Carmine Red Cloth

I finished (except for hand-sewing the binding) this crazy batiked wholecloth that I waxed and dyed a while back. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, not thrilled, but happy. The flower centers were done in clusters of french knots. The red color isn't what I'm used to working with, maybe that's why I'm not 100% thrilled with it.

And here is what's up on my design wall today. I'm using the Benartex printed sheets for this, and it really goes together easily, I'd highly recommend them to anyone who wants to try one of these quilts!

And, here is another project in the works, using my hand-dyed and printed fabrics:

Creativity Quiz

Here's a simple quiz that might give you insight into your creative side. According to my results, creativity enriches me.

"What you are really looking for is harmony — you want to feel you are a part of what you create."

and

"you seem more suited to the sort of creativity that calls for gentleness, subtlety, harmony and patience. "

Dyeing again

Another dyeing day yesterday, I mixed up two dye baths yesterday morning before work and put some pieces in. The colors I used were teal blue and khaki (both from Dharma). It's so interesting to me to see how different they turned out!

These three were all in the teal blue dye bath:

And these were in the khaki dye bath:

Because I put the fabric in and didn't stir it a few times during the day, you can see that the darker ones were most likely sitting on the bottom of the dishpan I use for dyeing. The khaki apparently contains a mixture of brown and green, and the green is less dense than the brown portion, so the brown sinks and the green sits on top--that's why one piece looks all green.

I'm also trying out different shibori tieing techniques, and am really liking how they're turning out.

Shibori & goats

A few weeks ago I shibori-dyed this piece of fabric. While I liked the pattern a whole lot, the colors were just too bright for me to use.

So, on Saturday I got out my batik wax, and drew some circles and lines on the piece, then overdyed with warm black, and got this, which I think will make a great wall hanging:

And what is this? Breakfast for goats, of course.

My neighbor has two goats, and they "forget" to feed them, I'm afraid. They're in a smallish enclosure that has been stripped of all vegetation. The poor things cry all the time, so I finally started feeding them. I've even been giving them hay and cuttings from my trees and shrubs.
This pygmy is Zackie:

And this is Brownie--you can see how thin the poor thing is.

Shibori Dyeing

Before my vacation started, I got a bunch of books through the interlibrary loan program at the university library where I work. Two that I liked best were:

One of these had a simple recipe for direct-dyeing, which I copied into my sketch book:

I did a machine stitching technique on a pretty bright fuschia (or maybe it was carmine red) piece that I had dyed a while back, then poured on some plum and yellow dyes using my recipe and mixing bottle:

This is how it looked after I opened it up, (taking out all those stitches with a seam ripper since the stitching stayed damp after the fabric was pretty much dried)

Also, I took a white piece of fabric and wrapped around a PVC pipe, tieing it with a string and scrunching down as tightly as I could while wrapping. Then I squirted some Warm Black dye on it, followed by some Jet Black about 10 minutes later.

Here is the unwrapping:

I love how it looks, I folded this piece in thirds before dyeing, so it looks a little more interesting, and I also twisted the fabric as I was scrunching it down, so it was a little more wavy. (I was trying to get the look of the work of Jan Myers-Newbury, but I have a way to go!)

These pieces were just accordion folded before dyeing:

This blueish piece was folded in half, then wrapped on the pole and squirted with fuschia dye:

More MV--A Quilt Shop

I finally found a quilt/fabric/yarn shop and visited it yesterday morning. Nice (but small) fabric selection, lots of books, buttons, yarns, and patterns. Just bought a few things, some fabric and some YLI silk thread that I plan to use on a piece tomorrow when I'm home.

This is the view from the parking lot. I would love to go to work every day and see this. The business is actually for sale, the owner is trying to sell out and retire down to North Carolina.

I miss my machine and my projects, ready to get home and do some quilting and dyeing!

Martha's Vineyard

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day on the Vineyard. Today, at around noon, it started raining and is still raining this evening. Just before the rains started, I got some quick pictures at Menemsha, one of the small towns here on the island--pics are just of the beach area, all I could get before it poured.

Here is looking one way:

And the other way:

Not too crowded, that's for sure! I found out, when I tried to drive home, that everyone was on the roads. Gridlock everywhere!! If the tourists can't make it a beach day, they make it a shopping day.

Because of the fishing heritage of this village, this statue is at the beach, too.

I only found one fabric store so far on this island, Bea's Fabric Hive. Poor Bea was about 80 years old, and the fabrics she had were mostly polyester. It was a pretty sad store, she had old Simplicity and McCalls patterns, too, most from the 70s and 80s. Talk about a time warp--I know a lot of those 70s styles are back, but I didn't like them too much the first time, either! She was telling me it was sad that no one sews anymore--guess she doesn't know anyone like me or the rest of us fabric & quilt-a-holics.

Starfish & Sanddollars

A nice little beachy wall hanging finally completed:

I painted the starfish & sand dollars with some Lumiere paints to give them a little "glow", then glued them on with E6000 glue.

These little shells were on the tables at my daughter's wedding reception two years ago. I think I'll be giving her and her husband this little wall hanging when I head to Martha's Vineyard tomorrow for a brief visit.

Mid-July Blahs

The summer blahs have set in for me -- no rain in the last month, almost all of my flowers and veggies are shriveling up and dying, and I spent all weekend picking out free-motion stitching on a quilt that I wasn't happy with. Me & my seam ripper had a great time.

Ok, it's not all bad, I did find this flower growing in my garden, and had to pick it to take a picture of it, since it was on a stem about 7 feet tall:

Back in December I ordered some of these plexiglass pieces from http://www.etsy.com/shop/r0ssie. I wasn't sure about using them, but finally tried it out. I used an awful piece of white on white fabric I've had for years, folding into squares so I had four squares per piece. Then stacked a plexi piece, fabric, plexi, fabric, plexi, fabric, and plexi on top. I clamped with some C-clamps--I was afraid of cracking the plexi shapes and don't think I did it tight enough.

Into a dye bath with black dye for a couple of hours (it was so hot here that the dye worked pretty fast). This is the end result.

All three pieces lined up in a row:

I think I'll get a few more clamps, four wasn't enough because so much dye leaked under the plexi shapes. They look like moons, to me anyways, now I'll have to think of something to make with them, or throw them out. Still not sure what I'll do with them...

I also worked on cutting & piecing my newly dyed linen fabric.

Put them up on the design wall several different ways, still trying to find "the right" one! After being at work all day today, I'll go home & look at it with fresh eyes.

Hope everyone else had a fun holiday weekend, I know I thoroughly enjoyed mine! One down side, no rain, we've had no measurable rain since June 15th. It's getting really dry out there.