My stepsister Pam loves steno pads, she uses them all the time at work, and years ago she asked me to make one of my notetakers (using Kathy Mack’s awesome pattern) sized for a steno pad.

She’s loved it all these years and wanted to give her assistant one for her birthday…any guess what the assistant’s name is?

It got there just in the nick of time, and Jamie loves it! hooray!

A Steno Pad Notetaker for a Tulip Lovin’ Gal is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Rather than nothing but screaming bright colors, there are tints of the orange, yellow and blue, a ruddy red to balance the magenta, and some brown as well.

I got some questions in the comments that I’d like to answer! I’m

Alison asked: I hadn’t heard of Radiance (I’m in Australia)… Am I right in thinking that you usually use different types of dye for protein and cellulose fibres? How does that work with them both combined? Also, are you going to use the silky side out, even though it has less visual texture? Would it look or feel much different to cotton if you put the cottony side out? Sorry about all the questions – but it’s so interesting!

I actually dye all my silk scarves just like cotton, with Procion MX Fiber Reactive dyes and soda ash. Silk is this really cool fiber that can be dyed in either basic or acidic conditions. So these are dyed in a single dye bath. But, the reason I did a test first is to see if the silk reacts differently than cotton, which it did, the blue got a little lost. The reason one would use Radiance is for the silky  sheen, because at 4 times the cost, one wouldn’t want to use the side that looks like cotton! So because I myself prefer lots of bisual texture, I’ll be experimenting a bit more to see if I can get more texture. But this is the exact visual texture my customer wanted, so tadah!

Man, there is nothing better than a pretty fan of luscious dyed fabrics!

Hand Dyed Radiance: A Silky Rainbow of Color is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I got it finished just in time for him to give it to her for Christmas – I hope she liked it!

A Custom Convertible Clutch is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

it’s for their “Ektorp” line, and is 100% cotton, and comes in two pieces. The two pieces makes it a it bit easier to control the dyeing, the more 3 dimensional something is, the harder it is to dye all the bits and pieces of it.

She asked for orange and turquoise with an all over pattern – and specifically wanted them to be vibrant. I pointed out to her that where the turquoise and orange meet there would be brown (because they’re opposites on the color wheel). She agreed, but I went ahead and just dyed a yard of fabric first to get an idea of how it would look:

Here’s a large portion of the yard:

and a close up of one region:

She liked this, and I was glad to have done the dry run so I could up the intensity of the colors. Here’s the finished product (I draped it over a much larger footstool I have, this explains the green sticking out of the bottom)

Once I sent her these pictures I was happy to get an email back saying she loved it!

Custom Dyed Ikea Footstool Slipcover is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I am, however, participating in a Holiday Studio Tour my artist friend Aida Schneider and I cooked up! I designed the postcard and got it printed last month, and she’s been drumming up publicity, here’s a nice article in the Riverside Press Enterprise. If you’re on my email newsletter, you got a mailing about it earlier this week, but I’ll share the postcard here too as well:

Pretty Snazzy, if I do say so myself! (The website with more info is here).

Anyway, here’s how I did in November:

November Goals

So right now, I am focused on getting the house all decorated for the tour, but BONUS, this also means the house is decorated for Christmas! I’m going to try to get some more everyday art to sell at the tour. Once the tour is over, I can switch to making Christmas presents, and officially give myself a break from making to sell and just make to develop a small fraction of the things that are whirling in my brain!

December Goals

Here’s a quick customization I did for someone. They wanted a single Botanical Sketch mounted a bit bigger, so I took some fabric and wrapped it around a larger stretched canvas, added some iron-on velcro and VOILA!

Interested in the meetup? Find out more here, any one is welcome to join!

Meetup | December 2011 Goals is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern