Prizm My Challenge Quilt

At last I finished the quilting of my own challenge quilt for Loose Threads Challenge 2014

Somewhat customized - did special borders and then simple meandering through out the inner quilt .  This will be going to the Edgerton Quilt show October 18th at the Edgerton Middle School - so if you feel like seeing it in person stop on in - oh and if you like you can even put in a vote for me.

And oh yes turn away if you don't want to see -  scarves hehehehehhe

Onion Skin Dyed scarf:

Next I had fun past few days working with Wild Grapes -

This is what it looked like in the pot, a beautiful rich red Burgundy - now the challenge will the color hold up to rinsing and washing.

The results were NO - but I'm not unhappy at all with the results

I have been wondering how I could possibly get a grey colored scarf and like magic it appears before me.  I'm loving this silver grey with a hint, yes, a slight hint of purple.  Looks almost iridescent.

Today I'm taking my scarves to Cedarburg Quilt Museum, they have an interest in possibly selling them in their gift shop.

I sincerely  hope I can find a market for these, as I love doing them but I don't need to make and keep hundreds of scarves for myself.  Although I'm sure there are few women in my family that wouldn't mind a few.

I Joined A Strip Club

No this is not a confession of my secret life.

Loose Threads has a group of ladies called "Strip Club" meet every other month chose a pattern "challenge" we all work on same pattern with fabrics of our choice.

Today was an all day sew day with pot luck.  Now because of my busy schedule this past year I was totally unable to make any of the meetings, except for today.  Made it just in time for the Pot Luck sew day.

Go figure the one day I can make it was a Pot Luck.  hehehehehhe

We started the new challenge - String Quilt and Im not even done quilting the last challenge.  Which, by the way has to be completed by the Edgerton Quilt Show Oct 18th.

Prizm - last challenge is on the LA and I have started the quilting.  In fact I worked on it an hour before going to the sew day today.

Do you think I can possibly get the new challenge done by next October - thats when its due I think.

A few days ago Diane stopped over to play with crystals adding them to a table topper Butterfly quilt top

Pretty!

While at sew day I couldn't resist going upstairs to the shop, just to look around.  Haven't been there for a while and I definitely don't need any fabrics.........................

Aaargh I couldn't resist them

Jacobs Ladder

That pretty much sums it up - sooooo sooooo pretty

Notice the prairie points for the border.   I couldn't trim this one for her, she is going to have to roll the back and finish off the back with a rolled hand stitched binding.

Once those points get on there is nothing that can be done but hand sewing.   Really  like the layout of the Jacobs Ladder blocks and the points really do make this a very special quilt.

After looking at options of panto stitch designs, she chose my free motion Peacock Feathers.  This stitch a very popular one with the customers.  After making that decision I was really happy as I had to stay away from the points and leave room on the edge for the rolled binding.  Which would be a challenge if I had been working with a panto from the back.  It could be done but much preferred working from the front.

As it was I had to pin each point down before doing any stitching to keep the quilt on the straight and narrow and to keep the edges from throwing a pucker in.  Ask me how I know..........  because the first row I learned that lesson quickly.

If I remember right  Peacock Feathers has been used on 3 quilts this month.  Like I said pretty popular this month.

Pink Champagne

After a day of  "cooking" the scarf in the Solomon Seal Berries white vinegar and salt as suggested to keep color- a full night left bundled - I had high hopes of getting the pink color to remain.

Unfortunately the color did fade out after rinsing and washing and rinsing again, one last attempt to retrieve the color I soaked in white vinegar and rinsed again.  This brought some of the pink back.

Left to air dry and then a steam iron I did get an attractive champagne color, that, although the pink faded, I am not totally unhappy with the final results.

This is a very soft and subtle coloring.

So the results of Solomon Seal Berries, I'm giving it a D- for retaining the color, but an A+ for the champagne color.

Back to quilting:   Customer quilt completed this morning while cooking a scarf.

This had an Indian, south western look, so to continue with that look, I quilted using wiggle lines or as I call them EKG.

Still Experimenting

I planned on spending the weekend with my girlfriend and her husband at their permanent campsite Smokey Hollow - Lodi

All week I had looked forward to taking a break and chilling with my friends.  Some of the other campers were interested in the dyed scarf I had given my friend and wanted to make some.

I hauled up all the dyeing equipment scarves and dyes along with other craft projects.  You know I cant just sit and watch the birds go by.

Oh no not me.

As soon as I pulled into the driveway I was hit with so many emotions.

This was a campground Wayne and I spent every weekend of every summer for over 5 years.

Big mistake going back there this year - or maybe not - it brought back so many memories they just came rushing in at me.

Especially because I was staying with Our close friends.  We have been friends since grade school and her husband was one of Wayne's very best friends.

I did manage to get through Friday day and Friday night, but even before going to bed I knew I would be heading home on Saturday.  It is too soon to be staying at a place where it holds so many many memories

They are good memories but it was too sad for me to handle this year.  Maybe next!

Anyway in between all the feelings I did manage to get the girls to dye some scarves, leaving them overnight in the shed (rain was predicted and it did show up in the evening)

Revealed in the early morning as showers were expected again, hung them to dry and wait for the girls to come back for their instructions to finish the process.

Black walnut used of course for the brown.  The pink was my second attempt at the Solomon Seal berries, and the yellow came from a bouquet of fresh flowers one of the other camp ladies offered to us.  Also in the yellow (which I knew the results before dyeing) was goldenrod -  I did not wrap mine in the goldenrod and the other lady did - she got a much brighter and stronger yellow than I did.  

Now here is were the lessons are learned -  the pink Solomon Seal does not hold its color - it washes out into a yellow/pinkish tan.  Which I had warned them about to begin with.  Even though we stopped the boiling process before the berries turned brown as my first attempt, the color was a beautiful pink but did not hold under the washing process.

Today I'm doing another attempt, but this time I'm boiling the scarf with the berries along with vinegar and once the boiling starts I'm going to add salt to see if the color will hold.

Fingers crossed - experiment experiment experiment - hahahaha remember I said I wasn't going to show you my scarves -  Well obviously I lied.

Once I get my technique down I wont keep bothering you. But the process is so interesting, thought maybe you would like to know how its going along.  

In addition to scarf dyeing the plan was to work on decorating artificial pumpkins.  I did these last night around 9pm 

Now its time to do some sewing and let my scarf set in the pot.

Catching up Day

Had my fun day with the girls now its time to get serious and do some customer quilting.

Started one yesterday but my back gave me fits all day - so spent the late afternoon sitting and working on my knitting.

Finished this pretty fall quilt for customer this morning

This one has the most amazing colors in it - love it -  now I discovered in my rolls of pantos I have very few fall leaf designs - I did manage to find this one panto, actually "grape leaves" by Patricia Ritter  that worked out pretty well but I think I need to do some panto shopping.

I could have done my own free motion leaves but my leaves are more of heart shaped with a vein and I wanted something that looked more like a maple or oak and the grape gave me more of that look.

Candy (customer) is going to be displaying this at The Gathering Place in Milton at the end of this week.  Looking forward to seeing it hanging there.

In addition to finishing this quilt - I revealed the scarf from yesterday using "Solomon Seal" berries ( at least we think that is what the berries were)

No pics yet, just finished rinsing and washing and now its hanging to dry.  And yes I know I said I wouldn't show you each and every scarf I do but you really have to see how this one turned out - the colors and variations are just beautiful.

Today is one of those days where I have to catch up on so many projects, but most importantly is to load and finish the quilting on another customer quilt.

So while scarf is drying Im head back to the sewing room.  Catch you later with maybe more pics.

In other words to be continued..............................

Another Thriendz Connection

What can I say this is the year for thriendz meeting up all over the country

Yesterday Julie, Sharon and I met up with Charyl from Spokane in Cedarburg.  

Charyl and her husband are visiting his aunt here in Wisconsin and what an great opportunity for us to meet up again, before our Houston trip.

Just so you know these are my bunk, room mates when I go to Houston again this year.

After what seemed like a never ending trip going around and around a roundabout, (gps guided) hahahaha. We were lost, well almost lost.  Do you know there is a new invention called the Cell phone that when you call someone you can actually speak to a person.  After much texting as to where we were and where we had to be the light bulb went on and I called for directions. We picked Charyl up from aunts house and headed for Cedarburg to do some sight seeing shopping and then off to the quilt museum and a quilt shop.

The day went by so quickly but I enjoyed every bit of it.

Sadly we had to drop Charyl off , back at the aunts house

Before heading home, Sharon gave me some goodies to use for dyeing.

Exhausted as I was I couldn't wait to cook up some berries (already forgotten the name of these but I will find out).  The color is amazing and of course I had to get a  scarf wrapped this morning and start cooking it up.

Again patience is the word here, looking forward to the reveal but this is going to sit all day.

And....... I'm headed to the sewing room. 3 customer quilts to get done asap before my next adventure out of town this coming weekend.

Second Attempt Paisley Feathers

There may still be more practice needed but the longer I do this stitch "Paisley Feathers" the better they will get.

In the meantime I'm enjoying stitching them and the customer was over the moon with the results on her quilt.

She was so thrilled she hugged me 3 times before leaving.

Now that makes me happy!!!!

Brrr Fall is in the air today.  Had no idea it was so chilly out - dressed for summer, and got a big surprise when I went to take out garbage.

Brrrrr!!!!!!  I'm in no hurry to get back to cold weather again, but its nice to have cool nights. Even so its a little early to be getting this cold don't you think?

A Combined Project - Six Flags

One of my patterns is called Six Flags and sometime ago I taught a class in Clinton at Twin Turtle Quilt shop

Annette Vance, a good friend of mine took the class and sometime this past year she finished her quilt.

Now I needed a "practice" quilt to play with - after watching a video by Angela Walters on how to do free motion Paisley Feathers, I thought I would give it a try on this quilt top.  Annette has offered this quilt to me to give to any charity I want.


So with a combined effort by Annette, "Angela" and myself this is how it all turned out.

I'm certainly no Angela Walters but I'm pretty happy with the results.  With more practice I think this will become one of my favorites to stitch .

Yesterday I went with friends Julie Churchill and Sharon Schaapveld to the Madison quilt expo.  It was a wonderful show and enjoyed myself tremendously.

The quilts were amazing as usual,  and makes one want to either go home and start quilting or sell all of your stash and patterns because you know you will never be that good.

I don't mind not being a "show quilt" girl - I like being just the average everyday quilting gal.  But it does make you wonder how some of these girls come up with the amazing patterns and designs that are put into these quilts. And the quilting that is done to some of them is just plain over the moon.

Here is just a couple of the quilts with the mind blowing quilting.

There were hundreds of vendors, but I limited myself to any large amount of purchases.

Saving myself for Houston which will be coming up end of Oct.

Although there were  plenty of fabrics to choose from I made the choice of not buying any fabrics.  If you knew how many projects that I haven't even started yet you would understand why.

My big purchase for the day was 2 Hang It Dang Its - rods to hang quilts - some bobbins for my long arm machine and some beading that I'm going to add to some of my scarves.

Big spender huh?

Even at that I still managed to spend more than I had planned.

The best purchase of the day - Ice Cream Cone - it was the best - Butter Pecan my all time favorite

Ok Im Almost Done - Show & Tell

I really promise not to show you each and every scarf I dye, but thought you might like to see how the Black Walnut turned out.

But before I do - let me tell you - fall must be in the air because I woke up at 5 and couldn't sleep thinking about putting out my fall decorations.   Before doing that I had to sew on the binding of the Boo wall hanging.  After completing that task I proceeded to decorate for fall - inside and one small wreath outside.  I think I need more decorations.

This is it I promise - I will continue my dyeing but wont bore you with picture after picture after picture.

Ok back to quilting -  hehehehe although I do have another scarf cooking.