Yes, life is busy these days. Between three days of dye groups, our Monday session with the Sewing Ladies, trying to get a few projects of my own done, and living life, I'm running at full speed these days. There's way too much to go into, so for now I'll just focus on the Sewing Ladies. This year they've been spending a few hours every Wednesday dyeing fabric with me in my studio. I've been showing them miscellaneous simple yet effective techniques for dyeing local manta. Later they use this cloth to make beautiful bags, aprons and similar objects to sell.
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| They love these spiral tie-dyes! |
One of their favorites is a tie-dye spiral, and they have created some amazing items with these dramatic pieces of fabric. They have been able to charge almost twice the price of products using standard local cloth, and they have been SELLING these items.
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| Dora (center) is a fantastic sewer. She created all of these beautiful items and sold them the very first day they were displayed for twice the price of other products. |
A couple years ago, I showed them how to do raw edge appliqué, focusing on the form of a butterfly as a starter. They produced beautiful little pieces that they later embellished their products with. Now the butterfly motif is still lovely but a bit overused and their clients have been looking for new items to purchase. Last week I brought in small packages of hand-dyed scraps and we all sat around working on freeform birds. We only had time for cutting them out but many of the women went home and directly began sewing. I was SO VERY HAPPY to see a flock of fabric birds this morning.
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| We had such fun making our little birds. |
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| Look what they brought to show me this morning. |
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Close-up of one of their sweet little birds.
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