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.