Here is a close up of the quilting I recently did. The quilt is my mom's Betty. I wanted to share this quilting with you. I love this pattern that I have done. I call it spirals and flames. I do this free hand, with out marking out any parts.
I have signed up for the Betty 5 swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. We are doing Christmas Side Dishes. One part of this swap is to send the hostess 16 recipe cards that are 6"x6". It has my recipe which is Barley Salad. My Mom, Betty started making it this summer and it is good. It uses Quick Cooking Barley and chopped Veggies. We were to add some embellishments to the card, so I have ribbon, flower and some snowflakes. I will get one of each person's back. There is more to the Betty 5 swap. I have a partner that I send a great box of goods and she sends me stuff too. More about that closer to Christmas.
I have two more recipe card swaps on Two Peas. Above is the appetizer swap. There are 16 of us in that swap. I have sent in Salmon Spread that my grandma and mom and I make.
I have made more charms for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. This time it is the books or movies from Harry Potter. I have the Sorting Hat done here in Fimo Clay. I did not get all the wrinkles in the hat but I was pleased with the face and he way the jump-ring attached. My kids were quick to tell me that Sorting Hat was more gray than brown. This is artist free will and I changed it to more of a brown with sparkle in it. I had real trouble getting a photo to show the face so I placed them in full sunlight.
The second charm set I made is Dobby Socks. I did not watch all of the movie to get the colours just so. But I saw clip were Harry gives Dobby a gray or black sock. I think he gives him another one but it did not match. So here is the mismatched socks. My Son Adam often wears two socks that do not match. He has gray and black ones so his pairs of socks look just like this. If I did not get the sock colour correct it was because I was thinking of Adams mismatches.
Here are the latest charms I have made. These are for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket called Vintage Christmas Charm Swap . I have use a soft gold sew on plastic crystal. They have two holes, so one is used to attach to the clasp and the other has the red bell and beads. I got this vintage Santa image a few years ago from a fellow mixed media artist. She had a collection of old Christmas cards she had scanned and was sharing.
The Leduc Quilt show was this past weekend. Here is me at my booth selling dyed fabric, dyed thread, buttons, and some jewelry made with polymer clay. I was also promoting my Machine Quilting. I had five quilts in the show but then you can see I had some at my booth as well. It was a good show with lots of room. The quilt show committee did a great job. Hats off to you ladies.
Here is June taking in the quilts and the cookies on Friday. We have the members make three dozen cookies and then serve cookies, juice and coffee. The men and kids love the goodies.
The quilt stands all have to go up. My dad is always in there helping set them up. We get as many husbands as we can to come help with this part and again at take down. Next will be to hang. This is in the large gym of the local high school. We had the market mall in the smaller gym and the cookies and drinks in the cafeteria.
The first and the third quilt in this photos are mine. I am sorry to my fellow member but I do not remember who's quilt is in the middle. Crop Circles is the purple and green quilt, one of my original art quilts. Then at the back is Luminous Diamonds, a more traditional quilt for me. Luminous Diamonds is my original design and was published in the American Quilter this summer. My first published article. I believe you can still order back issues of the July/Aug issue.
Here is a bigger view of the room and the large quilts. We had over 200 quilted items. We plan our show every two years. You have missed it this year but next Friday and Saturday, coming up, is the Sherwood Park Quilt Show. I do not remember were in the Park but I am sure you can find it if you are local.
This is the raffle quilt that the quilt guild members made. They were selling tickets at the show. Half the money raised will be going to Stars Air Ambulance here in Alberta and the other will help with the cost of our friendship quilts and the cost of the quilt show. I believe the draw is in early November.
I did the machine quilting on it. The members did the hand appliqued blocks. I know Marge and my mine mom each did a block. I forget who else, sorry I do not remember. I try to give credit for the work done by the quilters. You know who you are and you did a great job.
I made this with some instructions from a friend Janet. It is a basic reusable shopping bag. I got the fabric from a garage sale of a quilting friend for about 2 or 3 dollars. Love the lime green and turquoise, they are my colours these days. I made this a few weeks ago but have been bad about up dating my blog. My machine quilting business is very busy now with Christmas coming.
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.
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.
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.
