a bird in the hand.

Or my adventures in fabric print and design.

But first, you may remember the embroidery pattern I made inspired by a Korean wedding kimono, well after many hours I finally finished it:

It's the first big embroidery I've made and I really learned alot from doing it. The fabric has pulled in some places, and some of the stitches are a bit too long, but all in all I like it.
Laura and I have decided to use it for a dress she can wear to my sisters weeding in May.

I used the same inspiration in a silk dye and screen printing course at school. But here I only used the bird motif.

First I did alot of testing both with ground colours, pattern layout and howmany times the dye were to be brushed through the frame, it's a really time consuming procedure because you have to dry, damp, wash and iron the fabric between each routine.

I ended up dying and printing two pieces of fabric measuring about 1 square meter. They are far from being perfect, but if used as scarfs where all the flaws are less visible I think they look ok.

I also uploaded the pattern to spoonflower to try it out. The colors turned out pretty much as I had hoped, but I was quite surprised at how small the bird was (the original drawing is on the left)
It nedds some correcting; there are some streaks I hadn't noticed at first (I don't have photoshop or illustrator and made this using paint and picnik)

But it's quite fun to have some fabric I myself have designed, and I allready have ideas for other designs...

Finally I really have been lucky in both the doll quilt swap, and the pillow talk swap.

I received a wonderful quilt from Emma Louise

And a gorgeous pillow from Kerri

Don't they look good together?

That's all folks... Thank you for tuning in, take care, and drive safe :-)

More hope valley

I had some time of last week, and instead of working on projects already in the works (and collecting dust in the closet), I started a new long overdue one...

Shortly before Christmas my in-laws bought a holiday appartment, and being in the Christmas spirit (or because the punch were spiked) I offered to make a quilt for their new home away from home, an idea they were really thrilled about.

But I must admit my palms got a bit sweatty when my mother in law asked for a king size quilt...

Thankfully she fell in love with a daisy chain quilt pattern, which would come together quite easy.

I suggested the blue and grey colortone of hope valley, and the plan was a succes, except for the part of me sewing it... I simply have not had the time before now.

It's made with 9" ninepatches and 9" squares of white kona cotton.

After this picture were taken I added both a checkered border and an extra white border. It ended up being 108", and is by far the biggest quilt I've ever made (and will continue being just that in quite along time...)

I decided to have it longarm quilted, since I couldn't imagine this giant fit in my sewing machine.

I chose this chantilly lace pattern, and really look forward to see the final result.

In the meantime I'll play with the leftover blocks, I'm thinking maybe a matching baby blanket, Marie has said she really wants to spend the night at her grandparrents. (well actually she said: dabadesu...muu, but I'm certain she meant the other...)

I hope you had a great weekend :-)

Isa