And onto Folkwear

Then it was on to a new shop in town....Meet Molly Hamilton, owner of this wonderful, new shop called Folkwear. Do you remember the line of Folkwear patterns ...out many years ago. They were wonderful, authentic, unique and just fun to own. I  had many of them, some I made into clothing and some I just liked to look at .....over and over because they were beautiful designs. Molly has a wall full and just looking at them brought back memories.

Meet Molly......

There is eye candy for the fabric lover everywhere you look, bins of fabric, lots of patterns and even a small blackboard announcing the latest events.

The mini library has wonderful books and magazines dealing with all areas of clothing and embellishment....so grab a book

and have a seat in this very comfortable chair...also surrounded by samples of vintage designs.

There are areas for cutting and sewing where you can see how they work; Molly and her partner make many of the wonderful samples you are about to see.

And this room...what can I say about this room...."died and gone to fiberart heaven"...? Every pattern in the store has at least one sample in fabric and often in authentic fabric suitable to the time period of the pattern. AND.....many you can try on to see how they work on you. There is also an amazing section of old, authentic pieces just for looking as they are delicate and the fibers old but so beautiful just to be able to see them up close.

So here Cathy found a wrap she loved after trying it on and here is the pattern - how much fun is that. I have to say, several of us tried it on and purchased the pattern.

And here is our Dort who looks adorable in the 1940s dress....She had to have the pattern also.

I hope you get the chance to stop on by to see this wonderful new shop on Charlotte Highway in Fairview (in the same strip mall as Americare pharmacy and Local Joint restaurant)I am linked to Whoop Whoop Friday and Off the Wall Friday.

Folkwear and PTA

PTA (Piecers, Talkers, Applique-ers AKA Professional Textile Artists) met at Barbara's home and always a fun time. We had a busy agenda that day...talking, sharing work, eating, a walk through Barbara's beautiful garden and a trip to a new store featuring the Folkwear patterns from years ago.
First up, show and tell - Georgia got us started showing us flower bands for all of her students.

Mary showed us a new piece she was just finishing up. The background was so interesting made up of deconstructed fabric we had created at one of many Fiber Junkie meetings. This is our favorite technique in this group so we have made it a lot, but as nice as the fabric is, also difficult to intergrate into something.

Mary has done a good job with that. I also like the imagery she has chose to put on top...simple but bold enough to be front and center on such a busy background.
Dort (below) showed us her latest in a series based on a trip to France with her sister. What I particularly love and tried to highlight is the decorative stitching around the edge between piecing...thought that was so clever and interesting without taking away from the focal point.

Marene showed us her quilt from John Campbell Folk Art School where she assisted Georgia in the classroom. This was the class project and Marene wanted to try it herself...wonderful colors.

We took a short break to eat and indulge in this wonderful dessert that Barbara made...chocolate cake with homemade chocolate buttercream icing...look good???....tastes even better...maybe even divine!

Next part of our day was a trip to the new shop - Folkwear....
See the next post for lots of fun pictures and information on this wonderful new edition to Fairview.

I am linked to Off the Wall and Whoop Whoop Friday

Fiber Junkies June 2019 - Fabric Painting with a Twist

Last week, our FJ group met at my home for a day of Indigo dyeing...but with a forecast of rain, we had to make some quick changes since Indigo is an outside activity. Kate had a book of techniques dealing with fabric painting...well that was easy to pull together and this group is the best for adapting...soooo...

We wound up indoors doing some very fun techniques. One of the things we did was wrapping fabric on a PVC pipe, scrunching it up and touching the top of the folds with paint.

Here's a beautiful piece that Gen created...Most of the pieces needed a lot of time to dry but Lumiere metallic paint dries so quickly.

There were some very interesting and easy ways to manipulate the fabric for painting. The one - upper left is the flag fold. The fabric is wet so the paint will wick when applied. We used the Delta Brush on Fabric Color which worked well.

Besides the edges, some of us filled in the middle area with other color like the lower right (Kates).
We found that using white to start with might have been the best choice rather than trying to save some "misfit" fabrics which we like to do. My fabric on the left is one of those misfits and painting did not improve it and also was ineffective.

Here, Gen is applying 2 different paints...will be interesting to see how it turns out.

This is the Chevron which was a really fun manipulation. We did use little clips to secure at every point.

Mary used one of her pieces she wanted to improve. She experimented on this piece by not wetting it beforehand. We all thought it was very interesting although Mary didn't agree. I think she might have gone back and spritzed it with water to make it spread...

Kate is making a "jellyroll" by scrunching the fabric first and then rolling it like below, securing it with a rubberband.

Wetting the fabric and dipping each end into a fairly thin paint, will create an interesting piece of fabric.

The "scrunch" was another manipulation...so easy. After the fabric is scrunched, we used paint in a spray bottle to touch the tops, more than one color was used.

Kate is doing the "Starburst" above by pinching the middle of a square piece of fabric and twisting the pinched fabric around while holding the outer edge.

Gen has somewhat of a starburst...will see many of the results at the next meeting.

Some of our little packets ...drying.

And some of my pieces...I like the lower right which was twisted and the edges touched with Lumiere paint. The orang-y piece would have been more successful if I started with white...the paint I added to the tops was not enough of a contrast to make any difference. The blue one in the lower left has some nice areas but not enough to make a statement and the top left purple... could- a, would- a, should-a used white and it would have been a more interesting piece.  What's so fun about being in a group like this is the experimenting and doing it with others where you can get input and often times..some laughs...and of course we all agree that everything always looks better after a glass of wine! I am linked to Off the Wall Friday and www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com