Fabric Alchemy

More Baking

2011-05-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

To pick up where I left off yesterday, I have several more photos (thanks to my wonderful husband) of the things I've been baking lately.

I made Banana Bread from the Flour cookbook. I've talked about this book before. I think it's an incredible book. Nothing I've made from here has turned out bad...nothing. Her instructions are incredible and the taste of the product is divine! This banana bread takes a bit more work than most but it's worth it.

I made a Frozen Strawberry Pie from the Taste of Home Pies Recipe Card. But the recipe called for frozen whipped topping and I have an objection to using that kind of stuff in my deserts, so I made my own whipped cream version of it and used that.

I also made some Chocolate Malted Cookies from Taste of Home 100 Best Recipes 1011 However the cookies spread way too much and ended up looking nothing like the picture of the recipe. It could have been because I chose to use butter instead of shortening. It may also just have been not enough flour. I'll probably try these again sometime and make sure the flour is measured precisely as well as chill the dough before I bake the cookies. That should help.

Baking Frenzy

2011-05-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't done much sewing lately, but I've been baking like crazy.

I love baking probably as much as I love quilting. Lately it's been very cool weather here and I know that when it warms up I won't be wanting to heat up the house with the oven, so I'm having a good time baking now.

I've made a few different batches of brownies.

There was the Carmel Witches from the Fat Witch Brownies book:

Then I made the Celestial Brownies from Milk &Cookies :

Then I made the Coffee-n-Cream Brownies from Taste of Home's special edition Brownies and Bars:

After that I decided pie was the order of the day and made a Banana Cream Pie from Martha Stewart's New Pies and Tarts:

I think that's enough for this post :)

Block Project - Block 12 - Nelson's Victory

2011-04-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

I finally was able to get to the sewing today. Wednesday was crazy busy and yesterday I was suffering from a case of the blahs. But today I made it back to work on the blocks.

I have been thinking a lot about how just one block doesn't really show the versatility of a block. You can't tell if there are secondary patterns, etc. So I have been kicking around the idea of making multiple blocks of each to see if any secondary pattern emerges when they are put together. I had intended to do so on today's block, but I got distracted by another issue.

Today made me really appreciate the value of doing a test block. I had picked out the colors for the block and thought I'd like them, but when the block is put together I can see that my 'medium' is really too light and kind of washed out. I think for this block to shine there really needs to be a bit more contrast.

I really enjoy making the blocks because I feel like I'm learning so much as I move along.

Without further musing on my part, today's block is Nelson's Victory which is block number 6 on page 57 of Jinny Beyer's The quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. This block is 4 inch finished.

I did the half square triangles by using the method where you cut two squares, draw a line and sew on either side of it and cut them apart so the first picture has the half square triangles already made.

Jam Thumbprint cookies

2011-04-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

My husband requested these. They are pretty rustic, since I really did use my thumb to make the center for the jam. He loved these cookies as a child and says these are better than he remembers them as a kid. I had one and they are pretty tasty. :)

I got the recipe off the web somewhere and it was very non specific about how much flour to use so I had to do some experimenting with the dough. It also didn't have any salt, but I changed that and added some.

I really enjoy baking things he loves so I was glad these turned out well.

No block today

2011-04-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

I worked for a bit to make one of the blocks today, but I needed to be able to get to some fabric that was under some heavy boxes. My arm is still not problematic so instead of incurring my husband's wrath by hurting myself I decided to wait for his help to move it.

I'll post two blocks tomorrow!

In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with a couple of pics...

These are the blocks I've made so far:

And here's the blocks I'm working on for a quilt for a friend.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-04-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

My husband requested cookies as my next baking project, so last night I whipped up a quick batch of my favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I've tried a variety of premium chocolates and I happen to like Guittard a lot. My grocery store carries their Milk Chocolate and their Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips.

My husband likes Chocolate Chip Cookies made with Milk Chocolate chips and so that's what I used.

I really love baking. I like to eat the stuff too, but more than anything I get an intense satisfaction out of people enjoying my baked goods.

Block Project - Block 11 - Lights and Shadows

2011-04-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm back on the block project now that I'm mostly healed up. I did a couple of blocks before my surgery and didn't post them because the pictures were not very good. As an aside, the baking pictures are all taken by my husband...you can tell who is the photographer in the family. :)

I may post those at some point, but for now I'm going to start fresh.

The block is Lights and Shadows block number 5 on page 57 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. The block is 4 inch finished.

Lemon cake

2011-04-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'm really trying to bake several times a week and so I'm trying a lot of new recipes. I saw a recipe in Everyday Food. The recipe uses the entire lemon, which intrigued me, though I was somewhat skeptical of how it would turn out.

The finished cake looked fine, though it had a strange texture, almost like a cross between pudding and cake.

I don't know if that's the intended texture or if something went wrong with my baking. But aside from that... there was an unpleasant bitter taste, presumably from the lemon rinds. I'd really like to know if it was me or the recipe, but I definitely won't make this again.

Baking!

2011-04-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I didn't quilt. My arm is giving me fits still and I was worried about hurting it further, so I decided to bake my husband that coffee cake he's been wanting me to bake.

I have a tried and true recipe that I know he likes, but I enjoy experimenting. A few months ago I bought the book Flour

Everything I've made out of this book so far has been incredibly delicious and she had a recipe for coffee cake so I thought I'd give it a go....

This is how the cake turned out:

Notice that huge dent in the top. Here's a better shot:

The cake tastes great. I just have no idea what I possibly did that caused that cratering effect.

What happens next...

2011-04-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

My machine is back from the hospital. :) I asked what had been wrong with it and the clerk taking my money said they hadn't written it down. Since I don't know what the problem was, I certainly hope it got fixed.. I'm ready to dive in sewing again and see.

It seems such a long time since I was able to sew and I can tell my arm is still going to give me issues, but I'm really anxious to get back to my "block a day" and to sew some quilts.

When I started this blog it was going to only be about quilting and other blogs would be about the other things I wanted to talk about. I don't know why I segmented things so much, perhaps because I sometimes feel my life is rather disjointed with parts that don't quite fit. I'm an older woman married to a much younger man with an adult son. I love my family, quilting, MMOs, reading, baking and our dogs.

I've decided that I'm no longer going to confine this blog to quilt stuff alone. Especially since I'm writing it as a personal thing and not because I expect any readers.

This past weekend I wanted to get some fabric cut out for a quilt. That didn't happen. I ended up playing Rift on Saturday.. I think I'm going to do a whole separate post on video games and me. I believe I'm the only 50ish woman who quilts and plays video games...

Today's goal is to get the fabric cut out for at least one quilt....

Back again

2011-03-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

Arm is a lot better now. Not completely healed, they say that will take another three months or so, but I can type again and I was anxious to get back to sewing.

I tried sewing a bit while my arm was still in the sling. Quilting withdrawal had me with the shakes. :) But my attempt quickly ended badly when the machine ate a bunch of the fabric on the patch I was attempting to sew. It was difficult to get it back out. I have occasionally had issues with corners being eaten a bit but nothing like this.

I thought perhaps it was just a fluke but wrestling with it while my arm was still in a sling was too much hassle. So I stepped back and decided to wait for my arm to heal more before sewing. When my arm healed enough to try sewing I kept having issues with the thread breaking and more patch corners being eaten. I decided my machine needed to be serviced. So... sewing has to wait a bit longer.

In the meantime I'm really looking forward to some hand work. Applique has always been a favorite of mine and after watching the latest The Quilt Show I'm really excited about doing some applique again.

A Snail's pace

2011-02-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

Recovery is slower than I'd like. I have wandered into my sewing room a few times and looked mournfully at the machine. I can't wait to get back to it.

I get the sling off my arm in one week and one day. My husband has been teasing me that I'm like an animal caught in a trap and I'm ready to gnaw off my own limb.

I haven't been able to do much of anything I enjoy. Cooking and baking are difficult if not impossible, no sewing, so I've been left with reading. Thank god for my Kindle.

Ouch

2011-01-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

Well I'm back home and healing. Yesterday the doctor told me I can type and move my hand on the arm that's been operated on. I can even bend it at the elbow, but I am not to lift it and I still have to wear the sling.

I'd like to see him type that way!

I'll post more blocks as soon as I can. The husband driven posting didn't work so well...partially because the day I went in for surgery my husband came down with a full blown case of the flu.

Life is interesting!

Surgery tomorrow

2011-01-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm a little anxious about tomorrow's surgery. I haven't always had the best of luck with surgery and I want to make sure I do what I can to up my odds of recovery.

Today I'll be working on getting things as together as I can. I'm going to try to get a few posts done so my husband can just publish them. We'll see how it goes.

So if I don't post here for a bit, it's because I'm working on the recovery!

Block Project - Block 10 - Slanted Diamonds

2011-01-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

Today's block is block 10 on page 57 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. Slanted Diamonds is the name of the block.

When I took the shots, I had miscut the diamond pieces. So you will find that on this first picture the size of the patches is wrong.

Here I've cut them down to the correct size. I had to 'reverse sew' after I noticed the problem with the size.

Block Project - Block 9 - Goose Chase

2011-01-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today's block is the last block on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.Block 9 is listed as Goose Chase.

Here's the piecing sequence:

I really don't understand why Blogger is jacking with some of my images. For some reason it rotates some of them when I upload them.

Friends!

2011-01-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

My friend Yvonne is amazing.

I'm a fairly insular person, I don't go much of anywhere and I have health issues that make it difficult when I do. So, in many ways the Internet has been a lifesaver. I met Yvonne through a blog post a couple of years ago and I feel blessed that we connected.

I've always thought the best kind of friend was the kind that supported you when you need it, and kicked your butt when you needed that. Yvonne fits the bill! We like similar things and have some extremely different tastes.

She's also amazingly thoughtful. For instance, my feet are somewhat deformed and I have trouble with socks. Yvonne knitted me a pair! Just look at how wonderful they are!

One of the best things she ever suggested was that we get video cameras and chat while we sew. It's really like having a friend over. We can chat and sew and have a great time. I just wish we could loan supplies through the Internet! I don't know how many times I wished I could just ask her to pass me a seam ripper!

Block Project - Block 8 - Sailboat

2011-01-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

I had a much easier time today with the block. I think yesterday was just a difficult day all the way around. This is block 8 on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.

I'm still using my hand dyed fabric and today's block is 6 inch finished.

Here is the block piecing sequence:

Block Project - Block 7 - Duck's Foot

2011-01-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today's block gave me fits. I am sure it was just me having a rough day. I want to redo the block again at another time.

The block is listed as block number 7 on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. In addition to having some issues with the block I also had some issues with the camera.

Here's the block piecing sequence:

Block Project - Block 6 - Birds in the Air

2011-01-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

The block for today is block number 6 on page page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. The block name is Birds in the Air and I'm still using my hand dyed fabric.

Per usual, here is the block just cut out and laid in position to piece it:

Okay so Blogger is misbehaving and no matter what I do this image comes out in the wrong orientation. As you will see from all the other photos, which it does not mess with!

Here's the block after the square in the upper right hand corner is pieced:

Here we have the triangles added first the right side:

:

Then the left:

And finally here is the block all sewn together:

Block Project - Block 5 - Hidden Square

2011-01-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

Today's block is called Hidden Square and you can find it on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns She has it listed as block number 5.

I'm still using my hand dyed fabric for these blocks.

Here is the block pieces cut and laid out:

Here's the first piece sewn:

Here's the second piece sewn:

And here's the completed block:

Block Project - Block 4 - Washington's Puzzle

2011-01-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

Since I've been following along in Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns, some of you may have wondered what happened to block number 2. Today's block is block number 2 on page 56 and it isn't quite as straight forward as the other blocks I've posted.

I'm easily able to use templates to create a block, but I was curious if I could come up with a method of cutting this block without using templates. I knew that because of the odd shapes I couldn't just add the regular 1/4 inch for the seam allowance. I had once seen an episode of Fon's and Porter where they pieced a star by cutting two fabric squares stacked which makes two blocks at once. So I thought I'd try my hand at that.

First I stacked two squares of fabric and cut them apart in the block design:

I then went about piecing the blocks until I had two finished blocks:

At a glance, the blocks look right, but when you compare the block to the original drawing, the sizing is not correct. I tried various sizes of squares and none of them worked out correctly. Though one bonus of doing these blocks was finding out the pattern made by the two opposite colored blocks when places side by side:

So, since this didn't work as expected, I knew I had to go back to templates. Although I could easily have machine pieced the block, I am also a fan of hand piecing. I chose to do my templates on freezer paper and here is the block cut out using the freezer paper templates:

Since I was hand piecing, I didn't really care about being exact on the seam allowance. Here's the block with each row finished:

Here is the block after joining the rows:

Here's the completed block before I squared up the seam allowance:

And here's the completed and squared up block:

Block Project - Block 3 - Homeward Bound

2011-01-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

Today's pictures prove I'm not a photographer. :)

Hopefully I'll improve in time. I have a lot of blocks to go! Speaking of which, this year I'm all about not being in a hurry. I could post multiple blocks a day and I even considered that... but at this time, I just want to go at a leisurely pace. The emphasis for me is enjoying the process and not worrying about the end.

The block I picked for today is called Homeward Bound and this is the second time I've made one. The first time I realized that I pieced the block wrong and so the pictures were wrong. This time I managed to do it right.

Again, with the hand dyed fabric...

You can find the block on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns
It is block number 4.

Although I'm going along kind of in order I'm not necessarily going to keep to that and I may use other sources for blocks as well.

Now on to the less than stellar pictures!

Here's the block pieces:

Here is the block with the half square triangles sewn:

Here I have joined the bottom two pieces and the top two pieces:

And now we have the final block completed:

Block Project - Block 2 - Cotton Reels

2011-01-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today's block is Cotton Reels which is block number 3 on page 56 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.

Again, I'm using my hand dyed fabric, and since the book illustrates only the finished pattern with no piecing instructions, I'm using my own method. :) For this block I chose an 8 inch finished size and drafted it on paper first. I easily could have used Electric Quilt, but for some reason I'm finding it very satisfying to do this on paper.

Here's the block laid out after cutting:

Here's the block with the half square triangles sewn:

And now with the finished half square triangle pieces sewn to the adjoining squares:

And here is the finished square:

Chillin'

2011-01-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

Block Project - Block 1 - Arrowhead Puzzle

2011-01-03T08:58:00.000-08:00

I've always been fascinated by quilt books cataloging blocks. And I have a secret love of sampler quilts, especially the Japanese style ones. If you've never seen any of these quilts you may understand my love affair with them. Here's a link to a slide show of the 2009 Tokyo Quilt festival (not done by me) and you can see some of the intricate work they do.

For a long time now I've kicked around the idea of going through a pattern book and doing all the blocks. But like many of the ideas I have it just sort of has been sitting there. Right after it was published I picked up Jinny Beyer's great book The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns. Again I kicked around the idea of doing a block a day or some such thing, but never got around to it.

Well, the time has come and I've decided to launch a year long project of making blocks. Currently I'm pulling from The Quilter's Album but I may pull from other sources as well.

I'm comfortable with drafting my own blocks, either with Electric Quilt or on paper and since I plan to mix up the sizes of the blocks, that's a good thing!

My first block was drafted on paper. Unfortunately the camera had a hard time with the white paper, so you may not be able to see this very well. I drafted it as a 4 inch finished block. The block is named Arrowhead Puzzle and it is on page 56 of Jinny's excellent book.

Here is the block in various stages of construction.

First after cutting out the pieces:

Next after sewing together some of the parts:

Finally the completed block:

I realize I didn't keep the orientation of the pieces consistent and I'll make sure to do that in the future. This was pieced using some of my hand dyed fabric.

Onward!

2011-01-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

Besides the time I spent yesterday doing a little of whatever I hope to be doing in the coming year, I also spent a lot of time thinking about the best way for me to move forward. I have to take into account that I'm going to be unable to do anything for awhile. I don't yet know what limitations my surgery will place on things, but I'm determined that it won't stall my quilting.

I want to finish what I started and continue working through the Quilter's Academy books. I got stalled on this, I know where and why, I just have to figure out how to get past it. It's the silliest thing really, but I'm having a hard time following the method for straightening the material. I've always done it slightly different. I'm going to go back and follow the instructions step by step and give it one more try.

The fabric straightening wasn't the largest issue, however. I kept thinking about how many quilt tops I have that aren't quilted. I've pieced a fair amount of tops, but I've only ever finished quilting one. I knew that working through the book would add to how many tops I have in the 'to be quilted' pile and I really am tired of not really finishing quilts.

One thing Harriet has suggested is to learn to quilt them at the same time, so you actually finish each quilt. I thought that was an excellent idea and spent some time trying to figure out how best to do that.

I knew that I could also use Harriet's quilting book. I have read through this book and in Harriet's style it is excellent. However I have never liked using monofiliment thread in my quilts and that has always kept me from doing it this way. Then late last year I stumbled across Leah Day's site. I was completely inspired.

I knew my machine set up, though fine for piecing, would simply not work for quilting. Harriet talks about this in Quilter's Academy Vol 1, even for piecing. But I figured I could deal with the set up since I couldn't afford a new table.

Although I have talked to my husband about doing a cutout in the old desk I was using, he wasn't really confident about doing the work without destroying the desk. So, for my birthday I asked for one of the tables she sells.

So now my sewing setup looks like this. As you can see I still don't have the ideal setup, but I'm really amazed at the difference the table makes in my piecing, being level as it is. I still need to figure out what to put to my right when I'm quilting. The room is small and I don't have a lot of options, but my friend Yvonne has suggested that I put my ironing board to the right when I quilt and I think that's the best solution for the moment.

Eventually I'd like to get a better setup, but I have a fairly small room and have to deal with what I can.

So, it's onward from here....

New Year, a New Time

2011-01-01T08:50:00.000-08:00

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions, per se. As my husband says, if you are going to change something, just change. But I do believe that people like a starting point. A time where you can mark the beginning and move forward into whatever change you are making. New Year is a good time to do that.

I also have this tradition where, on New Year's Day, I try to do a little bit of whatever I'm going to do going forward. So today my post here is in that spirit.

I have some challenges coming up in the New Year. I have to have surgery on my arm on Jan. 14, and I know the recovery from that is going to be difficult, but I am committed to following through with whatever I have to do to make it right.

So, today, I'll read a little, write a little, quilt a little, clean a little, eat some of the things I enjoy in moderation and make a little love. :) I'll spend time with my husband, my son and my wonderful dogs. I'll call my good friends to wish them a Happy New Year. All in all, I think it will be a great day for a great coming year!

Fear not

2010-09-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

I realized something today... I'm scared of my sewing machine.

I've been working on a project for my husband's birthday this Sunday and I've had two things happen with my machine that were rather frustrating. I finally got both of them solved, but it make me realize that the complexity of my machine has made me nervous. I'm afraid that if I do something it will mess the machine up badly enough that it will cost a fair amount to fix it.

I think a good solution to the fear is just to get more comfortable with the machine and if I learn the pieces and parts as well as I can and what all the fancy bells and whistles do, I believe I'll be less apt to be afraid.

So as I sew I am working towards that goal.

Fabric, Fabric, Fabric!

2010-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

I'm into lesson 120 of Quilter's Academy which has a section on fabric. Now I've read Harriet's book From Fiber to Fabric. Although the book was written several years ago and some of the specifics are out of date, it's still an incredible resource. The detailed description of the process and her explanation of just what effects your fabric's color and stability is eye opening. As a person interested in fabric dyeing, I found the section on what makes fabric lose color absolutely fascinating.

There was only a taste of information on fabric in the lessons here in class 120 and there are promises of more in future books to come, but if you are seriously interested in learning more, pick up From Fiber to Fabric.

One thing the lesson did for me, as someone with a lot of fabric, was to get me to drag out my various fabric tubs and really take a look at what fabric I currently own. Although I haven't bought much in the last couple of years, you can easily see in my stash how tastes have changed. Here are some of the very first fabrics I bought when I started quilting. I still have a few yards of stuff like this. I wonder how long I'd have to hang on to it for it to come back into style? :)

In lesson two the authors talk about whether to pre-wash or not pre-wash your fabric. When I very first started quilting I was told you had to pre-wash. I did so for my first quilt but soon after I decided I'd move over to the wait and see camp, so most of my stash is not washed. I was thrilled to hear Harriet's arguments on why pre-washing won't guarantee colorfastness in your fabric, since I probably mostly don't pre-wash out of laziness, I now have an excuse!

Although it wasn't strictly in the lesson plan, this lesson gave me an opportunity to evaluate my fabric stash on a number of levels. When looking through my hand dyes I noticed a definite lack of some colors and an abundance of others...blue or pink anyone? I also need more variety of lights and darks. I plan to do some dyeing this week and I want to try to work in some of the missing colors.

The exercise in this lesson was realigning the grain on a piece of fabric. I don't have any spray starch and I can't go get any at the moment so this exercise is being shelved for a bit until I can get some and since the next lesson involves working with a ruler and getting ready to cut I won't be able to move on for a bit.

The Weekend

2010-09-12T07:40:00.001-07:00

Saturday and Sunday are usually days I spend with my husband. And although I might do some quilting, I will rarely post about it.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to have a monster post on Monday!

Busy day

2010-09-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping to my pledge to work on the Quilter's Academy books and yesterday I decided to work on more than one lesson. The lessons in class 110 are all about tools and since it's not new to me I figured I could easily work in more than one lesson.

Yesterday I'd worked on my quilting space. It really is a small room crammed with way, way too much junk. I'm hoping that as I get moving and get some of the quilts done I want to get done I will make a bit more room in here. But who knows... As I work on more projects it may not clear things out like I hope. I have one project on the design wall that I want to work on in conjunction with the other stuff I'm doing. It's a quilt for my son that I started last year. I don't think I have quite enough fabric to finish it, and so I'm going to have to do some improvising with borders. I've tried to get some more of the fabric but no one has it.

If I can get rid of the boxes of extra junk, that will give me a bit more room. But the room is always going to be smaller than ideal. I guess I should just be grateful that I have a space now.

Yesterday's lessons in the Quilter's Academy started with the sewing machine. When I started making quilts I had an old Singer. I don't even remember the model, it was just a little workhorse but eventually it died. For a long time then I had no machine and when I went back to quilting I pieced by hand. Eventually a friend gave me the opportunity to buy one of her Singer Featherweights and I pieced many a quilt on that machine.

But ever since I first heard about the machines way back when I started quilting I'd lusted after a Bernina. When I split up with my long time lover I splurged and bought one. One of the things stressed in the Quilter's Academy is to buy a good machine. I've been very, very happy with my Bernina. After reading the chapter I took some time to look over my machine and reacquaint myself with the feet I use. Although Harriet recommends using a #13 foot with the Bernina, I don't have that foot and am not sure what difference there is between it and my #37. I've been pretty happy piecing with my current foot and I think I'll continue using that one.

I did purchase a straight stitch throat plate, as mentioned in the book and have found that keeps my fabric from being eaten as easily as sometimes happens with the regular throat plate.

Lesson three talks about rotary cutters and mats. Harriet and Carrie say to try a variety of rotary cutters and find the one that works best for you. I've tried a few brands but I always seem to come back to Olfa. The lesson mostly concentrated on introducing things and didn't get too in depth on how to cut other than mentioning the proper way to hold the cutter. I have not been holding my cutter with my finger on top as per the book, so when I actually do some cutting again I am going to definitely try that. She talks about various mats and again, I've tried a few but always come back to my Olfa. I have the large one 24" by 48".

The last lesson in class 110 talked about rules. I have a lot of rulers and templates but I actually don't have a couple of the sizes that the authors recommend you use. I don't have 2.5" x 12 or the 4" by 12. One thing mentioned is how you should use the smallest ruler you can use to help prevent slippage. Since I occasionally have problems with the ruler slipping, I'm really tempted to buy the smaller sizes and see if that helps my accuracy. When I started this venture I'd vowed to myself to not spend any money if I could avoid it, so I'm still debating whether or not to spring for the rulers.

By now you are saying "This isn't a blog post it's a book!"

In addition to the Quilter's Academy books I have been working on a few other projects. I think I'll save those till another post!

I will leave you with my quilting companions...

Quilter's Academy - Class 110

2010-09-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

So today I'm starting off on the Quilter's Academy Books by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. Even though I'm not a beginning quilt maker, the books appeal to me. I'm going to be doing a few different projects and working through these books is just one.

I've always liked Harriet Hargrave. I met her once long ago when I first started quilting at a store in Pasadena California where she was teaching. She impressed me at that time and I've followed her stuff ever since.

There is a new breed of quilter coming through doing something called Modern Quilting. It involves doing things in an easier more free form manner. And although I'm thrilled to see younger quilters picking up, it's not a style I find visually appealing and I feel that in some ways it's fhe very antithesis of what I'm trying to do now.

I will be going through the Quilter's Academy books lesson by lesson...and so without further adieu I'll start with Class 110 Lesson One.

The first class is talking about tools and your quilting space. When I first started quilting I had to work on a fold out table that I put up in the living room and took down every evening. I had not fabric stash and only the bare minimum of tools. Now I'm lucky enough to have a whole room and somehow it seems more cramped then that fold out table. Mostly I think because I have so much stuff!

I have an old wood desk that my sewing machine is currently on. The space is large and works well for sewing. The only downside is I do not have a cutout for the machine to bring it down level with the table. This makes it a bit more challenging to sew and at some point my husband has promised he will do the cut out for me. If he isn't able to get it done, I may do as suggested by the book and order a portable table. The threat should get him moving on the cutout if nothing else. :)

This lesson also talks about ironing and cutting spaces. I have an ironing board that I will take up and down, but at some point I want to get a big board. My friend Yvonne has one and says it's really great. It would certainly help when ironing fabric after dyeing.

The last section of this lesson is about a cutting area. That's one of my areas that's less than ideal. Because I have so much stuff in my little sewing room there isn't a space for a permanent cutting area and I will have to do it on a card table I take up and down.

The lesson gives information on what is the best kind of areas, but most of won't have the best of everything especially those of us without a permanent setup. Tomorrow's lesson is about the sewing machine!

Over a year

2010-09-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

It's been over a year since I've been here. Lots has happened. Probably the biggest one is that we bought a house. Having a house means a lot of different things, one in particular is that I now have my own dedicated sewing room.

Moving made me really take stock of how much stuff I really had. The room I have to use is just a small bedroom, and although it looked big enough once I got all my stuff in there it just wasn't that big at all.

I am going ot make a concerted effort to cut down on how much stuff I have, that means not buying much and working on using my stash.

I think it's ironic that as quilters we work to build up a stash of fabric and then don't really use it. So it borders on hoarding instead of gathering a palette. At least it does for me.

I have a good friend that I met through blogging and now we either email, phone or use video calling to chat and keep in touch. She's a really amazing woman in so many ways, and I am blessed to have her as a friend. Especially given how I can be rather flakey. She's working on freeing her quilting style and quilting the Nike way ... Just do it!

While I understand her approach, I'm drawn to a different style of quilting that really has more to do with precision. Lately I've been caught in kind of a mire and haven't moved forward with any projects, mostly because making a decision is sometimes hard for me. But there are a couple of things that appeal to me and I'm determined to work on them.

I'm going to start with the Quilter's Academy books by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. Although I've been quilting on and off for years and I probably don't qualify as a beginning quilter any longer, I'm still believe there are things I could learn.

So... off I am on a new adventure. My goal is to blog it here as I'm doing it. I'm not promising anything to myself, just taking it one day at a time.

Rainbow

2009-08-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

So here are the fabrics I dyed during my little video shoot. I think I'm going to dye another set using a different red, yellow and blue, just to see what happens with the colors.

This weekend I'm also going to try doing some discharge work. I've been wanting to do it for a month or so but haven't had the courage yet.

I also want to dye some of the mixed fabric, I'm really anxious to see how the bamboo fabric takes the dye.

So, if I can work it right, this whole weekend will be a dyeing extravaganza!

Lost in Disneyland

2009-08-18T07:43:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling really isolated today.

I've been doing so much better recently. I've been trying to stay in contact with people, I've been working on dyeing and doing some quilting. I've been reading a lot and even ventured out to the library. But today I feel a bit like a small child who got lost at a theme park.

I think part of it is the lack of sleep. All my life I was able to sleep relatively easily. Then in the last few years either from issues with pain or hamster brain I just can't sleep as well as before. When I'm tried I can't handle the pain nearly as well as I can normally and things just seem to domino into a much larger issue.

Maybe that's all it is..just lack of sleep... but at the moment, I feel very small and alone.

Video on the cheap

2009-08-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally finished the little dyeing videos I've been working on. They are obviously very basic since they were shot with my digital still camera and they are only meant to give people an idea about what the process looks like. I'm no expert and don't claim to be, but they are meant to go along with some posts I made on The Quilt Show's message boards in their dyeing forum.

Tools and What not
Making a Dust Box for Mixing Dye Concentrates
Mixing up the dye concentrates
Dyeing the fabric

I learned a lot doing these and will probably make a few more if I find people are interested.

Lists

2009-08-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

It seems that Vicki's list of goals idea is making the rounds. :) I've been thinking of doing it as a way of keeping myself on track and a bit more organized. So... here's my stab at what I want to do this next week:

Get Yvonne's books mailed out to her.
Do my next video in my immersion dyeing series.
Create a 'dust box' for mixing dye.
Finish 15 pumpkins from the long ago left over pumpkin fiasco.

Okay going to start small and see how it goes, so that's my list for this next week. If I can do additional stuff I'll add it in as comments on next week's post.

I had a really peaceful weekend. I didn't do a whole lot. Read a book yesterday and played in my fabric some on Saturday. I am really amazed at the amount of fabric I have. I have a lot of nice pieces as well, so I'm just going to have to work on a bunch of quilts.

I've been wandering around the blogsphere again, now that I'm feeling better and able to do a few things. There are so many inspiring blogs out there. Seeing that Vicky had lost here beloved Daisy made me very sad for her. I lost Bentley last year and I still miss him. Though I have two new dogs to help with the sadness. We adopted two older dogs, Welsh Pembroke Corgis, very different from the dachshund.

I really want to thank Yvonne for sticking with me and helping me to get back into things. She's a great friend and I'm lucky to have her as one.

Well, enough for now... I'm off to work on that list.

Folded Fabric

2009-07-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

I had some left over dye and thought I'd try some folding.

I folded the fabric and painted the folded edges with the Light Red and dyed the rest of fabric with the Fire Red.

I am really happy with the patterning on the fabric, though I'm not sure how much it shows up here.

This really makes me want to try shibori.

Fabric Alchemy

2009-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

There is so much information on Low water Immersion dyeing, but so much of it is conflicting. I get the feeling that dyeing in this way is a lot like making a curry. Every family has their own recipe and way of doing it, none of them are wrong, and they all come out different with some of them more tasty than others.

The dye books and sites differ so much. Some recommend using urea, some say don't use it. Some use salt, some say never use it. the proportions of dye powder to water differ, the soda ash proportions differ and because you can't really get a true color from a swatch sample on the monitor you can only have a general idea of just what color their recipe produced.

So it's almost like dyeing is some secret formula you have to discover by your own experimentation. Like the alchemy of old you take the notes of others and experiment until you've created something magic.

Fun day

2009-07-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

The previous post I showed my not-quite-so successful attempt at some gradations.

I had started with four colors I'd purchased from Dharma - Fire Red (PR10), Light Red (PR12), Grape (PR17) and Imperial Purple (PR131). This was my first attempt at doing gradations and I did several things wrong, but I learned a lot in the process.

I did two sets, Light Red to Grape and Fire Red to Imperial Purple. I expected to get similar results from each with perhaps the second set just more vibrant. I had the Fire Red and Light Red from my time dyeing previously, so they were older dyes. I'd been told by Dharma they still should be good, but I honestly don't know if the results I got were due to the dye being older or if that's just the colors.

This is the light red to grape and it's showing a bit more blue than the actual fabric. This is pretty much what I had expected, sort of 'berry' colors.

However this is not what I thought I'd get from the second set.

The fire red (at the top), was much more 'orange' than red and so the colors were a bit more brownish when combined with the Imperial Purple (which had a strong blue overtone).

I messed up the proportions on the run and I don't think I let the fabric cure long enough in the soda ash solution. It was also a very hot day and I do my dyeing outside.

Since I had dye left over I thought I'd do a bit yesterday to both see if I could do the gradations better and maybe let the fabric cure longer. Because the Fire Red had been so orangey i t hougth I'd go from the Light Red to the Fire Red. Here's what I got.

I'm much happier with my gradation here, I didn't mess up the proportions. This set does not have either the pure Fire Red or Light Red but starts with a mixture of each. Again the monitor display doesn't show the rich coral colors that I got with this batch.

I'm really happy with the colors I got here, but a little concerned that I won't be able to easily reproduce them because I'm still unsure if the age of the dye powder changed things. I guess I'll find out in the future!

Long ago and far away...

2009-07-22T08:42:00.001-07:00

Here's a bit of what I've been doing lately.

I had a rough bit of time and I pretty much dropped out of life. But, I am back now.

I just have to brush off all the cobwebs and get back to posting.

2007-10-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead, honestly. I've had a couple of things happening. I certainly didn't mean to worry anyone.

Until I can get back posting like normal, here's a preview of my pumpkin block for the swap. Let me know what you think!

This is not my month!

2007-10-08T17:31:00.001-07:00

As you know I've been battling being sick, first the flu then bronchitis. Now I was a total klutz and dumped water into my laptop. I've let it dry out in hopes it would still work and unfortunately, it won't even turn on. Now I have to get it repaired and my posts may be few and far between. I still have my desktop (yes, I know it's sick but my house has many computers), it's just not so convinient. I lost another laptop to hard drive failure last week, so that leaves just my desktop functioning now.

Anyway, the point of all my moaning is that I will post when I can.

Back from the (mostly) dead

2007-10-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting because unfortunately I ended up with bronchitis and was pretty sick.

I'll try to catch up on blogs and post something with pretty pictures soon.

But one thing I finished up yesterday during my enforced rest period was one of my practice quilts. I sewed the binding on and so now it's finally finished. The first quilt I've ever actually finished.

I have some questions though for anyone who might know.

The quilt used all cotton fabric and cotton batting and I was hoping for it to be softer and a bit more drappy if you know what I mean, but it's a bit stiff even after washing. I think it might be due to both the amount of quilting on the thing and the stitch length I used for the machine quilting. I quilted it about 1 to 2 inches apart in a grid pattern over the whole thing.

Here's the quilt before it's bound.

What stitch length do you use for machine quilting? I am going to look through my books, but I thought I'd ask here too. I didn't adjust my stitch length so I was using the same I use for piecing and I'm pretty sure that was too short.

Anyway...I hope you all had a great week and weekend. I'll post more later.

My weekend recap

2007-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

So, Jason wanted me to take it easy this past weekend.

Here's what I did instead. (Please forgive the photography my design wall is still being taken up by a Halloween quilt.) Most of these pieces are much larger than what is shown (they are doubled) and again, the photography distorts the color some, so you don't get a true idea of what they are like but, hey..it's what I have. :)

This particular series was in honor of Mar who once mentioned she liked brown.

This first one is all three of the browns I had. Basically I just poured a different brown on various areas to vary the color. I ended up with a lot more lighter areas than I would like the next time.

PR35 : DARK BROWN
PR35A : CHOCOLATE BROWN
PR36 : MAROON BROWN

This is PR35A : CHOCOLATE BROWN

This is PR36 : MAROON BROWN

This is PR35 : DARK BROWN

Next I tried for some blues. I had a new blue PR26 : SKY BLUE

And PR22 : COBALT BLUE

This one is just the sky blue and the turquoise that is the primary.

Here is just some playing to get purple. I wanted to get both the blue purple and red purple on the same piece of fabric.

I really liked this yellow PR4 : DEEP YELLOW

And this orange PR6 : DEEP ORANGE

I also wanted to do some black PR44:BETTER BLACK and gray PR41:CHARCOAL GRAY.

Then there was the red PR12 : LIGHT RED

Here I was playing with green

And trying for teal

This piece is proof you never know what color something will be until it's dry. This is the leftover black, brown and blue dye:

And finally an experiment gone horribly horribly wrong. This one is for the dye again pile. I was attempting to get 'fall colors'. It just ended up ugly!

I had a lot of fun. :)

I love the smell of cotten in the morning!

2007-10-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who need pictures in a post, this one isn't going to have any. I won't feel the least offended if you stop reading now. Really I won't...not in the *sniff* least. ;)

Part two of the disclaimer is this is likely to be long and rambling. Jason isn't home and I feel like chatting.

Now that all of that is out of the way! As you can probably tell if you read more than a couple of my posts I really like dyeing. Well, I could skip the mess and the hassle, but since I need it to get to the fabric I will deal with it. It's really the fabric that has me hooked.

When I first started quilting I bought the fabric I needed for the project I was working on. I couldn't understand why these women would walk around the quilt store holding bolts of fabric they were petting with this odd sort of look on their face. You know the one, someplace between the look of having sex and taking a Valium?

Well, something, somewhere happened to me and suddenly it was as if I'd been struck by a bolt of lightening and all was clear. Fabric was good. Not just good but wonderful! I am sure at that point my face too reflected the wierd combination of peace and excitement I get from possessing fabric.

That's when I knew I was well and truly lost.

But we all know that all fabric is not created equal. There is a certain texture when you run your hand across the 'good stuff'. There's a snap to when you give it a sharp tug and an evenness in the way it takes the print. I'm finding that the fabric available for dyeing varies just like that available at the quilt store. Some of it's okay, but some of it is great.

I order this wide muslin, that is really nice. It will make great backings I think and I love how it feels, but I hate the way it frays when I wash out the dye. I wish I had a serger. If I did, I would run it through that before I dipped it into the dye vats.

Anyway, someone asked me if I would post the patterns I have for what I will make from this fabric. I honestly have no patterns in mind at the moment. I'm just playing. I feel like a kid again.

The only problem with that is everything I've made so far is definately one of a kind. I know that all hand dye is unique but because I've kept no notes on what I did and just went by instinct re-creating some of this will be next to impossible. I've decided that's okay however. I can always say they are original one of a kind pieces. My art, that can't be recreate.. birthed from some viseral place inside me.

That means that once these pieces are cut up, that's it... they are gone forever. Some people might feel that is kind of sad and hesitate to use the pieces. After all, some of them are beautiful just in their own right, in their whole form.

However I think that's just a good excuse to make more, don't you?

Dye and dye again

2007-09-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

So, I had a rough week and was really sick. Jason got back in town late Friday night and I picked him up at the airport. I had worked a 14 hour day and I wasn't sure how much energy I'd have this weekend, but there were some things I really wanted to do.

I was itching to dye some fabric again and Jason gave me a lecture about how perhaps I should just take it easy since I'd been sick. I appreciated the fact that he loves me enough to tell me when he thinks I've pushed myself too far, but I really wanted to do some dyeing.

So, I spent all weekend doing just that. Since my setup is less than ideal, as the rainy season sets in, I will have little chance to dye, so I'd like to get as much in as I can.

I'll post more pictures later, but here you see several of the colors I did this weekend. There are a few more pieces not in the picture and I have plenty of concentrate left to do more this week. Forgive the junk box and the ugly, deformed feet in the picture. It was a quick-and-dirty-grab-a-shot-just-to-have-a-post kind of thing. :)

I wish I had more time to dye and quilt. Unfortunately I got little quilting done this weekend. I must work on my pumpkins and my Christmas quilt..oh and finish the Halloween quilts...

This weekend's dyeing made me wonder about tint and shade. Typically shade is adding black to a pure color to darken it and tint is adding white. Since you can't add white in dyeing...what do you add? I have to do some research on this, but at the moment I'm thinking it's really just less of the pure color to make it lighter. Does anyone know where I can find some information on it?

Well, it's late and I'm exhausted. I know I pushed myself too much this weekend, but I really love dyeing.

If you were one of my 'winners' don't forget to send me your address!

Been sick

2007-09-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't been around to post because I've been really out of it with whatever horrible crud Jason brought home. He was sick for several days and I knew that I'd catch it, because I always do. I had pneumonia for the first time when I was 2 years old and that seems to have set the stage for me to get any cold or flu bug in the area. It usually deteriorates into brochitis and I have a lovely week or so of feeling like death warmed over.

Anyway... I got sick starting last weekend and it just went downhill from there. By Tuesday night I felt completely awful and I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday lying on the couch in and out of sleep.

The worse part of it was Jason had to go out of town for his work so it was just me and Bentley. As much as Bentley loves me he still hasn't mastered the art of shopping and fixing chicken soup. Maybe it's that opposable thumb thing.

I don't know how people who are alone do it when they get sick. I really feel for any of you who do not have a partner, child or even a roommate.

This morning I feel at least mostly human again, so I think I'm over it at last. Of course Jason will be home tonight!

I have a lot of quilty things I want to get to this weekend as well as doing another dye batch, but we'll see how much energy I have.

Pumpkins!

2007-09-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm part of the pumpkin swap and I stopped tonight to get some fabric for it. My pumpkin is supposed to be rust colored. I hope these fabrics are going to work okay.

I'm still feeling not so good, I'm hoping that I will be better tomorrow. Jason has to go out of town for work so I will probably get a bit of sewing done while he's gone...but I'll miss him!

hmm looking at the picture the colors are just a bit off. The middle one is more green than it seems in the picture. Anyone with more experience on the primative look let me know if the fabric is going to work.

And the winner is....

2007-09-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

I offered to send a piece of hand dyed fabric to anyone who posted on this post. Six people posted and which one won? (Say that fast five time!)

Well... all of you! I figure since only a few of you posted or maybe it's a few of you are the only ones reading...anyway... send me your address and next dye batch I'll send pieces out to each of you. :)

Looking forward to hearing from you and thank you reading!

coughcough*

2007-09-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend hasn't been nearly as productive as I had hoped.

I was going to get my Halloween quilt top sewed together. I needed to do applique down the cut out pieces from the panels and then sew up the blocks. And on Sunday I was going to go to Quilting in the Garden, but Jason was sick on Friday and in an exression of love he seems to have spread it to me.

I'm aching and coughing and just generally feel bad. I have to go to work tomorrow because of an important project so I'm trying to conserve as much energy as I can.

Yvonne has been saying crazy things about going on a spending freeze. I'm thinking maybe I should join her. I need to get my fabric for the pumpkin block swap but after that I'm thinking that I should go on a freeze for a period of time. I know some of you have done the no fabric buying thing before. How did it work? I remember reading in Vicky's blog about a past time when she felt really good about not buying. She isn't on a 'quilt diet' now, and I've loved seeing what she's bought lately, but I remember reading past posts that talked about it, last year I think.

Maybe it's just the sickness talking! :) I'll see how I feel after I get the pumpkin fabric.

Work, creativity and life!

2007-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

One thing I really wish I had was more time to do things. It seems like I'm so drained from work by the time I get home I don't feel like quilting. That means most of what I do is on the weekend. I really want to find a way to change this, however.

I've been working on my book for September (Jinny Beyer's Quiltmaking by Hand) and I really think that going back to hand piecing will help me get more done. I just have to get everything together though. I guess that will wait until the weekend! ;)

I'm hopeless. I have all these books and I wanted to cut down on 'unread' books and what do I do?

Since I didn't have time to dye more fabric and I'm trying to be more productive with my evenings I did mock up the Halloween quilt:

I'm really interested in opinions on this. I don't know if the placement of the applique is pleasing enough. I don't want any glaring holes. Let me know whatcha think!

Second Dyeing attempt

2007-09-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Edit: Okay I have messed up the links on this post and you can't click for larger pictures. I will get that fixed later, however. But for now... they don't enlarge.

Edit 2: The links are fixed now!

When you do dyeing the way I am doing it, you mix dye powder with water and urea to make dye concentrate. You then use the concentrate with warm water at the appropriate strength to dye the cloth whatever colors you prefer.

There had been left over concentrate from the first batch of dyeing I did and since it doesn't keep long at room temperature I wanted to use it up.

Since I had concentrated mostly on a single color from the dyes and not mixed them except on the last couple of pieces (which was really just the leftover dye water used a second time), this time I wanted to try mixing some colors.

I thought I'd start with Orange and I carefully began to measure out some of the red dye concentrate. Well, the cap fell off and dumped a bunch into my mixture, so I gave up on the measuring idea and decided to just sort of 'wing it'.

Here's my first attempt at an orange.

As you can see it's really more 'salmon' than orange.

Now trying to guess what color a piece of fabric is going to be from the color of the dye water is pretty much just a wild guess at best. The dye water may be vaguely the color you are looking for in a super concentrated way, but you really can't tell until the fabric is completely done and dry. That's why measuring is so important to acheive predictable results.

I could tell, however, even from the way the fabric looked that it wasn't the color I was hoping for, so I tried again and this time used more yellow.

This was more the effect I was going for and now I know that if I want salmon it's more red and if I want orange it's more yellow. :)

Next I wanted to try purple.

>This was definately purple, but I wondered if I could get lavender and so I cut back quite a bit on the amount of red and got this.

>There are some pretty lavender shades in there, but it ended up being much darker than I'd anticipated.

My next attempt was green.

>I thought this one turned out pretty much as I had wanted so I was really happy with it.

I had a lot of leftover dye and wasn't sure what to do with it, so I thought I'd try two experiments. I wanted to see if I could get brown. Well, my attempt at brown produced this:

Although there are some 'tanish' spots on it, it certainly isn't brown.

After all this I still had a lot of dye concentrate left, especially blue. I figured I'd just take one large piece and dump all the remaining dye onto it.

Here is the result:

I like this piece but one concern I have is the amount of concentrate I used ended up making it possible this will bleed. I had a white piece of fabric next to it and when it was wet it bled onto it. I washed it in Synthrapol again and it seems stable now, but it did make me a bit nervous about my other pieces. I'd checked them as told to in the book. The rinse water ran clear and they didn't iron color onto a wet white piece of cloth. It was only by accident I found that the color bled when wet and left next to another piece of fabric.

All in all I'm really excited about my experiments. Right at this time I don't mind a one of a kind results but I am sure eventually I'm going to want to reproduce them.

In celebration of my new passion and sympathy for anyone who read all the way to the bottom here I'm going to offer a little prize for anyone who leaves a comment on this post by Monday 6AM Pacific time. I'll send you a random piece of fabric from my next dye batch!

Don't forget what today is!

2007-09-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Avast all ye wenches! Haul sail and remember those mateys that have gone before ye. Houst a tankard to them!

Shiver me timbers. It's Talk Like a Pirate Day

Crazy!

2007-09-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I've tipped over into 'nuts' or maybe 'wacko' is more my speed. In any case I've lost it.

It's past my bedtime and I have one more dye batch to finish. I know it's the middle of the week and I have work tomorrow, but I needed to use up the left over dye concentrate before it lost it's 'ompf' and I thought I'd just dye one little piece when I got home.

One turned into two...which turned into four, which quickly became six and then oh.. seven. I'm tired and hurting from standing but I am so happy. I'll post pictures of what I ended up with tomorrow when I can take the photos in good light.

I did this batch a lot differently.

It's pretty funny actually. I wanted to make purple, so I started carefully measuring the red dye...and the cap fell off. I figured, what the heck and just started dumping what I thought was a good amount. I also didn't stir the fabric hardly at all.

I really like these pieces (at least the four I've seen so far).

I've been wanting to dye the fabric for the Hometown Christmas quilt. But I'm not sure that's a good idea, since it would take even longer for me to experiment and find the colors I want. I haven't gotten very far on the quilt yet. So far I'm in a race to end up in last place. I'm currently neck and neck with Yvonne! ;)

Well, the washer just quit so I'm going to go see what the green piece ended up looking like!

To Dye for

2007-09-17T04:30:00.000-07:00

This is how I spent my weekend.

I took recipes from Color by Accident. The first sets I started with are dark and light versions of single colors.

Here you see the primary red. PR13 Fushia Red from Dharma Trading Co. This red is one of the primary dye colors. I wanted the variation in color, so I deliberately didn't stir much to keep the dye distribution uneven.

I learned a lot from doing the batches I did this weekend and I definately found a lot of things I'll be doing differently next time.

Here you see the light and dark versions of the primary yellow PR1 Lemon Yellow. The light one here was definitely not as 'light' as I'd thought it would be and the color distribution on the dark piece was much more even than it had been on the red. I didn't think this got stirred more, though it might have.

Next time I am going to see if I can get a much lighter version of the 'light one'.

I had two different blues. This one is PR23 Cerulean Blue. This is not listed as a primary but Ann Johnston listed it as one color she used quite a bit. I thought it was a very pretty blue and Jason definately liked this blue better than the other one.

Again, this is light and dark versions of it.

In addition to the Cerulean Blue I had PR25 Turquoise which is listed as a Primary.

Here you see the light and dark versions of these. It definitely has a very different color.

This first exercise was interesting for me for a number of reasons. I learned a lot about what I will do the same and what I will do differently next time. For instance, there were a ton of little things like having more measuring cups and something to stir the cloth in the dye buckets instead of always using gloves. I went through a ton of gloves. I'm also not so sure I'd do so many different colors at one time. I had four different colors with two versions of each. This meant I was washing fabric long past my bedtime.

Oh, that's another thing. I'd start on Saturday this time instead of Sunday. That would give me more 'fudge' time. I spent part of Saturday picking up the rest of the things I thought I'd need and then sort of lazing away the evening.

I'd also dye more cloth at one time. Because it's the same amount of mess for a little verses a lot.

After I was done with the color study, I didn't want to waste all that remaining dye, so I did some other pieces to see what would happen if I used the left over dye water. Now, I knew it would be different because with the initial batches I put some dye directly on the cloth then added the soda ash water after a few minutes. That meant this dye water I was using already had the soda ash in it and I wasn't sure what difference it would make.

For this piece

I dumped the remaining yellow and both blues into a bucket with a wet piece. It ended up being greenish but definitely more 'blue' in the green.

These two pieces are what's left of everything in the dye vats. I layered the cloth on the left and poured the water on the layers. First the red, then the Cerulean blue. After that I added the cloth on the right and poured in the yellow and finally the turquoise.

I had expected at least a bit more red or a deeper purple, but that didn't happen. I'm still really pleased with these two pieces and in the future I think I'm going to make sure I use up the remaining fabric this way. All the other pieces were a bout two yards. This was a total of about six yards.

The most unexpected piece was this one.

This was all of the leftover dye water together. I expected it to be more brown or gray or something, but instead this is what I got.

I was so excited to see each piece come out and I'm definitely hooked!

Hamster Brain

2007-09-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

It's 10:41 pm and I have to be up in 5 hours. Instead of sleeping my mind keeps running around and around the same old thing not getting anywhere like a tiny rodent on a wheel.

I wish I could find the magic box to stuff it all down inside to lock it away so I could just sleep.

It's silly... going over things doesn't change them. I know at the bottom of the problem is that I haven't got a good course of action. Once I know what I'm going to do I can usually put a problem away but this one just keeps whirling around in the chaos of my mind.

It doesn't happen often, thankfully and maybe if I go lay back down and count sheep or something the problem will disappear and I can sleep...

Well, I can hope can't I? ;)

Dyeing to quilt

2007-09-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Look what I got in!! I've been wanting to learn to dye fabric for a long time, so after I got my bonus this year at work...I ran off to Dharma and bought a whole bunch of stuff. I've got a bunch of fabric and everything I need, so I have no excuse now for not trying it out.

Ever notice how many quilting blogging women have Dachshunds or Dachshund mixes? Coincidence or just great taste? ;)

Well, I need to go dig out fabrics for the Thimbleberries Christmas quilt... so I'm off to root through the stash.

If anyone has done dyeing and has any 'wise' words, please let me know.

Trip around the weekend

2007-09-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

I needed to have my design wall so I could work on the Halloween quilt so I sewed up my trip around the world quilt. So here's a picture of my finsihed top.

Soft as butter

2007-09-05T17:04:00.001-07:00

Today has been quite the interesting mix...

I woke up at my usual time (3:45am), did my morning routine, checked the web, got dressed, walked the dog, fixed my breakfast. Now, I'm an amazingly boring individual. Every morning for breakfast I have a bowl of cereal. I like to delude myself that the oaty goodness of Cheerios cancels out the fatty goodness of things I eat later in the day.

Ha!

Anyway, back to the morning.

When I pulled out the milk I noticed something distressing. It was about the same temperature I like my butter when I'm getting ready to spread it on bread. :( This refrigerator is only about 1.5 years old. My ex cheaped out when he bought it and paid $300 for a no name refrigerator. Now, I'm all for bargains, but I like sensible ones and I had a bad feeling about this from the beginning. It never closed right and never really kept stuff cold. Jason and I had been debating what to do about the fridge last month. We both wanted a better one but we felt that it was foolish to spend money when we had a working one.

Well, it isn't working now!

So, I headed to work where it was just blazingly busy. In between work stuff I had read my email and had a wonderful suprise from Yvonne. She told me her local quilt shop had the Thimbleberries Christmas books and she offered to get them and ship them to me.

When I moved up from Los Angels the I missed my son and I missed my friends. I was sure it wouldn't be hard to make new friends here, but I hadn't counted on a few things. I worked long hours and I didn't get out much. So I didn't meet as many people as I'd hoped... In Los Angeles I'd had a group of four friends that were like gold. We did lots of stuff together and I knew there was always someone there for laughs or to lend me a shoulder if I needed one. I missed that here... I've got a few friends here now, but I'm finding that the best of the best seem to be on the web. Yvonne you are a gem!

After work I ran by Sears to catch the end of their Labor Day sale. I ended up getting this.

Now I'm home...relaxing with the dog.

Hectic day but good in many ways and wonderful in at least one. Thank you Yvonne!

Dog gone days...

2007-09-05T03:47:00.000-07:00

While I was busy sewing away over the weekend, here's what Bentley was doing.

Reflections

2007-09-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I caught a brief glimpse of a woman in the bathroom mirror and just for a second I wondered who she was. The fleeting moment left me with an odd feeling.

I don't look in mirrors more than necessary. I brush my teeth, wash my face and brush my hair and I'm used to the woman who stares back. I check to make sure clothes look as flattering as possible and I won't embarrass myself when I head out, but I don't spend a great deal of time on my reflection.

Somewhere in my mind I stopped aging and gaining pounds years ago. Please understand that I am not obsessed with eternal youth and I am not interested in being younger, it's just that somewhere, the person in my head that is 'me' stopped getting older and chubbier some time ago. And so, the pudgy silver-haired woman staring back at me took me by surprise.

As I looked at the woman in the mirror I thought about where I am in my life now. I have lived a full life, much more diverse than many people, less diverse than others. I'm not ready to pack it in for a long time yet and I hope I have many more interesting and educational times.

Do we all do that? It made me think a lot about how many people I know who have an odd view of their own looks. They feel they are too fat or too skinny, their nose is too long or they are too wrinkled. They aren't perfect enough. Are they really seeing their own flaws reflected truly or is this just a distorted image built up somewhere in their own mind?

It made me think again about how I hate how I look. I am not a pretty woman and I've done nothing to make 'the most of myself' as some would say. Perhaps that view I have is as distorted as the other, where I saw someone else staring back at me in the mirror.

Weekend sewing

2007-09-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I spent most of my weekend sewing on the Halloween quilt.

So, it took me several hours to cut out all the fabric. Believe or not all that fabric you see there is the leftover. Since I wasn't cutting from a pattern but creating my own it appears I have cut out enough for two quilts.

I got all of the cutting done on Saturday. One thing I find irritating when I'm cutting fabric is how much we end up losing sometimes due to the way fabric is on bolts, or the way it was cut off. I'm not blaming the quilt shop owner, I know it's just a by product of the way things are, but you can see in the photo the waste from cleaning up a fat quarter. On that fat quarter it was over an inch. I guess it sounds cheap to think that it's only an 'inch' but when I think of all the fabric I've cut that adds up to a lot of inches.

I finished up sewing all the blocks yesterday and today and below is an idea of what I am doing with the quilt. I've never done a scrap quilt before and I'm not sure this one is very good but I guess I'll see how I feel when I'm all finished.

Below is just a small section, I cut pieces out of the panels and I'm going to applique them done on the black squares. This is just a small section of the quilt. It's going to be a large lap quilt so this is about a third to a quarter of the size it will finish.

God only knows what I'm going to do with all the leftovers. I guess I'll make a second quilt.

I'm terribly disappointed that I didn't win the auction for the Thimbleberries Christmas quilt books. It was down to the wire and I was oubid by $4. I will just have to live vicariously through Vicky and the others!

Unexpected gift

2007-09-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was given a chance to take a look at myself and realize something I need to change. Something at work upset me a great deal and I had to think about why I was bothered. When I really looked at what happened and my reaction to it, I realized my distress was caused by my own fear and insecurity.

I've always been the 'odd man out'. It's made me rather lonely for a lot of my life. I've also had problems with people at work on a personal level. Whether or not it takes two to create a situation, I can't control what someone else does. I only have control over me.

If all of this seems rather vague, it's really just a case of me not fitting very well with the other people I work with and managing people is probably not my forte. I've learned to be better over the years, but I always am impatient with the fact that most people won't ever admit, even to themselves, that they are at fault in a situation.

Yesterday I spent time thinking about why I was so upset about the change that's happening at work and I came to the ugly conclusion that I'm jealous and fearful of what it means for me. I'm 50 and I've lived a relatively hard life, some of that my own fault. If I let this situation poison me, it will only get worse. I can't change what is going to happen but I can change how I react. Instead of reacting with fear and having that cause me to be negative and grasping, I can open myself up to react with generosity and kindness. It won't be easy, I have to fight the most tenacious enemy I know....myself.

It was uncomfortable yesterday realizing all of this, but I look at it as a gift. Even if it's one I didn't particularly want, the realization is the first step to change.

Trick or treat!

2007-08-31T12:24:00.002-07:00

As you can see by the jumble of fabric above I've started working on my Halloween quilt. I finally got my rotary cutter put back together thanks to the information post by Yvonne!

I've decided to do a scrap quilt using all the fabrics along with pieces from the panel in strategic locations. We'll see if I can mock up something to post so it makes more sense what I'm trying to do.

Work has been so horribly busy, that I'm just ecstatic I get a three day weekend! I plan to squeeze a lot of quilting in there.

How about you all? What are you up to this weekend?

Oopsie :(

2007-08-29T08:11:00.001-07:00

I feel really stupid.

I have been using rotary cutters for years. I've changed a lot of blades, but I've always been very careful to lay things out in the right order so I can put it back together correctly. I never took the time to actually learn the parts of the cutter and now I'm paying for that.

This morning I thought I'd cut up some of my Halloween fabric before I headed to work. I'd get started on my quilt, use a few minutes being productive and all that kind of stuff.

Well, my blade needed to be changed. I had nicked it cutting up the last bit of fabric for the binding on my nine patch and it has that annoying little 'chunk' sound when you cut, leaving one little bit of fabric attached. So, I figured I'd change it. I removed the screw and went to remove the blade. I'm not sure what happened but I dropped the cutter. I'm lucky I didn't lose a toe, but pieces of the rotary cutter were all over.

I picked them up and laid them out on the cutting mat and realized that I don't have a clue now which way that little washer goes and whether it goes in front or behind of the yellow disk. :( How dumb can you get?

I think I'll stop tonight on my way home and buy a new one. If I do, you can bet I'm going to carefully take it apart and pay attention to which thing goes where.

Blah!

2007-08-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

The quilt related stuff is towards the end of this post in case you have an aversion to talk about being sick...

I woke up this morning at around 3 am with a horrible headache. I hoped it would not be so bad that I couldn't go to work, but after I got up and took my morning thyroid medication, it wasn't more than 15 minutes until I was running for the bathroom to empty my stomach. My head was pounding something horrible, so I sent an email in to let everyone know I wasn't going to make it and laid back down on the couch. Jason came out to see what was wrong and if there was anything he could do. I knew I couldn't take anything for it at least until I could keep some food down, so I just tried to go back to sleep. I woke up again as he was getting read to leave and went into the bedroom and laid down again. The next time I woke up it was around 10 am. My head still hurt but it was more manageable.

I've had these headaches off and on now for a couple of years. I went to the doctor once and they told me they were migraines. I don't really buy that for a couple of reasons, but a neurologist did check me out to make sure it wasn't a tumor.

My boss always acts like I'm faking it when this happens. I don't think he ever has had to deal with horrible headaches and maybe he just doesn't get it, but I'm completely useless when I get one. Right now I feel the dregs of it still causing pressure on the right side of my face. Feels a lot like someone is pushing on my right eyeball.

Bentley laid down with me the whole time. It's really amazing how animals can tell you do not feel well and they seem to want to comfort you.

So, now that I at least feel human again, I'm going to try to figure out what I can do for my quilt I'm going to hand piece. Jinny Beyer has some lovely quilts in her book (Quilting by Hand) but I think I might just pick out a pattern from something else to use. I haven't really decided yet. I'll post something when I do.

I'm going to attempt finishing up the binding on the quilt I machine quilted. I will feel really good when that quilt is finished, no matter how it looks! I really do like having things done well, but I finally realized that my drive for perfection was holding me back in this case. I shouldn't expect to quilt something perfectly the first time no more than anyone can do something perfectly the first time. If I give myself permission to fail, I'm giving myself permission to learn, and that's the most important thing.

Books, books, and more books (the sequel)

2007-08-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is the mess where my books are. I spent some time today looking them over and it seems to me that they fall into several categories. There are books on techniques, books with quilt patterns, and books with block patterns.

Another thing I've been thinking of lately is how much I wish I had more time to quilt. I work all week and I'm often too tired by the time I get home to do much of anything. But I remember what Jinny Beyer says about why she hand pieces. As much as I love my Bernina, I really love hand piecing as well. If I had a hand project ready, I could do it in those little bits of time, like waiting at the doctor's office or at work on lunch. So...my pick for the book I'm working on this month is Hand quilting.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Busy day

2007-08-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

I've been busy today.

The quilt on the left is my first attempt at machine quilting. The quilt looks wrinkled or something in the picture. I'm not finished with binding yet, but I'm almost done with my very first quilt!

The other top (the one on the right) was made at the same time as the one I'm almost finished quilting. I was experimenting. I wanted to see what kind of difference color placement made in a two color quilt. So they are both made from the same material, the same pattern, the only difference is the placement of color.

One problem I have sometimes is that I worry too much about 'screwing' up. Or making mistakes. I didn't want to ruin any of my good material with my attempts to learn how to quilt. So, I bought some less expensive material and made these two quilts.

I made a lot of mistakes on the quilting, but I feel pretty good about it. I figure if the quilts end up too bad, Bentley at least will appreciate them. :)

Books, books and more books!

2007-08-26T05:54:00.001-07:00

Seeing all of Vicky's books stacked up makes me think about mine. I'm a book-aholic. After reading about how Vicky thinks she should spend more time on some of her books, I've been thinking I should do the same.

I'm going to try doing some organizing and then I think I'll pull out a book a month to try to do something from. Not that 12 books a year is all that much but I think it's realistic. I know it won't make a lot of headway in the backlog since I buy more than 12 books a year, but I'll be using what I bought a bit and it will make me feel better. If I find that I can handle two books a month, then I might just try that, but I'll start with one and work from there.

I'll post some pictures of my 'stack' (is that the book version of 'stash'?) and my choice for the month later.

Sunday morning laziness

2007-08-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

It was really sweet of Vicky to send people over here. I am a big fan of her blog and she really inspired me to start this one. Now I have a whole bunch of new ones to read thanks to the people posting here!

It's really early Sunday and although I'd love to have slept a bit longer, Bentley had other ideas. During the week we get up just a bit before 4 am. I have to be to work at 6 am and I have medication I need to take at least an hour before I eat anything. So, that makes for an early morning. But truth is, I don't really mind. I like getting up early, it's just going to bed that is sometimes a problem. My hours are so different from Jason's that sometimes it's a hassle.

My boyfriend moved out here from Tennessee to be with me. He's a sweetheart and had been my best friend for 3 years before things turned romantic. I'd never thought of having a romantic relationship with a friend before. I sort of had this odd unconscious rule that friends were friends and lovers were something completely different. Jason knew everything about me, even before we met in person (we met playing an on-line game). I told him things I would have never told a potential romantic partner. Not that I would lie to someone I was thinking of dating, just that...well... I wouldn't have been so free with the 'warts' of my personality, if you know what I mean. So, he knew all of me... the ugly and the good.

So, when my last relationship broke up, Jason was my rock. He listened to my pain and helped me through it, as a friend. Then something just changed... he told me he'd loved me for a long time but never said anything because of my other relationship. And one thing just led to another and now I am with the greatest guy in the world.

I think the best thing about our relationship is that I never feel I have to edit myself around him. I know that I can be who I am and he will be fine with that, because he already knows. It's a really freeing feeling. It also makes me look back on all the relationships and the one marriage I've had and see how I never really had true love in return before. Although I had to wait a very long time for this man, I'm glad that he's here in my life now.

We don't agree on everything, he has some pretty interesting opinions. He likes Silicon Valley and says it's right where he needs to be for his career, but it's interesting watching the shock to the system that the Southern boy has had.

He complained often about how 'rude' people here are. At first, I didn't know what he was talking about. I never thought people were rude. So, I asked him and I now understand that there is a very big culture shift from the South to the North. After talking to him about it, I can understand what he means. It's little things. When people hold open doors for others, the person walking through the door will often say nothing. No simple 'thank you'. Clerks in shops will ask how people are, but those being served don't ask back how the clerk is. There are a ton of other little things like this.

I've never considered things like this to be rude, because...well...that's just how it is here, but I can see what he means and it got me thinking about how those little kindnesses could make a difference to someone.

So, I've decided that I'll try a little bit of that Southern courtesy. It certainly takes nothing away from me, and maybe it will make someone else's day a bit brighter.

I just went in to buy steam-a-seam!

2007-08-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

Honest. I just went in to buy some steam-a-seam. Although I love appliqué, I've never done the fusing kind and I have this McKenna Ryan pattern that I want to make for a friend and I needed steam-a-seam for it. My original idea had been to blow it up to a much larger size at the copy shop and then try needleturn on it. Yeah...that was a good theory, however if I'd bothered to look closer at the pattern before I spent $10 on the enlargements I might have noticed there were an awful lot of tiny sharp pointy ends that really won't work with needleturn. Soooo back to plan 'B'.

I thought I'd stop at a shop not far from my home. I'd never been a big fan of this shop and the last time I'd been in it was changing ownership. I hadn't visited after that because that was in one of my n0n-quilting times. Last night I stopped in to see if they had steam-a-seam and OH MY GOD! Let's just say the transformation in the shop is astounding.

The new owner has a dizzying array of wonderful fabric and she's really done a marvelous job bringing the shop back from the sorry state it was in before. I have wanted to make a Halloween quilt for quite some time and one fabric after another kept finding it's way into my arms. From Halloween I went on to find some other lovely pieces and finally I just had to stop.

I know it's sometimes hard for none quilters to understand, but when I see fabric I really like I buy it if I can because there have been too many times a fabric has sold out and then it's gone for good with me missing my chance to buy. :(

My puppy was anxious when I got home. I say 'puppy' but he's really a very old dog. He's about 16 years going on 17. That's my pup at the top. Bentley has been with me since he was a year old. First he was my son's dog while my son was still at home. Then later when my son was on his own Bentley came to live with me after a brief stint away. He's half miniature daschund and half miniature pinscher, funny combination, great dog.

Well, I'm home after a rough day and I am going to relax and hug my dog while I wait for Jason (my boyfriend) to get home.

The new Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine just came today and I'm going to read it while Bentley lays on my lap!

Trip around the blog

2007-08-21T06:36:00.001-07:00

Well, I thought I'd try adding an image since I think people really like seeing pictures in blogs. I know I do.

This is one of the quilts I'm currently working on. I had some problems initially because I hadn't been able to lay it all out on anything. My house has lots of windows and not many walls large enough for a design wall and since I rent I can't really do anything permanent to the walls. My solution was to upend the mattress in the guest room and put a sheet of flannel over it. It's actually worked out pretty well. I can pin things to the flannel if I need to pretty easily.

It's interesting also to me how the colors appear a bit muted in this post. They are actually pretty bright.

Anyway, I deem the posting, if not the quilt a success.

One problem I'm having now is figuring out how best to go about sewing this together. I'm currently thinking I'll do rows. Since this quilt is not out of a book or anything but a copy of one I saw in a shop, I don't have directions. I've never done a one patch before and unlike a quilt with blocks you have to construct, this doesn't seem to break up into 'pieces' very well.

I guess it will just be like I am with most of this stuff...charge ahead and figure out how to clean up the mess later! :)

Confessional

2007-08-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

I've been quilting for about 15 years. Now, that sounds like a long time doesn't it? I could have completed hundreds of quilts in that time, learned to master at least a couple of techniques and along the way possibly created some beautiful art.

But, I've never in all those years managed to complete one single quilt.

In my defense, I've completed a number of tops, I've just never managed to get anything actually quilted. And, although it was 15 years ago I took my first quilting class, various things have made it so I haven't actually been a quilter for the entire time.

My ex-husband hated the money I spent on fabric (even though at the time it was really a very small amount. If he could only see my collection now!) So, my initial foray into quilting was halted by pressure from him. I didn't take it up again until years later after we were divorced. I was excited about quilting again and was able to do it for a small period of time, but other things in my life took precedence and I stopped again for a number of years. When I took it up again, I was in a live-in relationship. I'd moved from Southern California to Northern California to live with him and it had been really difficult leaving my friends and my life to start over again. I thought perhaps quilting would be a way to connect with others and not feel so lonely. That didn't work out so well and I will talk about that in another post, but I ended up stopping again because my lover was unhappy with how much money it cost.

Fast forward to now, when I'm in a relationship with a man who loves me enough to believe I have a right to do what makes me happy. He's supportive of my creative endeavors and believes I have a right to spend my money on what I like.

He's a keeper!

So, I've started again and hopefully this time I will be able to stay.

New Blog and all

2007-08-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

I write for myself.

That doesn't mean I am uninterested in comments, quite the opposite and if anyone out in Internetland decides to come here and spend time reading what I write, I'm very interested in what they have to say. What I mean by 'writing for myself' is that I plan to write what I feel like writing. I started this blog primarily as a way to keep myself motivated in working with dyeing fabric and Quilting.

How often it will be updated? I'm not really sure. It will depend a lot on how the spirit moves me. I'm hoping that it will move me a lot. :)

It always fascinates me how blogs are very intimate and yet at the same time, you really only see a slice of whoever is writing. Your view of the person is limited by what little of them you are allowed to see. Kind of like a voyeur who only catches glimpses of a person's life while watching through a window.

The slice of me you will see for now is my passion for fabric and quilting.

Fabric Alchemy

More Baking

Baking Frenzy

Block Project - Block 12 - Nelson's Victory

Jam Thumbprint cookies

No block today

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Block Project - Block 11 - Lights and Shadows

Lemon cake

Baking!

What happens next...

Back again

A Snail's pace

Ouch

Surgery tomorrow

Block Project - Block 10 - Slanted Diamonds

Block Project - Block 9 - Goose Chase

Friends!

Block Project - Block 8 - Sailboat

Block Project - Block 7 - Duck's Foot

Block Project - Block 6 - Birds in the Air

Block Project - Block 5 - Hidden Square

Block Project - Block 4 - Washington's Puzzle

Block Project - Block 3 - Homeward Bound

Block Project - Block 2 - Cotton Reels

Chillin'

Block Project - Block 1 - Arrowhead Puzzle

Onward!

New Year, a New Time

Fear not

Fabric, Fabric, Fabric!

The Weekend

Busy day

Quilter's Academy - Class 110

Over a year

Rainbow

Lost in Disneyland

Video on the cheap

Lists

Folded Fabric

Fabric Alchemy

Fun day

Long ago and far away...

This is not my month!

Back from the (mostly) dead

My weekend recap

I love the smell of cotten in the morning!

Dye and dye again

Been sick

Pumpkins!

And the winner is....

*cough*cough*

Work, creativity and life!

Second Dyeing attempt

Don't forget what today is!

Crazy!

To Dye for

Hamster Brain

Dyeing to quilt

Trip around the weekend

Soft as butter

Dog gone days...

Reflections

Weekend sewing

Unexpected gift

Trick or treat!

Oopsie :(

Blah!

Books, books, and more books (the sequel)

Busy day

Books, books and more books!

Sunday morning laziness

I just went in to buy steam-a-seam!

Trip around the blog

Confessional

New Blog and all

coughcough*