12 days of Christmas Charms

Here are the charms that I have made for the 12 Days of Christmas. There were two groups of 12 people so I was able to take a spot in each group. We were to do a charm with the number and a charm with the subject, 24 for each group. I did Three French Hens and 10 Lords a Leaping. I had made a big mistake and made the number 4 for the hens. I guess I do not sing the song enough to know which number the hens were. I had to remake it correctly. The lords are traced onto shrink dink art, coloured, cutout, hole punched and then placed in the oven and shrink. The others are all images printed on the ink jet and then sealed with Mog Pog.
I then cut the image to fit the plastic crystal. I found these "sew on" crystals on sale, they were perfect. Hope I can get more. Once they are glued on the back side, I had to put a jump ring in one of the holes. Then I put Diamond Glaze over the image giving it a raised glassy affect. I love that they look like a Christmas glass ball.

Dyed Thread, some fabric

Here is the eight colour ways of thread that I have dyed this week. I have a few sales coming were I can sell my thread and fabric. I took longer showing photos because I started to wash it out and decided to a few times rinse and soak it over night. Today was warm and sunny and a little breezy so the thread dried in about 3 hours outside. In the winter, inside, it takes three days to dry. I can start to wind the thread into skeins and prepare them for the sale. Someday I may have to do a Etsy site.
Here is only some of the fabric that I dyed.
These two pieces of fabric are fat quarters (20"x20") that have been wrapped on a rope and dyed each in one dye bath. I took the photos and then re-wrapped the fabric again on the ropes and in another dye bath. They are still soaking and I need to wash them out tomorrow. They look good now but wait, they get better as I do more to them. Lets hope I get a good result now that I said that.

Dyeing Fabric

Here are the dyes mixed and ready to use on the Thread or Fabric. Note the back ground. I have moved the saddle racks to the main barn and set up my table in the tack room, close to the sink. In the back of the photo is the bridles hanging on the wall. I have mixed some of my primary colours to make the green, brown and the oranges I need to make this thread. I am trying to copy a thread I made a few years ago. I do not keep real records on the thread dying as there is always a change, thread type, amount of thread how much dye and at what strength. I have been dying thread for long enough that I can just mix and see. I know that what I see wet is also going to lighten many times.
Here is a great thread rainbow coloured.
Here are the eight trays of thread that I got dyed today.
I also did some fat quarters on rope and dyed in one colour. I will have to show more photos of this to explain. I plan to wash and redye these smaller pieces. I also did about 10 to 12 meters of fabric in some soft pinks, blue, and purple. Sorry no photos of these fabrics, but when they are washed they look great and I should take photos.

Fabric Dyeing Day

Today is a record breaking high temperature and I have decided to dye fabric and thread in the barn. I am on a break and hope to go take some photos after lunch. Thursday I will have to wash it all out. And then more photos. I have a sales table at our upcoming Quilt Show in Leduc Oct 17 and 18th. I will be promoting my custom quilting and selling thread and fabric. I have planned a table at the Market mall in Calgary next April when the CQA Quilt Canada is in town. I am sharing a table with a friend Margie. So this is only the beginning of fabric dyeing for the sales. I have been dyeing fabric for more than 10 years.

Fall Mixed Media Swap

I am in a mixed media swap on Two Peas in a Bucket (scrapbook forum). I have done the felt pumpkins for the Halloween group. The leaves are for Fall group. The two tags with felt and batting as backing are for Vintage Halloween. I have used vintage postcards and photo transfer to get the image on fabric. I needed to reverse the image on the computer before printing so it would come out correct. I used a method I like with Gel Medium. I am thinking of writting up more about how I do the photo transfers.
The leaves are hand dyed fabric and craft felt quilted and then some paint added.

My Birthday

Today is my birthday. I have had a great day. My and my boys picked the last of the tomatoes in the garden. We are to get frost tonight which is a few weeks later then normal. Then we played with our horses. The boys rode and I did some ground training on Jester. Brad and my mom had a nice dinner for us all. My youngest son made me a card with us riding our horses. My Bother's boy also made a picture of me on my horse. It has been a great day.

Honey the Horse

Here is Honey. We bought her on Saturday at the Olds Auction. We are very pleased with her. My two boys both like her. She is nice and quite to work around except her swishing tail. Both boys got to ride her this week but my camera batteries quit so no photo of Adam yet. Here is Wyatt on her. Can you see that smile on his face?
Honey has been a trail riding horse for kids camps for the past two years. We have been doing more trail riding and hope the kids can join us more and more. We have plans to take the two kids and two horses to some riding lesson at a local trainer's.

Wings and Things Charms

I just got my bracelet together this week from the Wings and Things Charm swap on Two Peas. I think the sign up for the swap was back in April. I did not use all the charms as there were too many. I left off a few of the larger charms. I am sure I will use them on a book spin some day.
Here are the charms that I made for the swap. I took two spots so that I could give my mom one set for her birthday. They were late but she was still glad to get a bracelet and the charms. The dragonfly and the green ladybug are hand made out of Fimo canes. Here are the canes of Fimo that I build and then slice off and piece to use in the charms or a button. A thicker slice can be cut and made into a bead too.

Leduc Raffle Quilt

Today I am taking the Leduc Raffle Quilt to the Edmonton and District's Guild to help sell tickets and promote the up coming quilt show. I quilted this for the Leduc Guild a few months back. It is hand applqued by many of the members including my mom. I quilted the blank blocks with a feather heart or the spinning feather, in the turquoise thread. The other white areas were quilted with white thread and a small leave that I do by free motion. The turquoise sashing also has a leave that is a little larger.
Here is the outer boarder showing the vein applique the ladies did. The quilt is being Raffled at the end of the quilt show. The quilt show is Oct 17th and 18th at the Leduc High School. The funds will help the guild cover the costs of the quilt show and with our friendship (charity) quilts. Our guild has a very active membership of about 50 and make almost 200 quilts for charity.

Connections Art Show coming soon

We have a show coming up in Summerland, B.C. at the Summerland Art Gallery on Oct 8th till Nov 21th. The gallery opening reception is the evening of Oct 8th. These photos are of three of the pieces I have in the gallery. The top one is Meal Plan. It is a stand up folding book. It is made with firm batting and hand dyed fabric and paper. I have added the kitchen tools with wire and eyelets in the fabric. Also added is paper tags with my hand made fimo beads. I also made hand craved stamps of a tea cup, cupcake and fork with spoon,and then used them to stamp the pages. I made this because my Grandmother use to make a very detailed meal plan when she was excepting guests for several days. A copy of her plan is on the front cover, it was a trip of us coming to stay a week back in March of 1986. The other pages have some of the recieps she would have used. Some are in her hand writing.
These are Scratch Pads. In the Gallery the guests are able to leave a note for everyone to read. It is a way to connect with our viewers. The ones shown are very full and I am now making new pages to add to the books.

Horses again

Busy Busy last week. We have been horse shopping. We went to a Quarter Horse sale in Olds. I had ridden one of the horses earlier in the week and we wanted her as a kids horse. We bought her. She Should be delivered today. I will post photos of her when she comes.

We Must Be Dotty

This quilt was made by me and my mom Betty Manuel, early this year. Her and I worked on it together for the past two years. This last week I got my copy of the Canadian Quilter (CQA) and it is pictured in the magazine. It is an amazing feeling seeing your hard work published, so I have posted today. We had entered it in the Canadian National Juried Show this spring in Saskatoon. We got an Honourable Mention for Excellance for Traditional Wall Quilt: pattern or book. We were very happy to get a prize with all the good quilts in the show. Our statement for the show reads: "From the first moment we saw this pattern we knew it was our next mother-daughter project. The vivid colours and playful style drew us to collect all the dots we could find. Both of us participated in all phases of the quilt making with the exception of the quilting by Cathy."
The quilt is 93" x93" in size. We need to give credit as it is a pattern called "Everyday Best" by Piece O'Cake designer, Beckie Goldsmith, in her book called "Quilts with a Spin" written by Beckie Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins and published by C & T Publishing.

Betty's Album

I made this album for my mom. I started the album in a class at my local scrapbook store. It is 6" chip broad cover and back. I added many more pages after the class was done.
The right side the photos are in behind the black page so that they are framed.
Left side has a pocket with a pull out tag for the photos. There are photos on both sides of most of the tags. The right side, the black page was punched out with a square punch and then the photos placed in behind.
I used eyelets and rick rack to hing the left page. The right is a gain pockets with tags.
More pages with eyelet hings and pockets.
The right side has the two larger pockets and four tags for photos. This pages was about Art photos.
More pockets and tag. I get a lot of photos on one page this way. It is fun to go though the book a pull tags.
Last page. I did a few other pages but many were copies of, just different paper used.

Back to School, Back to Studio

I got the kids back to school today. The oldest is in a new school this year so there will be some new friends. I am back to working at machine quilting in my Studio. I never did stop working, just now I will have more time to get more done again. I tried not to book to much work this summer but there is always more quilts to be quilted than time. Tonight is the first meeting back for the Leduc Quilt Guild , we are called the Black Gold Quilt Patch. I am in a block exchange and still have to do my block for tonight. Our Guild is having a quilt show Oct 17 and 18 at the main High School. My entry forms have to be handed in tonight too.