Thursday, July 23, 2009

It was great.... We had our Retreat on June 12th and 13th. It was supposed to be a "mini" retreat, but we had so much to do, I prefer to call it just a Retreat. Several projects were worked on and some were even completed. The most fun was had by those who participated in the Hand Dyeing of fabrics. I may be bias since that is the main thing I did and had a wonderful time doing it.
We had fun with the basics of hand dyeing and ended up with 9 beautiful colors and a black. Each one is unique and beautiful.
We then played with soy wax and tried our hand at "batiking". Some of these are quite lovely and unique too. We stamped the wax onto the fabric with household items such as potato mashers, empty thread spools, cookie cutters, and even a wire whip. After the wax dried, the fabric was placed into one and sometimes 2 colors. After the fabric set for several hours, the wax was removed to reveal the great designs left behind by the wax.
Then we tried a couple of methods using shaving cream. Both of the methods using this were great at giving soft colorful pieces of fabric. The one method has the shaving cream in a layer on plastic and you add the dyes to other shaving cream and apply it however you wish to the shaving cream layer. Then you lay your fabric on top of this and let it set before removing it to dry.The other shaving cream method has the fabric "painted" with the dyes and the shaving cream is added on top of the dye and allowed to dry. Such beautiful fabrics to play with and use in other projects. Just how do you choose which ones and how to use them. Hmmm.
Anyway, we also had a class on making tote bags. Aprons were made, quilts started and some finished. But most of all, we enjoyed getting together, chatting, sharing ideas and enjoying the yummy foods that come with such a group of ladies.
Our next retreat is scheduled for November 6th and 7th this year.

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