Month: June 2016

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Deep Into Indigo Retreat – There’s Still Time!!!

All food, beverages and lodging plus piles of fabric to play with and gifts and prizes are included in the price!

Deep Into Indigo Half Sheet Flyer

The very firstest and the biggest and importantest thing you need to know is that JUNE 30th is coming right up (!!) and is the very last day for Early Bird Pricing for realsies and we do not want you to miss that date. So if you’re on the fence, jump off and join us.

Next big piece of news is that we recently went to Viroqua to hang out and made some friends, some of whom offered to sponsor us to add to the fun:

Quilt Basket ‘n’ Creations in Viroqua is letting us have a bunch of linen/cotton blend fabric to dye

Vernon Vinyards is donating some wine!!

The Regal Find in Middleton is donating some prizes to make the whole thing more fun!

We have more sponsors in the works, including but not limited to more fabric and fun prizes to make the Deep Into Indigo Retreat all the more special. Please tell our sponsors Thanks! if you get the chance.

We are also featuring a cooking lesson on Friday night by the amazingly talented gourmet chef Jenina Mella!  I’m crazy excited about the food (about all food that Jenina makes) and can not wait.

We’ve even been organized people and made a SCHEDULE!!  That’s pretty impressive, if I’m allowed to say that about us.  We’re a pretty freaking awesome team.

Retreat Collage

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All About the Romance w00t w00t!

13 miles outside of Viroqua you can find the venue for Deep Into Indigo–Romance Valley. A beautiful, simple yet spacious house nestled into the rolling hills of the Driftless area. romance
We knew the minute we saw it that it’s the perfect backdrop for our creative weekend! Can’t you just imagine us all spread across the lawn with our beautiful indigo fabrics flapping in the wind?
yard
We visited during the winter when all was quiet and we were greeted by the beer can turkey sculpture across the road from the property. turkeyCan’t wait to see what it looks like in the high summer of AugustWinterBarn
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MadCity Bazaar

It’s been a coupla weeks since I had a Drop in and Dye at MadCity Bazzar but I had such a great time and met such fun people, I just have to share some pictures.  And, if this stuff looks like fun to you, make sure to sign up for the July 16th Indigo Dye Class at Bare Knuckle Arts.  IMG_6625

It was little rainy in the morning but that was actually really pleasant as the rest of the day was really hot.

Most of the stuff people made was arashi – which is Japanese for storm.  It’s made by wrapping the fabric around a pole before dyeing.  There are a tin of variations…there always is.   IMG_6633IMG_6636In this case, the tee shirt was wrapped around three poles…a variation invented on the spot by a guy who never dyed anything before.IMG_6638I had to take this picture: A change in perspective.

IMG_6661Here’s the three pole shirt.  It was just unwrapped here and still has lots of green.   IMG_6654

All that green turns blue as it oxidizes.  Freaking awesome!

IMG_6640Here’s a shirt after oxidizing for a while.

It was a great time.  I met some really cool people and got royally sunburned.  Next time, I’ll be more careful.  IMG_6664Let’s pretend that’s a flattering picture.  Come and dye with me at any of these venues.  You can remind me to use my sunscreen.

 

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Viroqua Rocks! Guest post!!!!!

It’s my first ever guest post!!  By Jenina Mella, who is awesome and who is doing lots and lots to make the Deep Into Indigo Retreat not just happen, but happen to be a freaking awesome gracious vacation experience.  We went to Viroqua to meet people and loved it there so much!

Here Jenina doing a way better job sharing it than I could:

Jennifer and I spent a lovely day touring around, handing out fliers and talking to business owners about Deep Into Indigo; it’s a goal of ours to partner to feature local businesses. So incredibly friendly was every person we met–for 2 girls from Chicago, it’s almost overwhelming!

coop

Lots of enthusiasm and encouragement for indigo everywhere we went! We had a great lunch at the Viroqua Food Coop, where we had super nice conversations with other people dining in the cafe.

When we came out, a horse and buggy were parked right next to us!

buggy

Visited 2 local wineries for tastings: Vernon Vineyards and Branches Winery.

Vernon

Amazing businesses nestled within the beautiful rolling hills. We will be featuring some offerings from both wineries with our meals.

branches

Great tastes await!

Romance
Deep Into Indigo Retreat Location! So pretty!
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Indigo Dyed Fat Quarters

I spent a couple of hours at Mill House Quilts in Waunakee hawking fat quarters.  It was fun, Kim and Kerry are really nice and the re-decoration is pretty freakin’ cool.

I made several more fat quarters to bring on Friday afternoon, when I’ll go back again.  I also dyed a piece of silk/cotton blend just to see how it would dye.  Spoiler: Very Well

 

I thought it would be fun to make a slide show of them so I did.  With a bonus chicken.  Enjoy!

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Deep Into Indigo Video!

Check it out!  Jenina and I had a chat about our Deep Into Indigo Retreat.  We went to the Madison Bubbler and with the help of their awesome sound engineer volunteer, Sadie, we recorded a few minutes of us talking about why we are coordinating a retreat and a little about the FOOD!  Because…food! 

It is both weird and cool to have a recording of yourself yapping.  We put some pictures of indigo in there too because INDIGO!!!!  We hope you like it.  If you would be so kind to share it, we’d really appreciate it.

 

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Super Awesome Fun Times

I had so much fun with my friend and re-treat co-coordinator, Jenina Mella the other afternoon.  It was way fun, most of the time was spent chatting but that’ll happen when we hang out.

She brought over a bunch of doilies for us to dye that we’ll use to decorate the retreat space.

doilys

They look really awesome.

doilies and chxThey are so pretty.  I love all the different blues she achieved.

She also brought over some flowers for us to play with.

rosesroses blueThe dye is very alkaline and it was rough on them but I think they look pretty cool and antique-y.

Here’s a gratuitous close up.

There’s something really fun about hanging out and making stuff.

Jenina

We were very peaceful and relaxed, there was fabulous music and we met one of our retreat participants who happened to live close by.

Line

It was a great time and check out the result!  w00t!!

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TBT – Before the blue took over.

I made this a few years ago.  It’s inspired by Korean pogaji wrapping clothes.  Which are hand stitched out of scraps of fabric.  Mine isn’t hand stitched.   FrontI used french seams to stitch together linen that I took from thrifted clothes.  You can see my first ever attempt at dyeing in that blotchy orange.  Then I made into a curtain.

Backside

It’s on my garage door, which I see now is very dusty.  I remember making it as a super enjoyable experience.  I LOVE ironing linen almost as much as it loves being ironed.  You need super high heat and a very steamy iron.  It’s extremely satisfying.

I plan on re-making it in shades of blue.  I have another naked window in my kitchen that needs one, too.  They’re on my “to do one day when I have nothing better to do” list.

Then I took a macro picture –

Macro

because I love macro pictures – which distracted me mightily.  So I’ll just post some of the pictures I then took with my macro lens on:

June Flower CollageI hate to stay too on topic.  Now you can see why I never get to that that to do list.