Spring may be here--finally.

One reason I like to blog is that it gives me a chance to look at what I've actually gotten accomplished.  Even though some days it seems that all I do is go to work and come home late, I still am able to complete some projects.

One is a baby blanket for a soon-to-be born grandson:

And a baby blanket I made for my sister who needed it for a baby shower.  I haven't bought fabric for a specific project in quite a while--she wanted something with monkeys on it.

Lots of free motion stitching went into this.  I wonder if the recipient will even think about all that work?  I'm sure not.

And even some dyeing, now that it's warming up a bit.  These two pieces were pretty awful looking at this stage--

 But they evolved into these pieces afterwards.

 I just love the look of shibori!

 And more, always more...

I've opened an Etsy shop and am selling some of my fabrics (or trying to--no sales yet!).  Gotta get rid of some of it so I can keep making more.  Hope to get these posted up there today.

Linking up with Nina Marie today--Off The Wall Fridays!

A week off work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reveal Day - Out of Asia

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

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

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

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

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

Finishing up some things

A (very) long time ago I saw an article in a Quilting Arts magazine about Itajime Shibori (resist clamping of shapes) and thought it was something I definitely had to try--so I did.  I made up a bunch of these pieces by clamping a plexiglass shape onto a fabric square, then bleaching the color out of the surrounding fabric, and re-dyeing the color back so the only pattern left is where the plexiglass covered the design.

I made up a bunch of squares, even sewed beads onto some of them, but then they got set aside.  So I got them out over my Christmas week off, and finally made a little wall hanging with some of them.

I still have a bunch more to work with, but I just wanted to feel like I did something productive with my time off...

Unlike Leo, my rescued lab, who doesn't like to do much and doesn't feel guilty about it at ALL. 

I also quilted this little wall hanging called "Summer Solstice", that I sewed together months ago...

And quilted up this "Snowflake" table runner, still have to bind it and then it's done.  I'm figuring this to be a Christmas present all ready for next year...

Happy New Year!
--Edited on Friday, 1/4/13 to link up with Nina Marie Sayre's Off The Wall Friday.  My goals for 2013 are to be more productive, and to use up as much fabric as I can before dyeing or buying any more.  Also, to do something with those piles of scraps that are everywhere.  Like Nina, I should also add discipline and focus as words to live by this year.  Thanks for hosting this each week, Nina!

Works in progress

Some pretty terrible pictures here, I apologize, but my camera is definitely on it's last legs.  This is a piece I'm making for the PAQA-South juried exhibition, which has a deadline approaching early next month.  I don't have a lot of experience entering competitive shows, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

The background is a bunch of shibori fabrics I've dyed over the last few months, and I've made around 20 leaves using my hand-dyed fabrics and satin stitching the edges--now I have to decide whether to sew them on by hand or if I should machine sew them on.  The quilt sandwich is done and quilted--maybe I should have sewn the leaves on before quilting it, or maybe I should fuse them on?

I'm not a huge fan of sewing by hand, I find it too tedious and when I sit down on the couch in the evening after work, I tend to fall asleep rather than get anything accomplished.  It's easier to stay awake after a long day at a boring job when I'm at the machine!

Here's a brief look at another piece I'm working on for the same exhibitition.  I need to start the quilting on it, but always seem to find the first stitches difficult to take.  Once I get started, I'm fine.  Do I quilt the orange sky in a wavy pattern, a straight line pattern, or go crazy with swirls and twirls?  I drew some of the various lines on the quilt top with a chalk pencil to see what might work best, but I seem to always change my mind when I actually start sewing.  (This fabric looks REALLY ORANGE here, but it isn't that bright in person).

Another project--a flower petal pillow top that I started with a blue fleece fabric.  Just have to finish the center, maybe with a yellow fleece and it's all ready for a backing fabric and a pillow form. 

Ok, and here's the reason I didn't join the Off-The-Wall Friday link-up last week, a birthday party for my granddaughter in New York that I attended, and got to spend some time with her over the long weekend.  Of course, the onesie with the "1" and the ladybug was done by Grandma.

Tiny Sunset quilt

Last summer my daughter sent me this picture of a sunset on Martha's Vineyard:

I've been thinking of ways to use some of my shibori fabric (and tons of other fabric that I have dyed) and came up with this little picture (about 10" x 15").  It doesn't quite look like the photograph, however...

I got a thread-painting lesson over the weekend (thanks, Jenny!) and added a bit of it to this picture.  She showed me how to use 2 layers of a water-soluble solvy material, with tulle in the middle, and build up lots of layers.   

So, while it really doesn't look anything like the original picture, it was fun, fast, and easy (except for the thread sketching, which took a while to do).   Lots of people make smaller sample pieces before committing to a larger piece, and I think I'll start doing that, too. 

Another topic--totally different.  Jane Sassaman has a new book out, Patchwork Sassman Style, and there have been about 100 giveaways this month on blogs, but I gave up trying to win and actually bought the book last week.  For the past 2 years or so, I've been buying her fabric on clearance on-line and in stores, wherever I saw it.  

Her fabric is kind of unusual, and I think it doesn't appeal to everyone.  Large prints are kind of hard to work with sometimes, so her book is full of patterns and suggestions for using these prints--one is by finding other patterns using the two-mirror technique, as shown in the next two pictures.

Another with the fabric alone:

 And with the mirrors:

I'm not sure I'm up to this, as it looks pretty complicated.  According to Jane, it really isn't, so maybe I'll give it a shot.  I'll just have to decide on one of the patterns in the book and try it out.

Too many projects

This is Leo, a foster dog I got on Saturday--he's available through the Lab Rescue of NC

As far as quilty projects, it seems that lately I'm all over the map.  

Fusing: 

Sewing: 

More sewing:

Quilting: 

And more sewing--

The only thing I forgot to take pictures of is my dyeing efforts--.

I think I have so many things going on at once because I think about making things all day at work and try to get as many started as I can on weekends when I have lots of time.

Elaine Quehl's directions, but my results are different

Elaine Quehl was kind enough to give some directions a while back on how to make multi-colored fabric, the kind you'd use for a Ricky Tims-type convergence quilt.  So, I tried it last weekend, and some of my fabric turned out nicely, and some didn't.  Of course, it doesn't look anything like hers!

I really like these:

These were ok--

Some I wasn't crazy about at all, so, I wrapped on a pole, dyed in a dark gray dye, and now I love them!

I've been feeling bad lately, due to having to have my poor old German Shepherd dog Thunder euthanized this week.  He was 12 years old and could hardly walk, and it was pitiful watching him getting comfortable enough to lay down, it took him 2-3 minutes each time.  It was a hard thing to do, and I miss him a lot.  Hope that spending some time this long weekend sewing and creating will help.  Hey, anything is better than being at work.

Shibori again

Friday evening I wanted to dye a cool color rainbow set, so I got out my fuchsia, yellow, and turquoise dyes. After mixing the required 12 colors, I dyed half-yard pieces using low water immersion and checked them out the following morning. No pictures, but the dye had separated in almost all the red/blue pieces and they looked awful. So I decided to shibori them all instead!

I stitched the pieces into a tube shape, and put on a pole, then dyed in navy blue.

Then I did the same with some other pieces I had, stitching them into a tube, but dyeing in a walnut brown mixture (black & rust orange mixture).

The pieces above are actually more orange/tangerine than pink, they'll make some great autumn leaves.

Over on And Then We Set It On Fire, I posted some results of my tyvek painting & melting experiments. Check it out!

Shibori Obsession

Here's some of the work I did yesterday using the techniques I learned at the Jan Myers Newbury workshop. I just love how these turned out!!