Busy, Busy —- But fun!

Wow, I have really been a slacker when it comes to keeping this blog up to date.  I have been so busy trying to get caught up on quilts.  I usually complain that the only quilts I get in are custom, and that I seldom get any easy allovers to do.  Well —- I finally got some (I think the next 5 I have to do), and I’m not liking it as much as I thought I would.  Sure, it’s easy money, but it is soooo boring!  And to make it even worse, they are all  B.O.M.’s which are identical fabrics, I feel like I’ve been quilting the same quilt for a week now (and there are still more to do)!!!!!

Last week I decided to take a break from the never ending quilts to do some fabric dyeing (which I haven’t had an opportunity to do for ages).  Wow!  I forgot how addicting it was —- and such an awesome artistic break from the monotony of those quilts.  So, I decided that I am going to add dyed fabrics to my business (just what I need, something else to do <VBG>).  I figure I come into contact with alot of quilters at classes, shows, etc., so why not have it available for sale.  And besides, if I don’t sell it ——- I get to KEEP IT!  I dyed about 30 yards this past weekend, and have plenty more to go —- got a little carried away on the fabric, and now have approx. 100 yards still to play with.

I actually had some help from my husband who was pretty in to it, about 15 minutes after I got started, he decided he wanted to dye himself some t-shirts, which turned out OK. I told him that really wasn’t the method for tie-dyeing, but he didn’t care, and could barely wait til it was time to rinse it out and see what it looked like.  The second day, my son was mad that he had missed the whole thing, and “he” wanted to do a shirt.  It was funny watching him ponder exactly where to put his gumbands and predict what the outcome would be.  Only bad thing was that I was doing over dying that day, and the only colors I had mixed were brown and black.  But, like DH the previous day, he didn’t care, and actually, I really like the way his brown and black t-shirt turned out.  Here are pics of some of the fabrics (and of course the t-shirts). 

The sateen below is my favorite to dye!

The T-Shirts

An old faded denim shirt for myself

I have also been working on hand appliqueing this little piece the past couple of weeks.  I decided that I needed something that I could work on in the evening if I sit down to watch TV (so I can feel like I’m getting something done at the same time <BG>).  It’s only a tiny thing, but I was worried that anything much bigger might never get done.

OK, better get back to the never ending ALLOVER quilting!!!!!!!

Finally, “As Usual” is DONE!!!

I finally finished my wholecloth “As Usual” today.  My Gosh, it took me longer to do the painting than it did to mark, quilt, and bind it.  I am SO glad to have this done!  And …. I am really pleased with how it looks now that it is finally what I had envisioned.  I used Shiva Iridescent paint sticks to do the painting.  I used stencil brushes, rather than straight from the stick (I think it goes on way to thick and gloppy that way).  So anyway, here are some pics, I can’t believe how “plain” it looked before.

                             BEFORE                                                                 

Turns out I have yet another quilt that is nearly impossible to get a picture of that shows the true colors.  I guess because the paint is metallic, the flash is making the colors even brighter than they really are.  The photo below is without a flash, and it makes the colors darker than they really are.

Sooo, the actual coloration is somewhere between the two <G>. 

 

Such a Pack Rat!

My son is such a pack rat, but only of OLD stuff.  He loves any old fashioned stuff in general (because he’s saving it from being thrown away).  Yesterday I heard him pull in and then yell for me to come out and see what he found (what now, I ask myself <G>).

This wonderful old 1957 turntable ?!  He told me he just couldn’t pass it up (sitting out in someones yard with a “free” sign on it).  And besides, it IS the same year as his car (behind it in the pic).  He spend a couple of hours cleaning it, and it looks and works just like new.  His love for the old extends even to his vehicles —- as you can see from the picture of his daily driver below:

He hates that he has to use my Honda to commute to college, he says that it is not a “real” car.  But he uses it of course (since the gas is free in it <BG>).  I do get irritated with him bringing all of this “wonderful” stuff home, and then having to find somewhere to keep it, but it is pretty neat that he has an appreciation for it. I just hope when he gets his own place, it is a big one so he can house his “collection”.

 

 

Finally Recovered from the MQS Trip

Okay, so it’s been almost two weeks since I got home from MQS, but geeze, I’m still not totally caught up with every thing.  My dear family is not the greatest at keeping things cleaned up while I’m away, so the first couple of days back are for cleaning (yippee!).  Then of course there are is unpacking, and  the laundry that comes with that.  Not to mention filling book orders that have come in while I was gone (and of course I’m now out of books after the show).  Oh, and then of course there are the customer quilts that are waiting (especially that one that was on the front porch the day I got home, with a note inside saying that she needed it by JUNE 1ST!!!!!!!). 

Even with all that I have to do when I get home, I still love going.  Although —- I usually don’t stay as long as I did this year, and by Fri., I was ready to go home.  I had a great time as always, and got to visit with both old and new friends that I only see a few times a year.  My classes went really well, even though I was a little nervous about doing my new Wholecloth Class.  I wanted to share how I design my wholecloths, but was a little worried as to wether or not I could relay to my students how exactly I think about, and design them.  But, I think it went well (the critiques said so anyway <G>), and almost everyone went home with a fully marked Wholecloth ready for stitching.  I can’t wait to see what they create!! 

Oh, and I was also very suprised to receive a third place ribbon for ”Amish Electrified”, it is the raffle quilt that I made for our Long Arm Guild (Ohio LongArm Quilters).  To be honest, I never thought it would get a ribbon, and wasn’t even paying attention during the awards ceremony when they did that catagory. 

The quilts in the show this year were AMAZING, I can’t wait to see what everyone does next year.  It’s hard to believe they can get any better — but I KNOW they will.  I didn’t buy  much, just some trims for couching, some new paints, a few threads I want to try, a few marking templates from Quiters Rule to play with, and some gorgeous hand dyed velvets. When I got home and unpacked my purchases, it was obvious that the color theme for what I bought this year was black and copper so maybe next year I’ll make something in those colors.

As for my new wholecloth, I was really bummed that I didn’t actually get it completed before sending it to MQS.  It was there, and all of the stitching complete, but went minus it’s finishing touches (which were major elements of the design).  I had planned to paint some areas of the quilting, but quickly realized there was NO WAY that was going to happen in the amount of time I had.  And because my order got screwed up, none of the embellishments I ordered came before I had to send it either (perhaps next time I’ll plan better, but — probably not).  But, that’s ok —- because when I finally finish it, it will be like a totally different quilt <BG>.  I’ll post a pick of how it looked when I sent it in.  And very shortly (I’m in the painting stage now) I’ll post the after pic of how I intended it to be.  

 

 

 

Almost done………

Finally finished up  the binding on my quilt last night,  which was a major PITA! The picture is of one of the corners my quilt, and you can see why it was such a pain.  Got it washed this morning, and with the help of DS, it is blocked out on the deck (hopefully dry by now).  Tomorrow I can do the finishing stuff, sleeve, label, etc. and then get this thing outta here!

 

 

MQS Quilt — will I ever get it done?!

I have been so busy the past couple of weeks!  Mostly just trying to do too much in a short amount of time I guess.  I have been trying to get things organized and prepared for my classes at MQS, then this past weekend I taught a small group of girls from my LA Guild (who agreed to be guinea pigs) my Innovative Wholecloth Design class.  We had a lot of fun, and I am anxious to see their finished wholecloths.  Oh, and then of course I had to start my entry for MQS.  I got my quilt marked pretty quickly, I started with just the main elements, and then decided on and marked the rest of the smaller stuff.  I would normally just do the feathers freehand, but because I want the placement to be just right so the little circles on the feather tips line up pretty well, I ended up marking those in as well.  I have all of the main motifs stitched in, and am now working on my fillers.  I worked doing fillers for about 4 hours yesterday, and ripping out some pebbling (yikes!!!! Especially when it’s black thread on black fabric).  I had planned to spend today doing some more on my quilt, but woke up with a terrible stiff neck and there was no way I could quilt.  Sooo, I decided to spend that time getting groceries and at least getting something accomplished (plus I won’t have to do it this weekend when W.Mart is so full I can’t even get a cart).  But, at least the day ended on a good note — I found out that I got 3rd place in my catagory at Paducah for my quilt Grandma’s Clock. 

Here are a couple of pics of my new wholecloth so far (not that there is a whole lot to see) —

  

Last but not least, I’ll finish with a puppy pic — DH would probably kill me if me if he knew I was putting his pic on here, but it’s a cute picture.  What you can’t see in the picture is DH’s shoe kinda chewed up a little <G>.  Do you believe it, he chews up his fathers shoe, and then crawls on top of him and uses him as a bed <VBG>! 

 

Grandma’s Clock

I have been working today on re-doing the hanging sleeve for my quilt “Grandma’s Clock”.  It was juried into the Paducach Show, and when I got the entry info, I found out that it needs to have a different type of sleeve than what is on it now.  Geeze, I don’t like doing the sleeve any more than doing binding, and now I have to do it twice <G>!  Anyway, I thought I would put a couple of pics of the quilt on here, including one of what I marked before quilting (it is all marked with sharpened regular school chalk), and one REALLY close shot of the background fill I used (since I have had a bunch of people ask about this).  Enjoy!

Raffle Quilt Picture

I just got this preview of the picture that will be distributed to our LA Group (OLAQ) members along with our packets of tickets to show what they are buying tickets for.  I think it looks like a postcard to me.  Tomorrow is our LA meeting, I’m anxious to see the raffle quilt in person, now that the binding and blocking have been done, and even more excited that I get to bring it home with me and will actually have “show & tell” next week for my regular Quilt Guild meeting (I’m usually lucky if I have show and tell to take once a year!).  Although I suppose I kinda do have more if you count the quilts everyone else brings that I quilted.  I spent most of today getting ready for the meeting tomorrow, I’m doing the program on self publishing.  This isn’t anything I’ve ever done a program on (I’m really not much for the “lecture” type of thing to begin with), so I really needed to get some stuff down on paper so I don’t draw a blank when it’s time for me to do my thing.  Now—to go study my notes.

Zeke’s Little Brother “Junior”

A while back we decided that we would get our dog Zeke a little brother so he would have another dog to play with.  So we started our search for another doberman puppie, but didn’t have any luck.  We have always just bought our dog’s, never adopted one from a local humane society, etc.  I read on Suzanne Earley’s  blog that she had recently adopted a dog,  so I thought I would check into that on the internet (this was something I previously hadn’t thought of).  We found a couple of pups at a local doberman rescue, but they were always gone before we got through the “process” with them (you had to have a home visit, application, etc.).  We also had been considering getting some sort of hound dog, as we had a really hard time finding a vet who did ear cropping when we got Zeke.  So after checking http://www.petfinder.com for a couple of weeks, I found a hound mix at the Animal Protective Leage about 2 hours from us.  Yesterday was DH’s birthday, so Josh (DS) and I drove up and brought the little guy home for a suprise B-Day present for DH.  It was great, he had NO IDEA we would do something like that.  We decided before we even found a puppy that his name would be “Junior”, and gee, it is pretty fitting for a big old hound dog.  Junior has only been here for about 24 hours, and Zeke is still not real sure about him, but he’s slowly coming around.  Here are a few pics of Junior.  And one of the two of them together.  I was hoping that a puppy would get our 5 year old couch potato a little more active, but as you can see in the picture of them together, I think I might just have two of them now <G>.

  

  

Kicking myself in the (you know what)!

So the other day on the way to the store, they were doing some road work and I was sent on a detour.  Along this unfamiliar route I passed a big old house for sale — hmmm, I need to see how much that baby is.  I have to say that I am NOT in the market for a house.  I really love our house, but —- this is something I would be willing to sell my current house and move to.  So anyway, I look it up on the internet, wow, that is a great price (must need work).  I made an appointment, and we went to have a look yesterday.  Turned out the realty woman got tied up, and we got to go check it out on our own (even better, so we could “really” check it out with out her following us around).  So anyway, it is great!  It does need work, although it is mainly cosmetic stuff, nothing too major (DH is a contractor).  It is probably 3 times the square footage of our current house, and has remained totally unmolested through the years — still has all of the original woodwork, mantels, pocketdoors (we couldn’t believe the woodwork hadn’t been painted at some point).  So home we go, alot to think about —- give the realtor a call, and of course, just my luck, it is a forclosure —- so the wait till you sell your house plan is not an option (which was also our only option).  So, this just has me kicking myself today, and mad at myself for even going to look.  Here are a couple of pics of that “so close, yet so far away” dream house project.