I’m so lucky to have the help of Jenina Mella. In addition to doing most of the organizing and all of the cooking, she’s been trying out bag designs for our retreat swag bags.
These are laminated envelope bags
And this one (my favorite) is a clever origami drawstring style bag.
She’s a super talent! The retreat is getting closer and closer, I can’t wait!!!
You may have noticed me waxing poetic about CreativeBug. It’s a website full of really cool and creative video classes. No, I’m not an affiliate or anything but maybe I should be, they rock.
Anyway, I just finished making this bag
from their site. I used canvas that I dyed with (surprise, surprise) indigo!
I added a phone pocket because…phone pocket. I don’t like to dig for my phone when I’m near a Pokestop. 🙂
I also used cotton webbing instead of leather straps just because I had some around.
Also, I used discharge dyed fabric from a class taught by Cherie St. Cyr that I just took through the Sewing Guild. It’s a fun process but a little too stinky for me. Not Indigo stinky but toxic stinky.
And here’s the outside of the bag before I started sewing it together. 
Otherwise, it’s pretty close to the actual pattern…I mean, sort of. I have trouble following directions. 🙂
While nice, the sangria didn’t have the same bright blue color of the wine itself. I sampled the wine on it’s own and was surprised by the lovely fresh taste. It is a semi-sweet so I will have to have Jennifer try it out before I commit to bringing some to the Deep Into Indigo Retreat, but we will be doing a tasting today!
All food, beverages and lodging plus piles of fabric to play with and gifts and prizes are included in the price!
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.
Can’t wait to see what it looks like in the high summer of August
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. 
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. 
In this case, the tee shirt was wrapped around three poles…a variation invented on the spot by a guy who never dyed anything before.
I had to take this picture: A change in perspective.
Here’s the three pole shirt. It was just unwrapped here and still has lots of green. 
All that green turns blue as it oxidizes. Freaking awesome!
Here’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. 
Let’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.
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!
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!
Visited 2 local wineries for tastings: Vernon Vineyards and Branches Winery.
Amazing businesses nestled within the beautiful rolling hills. We will be featuring some offerings from both wineries with our meals.
Great tastes await!
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!
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.
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.
They look really awesome.
They are so pretty. I love all the different blues she achieved.
She also brought over some flowers for us to play with.
The 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.
We were very peaceful and relaxed, there was fabulous music and we met one of our retreat participants who happened to live close by.
It was a great time and check out the result! w00t!!