Catching Up and Sew-In

It's been a while since I last posted. I don't know where to begin, or more likely I don't even remember what I've been up to the last four months. I remember being sick with a bad cold that lasted around three weeks. Didn't think I was ever going to get over it. My new quilt studio is nearly complete. Just a few more things to go, like the design wall, shelves in the storage closet and a bookcase for all my quilting books.

This is a picture looking into the studio from my husband's room. He had to have a room too. He hopes to get a pool table to go in his. Right now it is pretty well empty.

For a while I didn't quilt as much as I'd liked to have. I was busy painting so DH could get the floors put down, and then busy moving in. I think I need more cabinet space, I still have a lot of stuff that I haven't found a place for.

I finished the half log cabin top that I worked on at the EVQG July quilt camp. In fact it is on the frame now. I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not.

This picture doesn't do it justice. I'm still trying to think of a name for it. To me it looks like beacons of light shining out of the darkness.

The spring and fall EVQG quilt camps and an AQG sew-in I worked on my scrappy star top. I finally completed it this past week-end.

I think it turned out pretty good. I'm happy with it. I just hope it's not too wide to go on my frame.

AQG had another one day sew-in last Friday. I worked on my "Pink" top, or that is how I think of it. I had all my prep work done ahead so I could spend the day making the blocks and sewing them into rows. I got four rows done. Unfortunately I turned one of the blocks sideways. I got that straightened out and the top is now finished.

Dora thinks it is awesome and has laid claim to it. I'm quite pleased with it myself.

There are lots of woods around us and lots of deer. They usually can be seen around dusk but seldom during the day and even more rare, where I can see them from my front porch.

She stood across the street for a long time while I took pictures and than she turned around and went back into the woods.

Fabric Dying

Dora dyed about 5-3/4yd of fabric Wednesday afternoon. Here is a picture of her efforts.





Yesterday we took everything out of the wrappings and dried the fabric on the fence. The fabric we dyed using the Shibori wrapping method didn't turn out well, as the pictures below show. So I still don't have any fabric for my borders. The green is too much green and the other pieces that turned out aren't big enough. I need at least a yard to do the 5" borders. I might could figure out something for doing a pieced border, but I'm just not feeling that creative at the moment.
The larger piece of fabric on the left is the one I had hoped to use. The pieces on the right are the ones that are too green. I really like the bottom half of the two center pieces. It is a shame the dye didn't penetrate all the layers of cloth. Those two were done on the pole, the one on the left was done on the larger cylinder.


Here are the rest of the fabrics. The small pieces in the center are our mop rags. The solid green is the one that was in the jar. I stopped by Hobby Lobby after the Needle Turners Bee meeting and bought some more airbrush paint for dying. They were out of the forest green and gold that I wanted, so had to get some other shades. Maybe we can mix the colors and get something close to the colors I'm wanting. I got a package of 6, black, white, green, blue, yellow and red and used my 40% off coupon. Got another bottle of fuchsia, but had to get sunrise yellow, which is way to oranegy, instead of the goldish color I wanted. Maybe it will tone down with some yellow or white added to it. I bought some white Kona cotton to try dying and see how that does. Being the stubborn person I am and because I like the looks of the way the Shibori wrap method looked. I will probably try it again and try to get a better saturation of the dye into the fabric. Now to get Dora scheduled for another dying attempt. Hope things go better this time.

Tuesday Guild

Yesterday was the regular monthly meeting of AQG. Our program was member showcase quilts. 3 members showed off some of their quilts. It was nice. I didn't take any pictures, but did get a few pictures of Show 'N Tell.

I thought this top of Jan's was so cute. She makes some really fun quilts in bright colors.

I love this fabric line and just had to take a picture.

This is my friend, Sandra's (on the left) quilt. It is a wedding present that the couple have been waiting a good year and a half for. These aren't Sandra's colors and she had a hard time making a quilt using all neutral colors. It took her 6 months just to collect enough fabric.

I'm still working on my challenge quilt. I've gotten six more blocks made and have the parts for two more cut out.

I'm getting curious to see how this is going to turn out. I've got a colored diagram that I made of the quilt, but it really is hard to tell what it will look like, besides, I've changed some of the colors.

I've decided to try dying fabric for the borders of my roosting round robin. Dora is supposed to come over in a little bit and help me. Think we'll try the Shibori Wrapping Technique this time. We are using Createx Airbrush paint for the dying medium and use direct dying method. Hope I get some pretty fabric.

Trip to Hancocks a total disaster!

I never got there. My truck decided to be mean to me again and just stopped running. The fuel pump went out, leaving me stranded half on the road and half off on the Rome bypass. I was almost there. I had to get it towed back to Cartersville to Raymond's house. He'll fix it for me. I'll go to Advance Auto Parts in the morning and get the fuel pump. You would think the fuel pump would have at least waited until after I went to Hancock's and was on my way home to stop working. Now I'll have to use the money I was going to spend on fabric to pay to get it fixed. It will probably be awhile now before my Roosting Round Robin gets finished.

On a happier note, I finished a few more blocks for my challenge quilt.

Challenge Quilt

I've been working on my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley Quilt Guild challenge. I've made 10 blocks so far and have lots more to go. The quilt will be 65" x 85". I decided to do a good sized quilt this year instead of the wall hangings I've been doing in the past.

The fabric in the center of the stars in the middle row is our challenge fabric. The 3 Sister's Choice blocks on the bottom row are the challenge blocks. Plus we had to beg, barter, or steal some fabric from 3 of our quilting friends. I think I have all 3 of those fabrics in these blocks. So if worse comes to worse, and I don't get finished, I can put these 10 blocks together and still meet the rules of the challenge. I wanted to make my blocks with bright colors on a black background. Several years ago I was collecting a block of the month posted on the Internet done that way and it really caught my eye. I'm not sure were the pattern is right now and doubt that it had any Sister's Choice blocks in it. I decided to just make up my own layout.

June UFO

I finished my Bonny Baskets top. So now I'm caught up on my UFO list for this year. I'm supposed to be doing one a month and kind of got behind. July's UFO isn't exactly an UFO, but rather a project with a dead line. It is my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley Quilt guild and needs to be completed by the third Tuesday of August when we show off our quilts.




Bonny Baskets was the 2004 block of the month at jeanneraecrafts.com

Explosion of Ugliness

I finally got the applique border on my roosting round robin that I'm doing with the Allatoona quilt guild. My daring eldest son has named it "Explosion of Ugliness". I resent that! Although I will admit it is not turning out quite like I envisioned.

I have one more border to add. It is one of "my choice". I have no earthly idea what to add. All I have are fat quarters that may or may not match well and scraps from the other borders. I'm using batiks and hand dyes and trying to use fabric from my stash. I didn't want to have to buy any fabric for it. Hancock Fabrics has batiks on sale, 50% off, 60% off on July 6th-8th. Right now it is mighty tempting. Maybe I could find something to pull this mess altogether.

I've also finished up my April and May UFO's. Better late than never.

April's is above. It is a Christmas panel that I've had for several years. I finally add a couple of borders and quilted it. May's is my very first T-Shirt quilt. It just needed the binding put on. I had commissioned to make one for a client and thought it might be nice if I had a little experience under my belt before I did theirs. So I used some of my old shirts to practice with. I made two before I tackled the customer's quilt.

I wonder if I could finish my "Bonny Baskets" top before the end of the month for my June UFO. I wonder what I did with those blocks and the fabric to finish the top. I really need to get started on my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley guild. It is due at the Aug. meeting. It will be my July UFO. It is not really an UFO, but the UFO Challenge is with an on-line group that I'm in and they allowed us to but current projects on the list this year. I find the challenge helps to at least get a few of my UFOs done that might otherwise not get completed.