Shibori and indigo

I took a class yesterday, in Oakland, at A Verb for Keeping Warm. Lots of fun, a bit messy, but I have something to show for - unlike the class I took a month ago. And that project is almost finished, the handwork, anyway. But that's for another post, hopefully soon.
Anyway, back to yesterday's class - shibori and indigo dyeing. I keep seeing examples of other people's dyework and just loved it. I've taken a dyeing class before, but it wasn't about natural dyes. So, when I got the email about this class, I signed up immediately. Glad I did. Here is what I managed to do in class:

 My first piece, pretty time consuming and requiring the use of many, many needles. All stitched and gathered along the way. The fabric is beige linen. Took me ages to get all the threads out and even longer to carefully cut out the knots at the end of each row of stitches.

 After that first piece, I wanted something a little easier and just tied little bits of fabric to get sort of dots. I think this one is my favorite. This one started out as plain, white cotton fabric.

 This one was another simple tying process. I just pleated the fabric and tied it at intervals. It worked. Same fabric as above.

I call this one my "quick and dirty" piece. I had extra fabric, there was time, so I tied and dipped. I think this piece was only dipped twice, the others 3 or 4 times.
I ended up with bluish nails and managed to drip a bit of blue water on my feet. Well worth it. I ordered indigo plant seeds today, I'll try growing my own, for a slightly different process. Let's see how that goes.

Baby sewing - again

With a visit to Oregon coming up soon, there's been some serious sewing going on lately: bibs, a cape and another one of the fleece bears my granddaughter seems to be collecting:

 

 

My favorite project were the bandana bibs, quick and easy to sew and great to use up fabric left over from sewing little baby pants.
After making a couple of other "superkid" capes recently and realizing that the unlined fleece was not going to stand up to a lot of taking off and putting back on, I lined this one, ladybugs according to the "superkid's" mom's request. The bear goes with the cape. And one of these days I'll make them in matching pairs, so the little brother will get his own. Right now, his sister owns them all and, according to her, she does not share.
Details: bears are a Rebecca Danger pattern.
Cape pattern can be found here, applique here
The bandana bib pattern is here, the other bib is a pattern by Jennifer Casa  that doesn't seem to be available right now.
The little crinkly squares are leftovers from my doll club sewing days, I just winged it on those, leftover flannel and ribbon with crinkly, washable plastic in the center.

A very Faux Dori

Ever since I started bullet journaling, pinterest has been busy suggesting other things for me to look at; yesterday they got my interest: a small leather-bound notebook. While reading the blog post that went with the link, I came across another post about faux doris. I have heard about Midori travel journals before and I like the idea of interchangeable inserts and everything held together with a stretchy rubber band. But, for starters, I wanted to try making something similar myself.
And after a bit of searching I found a tutorial that had just what I wanted: a fabric cover, using Pellon, Wonder Under, eyelets etc. etc.
I am big on re-using, recycling, list making and this really appealed to me. Out came the scrap papers, the scrapbooking papers, the pokey tool and everything I needed to make inserts. By yesterday evening, I had finished two inserts. I made three more this morning and then tackled the cover: questionable denim on the outside, a pretty print for the inside. I rounded the corners and worked on the eyelets. I have done eyelets before, quite a few of them, but always in metal. Metal is easy compared to fabric, really. But I got it to work and only wasted one eyelet and here is the result:
Pictures aren't great, should have used a different background.

Outside - denim.

Two inserts, could hold more.

The spine showing 3 of the 5 eyelets.

The inside fabric with the elastic that holds the inserts.

Outside held closed with the elastic.

One notebook inserted, the other not yet.

I may possibly made a leather cover for a "not quite so recycled" dori, this one is just for the car, to hold paper to take notes. We have a really neat leather store in town and they have scraps, there might just be something that would work nicely.