Christmas Gifts Finished

I got this done on Christmas morning just in time to leave for a family dinner and gift opening. It is a table runner I made for my mother in law. I used a block from a book from Laundry Basket Quilts called Friendship Strips and Scraps. There is a wall quilt in the book that uses five of these blocks, I just knew it would be cute as a runner. I am very pleased with it.

Here is a detail of the machine quilting I did on it. Most of the fabric I used is batiks.

I had bought this hand made bowl at a craft fair in November and picked out the fabrics to go with the bowl. I had pulled my mother in laws name for Christmas this year and I think she was very happy with her gift.

I have added this post to Crazy mom quilts,

I tried something new this year. I made candied orange and lemon rinds. They were a hit. I just love them. Sweet yet bitter at the same time.

Sorry I have not posted much this month. My camera went smashy smashy about two weeks ago. I did buy myself a new one. I have not done much of my own sewing this month. I quilted for customers like crazy, sometimes late into the night and I had a few dog trials on the weekends. I am going to start step 6 of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street mystery tomorrow. I think I am cough up on it.

Marbled Fabric Done

Last Friday I got together with my surface design group and we marbled fabric. We had to do some prep work a head of time. I soaked and air dried the fabric a head of time. Then when we got done I have to let my fabric air dry and then hand wash it and dry again. I found it hard to get the Methyl Cel out and had to wash a second time and dry and iron it. Took me all week to get it done. So busy machine quilting around here.

This piece was a pale purple and got blue and white marbled paint. I love the feather work. I used an old hair pick to make the lines and pull the paint around.

This was a pink snow dyed fabric to start. I make a white dot then added the bright pink paint in the center. then when it spread a little I run a single pick down the center the one time. And Hearts!

These next two were green dyed fabric. I love the dyed fabric better as it adds to the rich layers of colour on each piece.

I used a old roaster to hold my Methyl Cel and then floated my paints on it. I precut my fabric to fit. Most measured 10" x 14".

This was a white cotton with the blue and white paint. there was some older paint on the Methyl Cel that also came up on the fabric but it adds to the piece.

The fabric started out as a orange brown hand dyed. I added some bright pinks and black and more brown on here. Can you see I just loved the pick patterns I could do. Many of the ladies were in love with radon dots and blobs, some with or with out pulling the pick though.

This was the first piece to see if my paints would float or spread too fast or what they would do. I had to thin down many of the marble paints I had. I also tried Golden liquid acrylic paint. We all found it to be one of the best to work with. I loved it so much I bought some Golden Liquid Acrylics. I hope to play with marbling again over the holiday break.

I have added this post to Crazy Mom Quilts

I am off to machine quilt more. Maybe tonight I can work on the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Easy Street. I still have not done step 2 yet and step 3 came out today.

Lex and I did Ok at the weekend trail. We passed three out of 8 classes. The second day he was leaving the ring with out me. We have two classes on Sunday this weekend. Hope he can stay and work with me.