Quilting With Dyed Fabrics is FUN!

I'm flying to D.C. on Wednesday to the Sewing Expo for Hancock Fabrics to demonstrate The Tulip® Dye Techniques Kit™ and the Tulip® Cordless Heat Setting Tool™ with the Tulip® Glam-It-Up!™ Iron-On Crystals™ combined to create a cute and sassy quilted tote bag and a mini quilt wall hanging.

The Sewing Expo is part of a national campaign to bring inspiration, motivation, education and personal satisfaction to everyone who enjoys sewing, quilt making, embroidery, embellishment and related needle arts. I can't believe I get to be a part of this amazing event.

So, to design the sassiest little bag with dyed fabric, I first have to grab my supplies at the iLoveToCreate design studio and dye my little heart out. I decided to create 3 of the 5 techniques in the kit for my projects.

Our house in Clovis has a darling patio out back with a ceiling fan, and it's just begging to have a little dye party, so I got the fan buzzing, and laid out my kit. I grabbed 2 kits, because I needed 12 yards of fabric for the tote, the quilt, and the demo swatches.

First step? I washed and dried all the 100% cotton fabric to take out the sizing and prepare it for the dye.

My steel sink is perfect for mixing the dyes. They're great because all I have to do is put on my gloves and then fill all the bottles with water (the dye is already in there) and shake.

Scott set up a table cover with plastic trash bags. Of course he used bungies to hold it down. I call him Bungy Man. (When I'm not calling him Zip-tie Man.)

I started with the shibori technique and since my project is so humongus, I taped the 2 tubes together that come in the kits.

Then I laid it under the fabric and scrunched it up. The shibori tube holds the fabric up so that you get that cool look, and keeps it from puddling. You'll see!

Now, the dying begins. I squirted it onto the fabric along the top of the tube. Then, I moved the tube over about 8 inches and repeated until I was at the end of the fabric.

Voila! I hung it on the clothesline and replaced the trash bag with a new one for the next color.

Woohoo, the brush technique was amazing. I simply poured my dye out of the bottle and into a disposable bowl, dipped my brush from the kit into the dye, and made crisscross strokes all the way across. Loved it.

After changing the trash bag on the table again, I was ready for the spray technique. This was soooo easy and fast. I made little hills and valleys with the fabric, then used the spray top from the kit to spray away.

I don't know what the neighbors think, but it sure gave them a colorful view while the dye set for 4 hours. Last step, wash and dry the fabric separately and then make my little tote bag.

I love how the cotton dyed fabric turned out and it feels good, not crunchy. I'll be posting the project at iLoveToCreate.com with all the instructions right away.

The crystals were uber easy to apply with the heating tool, and I think they added a little sparkle-farkle to the bag. Like I said, super fun, and a little bit sassy with the crystals and in bright, happy colors.

Come see me at the Sewing Expo in Chantilly, VA! I'll be there Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Hancock Fabrics booth. Look for the gal with the bright green tablecloth and the happy smile.... I'll show you how to dye fabrics for your quilting and sewing projects, and our cute little cordless heating tool for jazzin' up your projects.

See you there!
Pattiewack

Behind the scenes of iLoveToCreate with Pattiewack

"FLIP OUR STUDIO"

At iLoveToCreate we have been given the green light to turn our design room into an ultra-uber design studio that we are proud of and excited to create in every day. That's the GOOD news.

Now for the BAD news... Okay, you have to realize that it took YEeeears for this space to become engorged with tons of craft supplies, tools, sewing machines, computers, and projects. Of course, we have to BLOG about it. And it is a work in progress which we will finish in the next 2 weeks.

And... Yes, as expected we have the pics and story to show the metamorphosis of this huge space.

So, what you are about to see might change you forever. Hide the small children, warn your mother, and you might want to peer through your fingers….

The West side of the studio is where you can find Chloe Tatro, our copy writer who is often our in-house model, and Designer Suzie Shinseki who creates fabulous ceramics and crafts every day.... somewhere in there.

Here's the East side of the studio where Designers Kathy Cano Murillo and Cheryl Ball and Allee Marderosian create amazing designs amidst the clutter.

More of the East side where my Pattiewack design space is tucked behind there somewhere.

The conference table, which sometimes is so covered up we just forget about it and put chairs in a circle.

The sink & clean-up station, where paint brushes go and never are seen again.

I warned you! Can you imagine looking for a box of pins, a bag of crystals or a bottle of Aleene’s Tacky Glue? Trust me, there are some amazing designs coming from this chaos, but it is time, time, time to get some serious scrub done.

We've rolled up our sleeves and grabbed our brooms and scrubbies. I’ll be posting more behind-the-scene pics and show how we totally re-designed this pile of crafty chaos into a seriously sweet design studio.

So in the words of Tim Gunn, "Designers, make it work!"

House of Mutti

On a recent visit to Scott's parents in University Place, Washington, I thought it would be fun to take a little photo tour of all the cool decor in their house. Scott's Mom and Dad were stationed in Germany while the kids were young, so they called their mom "Mutti" which is German for mother. She is quite the decorator and collector of a combination of whimsical and traditional art and objects.

Shirley is also a volunteer at the Glass Museum in Tacoma. You'll notice a pair of hand blown martini glasses and wind chime in the tour below, as well as some of her darling evening dresses, some funny pics of Scott, Hummel figurines, and more. Pops is a retired Air Force pilot, and there is an unusual painting with airplanes in flight. I'll be posting pics of some of the glass soon. Enjoy!

Sewing on the floor...

Scott laughs when I sew on the floor, but sometimes that's the best way to tackle a big job like this one. You remember our trip to Sacramento to get the new bed slats & mattress, right? Well, it's been great for Scott, but not so great for me. I love everything about it, except it feels like my bones are poking through a rock.

So, I got this great idea to take one of those egg crate foamie thingies and cut it down the middle, and put it on my side of the bed. But of course, that wasn't enough. I had to make it mine, and make it a project.

That's when I went to the closet and found an old zebra sheet and decided to make a mattress cover for it. I just laid the mattress on the sheet, folded it over, and cut the edges 2 inches along the side to make allowance for a seam. And then I went back and rolled the edge to hide the raw edge and sewed it with a zigzag stitch. Pretty neat!

Except when I poked my finger with one of the pins!

Scott played nurse and ran to get a sushi band aid to make it all better.

It turned out great, and now I can get a good night's sleep again.

Antique Store Finds

I simply love, love, love going on treasure hunts in antique stores, because you never know what you're going to find. This made me laugh out loud! Probably from the 60's and the cutest lingerie bag I've ever seen. I'm totally thinking about sewing one up for myself.

When I turned it around it was see-through and made sense that it could be used to stash your stockings, and be able to see where those black ones were hiding behind the fishnets.

And of course, you would need this matching wig head with the black lace and faux pearls.

My treasure hunting gal pal was Alexa (aka Swell Designer) and she is such a poser (kidding!) with the chiffon prom dress. I think she would look pretty swell in that.

The cupcake holders cracked me up with the name Krinkle Cups, and then what can I say about the Stickups for gay exciting decorative arrangements for $1.00??

Roller skates! Yes, really. They have to be 50 years old, and in spiffy shape, too. They reminded me of a song I remember called, "Brand New Key" by Melanie Safka in the 70's. The lyrics are:

I got a brand new pair of roller skates

You got a brand new key

I think that we should get together and try them out you see

Isn't he cute? This little owl clock was only about 4 inches tall. I might go back and get him, because I can't stop thinkin' about him.

Then, I saw this super pretty ad on a tin sign about cosmetics with Lucille Ball. I didn't know she did anything besides the I Love Lucy television show.

Okay, so now I can't get that silly roller skate song out of my head.....

It's Finished!

We finally started assembling the pieces to the fountain today. The top is just amazing with all 4 seasons painted on the ceramics. The water feature on top is just perfect, and worked beautifully.

Each side represents a season, and this is the summer side.

Everyone had a hard time deciding which side they liked the best.

I loved the fall colors myself.

Dean Saether, our Ceramic Arts Director at iLoveToCreate was so excited, and was happy to pause a moment for a photo opportunity before we lovingly placed it into a crate and sent it on it's merry way to Kansas City for the 2009 CCSA Convention and trade show on Friday.

I hope to have some better pics of the finished piece soon, and I'll post them for all to see.

Woooohoooo! Way to go, Design TEAM!

The Ceramic Fountain Saga continues....

The Duncan Ceramic Fountain is still being assembled in the iLoveToCreate design studios, and we are getting close to being finished. The four faces of the seasons were glued to the crown today. These plates are absolutely breathtaking and the artist who painted them is Suzie Shinseki. Her artistic designs never cease to amaze me.

Another of our designers, Cheryl Ball painted the fountain title, "For Everything There is a Season." Her skills as a decorative painter are fabulous, and she's fast, too!

The brains & brawn of the operation is Sam Carter, one of our talented graphics designers. He is also a skilled cabinet maker, and has built a beautiful column as the foundation and also assembled the ceramic pieces and fountain. Believe me, this has been a team effort.

Here are some more shots of the fountain in progress...




Tomorrow is the final day for the fountain to get ready and ship to the CCSA Convention in Kansas City. Sam will be building a crate to house the fountain, and the delicate packing will take place. But not before Scott has a chance to get some photography of our piece of art. I can't WAIT to see it all together!

And the saga continues....

Shocking Blue Patio Paint

I was one busy girl this weekend, and I crammed all I could into the 3 days for Labor Day weekend. I finally got to attack this gawd-awful table that I've had for umpteen years, and spray paint it an electric blue for the patio.


This is how it looked before. I filled all the cracks and crannies with wood putty then sanded it, and sucked up the dust with the vacuum cleaner.

It took gobs of putty, but I stuck with it until they were all filled up. Then while it was drying I made the hanger for a wall hanging. You can see that DIY Wire Hanger project in the post below.

One of the things I've found that works best when I spray paint, is if I turn my project upside down and spray the bottom first.

Then when I'm finished spraying, it's right side up while it's drying.

I'm glad I picked up 2 cans of spray, because I used one entire can, and part of another. I'll still have some left to spray candlesticks or something to match later.

I love how it turned out. I also put new fabric in the director's chairs and added a couple of bark cloth pillows. The foot stool is an old crate with a pillow stuffed into it.

Now, where's my dirty martini??

Repurposed Plant Hanger

What do you do when you have a plant hanger on a pot that you don't want to hang?

I turned mine into a curly-Q hanger!

My good friend and amazing artist, photographer, and graphics designer Robyn Craxton, made this fabulous wall hanging as a going away present when we moved 3 months ago from Nashville to iLoveToCreate in Fresno. She asked 12 of our closest friends to write on the backs of these vintage style postcards, and then she put grommets and jump rings on them to group them together. I LOVE it! Robyn put velcro hangers at the top, but I've been shopping around for something cool to hang it with. Sooooo.... today when I bought plants for the house, it hit my creative nerve when I saw the plant hanger.

Here's a little tutorial for my DIY Wire Hanger:







Thanks Robyn, and all the gang in Nashville... I miss all of you....

By the way, Robyn also has a cute little ETSY Shop called Robyn Ruth you'll love to browse.

Ikea Bed Adventure

With the 3-days off for Labor Day, we took a little road trip to Sacramento for Gold Rush Days and to browse IKEA for household stuff. The Gold Rush Days was way fan, as we walked on the streets covered with dirt and cowboys and horses and trains and buggies everywhere. But the real adventure happened when we bought new slats for our Scandinavian bed. Ours had become quite flat, and we needed a new mattress to make our backs happy. Sooo.... as you see here, the best part about IKEA is that it's relatively inexpensive. But, the worst part is that it's always a DIY project.

The slats had to go into plastic pockets and then a fabric spine went down the middle. Scott took over and was determined to make it a fun project. It didn't take tooo long to get the first side done.

The second side got crazy when we lost count of how many skinny slats went in before the fat slats, and then the double slats, and so it goes. Counting, poking, and silly fun.

The mattress was rolled up tight, and weighed 75 lbs. It was amazing how much mattress was in an itty bitty bag. But, the DIY slats and mattress adventure ended nicely with my happy tiger sprawled out on a brand new bed. Z-Z-Z-Z-z-z--z-z-zzzzz--zzzzz z z zzzz

Ceramic Fountain in progress

One of the most challenging and exciting things about the CCSA Convention is that Duncan Ceramics presents a huge ceramic showpiece for the charity auction every year.... and this year I get to be part of the iLoveToCreate team that's designing it!

It starts from a brainstorming sketch that the designers collaborate on, and then the ceramic artists get busy. This year we are building a humungus fountain that is covered with ceramic flowers.

I've been scared to death that I'm going to accidentally break a plate and have to start over because they are so delicate. The ceramic artists really came through on these as you can see, I have a flood of flowers covering my design area.

I've been selected to decoupage the column with handmade papers in the background. Some of the papers have teeny little ferns and leaves in them. I love all the saturation of colors.

Each of the 4 sides of the column will represent a different season. Here is the winter side, that will hold the christmas florals. The Collage Pauge has been perfect for placing a coat of glue on the column and then covering the paper with a coat of the matte finish. The empty spots were drawn with pencil around the ceramic pieces and marked with the same code on the bottom of the pieces. You have to be careful not to decoupage where the ceramics will be glued to the wood, otherwise the glue will not hold the heavy pieces. Huge project, huge fun, lots of Collage Pauge Instant Decoupage.

Allee Marderosian gave me a hand on the "Spring" side. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we painted the wood first so the sheer papers would be more vibrant.

I know, I know... it's not finished yet. I just left the studio where I glued hundreds of crystals on the ceramic flowers... whew!

You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the rest... yep, what a tease :-)

Inspiria- cirque du CCSA!

Our trade show team has been working their happy butts off this week to prepare for the largest convention of the year for the ceramic arts industry in Kansas City next week. Our booth will showcase the latest in bisque to the attendees of the Contemporary Ceramic Studios Association and also have some pretty snazzy make-it-take-it goodies, too. And the designers on hand will be our very own Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano-Murillo and Traci Bautista to kick things off to a crafty good time for everyone.

I took these snappy pics of just a teeny few of the massive amount of bisque from our Duncan Ceramics that will be shown in the booth. How exciting! If you own a ceramic arts studio, you won't want to miss it on September 11 - 14th.

Alyson Dias, our Marketing & Communications Director at iLoveToCreate recently got a call inviting the Tulip brand to be a part of New York City's Fashion's Night Out event, and she just posted the announcement on FaceBook today. How exciting and outrageous!

She also announced that... "the ever-fashionable and totally talented Erica Domesek of ps-imadethis is using Tulip Fabric Spray, Tulip Stencils and Tulip T-Shirt Forms in a DIY event at Tia's Place at Grand Central Station in NYC on Sept 10!!!"

Woot-woot!