The Good Cheer Blanket

How can I make a difference? How can one person do anything to stop the tidal wave of textile waste plaguing our precious planet? These questions perplex and haunt me at various times and I often feel helpless and outraged all at once. There are a growing number of people who shop at thrift stores and mend their clothing now. But I’m constantly amazed that many quilters and sewists today still live by the motto, “She who dies with the most fabric wins.”

Quilting cottons are very expensive. (Most people have no idea how much time and money it takes to make a quilt.) How would someone who really wants to reduce textile waste make a quilt? What would it look like if I took used clothing and repurposed that? Our quilter foremothers made quilts from discarded clothing all the time. Sure, I could make a scrappy quilt from all sorts of garment fabrics. But could I make a quilt that is just as good as a quilt I might have made from purchased quilting cotton? I decided to try a thrift shop quilt experiment.

Could I make a quilt that is just as good as a quilt I might have made from purchased quilting cotton?

My little town of Langley has a wonderful organization called Good Cheer that runs a food bank. They also run a couple of thrift stores that help fund the food bank. I visited their thrift store and my goal was to find cotton and linen clothing that I could use to make a quilt. Why a quilt? Making quilts is a very efficient way to use small pieces of fabric and I want to use as much of each garment as I can. Its also a great way to mix various fabrics into beautiful designs. Why cotton and linen? I chose those fabrics because I knew I might need to dye some of the fabrics that had stains or fading. Also, cottons – and some linens– tend to make the best quilts. You can make blankets and quilts out of just about any fabric, but those are my favorites. Here is my journey…

1 – Gathering the raw materials

What I bought at Good Cheer Thrift for $36.

I spent $36 on 8 items of clothing. Some were on sale! I picked them solely based on fabric content and how they felt. All of them are cotton except for the black linen pants. I didn’t pay much attention to the colors or fabric designs because I knew I would probably be overdyeing them later. Here’s a tip: size matters! The larger the size, the more fabric you get so don’t limit yourself to shopping for only women’s or children’s sizes. Look at the men’s clothing as well — an XXL shirt will yield a hefty amount of fabric.

2 – Preparing the fabrics for dyeing (optional)

The clothes I bought were all very clean. But I knew I wanted to dye some of it so I needed to clean those more thoroughly. This fabric-cleaning before dyeing is called “scouring.” Typically dyers use a product called Synthropol in the scouring process. It removes dirt, oils, fabric sizing, starch, and loose dye from the fabrics and makes it ready to receive new dye. I had already decided to overdye my fabrics with indigo so I definitely needed to scour the fabrics first. (You can use Rit dye or fiber-reactive dyes instead of indigo.)

3 – Removing extraneous items

Tools needed: seam ripper, fabric scissors, tweezers (to pull out stubborn threads)
Before you dye the fabrics or start cutting them up, remove all the tags, buttons, snaps, zippers, elastic, etc. Some of these items can be reused and you may want to save them for other projects. One of my favorite quilts called, “Portrait of a Textile Maker” made by Terese Agnew is made from garment tags.

I didn’t fully take the garments apart before washing to prevent a lot of fraying at the cut edges. Fraying reduces the amount of fabric you have in the end and it creates rat nests of threads after you’ve washed and dried the pieces (see below). I waited till after dyeing to fully deconstruct the garments. I did removed the pocket of one shirt for dye testing (above). That shirt already had very saturated colors and I wasn’t sure how I wanted to overdye it. More on that later.

Raw or cut fabric edges can ravel and tangle when washed

4 – Creating a color plan

Identify the fabrics that you like and want to keep just the way they are and set them aside. I liked 3 of the colors I came home with: white, black, and a pebbly blue/white combo. I ended up deciding that I would overdye the rest of the garments with indigo blue. Here is my proposed color palette:

I’ve got the black and white and I will be making several different blue fabrics with indigo – where will I get that rusty orange? Good question. I am hoping that if I overdye the really saturated plaid shirt with a warm color it will become my accent color. We will see if I’m successful.

5 – Overdying the fabrics

I overdyed the shirts and pajama pants with indigo. It took 3-4 dips to get the right colors. Some of the dye was a bit splotchy which is to be expected with used fabrics. I wasn’t worried about that since I knew the fabric would be cut into small pieces and the splotches would be less noticeable.

Top row: Before dyeing; Bottom row: Same garments after several indigo dye dips

I wanted a rusty warm color as a compliment to all the blues so I overdyed the super colorful plaid shirt with a warm amber fiber-reactive dye. I was very happy with the results.

I tested the pocket in indigo dye but liked it better when overdyed with an Amber fiber-reactive dye.

I finished deconstructing all the garments so that they were flat pieces without seams, hems, buttonholes, etc. My fabric is all ready to cut into quilt shapes.

Garment fabrics are washed, dyed, ironed, and ready to cut into squares.

6 – Creating a quilt design

Trip Around the World design

To make the most of the weird fabric shapes that I had, I chose a traditional design made from small squares. Once sewed together each square measures 3″ which means I cut 3-1/2″ squares (to allow for 1/4″ seams.) This quilt design is known by several names but most commonly as either Sunshine and Shadow or Trip Around the World. I decided to wait on designing the back of the quilt until later.

7 – Cutting out the pieces

All garment fabric has been cut into 3.5″ pieces.

8 – Laying out the pieces

I decided to just start laying it out on my design wall to see how I liked it. Starting from the center I worked out to the edges and then counted the number of pieces. Ultimately I chose to make the finished quilt top 23 squares by 19 squares which equals 69″ x 57.” I couldn’t fit it all on my design wall in the beginning so I added a couple rows as I was sewing the squares together.

Cut squares on the design wall in the Trip Around the World pattern.

9 – Sewing the quilt top

As I sewed each row I pinned it back up on the design wall so I could keep them in order.

Quilt top pieces are all sewn with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

10 – Making a backing

Once the top was finished I realized there were enough squares left to make the entire backing. Because this project was really about using every possible bit of fabric from those garments, I decided to piece the back. Most quilt backs are made from whole cloth or from very large pieces of fabric sewed together. The pieced back was an experiment so I just went for it. I figured that if my quilter balked at the idea of sandwiching two heavily pieced layers that I could maybe make two quilts. I really didn’t want to go back to Good Cheer Thrift to find enough fabric for the backing though. Luckily my quilter, Susan Dirkes, was game to try quilting with both sides pieced.

There weren’t enough squares of each color to make the same design as the front so I decided to just improvise and just make the design random squares.

Backing is mostly sewn together and is a bit larger than the top to accommodate shifts when quilting.

11 – The Quilting and some Thrift store batting ideas

By the time I finished piecing both sides I had already decided to sell the quilt to raise a donation for Good Cheer. So I didn’t hesitate to call up a local Whidbey Island quilter named Susan Dirkes. She is also a big fan of Good Cheer and decided to give me a discount on the quilting price. Some people like to quilt their own quilts instead of hiring a quilter and I’m usually one of those people. But once the quilts get to be bigger than a certain size I usually partner with a professional quilter. Susan did a wonderful job on this quilt.

Susan supplied the batting for the quilt but if you are trying to save money (or the landfill), try one of these thrifty options for quilt batting:
• one or more used flannel sheets
• an old blanket
• discarded cotton or linen tablecloth

Susan Dirkes handing off the quilted blanket.

Quilt is ready to trim and add binding.

Once I got the quilt home to my studio I trimmed off the edges and prepared the binding.

12 – Binding the edges

The final step is to bind the edges. The binding fabric is the only fabric in this quilt that I didn’t get from Good Cheer. I already had it in my fabric stash — a gift from a local quilter. I machine stitched it to one side of the quilt edge and then hand-stitched it to the other side. I could have machine-stitched the second side but it has a more professional look when hand-stitched—which I prefer.

Binding is machine-stitched to one side and then hand-stitched to the other.

The quilt is all finished! I’ll be showing it at my upcoming Studio Tour next weekend. Now to sell it and donate the money to Good Cheer…

Eileen Fisher Renew Chop Challenge

A few months ago I saw that a couple of local Whidbey artists — Patti King and Elin Noble — were participating in a Seattle event called the Chop Challenge. I was inspired to find out more about it and see if I could do it too. It is a joint event sponsored by Eileen Fisher Renew and Columbia City Gallery. The idea is to take pieces of used Eileen Fisher garments and remake them into something different (no garments). Much of my artwork is made from upcycled materials so this was right up my alley. I quickly signed up and arranged a trip into Seattle to pick up my supplies.

There were three bins of clothing for me to choose from when I arrived at the Eileen Fisher Renew shop. The first bin was full of denim clothes. The second bin contained sweaters and was only about 1/3 full. The last bin was for cotton and linen things but there was hardly anything in it. My original idea was to make a bag from linens or from coat-weight wools. I decided to take the sweaters and see if I could felt the wool so that it was sturdy enough for a bag. I ended up with some army green wool knit pants and three partial sweaters (black, dark plum, and light brown).

What I came home with:

I picked sweaters that were 100% wool or wool and cashmere so that they would felt in the washing machine.

The next step was to wash the heck out of the pieces to see if they would felt and become sturdy and thick enough for a bag. It took me many, many hours of washing the wool to get it thick enough and strong enough. Naturally this process shrinks the wool.

Left: The partial brown sweater before washing/felting. Right: Same sweater after the washing process.

Once the wool was felted and dry I realized that it was too stretchy to make a sturdy bag. So I switched gears and decided to make a blanket instead. I didn’t have enough wool for a lap-sized throw so I supplemented with some wool scraps from my stash. I picked some red and cream scraps of cashmere that a friend gave me along with a black speckled wool that another friend gave to me.

My idea was to make a blanket design with different sized rectangles ala Anni Albers. I put it on my design wall and measured. Once I accounted for seam allowances my blanket was still too small for a lap throw. I needed to add more.

I started cutting the remaining scraps into smaller rectangles.

Once I liked the design of the strips I started sewing them together. I overlapped the edges and then edge-stitched on both sides.

Then it was back to the design wall to see how I could fit these smaller strips in with the large rectangles.

Once I had a design I liked I started sewing groups of rectangles together. I ended up with three main sections and then sewed those to each other.

When the whole thing was sewn together I trimmed the outside edges. As I assembled it I discovered a few holes that needed patching.

To finish the edges I hand stitched with black Perle cotton thread in a blanket stitch.

The last step was to block the blanket. If you have ever knit or crocheted anything you will know what this means. Basically you use moisture, heat, and pins to shape the final product and then let it dry into that shape. It flattens curly edges and lumpy seams and makes for a smoother, flatter end product. I tried two different methods to block the blanket. I pinned the flat blanket to a pad and some towels and used a steam iron just above the surface to steam it. I also tried spraying the surface with a squirt bottle. Some people recommend soaking the whole thing for 20-30 minutes so it is fully wet. I probably should’ve done that but I thought it would take forever to dry so I didn’t.

It took several days to dry (wool is very water resistant) and then, YAY, it was finished. All ready for the charity auction on November 19th.

The finished blanket is close to 4×5 feet and is very soft and warm. It took 3 partial sweaters, one pair of knit pants, and some extra scraps. Most of what I have left over is a small bag of very tiny scraps.

To view more of my work please visit my web page.

11-21-22 – note about the Chop Challenge auction:
I attended the auction at Columbia City Art Gallery on November 19th. There were so many creative solutions for how to make something new out of used clothing bits. My blanket had lively and competitive bidding and ended up selling for about $300.

Napkin drawings

After decades of a design career in Silicon Valley, I’ve had countless opportunities to create (or witness the creation of) a napkin drawing. While lunching with friends or co-workers and an idea begins to develop, we’d draw it on whatever was at hand — usually the paper napkin.

What do I do with all those table linens I inherited?

In recent years my linen storage began to overflow with tablecloths, placemats, and napkins from deceased relatives. Most of them are white and either cotton or linen. Many of them have little stains with torn or frayed edges. I started to wonder how I could use them since I make most of my art from upcyled or repurposed materials.

What better place to sketch my happy memories than onto the cloth that witnessed countless dinners, tipsy toasts, birthday, and holiday celebrations. These rectangles of linen and cotton have soaked up the champagne and the tears of loved ones for many years. Is that a drip of juice from the blueberry pie my mom made? A circle of red wine that my stepfather loved so much? Is that spot of chocolate from my sister’s flourless chocolate cake?

Once friends and family heard about what I was doing with old linens, they started offering them. I quickly realized that not all dinner napkins are great for hand stitching. The cotton damask napkins are lovely but because of its unique weave the embroidery threads can get lost between the napkin threads. I set those aside and have been repurposing them by dyeing them using shibori folding and clamp resist techniques. It is a great way to give those napkins a whole new life.

Capturing the moment

During the past three years I’ve lost three close family members. This loss, combined with our country’s political climate (and the pandemic) caused me to want to work only on art that was joyful. What gives me great joy is looking at photographs I have taken of family and friends. I began to choose pictures I’d made that had the following qualities:

• people who were engaged with each other and (preferably) not posing for the camera
• children interacting with adults
• children engaged in classic childhood pursuits
• a scene that conveyed a sense of joy, discovery, or pleasure

I read a recent quote from an artist who said, “For me producing photorealistic copies of anything in any art form has been redundant since the invention of photography.” I don’t agree with her. I start with images that maybe aren’t great photographically but that convey a sense of intimacy between the subjects. My hope is to capture a moment between two people that those less observant might miss. And I want to show it with the fewest lines possible.

My process

Once I’ve selected a photo I begin the process of scaling it to the correct size and manipulating it so that more details are revealed. Then I print out the photo. I use both Photoshop and Lightroom to work with my images. Once I have a printed image I make a sketch. I leave out a lot of information. I try to use the bare minimum number of lines to convey volume, facial expressions, and gestures. Using a small light box I then transfer the sketch onto the napkin using either water- or heat-soluble ink. Then the hand stitching begins. (Yes. They are all stitched by hand — not machine.) Most of the drawings are made using a hand-dyed perle cotton thread that I get from ArtFabrik.

Showing a year’s worth of work

Last weekend I participated in the Whidbey Working Artists Studio Tour. It was a gorgeous weekend and the perfect opportunity for me to display the collection of napkins I’ve created — 27! My wonderful husband constructed a temporary clothesline for hanging the napkin drawings. It was very exciting to show these as a group and to hear people’s responses to them. It was the very best part of the Studio Tour for me. My friend, Monty Hunter, made a video of the display so that I could show it here and to people who were unable to attend. I hope you enjoy it.

Slow pan of the entire napkin drawing display at my Studio Tour in August, 2022.

If you are interested in seeing how I end up finishing these drawings — or if I decide to sell them, please keep an eye on my website and sign up for my newsletter. I’ll keep you up to date on my progress there.

A new page in my story

Five years ago I opened an Etsy shop and four years ago I wrote a blog post called, “What’s it like to have an Etsy shop?” Today I closed that shop. There were lots of reasons behind that decision. One of the reasons was because Etsy hadn’t improved in those five years. It just continued to get more crowded and more expensive. The other main reason is that I wanted to have a space where I could show my artwork in different ways than I could on Etsy. Etsy is only about commerce and I wanted to have a place to show work that wasn’t for sale as well as work that was.

I spent the past 6 months working on a new website. (Mostly I let it sit due to yet another family death.) But with the help of a wonderful web designer, Christy Price, I finished it this week. It doesn’t have all the work in it that I’d like to have, but I’ll continue to add to it as time allows. I like the ability to show my work in groups because I tend to make work that is part of a series. The website has a shop and I am now offering some of my art quilts for sale as well as the bags. Please come take a look, sign up for my newsletter, and browse through my creations. You’ll find the new site here: http://www.luanneseymour.com.

Consider the caged bird

My last blog post was a little over a year ago when the COVID 19 pandemic hit the world with lethal force. At the time I thought it would be a short-lived event and that a little art project with kids would get me through the worst of the lockdown. I was wrong on both counts. The pandemic is still with us a year later and sadly, over 3 million have died worldwide. My creative life and art projects has taken an odd turn during this time.

I have never been a person who is short on ideas. I have so many ideas that I don’t have enough time to pursue them all. You should see the slightly amused and frightened look on my husband’s face when I say to him, “I’ve got an idea!” This past year though, my desire to pursue my artistic ideas just froze. I stopped writing this blog because I found that I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say. The events in our country and around the world had rendered me speechless. I stopped making my own art and started taking classes so that I could be led through a project instead of pursuing my own projects and ideas. I threw myself into making quilts for a local group that I helped start. Making these quilts was a way of being creative without having to think much. I kept asking myself why couldn’t I respond to this pandemic with my art? I had no answers. Everything in my life took on a different meaning because I’m over 60 and I became more aware than ever of my impending mortality.

In March of this year I got my first COVID 19 vaccine shot and suddenly I felt I could create again. I know this sounds weird because that shot didn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t get sick or die. But something about getting the shot unlocked the part of me that couldn’t respond artistically to my year of living in lockdown mode. Yay! I started creating my own work and exploring ideas about feelings I have had during the past year.

I started using caged birds as a metaphor for different scenarios of my life through this pandemic. In these images I included the feeling of:

• being trapped
• longing for my loved ones who were far away or unreachable
• the craziness of parents being stuck inside with kids for too long
• the sense of counting the days till all this is over and “normal life” can resume
• the fear of going outside my home and being exposed to the virus
• a parent’s need to protect their children from not only the virus but hate and racism

I’ve created seven fabric collages (so far). To incorporate words into some of them I used Morse Code since it translates so well into stitching. Here they are in order of creation:

Collage 1 – Cage Life

Collage 2 – Let me out. Set me free.

Collage 3 – I miss you.

Collage 4 – Counting the days

Collage 5 – Get me outta here!

Collage 6 – We’re coming to get you!

Collage 7 – SOS

Our pandemic is far from over so I’ll continue to add to this series. Even though I’m now fully vaccinated, I still feel like my wings are clipped. Life may never return to what it was before this pandemic but I’m glad that I am able to create once again.

Quarantined with kids? Let’s make a zoo!

You can make animal portraits out of anything.

NOTE: All ages are welcome! If you are quarantined or social-distancing, please join us no matter your age.

Some of my favorite kids are stuck at home right now because their schools have closed temporarily. It got me thinking, “What kind of fun project could I do with them when I’m stuck on Whidbey Island in Washington and they are stuck in California?” I decided to make a quarantine zoo. Being in a zoo is a little like being confined to your house, right?

The wax from these cheeses works well for quick animal sculptures.

I remember how my son Charlie used to create animals out of all sorts of things. He would save the wax from the snack-sized cheeses and mold animals out of that wax. We kept the finished pieces in the refrigerator so they wouldn’t melt in hot weather. There was an entire herd of yellow and red animals for quite awhile. He also liked to carve animals and shapes out of large carrots. He didn’t use a knife, he used his teeth. It was quite creative but it meant that dinner could take a really long time! The point is, you can make animals out of just about anything so if you don’t have lots of art supplies at your house right now — no worries.

 

Create a scene with your animal toy to tell a story. This dinosaur can’t resist my apple pie.

Here’s how it works
For the next month, we will build a zoo together. Here on Whidbey Island school is cancelled for up to 6 weeks. Let’s try this for a month and see how we do. We will start adding animals everyday to our zoo from March 15 till April 15th. The animals can be made of anything. I’ll add a list of ideas below to get you started. Once the animal is finished, you’ll need to take a picture of it with a phone camera. Then an adult with Instagram access will need to post it to their Instagram page with the hashtag #quarantinezoo. To keep kids internet-safe, please just include initials and age. At daily intervals, I’ll collect as many of the animals as I can and post them here on my blog so people can view the entire collection. You can also see the zoo by following the hashtag #quarantinezoo. Are you ready?

This snake is cut from a magazine insert. No need to buy special papers. Recycle what you have on hand.

Let’s get started
1. Every day for the next month, make an animal. It can be a drawing, a sculpture, a collage — anything you can photograph. If you want, use the list below to find pictures of amazing animals in the PhotoArk. I’ve picked one animal for each day of this monthlong project. If you want to pick a different animal, that is just fine.

2. Photograph the finished animal with a mobile phone.

3. Post the photograph on Instagram and use the hashtag #quarantinezoo. Using this hashtag is very important. It helps me collect all the animals and put them in the zoo. Please include your initials, age, and the name of the animal.

This is my test Instagram post. It has the following information for our zoo.
Name: (initials only)
Age:
Location: (State, Country)
Animal:
Hashtag: #quarantinezoo

Suggested topics
Following is a list of suggested animals for you to create. I picked them from the incredible National Geographic Photo Ark project. You can make any animal you want to but if you get stuck and would like a suggestion, here’s a list:

Day 1   San Jose Cochran Frog
Day 2   Red Lorie
Day 3    Four Horned Antelope
Day 4   Elk River Crayfish
Day 5  Western Spotted Skunk
Day 6   Clark’s Anemonefish
Day 7    Common Death Adder
Day 8   Gray’s Twig
Day 9   Black Necked Aracari
Day 10   Sitatunga
Day 11    Baby Swamp Wallaby
Day 12   Grevy’s Zebra
Day 13   Bewick’s Swan
Day 14   Blue Spotted Pufferfish
Day 15    Turquoise Parrot
Day 16   Nine-banded Armadillo
Day 17   Vervet Monkey
Day 18   Pallid Spiny Soft-shell Turtle
Day 19    Przewalski’s Wild Horse
Day 20   Haussa Genet
Day 21   Short-beaked echidna
Day 22   Florida Deermice
Day 23    Bilby
Day 24   American Rubyspot Damselfly
Day 25   Bobtail squid
Day 26   Southern Tamandua
Day 27    Schmidt’s Red-tailed Guenon
Day 28   Enid Snail
Day 29   Green Pygmy Goose
Day 30   Schneider’s Skink
Day 31    East African Crowned Crane
Day 32   Indian Flying Fox

Ideas for materials to use
Drawing – pencils, crayons, colored pencils, chalk, markers, paper
Painting – watercolor, oils, acrylic, paper, cardboard or canvas
Sculpture – wax, clay, mud, flour dough, wood
Collage – papers, buttons, beads, fabric, ribbon, tape, glue, scissors
Indoor ideas – legos, blocks, wire, pipe cleaners, twist ties, rubber bands, paperclips, straight pins, wine corks, toothpicks, all types of food (beans, seeds, rice, pasta, candy, nuts), thumbtacks
Outdoor ideas – sticks, leaves, rocks, dirt and mud, seed pods, pine cones, shells, sand drawings

Watercolor, pencil, marker, crayon — any of those will work.

I’m ready to start, are you? Let’s build the Quarantine Zoo! (If you want to start a day early, that’s okay!)

UPDATE: Here is our zoo as of March 30, 2020:

The scrap bag

I never throw away fabric scraps. They can always be used for another project – patchwork quilts, mending, or fabric collages. Some weavers use them to create rag rugs. If you are determined to reduce landfill and reuse every scrap, you might be interested in a project I just finished.

Last summer a friend and I went to the Whidbey Island Open Studio tour and visited Marcia Derse’s studio. Marcia is a textile designer whose work can be seen in many fabric stores around the country. I met her shortly after I moved to Whidbey Island and this was my first time seeing her studio. It was an inspiring place to visit. Instead of books on her shelves there were rows of fabrics ready to be used. Paintbrushes lived next to her sewing machine which looked over a view gently sloping towards the Puget Sound. I felt right at home.

The paper collage on the wall eventually resulted in the bolt of fabric below it.

You would think that as a designer of fabric bags I would be filling my shopping basket with as much of her fabric as I possibly could. I was tempted, but I promised myself that I would resist because I have enough fabric to last for a very long time. Most of my stash consists of cast-off designer samples that I regularly upcycle. I only bought two things — a packet of black & white fabrics from her “The Opposite” series, and a plastic gallon baggie of “studio scraps.”

• 

• 

That plastic bag sat around my own studio for a few months before I got around to using it. Once I opened it I realized that I was going to need to iron every single scrap in that bag or it would be too hard to use. It took me a few hours but I pressed and stacked the scraps by color. It was like opening a treasure box of colors and patterns. I wondered how many collages I could make with all these strips.

Every scrap was ironed and then sorted by color.

As I sorted through the pieces I decided I would challenge myself to try to use every single scrap from that bag to make something useable. I started with the biggest pieces and created fabric collages on top of a base piece of muslin or linen. Most of the scraps were strips so that guided my collage design decisions. They were going to be mostly striped. To hold the small strips onto the backing, I used a product called Mistyfuse. It has no paper backing (less waste) and is pretty easy to use. It allows me to secure the scraps to the backing while maintaining the “hand” (drape and softness) of the fabric. My first collages were based on one color at a time. To add visual interest I would occasionally add one little accent strip of a different color.

Building the collages and getting ready to iron them onto the backing.

After ironing them to the backing, I sewed the strips using various colored threads.

Sewing the strips into place with variegated threads.

Once the strips had been sewn onto the backing, I began to assemble the other parts so that I could make zipper pouches with the collages. I cut out lining from some of the fabrics I had purchased from Marcia. Then I clipped the parts together. I sometimes stack up a pile of these because cutting and assembling is stand-up work. Sewing is sit-down work. I like to alternate.

Parts of a zipper pouch all ready to assemble.

As I progressed through the pile of scraps, the remaining pieces began to be smaller and smaller and vary more in color. Some of the scraps were hand-painted. Some of the scraps were part of the fabric selvedge edge with text. Some had Marcia’s handwriting on it to keep track of her dye color tests. I used everything. I began to mix up the colors more and more.

• 

• 

• 

Ultimately, I ended up with 21 collage zipper pouches. I photographed them all and posted them in my Etsy shop to sell. One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Blanket Project

One of my favorite signs from the Women’s March in 2017 was this:

The message really resonated with me because I am an introvert and I don’t like large crowds. But I was there marching with my friends, my daughter, and my grandsons because I needed to do something to express the outrage I felt. The outrage and the need to do something about it hasn’t left me these past few years. If anything, it has intensified as people continue to express their cruelty, hatred, misogyny, and bigotry in myriad ways. I have felt frustrated and helpless when I ponder what I can do to change things around me. Mostly I have focused on small things I can do to make a difference. In social media I have consciously chosen to be positive and upbeat instead of railing against the state of things. I’ve aimed to inspire instead of depress or anger but its hard to judge whether this actually makes a difference. Since moving to Whidbey Island I’ve been in search of a way to have more of an impact in my own introverted way.

Serendipitously, I met Darcy Sinclair, another former graphic designer who had similar feelings about wanting to make a difference. We came up with a plan to start a community of makers who would gather weekly to make things together and then give them to people in need. We both sew so we started searching locally for people who might need stitched items and found that the sheriff’s office and a local agency that works with foster kids needed blankets and tote bags for children who are suddenly moved out of their homes. I stumbled upon a Facebook post about ArtDivisionLA, a group that is making blankets to send to the people who are trying to immigrate to the US and have ended up in cages at the border.

We approached the people who run a community art center in Langley, WA called CreateSpace to see if we could start a regular meeting there to make blankets. They were very happy to let us use their space for this purpose so we advertised locally and had our first meeting. We emphasized that experts and beginners were welcome because we wanted this to be a place where people could learn new skills.

At our first meeting there were people who knit, crocheted, and sewed. Some who showed up had never sewed before and wanted to learn so we began to teach them. We started with the smallest size quilt that was needed and started cutting, designing, and stitching. We used donated fabrics and yarns. Some of the knitters, anxious to start, had already begun knitting blankets before the first meeting.

At our second meeting most of the people who came to the first meeting returned and there were several new people. Some already knew each other but most had never met. We started making new friends. Some people wanted only to make blankets for the local foster kids. Some wanted only to make blankets for the border families.

We’ve already given some of the fleece blankets to the local foster kids. We finished our first baby quilt and by this Friday’s meeting we should also have some knitted blankets ready to send to ArtDivisionLA for their Blanket Project. What is especially exciting to me is to watch the birth of a supportive maker community. I love seeing people teach each other new skills and help each other as they work. But what really thrilled me was when I overheard one woman say, “It feels so good that I can finally DO something to make a difference!” I feel that way too.

Want to get inspired or learn more about craftivism? Check out the Craftivist Collective. Or watch this TED talk by Sara Corbett. Or this site about craftivism. Here’s an interesting article about the rise of craft-based activism in recent years.

Why 100 days of hearts?

This past March I decided to participate in the The 100 Days Project. I have been seeing the Instagram results of other artists doing this project for several years. It was interesting to watch their collections of 100 things build up over time. I just love watching a work in progress series.

Those of you who know me may wonder why I decided to commit to a crazy project like this? I’m currently in the middle of a huge home remodeling project. ACCKKK!!! We are living in an Airbnb and I have no studio right now. Why would I commit to a huge art project when all my supplies are packed in boxes and my life is so chaotic? Mainly it was to keep some kind of creative discipline or structure in my life.

You might think that artists and athletes have nothing in common but you would be wrong. They both need to practice their skills regularly. One of the things I try to practice regularly is my ability to “see.” I do this by making pictures almost everyday. The act of making a photograph, editing it, and cropping it is one way that I practice “seeing.” For me as an artist, seeing involves honing my observation, composition, and color skills. These skills are critical for creating almost any kind of art. So I try to practice them every day. I wrote “A picture a day keeps…away” several years ago when I was still working full time in the corporate high-tech world. During that period of my life, I needed a creative outlet that was personal, achievable, and soul-healing. This project had a profound effect on my life as an artist. I even made a video about it.

Some of the flower studies I created for my “Picture a day” project.

I started that project almost 5 years ago. Let’s do the math – that’s close to 1800 days. So, if I’ve already been doing this for 5 years, why do the 100 Day Project? Because my 5-year long discipline has been all about photography. I signed up for The 100 Day Project to make different kinds of art. I need to practice other skills besides photography and I am hoping that this process will help me.

Doing a project like this makes me accountable — especially when I post to Instagram each day. I’m not looking for extra likes or compliments. I’m not even super proud of many of my creations. The discipline of daily posting is very much like my art school classroom experience. I used to go into my figure drawing class and we would have short warm up sketches. Then we would do longer sketches. We always posted our work on the wall and had a class critique. It was how all my art and design classes worked. Make stuff and put it on the wall for the class and teacher to discuss. Critiques can be tough but you can learn so much from how the other students approach the same task. You learn about your own work by putting it up there for others to see. This is how I think about The 100 Day Project. Its a 100 day art class for me. Sometimes I throw some crappy stuff up on the wall and sometimes I make some real progress.

Heart made from skeins of silk threads.

Some of the artists participating in 100 Days are pretty intimidating. They are making work that is so good they can sell it. Some people are making big things that take several days or weeks to finish. Some people make a brand new thing every single day. Because my days will be chaotic during this 100 day time period, I’ve kept things simple for myself. We are going to be moving and still spending entire days going into Seattle to choose door handles, floor tile, etc. I needed to keep this in mind when I committed to 100 days.

The first 9 hearts of my 100.

I chose a simple shape, a heart, as my topic. 100 days of hearts. Its not my favorite shape in the world but I thought it might work. And so far it has. I told myself that on super busy days I could just take a photo since that’s easy for me. On days when I had more time I could make a heart in some other way. I’ve ended up with a lot more photos than I had hoped but that’s okay.

To be honest, I’m getting really sick of heart images. That’s okay too. Actually, I truly believe that when you start getting really sick of the subject matter you can start to discover new ways of approaching it. I think I’m at that point and its kind of exciting. I’ve started to work on some larger, more involved heart images and I’m liking the process very much. If you want to follow along, I’ll be posting my heart images on Instagram every morning for 65 more days.

The first in a series of heart wall hangings.

Santa’s got a brand new upcycled bag

Every holiday season when we drag out the boxes of ornaments and decorations, we also drag out the box full of gift bags. These aren’t those sparkly, shiny paper and foil bags you buy at your local Target or Costco. These are fabric gift bags that my sister Jill and I have been making for over 20 years.

It started with our desire to reduce the amount of money we spent every year on ribbon and paper. But as we’ve continued to make the bags over the years, its become much more than just a money-saving idea. It is our small way of reducing the amount we consume and dump in the landfill. In the beginning we purchased Christmas fabrics that went on sale after the holidays. But in recent years we’ve been using fabrics that are upcycled. For example, the fleece bag pictured above was once a sweatshirt. I deconstructed it and made it into a soft gift bag.

The Bag Box

Educating our family

Part of embarking on a project like this has included teaching our family about how to use these bags. It takes time to make them and Jill and I have a few rules.

1. The bags are exchanged ONLY within the family. That helps ensure that they will continue to recirculate instead of leave and never be seen again.
2. If anyone is unable to store them through the year, they give them to Jill or me and we store them. One commitment you must be willing to make when you use bags year after year is storage. We are willing to store them but this isn’t practical for our college-age kids, nieces and nephews. When my son was in college, he knew he could buy or make his gifts and dip into our Bag Box for instant wrapping solutions.
3. All bags must have reusable closures. In the beginning we didn’t do this but over the years we’ve learned to attach the ribbons or use other closures. Nobody wants to use a bag that doesn’t close easily.

Not all of our family members use and reuse our fabric bags. But over the years people have learned that they are really easy and make quick work of big wrapping jobs. My daughter has even started creating some of the bags.

Bag closures

We make sure that the closure is securely attached to the bags. Loose ribbons tend to get lost and the bags without a closure don’t get used. Recently I found a bunch of Velcro at a closeout sale and have been using that for closures. No bow-tying needed! The velcro bags are the first ones we tend to use because they are so easy. I’ve actually sewed a permanent bow on some of those bags to make them a bit fancier.

The best ribbons have been grosgrain although I’ve recycled some mesh & wire ribbons with good success. I always go through the trash bags after a gift unwrapping orgy to find ribbons, papers, and cards that are reusable. Here is an example of a bag made from a tee shirt knit with a gold mesh wire ribbon attached.

I sometimes sew the ribbons right into the seams for security. However, if you do this your bow might end up on the opposite side of the bag instead of in front. So most of the time the ribbon is attached at the center back. That way the bow will end up center front.

How the various bags are constructed

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes so we’ve created bags in many different ways to accommodate the variety. Pictured above are some different types of bags we use often. Drawstring bags have either a casing with a ribbon or cord that draws tight to close. The giant Santa bag above left is made from red and white fleece. The drawstring is placed so that the white collar folds down over the top. Envelope bags like the one in the upper right corner above can be tied with ribbons attached to the top edge and somewhere in the middle of the bag. These are good for flat or small gifts. Lately I’ve been making bags that are lined and padded or quilted. The padding protects the contents of the bag and makes it a little harder to figure out what’s inside. Jill experimented last year with this bento bag design (below). Instead of ribbon or velcro, you tie the pointy top ends to close it up.

I’ve made many bags from upcycled designer samples that I’ve gotten from FabMo and from Zero Landfill Seattle. Many of them have been sold in my Etsy shop. Below are a couple of examples of how I took plain linen and made it into a Christmas gift bag. Below left the fabric was block printed with white fabric paint. Below right the tree was appliquéd onto the yellow background fabric before constructing the bag.

The gift tags

There is no need to buy a bunch of gift tags for our fabric gift bags. I make my own from beautiful paper and greeting cards I’ve received. Then I attach them to the bag with a safety pin or some kitchen twine. No tape needed — ever!

I bought this paper punch when it was on sale at Joann’s several years ago. But you can make interesting tags by just cutting out shapes from cards that you were going to toss in recycling anyway. Then punch or poke a small hole to thread the string or safety pin though and attach it to the gift bag.

One unexpected result of creating these bags over the years is that they have become part of our holiday memories. In recent years I’ve heard different family members say things like, “Oh, I remember that bag! I got it a few years ago” or, “Oh, this is my favorite bag! Can I just keep it?”

Are you interested in trying this? Here are a couple of tutorials that may help you get started:

• Bento Bags: http://textileartscenter.com/blog/bento-bag-tutorial/
• Drawstring bags: https://www.purlsoho.com/create/2009/03/15/easy-drawstring-bag/