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.

New sewing machine!

Well, I've used the same sewing machine for many years now, and before that I had the same one for over 30 years.  Both were Pfaffs, and both were wonderful--the 1525 I have still is, I use it every day and is great for free motion quilting.

I bought this "new-to-me" one recently on a yahoo group, called SewItsForSale.  The person selling it ended up living only about 45 miles from me, so I met her husband yesterday at a quilt shop in Greensboro where she gets the machine serviced, and brought this home with me.  My Pfaff is in the background, and looks like a baby machine compared to this one.  It's really HEAVY, and it's a mid-arm size.  It only does straight stitching, but has a large area so I can get some of my larger quilt tops quilted up.  Now I just have to figure out how to use it!

First post of July

Wow, I can't believe how fast this year is flying by!  Already half-way into July, how did that happen? 

I've been busy, both with work and at home in the sewing room.  The bumper pads and dust ruffle all ready to be shipped off to Long Island to my niece.  Lots of sewing goes into these, even though they look pretty simple!

A small hooked rug I've hand sewn onto a dark piece of fabric, the border is ready to be quilted.  Never tried anything like this, so I'm figuring it out as I go along. 

And here's another rug, now about 90% complete--I need to dye some more of the blue wool.  We've had so much rain that I haven't been able to dye much this summer!  Not complaining, though, after drought conditions for five years now.

Here's a baby blanket that is going to be sandwiched up and quilted this weekend.  I made some dresden plate circles a while ago and appliqued one of them on a piece of blue hand-dyed fabric that I had.  It's simple, but will be a great background for some free motion quilting.  I am piecing another one, and they will both be sent to my niece (along with the crib bumper pads) for her upcoming baby shower!

My daughter and granddaughter visited me for a few days late in June, and since granddaughter Madelyn is 21 months old, I took some small pieces of fabric and made a glue resist on them with Elmer's gel glue that I let dry thoroughly, then had her paint the fabric with Jaquard textile paints using a foam brush.  It was fun for her, and we ended up with some funky pieces of fabric that I'm going to use to make pillows with.   I had to let the paints cure for a week, since I couldn't heat set it due to the glue, but it all turned out nice.  Here's one small sample, the rest of the pictures weren't in focus that I took before work:

And here is that felted vessel I made earlier this year, now filled with dried silver dollars.  It doesn't look as bad as I thought it did.

I'm linking up with Nina Marie today!

Caraway pictures

I went to a rug show yesterday (my first) at a place near my house called Caraway Rug Camp.  It's about 20 minutes away, and there was a week long retreat/class going on with a show open to the public for one day. (Those of you who live where there is a lot of rug hooking going on don't understand how unusual it is for me to see this variety of rugs so close to home!)

Some pictures of the rugs I saw there:

I wish I had been more careful and photographed the tags accompanying the rugs to give credit to the maker.  I also wish there had been vendors there, as I really wanted to buy a new hook and love to actually hold things sometimes and try them out before buying, which you can't do online.

Here is what's blooming today at my house, bee balm--

 and the butterfly bushes are just starting--

And this handsome man has taken up residence on the roof of my shed, he won't let me touch him, but he hangs around.  Of course, I had to feed him, so I'm afraid he'll never leave now.

Summer colors-pink and green

Just a quick post to show something I've been working on recently, it seems that green & pink is my favorite combo this week.

 

 

Reveal Day - Out of Asia

Today is reveal day on Art Quilts Around the World, with our theme "Out of Asia".  Since I have a shibori obsession, I thought I'd use some of my shibori fabric scraps from pieces I've dyed over the years and create something with an Asian theme.  Shibori is a Japanese technique, involving wrapping fabric around poles before or after dyeing, or wrapping with strings, or folding and using resists to create patterns.

This piece uses four different pieces of shibori fabrics, mostly in blue/white, and measures 11.5" x 16".

While searching through some of the bins of fabric I've created, I found lots of great pieces that I've forgotten about, like these, that I really should use!

And another rug hooking project in progress, this time with starfish.  I'm dyeing all the blue wool for this one, and having lots of fun with it.

Getting hot and humid here in NC again, we had a cool stretch of weather that's apparently over now.  Summers are not very pleasant here--good time to stay in and do some quilting on weekends.

Is it Friday yet???

Another month has gone by, and I haven't posted...still feeling "unfocused", if that's a word.

I did finish my rug, and I'm very happy with how it turned out!  It was a learning experience, and the best part was learning how to dye wool, a process different than dyeing cotton.  The finished rug is about 24" x 35".

So last weekend I worked all day Saturday on this mess--starting with a piece of natural colored wool felt, then adding layers of wool by needle felting, and then resorting to adding pieces of netting using my sewing machine.  And it just looks like a mess!  What a waste of a day!  I think I already threw this out, if I haven't I plan to.

And this is another thing on my design wall, from the Judith Trager Craftsy class I've been viewing.  Each square is around 10", so it's pretty large at this point.  I'm just using up scraps, which I have way too many of.   Her class is pretty good, for anyone who gets those half-price or discount emails.

And my niece is having a baby girl in September, so I'm making the crib bumper pads and skirt for her, she wanted the colors of baby blue and lavender, which I seemed to have a lot of already.  I picked up the foam bumper pads at Hancock Fabrics yesterday, so I can get these done soon.

And here's Leo, not stressing out at all.  I think he slid right off the couch pretty soon after I took this picture.  

Spring in the Air

On the And Then We Set It On Fire blog, an interesting technique was presented this month that I had to try. First step was to dye these four pieces--

Hopefully this weekend I'll have time to do the rest of the project.  The dye colors I used were fuchsia, chartreuse and blue violet.

Has anyone every tried to make a vessel using the wet-felt resist method?  I did, using some alpaca fibers.  (For some great instructions, you can check out this blog).   Wet felting is quite a tedious process, but I ended up with this little vessel--that looks pretty much like a coconut.  Not my favorite, but I used what I had on hand.  If I do this again, I'll use some better fibers, like merino, so it doesn't turn out so hairy!

You can see the fuzzy-ness of the alpaca fibers better here:

And work is still progressing on what is for me the world's slowest craft, rug hooking.  The background strips are some blue wool that I dyed myself.  Loving the colors, but will be glad when it's finally finished.

Last weekend was a beautiful one here in NC, so I batiked some fabrics to use in a project I'm working on.  If you want to read about the process, check this blog post.  I just love the whole process of making batiked fabrics.

Spring might finally be here!  We had a t-storm or two overnight, and things are finally starting to bloom.

Linking up to Nina Marie's blog today, check out all the great links there!

Also, linking up to Fiber Artist Journey today, too.

Finally--feeling creative again!

Been in a rotten mood lately--not sure if it was due to the weather, a boring job that drains the life out of me, or what...I have been sewing, making, dyeing and all that, just haven't bothered to post anything here.

Saturday and Sunday I spent batiking, these are some of the fabric pieces I ended up with:

I use beeswax and parafin, melted together in my electric frying pan, and the high-tech stretching method of push pins on a cardboard box.  Egg cartons are some of my favorites to use for patterns, I save them, and always look on the bottom of the carton to see if there is a different design that I haven't used yet.

This pattern is from the egg carton shown above.

I also used a pool noodle, which melted a bit by the time I was done.  Luckily I can get them at the Dollar Store and cut off a couple of inches as I need them.  Cookie cutters also work great--but the heat from the wax transfers quickly on the metal cutters, so pliers are definitely needed to hold them.

After waxing, I put the pieces on some plastic, and pour on some dyes mixed with soda ash.  Then they get covered and stay in the sun for about 2-3 hours.

 The pieces then have to be boiled to remove the wax, and sometimes I over-dye to get a secondary color.

The blue/green piece above was made with a pool noodle, the middle piece with the flowers was with a cookie cutter, and on the orange piece the polka dots were made with a carrot.

It was a great weekend!