Wide Backing Fabric

Here's another sateen wide backing fabric for a double or queen size quilt. The color won't be this bright after I rinse it, but it'll be pretty.

Yesterday's Fruits

These are yesterday's fruits from the fabric dye pot. They're both wide backing fabrics for quilts, and they will soon be available at Marybeth Tawfik's long arm studio, Cambridge Lane Quilting Studio in Athens, GA...



If you click here, you'll bring up our local guild's newsletter with information on Marybeth Tawfik's new studio. Clicking here will get you to her last website with fellow long arm machine quilters in The Netherlands.

Dyed Linen

A while back my friend Mary Ann gave me a beautiful piece of linen for dressmaking purposes. I liked it, but the kelly green didn't compliment my skin tone, so this week I dyed it. What do you think?


Ah, deep and rich. Wonderful for Fall sewing. Thanks Mary Ann!

Sarah's Show

Sarah Hubbard had a wonderful art opening this week at the Oconee County (Georgia) Library, and one of my fabrics was in her art piece...

It's the red sunshine fabric piece! Sarah made it look so beautiful. Click on Sarah's name above for her blog.

It's a Two Man Job

Wow, handling a king size backing fabric for dyeing is...challenging. That's 9 square feet of fabric!

I had to wet it first and then had to find some way to wring that baby out. It took two of us, a couple of tubs to catch the water, and several segments of wringing to get the job done!


Then I had to find a big enough work area and tub to hold all that fabric as I scrunched it...

That ended up being the living room floor with the 24" x 36" tub on the coffee table. It took a long time to scrunch those 9 square feet into a 24" x 36" size.


Here it is, almost done. It was the first time I had measured my dye in quarts to pour on a piece.

Here's one of the finished pieces.

Not bad.

Fiber Frenzy Day

Friday was Fiber Frenzy day for June and I was the program giver. We had a wonderful time making fabric beads!

Nancy & Angie

Cleo & Nancy

Deb and her cool skirt

Madeline
Shirley wins the prize for the best smile. Shirley's daughter and granddaughter also made beads and Pat was there too. Too bad I didn't get a good photo of Pat, though.


Here's the final boquet with all of our beads. Beautiful!

If you're a school art teacher in the Athens, GA area, I'll be happy to show you how to make these fun beads. It takes about 1 minute of instruction--no kidding! Just write to me.

A New Venue and The Week After...

We are very lucky that Marybeth Tawfik (a very experienced long arm quilter) and Cambridge Lane Quilters, has moved to Athens (GA) and has opened a quilting studio in the Railroad Arts District! I am happy and grateful that she has asked me to sell hand dyed wide quilt backing sateen fabric in her studio. Her studio is located across from the Chocolate Cafe--go through the green door at the center of the building and she's on the left.

Last week Marybeth quilted this baby quilt for me...

This is one of the sateen wide backing fabrics I dyed for this quilt.

Marybeth did a wonderful job.


Well, it's the week following two days of sitting in the vendor booth in Mobile, AL...all that sitting has revved me up. I've been preparing some wide backing fabric for dye, putting away all of the fabric from the booth, hanging ideas on the design wall for new projects to start, and sorting and organizing in my studio.

Mary Ann gave me some thread boxes recently and yesterday I made them into a counter top display in the studio...
This is the view I get from my sewing machine. Bill glued them together for me, and then he adhered them to the wall with some sticky squares so that they wouldn't tip. Next, I'll buy a clear plastic sheet to hang over the threads to keep them clean.

We're at the point of eating out of the garden. Cherry tomatoes, arugula and lettuce, cucumbers, green onions & more. Plus we just pulled up the last of the garlic crop and they are drying in the garage...

These are elephant garlic and they are huge!

We bought organic elephant garlic from Earth Fare (whole food store) and planted the cloves last fall, then pulled the plants this week when the leaves turned to brown, brushed them off and hung them in the garage for a few weeks to dry. I just love eating out of the garden!

Catching Up

It's been a while...here's what's been happening:

Our younger son left for Florida a couple of weeks ago and is currently driving to Alaska with his buddy to attend the University of Alaska, Anchorage.


This past weekend we were vendors at the Azalea City Quilt Show in Mobile, AL. Here's the progression of the booth set-up:

It took about 6 hours to get it this way.

The next show is in September, so this will be a quiet summer. Maybe I'll actually finish some pieces!