Introduction

Welcome to all!

I would like to introduce myself, I am Debra Smith. It seems I was born with a recessive gene called "The Q" gene. Apparently my mother passed this on to me. She was a very prolific quilter and made many beautiful things during her life. I hope to share my love of textiles with all of you.

We will be meeting for three Wednesdays (Oct 10, 17 and 24), at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 270 N Placer Ave, Idaho Falls, from 10 am to 12:30. The goal is to make a beautiful and useful tote.

We will dye fabric the first session, begin to assemble our tote and work on embellishments during the second session and finish the handles and have a little fashion show for the third session. There is a $10 lab fee for the class. This fee is to cover the cost of fabric, chemicals, dyes, batting, etc.

Wednesday, October 10th should be a really exciting day for all of us. We will dye our fabric. One piece will be used for the accent band and handles and the other piece is for the lining of the tote. For this session you should bring a notebook and pencil if you wish to take notes. You will be provided with all that is needed to do the dyeing. Be sure to read the entire post for details about the outside fabric.

It is important that you wear clothing for which you won't be upset if there is a spill or splatter. The type of dying we will be doing is called low-immersion with Procion MX dyes. We will place our fabric and dye into plastic bags. There usually is very little mess to this method, HOWEVER, accidents can happen so let's be prepared.

I would like to invite you to bring your own fabrics for the outside of the purse. You will need one 9 inch wide piece that is at least 22 inches long (a fat quarter would work well for this) and a coordinating piece that is 3 inches wide by 22 inches long (another fat quarter). I suggest using a floral for the larger piece and a geometric for the other band. The band between these two fabrics will be one that you dye. JoAnn's has a super sale on Monday October 8th. They have fat quarters for $1 and in the back of the store they have all the discount fabric at half off. There are many wonderful fabrics which are at $2/yard. Here are some examples of fabric that I have chosen:


It may appear that these fabrics do not go together very well. In truth, I think the results are very nice. Here are two of the purses that I have made already.


I have enough fabric left over from the first purse (green with pink flowers) to supply 8 participants with this fabric. If you want me to bring this fabric for you, please email me and let me know that you want to make a tote using these two fabrics. You will still dye your own fabric and you do NOT have to have pink for the accent and handles.

You will need to bring your fabrics to the first session, if you are not using the fabric I have left over. Please bring your fabric so we can mix the dyes based upon the colors you have in your fabric.

The second purse is a variation to the pattern. I have learned a few new methods of construction since I made the first purse in June.

You might also think about the embellishments you want to use on your purse. Do you want to use eyelash yarn, buttons, grommets, beads, etc. JoAnn's also has decorative yarns on sale Monday. You will need to bring your own embellishments to the second session. If you want to bring them the first time we will all ooh and aah.

Please drop me an email if you have any questions? I look forward to seeing all of you on Wednesday!