Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow dyeing - the major event

I didn't take any photos of the kids outside squirting dye on the buckets. Too busy refilling the bottles we used up. And taking care of the daughter that was throwing up. Yay.

The bins are now thawing in my bathroom. Everybody got a t-shirt and a piece of fabric, soaked and left out to freeze overnight. We packed the snow on this morning and squirted away. TMOTH decided to try it with a red t-shirt we had hanging about the house - we'll see how that works :)

Bathtub full of the experiment:


Small Man's effort on top - he had to use ALL the colors:


This is the t-shirt from yesterday - pretty cool!

Snow dyeing - the beginning

So, all the beautiful photos of snow dyes have turned my head.

I didn't fall all the way - still no "official" dyes on the shelf, just a tie-dye kit from the craft store.

AND, since the other members of my family aren't particularly into fabric, I bought t-shirts as well as 2 yards of 90" bleached muslin, which I cut into 5 pieces. (A cheap experiment. The t-shirts were on sale for $2 each, and the muslin was half price. ) Tonight I soaked them in the soda ash solution and set most of them outside to freeze. Separate bucket or bin for each person; one piece of material in with each t-shirt.

One t-shirt (for me), I couldn't wait:




Yes, that is my toilet. And no, that brown isn't part of the dye, it's some discoloration on the plastic bucket. This is turquoise and green and a little bit of yellow - really really realllllyy old dyes left over from a long-ago tie-dye project. If it doesn't work, I'll just re-soak it in the soda ash and try it again.

Finally, a post with pictures of something other than snow

I did get the left side panel of the diamond challenge quilt finished:


What's that? You don't see any diamonds? Well, no. They'll be on the right side of that panel.
It's kind of wonky in the picture, but it is a rectangle; the lily pad leaves are at the upper left, the flower on the lower left. There's a big open space in the lower right side that I plan to quilt in concentric circles for raindrops.

And, of course, there's still the snow. This was during the height of the blizzard; you can see the snow in the air.


You can see how tall the big shoveled piles are; Small Man is the yardstick here.


And the icicles.

And...it's snowing again

It's a small victory, but we finished the shoveling from the first snow about 2:30 this afternoon, before the next storm started.

Nothing like slave labor to help with the job:


The falling snow isn't all that clear here, but you CAN see the grill tucked under the scaffold, ready in case we lose power again.


My arms hurt just thinking about the next round.

I do so hate the snow

Yes, it's pretty. And pretty unpleasant as well.

We woke up at ~4 am to no power and a big cedar limb in front of the back door (our back door is our main entrance door). Back to bed, eventually back to sleep, and up at 7 to fight the snow dragon.

Doesn't this downed tree covered in snow look like a snow dragon?


By breaking off some of the smaller limbs and using the lopper on some of the bigger ones (have I mentioned lately how much I love Fiskars in all of its many manifestations), we (that is, TMOTH) were able to throw the trunk off to the side. This would be repeated many times today, and a few more times tomorrow.

The yard, again:

I don't know if you can tell how MUCH more snow there is on it than any of the previous times.

The path out to shovel land. That big lump of snow in the middle of the picture is our Accord.


The roof of our house. The bare spots are where the snow periodically WHOMMPs off the house.


Shoveling. This is TMOTH shoveling; I did my fair share as well.


There will be more shoveling tomorrow. Ick.

LOTS of snow on the way

I know, two feet is nothing to you upper Midwest girls, but the mid-Atlantic grinds to a complete halt with an INCH of snow. And we're supposed to get a lot more than that. AND 30 mph winds.

This is what it looked like this afternoon:


It's sticking, even to the sides of the trees:


Kona is happy, she loves the snow:


Snow on a bramble next to the compost bin:


The only good thing is that The Lovely Daughter's art class and the birthday party that Small Man were supposed to go to tomorrow are both cancelled. So I can sew. If we still have power.

Keep your fingers crossed that we don't lose electricity! The guild challenge quilt (Plan B) is coming along nicely.

More snow last night :(

I am so done with winter.

This is what our yard looked like this morning:


The lilacs held the snow well - but I prefer them in purple:


I think this is our magnolia:


The box elders:


Looking up into the tree in the center of the ovoid driveway (it's a flowering cherry or something):


The evergreens hold LOTS of snow:


Deer tracks in the snow:


Playing in the snow worked for a little while for the younger set:


Of course, it all melted off the branches by noon:


And now, for something completely different: the Small Man turned 5 yesterday!

Great giveaway

Over at the Creative Place.

Oh, and if you enter? Go for the paper. That fabric stash has my name on it :)

Plan B for the guild challenge

The diamonds quilt is too long for the challenge. Despite suggestions from TMOTH, I'm not cutting it off or taking off the last row of goldenrod.

I did some rooting around in my stash and came up with a biggish panel of solid black (I think it's linen), a strip of satin brocade with goldfish, some solid burgundy cotton brocade and solid tan satin. I'm going to applique some water lily leaves and one white bloom on the black part, and use the burgundy and tan in a diamond pattern down one side. It'll be bold, that's for sure!

Photos soon, I hope.

Shoulda been a snow day

And I would've gotten a lot more done. But no.

According to National Weather Service forecasts, we were supposed to get a "dusting" of snow. Well, when The Lovely Daughter and I left for her art class this morning at 10 am, I might've believed that. There were lovely little swirlies of dry snow on the road; no problem. By the time we got about three quarters of the way there, it was NASTY. I nearly rear-ended a police car (!) because the roads were so slick. I decided to go on ahead to class in hopes that the roads would get treated before we had to go home (3 hour class). I called TMOTH to warn him to NOT go to karate because of the roads and stayed in the art classroom and read on of the Art Barn books on quilting and schmoozed with The Lovely Daughter's teacher and fellow student.

After class, we had lunch at Subway and bought birthday presents for the Small Man at K-Mart and headed home. It was a nightmare drive - slick slippery roads that weren't well plowed or sanded. We've probably got 4 to 6 inches of snow. I spent the afternoon napping to recover, and TMOTH made pizza for dinner. After dinner, I got the last of my 9-patch and snowball blocks in under the wire:


Close-up of the snowball - don't remember if I posted this before:


And finally, the "backing" for this quilt - really, the quilt is the backing for this material:


Really, words do not do justice to how much I love this material. The photo is basically just the middle third of the width of fabric; it's red on one side, black on the other, with the cream birds bisecting the two. I have no idea when or where I got it; my best guess is that my grandmother bought it at the thrift store and I inherited it. There is NO clue on the selvedge about where or when it was made. I'm just happy I will finally have something done with it.

Started sewing today

I got the diamonds laid out on my "design wall" - otherwise known as my bed.
Cookie was my "helper" today.

Here Cookie is supervising as the first diamonds are placed for the center:


He doesn't seem to understand that the design will get bigger:


Not happy about being moved - notice the position of the ears!


Guarding the pieces that got stuck under his feet:


Now to sew it all together and finish it.

Scarcity Thinking

Anybody else guilty of this?

I sometimes catch myself "saving" some of my [often really small] scraps of material that I'm cutting into squares for the 9-patch and snowball quilt. Why is this, exactly? Is it some fear that I inherited from my depression-era Memaw, or some silly quirk of my own? I'm consciously trying to overcome this and NOT save something "because I might need it later" - dammit, I can use it NOW.

And why, for the love of God, would anybody print a 2 1/4" repeat? I pulled a piece out of the stash that had stripes of black and white prints. They looked to be about 2.5". Not quiiiite. I guess those squares will be 2.5 x 2.25!

Cutting diamonds again

I've gone through about 4 or 5 more different colors; I have 4 or 5 left to cut. To start. I think I will love this quilt when it's done, but cutting is a pain. Literally, a pain. I have to use the big mat, which I use on the bedroom floor. I'm taking breaks, but my back isn't as young as it used to be.

Link Love

An interesting idea - R'Ann over at This That and the Other Thing asked her readers to create lists of some of their favorite blogs - and WHY they're our favorite. On first glance, you would wonder why R'Ann is on my blog list. She's a staunch Catholic, and well, I swing between agnostic and Jimmy Carter Baptist. Her blog is mostly book reviews, and let's just say that our taste in books differs quite a bit :)

Well, she's a W sister, first of all. She and I both attended Mississippi University for Women from 1979-1983 and graduated on time! That's why I *started* reading her blog.

I keep reading because I like hearing her thoughts on the books she reads, why she likes or dislikes them, and her thoughts on modern Catholicism. I should comment more :)

Other favorite blogs include:

Notes from the Voodoo Cafe: You NEVER know what this woman is going to say next. But it's always interesting.

Cre8tive Quilter: Jen is simply amazing. She's the Energizer Bunny of the quilting world.

Quilting in the Valleys: Gina lives and quilts in Wales. She's a consistent reminder to NOT be afraid of color, the brighter the better.

Front Porch Indiana: Someone who keeps chickens AND sheep. Swoon.

Josephus: My husband's blog :)

There are lots more, on my sidebar.

I found it!

All of the black and white fat quarters I bought at last spring's quilt show! AND a piece of material for the snowballs! You'll have to wait on a picture, and the material is so old (from 2000) that it is no longer available - so no link to the design. It's "Sky Ride" from the Allentown Art Museum Century of Progress collection. Verrry art deco.

Cutting diamonds

I finally started cutting the pieces for my guild challenge quilt. I have over a month to get it done! This is my second idea - I had the first idea all drawn out, but it was really complicated, and I'm not sure that visually it would have worked as well as this one. The secret one :)

The Doglings

These are our two pupkins:



Kona is the golden retriever; she's 11. Cletus is a blue tick hound, he's 10. I REALLY need to purchase/make another pillow for them; they take turns bullying each other off the one dog bed. Usually Cletus wins because he's the biggest jerk dog on the planet.



Such an innocent face he has. Hah!

Kona has has it just up to HERE with the pictures:


I'm getting the evil eye!

Actual honest-to-God quilting today!

TMOTH and the mid-kid went off to see Avatar today. I stayed home and quilted! The little puzzle quilt is now quilted and about a third bound.

I also managed to find a few more little scraps of black and white material. Up until this weekend, if you'd asked me, I would have sworn up and down, forwards, backwards, and sideways that I had bought black and white fat quarters getting ready to make a black and white quilt. Which I am now working on. Can I now FIND any black and white fat quarters? Noooooo, I cannot. Either I was just THINKING about buying them, or they've been "stored" somewhere. Aargh.

Some sewing, with pictures

This was the result of the Friday night sew-in:



:(

One sad little stack of 2.5" squares. Next time maybe I'll have something ready to work on. I was just late getting home, and then wound up fiddling around trying to get a computer game to work for the mid-kid.

Tonight, I got the first blocks together for the quilt-along:



I still haven't found a nice piece of yardage to make the snowball blocks out of yet. That doesn't mean I don't have one, I just haven't done a thorough search through the stash. Worst case scenario, I have to go shopping.

The story of my life

Artist Trading Cards

Back in the fall, the group of people I was working through "The Artist's Way" with decided to exchange ATCs. It was a wonderful experience. I had the chance to try out some new techniques, and HOLY COW, I achieved my vision! I also had the joy of receiving little jewels every couple of days in the mail.

I did mini-quilts on peltex. I did small strip patchwork about 3.5 x 11, then free motion quilted them onto the peltex. I cut them to card size, then appliqued the ginkgo leaf (a glitter organza) onto the quilt sandwich (so the outline also appeared on the back) and around the edges.

This is the whole batch - one for each of my friends, and one to keep:



I have to admit, this one was my favorite. I had two smaller pieces that I had to join together - you can see the line of yellow that is my satin stitch.

Journal quilt - Puzzle Time

I started working on this a few days ago. One of my resolutions for LAST year was to get over my fear of fusibles, so it's nice to finally get to it - even if a bit late. I used WonderUnder to fuse the batik puzzle pieces to the background:



The puzzle piece in the middle represents Time, and the others all of the things that have to fit into that Time - and just don't.

I'm using my electronic machine's buttonhole stitch to sew around the pieces before I quilt it:


Clearly, I either need a better camera or better knowledge of how to use the one I have.

playing

I used the "puzzle" prompt and played with WonderUnder for the first time. It's so much fun it's scary. This will also count as a journal quilt! I've decided to do 10 x 10 instead of "page" size. Photos to come later. It's just fused now, no stitching yet.

Awesome blog post

You can't just want it.

I think I should possibly have this tattooed on my arms so I can't ignore the message.

Sewing today

OK, most of it was mending, but I did make one quilt block for our guild president's quilt. I really don't know what TMOTH does to his pants, but he's awfully rough on them. I mended two pairs with tears, and hemmed some sweat pants. None are church-worthy, but they work for hanging around the house.

IMPETUS

Following discussion on the QuiltArt list, I have an official WORD for 2010: IMPETUS.

It's the closest word I can come to that represents positive aspects of the opposite of procrastination. I'd like to live up to it in the coming year.

First quilt challenge word...

is PUZZLE.

More to come.

Terra Cotta Warriors

We went to this exhibit today at the National Geographic. Tickets were one of my husband's Christmas presents. The January 1 ticket date was just accidental; it worked out really well because there were no crowds on the Metro, parking was free, and lunch was easy.

Nail apron

My husband asked me to make him a nail apron today, so I did. He drew up what he wanted, and I had a canvas drop cloth I'd bought to use as tote bag lining, so away I went with the scissors and sewing machine.

My handsome guy wearing the apron:


A close-up:


Cletus investigating:


After all that, he wound up not using it today. The roof that needs fixed is just too high.

Creative goals for 2010

- Organize my craft space so I'm more able to create
- Use what I have and buy only purposefully
- Complete a journal quilt every month
- Enter at least one quilt in a juried competition
- Continue working on UFOs and WIPs
- Start back up with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

I won the vintage goodies!

Thanks, Cathy, for the vintage happiness.

I've been doing a whole lot of nothing. Tonight I need to get my son's blanket hemmed for a Christmas present, and sew up some gift bags.