Iron Craft Challenge: Conquer Your Fear

Here is something that I have been wanting to try and was somewhat ambivalent about because of my fear.   Fabric Dying.  I have seen it before with lots of cool ideas... snow dying salt dying, etc.  Over the weekend I went to a retreat.  One of the ladies in our group gave a class on fabric dying. I joined to give it a go as it is much easier to jump into something you are afraid about with someone holding your hand- is it not?

I still wasn't quite sure about it.  Silly me.  I LOVED it.  While I do not have tons of money to jump right out and buy some dyes, I will be open to classes in the future.  I think I may do some natural dying- beets and all and see what I came up with.

We used a cotton that is prepared or shall I say not prepared for dying (called PFD).  It is natural cotton fabric without dyes or sizing or anything like that.  If you use a Kona cotton for example, you will have to scour it to get any chemicals off of it that might be present.

Quilting Retreat

Lucky me, I went on retreat this past weekend.  Our quilting group has a retreat twice a year, Spring and Fall.  I have been very lucky to be a part of it, thanks to my friend Jan.  It is a wonderful group of ladies that getaway for a weekend of sewing and fellowship.  I had the BEST time!

 Did I get a lot done?  Well not nearly as much as I wanted to but I did get a lot accomplished.

 I will show you later what I worked on.  Part of it included dyeing.

It's a beautiful view, isn't it?  I even managed to get a walk or two in.

My New Blankie

This is my Mom (ain't she beautiful?), delivering my blanket.  Isn't it beautiful?  She asked me some time ago what kind of afghan I wanted.  We went to the store and picked out the colors.  The colors I chose were very counter intuitive to her.  She invariably adds white or cream in her blankets.  It's rare we agree on the colors of things.  She tends to pick subdued colors while I pick brights.  She tends to pick quilts that are traditional and very simple with maroon or beige or blue or green.  Nothing too wild.  Me, I tend to pick off beat designs or modern looking things or bright or wild.  As far as art goes.  She picks a very traditional, yawn, simple kind of picture.  And me- well, I like sweepiness and artsiness.  I like wonky.  I like untraditional.  So you see, as far as that goes, my Mom and I coudn't be more different. 

When she agreed to do the colors and design I wanted, it was a bit of a stretch for her.  Granted it still is simple in design but I had to pick something that she would be willing to do.  She kept asking me- are you sure you don"t want another color (like cream)?  Or are you sure you just want stripes?  (I love stripes and darn if I can't get my husband to wear rugby shirts.) No, Ma, I am good where we are. 

I think it is perfect and she surprised herself by liking it.

You can not tell here but there are two light blues- one is periwinkle where the other is a heather blue.

Thanks Mom, I love you.

Iron Craft Challenge: Imaginary Friends, etc.

Over the summer my daughter and I made these.  She did such a great job sewing.  She was very careful as she went around curves and was pretty precise the whole time.  I couldnt have been more proud. 

I really wanted to make something for this weeks challenge but instead I have only this past project to show you.  The piece that I was going to make is sitting on my sewing table, incomplete.  When I get a ball point needle for knits, I will finish it.

I really can't submit this to the group but I will share it.  We drew pictures, cut them out and used them as templates.

Barbie Clothes 1

I have to secretly tell you about my newest adventure. Making Barbie clothes. I tell you in secret as they will be for Christmas for my girls. This one, although I followed the Just Crafty Enough idea of the week for Project Project Runway, I will not be joining. I just don't want to commit to something I may not be able to do at this time.

I have been spending my time finding patterns for Barbie clothes on the internet and at some time I will post them. This one I just made without a pattern.

Iron Craft Challenge: Halloween

The challenge for Iron Craft was Halloween.  I have not entered the challenge in so long.  It seems all I have been doing is canning and tending to the kids.  This week I really wanted to enter.  While I am not big on Halloween, I did totally enjoy this project and my kids will be glad to have something to decorate our house with.

Thanks Kat, et al.

You can find this group and others on Just Crafty Enough.  Come on, join the fun.

What to do with my Farmer's Wife

It's a conundrum.  I have so much color going on in my blocks.  Well, too much color, really.  It is very difficult, at least for me, to decide how to set this one up.  Depressing really. So I set it aside.  I thought nothing really looks good with this.  Sashing doesn't set the colors far enough apart.  Too much chaos in this quilt.  I thought I had better set it with black or white?  Straight up and down or on point....  ???

 I dunno.

I even tried a different design.  I thought this would be kind of cool so I cut up all the white and sewed it together and thought it look rather silly.  Then I ripped it all out.  I did actually rip out that lavender block (the one in the inner square bottom left) that was sewed wrong and redo that one too.

Any suggestions on where to go from here?

Hearts That Found a Home

I have not been to many garage sales this year.  That's okay because sometimes I ge tthings I might not necessarily need.  I did find this pile of hand appliqued hearts.  I said to the woman who appliqued them, "are you sure you want to get rid of those?"  I appreciate the time that went into these.  I bought the pile for a dollar.  I will put something together because I don't want all that energy and time she spent to just sit there unloved.

The older fabric/Civil war type stuff and Americana is not my style.  While I like to look at it and have an appreciation, it just doesn't fit in my house.  Eventually I will find the right person to give it too.