Bleaching fabric

Sometimes does not work.


It's the first time I have tried to lighten fabric and decided to use the bleach.  Before starting I read some instructions on the internet, placed each fabric colour in a separate mixture of warm water and bleach for several minutes.  

Here they are, can you tell the difference?  

No.  Neither can I.  


Do you have any suggestions for future attempts?

I'm back

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. Well actually I can.

Remember this?

It became this:

It's a present for my friend Alison and her husband Guy, they had a little boy called Rory in December last year and I thought it was about time I made them a quilt for a cot bed. It's called the 'Descendants Quilt' and I designed it so the parents can record the birth of each new child and pass it down through their family. In each white patch they can sew or write the names of their children, the birth dates and the mother and father's names. Each patch has 2 boy and 2 girl colours so it will work for both sexes.

I frantically finished the quilt before I met up with Alison and my other not-so-old university flat mates in the Peak District for a weekend. It was tight but I finished the quilt on the drive to Laura's house, thanks for driving Lauren! On Saturday we celebrated Alison's 31st and on Sunday, Laura's 30th birthday. It was a great weekend, Laura and her mum really looked after us. Here's some photos of Sheen:

We don't get together as often as we used to as Laura now lives in Dubai and Michelle in the Australian outback, thank goodness Lauren, Fiona and Alison still live in England.

When I'm sewing I like to have noise in the background and whilst finishing this quilt I watched Twilight for the first, second and third time... plus the commentary, and all in one week! Lets just say I got slightly obsessed and read all four books in the Twilight series in the next two weeks, missing lunch with friends, leaving work as early as possible, you get the picture. I've now read practically everything on Stephanie Meyer's website and can't wait to see the next film. Thankfully I have a friend who also likes the film as much as I do and we're going to the cinema together and hopefully we won't look like two strange women in their 30s surrounded by hundreds of teenage girls.

Right now I have over 500 posts to catch up on, you have been busy.

- - - - - 101 in 1001 - - - - -

35. Spend a weekend with the girls.

37. Go away for the weekend with the boy.

That's my dress!

So I'm sat on the sofa reading a post about the principles of fabric selection by oliver + s, and imagine my surprise when I scrolled down to see a photo of the dress I made. Lets just say I have a big smile on my face. In case you missed the photo of the dress from my last post, here it is again:

I especially liked how the designer used the words 'elegant and sophisticated' - I am honoured.

This is the first and only item of clothing I have finished (I have a Gillian sized dress I started to make for St Georges day but it's still not finished). In January I wanted to join an evening class to learn holiday level French, to you and me, that's asking for a bread without the locals muttering under their breath. But all of the French classes started in September and lasted a year so I could not join. I had already decided I wanted to make an item of clothing and so joined a dressmaking class to learn the basics, the group met two hours a week for ten weeks - perfect. I love the oliver + s patterns as the designs allow children to look like children and had looked through the flickr pool quite a few times as it's a great source of fabric inspiration. So as soon as I joined the class I ordered the tea party pattern.

My niece loved her party dress and I would make it again.

Gx

More fabric

At the Sticky Fingers quilt show they had fabric samples donated by sales people, magazines and cakes for sale, and all proceeds go to Breakthrough Breastcancer. As it's such a good cause I had to help out by eating homemade cake, and by buying fabric samples I was finally able to get my hands on some of the Farmers Market range by Sandi Henderson, here's a sample

plus another sample

and another

and another

and another

and a sample from another designer, sorry I don't know who

the last one, I promise

I really need to start sewing.

Gx

Present

Over the last few days I have been receiving presents. OK, so they may have been ordered and paid for by me, but I'm still happy.

Here's the biggest parcel.

And inside it was a new wide table for my sewing machine. It will make quilting so much easier.

New fabric. ALOT of cream and some beautiful corals from the Gypsy Rose Collection by Fig Tree Quilts. I purchased all of this fabric because I wanted the cream fabric (at the bottom of the photo, it's from the Aviary collection by 3 Sisters) and when I eventually decided to order it Quilters Cloth had just sold out. I had already put in my basket all of the other fabric, so I had to buy it. Right?

Luckily I managed to find it at The Bramble Patch, thanks ladies.

Is it strange that I have a big smile on my face?

Finally, here's a sneaky peak at one of the many projects I am currently working on.

Have a great week,

Gx