And a very belated thank-you to...

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...Tina (aka @Weezyworks).

Several weeks ago now...well, okay, maybe a couple of months, Tina sent me a very funny Christmas card and this beautiful little spool pin doily she'd crocheted. It's gorgeous. I immediately put it on my spool pin and have been using it ever since!

I apologize, Tina, for the delay in my response but I've been using it and admiring it every time I change my thread!


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...and to Jackie (aka @SewExcitedQuilts)

I don't think I've already blogged about this one, anyway. Jackie sent me this around the holidays as well, and I've been using it for (ready for this one?) holding my earbuds in my purse. It's great! They don't get all caught up in everything else, and I can easily get hold of them!

 
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...and to Diane (aka @ddrquilter)!

Diane sent me this when she sent her thank-you gift for Charlotte. I held off posting the picture until after Charlotte's gift-giving ceremony had been up for a bit.

It's lovely, Diane! You can see from the 3M tabs it's hanging in my sewing room/office...actually, right above my cutting table.

Thanks so much everyone! I'm very touched by your thoughtfulness, and I love that I'm surrounded every day in my office/sewing room (and my purse!) by my listeners! :-)


Souvenirs from Alaska

My husband just got back from being in Anchorage on business. This is his second time in as many years being there. Last year, he texted me said, "Hey, I just walked by a quilt shop!" He very kindly included a picture of the front door with the name of the shop.

You know how mean that is? I gave him cr*p when he got home about not getting me anything, although I didn't give him too much of it because he had brought me a beautiful, small stained-glass plate with native designs that still sits on the mantle of our fireplace.

This year, he texted me a picture of the door again. "Really, you COULD buy me souvenir fabric, you know!" I texted back. His response, "I wouldn't know what to get." "Oh, please," I said. "They'd just think you were the cutest thing coming and would love to help you out!"

Turns out, this time he did brave the quilt shop. He put himself at the mercy of the staff, described the kinds of quilting I normally do, and they made some choices for him. Well done, team!

So, thumbs up to The Quilted Raven in Anchorage!

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These fat quarters are all done by Alaskan artist Cindy Shake at Cindy Shake Design.

The longer pieces have two each of two designs; one's swirlies and stars, the other is the dog sleds and mushers. (Anchorage is the public starting point of the Iditarod.)

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I love the many ways fat quarters can be bundled in cute little packages. But I did break open that star collection so you could see those fabrics as well.

Dig those birds!

And what's that little thing down in the lower right?

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Why, it's a button, of course. It was used in the tie on the packaging. It looks to me like a bone button, but don't quote me on that. Perhaps part of an antler? There was no identifying information.

I won't be putting this on clothes--it'll go in my "random embellishment jar" for safe-keeping.

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Finally, a traditional seal-skin thimble like those used by the Inuit for generations.

I won't ever use it--it'll sit on a display shelf I have in my sewing room with some sewing-related trinkets he brought me back from a business trip to China, and an antique pincushion  my supervisor gave me for Christmas one year.

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But before I put it on the shelf, I couldn't resist.

February Update on Craftsy Class Progress

Here's my February update! A couple of people have mentioned how fast I seem to be whipping through these so far. There's good reason for that. The ones I've decided to focus on first were the ones I was very nearly already done with anyway, those that I thought I could easily accomplish within my current schedule, or those that I knew I'd pretty much just be watching and absorbing information for later use (such as knife skills for cooking). For the most part, however, now I've accomplished most of the classes on my list that fall into those categories. Future classes are going to take much longer so you won't be getting reviews quite so frequently.

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 20 (+3 from last month--yippee!)

Classes in Progress

Current count: 2

Classes To Be Completed

Current count: 17 (-1 since last month, since two of the classes I finished weren't in this list in January's post.)

Classes added this month: None!

What's on for the weekend...

I'm writing this blog post on Saturday morning and thinking through what my long weekend will bring. I'm caffeinating and "charging" (as my husband calls it when he sees me sitting in front of my light box), and watching another lesson in one of my current Craftsy classes, "Complete Knife Skills" with Brendan McDermott--a freebie that has quickly become one of my favorite classes I've taken from Craftsy so far. But you'll just have to wait for my full review when I'm done with the class entirely.

Speaking of Craftsy--they're having another sale this weekend, the "Perfect Match Flash Sale" in which you can get two classes paired together, both on sale. I've already glanced at some of the offerings but haven't spent a lot of time on the site yet. I have other things I need to get done today!

In any case, as I'm sitting here getting ready for my day (which begins with a run to the grocery store), I thought it might keep me on track if I listed here my quilty-related goals for the weekend, and then I'll check in again sometime Monday evening and let you know what I actually accomplished. As we know, I'm a list-maker!

1. Post a podcast episode. (Sorry about missing last week; as it turned out, it was a very busy weekend followed by a busy week!)

2. Get my Scrapitude blocks and triangles made. If I can manage it, I'd really like to get the whole Scrapitude top pieced.*

3. Put my dye studio back together. It's still dismantled from when I had to repurpose one of the tables for Thanksgiving dinner. I also still need to haul my old cutting table from my second-floor sewing room to my basement dye studio. This requires my husband's involvement.

4. Put the finishing touches on new cutting table--using my 3M adhesive strips as I mentioned in a previous podcast episode, and heat-setting the edging strip around the top.

Now, here's the thing--some of my weekend schedule is still a bit up on the air. I may be making a nice dinner tonight, which means some of today will be spent in the kitchen, or we might be going out for a nice dinner, which means I'd not have to spend time in the kitchen. I can actually go either way on this one--after being gone for a week of vacation I'm very okay with spending a night in my kitchen. I enjoy cooking when I've actually got time to do it. But I'd also be very okay with having a whole afternoon to spend in my sewing room. So I'm viewing this as a win-win whichever way we end up going. Tomorrow I've got a commitment in the morning which means we may not be home until about 3p, and although I've got Monday off, I've got an appointment in the morning so may not have much sewing time until the afternoon. I still think I'll be able to accomplish all of the above.

So here's to a long weekend, and being home, and getting homey kinds of things done. What are your plans for the weekend? For U.S. readers, do you have Monday off? I believe we've got a #PDSI going on, though it won't be as active as usual since this is a much-less common day off for most people. Indeed, this is the first year that I can remember actually having it off! Yay!

*Whether I get the whole Scrapitude top pieced is less dependent on the amount of time I have this weekend, and more so on how long I can sit at my sewing machine doing the same thing over and over again. This is why I rarely make bed-sized quilts. Even with movies or audiobooks, I just get stir-crazy after awhile, so I may switch up what project I'm working on rather than plowing through one project for the whole weekend.

Snowstorm January 2014

We got a lot, but a manageable amount, of snow--the plows have been able to keep up with it well, although it's still pretty slick driving. This is one of those days that I'm extra glad to be a tele-commuter (to use an old-school term).

We're also fortunate enough not to be getting quite the horribly frigid temps of other areas, although it's single-digits. I ventured outdoors just long enough to take a few pictures in the yard, because there's nothing I like more than seeing pine trees covered in snow.

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Spencer (Princess Doggie)--who normally gives up on the outdoors two minutes into her walk on cold days--took off into the woods and was rollicking about in snowdrifts like nobody's business. I think she figured if she just kept moving fast enough she was good to go--and there were those dang, nasty squirrels to protect me from, after all. Sam (Doofus), on the other hand, who normally loves burying his face in snowdrifts...

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I took them both back inside as quickly as I could and spent a couple of minutes getting ice chunks out from between his toes. Poor guy--the downside of all that pretty Golden fur is it's an ice-magnet.

They both immediately flaked out in front of the fireplace. I don't think they'll be asking to go outside again any time soon. And, since it's supposed to just keep getting colder as the day wears on, I think we're all just going to hunker down.

Good day for sewing, and perhaps some baking.

A Holiday Greeting Card to Y'All...

It's been a year of fun and creativity! Thanks, everyone!

A video holiday card for my listeners. With thanks to Sandi of Quilt Cabana Corner for co-hosting the Project Hope Online Quilt Show and allowing me to play along in the postcard swap, to Tanesha of Crafty Garden Mom for co-hosting the Banned Book Week Challenge, and to Charlotte for #Scrapitude!

Found time...ice storm 12-22-13

Yesterday we had this...referred to on one website as "freezing fog," which sounds like something evil out of a video game.

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Mind you, normally we can see houses. And trees. And the hill across the road covered in pines....

This morning, we have this:

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At least we can see the houses again. And at least most of the trees, although the dark green pine is now coated in a half-inch of ice. I almost hate to refer to this as an "ice storm" because we've lived through some real doozies around here that this barely measures up to. But still n' all, it's ice. And it's a storm. So there is that. We're fortunate compared to many other areas of the country--I'm thinking of y'all!

Ice storms do create a dangerous beauty. Here are some close-ups around the yard. As it's a very soft gray light outside, I had to get creative with the photo-editing...and then just started having fun. No ice was added in the creating of these images. :-)

 

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As for the "found time" in the title, due to the ice we're not heading out to church this morning, so I'm about to spend some quality time in my sewing room. We'll be doing some holiday stuff through the day--I believe my daughter may be doing some cookie baking, and we'll be decorating the tree tonight, so it'll be a nice, cozy, relaxed day at home.

As long as we don't lose power...

First day of vacation"Little Dresses"

Today was the first day of my prolonged holiday break--I don't go back to work until January 2nd. You can bet I have a whole lotta sewin' plans going on. I'll be happy if I even get a third done of what's in my head for the week.

I started off today by joining with some folks from church for a sew day of "Little Dresses for Africa," although I think, given the make-up of our congregation, we're planning on sending ours to Myanmar (Burma). But don't quote me on that--I was just there to sew, I'm not actually responsible for anything, a fact which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I warned the woman coordinating it: I'm a quilter, not a garment sewer. Don't expect much. 8th Grade Home-Ec trauma, doncha know. But the pattern was quite simple, and I have done a pocket or two in my life, so once someone explained the process to me, I was good to go.

Here's the irony--I went to sew but never actually did much sewing. There weren't enough machines to go around and it became apparent another young woman really wanted to learn how to sew. So I let her use my machine and she was in the very capable hands of another woman who is a talented garment sewer. I spent the day cutting fabric into dress pieces.

I mean, people--I was actually cutting fabric with scissors. I haven't used scissors to cut fabric in years! Where was my rotary cutter? Where were my rulers? Where was my cutting mat? I was going old school, baby. (We didn't even have "real" patterns--we were using posterboard templates made from tracing around sample dresses. Way old school.)

I was thrilled to donate two lengths of fabric I'd bought while in Hawaii a few years back--modern versions of traditional bark cloth. I had a project for them in my head at the time, but the project didn't come off and at this point, was unlikely ever to. On the other hand, the fabric would make great sundresses, so I was very happy to see them used for this. We cut up one of the two pieces (4 yards worth) while I was there. The other piece (also 4 yards) went back in the bin to get used next time.

I believe, if I were using the same rubric as Pam (for the Sunday Stash report), that would make it a total of 16 yards out of my stash because it counts double when it's donated, right? :-)

Although someone counted about 14 dresses sewn, I didn't sew any of them and ended up bringing one of the ones I'd cut out home to finish. But I'm okay with that. I was glad someone learned how to sew, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Here's a gallery of pictures from the day. My sewing machine makes an appearance in one of them, as well as my Hawaiian fabric with the template on it ready for me to cut. If the gallery doesn't forward for you, just click on the picture--it should work. (If you're getting this by email, you might have to go to the website to see the gallery. Sorry!)

When I get the dress done, I'll post a picture. Right now it's a pile of fabric cut into odd shapes.

My mail was particularly beautiful last week

So, if you listened to either Daisy's most recent podcast episode or this one of mine, you know that I won Daisy's Twitter giveaway on Black Friday of a completed quilt top from her stash. I received it in the mail this week...

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I'd put my name in for it because I loved the colors and hey, it's a quilt from Daisy! Who wouldn't want one?

It was only later that I began to think...hey, that design looks familiar.

Here's  picture of a quilt I made for my son a few years back. Somehow I never got a picture of the finished product but trust me, it did get finished and it's currently on his bed in his apartment. (Or in a rumpled heap on the floor but I choose not to think about that.)

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It's a design from one of the Strip Club books, using 2 1/2" strips. (Please note--there are a few books in the series and I have a couple of them, so I grabbed a link to one but can't guarantee it's the book this design is in.) I'd always loved the design and had periodically thought over the years, "Maybe I should make myself another one...." Well, boy howdy. Now I don't have to! Wheee!

I plan to send this out to a longarmer, and I think it'll go on our guest room bed. Unless my daughter lays claim to it next time she's home, which she is wont to do.

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I also received this in the mail this week:

This is a lovely little keychain change purse from Jackie of Sew Excited Quilts.

It's so cute! And yes, it's on my keychain, although it doesn't have any change in it at the moment.

Perhaps next time I go on a shop hop or visit vendors at a show, I should put as many bills as I'm planning to spend in this, and leave the credit cards at home! (Of course, it also looks like it might be the right size to hold said credit cards...hmmmm....)

 

And the third thing I received has a little bit of a story behind it.

Several times over the last couple of years I've had the privilege of visiting one of our denominational mission sites, a residential campus about 90 mins outside of Phoenix for adults with developmental disabilities, named Rainbow Acres. It's an amazing place--I could go on for several blog posts. (If you're in the Phoenix area, I highly recommend you go visit and even volunteer there--you won't regret it!) The adults, referred to as "ranchers," have a variety of jobs they can choose from. One of the things that Rainbow Acres has become well known for is it's weaving. Several of the adults are gifted weavers and love doing it. A couple of the times I visited, the man who is their head weaver quickly took to his loom to show me how to do it, his enthusiasm for the task bouncing out of every word he said. When people purchase the weavings (or paintings, or other items created by ranchers), half the proceeds go back to the rancher him or herself. I'd purchased paintings on an earlier trip, but had admired some shawls they were making. Since I'd just bought the paintings I didn't feel I could also afford the shawl.

However, when I was there in July and we were visiting the weaving room once again, I saw a pile of skeins of yarn they had just received. As we fiber people are known to do, I made a beeline for the pile and dove my hands right into it. Oohing and aahing, I couldn't stop petting the stuff. It was a gorgeous shade of gray with variegated purples and blues, and tremendously soft. The staffperson doing inventory told me that had just arrived and they were deciding what to do with it. She then raised an eyebrow and said, "We do work on commission, you know." Sold. I asked for a shawl done with that yarn, and just received it this week (in perfect time for our ever-dropping temperatures!)

Front

Front

This type of shawl has a name that start with a P--not Pashmina--but I'm blanking. It's joined in the back but open in the front. It'll be perfect for my home office which is right above the garage and ever-so-much-nippier than the rest of the house.

In fact, I'm wearing it right now. Toasty.

Back

Back

Ah, to be surrounded by so much beauty. I can barely stand it!

...in which I'm AWOL...

This week is one of my work events in which I moderate a conference call every evening of the week; because we're a national organization we have to schedule the calls at Past-Our-Bedtime in Eastern time zones in order to hit Barely-Home-From-Work in Western time zones. And it always takes me a couple of hours to "come down" from the calls when they're over--IOW, stop my brain from spinning with everything we talked about on the call so I can finally (and generally with the help of pharmaceuticals) drop off to sleep. The first day or two I'm filled with energy and excitement. By mid-week, I'm dragging. By the end of the week, I don't trust myself with heavy machinery or sharp objects.

So I'm not able to post a podcast this week. Nor blogging. Nor actually touching my sewing machine.  

I have, however, made a priority of getting to the gym for as much time as I'm able between work and the conference call. Yay, me. 

Friday night is the last call and I have Monday as a comp day, so you should be hearing from me again soon. 

Memories of Sue

We have lost a shining light in our world.

This past weekend, one of the members of my quilt guild, Sue, passed away quite unexpectedly. She had been on our guild retreat but began to feel unwell; two of her friends had driven her home on Friday night and advised her husband to take her to the hospital where she was admitted for observation and testing. It was quite a shock to receive word that she had passed away late Saturday night. I'm glad my guild friends at retreat had each other for support and comfort in such a difficult time.

I just returned home from the calling hours at the funeral home (the funeral itself will be private). I went with three of my guild friends; when we arrived, the line was out the door and into the parking lot. There were several hundred people that wound their way through the funeral home and into the chapel to greet the family. I remarked to one of my friends that it went a long way to appease my sadness to see such an outpouring of love and the number of people whose lives Sue had touched in one way or another. Most of my guild were there, as well as members of several other quilt groups that Sue had been a part of. We talked about how none of us had even known how many things Sue had been involved in until people were running into each other at the funeral home and sharing stories of how they knew Sue.

Rather than a casket or urn in the funeral chapel, there was simply a display of a couple of her quilts and other handcrafts that Sue had made, with several professionally-done photos of her with her family. There was a small sign on the photos that said those photos had just been done the weekend before. What a treasure for the family to have.

As I'm writing this, I'm still trying to imagine our next guild meeting without Sue there. My head won't wrap around it. Next month's meeting will be hard in some ways, but in others it will give us the chance to have our own memorial, I suspect.

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Sue had a wonderfully dry, often sarcastic sense of humor. She led us in the Hokey Pokey and other stretch breaks during retreats, and then would quietly sit at her machine, periodically cussing it out under her breath if it didn't cooperate. (Okay, sometimes not quite so much under her breath.) If I teased her, I could rely on her looking at me with a twinkle in her eye while she said, with feeling, "Bite me." Sue made me laugh.

She also had a tremendous heart. It was Sue who spearheaded our monthly donations to a local women's shelter and often led other charity projects for other sites. Whenever I made a donation quilt, I'd hand it directly over to Sue with confidence that it would go where most needed.

I will miss Sue's laugh, her caustic wit, her willingness to be silly, and her fervent cussing at her machine. And I will miss her drive to make the world a more soft and comfortable place for people during their time of need.

The next donation quilt I make, Sue, will be in your honor. Thanks for all you did for our guild. I count it a privilege that I had the opportunity to know you. 


A Weekend Away

Just a bit off-topic, then back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

It's Sunday afternoon and we're back from our anniversary get-away to Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada. We go every year because, forasmuch as we love to travel and see new places, it's nice to have one place to go you don't have to figure out. We know what restaurants we absolutely need to eat at, we nearly always try to see a play, and we pretty much always hike or walk most of the time we're there. Niagara on the Lake is a gorgeous town right on the point of connection between Niagara River and Lake Ontario, and it has a beautiful walkway along the Niagara Parkway and along the edge of the village. In October, it's beautiful.

 

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We were fortunate in our weather on Friday--a beautiful, crisp fall day. We walked almost all day; however, it started looking cloudy after lunch so on the spur of the moment we drove a half hour back down the road and spent the evening in Niagara Falls. Saturday was pretty cruddy--we got some walking in during the morning but it was wet the rest of the day, so we hung out in our room and read for awhile, then went to see a play and went out to dinner. Soggy, but relaxing.

I didn't take too many pictures, but I did throw them into a Flick album if you want to check them out. I had fun playing with the new panorama feature on iOs7. :-)

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When I got home, Mad Quilt Scientist took over and got busy in the basement again. 

In addition to some things I just needed to get done, I'm also testing out a couple of new techniques I saw on Ann Johnston's new "Color by Accident" DVD. I've been using her book for the last year but seeing her techniques on video is extremely helpful. I'll keep you posted.

Now, to get back on my sewing machine and finish off some baby quilts. Tomorrow is DS's 23rd birthday (not that I've aged a day) so we're taking him out to dinner tonight. I have just about enough time to finish the top of Baby Quilt Remix and maybe figure out backing... 


 

I know, I know, it's been awhile...

A mixture of being out a lot of evenings, having family events on weekends, trying to fit more exercise into my schedule, and having several days of being just plain' dumb-tired after work have meant that I've been a social-networking slacker of late.

The upside is that I've been getting some quilting done in there too. And I hope to get some dyeing in this weekend. So there is that. 

Also in the works: Two new interviews! Look at it this way: I'm not Podfading, I'm Podbrewing.  Things are just roiling around in my head until I have both the time and the verbal energy to sit down at my microphone again.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: I've determined my winners for the 2013 Banned Books Week Challenge. Congratulations to Dianne, Jackie, Carol, Daisy, and Carole! Yep, I threw in one more book so all five of you could win something! I love being able to say thank you for playing along.  Whee!

I plan on getting a podcast out in the next couple of days even if it's a shortie. Bear with me... 

LDSI Recap, Project Hope Finish, and More!

What a great weekend! What a productive weekend! 

Of course, I didn't even approach getting everything done that I'd thought I'd get done over my extended Labor Day weekend, but then, I always tend to do that. Free time? Let's fill it up with a completely unachievable list of goals! 

Still n' all, it were fun. And what a great time we had on Twitter. I enjoyed Very Lazy Daisy's twitter giveaways and was glad that Pam of Hip to Be a Square and Katie of Katie's Quilting Corner hosted a Google Hangout, though I got so involved in one of my projects I completely and totally lost track of time and didn't realize it was time for the hangout until probably two hours later. Oops. Sounds like they had fun, though.  

And let me also say, thanks to all who played along with my giveaway. And I'm so pleased to give a great, congratulatory shout-out to Ethel, the winner! Woo hoo! (Everyone join in the happy dance for Ethel!) 

Now, what all did I get done? Lots!

I finally got the pillows done! Woo! And you'll hear more about those in a blog post later this week since I decided to describe the process I used in case you find it helpful. I also cut a few scraps, although not nearly as many as I actually need. Still poking away at that. I also finished cutting all the pieces for one of my two pregnant nieces' baby quilts; now it's sitting by my sewing machine waiting for blocks to be pieced. 

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I got some baby gifts for the other of my two pregnant nieces done (the one whose mom does *not* read this blog).  

These two onesies were hand-dyed; I used Color Magnet and stencils to create the design. Note to self: Color Magnet works better in a lighter dye bath--there's more definition of design. These are okay, but I'd have liked the designs to be more prominent.  I have a third onesie in the works but that one I've dyed and will be using other techniques on. Pictures later.

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This maternity shirt was ice-dyed (you're seeing the front and the back). Not sure I'm a huge fan of the results so I'll offer it to my niece with every assurance that my feelings won't be hurt if she doesn't like it either.  

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I got a pillowcase made, when I went to cut a fabric into scraps and decided it would make a very cute pillowcase cuff. Boom. Pillowcase for donation. 

I got my project done for the Banned Books Week Challenge (see above). In fact, I actually finished it twice, when I decided I really hated the way the new-to-me binding method had worked on the first one and did a somewhat-new-to-me binding method instead. But I'm not showing it until BBW commences. So y'all will just have to wait.  (And I'll give more detail about the binding then.)

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Second, I finally got the backing and binding done on this puppy.  

For simplicity's sake, I just named this one "Sandy's House." Not creative, but this was a class project and not something that felt like it sprang from my soul or anything. 

Although I did enjoy it! And here's the link to the blog post where I talk about the class and how this came together.  

I really like her fused binding method--in fact, it worked well enough on this one that I used it on my next finish.... Yes, drum roll please, I finally completed my Project Hope Online Quilt Show project, which has been languishing since last June.  

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 This one is named "Somewhere." You can probably figure out the reference. 

I had a completely different idea in my head--an art quilt that may still someday get made. Meanwhile, I led a creativity challenge at my guild's May retreat in which we randomly drew words related to a beach party theme out of a bag and had to add something to an ongoing project somehow related to that word. This is done entirely with my own hand-dyes, btw. The first word drawn on Friday night was "Bucket and Shovel."  When I woke up Saturday morning, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was the image stuck in my head. "Sure, the pot is a bucket of sorts," I thought. The next word drawn was beach ball, so I added the gold coins (round like a ball) coming out of the pot (bucket).

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The third thing I had people draw randomly out of a bag was a little rubber duckie.

Great variety packs of rubber duckies from Oriental Trading Company, by the way. I had a bunch of different ones. This little guy was the one I drew. 

Challenge participants could interpret their duck any way they chose. I decided to use his colors, so I have a purple and blue variegated thread in the words on my project.  

It was right around the rubber duckie that I realized where I was heading with this project and that it also met the theme of the Project Hope Online Quilt Show, and so it became that project. To me, hope doesn't always have to be a solemn matter, and silliness can often have a very deep point (witness Monty Python and Mel Brooks).

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I did a lot of hand-stitching (as per Laura Wasilowsky's class), and then machine-quilted some clouds in the sky and used her fused binding method. I wanted to keep things relatively simple. But you'll notice this time I took a page from my Carol Ann Waugh Craftsy Class, "Stupendous Stitching," and ventured into a decorative stitch on my machine I hadn't really known was there before. I love it.  

 

 

 

 

My artist statement for this piece is: 

Somewhere there is hope. 

Somewhere there is peace. 

Somewhere there is love and joy and unity. 

It is our job and our calling to bring somewhere, here. 

(For more Project Hope Online Quilt Show, visit the Flickr group. Although our main show "ended" back in June, you're always welcome to add more quilts to the group!) 

Thus ends my LDSI recap. Again, be on the lookout for my next blog post all about the Banned Books Week Challenge!

Let There Be Light (and Color!)

My sewing room and home office are in one space (as well as my husband's computer, and formerly the kids' computer until they left home and I kicked it out!). It's a nice, big room--the bonus room over the garage--but it's pretty narrow and although it's got a nice big picture window at one end, it faces east so I get great sun for about two hours in the morning and then it gets progressively darker for the rest of the day.

And let's not even talk about November to March, when we're lucky to get even 10 minutes of actual sunlight in a day.  

My new lights ended up, just by a happenstance of scheduling, becoming a day-after-birthday gift to me. And what a birthday gift.

Before... 

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This was taken at 9:00a, when I should be getting the most light of the day. It was a gray, dreary day, so this is actually what I normally dealt with most of the late fall through early spring. (Yes, I blurred out the office side--you can see the sewing side.)

Note the number of floor lamps and table lamps trying desperately to give me working light. I'm standing right next to my design wall--the darkest corner furthest from all lighting available. Also note how yellow everything is. I had an Ott light at my cutting table and would have to pull fabric off the shelves and lay it under the light so I could see what color it really was.

After... 

lighting-after.jpg

Taken later the same day. It looks brighter outside just because it had stopped raining, but it was still just about as gray as it was in the morning. All the light you see is now electric. 

I had them install bulbs that were as natural-daylight-colored as possible. My fabrics look fantastic. The electrician really worked to figure out the best placement and number of lights to minimize shadowing when I'm at my cutting table. They're "cool" lights so they don't heat the room up at all.  

And, best thing--there's one right near my design wall. 

I can see!!!!  Woohoo woohoo woohoo!!! Serious happy dances up in here.

Best thing? I'm getting rid of the table lamp that's been taking up space on my cutting table for years! (I'll still keep the floor lamps around until I experience the room through all times of day and a few more months of seasonal light changes, but I think I'll eventually be able to ditch one or two of those too.) 

And, as another happenstance of timing to feel like it's a birthday present to myself, two color wheels I'd ordered from Dharma Trading came today. These are designed especially with fabric dyeing and painting in mind. 

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This is a "CMYK" wheel. Some dyes/paints apparently work better if you use the CMYK wheel when figuring out dye combinations rather than the traditional wheel. Joen Wolfrom also prefers to use this color wheel in general--her 3-in-1 Tool is based on it.

I like that it has percentages for mixing. If you look below the red where it has the tones, it has percentages written along the sides. In other words, if you create a dye solution that's 90% the pure color (red, in this case), and 10% of it's complement (cyan), you'd get the first color down from the red. If you have an 80/20 proportion, it's the next color lower, 70/30 is the next one down, and 60/40 is the lowest one. See? (Did you know that? Mix a color and it's complement and you work your way towards gray! )

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The back of the CMYK wheel has another very helpful tool in determining proportions.

Look under yellow. If you mix 80% of the pure color (yellow) with 20% white, you get the tint--which is the lighter swoop on the left. If, on the other hand, you mix it with 20% black, you get the shade, which is the darker swoop on the right. Next one down is 60/40, next is 40/60, and lowest one is 20/80.  

The graphic in the middle also gives you at a glance what the complement, split complement, triad and tetrads are, plus it shows analogous along each side of your chosen color.  

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The second wheel I got is based on the traditional color wheel, but it has another very useful tool for choosing dye combinations.

Look at red, center top. You spin the wheel to see what color you would get if you added the colors at the top of the inner wheel. In this case, I've spun it to show what would happen if you added blue to red--you get the color in the window (which is violet). It may seem straightforward, but it's particularly useful in the tertiary colors. In other words, what's the difference between adding blue to orange, versus adding blue to yellow-orange? It will allow me to more easily fine-tune my color recipes. 

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The back has the tints, tones, and shades again, with the graphic in the middle giving a quick-glance visual of complementary, split complementary, triads and tetrads of any chosen color.

So while there are a lot of similarities between these two color wheels, and between these wheels and other ones I'd already owned for quilting, there are some very useful differences for use in my hand-dyeing and fabric painting. I can't wait to get back in my dye studio and play.

And yes, my dye studio is also very well lit. We had them install new lighting in the basement as well and there's a natural-light florescent in the corner where Mad Quilt Scientist lives. All is right in my little fiber arts world!

In fact, you'll have some more hand-dyeing results soon--playing with discharges and resists and magnets (Oh My).  


 

Sauntering through Sedona

My husband flew out to Phoenix to meet me at the end of my work event, and we drove a little north to spend a few days in Sedona, with a brief jaunt up to the Grand Canyon via the Grand Canyon Railway.

I took tons of pictures. I even deleted a bunch after I got home, and still have a lot left in the album. Some pictures were just for a sense of place, but most were for color or texture or line inspiration, as we quilters are wont to do. 

If you're interested, I've embedded a slideshow of all my pictures here. (I captioned them so you know what you're looking at but I think you may only be able to see the captions if you're actually looking at them in Flickr, not in this embedded slideshow. And note that you can click on the little arrows symbol on the lower right if you want it full-screen.)

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And yes, that color inspiration has led to my current dye experiments that I've termed my "Sedona Series." 

I'm about to go start the wash-out process now, so results tomorrow! 

A little more patience, please...

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Every two years, the organization I serve hosts two major national events (plus) nearly back to back. This is one of those years. I just got home yesterday from the first event weekend, and now am in the throes of finalizing details for the other which is at the end of July (and is actually three events in one). 

So this is just a bid for a little more patience! I haven't stopped blogging. I'm just using up all my energy for work. I got back in town Tuesday and am now nearly recovered from that trip, so I hope to get some blogs up later this week or over the weekend...not that I've got all that much to blog about...but I think I may have some stuff I got done before the mayhem hit but didn't get posted yet.

Meanwhile, have you listened to my episode with Jane Dunnewold yet? It's a good one!