> I also like to sew. Rarely clothes. Mostly quilts, toys and stuff-stuff. I want to make hats, I want to make dolls. but lately I've done more of my own Batik. I have a batik entered in the state fair this year. It's my first juried show. I've only done exhibits so far. It seems so remote, you just mail your thing in and find out later if the judges placed it or not.
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> I've done lots of horse shows that are judged. That's different, you are in there, in real life, performing whatever it is, with your horse. Seems like more at stake.
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> The batik dyeing is hard on my back. I have to learn the ziplock bag method. That may be hard too.
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> My main companion is also eight. He does very well with serious questions. A common argument I hear is between Daddy and eight years old; he wants to watch the news, Daddy wants to watch Wheel Of Fortune.
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> Right now I have a big plastic tote bin, 25 gallons, I think, of scraps. All less than 4 inches in one dimension, though some are long strips. I am cutting them into 2 inch squares to make Irish chains. So far, I have hundreds of squares and no dent in the bin. I listen to audio books from the library.
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> I have a Juki that does 1500 stitches a minute, a Viking that I am not especially fond of, and a Juki serger that I have not learned to use in about 2 1/2 years. I bought it for doll clothes, which I have not gotten around to.
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> Cara

I hand make rugs. I start, after coming up with a design and a color plan, by dyeing the wool from natural color or light pastels to the colors I want. I then cut the wool fabric into long, thin strips and use a hook to pull the strip partway up through the holes in linen or monk's cloth to form continuous loops of the same height.

My last rug was designed to look like batik fabric. I dyed the main colors to be very bright, then used just a fraction of the dye formula to dye some natural colored wool a very, very, barely noticable, pale shade of the same colors. When the pale wool was worked into the design with the bright wool around it, the effect was as if the color had been bleached out of the design, not dyed into the wool. It came out fabulously.

I've done quilt-design rugs, too (well, a pillow). It's a good way to use up dyed wool leftover from other projects.

My next challenge may be a wedding rug, designed around the couple, for them to stand on or to place on the kneeler at their wedding.

Mousie