Sewing: Handmade "Bumblebee Dress" with Cross-stitch Motif

I don't have the patience for cross-stitch for some reason, although I love to do hand-embroidery on and off. My mom loves cross-stitch and has this fantastic technique where she likes to stitch right onto the dress fabric!

Basically, she bastes the canvas on to the dress or shirt or skirt on which she wants the cross-stitch, then, does the cross stitch as usual on this canvas, using interfacing as needed depending on the weight of the fabric. When done, she very carefully removes the waste canvas, thread by thread. This is a zen-like activity that she enjoys more than the cross-stitching itself, sometimes.

Anyway, a while back, for her grand-daughter's birthday, my mom had sewed this yellow+black dress and added cross-stitch to the neckline, chest, and skirt-front that is just too precious.

Now that my daughter is outgrowing it, I am thinking of ways to recycle it so I can still use the precious work on another outfit and hopefully keep carrying it forward for as long as the fabric and stitches will last.

Sewing: Fancy Cushions

For as long as I can remember, from the time I started registering such things, my mom had some project or the other going, learning new ones as and when opportunity presents itself. She still does. Needlework and sewing are her top favorites.

Now that my parents are visiting us, I got to see first-hand something that she was in the process of making: these gorgeous satin cushions!

She sews the fancy pleat-like stitches, then stuffs it and finishes it to make firm, soft, wonderful holiday cushions. She has worked her way through red and blue, soon there might be white ones, even if they are not ready by July 4th. Maybe a couple of green as well, so red and green for Xmas.

She has taught me how to make one of these. If I have the patience to finish it when I get back home, I might have a few of my own to share here later :)

Sewing: Patchwork Cushion Covers

I love patchwork quilts. There is something about the mish-mash of colors and shapes sewn together that makes it very endearing, especially when it is reclaimed, recycled fabric.

Of course, I don't have the patience (or time) anymore for large quilting projects, so, cushion covers come in handy, satisfying the need for fresh covers and my longing to make some patchwork.

The half a dozen cushions we have at home get fresh cushion covers on and off when I have the mood to make a new one.

Sometimes it is a theme that gets repeated - like peacock, elephant, flower between place mats and cushion covers; sometimes it is the craft method - like appliqué, embroidery, painting, paste batik, or patchwork as in this case, which uses up scraps of fabric leftover from other sewing projects.



For this project, I went with sorting the scraps by color and using the reds+pinks for one pair, the yellows for another, the blues for the third pair. The closest matching or contrasting print from my stash became the back of the cushion cover. I liked the chicken print a lot for the yellows.



Of course, these are well-worn as can be seen from the threads fraying. I should trim them, but something about hanging threads gives it an instant antique and warm feel.

Of course, "Antiques" in D's book has always meant "A Bunch Of Junk That People Didn't Want But Want You To Think You Want Them So As To Feel Good"... and, I am not disagreeing with him. I guess rustic and antique evoke feelings of a cozy home where things are well-appreciated, usually hand-made, and much-used...

Sewing: Paste Batik Cushion Covers

There is no doubt that the right fabric - design, color and texture - makes the sewing project look stunning.

But, pretty designer fabrics and vintage prints are not cheap. I do hunt for deals but with a very small budget for utility sewing materials, I rarely have enough to splurge on just the perfect fabric for each project. So I make do with what I manage to get. I am at peace with that. For now.

However, I feel rather fortunate that I live practically at a stone's throw from The Fabric Depot - I could live in this store! A great selection of fabrics plus sewing/quilting/crafting items and miscellaneous goodies makes this a veritable haven for craftspeople on a budget.

They had wonderful batik prints on sale a while back and I had bought half a yard each of a few colors to pair up with my own paste batik and finish up some the projects.

Finally, thanks to Spring Break for the kids, and therefore forced time off for me from work - the social set up is really asymmetric, kids are off at 3 from school but jobs are from 9-5, which means leaving the house 7-ish for average commute with time to drop off the kids in early care if available, and arranging some after school care if one can't get off work by 3... that is a separate thread I have to leave hanging at this time...

Anyway, back to the paste batik cushion covers... finally I finished a couple of cushion covers I started in early February. Nothing fancy about them. I went with some quick, easy design. Free-hand, of course. And it shows. But, that adds a bit of rustic charm to the piece, I think.

And, this peacock happens to be my default design for quick free-hand work. I've used this for the embroidered cushion covers, for greeting cards, for fabric painting on Ana's clothes... all that repeated drawing over a couple of decades has etched this in my muscle-memory, it looks like...




Sewing the cushion covers - I used a lining piece for the front, and the back is my usual overlap pattern, no buttons or fasteners to worry about.

Place the lining right side down; on top of it place the painted paste batik fabric right side up, so that the wrong sides of the two pieces so far are touching; place the overlapping back (finish raw edges first) pieces right side down, so that the right sides are touching with the paste batik fabric sandwiched. Sew the edges, zigzag the raw edges if preferred. Turn right side out and voilà, it is done.

Sewing: Paste Batik Pot-holders, Coasters, Place Mats

A good friend reminded me to post pictures of the paste batik items we've been making on and off. So, here are a couple of potholders, coasters and place mats.

Place mats are much (ab)used in our house - every meal we sit down together at the dining table for involves place settings, with food served family-style sometimes but usually just portioned-out plates...



I had a limited set of acrylic colors I wanted to use up before I bought more vibrant ones I've been eying, so, the neon pinks and greens get repeated, as do the blues and oranges, in this set of paste batiks. Also as these are mostly utility items, the designs are just free-hand with no pattern in mind, but, there are a few other projects I've been working on with specific pattern/design.

Of course, single-color piping is overdone, so, I went with purple and yellow for the potholders. Or so I'd like to think :) Fact is, I had just enough of yellow and purple wide double-fold bias tape leftover from some older sewing project which worked out well for these pot-holders.

Usually, I just sew a layer of fresh fabric over an old pot-holder to extend its life - re-use and recycle. Sometimes, I cut up old cotton towels for the filling layer, keeping in mind that this may not quite be as heat resistant as needed. The coasters have Oggie's old wash cloth as the batting layer inside.

But, I have also sewn pot holders from scratch to give away where I've used Insul-Brite™ for heat resistant layering and it has worked out well.

Paste batik is very addictive and sometimes there'd be a few assorted size fabric pieces hanging to dry, waiting to be finished... of course, since I work only in spurts, there is always a huge lag between the gung-ho start of a new project and the eventual finish to my satisfaction... C'est la vie.

Paste Batik Letters Flag

Those gorgeous batik prints are hard to ignore every time I walk by them at the fabric store. I wanted to make something like that with my 5¾ year old.

Initially I was toying with wax-resist like I've done before. Rather than wax, I wanted something that can be made easily at home. (Washable) Glue batik seems popular for kids activity as it can be just washed off. But, rather than buying bottles and bottles of glue as for this project I had in mind, I settled on Paste Batik technique. (The Matchbook has a basic photo tutorial.)

As Edward Teller noted, "No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect."

Not that this was such a great endeavor for me, but, it sure must've seemed like it to Ana: Making a Happy Birthday flag which we can put up at home for birthdays!

Fortunately, thanks to her teacher, Ana and her friends had worked on this technique a couple of years ago when they made a lovely flag for the school's annual Spring Auction. So, she knew what to expect and was excited about it.

Items Used: Plain white muslin cloth, scissors, all purpose flour, water, acrylic paints in various colors, paint brush, mustard/ketchup dispenser, iron

1. We noted how many letters there were in "Happy Birthday" (13), and cut out as many plain white muslin cloth into about 9½ x 9½ inch squares - I used a 9½ x 9½ inch quilt square I had, but, any size would be fine. (We cut out a few extras to a total of 16 squares). I wanted the unbleached muslin, but, Ana chose the bleached white ones. Which is fine.



2. We made the paste: 1 cup (plus a few tablespoons) of all purpose or wheat flour plus 1 cup water. That's it. Add the water a little at a time, stirring constantly to remove lumps. The paste has the consistency of a slightly thick-ish crepe batter. Pour it into either an old mustard/ketchup dispenser or icing tube for easy dispensing. (This mustard dispenser is a favorite much-used tool for various activities at home, including making Roti Jala)
   
   



3. Squirt/squeeze the mustard bottle to make patterns as needed on the fabric. We wrote one letter per square piece of fabric to make up "Happy Birthday", and added some squiggles and swirls and dots for decoration.




4. Allow the paste to dry completely. We left it overnight by the heating vent, and hung it up on a clothesline indoors all day, for a total of 24 hours.



5. Working with one square piece at a time, scrunch the fabric a bit to crack up the dried paste. These cracks are where the colors can sneak in and create that beautiful batik print. Then, paint any combination of favorite colors using acrylic paint. Dilute the paint with a drop or two of water to help it flow smoothly. Paint all over the fabric, on top of the dried paste, as the paint will be resisted (masked off) by the paste anyway. 






6. Allow the painted squares to dry completely. Again, we left it by the heating vent overnight and hung it up for drying off all next day.
   
   



7. Scrunch the now colorful fabric squares to loosen and lift off the dried paste. And start picking and peeling it off. This is the part Ana didn't enjoy, naturally. But, it has a certain monotony and rhythm to it. Make sure all the dried paste is off the fabric to reveal the beautiful print. The dried bits can be used for mosaic and collage projects.
   
   



8. Heat set the paint: using medium high setting, iron the fabric squares using parchment paper or even a thin old napkin to protect the iron.
   
   



9. Wash the fabric. Since I had only 13 small squares, I hand-washed them as I wasn't sure if any paint will rub off on the clothes if I washed it with a full load of laundry. Can zigzag the edges before washing to prevent excessive fraying. But, I washed first for that rustic unfinished look. Dry the fabric. This time I dried them in the dryer on low heat setting. Muslin will shrink. And it did - close to about ¾ inches all around.
   
   



10. When dry, iron it flat on medium heat setting. Finish the edges. Can simply zigzag, or use piping. Voilà! The gorgeous home-made flag pieces are ready.
    
    



11. I was debating sewing them together to make it easier for hanging up each time. But, decided to keep them separate. This way we could rearrange the letters any time and make up new words.
    
    
    We simply used a clothespin to put it up as decoration for birthdays in the family.