Hawaiian Paintings

Leaving the Big Island tomorrow after two months.  So sad to leave...but back to California and reality.  I have sewn so many baby clothes, and pillows and projects...not sure why I always forget to shoot so I can post...something always distracts me.  I just scanned these four...my latest little oils.  Have yet to find a gallery for the oils, but the watercolors are still selling well so I'm happy with that.

Mauna Kea Beach (6x6)

Snorkel spot north end of Mauna Kea (6x6)

a fun little wave (6x6)

a bit bigger wave (11x14)

Hawaiian Onesie

Kipp is here another couple of days...then back to California.  We've had a great time and made some fun baby clothes in between beach and pool time.  Our latest, another set of onesies decorated with freezer paper stencils.

start with a pack of onesies (from Target)

dye bath of Rit Dye (I only had blue and

yellow...so we were limited)

the dyed shirts, ready for printing

xacto knife, cutting board and freezer paper

draw your design, then cut it out (shiny side down)

iron "stencil" to onesie shiny side to fabric,

hot iron, no steam

simply daub paint onto shirt, let dry, remove freezer paper,

iron to heat set.

and...here's the finished project from the other day:

Baby Boy Outfits

Well, big week!  It was my birthday yesterday...I turned 60!!!!  ugh...as my mother put it, 6 decades...WOW.  Seems old to me.  But, I had a wonderful day.  Put Chris on a plane to Alaska...he's meeting Ryan, Andrew and my dad for 5 days of salmon fishing.  Kipp has come over to play with me.  Think I told you - I'm going to be a grandma!!!!!  Yipppeeeee.  Kipp is halfway there and we're taking this opportunity to make some fun clothes for the baby.  Sooooo, after dropping Chris at the airport we headed to Kona and the fabric store then Target for infant t-shirts.  I downloaded the super cute, super easy Perfect Diaper Cover pattern from MADE...a very smart and clever blog and we got to work.  Dana (MADE) has a great tutorial, so if you want to make some of these just check out the link...great directions, very easy.  We were all about making matching t-shirts...so this is what we did.

a package of t-shirts from Target

1/2 yard of each fabric choice

downloaded pattern from MADE

Heat and Bond (to adhere appliques) and elastic

Kipp cut out a shape from the leftover fabric scraps

and ironed on a piece of Heat and Bond

 She peeled off the protective layer exposing

the adhesive 

positioned the applique

ironed, hot without steam

too cute!

Then, we did it again with bandana fabric

Nautical Pillows

I've had this project in mind for quite a long time.  Ryan's bedroom (at the Manzanita remodel) has been the last place we've worked on (since it's upstairs and no one sees it).  To continue the nautical theme I thought it would be cool to make a bunch of 18" square pillows for the head of his bed using signal flag designs.  I went to Kona last monday and bought a yard of red, white, blue and yellow.  I didn't really care which (flag) letters I used, I was sort of going for cute and colorful.  Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I saw the nautical napkin post by Purl Bee yesterday.  Now I look like a big ole copycat :(  Oh well, happens alot in blogland I guess...She did a really nice job and I'd suggest checking out her post.  Great tutorial and great photos.  I haven't finished yet...Ryan arrives from Asia today and so we'll head into Kona to pick him up and maybe I can stop by the yardage store for zippers and backing.  Thought I'd share my progress so far...these are VERY colorful and quite pretty...think they'll make a statement in a white beadboard room!

Petroglyph Dress

The Big Island of Hawaii has several areas where you can find petroglyphs.  They're very cool...and many of the island logos reflect the cool graphic nature of the designs.  I thought it would be fun to silkscreen a border using one of the designs...the Honu (turtle). I bought a rayon dress clothing blank from Dharma Trading Company (a very cool place to buy everything related to textile arts) and dyed it with Rit Dye

following the package direction...I got the dress wet first, 

added salt and let sit in the dye bath overnight.

The dye didn't take as well as it usually does,

kinda splotchy...but kinda tie-dye ish so I like it

Next...for the design.  I sketched out a pattern 

of turtles and transferred to clear 

contact paper (for the silkscreen stencil)

I carefully cut out the images with an Xacto knife

saving the inside cutout pieces to add to the silkscreen

to complete the images

screen with stencil adhered, ready to print

with squeegee and fabric ink I'm ready to print

I used the ironing board so as I moved around the hem line 

the wet images wouldn't stick to one another

and transfer ink where I didn't want it to go

After heat setting the printed images...the dress

was ready to go!