First Day of Spring

I was on a roll for a while in February, posting quite a few times.  Lost some of my momentum over the past few weeks, though!  Part of that was due to an ice storm earlier this month when I lost power for a few days, it was a slight setback, but things are better now!

Last weekend I dyed some yarns that I bought at a fiber show in January from a wonderful lady from Heelside Farms.  This was white when I bought it, now look at the wonderful colors:

Do you like my professional drying rack?

So, I dyed all this yarn and needed to use it for something--I got out some burlap and started hooking some small pieces (about 7" x 10").

 This one is a little bigger (about 8" x 11").  

And, I have been doing a little bit of sewing, too.  This is what's on my design wall now.

December Blahs

Here it is already December 5th, where did 2013 go??  In the last week, we've had a dusting of snow, temps down into the teens over the weekend, and now it's almost 70 degrees out.  Hard to tell what season it is, it doesn't really seem like Christmas could be so close.

I've been working on a piece for the PAQA-South show, ArtQuilts Whimsey, with a submission deadline of March 1st, and a juried show in April.  Entry is open to everyone, check out the link for more information.
I'm trying out some things I haven't done before, so it's been an adventure--luckily I still have a couple of months to get this completed.

And been doing more rug hooking, working on a little Sunset piece that I might frame or make into a pillow.

And making some potholders using the fabric my little granddaughter Madelyn painted when she was here this summer.  I figure it's a nice gift for her Mom and paternal grandma, and they're easy to make--I've had the InsulBrite stuff for two years now, it's about time I used it!

 And more dyeing of wool, using a simple technique.. wool is so much easier to dye than cotton.

It's totally dark by the time I get home from work at this time of year--so it seems so much later than it really is.  But I do love the sun coming up early in the morning, as I wake up at 5:00 every day and work on something before leaving for work.  Another couple of weeks of going to the office, then we get some time off for Christmas.  Can't wait!

Updating this to include a link to Nina Marie Sayre's blog and Off The Wall Friday.

Time flies!

My two entries for the upcoming PAQA-South member show were accepted, more information about the show is here.  I was going to post pictures of my entries but no longer have them since my computer at work got a virus and EVERYTHING is currently gone that was on it (and that's where my pictures were).

So, only a few little pictures today, after not posting for a MONTH.  

A couple of baby quilts, for my niece Taylor's new baby, Emma.  Emma was born about a month early, back in August, so these aren't too late, she just arrived too early. 

 Simple straight lines, and simple diagonal line quilting.

And this one I just fused flowers on a blue background, then quilted flower and leaf shapes all around.  I seem to be getting lazier as I get older...

I've been working on some other projects, but forget to take pictures.  My goal is to try to clean up and use most of my commercial fabric stash by the end of the year.  Not realistic, but gonna try!!

Oh, and some hooking practice with some wool that I dyed last month, just trying to get a feel of how the strips look when hooked.

A week off work

Last week I was off from work, and attended a "color theory" type workshop in Asheville, NC on Thursday & Friday.  It was presented by Wanda Kerr, a rug hooker from Ontario.  The workshop was wonderful, and even though it was presented primarily for rug hooking, the lessons can definitely be applied to quilting!

Now, if you are an Asheville lover, please don't be upset, but I don't really find too much that is charming or quaint in that city.  (It has almost a mythical reputation here in NC).  The traffic is horrendous, even mid-week, and the town seems full of people with way too much money and not enough to spend it on.  There is a "frantic-ness" about it that is hard to take, especially if you appreciate a quieter, slower, and definitely less materialistic lifestyle.  The one store I like there is called Earth Guild, and they carry all the supplies necessary for dyeing, batik, knitting, felting, etc.  I couldn't make it to the store during my visit--I tried one evening after class, but the traffic was just too much for me to try to navigate and get there before they closed at 6:00, and I gave up.  Glad to be back home Friday night!

So, I finished up this T-shirt quilt yesterday for a friend of my daughter.  The T-shirts were from baby clothes, so the pieces I ended up with were a little small, but I added borders around them to try and get a bigger finished quilt.

Some of the borders were from pieces that I shibori dyed a couple of weeks ago--I have a tutorial posted on my blog about it, if you'd like more information on how to do your own.

Here's the back, mostly with hand-dyes.

Have to throw this in the washer and dryer after work tonight, and it's done.

 And here are two wild looking pieces of wool that I dyed, for rug hooking.

 Classes start next Monday, August 19, at the university where I work....not sure if I'm ready for that.

Dyeing Wool and Getting Sidetracked

I seem to get sidetracked so easily--my "plan" was to finish up all my UFOs before the end of the year and start fresh for next year...but I had some wool felt that I bought at Joann's Fabrics a long time ago, and it was just a plain off-white color.  Since Procion MX dyes don't work on wool, and I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a whole new line of acid dyes, I learned from some on-line research that I could use Wilton icing colors (concentrated gel) and mix with Fruit Fresh (ascorbic acid) and dye wool with it.   I used my Joann's coupon and got the gel colors there, and already had the fruit fresh because I can pears and peaches every summer.

I took two small pieces of the wool felt, and cut shapes like circles and ovals in one which I then dyed with a combination of blues/greens/purples using the icing gel and Fruit Fresh combo.  The other one I left whole and dyed orange.  (If I do this again, I'll leave the pieces whole and dye first, then cut out the shapes--I don't know why I did it the way I did--now I have a bunch of white ovals and circles that I'm going to have to dye to use.)  I mixed the gel in some water, then added the Fruit Fresh and dipped the wool into it--the colors were very bright, and I was surprised at how quickly the wool grabbed the color.

Anyway, it took over 3 days for these to dry, but they were finally dry last night.  So I took my hand needle felter and punched away on this piece, joining them into one piece.  It was slow and tedious, and not very stimulating.  Having an embellishing machine would definitely be better!

I want to do some free motion quilting and other stitching on this piece, I think it will be fun.  If anyone reading this has a felting/embellishing machine, I'd be interested in hearing about them.

So that's my experiment for the week, hope someone will read this and decide to try it for themselves.

And I also finished up my Christmas tree from last week and mailed it to my sister, who received it yesterday.  Linking up with Off-The-Wall Friday today, check out the wonderful projects there!