Just finished up a little project for a friend

A friend at work made two of the cutest quilts for her new twins. I quilted them up with some plain loop-d-loos and added two receiving blankets into her bundle which I am taking in to her Wednesday. 

Hope she likes them. 

40 years August 15

What else can I say...40 years together and still in love!  How lucky can you get!  

We had a quiet and romantic BBQ supper and talked most of the night.  The perfect anniversary.  

The start of a signature wedding quilt

August first came so fast but I had all the signature blocks ready for people to write their names or nice little notes to the happy couple. 

The wedding had a camouflage theme and although I was not sure how it would turn out, it came together beautifully.  And the bride looked gorgeous in her camp dress.

It took a couple weeks after the wedding for me to get the signed blocks back.  Here are a couple pieces laid out on the floor to give you an idea what it will look like. The quilt will have a similar look...camo, pink, and green. 

 I think it will look wonderful. 

A kick starter....self binding receiving blankets

Boy am I behind in my posts.  I cannot believe it.  I started this post July 20th more than a month ago.  

Seems like I have been swamped, preparing wedding quilt signature blocks, visiting, piecing several of my projects on the go, worrying about my hubby's hip, and worrying about oil prices.  At one point I felt so disjointed that I just had to do a little project to kick start me..a quick win so to speak! 

Because my girlfriend's daughter is having a baby and one of the ladies at work was also pregnant I thought I would learn how to do self binding receiving blankets for quick gifts and to increase my skills. Missouri Star Quilt company has a great little video showing how to do this with little stress.... Hey just what I needed!  

Turns out the process is easy and fun and literally takes about 1/2 hour. Here is my first try:  

Aren't they cute! I think I will do a couple more just to have on hand for small gifts. 

And the project did exactly what I wanted ... Kicked started me... Back in the grove.  

What a weekend! Dye or die! Or both...I am wiped!

 I was supposed to teach a little class on dying material.. We could not find enough participants so the class was cancelled but my daughter and I decided to have a long 4 day weekend devoted to fabric dying. She wanted to make baby wraps and I wanted to add to my knowledge of dying techniques.  So we got together...what a weekend!  She has the art background and eye and I have the fabric (sewing and quilting) knowledge.  

We used Procion and Dylon dyes on two types of fabric..cotton and Osnaburg. I have never used Dylon dye or sewn with Osnaburg material.  She wanted to try immersion dyng and I had never tried that (two methods...adding water to a dye bath or raising the material out of a dye solution an inch at a time).   I introduced her to shibori and other similar techniques.  Here are some of the beautiful pieces she produced. 

Immersion dying:  purples to orange - Dylon dyes on natural Osnaburg fabric.  

Huge chunk of Osnaburg immersed in blue dye and then shibori dyed with black/grey.   Approx 15 feet.  

A large piece twisted, tied, and dyed.. 102 inches.

By the end of the weekend she had also sewn three baby carriers.  

This little guy will be out of this before you know it..good thing she made some bigger versions. 

Over the weekend we had done immersion, shibori, tie-dye, shaving cream dying, scrunch dying and a little sun dye (Oh and a little painting and clay modelling). 

Mine seem petty compared with my daughter's as I was just doing more experiments with dying on cotton... Nothing super exciting....( I love Melody Johnsons techniques so was trying to replicate some of her vibrant colours.).  Another post maybe..

Rhydian's quilt

I had great fun making this little quilt for my girlfriend's grandson.  I am really quite pleased with how it turned out.  

It was, once again, an adventure designing this little boy's quilt as I changed it out several times before I was satisfied with the design. It started out as a jelly roll strip quilt.  I didn't think that was boyish enough so I added some trains and cars...but I hated it. The idea was ok but the colours a little too busy and the appliqué was terrible. Here it is.....

I set it aside for a while and then cut it up into circles.  Those then sat on my design wall for a week or so before thinking about the idea of having little cars run around strip quilt worlds.  Each one carries a letter of his name or day, month, year of his birth. 

My hope is that it grows old and scraggly with loving use. Welcome to the world Rhydian!  

Little charity quilt

One of the guild members pieced this little charity quilt and I had the honour of quilting it.