My Fabric

I'm finally able to post these. I ended up doing more dyeing on Sunday and finally got started washing and drying yesterday only to be called in early to work due to a sick call. I still have my last batch in the dryer but here is what I have so far. Wish I had a bigger area to dye and just for dyeing!!! This one I soaked in the soda ash solution then poured the dye on. When I rinsed it out, I found I had too many places that the dye hadn't colored so I over dyed it in a baggie with a second blue color.
These are some pieces I dyed with leftover dyes. The green is a really neat piece. I've got some ideas going through my head for it. The picture doesn't do the pink/peach piece justice. There are alot of subtle color variations to it.
This batch and the 4 bottom pieces on the next picture, are from a gradation using purple and yellow. In each baggie I put one piece of fabric right after I added the dye and then waited 15 minutes and added a second piece of fabric to the same baggie. So on the right hand side the first 2 pieces came form the same baggie. It's amazing how the different dyes are used a different rates.
I decided I needed to try and dye some neutral colors so at the top of the pictures are some grays I tried. I also did the delayed dyeing with these, adding a second piece after 15 minutes.
The top row here was just some fun pieces using extra dye. I also dyed some white on white fabric. The bottom row was a gradation I did and didn't really like how it came out so I over dyed it. Now the color has lots of texture to it. This is just another fun pice I over dyed.

Some of these like the grays, I'll never be able to reproduce since I used alot of white and off white fabrics that I had lying around. I did use PFD fabric for some of the stuff but I wanted to use the other whites up as I would never use them unless I dyed them.

So this is how I spent my weekend and now all my dyeing equipment is packed up and put away again. (and not in my husbands way!!) I'll have to wait until the end of April when I have my weeks vacation to do any more dyeing.

Dyed Fingers

Well, I spent today getting ready to dye and finally late this afternoon actually did some dyeing. No matter how hard I try, I still end up with colored dye all over my hands!
It has to have been a couple of years since I have actually done any dyeing. I put dates on my jars of dye so I use the oldest ones first. There were alot dated from the end of 02. I know I haven't had the chance to do any dyeing but I didn't realize how it had been that long!!
We'll see how these turn out. I did some baggie dyeing and I found some oven liners to try some dyeing like Melody Johnson does (I really need to learn how to put links into my blog posts!). I'll have to wait until warmer weather when I can dye outside to use the technique on larger pieces. I only did fat quarters today. It felt nice to be dyeing again but now for the hard part - I need to wait until tomorrow to rinse everything out. Will I make it or will curiosity get the best of me and end up rinsing them out late tonight? I won't have any new pictures until I get the pieces rinsed out.
Our small quilt group, Fiber Art Friends, met yesterday. It was a great time. I would like to know where my Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine is. The other ladies had there's but mine is no where to be seen and I haven't recieved a renewal notice yet. This is an issue that intrests me more than the others have lately and of course it hasn't come!!!! We decided to do a round robin project based on one in the magazine. It will be a fabric project where the one in the magazine was painting and collage techniques. I just need to decided what I want to do for my theme and make my base piece that everyone will add to.
Well, that is all for tonight. I'm going to try and do a little more of the baggie dyeing before I get too tired. Will try to get some pictures posted tomorrow or Monday of my dyeing.

Girls Day Out

Monday is Kara's birthday so today we went out for a girls day out. It was Kara, me and Aunt Debbie. For Christmas, Debbie gave Kara a gift certificate to Borders. The nearest Borders is in Concord which is 45 minutes away so Debbie and Kara planned to go to Borders and out to lunch at the Olive Garden for Kara's birthday. I was invited along if I could get the time off work. If I couldn't they were still going.

We had a lovely lunch at the Olive Garden. Stuffed ourselves till we could barely walk. Well, not quite that bad but close. We then went to the Goodwill store to try and find a good pair of black pants for Kara for band concerts. At her last concert her pants were way beyond high water!!! She hates clothes shopping so didn't tell me before the concert. She is so hard to find pants for that we usually just end up going to Goodwill. We did find black pants for her and 2 pairs of tan pants.

After that we went to Borders where we all spent alot of time browsing and reading. I also had some Birthday money I'd been saving since January. I found these 2 books and splurged. I saw "Art Escapes" by Dory Kanter first and really liked what I saw. After I had decided to get it I saw, "Celebrate Your Creative Self" by Mary Todd Beam. I had seen this one on the Quilting Arts site but kept resisting it. Once I actually saw what was in it, I decided it to go ahead and get it. They both are on creativity and deal with painting but alot of the ideas are easy enough for me to try and it looks like alot of the activities I can translate some way into fabric. It's also something I can try when I need to take a short breather from quilting.

I also picked up the magazine "Artist's Sketchbook" and "Surface Design". I've heard about "Surface Design" on the Quilt Art list but never seen it before. Haven't even had a chance to look at it yet. I also found 2 books on Aspergers syndrome which my son has been diagnosed with.

After Borders, we stopped at the pet store to pick up shavings for our guinea pig, Bubbles. BIG mistake!!! They had a CUTE baby guinea. I gave the ok and Kara decided to use birthday money form Gary's parents to buy it. Bubbles needs company!!! Yeah, Right!!

To end the day, we had cake and presents at home.

Finished Landscape

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted. I don't have anything new to post. Work has picked up so I haven't been able to quilt as much as I want to. Also been having alot of stuff going on with the kids. Some days I wonder how I'm going to do everything I have to do! This is my finished landscape. I decided to take everyone's advice and go with the trees. Everyone I showed it to here also liked it better with the trees. I've also matted and framed it. The quilt itself is only about 8"x10". Framing it actually made the piece show up better.
I just wish I had some place to hang it. We live in an A-frame house and the front is all windows so the livingroom gets direct sunlight all day. Also the walls are only about 5' tall. Not great for hanging pictures in. I end up hanging all my pictures and quilts in the back hallways and the stairway. There are only so many things you can hang up there. Even our bedroom has short walls that are not good for hanging things on.
Well, I have to go make sure Alex is in bed and not playing with Kinex or something else.