Blog - Cotton & Flax

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Weekend Fun – Indigo Dyeing Workshop

Lookout and WonderlandBeautiful indigo curtains by Niki Livingston

I participated in an awesome workshop over the weekend, led by Bari Ziperstein and Niki Livingston, which taught the basics of Indigo dying and traditional Shibori techniques. I learned so much in just a few hours, and left the class with a simple tea towel that I dyed using a simple resist (using just chopsticks and rubber bands!)

indigo folding

Prepping the fabrics for dyeing using traditional Shibori folding techniques.

indigo

Dipping the fabric into the vat of indigo dye.

indigo

Letting the indigo oxidize (it goes from brilliant green to blue as the dye touches the air).

morning indigo class

indigo

Our finished tea towels. Zac’s turned out so much more complex than mine, I was a little jealous!

I hope to do classes like this more often – there are so many different traditional textile methods that I want to learn. If you live in LA, I would highly recommend taking an indigo class with Niki, she was a great teacher!

Cotton & Flax visits Common Thread Studio

A visit to Common Thread // Cotton & Flax

In my continuing effort to highlight the best fabric and craft shops in LA, I am excited to introduce you to Common Thread Studio! This unique little shop in South Pasadena is part fabric store, part sewing and screenprinting studio, and part gift shop. Even if you don’t know how to sew, this shop is a great place to pick up a gift for your best lady friend, or just to grab a few rolls of washi tape for yourself.

fabrics 3

If you do enjoy sewing, you’re in for a treat, because Common Thread stocks a well curated assortment of fabrics. Jin, the owner, has a great eye for patterns, and always carries a great selection of fun prints. The shop also has sells all the sewing accessories you’d expect – thread, needles, and even a fun assortment of imported buttons and harder to find sewing patterns.

Common Thread sewing table

work tables

Common Thread offers a range of sewing classes, and if you’d prefer to learn at your own pace, they offer private lessons, as well. Their workshop space offers both regular sewing machines for beginners, and professional tools and industrial equipment for professionals.

A visit to Common Thread // Cotton & Flax

Common Thread turns four this month! Help them celebrate by stopping by and checking out this great independent fabric store.

Looking for more great sewing resources and fabric stores in Los Angeles? Check out my visit to Sew LA, or my first and second posts about the Fabric District in Downtown LA!

Cotton & Flax visits Sew LA

Cotton & Flax visits Sew L.A.

Sew LA is one of my favorite local fabric stores, and I’ve been visiting them a lot more often since they moved to their Atwater Village location. The shop is small, but they carry a great selection of designer fabrics, and some fun Japanese imports that feature really unique patterns and colors. They carry one of my favorite fabric designers, Naomi Ito, so it’s always a treat to see what they have in stock.

sew l.a.

sew l.a.

They offer classes, too, and their studio space in the back is pretty dreamy. The classes range from beginner (learn to use your sewing machine!) to advanced (fitting and patternmaking). I envy their giant worktables, I’d love to have a big, open workspace like that to use every day while I’m making work for Cotton & Flax.

sew l.a.

sew la

For any of you LA readers, have you been to Sew LA? Taken any classes? I’d love to hear what you made with fabric you bought there!

Name that color!

gold brushstroke pillow - Cotton & Flax

I have been spending some time today working on my product descriptions over in the shop, and I keep stumbling over how to describe this fabric color. It’s such a beautiful fabric, and has consistently been one of my best sellers, but my customers all seem to describe it differently. Some say it’s a mustard color, some say olive… all I can say for sure is that it’s a gorgeously saturated yellow-green.

Cotton & Flax pillows

How about it, readers? Feel like giving me some suggestions on what to call this color?

Modern textiles at LACMA

Modern Textiles - CA design at LACMA

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post these inspirational patterns. I spotted these two textile designs at the California Design show at LACMA a few months ago, and I just love their strange, imperfect repetition. The pattern on the left is called Incantation Textile, and was designed by Alvin Lustig in 1947. The pattern on the right is an Eames pattern, if I’m not mistaken. Did anyone else happen to see the CA Design show? There were so many great pieces featured in the exhibit.

Field Trip: Bolt Fabric in Portland, Oregon

Bolt Fabric Boutique Tour - Cotton & Flax

While I was visiting Portland last week, I had an opportunity to visit one of my favorite fabric shops in the Pacific Northwest: Bolt Fabric Boutique. Located in the Alberta Arts District in NE Portland, Bolt is near my old stomping grounds (my old print studio was just blocks away). It’s a great little neighborhood shop, and the employees always make an effort to remember you, and what projects you were last working on.

Bolt Fabric Boutique - Cotton and Flax

Their selection of fabrics is fantastic, the staff has a great curatorial eye, and keeps the shop stocked with all the best new designs. It’s not the largest fabric shop (Fabric Depot out in SE Portland has got them beat, square footage wise), but they manage to fill the space with so many awesome fabrics, it’s hard to leave without buying at least a fat quarter of something.

Liberty of London at Bolt Fabrics - Cotton & Flax

They stock some beautiful Liberty of London prints, of course.

These quilting cottons from Denise Schmidt’s new Chicopee collection caught my eye as well.

Bolt offers a full-range of supplies for sewing, quilting and craft projects, and their fabrics are selected purposefully to be versatile so they can be used in applications ranging from quilts to garments to bags and accessories. They have all the basics (like this rainbow of Gutermann thread above), as well as tools for more advanced projects.

They have a great selection of DIY books, too!

I love that Bolt is committed to sustainable practices. They cut fabric to 1/8th of a yard to help reduce waste, they’ve eliminated packaging when feasible and offer most tapes, elastics, ribbons and embellishments in bulk, so you get exactly what you need without excess packaging or materials. They carry a broad selection of natural fibers, as well as organic and alternative fabrics, such as soy and bamboo.

If you’re in the Portland area, you really should drop by Bolt (2136 NE Alberta St. Portland, OR 97211). Check out their website and their blog to learn more about this awesome shop.