Sun Prints

Some time last year I told here about a method of printing fabrics with the help of sunlight. I took an afternoon course a couple of years ago and last week I wanted to try it again on my own. Here comes a little tutorial.

First I covered a metal plate with a bin liner to avoid rust stains.





Then I attached my fabric on the surface with some masking tape and sprayed it with water.


After this I used protective gloves, changing to a new pair every time they were stained so I wouldn't ruin my print.

I used textile paints, adding colour pigments to a basic spray emulsion.

I kept adding pigments to get different autumn shades.

This fabric was too big to work on in the sun, the fabric and colour dried before I added the darkest shade so the colour change was not smooth. I placed leaves on the fabric to stay there until the colour had dried completely.

It was too windy to let it dry ourdoors in the sun, so I had to take my project indoors.

This is the result. The colour will disappear under the leaves (or whatever you decide to place on the fabric). Here are some closeups. Rowan:

Birch:

Oak:

Something was different this time, because my prints from the class look like this:

and this

We used glass panes there, and the work was done indoors so everything was kept exactly in place; and the fabric was really flat on the glass. My bin liner was probably not flat enough to make such clear pictures. I'll be wiser next time. This tutorial is "Don't do like I do, but like I tell you to do"!

The printed fabric needs to be ironed to fasten the colour. I may use the prints for a table runner or a bag or something. I tried to position the leaves so that I could cut squares of the fabric.

This week I have hand sewn the binding on the Giraffe quilt, machine sewn binding to the Lion and giraffe strip quilt, and crocheted some granny squares for the second orphanage blanket. On Wednesday I visited my mother and came back home with some (a lot of) fabrics and unfinished projects of hers. I also found a box with my old dresses from the late 60's, too small for anyone to wear. There may be something to show on VTT!

Yesterday was my Back to school -day, because it was the first night of the sewing group to meet. I started cutting and sewing the sweet elephant quilt Miri designed. It will be my third Orphanage quilt.

VIntage Thingies 39 - Sewing Table

Welcome to Vintage Thingies Thursday again! Suzanne is hosting at her Coloradolady blog, just click the logo to get there and see all the links.


This week I'll show you something I have loved since childhood, an accordeon-style sewing table.


Each side can be opened wide to have access to the lower drawers. The top ones have lids.

I believe the table belonged to my grandmother, the one who used to crochet fine lace for all her grandchildren's bedsheets. I can imagine her lace threads and patterns here, and darning thread for her stockings, with the wooden darning mushroom. After her, my mother kept her loom notions in it. Today it is filled with my sewing notions, name tags, pearls, embellishments ... It is a lovely thing to have in the living room; I can make many things disappear in the drawers when the living room suddenly needs to look like nobody lives in it.

I believe the table is made in Finland, some time before the war. The design is old and international, and even today I have seen boxes like this in a smaller size for sale in crafty shops.

This was all for this week, now go back to Suzanne to see the other links on her list. Thank you for coming by!

Granny Blanket Finished

Last April Pip from Meet Me at Mike's invited everyone to crochet granny squares, one granny a day in May. I had never crocheted this pattern, but I wanted to give it a try. First I needed some yarn, so I recycled some old hand knitted pieces, and washed the curls out of my yarn.

I made little squares.

I made more squares, and bigger ones, after I found a nest of my wool rests. I was hooked on this, so easy to watch TV and let the hands move by themselves.

I bought some cream coloured wool to brighten up the sock-coloured squares.

And finally added some dark brown to join up the squares to a blanket. My Brown Owls crocheting badge project turned into a Brown Owls Community badge project, because this blanket will join some quilts I have been sewing, and they will be delivered to the parish's project collecting quilts, blankets and sheets for orphanages in Tanzania.

I had crocheted 80 squares but the kid size (approximately 90 x 120 cm or 36" x 44") blanket only used 63 of them. 17 orphan squares ... I still have time and yarn, maybe they will grow into another blanket like this?

Apple

Mr. Kotkarankki came home last night from his week up north. I feel like this:


Red cheeks and all.

He brought me this:


It has been washed now, and saved from the washline when it started raining, and hanging on the indoors washline instead. I feel happy.

While he was away, I was crocheting the dark brown rows and joining my granny squares from May. Maybe three rows to go, and the yarn ends to hide before I can show you the finished blanket.

Now I'll go and look at him again! Did I tell you already that I feel happy? I'm smiling.

Vintage Thingies 38 - Children's Coffee Set

Time flies when you ought to be doing something and end up just thinking about doing it. It is Thursday again, and I'm participating in Suzanne's Vintage Thingies Thursaday. You will find all the links here at the end of the post.




I have shown you earlier my hand painted teacups. The next set was in the same cupboard. This again is something I have received from my mother when I was all grown up.

It is a coffee set for three. My mother has played with them when she was a child, in the 1920's.

These are the saucers, with three different children playing with kitchenware.

This little plate is not from the set, it has a different manufacturer's stamp on the back. But here also the child is in black and there is a duck, too.

I had a new doll size tea set from my grandparents when I was little, but there was nothing left of it when I was grown and wanted to take it with me. Maybe mother gave me this set to replace my loss!

Have you ever noticed that when you have found

something nice, you suddenly bump into similar

things in many places? Well, in the latest issue of

Kodin Kuvalehti, my women's magazine, was an

article about a lovingly renovated summer cottage.

The owner could participate in VTT every week for

a couple of years with her treasures! I just wanted

to show you her blue and white towel rack cover

and her butter crock, which is a little bigger than

mine and has a different flower decoration.

Don't you just love her kitchen?

Have a lovely VTT!

Moth

It's been a long time since I wrote anything here. I have been a single parent from last weekend as Mr. Kotkarankki has gone fishing for a week. This means no proper cooking for lunch, no sports on TV, but also no kisses for good night. The so called freedom of choice leaves me working half-heartedly. I would like to get something nice done while he is away, but my energy is too low. I feel like this:

(In real life I'm not that grey.)

Today I have been a little busy anyway. I finally finished the quilting of my windows quilt for the orphanage; those windows took a lot of time! Both quilts still need bindings.

The strip quilt is machine quilted with a wavy stitch on the seams. For the windows I have tried to create the illusion of a perspective. Tomorrow I need to cut binding for the strip quilt and bind them both.

My evening project is now once again the granny squares I crocheted in May. I'm adding one more round, in dark brown, and combining the squares as I go. I hope to show the finished blanket at the end of the week.

I finally did something more than the usual housekeeping. This afternoon I ironed the heavy winter curtains and hung them in the living room window. The evenings are dark already and I felt like being in an aquarium, when I only had the light summer curtains drawn. Maybe tomorrow I will vacuum the house. Maybe I'm just joking.

Vintage Thingies 37 - JAJ Casseroles

It is suddenly Thursday again and time to show and tell about our vintage treasures. This week I have something really special to show: it is not from my family. I just bought these two oven proof glass casseroles yesterday from a flea market. I liked the shape and size of them, and they were in flawless condition.



They nest nicely, so there will not be too much storage problems.

The vegetable pictures are different, this is from the smaller bowl.

And this is the bigger one.

I expected to see the Pyrex stamp on the bottom, but there were the initials JAJ, a crown, and Made in England instead. After some Google work I found out that this simply means Pyrex made in England. The plant in Sunderland was closed in 2007 so my casseroles may become very valuable collector's items! I paid 1 € for them, a little more than 1 US $ and less than 1 UK £ . The seller said they were his mother's from the late 1960's.

By the way, if you want to see more details of my last week's towel rack cover, see this post.

Now hop back to Suzanne to see what the other Vintage Thingies Thursday blogs are showing today!