Friday 25 December 2015

christmas pillows!~ (& a bag)

i wanted to do something with all the dyeing that i had done over the summer and fall for my family & whatnot for christmas.. but i didnt really know what.. i am not that much of a sewer & it seemed like a lot of stuff.  i had bought a couple of pillows awhile ago to do ~something~ with.. and so i thought..why not do ..something.. like that. 
i thought i could do some sort of patchwork weirdness.. i have always been kinda fascinated by patchwork stuff, my grandma made patchwork quilts & i found them quite lovely & that you could take a bunch of little scraps and turn it into something pretty & useful is quite nifty!  so i thought i might give that a go.. when i was young i had lofty ideas to make some sort of patchwork blanket, but that never happened.. but a pillowcase.. maybe?
so i then had to gather up my little scraps of dyed fabrics (thank goodness i had the fore site to dye a whole bunch of little bits of solid colours in anticipation of future projects, though i wish i would have done more of certain colours that i really liked, but oh well) and ecodyes that i was willing to cut up into pieces & then .. design patchwork patterns!
i ended up making 9 pillows & a bag .. and the process would have been much much more enjoyable if i was not feeling so icky with my kidneys all sore feeling and infected and i feeling so exhausted the whole time making everything feeling a whole lot more like work.. but i got it all done in time for christmas, and it was not too much of a hassle.. with the exception of a few problems with the machines that i had to get help from my mom with.. so yay!!!
so here are my pillows (and a bag):

pillow #1.


this is the first one i made, so i designed it all simple like.. it went pretty smoothly, so i was grateful for that, but the pillowforms i used were just cheepo pillows from ikea that cost $2.. and they had a bit of a pattern on them & i realized that you could see the pattern through them.. so ugh.  i realized that i was going to have to line the suckers.  so boo.  i also decided in the middle of making it to do something.. anything.. on the back.. because just plain old white (well, it is unbleached cotton actually) just would not do.
i lost my notes on this one.. oops, i will find them later i am sure.. plus i have the stuff put away anyway.. but anyway.. i know that the yellow is from apple leaves & the brown is from oak.  i gave this one to dr.B2.

pillow #2.


used up more of the apple leaf (i had lots of the apple) & oak & ecodye #14 .. gave this one to uncle R.  (*note* in the pictures, except for #1, i have no idea about that one.. for the back, i took a picture of the front and then just flipped it, so that's how the back is situated.. when sewing the back on i never really payed attention to the direction.. ??maybe i should have?? who cares.)

pillow #3


since i was giving pillows as gifts, i needed to get more insides.. so i went back to ikea.. this time i bought some nicer ones.. larger ones.. that were all white.  i ~thought~ that these pillows were 16".. from my stupid memory.. & i made this one 16" ..but they were not.  so, this one is 16" ..and then i needed a 16" pillowform.. so i went to walmart and got a $3 pillow.. just a bed pillow.. and i cut it open, cut it up.. into a 16" pillow.. and i made it into one damnit.  ..but it is pretty darn puffy..
the large section was a peony leaf dye test, the green is schubert chokecherry & the pinkish squares are ecodye #36.  gave this one to mom.

pillow #4


this is the first one of the large pillows.. they were ~supposed~ to be 20" ..said so on the tag.. but no, not really.. if you actually measured them they were more like 19".   oh well..  also, my measuring skills seem to suck muchly, because ..well, i dont even remember my original design was not this.. but after finishing sewing it was too small cause i guess i measured wrong.. so i had to add on more pieces.. i had to add on the bottom and top strips and a strip on either side.. ugh.
green is schubert chokecherry, blue spotty is rust dye i made for a bag & the middle is oak shibori dye.. gave this one to lou & ian.

pillow #5


i think i made this one a bit smaller.. 19"..
large piece is ecodye #9, smaller bits are schubert chokecherry, oak, peony leaf, apple leaf, mountain ash, ecodye #36, dried leaf dye, black bean & rhubarb ..gave this to kev & michelle & the girls.

pillow #6 - gwen's


this one... ugh.  this one was the toughest one of the bunch... this is another 14"er by the way.. but this one, because of the way i designed it.. i did it stupid, but hey.. i dont know what i am doing.. i figured that i could stagger things like that, i figured that wouldnt be a problem, but it was... it was problem-atic.. oh well, it got done..
the greenish (which i just realized looks really grey here, and i know the colour settings on this monitor are wacky.. so who knows!) is schubert, brown is oak & the print is an ecodye made from leaves little miss gwen picked on our thanksgiving day walk.  i wanted to make an ecodye with her, but we didnt get a chance on thanksgiving & then the leaves sat in my fridge for a very very very long time and then i thought ugh.. i better do something with these.. so i did. 

pillow #6.


another big one.. the yellow is apple, the darker colour border is a mixed leaf dye i made out of a bunch of purpleish leaves when i was cleaning out the stash in my fridge in the fall.. and the center is ecodye #43.. i thought this particular section of it was pretty neat because of the mirror image aspect of it.. it is like an inkblot test.  i gave this to A.Mary & U.Jim.

pillow #8


very similar to pillow #7 but with a 3 colour border.. (honestly, i was getting pretty sick of designing new stuff at this point... plus that one ecodye had some pretty nice sections in it anyway..)
the darkest line is a peony exhaust dye, the light yellowish is willow leaf, and the edge which you cant see very well in the picture is from rhubarb.. the red skins of the stalks..  and then the center is ecodye #43.  gave this one to micha & derek

pillow #9


this is another little one, 14"..  it's got lots'o squares!
ok.. the big brownish square in the corner is that dye made from the purple leaves, the solid green on the bottom is schubert, the rest well.. if i can remember.. the bottom left square, the big one is the ecodye from gwen's leaves.. the top right is ecodye #30 (which is just poplar & schubert), below it, the pinkish one is ecodye #36, to it's left is ecodye #9.. the bottom right is from my postcard ecodyes.. the small squares on the front are the rust dyes i made for a bag, and a new rust dye i did with star rivets..  sent this one on over to U.Bob..

Bag for Scarlett

this is a bag i sewed for scarlett.. i thought she would like a bag better.  the stripes are peony, and the ecodyes is from leaves she gathered on our thanksgiving day walk, same deal as with gwen's thing.  the brownish fabric i did not dye, i just bought it at ikea, it is thicker and stronger.. i had bought it to make a bag for myself, which i will eventually.. 

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so..i seem to have misplaced the paper where i wrote down what the ecodyes were, so i will have to add that on here later.. edititititititiititititititititiititititiit
but oh well..  for now, i post.