The Light at the End

It has been a long 8 weeks of dyeing fabric and making pincushions, but last night I dyed my last batch of fabric for the Pensacola Quilt Show. When all is said and done I'll have about 775 yards in folded fabric and probably 150 yards in 4" x 20" pieces for sale.

My favorite stack of fabric has been the browns...

Some of the browns are actually Bill's rust dyes.

This is the staging area...simply because it's the only empty space in the house. Like I wrote a couple of entries ago, this has been a whole-house event.

I priced the wool pincushions yesterday...about 60 of them. They are delicious!

Some of the multi-colored fabrics turn out beautifully too.

I'm off to rinse the last batch of dyes...

Quilted Rust Dye

My friend Frances just finished a beautiful quilted wall hanging with one of my husband's rust-dyed fabric pieces. Check it out here.

The doily under the vase is machine quilted and is totally amazing. Frances wrote about how she got the right perspective; click here for that post.

Whole House Studio

It's been a while since I posted last and in a moment you'll see why.

We've been dyeing, pressing, trimming, & pricing fabric, making wool pincushions, placing orders for products and supplies, and staying quite busy around here. Our entire house has turned into a studio in preparation for the Pensacola Quilt Show in two weeks. It's also been a lot of fun!

This is our couch...it's covered with a white sheet and then the fabrics are spread on it when they come out of the dryer.


The dining room chairs serve as holders for the pressed fabric until I cut and price it on the dining room table to the left.


These are the 4" x 20" pieces that I cut off of almost every chunk of dyed fabric. Each dyed piece of fabric is cut larger than the finished piece will be, and then these 4 x 20's are trimmed off. They are sold loose in big baskets for appliquers and string piecers at our vendor booth.


These wool pincushions are drying in the sun. Wool is wonderful for pins; the lanolin in the wool keeps the pins slick for ease of use.


And finally, the piles are growing. The reds, blues, and brights are nearly finished, and the blacks, purples and browns need more. There are browns and blacks on the couch and dining room chairs.

In case you're wondering, the laundry room is housing the dye studio right now. We've had a cold winter, so my garage studio is too cold to use. The kitchen desk is where we've been printing business cards and class pamphlets. My regular studio is where I'm sewing and quilting, and the guest room is housing the quilts which will hang on the walls of the booth. The master bedroom handles the two tired folks who need to rest at the end of the day. So, yes, this is a whole-house studio.

I asked Bill if it bothered him to have "stuff" everywhere, and he said "We use our house more than anyone I know, so it was a good investment". Ha! On March 1 we'll be putting it all away ...until the next show.