We have a sextet of friends who dine together most Sunday nights at a Mexican restaurant that’s midway between our homes. In the week leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, Mary Lou suggested she cook dinner on Sunday evening and we eat at their lovely new condo so we could escape the noise of the restaurant as people cheered and screamed over the game. (A lot of local football fans are partial to the San Francisco team, as the owner is from Youngstown. And other diners are just passionate about football, no matter who is playing. That much passion adds up to noise.) When MaryLou emailed the invitations, she included the directive that we didn’t need to bring anything, unless we wanted something other than wine or beer to drink with dinner. Well, we Southern Belles have a code we live by concerning walking into someone’s home empty-handed. I couldn’t ignore that code.
Mary Lou is a contemporary quilter who uses her hand-dyed fabrics to make fabulous quilts. Every so often, she will pass along to me scraps of her hand-dyes that didn’t make it into a quilt. I stash them away, then occasionally use them in my bag making.
So what better hostess gift for a quilter than something created from her own skilled work?
Are you familiar with the Japanese practice of Kintsugi? It involves mending broken things with gold or precious metals. A number of years back, Mary Lou incorporated the technique into her hand dyed fabrics and the result was magical. I inherited a few pieces of this “mended” fabric. While looking through my stash for suitable fabrics for a hostess gift, I found a soft blue embellished with silver. Then I remembered I had some silver vinyl that would go well with the blue and silver to make a Sew Sweetness Cotton Candy Pouch. That was the pattern I used for granddaughter Caroline’s purple bag while I was in Michigan.
I didn’t get the bag finished in time to walk in carrying it on Sunday evening, but I finished it Monday night and will drive up to her house to drop it off as soon as I finish this post.
The exterior fabric is high quality cotton. If you want to try dyeing fabric, look for an unbleached cotton that’s marked PFD—Prepared For Dyeing. The Procion dyes and other required chemicals can be purchased online from Dharma Trading Co., located in San Rafael, California. I sometimes purchase from Pro Chemical and Dye, located in Fall River, Massachusetts. My favorite books that offer a good intro to fabric dyeing are “Color by Accident: Low-Water Immersion Dyeing” and “Color by Design: Paint and Print with Dye,” both by Ann Johnston. My other recommendation, if you’re thinking of diving into this art form, is “Exploring Fiber Reactive Dyes ,” by Claire Benn.
The lining fabric has a gray background with white printing and some little metallic silver dots. I thought it was the perfect complement to the blue and silver. The collection is “Heavy on the Metal,” and the print is “Play on Words” by Jamie Fingal for RJR Fabrics.
The little fabric pull on the exterior zipper is detailed in the free pattern “Zipper Pulls” from By Annie. Thanks to Annie Unrein for her creativity and generosity.
The Cotton Candy Pouch is part of the Minikins Season One 12-Pattern Bundle from the brilliant bag pattern designer Sara Lawson, who owns Sew Sweetness.com.
If you’d like to see some of Mary Lou’s stunning quilts, go visit her website.
