Snow Dying

As we have had a little warm spell and the snow was melting yesterday. I thought I would snow dye some fabric.  I also got the timer to work and took a photo of myself knelling by the fabric.

It was sunny and warm yesterday, just look at the great blue sky we had. No sun today just grey.

I hope this one turns out. I placed the fabric with a spin and have laid out the fabric with a plaid like pattern.

I am off the wash the nine pieces out now.

I have added this to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday and Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.

Pink Scrappy Saturday

I finally got to do some patchwork sewing on Friday night and some late today. So I got started on my Pink scraps. I am planning to do the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2013. I did great at keeping up last year. Please check it out and join me on using up the little bits of fabric.

I came across a row by row this fall and kept it in mind. It was week #2 over at Bee in My Bonnet that I found the butterflies. I love adding in White as my background and keeping the body of the butterflies in black. I really love Row 4 Apples and cores. I will have to find some way to use the apples.

I got 20 done. I thought I would start with the butterflies because they use large pieces of fabric. The Butterflies measure 4 1/2" unfinished.

I have also done 9 spools. I started this midway thought last year. They are a leaders and enders challenge from Bonnie Hunter.

I have added today's post to Soscrappy Linky Party.

Design Wall Monday Easy Street

I have been able to keep up with the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Easy Street even if I did not post much the past few weeks. To see the Monday Linky party that Bonnie is hosting Click Here. I know there are a few in other colours. I just love the colours she used and was not going to change it. I now wish my grey was darker. It would show off the chain running thought the quilt better. My aunt used very different colours and used Black not grey. So her chain really shows. Her web site is Smiley Quilter. Seeing my aunts quilt makes me what to change my four patches all to black and not grey. What do you think? Should I fix it? It is a small fix and I would not have too many blocks to unpick to get it fixed.

I have also added today's post to Judy's Design Wall Monday Linky Party.

I am still machine quilting my show quilt. I plan to get it done and photos done so I can enter it in the Canadian National Juried show. I have to get my entry in the mail no later than Friday. I will be doing tons of hand stitching tonight and the next two days. I can not show you the quilt till I know if it got in or not. Sorry.

Pink Scrappy Saturday

Happy New Year everyone. Today is the first Saturday of the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge for 2013 over at Soscrappy. I am jumping in and doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year. I just love it. This month our first colour to work with is PINK. I got my scraps sorted well last year and I have to keep on top of it again this year.

This past week I just spent a little time cutting and preparing kits for some Pink spools (to the left) then I have a block in mind that needs 2" squares and Triangle so the stacks on the right are sorted out with that in mind. So far I have not sewn any patches yet.

I have been very busy this week. We cleaned many parts of the house and took bottles back, a load to good will and a load to the dump today. We still have more to get out of the house. I also have been machine quilting my entry for the Canadian National Juried Show. A photo and entry is due very soon. I hope to be done the machine quilting on Sunday and start the binding by Monday and be ready to take photos by Thursday at the latest. Sorry I can not show you.

I have also been working on the Easy Street Mystery with Bonnie Hunter. I just had to do it. I love the colours that she was using this year. Here are my piles of yardage.

And here is the box with all my units done. I got this far by New Years Eve and was able to sew a little more. There is a link on Monday to show off how far we all got. I will have some blocks done to show off.

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.

Dog Coat Finished

I started and finished a winter coat for my Chessy Lex. We have a Christmas Agility Dog Trial this week end. I want to leave him in the van as much as I can. But it is cold so, time for a dog coat. I did not want to spend $80 or more just to have him chew it. I got it done enough to have him wear it a little the other day and then finished the trim tonight. It is Quilted. I made the purple lined with an old wool blanket and quilted it on the long arm. I used a t shirt for the turtle neck part. I made Black double bias binding with black Kona. I very happy with it. Next time I might buy one it was lots of work.

I have added this to Crazy Mom Quilts

Lex early this fall, when the grass was still green. 

I am donating this table runner to the dog trial this weekend. They have many prizes to raffle off that are very dog related. Last year I won a prize to go train at the winter barn a few times. They are also raffling off some Agility equipment. I really have my heart set on those prizes, so best take my money.

Customers Christmas Quilt

I have been quilting up a storm this past month. I must stay on track. This quilt was picked up last week and I asked if I could show it off. She is a fairly new quilter and did a really good job putting it together. Sometimes I see quilts with blocks on point that are a little miss shaped, but not this one. It was very straight on all sides.

Holly and berries are every where. The quilting really showed well on the cream triangles.

Here is the block, I have used curved echoing on the star.

I can not wait for the next step on Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt. Today I load another quilt, all Batiks.  I also hope to have a little winter finish to show you for Friday.

Easy Street Started

I have started Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery quilt. I did Orca Bay last year but it is not finished yet. I hope to work on Easy Street and finish my Orca bay over the next year. These are the four patches using 2" strips of fabric. I love these little squares. I believe I got 200 done, a few extras in case I lose some.

I have linked up to Bonnie's Easy Street Linky Page and Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

I also have my second table runner top done. The top one is not quilted yet. But I can give the finished one away this weekend at the dog trial and know I can keep the other one. I am very very close to running out of the green. I believe I have enough to finish the binding for the second one then that will be it for the green.

Talking about dog Trials, I thought I would go to Regionals for the Agility Associations of Canada (AAC) this June 2013. While I planned to go but the good news is it will be close to home. Yes! Then I found out Nationals will be in Leduc (Aug 1-4,2013) my town, on the soccer fields were my boys play soccer. I want to qualify now for Nationals. If I do not make it I will  help and watch good dogs. But I never dreamed of going to Nationals, thought it would be out east this year. I can hardly believe I have a small chance of going to Nationals. I just started competing last year.

Scrappy Sunday?

The internet was out of wack yesterday so, This should be a Scrappy Saturday but is late. I finished up my black scraps. I got nine of these 6 " 16 patch blocks done. They have a fear bit of colour in them.

I have add this post to Soscrappy link party. there are more black and grey scraps to see.

More spools I did from Bonnie Hunter's Leader's and Ender's Challenge.

I make this little needle book with a quilted scrap of white. I might give it to someone for at Christmas time.

All of my black scraps up on the design wall at one time. Not bad for the month. Next month we are to finish up some of our rainbow quilts.

I have also started Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter;s new mystery quilt. She promises to make this one easier than the late two mystery's. My aunt Arley at My favourite Things has started with some different colours. I love the colours and will stick to the ones Bonnie has chosen. Monday is a linky party at Bonnie's site. I have to go sew today.