Author Archives: maryjane

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Cyrie Wilson!

Cyrie Wilson (Pixiedustdevil, #6941) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level Dyeing for Color Merit Badge!

“For the presentation part, I let the 9-year-old neighbor girl “help” me dye some fabric for a doll. I explained what kind of fabric to use, what to use for dye (tea in our case), how to boil the tea water, turning the fabric, then how to set the color.

I dyed a poly-cotton bed sheet to make doll skin. I filled a pot and used 40 tea bags (30 green tea and 10 hibiscus tea). The longer the fabric sat, the darker it was. I put Mason jars full of water on top of the fabric to keep it submerged overnight.

I can say that while it did turn out ok, I wouldn’t use poly-cotton again; it doesn’t take color well.”

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Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Kristin Sievert!

Kristin Sievert (KESinMN, #6020) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning an Intermediate Level Quilting Merit Badge!

“I fell in love with the paisley type fabrics. We thought a quilt pattern that allowed for large pieces to highlight those patterns would be best. I finally found an aardvark pattern and thought it would suit the fabrics.

I then started hunting for secondary (smaller print) & tertiary (more solid) fabrics to complement.

I volunteered to use this quilt as a sacrificial penguin on my mother’s new quilting machine. She got some practice on her new toy and I got my quilt quilted.

I quilted with a quilt group as well as my mother throughout the process. This was not a just a 20-hr project, it was more like 200 from first fabric purchase to finishing the binding.

Finding enough fabrics was the first challenge. Tertiary fabrics were easier than smaller prints for the secondary fabrics.

The diamond pattern was WAY harder than I thought. We ended up having plexiglass templates made to speed up the process.

The completed top sat for a while, then became a guinea pig for my mother to practice on her new quilt machine. Then the quilted project sat again because I was in no hurry to finish it.

When I decided to go after the Glamping badge, I realized this would make a good starting point.”

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