Tea on Tuesday

Some things of interest this cold sunny Tuesday, while I sit here sipping a hot cuppa Lady Grey with lots of honey.

First - if you love pincushions - you have to check out the winners of Piecework Magazine's Pin Cushion Contest - Unbelievable!!! I tried to show a picture here, but for some reason it didn't work.. So just go to this link - and view some fabulous creativity!!!

My favorite, altho it was really hard to choose just one, was the grandmother's purse, - and even the honorable mentions were more than honorable!!! I wouldn't mind having any one of them in my collection!!!


Second, I am having a little giveaway.

I recently purchased Angela Cartwright  and   Sarah Fishburn's Volume 11 of their wonder-full Pasticcio Quartz book.

As I was reading it, I realized, I had already ordered this issue !!  I got swept up in the excitement of thinking a new volume was hot off the presses and without checking, just blindly ordered it!!!

So, my mistake, is someone's gain!!

These little books are a fabulous compilation of everything artsy, from blog artist interviews, to paper dolls, poetry, famous quotes, rubber stamps, art history, and a mind boggling assortment of inspiring art, eye candy, photos, links, and how-to's. Alot of creativity between those covers!

Rules to enter: Spread the word on your blogs, leave a comment  here, with a way to contact you , and become a follower, if you are not already!

A winner will be randomly selected on Friday, March 4th.


As always, we are glad to have you join us for tea every Tuesday - please drop by Patty and Kimmie for a list of other tea lovers!

Hapa Zome Tutorial

I subscribe to the online newsletter Quilting Daily, from Interweave. Today they featured artist India Flint, and interviewed her about her natural dying techniques.

It was really quite interesting. One of the things she spoke about was a technique she calls hapa zome- "essentially a "kitchen Japanese" phrase meaning leaf dye "

It seemed quite simple, so today, I gave it a try!

All you really need is:

     a block of wood, 

            a piece of paper (I used a section of brown paper bag), 

                       some leaves and flowers gathered from outside, 

                             some fabric (I used muslin- no silk available!), 

                                                and

                                        a big hammer!

*Place your fabric on the wood block.

**Place your leaves/flowers on the fabric. I did them one at a time- the paper tends to slide a bit when hammering.

***Place the paper over the leaf

****Hammer it to a pulp!!

The hammering beats the color into the fabric. I found that placing the leaves face down on the fabric bleeds a bit more color, and if you are lucky, the complete imprint of the leaf will show up. Some plants leave better imprints than others.

I tried cedar with berries, it smells great - but really doesn't leave the best imprint. I picked some wildflowers, lavender, lavender blossoms, sunflower leaves, clover, hyacinth bean flowers and pods, kale, spinach, broccoli leaf,  foxtail, strawberry leaves, and quite a few others. Some just left a green blob, some left a nice print.


India says the colors will set with a steam iron. She used this technique on a 6m x6m floor cloth for a theatre, and several years later, the colors are still set, even with folks walking on it!

My muslin square just happened to fit perfectly on a vintage "ventilator" I picked up at a yard sale last week, for $1 !!!

This was a square cut in an old log cabin, with a piece of screen over it, for ventilation in a kitchen. Pretty cool piece of wood- I laid the muslin on top of it to get a photo and it fits!!

The print even looks good on the reverse side of the fabric (see above). Once you figure out which flowers and leaves work best, you could fill up the whole piece with color.
This was just a practice piece, but I will steam iron it, and then figure out what to do with it!! Now, on to the woods, for more leaves and stuff to hammer into fabric....................................hapa zome!!!!