A plea to fabric manufacturers: Make more night sky fabric!

[Betty J.]

Since I took up landscape style art quilts some years back I have found a particular interest in getting the skies to look just right. I like to use commercially available fabrics for this and not have to do huge gobs of piecing or painting to get the skies right. Occasionally, I have found a piece I really love and I buy it, use it, and it's gone...never to be found again. This is particularly true for stary night skies. They have a few out there, but very elegant, not too gaudy, not too empty, not swirly night skies don't seem to be available this year. I found some one year and put it in my "Rejoice!", but nothing seems available now. I do have a piece I bought years ago that I think if I add a gazillion hot fix crystals to it might look right for a quilt I'm making now, though I have been considering painting the sky, or embroidering the sky or some such. Night skies are harder to develop if I can't find the fabric. Day skies or skies at sunrise or sundown can be a nice soft piece of blue for starters that I paint or embroider or applique clouds onto, or piece together in uneven stripes. But night skies are just difficult. If you are out there and can hear me...please, make more night skies that are more like a true stary night. Please!

[Betty J.]

BJ, I have a few FQ's or even maybe half yards of 'night sky' fabrics. If you'd like, I can take pics of them and email to you... then I can send you anything you might want.

email me at mailto:[email protected] if you are interested...

[Rita C.]

BJ, have you ever thought of dying fabric yourself? That way you could have an endless supply once you got it right. If you try the low emersion method you could get an interesting night sky if you use a navy blue? Here's a youtube tutorial that I found useful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5veovr3_Zw

[Betty J.]

Michelle, I sent you an email. Rita, I don't want to get into dying or painting my own fabric. I just don't have the space and I'm such a clutz I probably would end up with it all over my walls and clothes, etc. :lol: :lol: :lol: It's for my Nativity quilt I've been blogging on my personal blog, and I need a fair amount of fabric.

[Hannelore N.]

Betty Jo, why don't you get in touch with Frieda Anderson and with Laura Wasilowski (or our lovely Justin), explain your problem and ask them to dye a couple of yards for you.

[Lois B.]

Betty Jo, why don't you get in touch with Frieda Anderson and with Laura Wasilowski (or our lovely Justin), explain your problem and ask them to dye a couple of yards for you.

Lorchen, I think Ricky's hand dyed fabric is a great place to start. I know Ricky welcomes work for the folks who help him dye the fabric. Also heard Justin tell a customer at that recent SS in Rorchester that the dyed pieces with spiral designs are hard to keep in stock. He suggested that the customer email him with the colors of spirals she wanted so I am thinking they might accept a night sky challenge too! No harm in asking.

[Betty J.]

Love your ideas for future projects when I need a hand dye. What I meant though, was not something I think hand dyes will work for. Here's a pic of the fabric I used up I wish I still had enough of:



I only bought a couple of yards and have about 5 inches of it left. :cry: Nothing like that appears available this year. I did find a piece in my stash I think I can make work, or I could embroider or splatter paint the whole sky :shock:

Maybe I need to think differently on this somehow. Here's my design I've been struggling over and that I'm trying to get a sky for (though I'm changing the angels a bit and the big star is just a placeholder design at the moment. I've been working on several options for that):



It's going to be 60 inches wide and 50 inches long. I don't want a flat black sky like is shown in my drawing.

[Nancy H.]

Betty Jo, I can understand why you'd want to use the fabric, it's gorgeous. I had a similar problem and could not find anything comparable. I took my scrap of fabric and scanned it into my computer and put it in my picture folder. Then I used some EQ Printables and printed several sheets for the project. It came out looking great. I don't have any pixs to show you the end result. Before you invest in the printables, I might suggest that you print off a couple of samples on paper to see how it will look. Good luck and please put up a pix of the finished quilt.

[Renata L.]

BJ, have you gone to the website http://www.quiltshops.com yet? I just went on there and did a search and found some fabrics that, while not exactly like yours, were pretty close and might offer something acceptable to you. I have actually made a few purchases through this site and have had no problems at all! BTW, who was the maker of your fabric and do you remember the name of it?

Alternatively, you might consider using your 830 to embroider the sky fabric as you wish. If you use a variegated metallic thread, you would get something really pretty. You could go into your V6 software, design as much randomness into the stars as you want and then digitize. I have a piece of fabric that was given to me (still don't know what to do with it) but it is machine-embroidered variegated metallic snowflakes. Just a thought to put you outside the box if you can't find what you want. :idea:

[Betty J.]

BJ, have you gone to the website http://www.quiltshops.com yet? I just went on there and did a search and found some fabrics that, while not exactly like yours, were pretty close and might offer something acceptable to you. I have actually made a few purchases through this site and have had no problems at all! BTW, who was the maker of your fabric and do you remember the name of it?

Alternatively, you might consider using your 830 to embroider the sky fabric as you wish. If you use a variegated metallic thread, you would get something really pretty. You could go into your V6 software, design as much randomness into the stars as you want and then digitize. I have a piece of fabric that was given to me (still don't know what to do with it) but it is machine-embroidered variegated metallic snowflakes. Just a thought to put you outside the box if you can't find what you want. :idea:

Renata, I'm thinking of embroidering like you suggest. It might look more fabulous than printed fabric too. Then layer on a bunch of hot fix crystals. By the way, here's the v6 embroidery star for the big star I designed yesterday for it. I used the fancy stitch for part of the star and special satin for the rest of the fill. What do you think? I'm going to stitch it out today. I'd add some beads and a stream of beads going down like a light stream to the manger scene. I think Tom Russell really inspired me to add beads. :lol:

[Betty J.]

Betty Jo, I can understand why you'd want to use the fabric, it's gorgeous. I had a similar problem and could not find anything comparable. I took my scrap of fabric and scanned it into my computer and put it in my picture folder. Then I used some EQ Printables and printed several sheets for the project. It came out looking great. I don't have any pixs to show you the end result. Before you invest in the printables, I might suggest that you print off a couple of samples on paper to see how it will look. Good luck and please put up a pix of the finished quilt.

Wow that's a great idea for when one is in need of a particular fabric!

[Renata L.]

Your star is gorgeous, BJ! and I think you will have a lot of fun embroidering your sky fabric and layering it with embellishments.

[Betty J.]

Thanks, Renata. Here's the latest version with that star in place and the angels more like I want them:


I also have decided to reduce the size to just 55 inches wide and that makes it 40 some inches long. It's more manageable for me, and since I'm embroidering the star and some of the figures I think that the sizes are ok. I'm very excited about this project now and am going to reprint and start making it this afternoon. I do acknowledge, as you said, that there are multiple focal points on the design, but I am not willing to give up any of them at this point because I want the whole story of that marvelous night and the wisemen on the quilt. I hope to manage the focal points by focusing the "light". We'll see how it comes out, right?

[ANNE E.]

Hi Betty Jo,
Do you know who the manufacturer was? maybe you could get in touch with them to see if they had any left.
I bought some gorgeous fabric very dark blue/purple with little gold stars and on the other side it was the same but without the stars, you could use both sides it was almost like a batik
I loved it but can I get it now? of course not.
Good luck in what you decide to do
Anne

[Renata L.]

Love it, love it, BJ! I really like the placement of the angels as you have them now. I'd love to see the angel with the bugle have red hair (you can leave the horn-rimmed glasses off :lol: ). When my husband and I married, someone had a vision of our first-born as a little monster kid with red hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a bugle coming out of her diaper to deafen everyone around! Back then my sister, Danny, made me her interpretation of it for fun...