New class at Innovative Beads Expo

Next Sunday, May 20, I will be teaching my felted and beaded coin purse kit at the Innovative Beads Expo at the Allentown Fairgrounds. There's a picture there of a coin purse in progress; here's another one that I'm working on now:

I have another, but it's in my purse. This project features a hand-dyed piece of Peltex, wool roving and beads, and is for beaders who haven't felted and felters who haven't beaded and quilters who may not have tried either! Hope you can join me!

New polyester results

Some polyester georgette came in the other day, along with another roll of the iridescent polyester organza. Here are some pictures:

Organza wrapped on a polypropylene pipe. Dye applied, then bound with dyed string, then thickened dye was applied.

This is the resulting fabric – it’s sheer enough that you can see the color of the ceiling and walls through it. Another neat thing is that the polyester keeps the texture through many washings!

The upper fabric on this pipe was pleated lengthwise, wrapped and compressed. Then unthickened black dye was applied.

This is the result. The pleats give the mirror image in the pattern.

The georgette is very nice but has a mind of its own. To contain it until I wrapped it around the pipe, I wrapped the pleated fabric with Wash-away thread.

Then I wrapped it around the pipe and bound it with string. You can see the un-dyed organza already on the pipe below the georgette.

Here’s a close-up of the georgette on the pipe after the dye was applied. The dye was squirted all over the bundle and then it was allowed to dry. As it dried, the evaporating liquid wicked the dye particles outwards to the surface of the bundle.

The finished georgette. The dark areas are the ones that were outermost on the bundle.