Goldenrod Reveal

Yippee I let the scarf sit overnight and now its time to reveal what happened............

In bright sunlight to show off its beautiful color.

from this...

to this.....

Today's experiment will be the Black Walnut dye -  can I just say this is too much fun

Its like wrapping a Christmas present and then having to wait until Christmas to open it.

The anticipation and then the reveal.   LOL sorry if I'm sounding a little off my bonnet. As you can tell it doesn't take much to entertain me does it?

Quilting, Dyeing and Fun

My days are anything but boring as most of you already know.  But then again maybe the stuff I do is boring to other people - I really don't know.

For me, I find my life and days are filled with either my quilting, or so many other projects, and family and friends.

Some days are just more filled than others.

I loaded this quilt the other day but didn't finish until this morning.

I never ever want to work on a quilt when I'm tired, so to do the best job I waited until this morning to finish.

The other day I hosted a girls luncheon with the girls from my High School Class (not all of them but some)

We had a really nice time and I was thrilled to have them come here.  Usually I cant make it to the luncheons because I'm either babysitting Gus or have some other pressing matters to attend to.  Lets keep fingers crossed I can make the one in September.

As you can see the flowers are fading fast for this year.  Still have some color but not nearly as much as a month ago.

After lunch I took a nap, yes a nap.  Totally unplanned, so the rest of the day was a bust for sewing I did manage to do some hand embroidery watching the Packer game.

The other day I brewed up some dye from goldenrod and yesterday while Gus was napping I wrapped a silk scarf with leaves and cooked it in the dye.  Let it sit all day in the brew, now it is out of the dye pot and sitting and waiting (patiently) to be unwrapped tomorrow.

I'm not giving into temptation to unwrap too soon.  I learned my lesson, I think. 

Fingers crossed this turns out as good as I hope it will.  Its a practice practice practice learning experience.

Looks pretty silly on the plate doesn't it.  I'm not leaving it there, just took the picture on the plate, its actually sitting in a used cottage cheese container.  Without the cottage cheese of course.

My Play Day

For a brief moment or day I should say I had nowhere to go, nothing special planned and nothing urgent to be done either in the house or the yard.

Yesterday was my play day - a day where I could do as much or as little as I wanted and when I wanted.

It was a good day for it as it rained all day long off and on.  A day that reminded me of other play days.

Sometimes a person needs a day just like mine.

It started with working on a ceramic Rooster -  and while the paint dried in between painting parts, I had a quilt loaded and did a few rows.

When I got tired of quilting I would go back to the rooster - in between all of this I was boiling black walnuts for dye.

Also in the works was a knitted infinity scarf that I did manage to finish, along with some hand embroidery on a dish towel.

Now you might think this sounds like a lot of work, but for me it is playing.  The fun part comes when I'm bored working on one project I can go sit on the couch and knit or embroider, or go into the sewing room and quilt, or come back out and paint.  All the while checking on my boiling walnuts.

Do you think I'm Nuts???  Maybe but for me this what my play days are like.

I have to be honest I didn't finish the quilt yesterday ( could have but didn't) I did finish it this morning however, and will put the binding on either later today or tonight.

Today I'm going on a  F.A.R.T. *fabric acquisition road trip  day today - going with the girls to purchase backing fabrics for some of my other quilts in progress.

Here ya go enjoy my pics from my play day:

I don't think you  need to see walnuts boiling do you???

Simple Design With Great Results

My newest customer made this really attractive quilt.

With the fabrics she used I new right away what I would do for the stitching.

This is so simple but looks terrific.

Good Job Kathy K.

Now its time for your lesson on binding.

My Homework Is Done

No the dog didn't eat it, just took a little more time than I expected.

One of the classes that I took with Donna at Sievers School of Fiber Art, was photo transfer and making wearable art from these transfers.

Instead of a making a bracelet I chose to make a book marker.  I do a lot of reading and thought this would be more useful to me than a bracelet.

Step 1 - take a picture of something you want to use in your project.

Step 2 - this is the hard part - have Donna tweak it, expand on it and print it onto transfer paper.

Step 3 - heat transfer to moleskin suede fabric

From there I trimmed to the size wanted - glued a backing onto it and proceeded to sew beads around the edge.

I have news for you, beading takes practice getting nice even stitches.  Like most hand stitching you can make a real mess of something by not being consistent with the stitches.  Because mine didn't look so even I used a trick to blend the colors so it wasn't very noticeable.

You didn't think I was going to tell you the trick did you.  HEHEHEHE nope.

The photo was taken at a restaurant we went to on the island.  It was a Viking wooden sculpture hanging on the wall and looked very interesting to me.

Pretty happy with the results and I do have other transfers waiting to made into pins.  That is for a later date though.

Where Does The Time Go????

This summer is flying by at a super fast pace.

Before we know it we will be ankle deep in all that yuck that I'm still trying to forget from last year.

My schedule has been an absolute whirl wind these past 2 months and looks like the next 2 will be about the same.

Fun days for sure have been happening around here:

After Washington Island, came the visit from my friend Lynne and her husband Jack - shopping with her, Julie and Laurie was blast in Stoughton.

From that short trip to next stop Cedarburg with the quilters from Milton.  We took a trip there last Wed and had a fantastic time at the quilt museum and then touring a old mill turned into winery and approx 20 small shops.

Kylee and I hit almost everyone, I had to beg off the last few - she wore me out.

These aren't even all the pictures I took, but you get the idea.

From the museum we went to a local quilt shop:

Can you believe Kylee age 13 actually wanted to go with us old ladies to this.  She had a great time with us and we with her.

After the quilt shop we hit the mill in Cedarburg where she spent most of her time trying on hats.  I only got one picture of her doing that but took many more with her Ipad maybe I can get her to email hers and I can upload a few of those  -  just skip by if you don't want to see any more photos LOL

This was just one of all the hats she tried on and she looked good in all of them.

Next stop - Saturday went to Prairie Du Chien with Stacy and Julie to pick up turtle meat - lucky you I forgot my camera.

Stopping first at the quilt shop in Fennimore,  I'm a good girl didn't buy anything.  Julie and Stacy on the other hand was a different story.  

Picked up the meat and went to lunch - again you are lucky no pictures but Julie got a couple hehehehehe.

Now can you see why I'm thinking this summer is flying by.   I'm not complaining about how busy I am, just sorry that the days are going by so fast.

Just so you don't think Ive given up on quilting, I haven't.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of a new "student" here for classes and today I quilted one of the tops I have been working on for over a year.

The only thing left to do on it is the binding, which will be done tomorrow morning early.

I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off to knit - you didn't think I was just going to sit did you?

My First Unsupervised Natural Dyed Scarf

Learning the technique at the classes and then applying it on my own at home was an experiment that's for sure.

After purchasing a boiling pot to be used for dyeing only - I tried my first scarf dyeing yesterday.

Collecting flowers, weeds and leaves from plants in my yard I proceeded to do my first boil

Here are the results of the first scarf, same scarf just 3 photos

The colors are subtle changes - maybe the next time I will get a more defined change of colors.

Even so I think its very pretty