Countdown...6 Days

Six days from now the Cotton Patch Quilt Show will have its awards night, and I will open my first major hand-dyed fabric vendor booth. It has been an incredibly busy month, but I've enjoyed it a great deal. Here are some photos from around the house/production floor...

This is the fold and price stack in the dining room.

Stacks of cool stuff...yards, half-yards, and multiple yards stacks, plus Bill's newly designed Ruler Racks and a beautiful sign he ordered for me.

More yards and half-yards.

Multi-yard pieces, quarter-yards and some fat-quarters.

These are some of the first wool felted pincushions for the show. I visited Main Street Yarns yesterday (I love that place!) for more lovely wool roving. Now let's head out to the garage/dye studio...

This is a 2-yard piece with the yellow at one end and the blue at the opposite end. Can't wait to rinse this one. This is low-water immersion dyeing with Procion MX dyes.

This doesn't look like much yet, but underneath the top layer is another mixed sunrise colored fabric. I layer my fabrics in the dye bath to conserve time and dye. The top layers will absorb the extra dye and will be a lighter color. The benefits are two-fold: more dyed fabric in the end, and less dye to wash out. Here's another dye bath where you can see the layers below...

If you'd like to know more about low-water immersion dyeing and dyeing in layers, check out Ann Johnston's book, Color by Accident.

It's time to create...

Brick Quilt

I taught a Scrappy Batik Bricks workshop this weekend (see last post) in which the students brought their own batiks, cut into bricks (rectangles), and swapped to make a scrappy quilt. They did a wonderful job! This is a fine class for either beginners or quilters who want a quick and easy project for gifts.

This is Phyllis' layout...

Can you see how the brights are distributed perfectly to make your eye travel around the quilt? Phyllis had a wonderful khaki colored fabric with golden orange and dark brown tones for her border, and she found a burnt orange fabric in the quilt shop for her inner border.

This is Danette's layout...

Danette had to leave early, but she had her rows sewn and some of them connected to each other. Danette is a brand new quilter and this was her first class! She did all of this construction in just over three hours.

Nice job ladies!

New Quilt

Today I was piecing a new quilt to use as a sample for the Scrappy Brick Quilt class I'm teaching on Saturday at the Dragonfly Quilt Shop. This blue quilt is an example of using the same basic "Scrappy Brick" pattern with "tiles" (squares) rather than "bricks" (rectangles). Here it is with four rows. Notice that there are no seams to match if the rows are sewn together as is...

Once I had all five rows sewn and had them up on the board, it occurred to me that the spacing between them added to the Asian look of the quilt. The indigo and white fabrics are from my Japanese and Indonesian collection and the light blue indigo is one of my hand-dyed fabrics.

So, I decided to add sashing between the rows. I've already cut the outer borders, but I wish I had made them wider. What do you think? The borders aren't sewn yet, so I may cut some wider ones (also, this photo is cropped a little, so check out the bottom photo).

Whew! High-use wall. I could barely squeeze the quilt onto the design wall.

Creativity

I just checked out Melody Johnson's Fibermania blog and she had a wonderful YouTube video by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is 19 minutes long and is a wonderful talk concerning creativity. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Where does your creative inspiration come from?

Sometimes my inspiration comes from hanging an unfinished quilt on the wall. I will wait for the inspiration to appear, and it always does. Sometimes I go to sleep thinking about a creative problem and awake in the middle of the night with the answer...and have to get up to write it down. I always carry paper and pen to jot down ideas.

I love string piecing and see ideas for string quilts almost everywhere...the trees in the yard, leaves, wood grain, waves, movement, windows, mountains, photos, landscapes, water, sunlight. When I am ready, I never doubt that the ideas will appear.

I am disabled due to rheumatoid arthritis, and in many ways it has been a wonderful gift. I have the time to be creative, and a body that insists on regular breaks and good rest rather than constant activity. Constant activity kills creative inspiration for me. I would never have discovered this truth if I had not become disabled. This is one more reason that I believe in a Higher Power.

Signs of Spring!

Here are some photos of the early signs of Spring in Georgia...

This is the first neighborhood tree we've seen that is in Spring bloom!

...and the Univ. of Georgia babies are back! The lambs appeared outside for the first time last week and this is the first chance I've had to take a photo of them. The UGA agriculture areas are about five miles from our house, and we are privy to the new births.

Kid on the Couch

This will be a familiar scene this month. Our younger son, the Army Spc., shattered his ankle while at "jump" school at Ft. Benning (that's parachute jump school). The jump was fine...the landing was the problem. Anyway, following surgery in Germany he's back here for a month of healing. It's good to have him home for a while.

Rust Dyeing on Fabric

Well, my hubby, Bill, went on a search with his buddy Garnet a couple of months ago to get some rusted items for me. I wanted to try rust dyeing on fabric and needed some "junk". They found some great pieces including a wonderful rusted chain and other assorted items.

This week Bill decided that he was going to do the dyeing, so here he is starting the project...

Here's the dye pan (a mason's plastic cement mixing tub) with a layer of fabric, rusted items, another layer of fabric over the top and saturated with vinegar and water. See Bill smile.

See Bill's fabric.

Wow! Good job, Honey! Good husband.