Dotty Jane Designs

Color Palette Challenge for January

2012-02-01T15:55:00.001-06:00

The first of the month I decided to participate in the Color Palette Challenge sponsored by Vicki Welsh and Judy Laquidara. This is the palette for January.

Here is my challenge piece. It’s pretty small… 8.5” x 10.5”. As planned, I used fabric from my hand dyed stash except for the purple, which is from a commercial batik. I enjoyed the process of making a little art piece, but I have a lot to learn!

The background and the binding were cut from two of the deconstructed prints I made back in November.

This gave me an opportunity to try Mistyfuse which doesn’t have a paper backing like Wonder Under. To use it, you need a non-stick surface so it doesn’t fuse to your iron or ironing surface. There are brands specifically made for applique, but being the thrifty (cheap) soul I am, I bought the one that is used in the bottom of an oven to make clean up easier. Walmart – $4.97 – in the baking section. It isn’t transparent, but it works like a charm.

Mistyfuse is lightweight and doesn’t add a lot of bulk to your piece. Once I got the hang of using the teflon sheet it was great. No pulling paper off tiny pieces which sometimes makes the edges ravel. It also comes in white and ultraviolet.

If you click on the photo below, which is the February Color Palette, you’ll go to the linky party for all the January participants.

I didn’t have time for Project Quilting last week since I’ve been up to my ears in more drywall finishing, hole patching and painting. The living room is finished except for another coat of paint on the ceiling. This house project is really cutting into my play time which gives me nothing much to blog about. February will likely be more of the same…my list is very long. The good news is that most of the jobs now are cosmetic and not structural like the kitchen remodel. My goal is to have all the painting done by the end of February. Wish me luck!

On a personal note, my brother Randy (the wheat farmer in Nebraska) is having some health problems and could use some prayers and healing thoughts sent his way. He had a heart attack yesterday and had a stent inserted today. Apparently this isn’t the first episode he’s had, but always thought it was heartburn. If all goes well, he’ll get to go home tomorrow - hopefully they’ll beat the snowstorm that’s brewing in Colorado where he had the procedure done. I’m afraid he has a long road of lifestyle change ahead. He’s overweight, diabetic and extremely stubborn. He’s also very lucky, because his Dr. indicated that many people don’t survive an attack like this one. If I thought a sister sermon would do any good, he’d get one.

Take care my bloggy peeps!

Project Quilting

2012-01-17T08:24:00.001-06:00

What do these houses..

have to do with this quilt?

You probably saw it right away.

First, a little background to help you follow me through this. Except for a couple of charity quilts, this is going to be the year of small projects for my quilting and other artsy/craftsy endeavors. So far, so good.

In addition, I really want to push myself creatively. I have no list to follow, but as long as my nose is out there sniffing around, I’ll follow that and see where it leads me.

Now, I’ve been a fan of Project Runway since the second season and have watched a lot of the episodes more than once. (I especially loved the season of Jeffrey, Uli, Michael and Laura!) I cannot imagine having to produce a wearable garment in such a short period of time. The drama and the pressure!

So, when Kim over at Kim’s Crafty Apple decided to start a Project Quilting two years ago, I watched and admired from a distance. People are so creative!

This year, I waited for the first Challenge to come up to decide if I was ready to tackle PQ. Architectural Elements was the theme and was posted January 8th. A photo of the finished project was to be posted on the Flickr page by noon on Sunday, January 15th. Saturday evening, a little seed of an idea sprouted in the mulch of my mind when I thought of the two houses we built in the ‘90s. (Photos above) We lived in the Black Hills and both houses have a lodge feel with the open floor plans and cathedral ceilings and …. trapezoid windows!

I slept on it and at 8 o’clock Sunday morning hit the sewing room. Out came the bin of hand dyed fabrics and I built two log cabin style trapezoids, added the black borders and sewed them together. To add some extra funkiness, I scattered some little trapezoid shapes around.

I made a sandwich, quilted in a spiral sort of pattern, trimmed it, added a fast binding and posted a photo at 11:54 a.m. Sunday morning. In the true spirit of Project Runway, I was finished as the models walked to the runway!

All in all, it’s a pretty decent finish. The quilting is not a flowing as I’d like it to be, but I can work on that. I usually finish all my bindings by hand, but I had to hustle, so I went with two rows of zigzag. Somehow, the wonkiness of it works with the rest of the quilt. At least I didn’t staple it!

The size is roughly 20 inches by 12 inches.

All the entries can be viewed at the Flickr page…so many great interpretations of the theme.

If you stuck with me through all that, you get a gold star. Or maybe you’d prefer a silver one. Personally, I always liked the blue ones best.

Love you all!

VDJ

A few little things

2012-01-14T19:42:00.001-06:00

Free pieced and quilted pillows – about 5.5 x 6 inches.

Mini pillows – applique with some machine embroidery

Winter forest scene

More crocheted and felted bowls – mint green

My photographer likes to add a little flora flair to her shots. ;)

Working on some new bowl shapes

Free pieced wall hanging

I may add some more quilting to the wall hanging even if it is after the fact. It doesn’t look quite finished to me. Aside from that, it’s been very satisfying to have lots of small finishes.

Check out more good stuff over at Sarah’s Whoop Whoop Friday! Thanks, Sarah:)

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-11T14:19:00.001-06:00

Wooly bully!

2012-01-09T17:43:00.001-06:00

Remember the felted soap?

If you guessed I couldn’t stop there, you would be correct.

Wool is a very cool thing. If you’re not familiar with it, this is wool roving from merino sheep. Merino is said to be the best for felting.

In it’s original form.

Photo credit here

These pieces of felt were made by layering wisps of the roving and then working it with soap and hot water. The little hearts were needle felted onto the white piece with the needle pictured above with the roving.

The little bowls were crocheted with wool yarn and then wet felted. The little one is only a bit over 2 inches across.

And these are needle felted hearts…about one inch in size.

Very habit forming. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that I could dye my own roving, but protein fibers (animal) need a different sort of dye than cellulose fibers (plant) and I don’t want to go there. I’ll let someone else have that fun!

I have been sewing, too! Here’s a peek.

The real Wooly Bully.

Wooly Bully

Hello 2012!

2012-01-01T10:56:00.001-06:00

The Color Palette Challenge for January has been posted at Judy’s blog.

My goal for these challenges is to use my own dyed fabrics for the most part. That means I not only have to design a small project, but dye the fabrics, too. Seems like a good way to start the new year!

2011 Project Highlights

2011-12-31T16:31:00.001-06:00

Eight finished quilts

A quilt-along and lots of fabric dyeing

The new kitchen

Thanks to everyone who stopped by during 2011! You’re the best:)

Two quilts for Christmas

2011-12-28T18:04:00.001-06:00

(Edited to add to Sarah’s Whoop Whoop Friday!)

I had the pleasure of making two quilts for Christmas gifts this year.

This is Ashley’s quilt from this Moda Bakeshop tutorial. This quilt was a joy from start to finish although I had a little trouble getting back into the free motion quilting rhythm. I haven’t done a full size quilt for a while. I used Terrain from Kate Spain. Beautiful fabric line!

The best part was… she was here to open it in person! My best present:)

Ashley’s husband, C., is a huge Notre Dame fan. As of this posting, he hasn’t seen his quilt yet since he spent the holiday with his family in South Dakota. I hope he likes it:) The tan color is actually more goldish. The letters were done in a free pieced style, but without the wonkiness. The “N” was a bear! Good thing there was only one.

If I do another quilt like this, I’ll do things a little differently. The center logo was fused on and didn’t come out of the wash as flat as I'd hoped. I believe a lighter weight fusible (I used Wonder Under) would work better on such a large area. It may be possible to only fuse the edges, too, as long as it has some quilting lines to hold it down. I also think that pre washing the fabric might have worked better for this one. It still turned out okay.

Are you familiar with felted bar soap? It’s been a popular item on Etsy this year, so the girls and I thought we’d give it a try. I already had a little wool from a needle felting kit and found a local yarn store that carries a nice supply. We used ordinary, inexpensive bar soap. I needle felted the little hearts for some extra zip. This was fast, easy and kind of relaxing. There are a zillion or so tutorials online to follow.

We made some little beads, too.

I threatened to felt Mr. DJ’s Irish Spring. He wasn’t amused…I can’t figure out why! Not like I’d make it pink or something.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:16:00.001-06:00

May all your Christmas dreams come true!

Assembly required…

2011-12-15T08:33:00.001-06:00

Some secret assembly stuff happening in the sewing room.

Terrain from Kate Spain. That’s all I’m saying for now.

Other items that are not so secret.

Some fiddly little applique with Make Life from Sweetwater.

Mini pillows for my Etsy shop.

I’m getting pretty fond of Osnaburg.

A mini tree brooch on it’s way to France. Merci beaucoup:)

A random silly fact about me: Christmas is the only time of the year I choose to listen to music. That may seem strange, but after 40+ years of my life revolving around all things music (teaching, performing, accompanying, church stuff…you get the idea) I flamed out in a big way. It’s like Mr. DJ eating too many peas when he was a kid and being disturbed by them now. Maybe it was a mini mid-life crisis sort of thing. Weird, I know. It still bothers me to have music playing in the car, but having the two musicians in the house play guitar or the string instrument du jour doesn’t bug me so much now. I don’t consider this to be a bad thing…. a personal paradigm shift perhaps.

However, I love Christmas music! I’ll listen to almost any genre and have had my Pandora holiday channels on shuffle for a few weeks. I wonder …just how many remakes are there of ‘Carol of the Bells’ and ‘Santa, Baby’? I did, after a few shuffle cycles, give a thumbs down to the Shotgun Shells on the Christmas Tree song, though. To be considerate, I will not provide a link to that one.

Here’s one you might enjoy! Trans-Siberian Orchestra! Kids voices! Wonderful!

Color Palette Challenge

2011-11-30T08:36:00.001-06:00

Vicki Welsh and Judy Laquidara are teaming up for the 2012 Color Palette Challenge! You can read about it at either of their blogs (linked) or by clicking below.

It sounds like a great way to explore color combination and possibly finish a small project at the same time.

Both of these women are so talented and I appreciate the time they take to share so many things on their blogs. Vicki has also been instrumental in piquing my interest in fabric dyeing.

And she spells her first name correctly. Ahem.

I’m in! Wanna play along?

Odds and ends

2011-11-25T16:18:00.002-06:00

A favorite uncle of Mr. DJ’s passed away last week and we made a quick trip to Sioux City, IA for the funeral. This uncle was his dad’s brother and his mom’s sister’s husband which makes all the children of the two couples double cousins. As sad as it is to come together under these circumstances, it’s also very nice to see everyone and catch up a little.
We rarely go past the arch in St. Louis as Mr. DJ likes to take the bypass routes around bigger cities, but this time we went through on I-70. We didn’t care about stopping, but it was fun to get a closer view.

Remember this piece?

This is after over dyeing it in blue all scrunched up in a low immersion bath. The patterns are very unpredictable.

Four new colors from dyes that had to be used before they lost their punch.

A mixer cover to add to the shop soon.

I can now knit across a row and back pretty well and have created a ..... rectangle! By the time spring gets here I could have an entire scarf.

Sarah’s knitting has mine beat! Head over to her Whoop Whoop Friday’s post to see what she and others are up to.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T09:01:00.001-06:00

From ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’

Marcie: Don't feel bad, Chuck. Peppermint Patty didn't mean all those things she said. Actually, she really likes you.
Charlie Brown: I don't feel bad for myself, I just feel bad because I've ruined everyone's Thanksgiving.
Marcie: But Thanksgiving is more than eating, Chuck. You heard what Linus was saying out there. Those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that's what they mean by 'Thanksgiving,' Charlie Brown

Have a blessed and safe Thanksgiving!

Fall colors

2011-11-16T12:42:00.001-06:00

My favorite tree is the Bradford Pear in our front yard. Here it is in the spring with it’s fluffy white blossoms.

This is it’s fall foliage.

I think this might have inspired a new scarf in my Etsy shop. I’m lucky to have my own personal model and photographer.

Process

2011-11-15T12:42:00.001-06:00

After my whirlwind printing frenzy, I shipped out the fat quarters to my swap partners and now I can take a breath!

All the printing was done with dyes thickened with sodium alginate (ground up kelp).

Golden Yellow and Cerulean Blue (Dharma’s dye names)

I described the Mod Podge screen in a previous post, but thought I’d put these photos up again.

One time around with Fire Red. It’s very pinkish.

Second layer with Golden Yellow and the same screen. It looks better after it was heat set and laundered, but I didn’t get a photo of it.

This screen was prepared with strips of freezer paper pressed onto it. As hard as I tried to seal all the edges, there were still places that I knew would bleed.

And they did. But, in my opinion, that’s part of the beauty of hand printing and I like it! I had to do some mixing to get a shade of red I was happy with.

This is where it got really fantastically fun! Enter Kerr Grabowski and her deconstructed screen printing.

Kerr Grabowski Deconstructed Screen Printing

So, I gathered up some stuff from around the house.

A blank screen with the dye on the side before spreading it.

Here, you can see the screen after it’s dried and the objects were removed. Beside it is the first ‘pull’ with a paste made from sodium alginate and water. The paste wets and releases the dye onto the fabric.

After a few pulls with only the paste, the image faded, so I began adding more dye.

I covered four fat quarters with the same screen before the dried dye was finally gone and there was no texture left on the screen.

This one got some layered printing with the same screen and more dye. My personal favorite. This process is so serendipitous!

This one was made by squeezing thickened Dark Brown dye from a plastic bottle.

After it dried, I used Golden Yellow to make the print. Not very much of the brown dye was released, but you can see it a little. It has potential.

Last one! This piece was dyed a few months ago, using soy wax as a resist.

This is the same piece. I stamped it with a different shape and over dyed it with Scarlet, which is a more yellow based red than the Fire Red. I love the colors!

If it hadn’t been for this hand printed fabric swap, I may not have explored some of these techniques, so I’m happy as a clam that I signed up. There is a Flickr group, if you’d like to see all the cool things the others have been printing. I really hope my swap partners like their fabric! I sent four of these pieces out. Any guesses which ones?

Next on the list are two lap size quilts I’m making for Christmas gifts. They’re designed in my head, so at least that much is done. I really want to dye all the fabric for one of them, so I’d better get moving!

Prints

2011-11-13T18:23:00.001-06:00

Just pictures for now ….

Screen print with Mod Podge

Freezer paper screen print

Over-dyed soy wax resist

Deconstructed screen prints

I’ll post in a day or two about the process for each print. I’ve learned a lot!

Honor and celebrate!

2011-11-11T09:03:00.001-06:00

Thank you, Veterans!

To Ashley and the C. Man, who is one of my favorite veterans, congratulations on five years of marriage! Love you!

I’ll be back later with more printing results….too much fun!!

Printing with thickened dye

2011-11-09T19:35:00.001-06:00

These are the preliminary results from the printing session.

As you can see, the print isn’t complete at the top and bottom of the screen leaving a line. Chalk that up to inexperience. I think it has some potential, though. I used dye thickened with sodium alginate, which is a dried, ground kelp or seaweed. It becomes like jelly when mixed with water and it worked pretty well with the screen.

The stamps were another story. Unlike paint or ink, the thickened dye is slippery and doesn’t stick to the stamps very well, especially the lino. I grabbed a couple of foam stamps and those worked a little better, but the dye accumulates in the little crevices and then drips out when the stamp is applied to the surface.

I had to carve the fox deeper, so while I was at it I made a couple more stamps.

The big one is two sided. The spool has jute glued to the top which made the circles in the picture below.

I really like these stamps, but the results with the thickened dye are not what I was hoping for. The paisley piece will need another layer of something…I’m not sure just what that will be.

This is as far as I got today. These two pieces are drying and then will have to be heat set. I have my fingers crossed that all the dye won’t run down the drain with the first rinse!

I’m going to try another screen method tomorrow, so I’ll check in with that when I have something to show!

Getting ready…

2011-11-08T14:32:00.001-06:00

to print. I mentioned here that I had signed up for a hand printed fabric swap and I’ve been doing some prep work for that.

Basic set of lino cutting tools.

My drawing skills are next to nil, but I figured I could manage a house and a tree. These gray linoleum pieces are pretty easy to cut. They’re very thin so I’ll probably mount them on a wood block before I use them.

I also picked up this Moo Carve block to try. It cuts like butta!

There’s no way a fox was in my repertoire, so I leaned on Google for some assistance. I’m glad I didn’t try to cut this from the lino.

I wanted to try a screen print without spending a lot on a a thermofax screen. So after some research here and there, I bought a voile sheer curtain, stapled it to a frame and traced a design.

Mod Podge is applied as a resist to the areas you don’t want to print.

I’m on my way to the dye studio (basement). The plan is to use thickened dye instead of ink to print. Plus, I have six new colors to play with! I love Dharma:)

Stay tuned..

Blogtoberfest Day 31: Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T16:00:00.001-05:00

I haven’t made anything Halloweeny for a long time, so I dug up some photos of my kid’s clothes from several years ago.

Thanks to everyone who may have checked in from Blogtoberfest! I missed 10 days…not a great showing, but that’s more I’ve ever blogged in one month previously, so that’s worth something.

I got over my wallowing from yesterday. A lot of parents have children half way across the globe fighting for the freedoms we enjoy. That thought puts things in perspective pretty fast.

Will you have Trick or Treaters? We probably won’t but I bought M&Ms anyway. You know, just in case. Ahem.

See you in November!

Blogtoberfest Day 30: In the pink

2011-10-30T17:39:00.001-05:00

From pink explosion to scarf and pouch. The scarf has a hand dyed flannel backing. Go figure.

Flannel dyes beautifully! And the scarf is really very cozy but not heavy. Perfect for those banana belt days in Denver. I was on a bit of a patchwork roll, so I made the little pouch, too. It’s 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches.

That’s my Ash! I told you she still loves pink.

Her friend Sara has a photography business and they had a shoot.

She’s a busy girl with a full time job, 12 hours of classes, a husband (who’s also in school) and 3 Chihuahuas.

I miss her. We live too far away. I try not to think about it much. I know she’s happy and healthy, so that’s what I concentrate on.

Some days I just feel like wallowing a little. Thanks for indulging me:)

Blogtoberfest Day 29: Sunny Saturday!

2011-10-29T17:08:00.001-05:00

A Barbie house exploded on my desk.

I’m working on a little something for daughter Ashley. She still loves pink! She was 26 on the 26th and we all completely forgot her birthday until the day before. Bad family! Maybe a pink explosion in a squishy will help a little.

We had guests this week from Buffalo, Wyoming. The guys have been friends since elementary school and were in their first rock band together in Jr. High, The Underground Light Bulb. There was a good amount of story telling and retelling and a couple of new episodes that had slipped through the cracks. We haven’t seen each other in seven years so it was a fun three days! Lois has found her niche in stained glass and brought me this wonderful little candle holder!

We hit the consignment stores and I scored some tarnished goodness for a wall coat rack I’m dreaming up.

We ate at the Hard Dock Café (yes, that’s right) in Decatur, AL Wednesday night. This was the view! Glorious!

It’s a treat to see the sun today after the last two days of cold and rain. (Sorry to all of you in the northeast! Brrr!)

To top the day off with a flourish…Nebraska-24, Michigan State-3! Go Big Red! Thanks to my Wisconsin readers who do not mention that game a few weeks ago:)

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

Blogtoberfest Day 28: Blogger’s Quilt Festival

2011-10-28T08:07:00.001-05:00

It’s time for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival at Amy’s Creative Side!

Thanks for taking the time to stop for a minute! Out of the few quilts I’ve made this year, this is my favorite. It was made for the Hands2Help charity challenge and was delivered to Romania by Judi at Green Fairy Quilts.

This was a swap challenge and my partner sent some lovely calicos to which I added the background fabric. I began with a commercial pattern that called for some 2 1/2 inch strips, but realized early on that it wasn’t working and used the strips to begin making flying geese. No plan in mind…just making geese! There were soon enough for borders but to continue with such small pieces would have been very fussy.

In came the big geese blocks and the corners I trimmed off those became half square triangles for the other blocks. The addition of little borders made them the same size.

A very simple back and a quilting meander completed it. My design process was totally backward for this project, but it worked and I love it!

Thanks to Amy and all the sponsors for letting us link up!

Blogtoberfest Day 27: Thursday’s thoughts on Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

Barn quilt, Woodbury, TN

I don’t know what happened to Wordless Wednesday’s post, so let’s try again! With words this time since it’s Thursday and all.

I spied this brand new barn quilt in our little town last week. Isn’t it cool? This barn is next to our vet’s office right on the main drag. Lots of visibility! Of course, I had no camera with me, so Amber took the photo and did some cool editing.

Here is a glimpse of my Barn Quilts board on Pinterest.

We’ve had company the last three days and it’s been a whirlwind of activity. Now it’s time to settle into a routine again and spend some serious time in the sewing room. Until tomorrow, here’s the view we had while eating supper last night.

Dining on a dock somewhere on the Tennessee River

Blogtoberfest Day 22: Crafting interests

2011-10-22T09:36:00.001-05:00

It seems most people who sew also enjoy many other crafts. I started a list of ones I’ve attempted, not all successfully, and thought it would be interesting to turn it into a poll. If there’s a craft that you have tried or would like to try that’s not on the list, please add it in the comment section.

The poll is in the sidebar <--------- that-a-way! (My first poll…I hope it works!)

Here’s a snip from my Craft board on Pinterest. It’s a collection of things from all around the interwebs. Clicking on the image takes you to the site if you’d like to have a look.

To push myself outside the old comfort zone, I signed up for a hand printed fabric swap and purchased tools for carving my own stamps and screen printing. Have you done either of these? I could use some pointers!

Happy crafting!

Blogtoberfest Day 20: Stack ‘em up

2011-10-20T17:50:00.001-05:00

Slowly making progress…

iPad and iPhone cases

Switching gears always causes me to make more mistakes than I’d like to think about.

At least it no longer hurts to cut into the fabrics I’ve dyed! That is progress!

Blogtoberfest Day 19: Wordless Wednesday ~ Up the Dirt Road

2011-10-19T08:16:00.001-05:00

from Amber’s iPhone

Blogtoberfest Day 18: Something new…

2011-10-18T17:02:00.001-05:00

..for my Etsy shop

iPad case

I’m working on inventory as my shop is painfully empty and gift giving season is almost here. Some of you may recognize the fabric from this post.

We took full advantage of the beautiful fall weather this weekend. Saturday (my birthday) was spent in Bell Buckle, TN at the Webb School Craft Fair. It was packed with people and we saw lots of amazing crafts and art work. Good music, too!

from Amber’s iPhone

Sunday afternoon the storage building went from this

to this

I almost hated seeing the barn red go, but it matches the house better now. I have a renewed appreciation for our paint sprayer. Wish I could use it in the house!

I’ll leave you with the latest QOTD:

“If I didn’t have you, all my bread would be moldy.”

Blogtoberfest Day 15: I dub thee..

2011-10-15T10:33:00.001-05:00

..eggs in the grass!

Clamp your folded fabric in between two plexiglass shapes (purchased here) and this is what happens! This technique is called itajime shibori.

I played with color mixing a little yesterday to come up with something more subdued than my usual brights.

I like them! At the moment, I have only eight different colors to work with, but there are endless combinations. I also started documenting on sheets of drawing paper how many parts of this and that to use to reproduce a particular color. Kind of like a recipe but more fun than cooking!

I intend to make this part of my dyeing process every time, so I’ll need to neaten it up a little.

I’m officially another year older. I can now get my senior discount at Hancock’s every first Wednesday of the month. Party!

Take the short trip to Sarah’s to see who is Whooping it up. Have a glorious weekend!

Blogtoberfest Day 14: Do people need a hobby?

2011-10-14T14:45:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning to several messages from people on Twitter that my account had been hacked and I needed to change my password. I rarely even check Twitter anymore, so last night when I got a message from someone I follow that included a link to a fake Twitter site, I logged right on in! Of course, Mr. Hacker ran with that and sent messages to other people from my account. There is a small comfort in the fact that I got it from someone else who fell for it, too.

Maybe Mr. Hacker needs to take a nice knitting class.

Wouldn’t it be more satisfying to have a scarf or mittens to show for all that work?

Speaking of knitting, every year I get out the needles to take another stab at it. We went to a car race in Woodstock, GA last weekend, so I grabbed some needles and a skein of yarn to have something to pass the time in the car and still be able to carry on a conversation. After I remembered how to cast on, I knitted a few rows, purled a few rows and ripped it all out. Trying to manipulate two sticks and a string is like herding cats to me. I can crochet fairly well, but throw that extra instrument in there and things turn ugly. I just checked out a knitting book from the library, so we’ll see if that does any good.

I had to renew my driver’s license today. I thought without a doubt there could not be a more hideous ID photo as the one on my old ID. I was wrong. It must have been payback for the hair dyeing vanity session of earlier this morning.

Anyway, I’m off to the dye studio (basement) to try some new resist clamps and then hope to spend some time sewing.

What are you working on?

Blogtoberfest Day 12: Crinkled with a stripey binding

2011-10-12T18:05:00.001-05:00

Harvest Star table runner

This is one of the first things I pieced when I became interested in quilting a couple of years ago. I was attracted to the wonkies right away. It’s nice to finally dig it out of the pile and finish it.

This wall hanging’s been waiting for a while, too. Free pieced letters and big spools.

I started some swirls in the white spaces and wavy lines to give the impression of thread on the spools.

These HSTs in this orphan block were cut from the corners of the spools. The fabric is Authentic from Sweetwater.

No one has come up with a worthy QOTD yet. We’ll try to do better tomorrow.

Blogtoberfest Day 11: How..

2011-10-11T18:02:00.001-05:00

..do people blog every day? I’m at a loss here. I know I lead a fairly mundane life, but this is ridiculous. Maybe I should start sharing Amber and Vicki’s “Quote of the Day”. These are one-line comments that come up in the course of ordinary conversation around here.

“You smell like a pig farm!” is today’s QOTD. Not one of our best, but it can change if a better one comes along. The rules are pretty loose.

Anyway, this is finished except for burying threads and washing.

I’ll share tomorrow in all it’s crinkly goodness! And it will give me something to blog about.

Blogtoberfest Day 9: Binding

2011-10-09T18:00:00.001-05:00

Love a striped binding!

Blogtoberfest Day 8:

2011-10-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

Day 7 blew right by! Forty lashes with a wet noodle for me.

On the sewing front, I have been somewhat productive.

Three little blocks…

Three bags!

Thanks for the idea, P.

I’m linking up to Whoop Whoop! over at Sarah’s. (Thanks Sarah!) Check it out.

Blogtoberfest Day 6: Old and New

2011-10-06T11:22:00.001-05:00

Here are the footprint sketches of our kitchen remodel. The dimensions are not exact, but you can see the changes we made. Pictures here.

Before

After

The wall between the kitchen and living room was removed and a manufactured beam was installed in it’s place. Since it was a support wall, it had to be shored up by adding support posts in the drive-under garage below. This opens up the space and lets the sun shine in!

The laundry was moved and a mud room was added. That meant new plumbing was needed for the washer and the new walls between the kitchen, mud room and laundry room needed electric circuits.

Over a third of the ceiling was torn out to move some of the lighting. In addition, the sheetrock in the old laundry area was all replaced.

On paper, it doesn’t look like much of a change, but the impact is pretty big.

While we’re satisfied with the results, we’ve agreed that we will never tackle a remodel again. Trying to find a way to fit your vision into the allotted space and to make it all work can be a hair pulling exercise. Hopefully this will be a boost to the resale value when we’re ready to put it on the market!

Blogtoberfest Day 5: Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T16:50:00.001-05:00

Blogtoberfest Day 4: Orphan blocks

2011-10-04T11:33:00.001-05:00

I don’t have a lot of UFOs, but it’s time to finish some things up. Tucked in among the bigger things were these little homeless blocks.

What would you do with them?

Blogtoberfest Day 3: Amethyst Sunflower and the Sunflower Stand

2011-10-03T18:17:00.001-05:00

Sounds like a book title! It’s actually Amber’s (Daughter #1) Etsy shop and website.

Amber recently took the leap from being employed to entrepreneurship! Her shop is doing well and she has much more time to pursue her music and photography interests as well. She started making feather extensions has moved into more wedding headpieces and boutonnieres. These are a couple of her best sellers.

She does her own photography and I think it’s pretty fantastic! (Proud mama moment!) Her shop has a boho, hippie sort of vibe but some of her pieces have a definite vintage feel.

She’d love to have you check out her shop, website and Facebook page!

Blogtoberfest* Day 2: ‘Needle’ little inspiration?

2011-10-02T11:47:00.001-05:00

If you’re like me, the creative juices flow like frozen molasses occasionally and you crave new ideas. Since I’m a visual learner, I’ll typically turn to Flickr, Pinterest, You Tube or other blogs to see what might spur me on to creating something new. But it’s very time-consuming to visit page after page of photos and I usually end up feeling guilty for not actually getting down to business. When I do make it to the sewing room or dye studio (think basement), I can’t work in silence. Music drives me crazy, which is another subject entirely, so I typically listen to an audiobook or talk radio. But about a year ago I discovered podcasts.

The first one I listened to was Pat Sloan’s show on Toginet called Creative Talk Radio. A few months ago the show became American Patchwork and Quilting Radio, but the older podcasts are still available for download. Pat is a true gem and I had the pleasure of meeting her in person at the Paducah show in 2010. Her radio show airs on Mondays and you can download any of them to listen to at your convenience.

Another favorite of mine is Mark Lipinski’s Creative Mojo which is also found on Toginet. His is a two hour show and includes a wide range of guests from all sorts of creative fields. Mark is very outspoken which mostly enhances the flavor of his show, although I do cringe once in a while at his remarks. I might even blush.

Jackie Kunkel, from Canton Village Quilt Works fame, also has a collection of podcasts that she calls Jackie’s Quilting Chronicles. She generally has a new show up once a month and they’re always very informative.

Here is a list of podcasts I found at The Quilting Gallery that I haven’t explored yet.

If you have any favorite podcasts that are of the creative variety I’d love for you to share those links in the comments.

*Off the topic, I’ve decided to join the ranks of Blogtoberfest! The challenge is to blog every day in the month of October, which may be a stretch for me, but I feel the need for a challenge at the moment, so here we go! Feel free to ignore any or all of my Blogtoberfest posts as I don’t expect comments every day.

Blogtoberfest* Day 1: Men who quilt

2011-10-01T09:29:00.001-05:00

While scrolling through my Google Reader this morning, I ran across this show/contest at Pigtales and Quilts just for men who quilt. What an amazingly talented group! Click on the logo below to go directly to the gallery of quilt photos. There are 21 submissions.

It’s easy to pigeonhole quilting into the female category, so it’s really refreshing to see guys step up and show their skills. I don’t want to use any of the photos without permission, so click over to take a look. I know which one I’m voting for!

A kitchen at last!

2011-09-30T15:41:00.001-05:00

There is nothing quite so motivating as the announcement of visitors coming. Mr. DJ’s sister, her husband, their youngest daughter and her husband visited us from Nebraska this past weekend. Oh, we were motivated! Over four weekends we installed cabinets, countertops, light fixtures and laminate flooring. This is one of the very few “before” pictures I took. Note the blue sink base. Every cabinet, door, window frame and piece of trim in the house was that color.

Ta da!! The new kitchen!! Not big, but it works.

The cabinets are stock hickory from Lowes. (If you’re going to buy stock cabinets, I’d suggest inspecting them in the store without the packaging. We had two damaged ones and one that was very out of square.) There are still things to finish such as the trim and some flooring, but it’s mostly done and fully functional.

We still have a tendency to head into the living room to get something from the fridge or use the stove since that’s where they were for three years. The prep work for this project was pretty extensive as we moved walls, added new electrical circuits and plumbing lines. I learned to finish drywall and am fairly certain I would starve if I had to earn a living at it.

What? You don’t take pictures of your garbage can? This is one of my favorite features. The trash is out of the way as long as you don’t mind giving up a little cabinet space. And I emptied the garbage before I took the picture. Just for you.

I love the new ceiling fixture. We didn’t want to move the old ceiling box, so being able to adjust the track to center over the island was a great solution.

The photo below shows the mud room we added. The new laundry room is to the right and the back deck is to the left. We vented the dryer through the mud room and needed a way to cover it. The solution, after much brainstorming, was to install wall cabinets over a framework and have a skinny (13”) piece of countertop made to fit. It’s a little out of the ordinary, but I love it! It’s great extra storage. See the pretty blue door? More painting to do.

I’m working on a sketch of the before and after footprints of the entire project and will share that when it’s finished. We think the changes we’ve made have been worth the effort. All that is left to do is replace the carpeting in the rest of the house, a little more drywall and painting and some landscape work.

We had a wonderful time with our guests! The itinerary included The Grand Ole’ Opry, Jack Daniels, The Alabama Space and Rocket Center and The Hermitage. The highlight may have been watching Nebraska football Saturday night with ~~crazy~~ exuberant Husker fans! It was extremely…er… colorful. And there may or may not have been abundant amounts of food and alcohol consumed over the 4 days they were here, but I’m not saying for sure.

I’ve sufficiently recovered enough from all the work and fun to enter this quilt in the Quilting Gallery’s weekly contest. The feature this week is Flying Geese quilts. If you are bored to tears and desperately need something to do for the next 3 minutes, you could go vote for me and two others. I do have two votes and I didn’t vote for myself so that’s something, right?

Even though this isn’t a sewing related post, I’m going to link up to Sarah’s Whoop Whoop Friday. Lots of fun stuff over there!

I’m headed to the sewing room. It’s been way too long!

A new baby in the family!

2011-09-17T21:13:00.001-05:00

We have a new grand niece! Meet Lillian Sue:)

Babies need lots of cute onesies.

The blue ones are ombre dyed from dark on the bottom to lighter on the top. It’s a little hard to tell in the photos.

The designs were stitched with a heavy thread before dyeing. I wasn’t sure how clear they would be, but I’m very pleased with the results. Lilli’s mom grew up on a ranch, so the boots are right up her alley!

Reversible shoes (tutorial here) to match and a burp cloth. These are so easy! I’ll make a few more of each to send.

Check out more Whoop Whoop! projects at Sarah’s place. Thanks, Sarah!

Some feathered friends for your viewing pleasure.

Ruby-throated hummingbird.

Baltimore Oriole

I debated whether to show you the photo I got of the oriole relieving himself, but didn’t think I’d put my maturity level on public display. It is pretty funny, though. Ahem.

Coming up next…the new kitchen reveal!!

And the winner is..

2011-08-22T07:56:00.001-05:00

Commenter # 8 corresponds with:

P. said...

Happy, happy anniversaries! Love the photos. You're a good-lookin' couple!
How nice of you to have a giveaway of your hand-dyed fabrics. I was wondering where that red & white rectangle print went! I've been checking your store off and on, but figured you'd sold it.

August 16, 2011 8:52 PM

Congratulations! I’ll be in touch for your mailing address.

Thanks to all who left a comment!

Interweave, anniversaries and a little giveaway

2011-08-16T08:29:00.002-05:00

Are you familiar with Interweave? Occasionally they offer crazy deals like this one…10 cents for a download of 2010 Gifts digital magazine! Too good to pass up. They carry some great products, so you might want to check it out.

A couple of anniversaries rolled over this past week.

Mr. DJ and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on the 14th.

Then…

..and now.

Celebration included lunch at IHOP (Amber’s treat), a cruise around Goodwill and changing the rotors and brake pads on the car. Oh, we rotated the tires, too. We know how to have a good time!

I began this blog in August of 2009 and to my amazement, I’m still plugging along. If it weren’t for awesome readers who leave nice comments, I’d have given up. So, thank you! I think a little giveaway is in order.

I’ll give a surprise package of hand dyed fabric pieces to one lucky commenter. The pieces are either fat quarters or eighths and it will total at least one yard. (I have a couple of extra goodies in mind, too.) No hoops to jump through…just leave a comment and a way for me to get in touch with you! Here’s a sampling of what may be in your package:

I’ll take comments through Sunday, August 21st and let the random number generator do it’s thing Monday morning. (One entry per person and international entries are fine.) Good luck!

Vacation recuperation

2011-08-13T12:47:00.002-05:00

We arrived back in Tennessee about 1 a.m. Tuesday morning from a 10 day visit home to South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado.

The Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs

These were taken on the way to the farm where I grew up in western Nebraska.

Sunflowers growing along the roadside.

One of our favorite places to eat!

It was the week before the Sturgis motorcycle rally and Keystone was filling up with bikes. Keystone is a favorite stop for people on the way to see Mt. Rushmore. We didn’t go there this time, but had a great lunch at the Ruby House.

Bear Butte near Sturgis, South Dakota.

We had a view of Bear Butte from the last (second) house we built in SD. (I probably shouldn’t have taken a picture, but I couldn’t resist.) We loved it and are still sorry we had to sell and move, but that’s the way things go. Mr. DJ designed it, drew up the plans and we did most of the building including the framing, electric and plumbing. There’s some awesome landscaping in the back with rocks that came from the property. 20 acres of beautiful prairie! We’ll build again but on a little smaller scale.

Mr. DJ’s parents live about 10 miles from here on another beautiful piece of property. Their home was built by his dad and the two of us. We had a good visit, saw some great friends and many relatives. The trip was planned around the 50th wedding anniversary of my aunt and uncle in Cheyenne, WY. I was going to see cousins I hadn’t seen for over 30 years. Sunday morning, the day of the event, Mr. DJ woke up very early in extreme pain and we had to make a fast trip to the ER in Rapid City. He had a kidney stone and it was determined that it was too small to admit him to the hospital to zap it. After spending about 3 hours on a morphine drip, which he found to be quite pleasant, we were sent back to his parents with pain meds and the assurance that flying out of Denver the next evening should be no problem.

My brothers attended the celebration and sent our regrets. One of my cousins called later in the day and said she and her sister would still be in Cheyenne the next day and could we make it for lunch? Yes! We arrived right at noon and were surprised that all but one of the cousins and families had been able to stay around to meet us! What a treat! Two and a half hours later we were on the road to Denver where we returned our rental car and Ashley and the C. man took us to the airport. We had about an hour to visit before going through security (which is 10 times more efficient than in Nashville!) and had an uneventful flight home. The kidney stone is history and that’s all I’m saying about that:)

If you are ever looking for a wonderful place to eat in Cheyenne, try Pizzaria Venti or 2 Doors Down, both owned by another cousin of mine. Wonderful food!

I’m slowly getting back in the swing of painting walls and we might get to install some cabinets tomorrow! I won’t know how to act!

H2H finished

2011-07-31T08:18:00.001-05:00

The Hands2Help Charity Quilt is finished.

A few more geese for the back. I found a great stripe in my stash for the binding.

A meander for the quilting.

I met with Kari and Sarah (and Lilli, too!) Tuesday to deliver the quilt for mailing. Sarah was instrumental in organizing this challenge so a big thanks to her for all her hard work! Follow the links to see more of the quilts that will be going to Romania.

Now we’re off to explore a little more of colorful Colorado with Ashley and the C. man! I love these guys!

H2H quilt

2011-07-15T13:04:00.001-05:00

Sarah has the Whoop Whoop party up! Check it out!

Ready to be a sandwich.

The stained glass effect from the back is interesting.

I know your day wouldn’t be complete without more dyed fabrics!

The squares were made with the end of a short piece of 2x2 wood dipped in the wax.

The piece on the left has been through three different processes and will likely get a couple more layers. I’ve been experimenting with sodium alginate as a thickener and it may be used in the next application.

Helen says Hey!

I really don’t know what I’m doing..

2011-07-07T16:09:00.003-05:00

but I’m sure having a good time! One thing about dyeing fabric is that it’s not always predictable. None of these turned out the way I’d planned but I know why and that’s a good thing.

If you compare the pictures you’ll see that these batik marks are different because I dyed it a second time. I took P.’s advice and went literal!

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I have yet to use any of these fabrics. I did send some to Terri and this is a sampling of what she made. She sent me the cute covered journal in the center! Her blog and Etsy shop are definitely worth a visit.

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our old friend Sally last week.

1989-2011

22 years!

Her original name was Egon and her brothers were Peter Venkman (PV) and Slimer. Somehow the song “Lay Down Sally” influenced a name change. She was a good girl:)

Baby quilt..

2011-07-01T06:33:00.001-05:00

..finished and delivered.

A few vertical lines of quilting and an echo around the flower vines to keep it soft.

The pieced back.

An embroidered name.

Sarah has more finishes at her blog. Thanks for letting us share, Sarah!

I’m also linking to Amy’s Sew and Tell post. Thanks Amy!

Appliqued baby quilt

2011-06-25T08:58:00.001-05:00

A friend asked me to make a baby quilt to give as a gift and we agreed on a design from a Flickr photo. The flowers are from this tutorial at the Don’t Look Now blog. Misha (the Flickr girl) generously gave me permission to share the design that I snagged from her! Off topic, but if you click over to her Flickr page, you’ll see photos of a pileated woodpecker that did a header into her window and lived to tell about. They are amazing birds!

I am pleased with how well the fabrics mix. Now to piece the back and make a label. I haven’t appliqued for a while and it felt good to put those skills back to work.

All waxed and ready to dye!

Any color suggestions?

Check out what some others are doing at Sarah’s Whoop Whoop! party. Thanks for letting us share, Sarah!

Tools

2011-06-21T17:51:00.001-05:00

I love tools. Not just the wrench variety, but anything that makes a task easier to accomplish. One of my favorite tools is a dolly or hand truck. Even a weakling like me can moves things with a dolly.

These are tools I’ve been using a lot lately.

We’ve been plugging along at installing the new drywall in our kitchen and the last of it went up over the weekend. There were 5 ceiling pieces to put up and instead of renting a drywall jack or bribing a couple of muscular friends to lift it, Mr. DJ engineered this drywall jack.

We just happen to have things like engine hoists laying around and with the addition of a hinge and some 2x4’s…there you have it! Mr. DJ built the engine hoist in his stock car racing days.

This gets us one step closer to getting those cabinets installed. I won’t know how to act when I don’t have to store things in totes.

Clamps are pretty useful things to have around.

I had dyed a fat quarter blue to try out a new color and wasn’t thrilled with it, so I stuck a few clamps on the folded fabric and over dyed it with yellow.

Interesting! This technique is called itajime shibori. Very intricate patterns can be achieved with this, but I don’t know how to do the fancy folding… yet.

The bias tape maker was the tool of the day. It’s been in the drawer for a while and I finally had a chance to try it. Very cool tool!

Do you have a favorite tool?

Wax on!

2011-06-18T17:32:00.001-05:00

There’s a good reason not to get rid of everything you no longer use. My chicken frying days are over, so the electric fry pan is now the wax melting pot. I’m using soy wax that melts at a fairly low temperature. What I don’t use is left to cool for the next time as you can see here.

This is my second attempt at batik. My first was a big fat fail due to the fact that I left out the important step of adding the soda ash to the dye bath. The soda ash acts as a fixative so the dye becomes permanent and usually the fabric is soaked in it prior to adding the dye. But soda ash tends to break down the soy wax, so it needs to be added after the wax has been applied and the fabric is in the dye. Then the fabric needs to be removed and rinsed after a fairly short time.

Anyway, these are the tools I used to apply the wax to the fabric. The little cutter was originally used to cut shapes from polymer clay and was round. I bent it to the shape I wanted and used a pair of pliers to dip it in the wax. I don’t look at common household gadgets the same way now. Anything is game to be turned into a dyeing tool.

The pop can and the altered cutter made the flowers. The wax was applied on white fabric and dyed once.

The square bottom of the glass vase was used here. I dyed the fabric very diluted black, batiked it and over dyed it with a stronger black solution. It’s a little darker in real life than in the photo.

This fabric was dyed light yellow and over dyed after the wax was added.

Drying outside! I really enjoy the batik process and will hopefully improve with some practice. The other two pieces were from a different experiment.

On the H2H front, this is what I have accomplished so far. Remember when I said I was going to use a pattern? Yeah, well I just couldn’t make my brain conform to that. It’s kind of like Captain Picard and the Borg. I just won’t be assimilated. I already had started to cut 2 1/2 inch strips, so I gave in to the flying geese urge. It was one of those days when I just wanted to sew and not think much and the result was a heck of a lot of flying geese. Then I made big flying geese and had HSTs left over to use. I’m pretty sure it will all come together somehow.

This is the start of a baby quilt I’ve been asked to make. There will be appliqued flowers (already cut with the fusible applied) in between the rows. This needs to be finished next week!

And just for giggles, chickens crossing the road. The people who live across the road and one house down from us own these chickens, but lately the crazy things have been exploring the neighborhood.

Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Answer: To show the possum it could be done!

That’s one of the four jokes I know.

And from Pinterest:

Hop on over to Sarah’s for the Whoop! Whoop! party

I’m still offering a 10% coupon for my Etsy shop for blog readers. Just enter Blog10 in the coupon box during checkout.

I can’t stop dyeing…

2011-05-21T14:31:00.001-05:00

Folded resist technique

I’ve listed some pieces in my Etsy shop. Shameless self promotion. There is a coupon code for my blog readers worth 10% off any item in my shop. Just enter Blog10 during checkout in the appropriate box.

Example:

Wax resist coming up next. Now to get into the sewing room and make something with it! Brother Innovis hasn’t seen much of me, but I did manage to start on the H2H quilt.

This is the sound we are blasted with every day. Enjoy!

Song of the Cicada

Flowers and fabric

2011-05-11T08:48:00.003-05:00

Poppies

Irises

Honeysuckle

This grows along fence lines everywhere and is so fragrant!

I spent part of Mother’s Day dyeing more fabric. The strips and squares are scraps of Kona white and are not PFD.

The only piece of PFD fabric I had left is in the center of the photo below and was laid flat on a piece of plastic to dye. The other fabrics are either Kona white or a good quality bleached muslin from my stash. This was just playing around to see how the colors blended and how to scrunch and fold for different results.

All of these colors came from various combinations of Dharma’s fuchsia, turquoise and lemon yellow Procion dyes.

I should receive an order this week with some additional fabric and dye to try a few more techniques. This is becoming an addiction!

WARNING!! If you’re squeamish about insects you can skip the rest of this post!

It’s hatching time for the 13 year cicadas here in the south. They’re creepy things and the exoskeletons are everywhere. As I was taking pictures of the honeysuckle I noticed their ‘remains’ on the leaves. These shells are empty.

This is the critter that comes out of shell.

They’re ugly things! Click for a closer look if you really want to. I like bugs just slightly more than I like reptiles and rodents. I’m not really scared of any of them, but I’d rather keep my distance.

I feel bad to leave you with that image, so here’s something prettier!

Dyeing fabric

2011-05-06T17:44:00.002-05:00

Fabric dyeing has been a persistent little thought in the back of my mind for about a year, so I took the dive! I got this dye kit from Dharma Trading Company and some Prepared For Dyeing fabric from this Etsy shop.

The dye powder came in plastic bags, so I transferred it to more suitable containers.

I used the tutorial from Candy for the dyeing process. She has a great website and blog, too. There are several other really good sites, but Candy’s was easiest for me to wrap my brain around.

Here are the mixed dyes.

Not knowing what to expect, I kept it to a minimum of pieces. There are two gradations of each of the three colors. I also mixed a purple, green and an orange/red/coral color.

Don’t you love the colors on the paper towel? Next time I’ll put a piece a fabric down to catch those drips.

The fabric stayed in the tubs overnight and this morning I rinsed (lots of rinsing!) until it was ready to machine wash, dry and iron.

The results were pretty close to what I expected, although some of the pieces are a little blotchier than I wanted. Too much fun and the colors are spectacular!

I received my H2H fabrics from Megan. It’s been a long time since I’ve made anything with a calico type fabric, so this should be fun! I think I’ll choose a pattern from the book I won recently.

There’s a Whoop! Whoop! party over at Sarah’s and I’m linking this post!

Obi-Jane-Kenobi

2011-04-26T16:27:00.002-05:00

Here are some pretty irises to distract you from the fact that I don’t have any photos of sewing accomplishments to show you.

I made 6 blocks for Margaret’s Hope Chest and mailed them. I forgot to take pictures.

I sent fabric to my H2H partner, Megan. I forgot to take pictures.

I finished the sheetrock and painted the new mudroom. It’s not worth taking pictures of painted walls. We have a couple of cabinets and flooring to install before it’s finished anyway. I painted a lot of other stuff, too. B-o-r-i-n-g!

Speaking of cabinets, did I mention we purchased our new kitchen cabinets from Lowe’s and they’re stacked in the basement. Installation date to be determined. Translated - If other things would stop breaking, we might have time on the weekends to work on these endless projects!!

We’ve used Lowe’s stock cabinets before and were very pleased with them. Of course, custom made are wonderful (we’ve had them before, too), but completely out of the budget right now. The hickory finish was our first choice and they were on sale a few weeks ago so they were a little less expensive than the oak.

I believe this is a Stemless Evening Primrose. I don’t remember seeing this one last year.

This is Ashley, our Denver daughter who was here for a few days. She’s modeling a feather extension for Amber’s Etsy shop, Amethyst Sunflower.

This is Amber modeling a feather headpiece for her shop.

This is Two Twenty Something Peas in a Pod with their real hair just being, you know, real.

Oh, look! This white iris just bloomed this morning!

You didn’t even notice the lack of anything sewing related, did you? Mad Jedi skills have I!

I have a new project cooking this week. Maybe I’ll remember to take some pictures.

Finally finished (Edited for Friday Whoop!)

2011-04-13T12:55:00.002-05:00

~~Before I get to the quilts, I want to let you know about a Challenge/Charity Swap. Today is the last chance to sign up and there are prizes!~~ The sign up time is over and there are 48 participants! Well done and thanks to Sarah for all her hard work!

Speaking of Sarah, I’m linking this post to her Whoop! Whoop! Friday sharing session. (See the sidebar for the link --->)

Last fall my niece asked me to make quilts for her three children. We brainstormed color schemes and design possibilities and I got busy ordering fabric and sketching. They’re finally finished and ready to go to Texas!

Kirstyn

Karson

Gino

Cars with a built in road system!

A little personalization was stitched into each quilt.

Their name, the year and my name. You may be able to click to enlarge in order to see better.

I have good help! Since I have a soft spot for barn quilts, Amber thought it would be appropriate to have shed quilts.

Amber’s blog is here. You can see what goes on inside the shed!

Brown Bag finish..

2011-04-02T08:29:00.001-05:00

just under the wire! The challenge was to trade 2 yards of “ugly” fabric with a partner and make a quilt using 90% of the fabric and adding whatever we wanted from our stash. We could purchase one fabric if needed. The deadline was April 1st at midnight. I submitted my photos just before 8 pm!

Tuesday evening

Since I had very little time left to pull it together, I gave myself 30 minutes to come up with a design, deciding on a cross pattern. The fabric need a whole bunch of lightening and brightening, so I consulted the Color Scheme Designer for some assistance and dug into my stash. I liked the two purples and used them for the bigger pieces and cut the other two into strips for the cross parts. There were many strips left, so they were sewn together to make a large square for the back. What remained of that process became the front border and the floating strips on the back. I purchased only the fabric for the binding which was within the guidelines for the challenge.

Photos in the dark Friday evening!

This shows the violet binding a little better.

Making this quilt from start to finish in three days forced me to make quick decisions. Some I’m happy with and some not. Learning every day! The Challenge has a Flickr group with some really nice finishes. This one is amazing!

Click on over to Sarah’s blog to join the Whoop! Whoop! fun. Thanks, Sarah!

I quilted another quilt this week and will finish two more next week and have them ready for Whoop! Day if all goes well. I’m on a roll so I’d better keep rolling!

A hole in the table

2011-03-28T20:00:00.001-05:00

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. Today was the day.

I had quilts to quilt and I didn’t want to mess around. I only broke one jigsaw blade!

Mr. DJ will make a permanent box to replace the stool that’s holding the machine up. So far, so good!

Do you Pinterest?

2011-03-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

From the website:

“Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste.”

It also has the potential of being an amazing time waster. Not that I would ever do that.

It’s simple to create your own boards and save images to them. Here’s a sample of mine:

Install the Pin It button to grab images from websites or blogs. Credit is automatically given to the source.

Some pins from boards I follow:

If you have a Twitter or Facebook account, you can join through one of those or have someone invite you. I’m Vicki S and if you want to follow me, I’ll follow you back!

I’m off to take a spin on the torture machine, paint a couple of window frames and then pin baste two quilts. I’m going to throw a nap in there somewhere, too. Mr. DJ decided to play his guitar to try a new amp setup at 11 last night. This couldn’t wait until daylight? Tuesday night at 1 a.m, Amber sent a text (she’s house-sitting) to let me know the lost hamster had been found. Really? I value my sleep, people!

What do you have going on today?

Finished Block-a-palooza blocks!

2011-03-19T08:19:00.002-05:00

Block-a-palooza blocks are finished!

Block 13

Block 14

Block 15

Block 16

All together!

The Flickr group is loaded with inspiration! I have a few more things in the works, but I’ll wait to share when they’re closer to completion.

See what others are sharing over at Sarah’s place. Thanks, Sarah!!

The torture machine is getting a little easier.

I’ve taken 2 minutes off my mile in the two weeks since I started, which is not an impressive time by any means, but good for me. I’m working through some really rusty old kinks in the bones!

Bradford Pear trees are among my favorite spring sights in Tennessee. This one is in our front yard.

If we were back in South Dakota, this would be a sure sign of spring!

Red-winged Blackbird

Image credit

Catching up

2011-03-05T17:50:00.001-06:00

I’m linking to Sarah’s Whoop Whoop post! Thanks for letting us share, Sarah!

Block-a-palooza update (link is in the side bar)

I’m starting to love flying geese!

This is a block for a group quilt being made for an Etsy seller who lost her son in a house fire recently.

Contributing to something like this really helps me put my own priorities in order.

The fabric is from Pat Sloan.

This is a corner of a quilt I’m making for my niece’s son. I ran out of the yellow fabric and was lucky to be able to order more!

I’ll share more about this later. It’s been a fun top to work on!

My new toy It’s certainly a painful reminder about how out of shape I am! Gotta keep at it so wish me luck!

Another light bulb moment

2011-03-01T17:00:00.002-06:00

I’ve been sewing a lot of flying geese blocks with the Block-a-palooza quilt-along. Along with discovering how to tame the curve, I also stumbled on another little handy tidbit. A lot of us like to save the corners that are clipped off when using the rectangle/square method of flying geese. I used to make a little pile of them and sew them into half square triangles (HSTs) when I had a few minutes. The process to me is pretty tedious and those tiny bias pieces can stretch like crazy. But I love those little HSTs and had to have a better way to stitch them up. Here’s what I did:

Begin as usual by drawing a diagonal line

Draw a second line 1/2 inch from the first

Stitch on both lines

Cut between the two lines

I press open to avoid the curve

Do the same for the other side

There you have it. Your HSTs are already stitched!

It’s probably not an original idea, but it’s new to me!

Here are Block-a-palooza blocks 9, 10 and 11.

Whoop!

2011-02-19T11:07:00.002-06:00

Just a quick update so I can link to Sarah’s Whoop Whoop post!

Are you tired of Block-a-palooza yet? Here’s block 7..

and block 8.

I decided the “K” quilt wasn’t quite long enough, so I added a little to the top.

It’s breezy in Tennessee today.

Back of “K”

Some blocks made for K’s little brother..

and other little brother.

The sport themed blocks are 15 inches square and the circles are appliqued onto them. When I started to center the circles onto the squares, I knew I needed to streamline the process or I’d be folding fabric in quarters longer than my patience would hold out!

So I made a template from poster board.

Placed it on the square.

Sprayed the back of the circle with adhesive and placed it in the cut out circle.

Removed the template and smoothed it out!

Easy peasy! They’re ready for applique.

~~Amber and I are going to the Flea Market in Nashville, so I gotta run~~! Have a groovy weekend!

Flea market is next weekend and yes, we drove 50 miles to find out! Google is my friend.

Me and the Flying Geese

2011-02-14T08:48:00.002-06:00

The Block-a-palooza quilt-along was my introduction to making flying geese. Five of the first seven blocks include them and so far there have been three different methods of construction. You can check them out by clicking on the button in the right side bar and following the links. All of the tutorials are well written and easy to follow.

My problem was that all my geese had a nasty little curve on the bottom.

My seams were straight so that wasn’t causing it. I tried starch to stabilize the bias cut which helped a little. I loosened the pressure on my presser foot to no avail.

I finally stumbled on a solution and I’ve highlighted the steps in the little tutorial below that made my geese fly straight!

Here’s the “no waste” method of making flying geese which is the one I prefer. I believe this method was created by Patti Anderson and it’s the one Kaye Prince at Miss Print used for her quilt-along block. Thanks to Dora for pointing me to Patti Anderson!

For this example the (1) large square is 4.25 x 4.25 inches.

The (4) small squares are 2.375 x 2.375 (2 3/8) inches.

Place a small square in opposite corners of the large square.

Draw a line diagonally.

Sew 1/4 inch on both sides of the line.

I like to press this so it lays nice and flat to cut.

Cut on the drawn line.

Here it comes!

The original instructions call for pressing toward the points, but I get better results if I press the seams open!

Place another small square in the corner of this piece.

Draw a diagonal line and sew 1/4 inch on both sides. Press flat if you want.

Cut on the drawn line.

Press the seams open! Repeat for the remaining piece.

Nice and straight!

The solution was as simple as pressing the seams open instead of to one side. An experienced quilter would probably have suggested this right away, but it’s good for me to go through the process of solving it for myself. I don’t know why pressing to the side wasn’t successful for me like it was for others, but whatever works!

Happy Valentines Day!

Technorati Tags: flying geese,block-a-palooza

More Block-a-palooza

2011-02-12T09:07:00.001-06:00

Block-a-palooza Block 5

Block 6

Here are the first 6 in order

There’s a flock of flying geese in these blocks and I had a crazy time getting them tamed. I’ll post about that a little later.

The K quilt top

I can’t back up far enough from my design wall to get a good picture! The “K” block I showed you last week was not working, so I changed it slightly. I had this put together once and it was completely out of square, so this is the second assembly. Lesson learned…measure carefully as you go!! A tiny eighth inch discrepancy in several pieces added up to 2+ inches off from top to bottom. You’d think I’d know better by now!

I’m linking up to Sarah’s blog. Check it out!

Technorati Tags: applique,block-a-palooza,flying geese

Where did the week go?

2011-02-05T10:07:00.001-06:00

I felt very productive this week, but don’t have a lot to show for it! My almost 80 year old mother-in-law is famous for saying “I just can’t work like I used to.” We like to replace the word “work” with whatever’s appropriate at the time. Last weekend it was “I just can’t carry drywall like I used to.” It has to be said with a straight face to have the correct impact. Then we laugh at ourselves hysterically. Don’t you wish you were here? You could help carry drywall.

Speaking of drywall, the remodel continues to plod along. At least the hard stuff is done, like plumbing (YAY!) and most of the new wiring. I’m so glad my smarter-than-normal-people-need-to-be hubster knows how to do all these things without flooding the house or shooting sparks out of his head. I finished the new laundry room (drywall tape and paint) and it may get a door today. The new mudroom needs another layer of mud and then paint, which I should have finished this week, but I just can’t work like I used to.

On the sewing front, I finished two more blocks for the Block-a-palooza quilt-along. There’s a Flickr group if you’d like to have a look.

Block 3

Block 4

Blocks 1-3

Here’s an applique block for another quilt on the design wall.

I hope to have this one finished and two more started this coming week. Wish me luck!

I’m linking to Whoop Whoop at Sarah’s. Go check it out!

In case you’re wondering, Helen has regained her cat door privileges. Apparently, not being able to bring live prey into the house put a damper on the game.

TTFN

Technorati Tags: quilt-along,Block-a-palooza,applique

Blockapalooza!

2011-01-28T16:47:00.001-06:00

It’s been roughly a month since I’ve touched my sewing machine or my blog, but I couldn’t find the motivation. Winter blues are nasty! I’m glad they’re gone.

I joined the ranks of Blogger’s Blockapalooza using some Poodle and other Sis Boom prints and stripes. Busting some stash.

Block 1

Block 2

So far so good! There are three other quilts I’m working on and two more in my head, so I have plenty to keep me busy!

I’m linking up to Sarah’s Whoop Whoop Friday where there’s lots of show and tell goodness to check out!

Do not let this sweet face fool you.

Helen has discovered how to bring things in through the cat door. Things like live birds! Two days in a row! I know she means to share the bounty, but she has lost her daytime cat door privileges probably forever.

Later gators.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T06:19:00.001-06:00

(More beautiful prints here.)

We will open the book. Its pages are blank.

We are going to put words on them ourselves.

The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Wishing you a happy, healthy 2011!

2010-12-24T07:51:00.001-06:00

Peace and joy to you at Christmas!