And.....I'm Back!!

It's been just over two years since my last blog post.  I hadn't thought I would start blogging again, but here I am.

In the past two years, I have been in college full-time for Fashion Apparel Technology.  What an amazing experience that was, thank you Olds College!!  I opted to not go back for my last semester and I am doing my studying at home on my own as I prepare to open a sewing/alterations/mending business this spring.  Jenni's Sewing Room will be run from our home, and we are very busy painting, replacing flooring and adding better lighting.  My Sweet Babboo is doing 98% of that work, as I study, order business cards, apply for a business license, and purge and organize all my sewing and crafting materials.  I find at least two new things every day that "I must get done before I open the business". 

I will be participating in our town's Downtown Markets this summer, so I am making items to sell.  I needed some particular colors of fabrics for some scarves I will be constructing, so I have started playing with fiber reactive dyes for the first time.  After years of experimenting with fabrics paints and dyes of various kinds, with about 50% success and no consistency in the outcome, I am THRILLED with Procion MX dyes.  Now that I have begun to learn some of the chemistry involved, I think I will be able to consistently get the results I want, depending on the kind of project I am doing.

This is the first piece of fabric, a white shirt-weight cotton.  I used a snow dyeing technique, and sprinkled on the dye powder. **USE A DUST MASK IF YOU TRY THIS, THE DYE POWDERS ARE NOT GOOD FOR YOUR LUNGS**  I used turquoise, sea glass green, royal purple, and baby blue eyes. 

 The lighting in my laundry room is not great, so the pictures don't show how rich this color is.

 This is all one piece of fabric, 115 cm wide x about a metre.  So many variations of color with snow dyeing and scrunched fabric.  I love it.

This fabric will be perfect to tie together lots of fabric colors from recycled garments. 

Today I am working with three different fabrics and burgundy and fuschia dyes.  Stay tuned to see how that turns out....