New House, New Blog

Once again I will say, I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted. I've been busy here. Just not quilting and it will be getting even busier. Kara came home over Easter and went back to school. She's now home again with all her stuff but will be leaving again for a month traveling in the Balkans with her honors program class. They get to see what they have been studying. In between her coming and going and coming again, Gary, Alex and I went out to Ohio to Gary's parents house. Their tree was in bloom outside their house. I just had to take some pictures of it.


We spent a day touring through Amish country.


And the big news, just before we left for Ohio, we found out that we had been picked for the Habitat for Humanity house that is being built this summer in our area. Since we live the country, they only build one a year. We are so excited!!! It's going to be a busy summer between work, family stuff and the build. I've started a blog to journal about it and to keep friends and family updated (and anyone else who would like to follow along).
If you would like to see it go here.

Well, I'd better go get some sleep. Work comes early and it's getting late. I hope to have some new things to show soon, since I want to make some new things for the house.

Finally Framed

I finally finished up a piece I started in a class last year on Joggles with Jane LaFazio. I knew I had this frame and it would be perfect for this piece, I just couldn't find it. I bought this frame 3-4 years ago at a yard sale for $1. I new it would be perfect for something sometime!
It has glass in it so I couldn't take the picture so that it looked square. But I was able to take it at an angle so you could see the work and not the flash from the camera.

And, no Kara, you can't take this one back to college with you. I'm finding a place to hang it here at home!

Just a Little More Snow Dyeing

Here are the results of my last batch of snow dyeing. Really nice colors! I'm always so amazed at how different they come out than what I think they will. This first one was a combination of black and fuschia. I thought it would have more black in it. There are a few spots with black. The rest turned out more blue gray. Next time I will add more black and a little less fuschia.


This one was a combination of orange, fuschia and brilliant blue - I think. Of course, I didn't write the colors down. I thought I'd remember them but did I? I should have known better! The colors are a little off in these photos. The actual piece makes me think of a flower garden.


These were some cloth napkins that I picked up at the second hand store with the intent of dyeing or painting them some day. I used fuschia, sun yellow and indigo.

This closeup shows the pattern in the weave of the napkins.

I probably won't have a chance to do any more snow dyeing for a while. We are getting a little short on snow outside! Pretty sad for New Hampshire. I think we are one of the few areas in the states that hasn't gotten a lot of snow recently. We can see bare ground outside. The upside to not much snow will be that mud season shouldn't be too bad this year!

Some more Snow Dyed Fabric

The Fiber Divas met last Wednesday. It was fun. Anita showed off some larger pieces that she had snow dyed. It made me want to try my hand at dyeing some larger pieces. I always stick to fat quarters when I dye and there are times I wish I had more. Here are a couple of 1 yard pieces.


I froze the fabric before covering it in snow and then dyeing it. The snow was very wet, so I packed it down on tip of the fabric. I don't know if that had anything to do with how "crackled" these came out.


I'm having so much fun doing this that I did a couple more pieces yesterday. They are down in the basement sink soaking. By the time I finished work yesterday and got everything ready to dye, I was out in the dark collecting snow. I was hoping I didn't scoop up any doggy surprises! I will post pictures of the fabric when I get them.

I love the colors and the patterning of these but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. Dyeing them is addicting. I enjoy painting and dyeing fabric just as much as quilting with them. Has anyone made anything with their snow dyed fabric?

OWOH Winner

I had a fun time visiting all the blogs in the One World, One Heart Giveaway this year. I wish I had more time to spend on each one.



I used a random generator to pick a winner and the lucky winner was comment number 73, Lavender Dreams. I've already e-mailed her for her snail mail addy and will get the fabric sent off to her.
Her blog is: www.lavenderdreamstoo.blogspot.com

More Riley

Here are a couple more pictures of Riley. It is so hard to get pictures of him since he is just go, go, go when he is awake! Here he had slowed down long enough to chew on his toy! Still he was flopping around enough with it that it was hard to get pictures that weren't blurry.




Not quilt related, but sooooooo CUTE!!!!!!

More Snow Dyed Fabric

I snow dyed a couple more pieces of fabric the other day. With these ones, I froze the fabric before I dyed them. This one was the fuchsia and ice blue. It's interesting how different this one is from the one I dyed with fuchsia and ice blue the day before.



This next one was seafoam and ice blue.



I had extra dye so I decided to dye some fat quarters. The colors came out really yummy. Will I be able to duplicate them again? No but I can get some that will be similar using the sam e parent colors. I did try to get some colors that were lighter than I usually make. I think I did that.

Now to think of a project to use these in. I think they need to be used together. I also need to actually make something with my fabric. Not just make more fabric!!! But making the fabric is so much fun!

Snow Dyeing

There's been a lot of talk on the Quilt Art list about snow dyeing so I decided to try my hand at it. I know there was an article in Quilting Arts about snow dyeing but I couldn't find that issue so I followed this tutorial.

Since I was only dyeing fat quarters I used little Rubbermaid disposable containers to dye in. They seemed to have worked out fine although I might try something a little deeper another time.


This fabric is my favorite one. I think this is the one that I froze the fabric in the freezer before dyeing. You freeze it after soaking it in the soda ash solution. With the other 3 pieces, I was too impatient and packed them in the snow after pulling them out of the soda ash solution. This piece was a combination of fushia and ice blue.


This one was fushia and seafoam.


This next one was a combination of fushia and citrus yellow.

My first reaction with this green piece was that it was too light and I would have to over dye it but then I remembered that I had just been going through my fabrics and realizing that I don't have many light colors, so it will stay like this. This was a combination of citrus yellow and seafoam.


I decided to throw some cheesecloth in with the fabric being dyed. Here are those results.

I love the one above the green. It was dyed with the first piece of fabric above. Here you can see a little more of the purple color.


I dyed a couple more pieces of fabric today and am impatiently waiting for the snow to melt.

Our new addition to the family

I've been busy playing and taking care of Riley. I can't believe it will be a week tomorrow that he came home. He sure is a lot of work but also lots of fun and what a character!!

These are pictures that we took a couple of days ago. He is really starting to fit in and get comfortable here.



Ginger still hasn't gotten used to him although she tolerates him more now than when he arrived home. At least she can be in the same room as him now. She has the attitude of "If I can't see him, he isn't there" She spends a lot of time studiously looking the other way.


So, needless to say, I haven't spent much time working on any projects. I have been watching Quilting Arts TV DVD's (series 400) which my mom got for me for my birthday. I also been watching Quilting Arts Workshop, "Print, Collage, Quilt" with Melanie Testa and Cloth, Paper, Scissors Workshop, "Layer by Layer" with Beryl Taylor. It is great to see some of the things actually being done in "Print, Collage, Quilt" that I read about in Melanie's book " Inspired to Quilt".

For my Birthday, Kara, gave me "Art + Quilt, Design Principles and Creative Exercises" by Lyric Kinard. It has some great exercises in it. I just have to take the time to actually do them.
Before Christmas, I bought myself "Intuitive Color & Design" by Jean Wells. This also has some really go exercises in it. I love the abstract look of her quilts.

Time to get to bed so I can get up at 4:30 to go to work.

One World One Heart

Where did the year go? I didn't realize that the One World One Heart giveaway had started until I saw it on a blog yesterday. Since I don't have time to make anything, I decided to giveaway a fat quarter of my hand-dyed fabric. If you click on the One World - One Heart logo above, you will be taken to a list of all of this years participants. So go have some fun and spend some time looking at other creative blogs.




How do you enter my drawing you ask. Well first this is open to bloggers everywhere. Just leave a comment to this post by midnight February 14 and I will use a random number generator to pick a winner on February 15th. Please make sure there is a link back to your blog so I have a way to contact you or leave your e-mail addy with your comment.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Riley

Kara was getting after me the other day about not having anything new on my blog. I told her I didn't have anything new quilt related but I guess I could post a picture of Riley. Riley is the Shih Tsu puppy we are going to be getting. If everything works out we will be getting him this coming weekend. I really hope everything works out! Riley is supposed to be my birthday present but I think that was just the excuse so Gary could get him and Alex keeps saying that Riley is going to be his puppy! We'll see how long the puppy newness lasts when he has to keep getting up in the middle of the night to let Riley pee!!! We'll see how long it is until I'm the one getting up in the middle of the night and how long it is until I'm the one cleaning up the accidents!! We'll see whose puppy it ends up being in the long run!! Gary will just sleep through all the crying puppy nights like he did when the kids were little!

I haven't been really inspired to do much of anything lately. I have gotten my sewing room organized now that Kara is back at Houghton. I did put together a sewing package for her. She asked for some fabric squares, thread, embroidery floss and other things so she could try her hand at hand sewing when she was sitting around with her friends.

After seeing all the posts on Quilt Art about snow dyeing and seeing different posts on blogs, I've wanted to give it a try. Now that I have time, it's too warm and the snow is melting with all the rain. Just have to wait a couple days and it should get colder. Can't go too long in NH without cold winter weather!!