what we've been up to lately

Thank you to everyone who turned out to see us on Saturday at Eastside Handmade in Highland Park.  As always, it's great to see you and meet you all in person!

The view from our table at Eastside Handmade.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we needed to take a little bit of a break from the blog after our October small business cleanse. We've also been busy getting ready for some holiday popups and getting to work on our new collection that will launch in early 2016!

L-R: our set up at Eastside Handmade with our indigo ice dyed table cloth, our 2016 indigo watercolor and letterpress California calendar.

One of the questions we've been getting a lot, both at Eastside Handmade and on social media, is how we dyed the table cloth for our new display. So we thought that we'd share a few of the pictures from our experience with ice dying. You can also take a look at the ice dying instructions from Food 52. Or check out our project idea board on Pinterest for more fun projects we're thinking about doing.

L-R: fabric covered in ice, indigo sprinkled over the ice cubes, the finished product.

Our first step was to run our fabric through a wash cycle, then we soaked everything with soda ash. After wringing our fabric out by hand, we arranged it on dollar store wire cooling racks set atop aluminum foil containers. We then covered our fabric in ice cubes, and sprinkled the indigo dye on top. It's a good idea to sprinkle lightly at first and then add a little more here and there to create areas of more intense color. As the ice melts, the dye disperses into the fabric. We let the ice and dye do their work for about 24 hours. Then we washed everything out by hand until the water ran clear and put it all through the washing machine with some soap. And that is pretty much that. It was a really fun project. And we think it matches our 2016 indigo watercolor letterpress calendar perfectly! Each calendar was embellished with a watercolor flourish before it was put back through the press. We love how they turned out. They've been super popular, but there are only a limited number of them so hurry and get yours before they run out!

L-R: 2016 calendars, Rosemary painting the watercolor flourish with help from the babe, a close up of the watercolor embellishment. 

We hope you're having a good fall, it's been on the warm side here for the past few weeks. We're very much enjoying the cool turn the weather has taken over the past few days, its just the right kind of weather for printing!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin