Beautiful Bamboo

Well, I finally got the bamboo flats to paint the way I wanted. I know I've said this before, but it doesn't matter how many times I practice something on one fabric, when I change fabrics I have to start again. And I never knew how many variations there were with these paints! How wet the fabric is, how much water you put in the paints, how quickly it dries, whether you wash the excess off, how you set the paint, arrrgh! I keep thinking it would be easier to go with the dyes, I know they give bright colours and are set a lot more easily. And they actually combine with the fabric, whereas the paint coats the outside which sort of destroys the point of nice soft bamboo. But I think I have worked that out and I remember the reason I want to use these is that they are completely non-toxic and DD can play with them as well. She loves painting the fabric. She pins things up, carries spray bottles around, tries to spray everything (I am sooo glad her hands aren't big enough yet) and "helps" put things out to dry. She even has her own brushes and containers and is obsessed with painting with water whenever we go outside. I couldn't resist this photo of her helping.

I think they are going to have to be re-overlocked because they went through a few different processes while I was trying to work it out :). And some of them weren't straight because of the way I dried the fabric after its first wash - it got pulled out of shape. But I have now made myself a template which should help with that problem. Most of them are actually quite bright, I am not sure how well they photograph.

I really like the first one, I have a cotton nappy I did the same way that is just gorgeous. It is actually the same technique as some of the multicoloured boosters below. The green/purple/blue one didn't photograph that well, it is actually yellow and pink with blue sprayed over the top and they have blended nicely, in the picture they just look a bit dirty. The one with all the stripes came out as a nice pastel one, I am pretty sure I can get a brighter version if I set it differently.

The painted ones in the last photo are interesting, They actually work better than the sprayed ones because the brush gets the paint in there, but they are a lot more time consuming than the sprayed ones. I'm not sure what I will do with this.

So what else have I been up to? Hmmm.

Waiting on feedback from the testers, most of the nappies took over a working week to get there, probably about right given where I live but a bit depressing all the same. One of them still hasn't arrived, but that is country to country so I'm not panicking just yet.

Trying to sew blind hems on bamboo velour. I know that it will look much better if I do, and I am secretly convinced that a new machine would have some magical attachment that would make them easy. I don't know if it is because the fabric is thick or if it is the stretch but I am having a really hard time lining up the fold for the needle to catch on the swing (sorry, that will only make sense if you have sewn blind hems). I also need to make them wider, in spite of the little voice in my head saying "This stuff is expensive!" I need to keep reminding myself that ruining it is even more expensive.

Fiddling around with my sleepsack design. I really don't want to give up the opening the way I am doing it - it is one of the unique features that I think is really good, so to give it up means it is just like everyone else's. Oh well, no-one else is using bamboo velour. This is another area I am lusting after a new sewing machine. Just imagine what I could do with the cuffs, neck and opening with some embroidery thread and in-built stitches.

Waiting on some labels. I wanted to go with a local supplier and actually found someone with an NT agent, talked to him and he was supposed to send me some samples, but it's over a week now and they still haven't arrived. That was something I was going to chase up today, but of course DD decided that 20 minutes sucking was all the nap she needed. Oh well, with playgroup tomorrow morning I'll make her walk home via the Post Office and she'll definitely sleep.

I hope.