Quilt Canada 2010

I got home from Quilt Canada yesterday. My Van is not yet fully unpacked. I drove down last week and was a speaker in the Pre conferance on the Monday and Tuesday. On Monday afternoon I did my talk about my long arm quilting business and then had to rush off to unload my van for the Merchants Mall. It all went well but there was hardly time to breath. Tuesday I spook again but this time it was about being an artist. We had four of us speaking and not alot of time each. As many of the other ladies had said some of the same things I was going to talk about, I decided to touch on getting out of a artist funk.
Tuesday afternoon, I spend my time setting up my booth. My mom and friend Deb were great help as they finished putting price tags on my fabric. Above is a basket of snow dyed fabric, it is one of four baskets I took with me. I had many other things to sell as well.
This is a photo of some of the pole wrapped fabric I dyed for my booth.

So the booth went well. We always had people in our booth. Some of the other merchants were asking why we were always busy. We did have a very brightly coloured booth with lots to see. I guess we did OK. I had one day I did not sell very much. Not sure why. The others days were better.

Here is a photo of dollies, napkins, thread, cheese cloth and other cotton bits, I dyed for a fiber kit. Here is some wool I dyed for the booth. I use Fast Acid dyes for the wool.

I did not take a photo of the booth but a friend did. I hope to post the photo later. I took many photos of some of the art quilts but these are for personal use only and I am not able to post the photos. At the National Juried show we were not allowed to take any photos but we could buy the catalog which is great and I got my copy. The art quilts were all great. There was so much to see. It was hard to get away from the booth so that I could see the quilts.

Thank you to the Calgary people that worked so hard on a great show. Thank you to the CQA and it's people to support this show. I had worked on the Quilt Canada back in 2002 when it was in Edmonton and I know what it is like to work for weeks preparing for the shows. You all did a great job. Thank You

Quilt Canada

Hi everyone I am away at Quilt Canada this week. I have been selling my fabric and thread. I spook at the Pre-conference for Professionals on Monday and Tuesday. As all these Quilt Canada's are great, so is this one. Have not taken any photos yet. Saturday is the last day so I better take a photo or two.

Thread dyed

Here is my ten newly dyed threads drying. I have now started to wined up the thread so that I can sell it. I love these photos with all this colour. I will be keeping some for myself. I dye one or two skeins for myself of each colour.
All of the thread is washed by hand so that the thread does not tangle. I like to have it soak in fresh water over night to be sure I have all the extra dye removed. If the water is coloured in the morning, I risen it out more before dying.
Silly me. After the thread was wound up into skeins, it is placed on a shower curtain ring and hung on the display tree. I placed one set on my head and my son took a photo (sorry it is dark, his finger was over part of the flash). I think it looks like hair ringlets. You must think I am nuts first snow dyeing and now this. Ha Ha good to laugh at our self's sometimes.
Here is the thread I had done before, all hung on my display trees. The new thread will double what I have here and the thread trees will be twice as bushy. I still have lots of wining to do this week.

Dyeing fabric with horses

This is my horse checking out the fabric in his pasture. I have been dyeing fabric in snow banks. I get great texture on my fabric. Now that it is spring, there is less and less snow. This snow bank is some of the last snow we have. There is a snow fence in the pasture, so the snow has gathered here. Last week we got more snow and lots of blowing on Thursday. Check out April 6th post if you want to see more snow dyeing. I hope to take more photos of the finished fabric. I am washing it now.

Painting Fabric Skys and Water

I have been painting cotton to sell at my booth in the market mall at the Quilt Canada (Calgary, AB). I use Seta Colour fabric paint. I have six of these wooden frame to stretch the fabric onto. Most of the time I wet my fabric before I start painting. I also use a lot of water to dilute the paint. Some times I leave the frame flat to dry or I can tilt the frame and get the colours to run into each other a little more.
Here are two pieces outside drying in the sun and wind.

Does anyone have other ideas for me? What would you buy? I love comments it makes my day.

Wool Felted Journal and Roving

I have signed up for a wool felting class. It is at Quilter's Dream (Edmonton,AB) with Darlene Bayley. Above is some of the Merino Wool I have been dying this past month. I love the colours. I plan to take some to the Market mall at Quilt Canada Calgary, AB to sell.
Here is my Journal cover. I started one in class but had some troubles. This is the second one. I needle felted the wool in place using my clover needles and brush pad. The pink wool is one I dyed and the browns are alpaca wool. There is a little silk mixed in some of the natural wool. After needle felting all the parts into place, I did some wet felting. It does look better after some wet felting (more wool crinkles). The buttons are vintage. The journal inside is the log book of the wool roving I am dying.

Tonight I am at another felting class. Darlene has a wool clutch purse done as a sample with some felting on the opening flap. I need to pick out my colours.

Easter Eggs Felted Wool

I have used some of my dyed wool to cover Styrofoam eggs for Easter. I have used my needle felting tool by Clover to get the wool to felt onto the Styrofoam. I will be doing Christmas felted balls in the fall. Last week I took the eggs to my Rug Hooking group and they asked me to teach the Christmas balls in October.
The Bird Dog liked the eggs and wanted to have the eggs.

Snow Dyeing Fabric

I have spent the last two days dyeing fabric outside in some snow banks. Here I am standing around my field of dyed fabric. Like I am farming. Plant then in the snow with dye (fertilizer) and come back a few hours later to harvest.
I have been using 1 meter of cotton that has been soaked in soda ash solution. I like this spring snow bank idea, works only when warm spring day. I lay the fabric out on the snow with hills and valleys.
I start to cover the fabric with snow. Get all the fabric covered. Taking note were my fabric ends.
My dyes are mixed and in squeeze jars. I have 1 Tablespoon of dye and about 1 1/2 cups H2O. I have made some mixes and some diluted solutions as well. I do fly by the seat of my pants and just mix at times. A bucket of warm water was very useful to wash cold gloved hands.
Squeeze bottle dye on to the snow. With some time and the warm sun the dye moves down to the fabric.

I also did some in trays and some in buckets. I did not like this as well but if the air temperature was not warm, I could bring these in to warm up and the dye can still get to the fabric. My snow bank fabrics were nicer than the bucket and tray dyeing. I also hate washing out the buckets - we do not have the water hoses hocked up yet (freezing at night still), so I have to hall the bucket inside to washout.
Here are 12 fabrics planted for dying. This is the snow bank at the bottom of my parent's driveway. There is a few rocks and grass on the top but not bad snow if a dig down a bit.
More planted fabrics in the hay field north of the trees.

I am going to Calgary at the end of the month to sell fabric. I have a booth at the Quilt Canada Market mall. I hope to get much more fabric done. I got 10 done yesterday and 24 done today. I have a few that need another layer of dye to be better.
Purple snow dye fabric. These are all for sale.
Blue snow dye
Orange snow dye.

I have many other dyed and painted fabrics that I am working on. And the dyed thread. So keep looking back this month and in May. I will have to post some in May as my life is very busy now.

Altered Album Swap

I hosted a Altered Album Swap on Two Peas in a Bucket this winter. I worked on this Vintage Christmas album for my partner Pam in CA. I started with on of my son's old children' board books. This book had a great shape with each page being a different shape on the left side. Note the hanging orniments I did. I got the idea for ornaments from Tim Holtz 12 days of Christmas tags on his blog. I also did many tags for inside the book. I used a few recycled things in the book. Tool from my poinsettia wrapping, some ribbon, some Canadian stamps.
I used mostly Graphic 45 Christmas Past line of paper.



Here is the back cover. I spent days and days trying out different paint options to get the old crackle paint that I wanted. I tried red on top of cream and about three different brands of paint and three crackle mediums. When I got the look I wanted, I then tried out the different ink options too. I used ink on all edges inside and out side the book. I think Pam was pleased with her book. I got a great vintage book - try to post soon.

Saying good bye to winter

Good bye winter. Spring is in the air. We still have some snow. Very busy winter.
We got to see the Olympic flame go through our town. How proud I am to be Canadian. It was great fun to watch it all on TV.
I found all the flame carries practicing in front of one of the schools. I stopped and got a great group photo of all of them. One of the kids goes to my older son's school. I understand the school council brought the touch for him to keep. The flame went past many school in Leduc and if it did not go by a school they bussed the kids to a place on the flame path. It was quick and fast but it made us feel apart of the spirit.
This is my parents sitting together in our horse sleigh. It was bought over 90 years ago by my grandfather for his mother when they moved to Alberta. I first saw it in my uncle's barn loft when I was about 8 years old. Two years ago my dad sent it to be refurbished and this is the day it came back home. One trouble - we do not have a harness horse to pull it. Maybe when I start having trouble getting on my horse I should get a harness horse. My family would laugh at this statement - my horse is tall and I already have trouble getting on without a big step. At least my horse stands still nicely for me.