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.

Linen fabric

A couple of years ago I went to an auction and bought several boxes of fabric and sewing-related things, you know, one of those auctions where they're trying to clean out a whole house, and you get the boxes for $1.00 or so each. Well, there were about 10 yards of a white linen fabric in one of the boxes, and I pulled it out the other day and decided to dye it. It wasn't a plain white, it had a floral pattern in it--reminded me of a tablecloth that my mother might have used. I cut it up into several smaller sections, and this is what I ended up with after a dyeing day:

I've never used linen in quilting before, so it will be a new experience. Now I just have to think of something to make with it--any suggestions??

It's been so hot here for the past two weeks or more, every day it's 95-100 degrees, and we've had absolutely NO RAIN. Might as well live in the Arizona desert, that's what it's turning into here in central North Carolina. I stayed in Sunday and quilted this piece of batik I had made a while ago. It's literally still on my sewing machine table--waiting for me to get home from work tonight.

I finally have this quilt almost done, just about 10" more of hand sewing for the binding, and it's done. It was some batiked fabric that I quilted heavily, then I decided that I didn't really like the white outlines of the flowers, so I spent almost two days painting in the flowers and leaves. It was about 97 degrees both days, and I was working in my garage, what a sweatshop it was, even with the door open, yuck. But I love how it turned out, here are some more pics but the lighting was too direct so the colors look freaky.

This is another batiked piece that I quilted and bound, I'm trying to decide whether to include the starfish & sand dollars, they're just taped on.

Again, the color looks totally different in this picture: (and you can see the lines I drew for quilting it, which of course I didn't follow)

A quilt that I just sent to my daughter on Saturday for her Martha's Vineyard summer job (and vacation)--I've had this all finished for about a month now, I totally forgot about sending it to her.

A new batik, and some jar-dyed fabrics for the next projects.

4-Day Weekend For Me

Last weekend I dyed some plain white cotton. One piece was dyed a Kiwi Yellow/Green, but turned out a little too light for my taste. It was almost a pastel color. I rolled the entire fabric piece with some of this paint (which are the ones I use all the time, it seems) in random places. The roller was just a regular 4" disposable sponge paint roller from the dollar store.

Then, I glued some foam pieces to a small wooden box, the kind you get at craft stores for 50
cents:

I rolled some of these shimmery paints onto the foam, then stamped on my fabric.

This was the finished product--it looks a little more red in the pictures than it does in person, but overall I'm very happy with it.

I had another piece, a light blue, so I used my setacolor paints again, and then stamped with a potato masher. Instead of a roller to apply the paints, however, I think I just used a sea sponge.

This is the finished product, another one I'm happy with.


I'm taking Friday and Monday off this weekend, I can't wait to cut into these fabrics!

Quilter's Attention Deficit Disorder

I wonder if I suffer from Quilter's Attention Deficit Disorder? Always starting a project, having about 15 things going at once, sitting all day at work wondering about which project I should work on when I get home.....

Things are getting away from me at home, too. This butterfly bush is probably 12-13 feet tall, and about 10 feet wide. I should have trimmed it a bit over the winter, I guess, but was too busy in my sewing room.

Believe it or not, the birds LOVE these two dishes that I have on my cement slab (see-ment, as they say here!) I keep them filled with fresh water, and some days there are about 20 birds hanging out, all waiting patiently for their turn at a bath. The "see-ment" slab was in my yard when I bought the house, not sure what the previous owners used it for, but I mosaic tiled it so it looked a little more decorative than plain cement.

Carol Taylor Workshop & Symposium

Pictures from the quilt show last Friday in Charlotte (North Carolina Quilt Symposium)! The symposium is a state-wide, annual thing, that moves around the state each year. Charlotte is 60 miles from where I live, so it was a short enough drive that I didn't have to spend the night.

I don't think any of these were award winners, but they were the ones that caught my eye!

There were classes on Friday & Saturday, with teachers like Karen Stone, Bonnie Hunter, Robbie Jo Eklow, Laura Wasilowski, etc. I only took one class, Sensuous Lines & Curves, with Carol Taylor. I'm not a great workshop taker, I guess, because teachers tend to want you to create something just like they've done. I want to learn the techniques, but make it w/my own spin, not make something exactly like 25 other people are making. I learned how to couch, and bought some crazy-expensive yarns from the teacher. (She also sold threads, aurifil, and I bought one spool of it, love it already!). This is the center section of the quilt, it's about 30" x 25". I still have to add more couching, then the outside consists of two different borders, one of which I didn't even get to in the class. More pictures of this as I get more done.