Meandering Threads on Hiatus

You may have wondered why there have been no updates at Meandering Threads for more than a month. Beth has had some health problems and hasn't been able to post.

So she asked me, Mary Emma Allen, her mom, to let you all know that she misses being here and sharing with you. We've had quiltmaking going on here at home as her daughter Kara finishes a Civil War quilt for her American Studies class. Two of the ladies from Beth's quilting arts group have been encouraging Kara.

If you'd like to send messages to Beth, e-mail to me (me.allen@juno.com) and I'll print them off for her.

Beth may have mentioned that I write the Quilting and Patchwork blog over at b5media and Beth occasionally shares her work there.

I'll keep you updated and before long Beth will be back online.

Cape Cod Memories

Here is one of the pieces I've been working on. I still need to attatch the embellishments but I'm thinking of putting this onto an artist's canvas instead of making a quilt out of it. Figured it would be easier to attatch it with out all the stuff. I like the raw edges of this and thought if I paint and artists canvas and attatch this, it will show off the edges. The background is paper fabric made out of tea bags. The fabric the tea bags were glued to was painted blue. After it was dry, I highlighted areas with Color Box inks. Then I added things that I found on our trip to Cape Cod, hence the name: Cape Cod Memories. The starfish I had to buy there since the couple that we saw were really big and were broken and smashed into the sand. I added the stitching to give it some texture.

I love the colors in this!

I'm Back

I'm finally back. I felt terrible for so long and then I had to catch up on everything. I finally had a chance to finish something and get pictures of it. This is Lynn Elkinton's picture which was the inspiration for my piece below. I went more abstract than I usually do but that was my intent. I've been wanting to try more abstract pieces. The quilting doesn't show much in the this picture.

We finally had our quilt group meeting this past Friday. This winter we haven't had much luck getting together. It really makes you appreciate it when you do get together. I forgot my camera so I didn't get any new pictures from the group. We did hear about Marilyn and Susan's dyeing class down at Pro-Chem. I forget who it was with.

Last Saturday, I had a class with Jane Balshaw. It was her Color Theory class. I learned alot and had a lot of fun. Just don't have anything interesting to show since we just made color swatches. I want to expand on what we did in the class and make more swatches to fill in my color wheels more. Also experiment with making tints and tones of different colors.

I have made a small quilt for Quilting Arts "Go Green" challenge. Just can't show it here. While I was working on that piece, I had an idea for another couple of pieces. For the background of both pieces, I used old tea bags and then used paint and Color Box inks to color them. For one of the backgrounds, I'm using my "souveniers" from Cape Cod. (shells, rocks, feathers, etc). When I collected these things, I had planned to use them in someway so we'd have a unique souvenier.

I'm not sure what I will do with the other background yet. It will come to me eventually.

I've also got to get moving on my Grab Bag challenge. I have some of the fabrics and embellishments up on my design wall. I have an idea, just need to figure out how to actually make it!!

Quilt Group Pictures

Here are the pictures I took at the last Quilt Group Meeting. This first one is Lynne Rands picture. She decided she has so much going on that she won't be able to participate this year but we all liked her picture so much that we are still passing it around.

This is Susan's version of the picture. One sign says "out of order" and the other says "waiting for plumber"

Here is a peek inside.

Gretchen's quilt. She adds alot of embroidery to her quilts.

Anita's quilt of Lynn Elkinton's picture. Lynn's picture has all the roots on a hiking path.

Gretchen's quilt of my bottle picture.

Carmen's quilt of Susan's picture. Susan's picture was a field of lupine with mountains in the background. Most of the Lupine in here are done with embroidery.

Lynn Elkinton's quilt of Susan's picture. Lynn did this one on her embellisher also. I don't know why my picture came out so dark.

Gretchen's picture.

Gretchen's quilt. Oops, just realized I have this upsidedown!!!

Lost Fabric - Found

I finally figured out what I had done with the fabric I had misplaced. I had put it in my totebag to take to the meeting last Friday that was cancelled! These are the pieces that I dyed using Robbie Joy Eklows technique. These are only fat quarters - biggest I could do inside. I'd like to try some larger pieces in the summer when I can dye outside. The first one is my favorite.

I was feeling well enough that I made it to the art quilt group today but I'm really feeling tired tonight. I have a bunch of pictures of the round robin quilts that I will post tomorrow. I also have more of the pictures that we are using that I need to scan. It was fun to be able to get together again - had the meeting just in time, we're supossed to get more bad weather tonight.

Better go and rest. Tomorrow is my last day home then it's back to work! Although I would rather have time off of work when I was feeling good!!!

More Dyeing Results - Finally

It's been a while since I've had the energy to post. I ended up with the crud that is going around work, although I don't seem to have gotten it as bad as others have. Just hope I don't speak too soon and end up getting worse.
I finally got up enough energy to take pictures of some of the second batch of dyeing I did. Although, I can't find the pieces that I dyed using Robbi Joy Eklows technique. I don't know what has happened to them while I've been sick. Frustrating!!!
This first piece was a cloth I used to pick up the excess dye on one of those misplaced pieces.

This was a run of fabric going from fuschia to sun yellow. Again with this, I added a second piece of fabric to the bag 15 minutes after the first piece went in. This was a light to dark run of raspberry dye. The 3 darkest, I added a little black. I had done this run once before and really liked the colors. This was a light to dark run of some blue color. Can't remember the name.

I haven't had the energy to do anything else since this. I'm hoping I feel well enough to go to quilt group tomorrow. We had to cancel the last meeting because of snow and rescheduled it for last Friday. Had to cancel that one because we were meeting at Lynn Elkinton's house again and she became sick. Hopefully tomorrows meeting will work out.

I find it very frustrating to be at home and not feel well enough to work on any of my projects. I was doing so well and have so many things I need to be working on!!

Dyeing Results

Here are the results from the dyeing I did on Monday. I think the second and third pieces from the top actually belong in the purple run in the next picture. In each group I did I put 1 piece of fabric in right away and then waited 15 minutes and put a second piece in. It's interesting how the different dyes are used up at different rates.

The gray piece on tip is a gray piece I over dyed with black. More interesting. It's also interesting how the pieces that have more red in them are more mottled than the bluer ones. I don't know if the colors would have come out differently if my dyes weren't so old but since they look fine, I'm not too worried about it. I just won't do anything that I'll want to duplicate down the road.

This piece and the next I put dye in the bag directly onto the fabric and then added the soda ash solution. I love doing this because you never know what the results will be but they are almost always really neat!!

I did some more dyeing today. Started out early in the morning since everything was already out. Couldn't go anywhere since we got at least a foot of snow last night. Now just have to wait to rinse everything out. I also tried Robbie Joy Eklow's method for direct dyeing but did it on a lot smaller scale. I should have taken a picture of my set up with everything draped in a plastic tarp. Still have some dye left over that I may use to over dye some pieces but had to quit for the day to get something done around the house!! What am I doing? Blogging - not housework!!!

Dyeing Day

This is what I have to show for today. I've been really wanting to get some dyeing done but it takes so long for me to get everything set up that I keep putting it off. I don't have a space that I can use just for dyeing so everytime I want to dye I have to pull everything out and set it up. I will rinse these out tomorrow after I get home from work. I've kept everything out so I can set up easily again on Wed. and dye some more. I have the bags sitting on top of the pellet stove so they would stay warm.

I'm really hoping these come out ok. My dyes are getting really old. I can't believe some of them have 1/02 written on them!!! I also want to see if I have some fabrics to over dye. I should be able to get more dyeing done this summer since we shouldn't have to worry about the water level in the well with all the snow we have!!!