Dioramarama

Camilla Engman Theme

Thu, 01 May 2008 09:32:14 -0600

Camilla Engman iGoogle home page theme! I got mine.

Takashi Iwasaki

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:59:55 -0600

Collages by Takashi Iwasaki, via Martin Klasch. I get so much quilt inspiration from collage art. Iawsaki's embroidery, "Abbies", and paintings are incredible.

Announcing True Up

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:58:35 -0600

I know I've been scarce. It's because I've been consumed with a new project, and today I'm finally ready for the reveal. I'm thrilled to announce True Up, a blog devoted solely to fabric. All fabric, all the time. Fabric love 24-7. I got the idea last year after I lamented that I couldn't go to the fall Quilt Market to get a sneak peek at all the newest fabric lines being released. Even if I could get the time off work and take the journey with baby in tow, they wouldn't let me in because I'm not a shop owner or manufacturer or press. But wait. Wasn't Dioramarama press? Kinda? I mean, I write about fabric a lot. I thought maybe they'd accept someone with a blog about nothing but fabric. Wait. A blog -- all about fabric?! Why doesn't such a thing exist? How great would that be? I already spent so much time looking around online for new and vintage fabrics, and dreaming about my own patterns, it seemed like a job perfectly suited for me. Even though the idea came from my desire to go to Quilt Market, the project quickly became far more than a means to that end. It feels like I'm finally answering my calling. So, after months of planning and mucking around in Wordpress (to which I have switched after being a Movable Type person since the beginning of blog-time), my all-fabric, all-the-time blog is ready for the light of day. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I don't know quite what the fate of Dioramarama will be in the midst of all this, but I plan to keep it going (at the slow pace you've come to expect!) for the time being.

Dyeing Lessons

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:30:57 -0600

For my baby shower my friend Christie gave me some hand-dyed/stamped cloth diapers (to be used as burp cloths). I love them and ever since I have wanted to try my hand at dyeing. After what seemed like a long time gathering all the supplies and finding a some time this past weekend, I got my chance. Here's how it went. I bought three colors of procion MX dye from my local art store: chocolate brown, avocado green, and pearl gray. You also need soda ash, but the art store was out so I went by the pool store for some. When I asked the guy there for some, he asked me immediately if I was doing some dyeing, so they are familiar with this request. I gathered a bunch of cotton onesies, new big ones and old small ones, and bought three yards of Robert Kaufman kona PFD. All together it weighed 2 1/2 pounds. Each 2/3 oz bottle dyes one pound of fabric so I figured I was good. You also need salt -- a lot of salt -- two cups per three gallons of water. We had a big box of coarse Kosher salt on hand and a container of regular table salt. Now that I (duh) read the instructions on the Jacquard site, I see you're supposed to use non-iodized salt. I knew the coarse salt would probably not dissolve well, and thus cause problems, but I forged ahead anyway. I'm not too into the mottled, variegated hand-dyed look; I was after more solid colors. Apparently the mottled look is best achieved by the low-water immersion technique, so I opted for tub dyeing and pretty much just followed the directions on the bottle of dye. However along the way I referenced pburch.net and Lisa Call's great series of posts on her process. I got the fabric wet, then filled three buckets full of hot tap water and dumped in the salt. I didn't pre-mix my dyes or use urea, just (carefully) dumped each jar into the salt water mixture. You have to use a mask and gloves as you do this, as the dyes are very toxic in powder form. Then I put the fabric and some of the onesies in and stirred. The soda ash goes in next. I realized I was supposed to have already dissolved the soda ash in water. I decided to just dump it straight into the dye solution. It is coarse, about like laundry detergent, so it probably didn't dissolve all that well. However, the brown and green looked great immediately, rich and deep. The gray looked bad from the get-go, more purple than gray and with lots of spots all over. (yuck) I let it sit for a little while then added more onesies, so that they would come out a shade or two lighter than the first fabrics I put in. (They did.) I let it all sit, stirring occasionally, for a few hours more. The dye jars say 50 minutes but I let it go longer. Then I removed the clothes and fabric from one bucket and ran them under the faucet a little bit. I squeezed them out, put them aside, and dumped the bucket of dye solution down the drain. I was worried about staining but there was none. Then I transported the fabrics in the empty bucket to the washer, which was filling with cold water. I repeated the steps for the other two colors. You can wash them all together without worrying about color transfer. Last, I ran two more cycles on hot. Lisa Call recommends turning your water heater up to max before you do this so the wash water is as hot as possible. The heat is what removes the leftover dye at this stage, so you want it as hot as possible. I didn't bother with synthrapol, a special detergent that dyers use that bonds with the remaining dye molecules and wisks them away. The results: The gray was all but disastrous. Clearly the dye powder didn't dissolve very well before I put the fabric in. I think there was a layer of powder still on top of the water that hadn't busted through the surface tension before I added the fabrics. Although, the second round of onesies turned out great! (Oops - no picture of those.) The brown and green turn out lighter than I thought they were and far less than solid. Turns out I didn't stir the mixture enough. Still, Otto wears it well. I want to try again, if only to do it right! I bet the washing machine method would yield more solid colors. Now to think of something good to do with the fabric.

New Fabric

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:36:53 -0600

I don't often buy multiple fabrics from one line, but I loved Come Quilt With Me by Pat Yamin for Marcus Brothers. I'm thinking of making a semi-traditional quilt with it ... like this or this. I ordered it from Z & S Fabrics -- this was my first experience with them and they get the big thumbs up. The mailman also brought a good load of barkcloth scraps from eBay. The seller followed my email address over to here and liked Dioramarama a lot and sent a nice email and included some extra non-barkcloth vintage goodies in the package. How sweet is that? She has an etsy shop, trees3. Clearly Liz, you need a blog now!

Modern Quilt-Along: It (Still) Lives!

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:50:32 -0600

I am honored that my Paletas quilt (aka Plain Spoken) was the Quilt of the Day over at Sew Mama Sew earlier this week! That reminds me to give a long-awaited Modern Quilt-Along update. The MQA mostly lives over at Flickr now, and I think that is a better place for it in general (no having to rely on me for updates, etc.)

This is sure to re-ignite the MQA fire: New patterns from Bill and Weeks! There are three patterns developed using RJR's new line of solids, RJR Cotton Supreme. You know I love me some solids, so I look forward to getting my hands on these. As it is now, I only have the color card, which is fun to stare at ...
Bill and Weeks sent the color card and patterns to me long ago (thanks!) before they were released. I don't know exactly when they were made available to the public, sorry! That's the baby tunnel for you. The patterns and kits can be purchased at the Funquilts site. Which one are you going to make first? I'm thinking Leaves.

New Iron Woooohooooo

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:44:58 -0600

Goodbye, $100-on-sale-for-$45 Rowenta DE880 "commercial professional" with easily-scorched faceplate that no longer holds water (fill it up, watch water flow straight out the bottom!). To be fair, this iron has fallen to the floor a time or two, but many people agree that their Rowenta is lousy.

Hello, Black & Decker Classic. Heavy and cute. $30. Good steam. No more annoying auto-off. So far, so good.

Squarey

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:51:23 -0600

Finished this week. I love him! I used Cascade 220. Started knitting when I was pregnant, lost (to my great distress) the Jess Hutch pattern book, then finally found it in one of those horrible clutter piles that have a few bills, a bunch of receipts, a few articles-we-mean-to-read, a few drawings, etc. etc. etc., then gets swept into a box rather than sorted through.
Stuffing knitted items is difficult. I think I prefer fabric toys. Wouldn't a fabric version of Squarey be cute and easy?
Ravelry Link

Cute

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:50:41 -0600

How cute is this? Terrycloth Sunsuit by Kate Quinn Organics, on sale at Snazzy Tots. It might be fun to try sewing something like this. And imagining Otto wearing this, over at the KQO site, nearly makes me faint. Thanks to Melissa for tipping me off to Kate Quinn Organics in this post a while back.

Love Love Love

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:31:21 -0600

1. Passage Quilt (2005, 65" x 61"), made by Sherri Lynn Wood from her mother's evening gowns, everyday clothes, Sunday dresses, nursing uniforms, robes, pajamas and bathing suit.

Passage Quilts = "grief and transition work through improvisational quilt making." More Passage Quilts by Ms. Wood here on Flickr and on her website, where you can learn of here exhibitions and workshops. (via Reference Library)
2. Whole-cloth numbers quilt, made by (Austinite!) Malka out of an IKEA duvet cover:

And that's only the beginning of the amazing quilts she creates, often using her own dyed/discharged fabrics.
3. Netgranny: Pick a Swiss grandma to knit you a pair of socks. (via the Craft Magazine Blog)

Pot Pie Recipe

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:49:05 -0600

In response to the pot pie video I got a few recipe requests. Here it is, kind of!

Free-Form Vegetarian Pot Pie

- One or two potatoes
- A couple carrots
- Other vegetables - green beans, peas, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower are the standards, but use your imagination
- Tofu or tempeh if you like
- Can of biscuits: Flaky layers work the best
- a box of veggie broth
- 4 tbsp butter
- 4-5 tbsp flour

Saute or steam vegetables and optional tofu/tempeh till they are about halfway cooked. Meanwhile, make sauce by melting butter then stirring flour in. Cook butter-flour a bit. Stir in broth a little at a time, keeping the consistency gravy-like. Mix sauce with vegetables and spice it up good, especially more salt than what is healthy for you. Pour mixture into a baking pan or pans. Have someone pop the biscuit can for you because you're too chicken to do it yourself. Separate each biscuit into thirds, roughly (the "flaky layers" kind allows you to do this with ease). Feel a little un-Martha-ish for using canned biscuits instead of making your own crust, which is probably delicious but takes far more effort than you can summon tonight. Bake roughly according to directions on biscuit can, which you have to fish out of the garbage to read. Or, just go for 400F and keep an eye on it, you'll know when it's done. Let sit for a little while to settle and cool before digging in. Yum! You might worry that the biscuits will get all goopy if you save leftovers, but they don't really. --- And thanks for the film recommendations, everyone. Many of your suggestions have been languishing in my netflix queue for years, so it's time to move them on up.

Film Literacy 2008

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:11:11 -0600

Defective Yeti's New Year's Resolution is to see all of the AFI's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time that he hasn't yet seen. I'm stealing his idea, only I'm not making a resolution of it because I can't commit to anything lately. I'm only using it to stock my Netflix queue, and as fodder for National Delurking Week (and the last day even, so go nuts!). Which of the haven't-seen movies below should I see immediately because if I don't we can't be friends anymore? Which ones should I not bother with? I have seen exactly half of them -- can you beat that? (Probably.) legend: black=seen red = never seen orange = seen but need/want to see again 1. Citizen Kane (1941) 2. The Godfather (1972) 3. Casablanca (1942) 4. Raging Bull (1980) 5. Singin' In The Rain (1952) 6. Gone With The Wind (1939) 7. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) 8. Schindler's List (1993) 9. Vertigo (1958) 10. The Wizard Of Oz (1939) 11. City Lights (1931) 12. The Searchers (1956) 13. Star Wars (1977) 14. Psycho (1960) 15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 16. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 17. The Graduate (1967) 18. The General (1927) 19. On The Waterfront (1954) 20. It's A Wonderful Life (1946) 21. Chinatown (1974) 22. Some Like It Hot (1959) 23. The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) 24. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 25. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) 26. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939) 27. High Noon (1952) 28. All About Eve (1950) 29. Double Indemnity (1944) 30. Apocalypse Now (1979) 31. The Maltese Falcon (1941) 32. The Godfather Part II (1974) 33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 34. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937) 35. Annie Hall (1977) 36. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) 37. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946) 38. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) 39. Dr. Strangelove (1964) 40. The Sound Of Music (1965) 41. King Kong (1933) 42. Bonnie And Clyde (1967) 43. Midnight Cowboy (1969) 44. The Philadelphia Story (1940) 45. Shane (1953) 46. It Happened One Night (1934) 47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) 48. Rear Window (1954) 49. Intolerance (1916) 50. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) 51. West Side Story (1961) 52. Taxi Driver (1976) 53. The Deer Hunter (1978) 54. M*A*S*H (1970) 55. North By Northwest (1959) 56. Jaws (1975) 57. Rocky (1976) 58. The Gold Rush (1925) 59. Nashville (1975) 60. Duck Soup (1933) 61. Sullivan's Travels (1941) 62. American Graffiti (1973) 63. Cabaret (1972) 64. Network (1976) 65. The African Queen (1951) 66. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) 67. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966) 68. Unforgiven (1992) 69. Tootsie (1982) 70. A Clockwork Orange (1971) 71. Saving Private Ryan (1998) 72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 73. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) 74. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) 75. In The Heat Of The Night (1967) 76. Forrest Gump (1994) 77. All The President's Men (1976) 78. Modern Times (1936) 79. The Wild Bunch (1969) 80. The Apartment (1960) 81. Spartacus (1960) 82. Sunrise (1927) 83. Titanic (1997) 84. Easy Rider (1969) 85. A Night At The Opera (1935) 86. Platoon (1986) 87. 12 Angry Men (1957) 88. Bringing Up Baby (1938) 89. The Sixth Sense (1999) 90. Swing Time (1936) 91. Sophie's Choice (1982) 92. Goodfellas (1990) 93. The French Connection (1971) 94. Pulp Fiction (1994) 95. The Last Picture Show (1971) 96. Do The Right Thing (1989) 97. Blade Runner (1982) 98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) 99. Toy Story (1995) 100. Ben-Hur (1959) Or, to boil it down, I haven't seen these 50 films: Raging Bull (1980)
Gone With The Wind (1939)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
City Lights (1931)
The Searchers (1956)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
The General (1927)
Chinatown (1974)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)
High Noon (1952)
All About Eve (1950)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)
The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)
Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Shane (1953)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Intolerance (1916)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Rocky (1976)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Duck Soup (1933)
American Graffiti (1973)
Cabaret (1972)
Network (1976)
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Unforgiven (1992)
Tootsie (1982)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
Modern Times (1936)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Apartment (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Sunrise (1927)
Easy Rider (1969)
A Night At The Opera (1935)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Swing Time (1936)
Sophie's Choice (1982)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Ben-Hur (1959)

Pot Pie

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:02:27 -0600

I made veggie pot pie on New Year's Eve Eve and friend Gregg made a movie of it.

Six Months

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:07:00 -0600

Otto is six months old today! To commemorate, here is my labor and birth story that I never did get around to sharing. Warning: non-pithiness, gore, and the "v" word inside.

Inspirations

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:32:23 -0600

1. How often does a craft-blog post bring tears to your eyes? This did it for me. A lady named Lenore wrote to Futuregirl Alice to request a pattern for her Octopus stuffie long before Alice had released it to the public (third pattern down). Lenore has a tradition of making a Christmas ornament for each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. People, she has 99 grandchildren and great-grandchildren! So the resulting Christmas tree is just about the best thing I have ever seen. Making me even more gushy about this is the fact that Alice sent me the pattern in a swap earlier this year ... I asked her for it because Otto means "eight" in Italian so surrounding him with octopi seems a propos. 2. It looks like Susan's article about the Vintage Fabric Flickr group (with images and quotes me) made it in the new issue of Adorn! Hooray! Thanks Susan! I will be rushing to a bookstore to get an issue this evening. The group now boasts 1,500 members and is nearing 5,000 images. There would actually be at least twice that many but we try to stay on top of editing out the non-vintage and non-fabric pictures. 3. And here's some assorted vintage inspiration: - Al Q's Vintage Kiddie Record Graphics, via Drawn - Vintage playing card graphics (click "playing cards") at Kelly English ... relatedly, I am crazy about Kelly and Kindra's letterpress stuff at Studio on Fire - Sugar Frosted Cereal Museum pool on Flickr