Melanie Testa

Hand Dyed

Somewhat Obsessed

I love the concept of the jelly roll quilt, simply accepting what happens when you sew strips together, fast, simple, almost mindless piecing and quilting in order to wrap yourself in ‘warms’ while watching tv, during the cold winter months. You can purchase strips in prearranged bundles or cut your own, in color groupings to your liking. It is like opening a bag of potato chips and devouring them, except, you get a colorful quilt out of this! It kinda feels like cheating, but I like to think if it as a reprieve from the other creative stuff I do. It is ‘weekend quilting’ and I love doing it. It really does relax me!

I sewed this one up a few weeks ago, during my retreat weekend. Each gal pal gave two strips of cloth to each person participating, we could use the cloth at our discretion, so long as each person and their fabric was represented. This quilt top, both front and back, contains fabric from each of my gal pals. Later in the week, I will update the blog with a picture of the other side. David and I have been using both of our jelly roll quilts to make ‘nests’ while we curl up and watch tv each night. What could be better? 

So In the spirit of easy, fun piecing and in an effort to start using my own hand printed cloth, I gathered some of my cloth and cut 60 degree triangles, pleasingly arranged. I sewed them together without thinking too much about color, placement or composition. I just wanted to piece and see how my fabric looks alongside each other in a mindless manner.

This quilt top taught me to enjoy simply pieced blocks. The 60 degree triangle block is easy to cut, simple to piece and it looks pleasingly more difficult than it really is. It is a win-win sort of block.

As you will see below, I went on a cutting tangent. This quilt top (I am on a mission to make two sided quilts, I want to stash bust!) is predominantly commercially printed cloth, there are a few low water immersion semi-solids and a few of my latest multicolor prints, but they are in the minority. Anyway, this quilt top has really been an eye opening experience for me. The cutting tangent helped me to understand how to group colors while cutting so that sewing four patches together is pleasingly mindless and effective! See. I am on a mission to mindlessly make!

I am in love with this quilt top, it is teaching me something. I haven’t heard the full story yet. The opposing side of this quilt top will be very similar but will feature my own printed cloth, predominantly. 

Anyway, I am piecing, machine quilting and sewing bindings like it was 1994! Hey wait, did they do that, like this, back then? Now, I am just making things up!

 

My Mom gave me this sparkly, glow ‘riddled’, stained glass art piece featuring the Wonky Star. This is happy making. It links my Mom, Wonky Star quilt blocks and me! I love owning a piece of my Mother’s work, she has been working to improve her skills and sell her work, I love her dedication and her wares. Thanks Mom.

Stitching away the Blues

I am stitching away on this Breastplate. I guess this is called a running stitch, I just pick up a few threads and then continue to stitch, maintaining a similar length of stitch for each. It creates little dots on the back of the work, which is very pleasing to me. So far I have used 4 different colors of hand dyed threads, and I love that I figured out how to eliminate the white spots in the dyeing process. 

My mother and I have a road trip planned for the weekend, we will be going to a craft fair. I am happy about this on so many levels. I need to get out of the house for one. And generally, I have been depressed and down lately.  I need a jog from normality. So, I am packing my bags, bringing my stitch work and hightailing it.

Off to make coffee and pack my bags!

Quiet hum.


I am changing the surface of this Breastplate by stitch, differences in stitch and thread quality as well as scale. This is the first application of stitch that I can see so far. This first application of stitch is hand dyed DMC 6 Strand embroidery floss.

My plan for this Breastplate is large stitch, geometric designs, 6 strands…

As I look at it from here, I wonder if I might use 2 strands in the breast portion, cutting the thread scale down. I think it would create a nice contrast.

Remember I bought that 500 gram cone DMC 6 Strand Embroidery floss, last month. That was money well spent. I may continue to dye threads until I run out of the cone, it won’t be long now. I have been dyeing threads in groups of 48, so my stash is growing exponentially. It is fun to watch, to open the orderly boxes of floss and look at the colors within.

 

I have my eye on this ebay item. I have not bought much on ebay, never direct from China and I don’t know what to think of this type of purchase. So I keep looking at it. Have any of you bought a similar item?

Right now I have an affection for wooden spinning tops. I went to etsy and found this store. I am in love with these tops. I want every single one and all of the top related items!  

My Mom and I will be going to a craft fair next weekend. I will wait to make a purchase, but that man’s tops are tops!

A podcast, breast pockets, todays ramble.

This week Ricë and I recorded a podcast on ” Going Flat and the Breast Pocket Project” and if you have an hour, please listen to it.

 

Studio Melly is up and running, hand dyeing embroidery floss. I ran out of cards to wrap thread on, and so, began making my own. I am crazy. It takes as long to make your own floss cards than it does to dye the thread (not really). And I do love seeing all the colors lined up in their boxes. I lament they are plastic, but can’t live without the orderliness. So I am ordering these.

I can tell you, I am learning a thing or two, dyeing all this thread. It is an interesting process. 

I have been gifted with an entire set of Havel Scissors. I like them a lot. They are a nice compliment to my sewing shears, but don’t replace them. The blades have a serrated teeth that has the effect of being grippy. I like these scissors for their accessibility, they are in high use right now.  Because I have an array to choose from, each having  specific use, I can confirm, I like the embroidery scissor, it is a bit too big for my Sew-plies purses, but it is lightweight and has a nice grip.

I don’t have an affiliation with Havel scissors, I am just giving my own opinion.

This is a set of pockets that I started working on last night. They will have graffiti stitching. 

We walked into Dumbo, taking photos and talking. The morning was magical and we began our walk just before the hustle and bustle of ‘family wake up time’. We had our cappuccino, we walked, paused, took pictures, it was great.

 I don’t know what this building is called. I will find out.