All posts tagged: fabric

that’s a wrap.

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I tried my hand at making beeswax food covers. I’ve been wanting to learn how to create my own for some time, and now I know I’d rather just buy them premade. Ha! It’s a messy craft! Jenny Lemons teamed up with Cara of Cara Corey Designs for their monthly craft night to bring an evening of creating these reusable, sustainable, and super cute beeswax food wrappers. Cara reviewed materials and shared all of her wrapper making secrets. What’s great is you can use scrap fabric – so if you’ve got a fabric stash, this is a fun way to use up material, or a good reason to buy more cute fabrics! Per usual, Jenny Lemons prepared craft kits. When I learn a new craft I love having a kit with all the supplies ready to go (even though I totally have a stash of fabric, beeswax, buttons, and embroidery floss!). The kit from Jenny Lemons included: Jenny Lemons fabric squares Beeswax pellets mixed with jojoba oil (portioned for each piece of fabric) Buttons Embroidery …

natural dyes.

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I’ve been wanting to learn how to dye with natural dyes so when Craft + Work offered a class I totes fangirled and jumped on the opportunity! Our instructor was Heather Marano, hand-dyer, designer, and knitter extraordinaire. She brought some samples of her hand-dyed and knitted projects for inspiration. Heather walked through the dyeing process and showed us swatches dyed with different plants and food scraps – like turmeric and red onion skins. We prepared our fabrics by soaking them in water and creating optional folds and knots. Heather prepared our dye baths. We decided on cochineal (bug scales!) which produces reds/pinks, logwood which produces purples, and weld and marigold which produce yellows. Dip and soak! For some pieces I soaked my fabric in one color; for others I layered dyes. We experimented with different types of fabric and different soak times. My favorite dye bath was the marigold; it smelled like a vat of tea. Or maybe it was the cochineal because those pinks! Our color palette was very Spring. So pretty! I love …

tie dye.

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I did tie dye for the first time! My crafty friend’s crafty daughter wanted to celebrate her birthday with a crafty party. Part one was tie dye! Tie dye is similar to indigo dyeing but with essential differences: (1) there are lots more colors, (2) instead of dunking into a vat we squirted color onto the fabric, and (3) these dyes have to sit longer before the big reveal for 12-24 hours (versus the 12-15 minutes per dip for indigo dyeing). We used Jacquard powder dyes and a tie dye kit from Dharma Trading Company plus some extra bottles, funnels, and measuring spoons/cups. We got the jewel tones color kit – super bold and gorgeous. We mixed urea with water and added dye powder to each bottle and we mixed a vat of soda ash solution. We dunked our fabrics in the soda ash solution before dyeing to help the color stick to the fabric. We folded, rolled, and tied our fabrics. We had socks, tees, sweatpants, headbands, and dish cloths. And I brought a …

britex.

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Oh me, oh my; I finally made my way to Britex Fabrics, a fabric wonderland in San Francisco. Color, pattern, and texture everywhere! I enjoyed the rainbow fabric wall. But, honestly, everything else was overwhelming. I think it would help to come here if you have a project in mind. They have a grand selection of fabrics, ribbons, buttons, and more; you’ll be sure to find the materials you need. Make sure to head upstairs, too. Cords! Buttons! Ribbons! All the fabric. I was there on a weekday, but I hear they have store tours on the last Saturday of the month. Fabric store party! Have you visited Britex? Share your shop story!

avfkw.

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OMG, OMG. I finally visited A Verb for Keeping Warm. I stumbled in on a whim while I was on my way to grab some snacks next door. Such a good stumble – look at this place! A wall of yarn, a wall of fabric, and everything in between. They carry in-house dyed yarn – that’s like super local. There’s also yarn and fabric from all over the nation and world. They produce their own line of DIY kits and sewing patterns. I want them all. Plus, there was inspiration everywhere. I liked that they had clothing samples for all their sewing patterns. You can even try the clothes on to see which fit is best before you commit to making it. Ooh, there was dried indigo hanging all around, too. I’ve never seen a real indigo plant before! There is space for workshops, and I had little peeks into one of the dye studios (there are two studios!) and their natural dye garden. Dreamy… My bounty! I bought my first sewing pattern, fabric for …

screen printing.

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You thought I was done posting about Craftcation classes? MUHAHAHA, nevarrr! Seriously though, I learned so many things! Screen printing was one of the craft workshops Hubby picked out for me. He thought it would be a useful skill for business gear or for making tennis team shirts! The screen printing workshop was taught by Jenny Kraten. She taught us how to DIY a screen and gave us some insider tips on how to create a more sturdy set up later on. I’m really into it, but I’ll need an expanded craft budget. I would go crazy picking out paint colors alone! We made small screens in class using simple materials: cardboard, precision knife, ruler, pencil, mesh, and spray adhesive. The screen has a 1″ border and the mesh was pulled taut across the frame in all directions, making sure there were no wavy bits. For a stencil, I created a triangle pattern (easy to cut!). We used paper that was waxy on one side and dull on the other, cutting out patterns on the …

sew yeah.

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To commemorate Fashion Revolution Week (April 22-28), I’m excited to share two more sewing projects from Craftcation. In addition to espadrilles, I made a cardigan and a bias dress. I had a whole outfit; it didn’t match though. 😉 My cardigan class was taught by Kimberly Payne of Straight Stitch Designs. She creates her own patterns so it was really helpful to learn how to read the class pattern by the designer herself. This was my first time working with knit fabric; it wasn’t as scary and difficult as I thought it would be, but you really have to pay attention to the stretch direction or else it will be all sorts of wonky. Also, there were so many pieces; focus is key. I had to run off to teach a class mid-cardigan, so I finished my project in the sewing lab later in the week. My friend roomie Rebecca hosted (I told you she taught all the things, too!). My bias dress class was a shorter project, but also confusing. There was fabric origami …

all the crafts!

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There were so many classes to choose from at Craftcation – over 50 for each day! Most required pre-registration, but there were others that were drop-in and you could also get waitlisted for classes, too. Here are a few I got to take on a whim! Each day there were casual crafts set up poolside – what a lovely setting! They were less structured and more open play; you could stay for as little or as long as you wanted. I taught one of these casual sessions (my mini succulent terrarium craft) and attended two others: terrazzo jewelry (above) with Jennifer Perkins and fabric dye coloring pages (below) with friend roomie Rebecca! I don’t play with clay much so it was fun to learn a trendy technique – I would love to create some clay beads and charms to use in my pomtass crafts. For fabric coloring, we used rainbow patches and Jacquard liquid color. I’m thinking I’ll make a mini plushie with my rainbow patch. After teaching back-to-back classes, I still wanted to make …

ice dyeing.

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What’s fun about Craftcation is that they bring makers together from all over. That means crafty knowledge and expertise abounds and you get to take all kinds of crafty workshops. My super talented friend roomie Rebecca taught a number of dyeing workshops and I got to join her for one of her ice dyeing classes. Ice dyeing is so magical! Rebecca gave an overview of the chemistry and art of ice dyeing and provided a demo. She had lots of samples, too, for inspiration, and she even made recipe cards if you wanted to work with specific color combos. This was helpful in trying to narrow down what colors to use (because I wanted to use them all!). We each dyed a bandana and a pair of socks. Similar to shibori dyeing, you can manipulate your fabric with folds or ties; you can also simply crinkle your fabric or leave them flat. The ice does lots of magic as it melts. The water travels and moves the colors throughout the fabric. First, we prepared the …

i made shooz.

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I have so many more Craftcation stories to share with you! Instead of starting from the top, I’ll start from the bottom – I made shoes, espadrilles to be more precise.  This sewing class with Melissa Quaal of A Happy Stitch was my first class at Craftcation. After a road trip through Ojai, I checked into the Craftcation hotel, grabbed my conference badge, ran back and forth to the car and my hotel room to unload all the crafty goodies, and headed straight to class. Ready! Melissa made the cutest craft kits and goody bags for us. Even the tag with our shoe size was adorable. I had only worked with a sewing pattern once before so I was excited that I got into this sewing class to get more practice in (with adult supervision!). Melissa walked us through each step of the process, sharing all of her sewing secrets, too – like how to cut fabric with weights and a rotary cutter (I’m so impressed!). I was too scared to cut this way for …