastern Bluebirds made by Jim Gilreath  is printed on a vintage linen tablecloth.

The photo is layered on hand-dyed Osnaburg fabric the color of the male bluebird’s breast.

These are atop a remnant of vintage linen dipped in my indigo vat.

My needle is pulling smooth cotton thread through these layers and wool batting.

I am accompanied by live music from the photographer and his stringed instruments.

Are there really people in the world who would prefer to be anywhere else?  I can’t imagine.