We took off for the west side of the state for the weekend for a church camping trip. It was great fun and even though the weather was not the best, I got some fun pics for inspiration. Enjoy (but please do not take)!
This is in Manistee, Michigan. You can see how foggy it was!
I loved this apartment overlooking the canal.
This was part of the riverwalk.
Not exactly beach weather but it was pretty!
It got nice and sunny on Sunday. I will post those pics tomorrow.
Until next time….
I asked this question quite some time back on the Quilt Art list and the results were interesting and fun! I so enjoyed hearing and seeing what everyone was currently working on. So, I have decided to ask the question again. Leave a comment, with a link if possible and share what you are currently working on.
Here is what mine looks like at the moment:
I have several projects going here at the moment. First is my Diary Quilt that I have discussed in previous posts (scroll down for more detail and discussion on these). You can see that I have now finished 20 days worth of blocks. Woo hoo!
To the upper right, I have a project that I started to use up some solid scraps and just play with. I am liking it so far but have a way to go for sure. Here is another shot of that:
The lower left shows a small project based on Kathy Loomis’ method for inserting tiny strips. You can find her method detailed here. Here is a close up shot that more accurately shows the colors:
The small pink block is an experiment with quilting/embroidery with perle cotton.
I have also been working on some items for a craft fair in the fall. I may show some of those items at a later date.
Until then, what is on your design wall?
Seriously, I have recently quilted several pieces in what I hoped would be a random grid. I never knew it would be so hard! I don’t think I could get this straight if I wanted to! This is what I mean:
Granted, I used a walking foot to keep the stitches themselves even. I had to force myself to get this much variation. Hmmmmm….. Who knew random could be so hard?
Until next time….
Shopping
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Church Picnic
Learning to piece skinny lines
Home from India
Anger and Frustration!
Pieceful hand stitching
My wonderful oldest daughter is finally home after a three week study abroad course for her nursing program. Isn’t she lovely even after nearly 24 hours of travel time?
And she brought me lovely textile things from India too! Just look at this beautiful fabric:
That is 4 yards of a lovely cotton. Bundled with it was this very fine matching print, intended to be used for a matching scarf:
They come bundled like this with enough fabric to make one woman’s outfit. She had two beautiful outfits made for herself there. I will show them another time. Here is a detail shot:
She also brought this lovely little piece for her daddy to hang in his office:
They were able to visit the place where these were woven. The gold and silver threads are exquisite. She also brought this magazine for me from the plane:
I can’t wait to sit down with a cup of coffee and read these textile articles! It is so good to have her home. I am so proud of her :).
Until next time….
Kathy over at Art with a Needle (one of my favorite art blogs), recently posted about a challenge to make one piece of art a day for a month. Hmmmm…. this sounded like what I needed to get the mojo back. I could do one quilt block a day as she has done.
I decided to keep things simple and set a few rules for my self as well as keep things VERY relaxed. I don’t need this to be one more stress in my life! My rules are that I use only solid fabrics as this will help me in my exploration of color and how one color effects how I view another, and that the blocks will be 5 inches finished, keeping it small to keep me finishing.
I also decided that if my day is way too full, it is okay to cut a sold square and call it good. I want to go for 30 days and if that means 30 solid squares, so be it.
Of course, I waited to post about this until I actually had been doing it a while…..
Also, this could be more accurately called a diary quilt than an art quilt in making…..I would not call these blocks art but each one does in some way relate to the day that I made them. So I may call this the diary quilt. However, though it is not really art, it IS getting me sewing at least a bit each day. Here are a few and I will post more in subsequent posts:
Notice the them of “three” in several of these? Right now, three of my kids are not at home and we are down to my husband, myself and our youngest daughter here so only three at home.
See what I mean? Not exactly art but they have seeds of inspiration for future projects.
So that is week one for me. I have more and will try to post a week at a time. I highly encourage you to visit Kathy’s blog. She has great thoughts on art, being your own artist, and she is very generous sharing her techniques as well.
Until next time….
Today we went back to Greenfield Village.
They are having a huge Civil War Re-enactment there this weekend and we wanted to see it. I had never gone to one before and I LOVED it! It was endlessly fascinating to me, all the details, the costumes, the artifacts but mostly, the PEOPLE! They were such a lovely bunch, so very friendly and informative, so willing to share their passion for history. Aren’t these little girls adorable?
My daughter and I were invited to sit down and quilt a bit with these ladies. We were more than happy to do so.
 The lady in the red apron had pieced the top and she had done a brilliant job of it. Then she put it on this frame and invited all of these other ladies to stitch with her. Most of them could hardly hold a needle and their quilting was….hmmm…..primitive? She was not the least bit bothered even though her own work was so nice. I’d like to believe I could be so generous but I am not sure I could with such a beautiful top!Â
The dresses were amazing!Â
 The fabrics were as well. My wonderful hubby bought me these repro fabrics in half yard cuts:
Aren’t they divine? He also surprised me with these:
 He went off and bought them while I was quilting with the above ladies :). Isn’t he the best?
It was such a perfect day. Until next time….
Okay, so everyone in blogland is talking about PROCESS and showing not just finished work but the process getting there. So I decide, hey, I can do that!
It has finally gotten warm enough here to fye fabric. So I picked a hot day and tried out some cool thing I saw on Quilting Arts. This wonderful artist, whose name escapes me (I will add it when I remember), does the amazing technique of stitch resist. You do lots of rows of hand stitching like this:
Okay, hers wasn’t exactly like this but it’s my piece so I can do what I want, right? Here is a closeup:
This is taking entirely too long and is boring to boot. So, I decide to baste by machine like this:
And here is how it looked when I was done stitching:
Still very boring to do but at least it took less time than by hand….at least that is what I thought at the time…..Then it was time to pull all those stinking basting threads and knot them and I ended up with this:
Okay, this is going to be so cool! I dump it in the dye……
Yes, I dumped it in the dye……
I was supposed to paint the dye on the top. I can’t believe I did all that work and dumped it in the dye and then……I squeezed the dye through! How dumb can I be? This is not the first yard of fabric I have dyed! Good grief!
After it cured and I spent a hundred years with rubber gloves on pulling out 99 million basting threads I got (are you ready for this?)….drumroll please………
Quite possibly the most boring piece of hand dyed fabric ever created. Here is a closeup in case you have insomnia and need a sleep aid:
Remember that part about doing things my own way? Sometimes not such a great idea…..The pieces I did the least prep work on turned out the best that day. Lessons learned….the hard way.
Did someone way you were only supposed to share your SUCCESSFUL processes? Ooops……again.
Until next time…..
….is now open! When the temps hit the 80s, I declare it to be mitten knitting season. I try to fill a bag in the summer and then I give them away when winter comes. I can’t stand the thought of little kids having cold hands because they do not have warm mittens.
This is a wonderful way to start the day:
Until next time…
Hello all!
I hope you are all checking out and enjoying all the lovely quilts posted for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival (scroll down to the last post for more info). I have found such lovely blogs in the last few days! And such inspiration, wow!
I also went to a wonderful estate sale this past weekend. I bought over 100 skeins of yarn, yes, 100! Nice stuff too! I also bought my first set of Addi Turbo circular needles for a whopping $2. I kept reading about how wonderful these were but was too cheap frugal to pay the big bucks for them. I now know, they are totally worth the money…..I want more :).
I also bought two quilt tops. The first is a 30’s Star top. I haven’t measured it but it is not  huge. It is machine pieced and has a few problems but the fabric is all in great shape and it is very clean.
Sorry for the less than wonderful pics! I was trying to stand on my recliner with the top on the floor.Um….never a good idea to stand on something squishy with a camera in your hand….
Anyway, here is a closeup of some of the fabrics:
I also bought this old cheddar and white top:
Only half is showing, it is quite large. Again, sorry about the less than stellar photo (see reason above). I have never seen this block patter before and would love to know the name. Has anyone seen this?
Here is a cool detail:
Don’t you love how she added the machine stitching lines to the pattern? Looks like this was done before the blocks were sewn together. It is a bit wonky but it just makes me smile :). Here is another shot of the block pattern:
It has a few small age stains but overall, it is in very good condition. Thanks for sharing my finds today.
Until next time…..
