Camping craft for children

Hoffmaster campground has a wonderful nature center, filled with snakes, turtles and frogs. They also have a lot of displays about the plants and animals of the dunes. And my favorite, a slide show of wild flowers in the park. Here we are observing the different creatures (right now the kids are watching a snake eat a mouse). After the nature center we went to the beach and collected driftwood, then to the creek to pick up little stones to make a turtle sculpture. About 20 years ago when my kids were small we went camping at Hoffmaster with our good friends and made these same sculptures.

Here we are back at my home and the kids (even big brother made this craft) are painting their stones in turtle colors. They then painted sea shell macaroni to look like lady bugs. The driftwood on the left is my daughters' old one, now our model. (Little brother painted his for a while but left before I took a picture.)

And here are the finished nature sculptures, the boys loved them.

Natural green dye

For the Fourth of July weekend we went North to a pow wow. One last camping trip before the grand children headed home. The grand children were invited to sit at the drum with grandpa during the pow wow, they are very good at playing and singing with the adults. Kids learn so quickly.

This little girl was so cute, she's a "fancy" dancer. Her mother made her a beautiful outfit.

The back of her shawl with turtle applique.

Her younger sister.

The back of her dance shawl with heart applique.

I loved this women's traditional outfit with dragon fly applique.

The back with a beautiful copper pin.

A field across from our camp was full of plants, the twins came to help me pick St. John's Wort for the dye pot. We also picked these mullein leaves, I thought I'd try them not really thinking I'd get much color.

This is the St Johns Wort plant, you have to pick the tiny, little yellow flowers, it takes a lot for a dye pot. Last year I tried dying with them (from a different area in the State) and I got a dull light gold. I thought I would give it one more try as dyers have had great results getting green and rusty red.

Back in the dye studio the kids rip up the mullein leaves for the dye pot.

After simmering the St. Johns Wort for an hour, then simmering wool fabric (premordanted with alum) I finally got green!!!! I can't believe it and it's a nice green. It said in my book to next add a piece of nonmordanted wool to the dye bath and you should get a rusty red, I don't think I had enough dye left I got pinky tan. (the next piece of fabric on the line).

I then simmered the mullein for a good hour then added in the premordanted wool and got this rich dark yellow. I was very surprised.

This is the fabric in a line up: St. Johns Wort (alum mordant), St. Johns Wort (no mordant), mullein.

Happy Fourth of July

I made this picnic table cloth in the late 80s with my husbands, kids and my jeans. I cut out the long leg portions, ironed the edges under, butted them up next to each other and zig zaged them together with red thread. I put 3 pockets on each side for napkins and utensils. I was excited to find the red calico fabric with blue flowers on it (this was the 80's) to match the jeans for the back and binding. We still use the cloth for all our picnics. As my grandchildren out grew their first pair of jeans my daughter gave them to me and I added their pockets to the center of the quilt (saving the other center side for the someday grandchildren of my son).
The napkin holder is a Lynette Jensen of Thimbelberries design. I painted a clay pot and saucer creamy white and hot glued vintage buttons on along the edge.
I hope you have a great Fourth of July, we're going camping up North at a pow wow with the kids.

Camping in Michigan

Our daughter and grand kids are home on vacation for a few of weeks. We went camping last week at one of our beautiful state parks on Lake Michigan. The weather was perfect, hot, sunny and no rain or mosquitos. (I really posted these pictures backwards but I'm rushed and not thinking clearly, I need sleep:). The camp (P. J. Hoffmaster) we stayed at has a beautiful creek running through it, our campsite was right on it. This shows where the creek runs into Lake Mi.

We have huge sand dunes (not found anywhere else in the world) that everyone loves to climb.

And wonderful hiking trails through magical forests. When I was a kid one of my favorite Disney movies (I think was called) The Gnome Mobile. Hiking through the woods here reminds me of that movie. I loved these 3 little spruce trees growing out of one little trunk along side a huge spruce tree.

Here are two of my little "Gnomes" sitting in a tree.

This is the creek running along our camp, the kids loved playing in it catching minnows and water skippers with their nets.

The twins tried their hand at fishing, but they liked playing in it best.

Antique/new coffee table

My girlfriend Deb C. gave me this wonderful old storm window to make into a coffee table for my dye studio. This is how it looked when I started. The legs I bought are standing behind it. I began by painting on primer and 2 coats of cream color paint. I had this old bear paw quilt I bought years ago, there were only a few good blocks in it, I used them and I cut and pieced the lattice strips for the other window panes. My husband made the table so it will open from the bottom and I can change out the quilt later.

And this is the finished table, which I thought looked great, but the minute I put it in the room I knew I didn't like it with the other furniture. It was too tall and too bright, it looked like a big boat!
My furniture is too contemporary to go with it. So, my husband cut the legs down and I proceeded to repaint it again, another 3 coats. It now has 6 coats of fresh paint on and how many from years ago I don't know.

I don't know if this is as cute as it was, but now it's sort of county/contemporary (if there is such a thing) and goes a lot better with the furniture.

Here's the finished table with my furniture. Now, I don't know if I like it with the yellow quilt squares.

I did have the dye pot going trying to get green (hm mm) from comfrey. This is picture of the plant in my garden. I used leaves and stems.

And what a surprise I got gold! I thought I'd try an after rinse with iron water, I have a old iron pot that I filled with the left over dye water and simmered it on stove for a hour, I added a piece of the dyed wool and left it awhile. I ended up with this "army" green, which in real life is not that pretty, I didn't add any more fabric. I hate to add wool to an iron modifier as they say it weakens the fibers and when putting the fabric into quilts you want as much life out of your fabric as you can get.

A little bit of everything

On our way to a graduation open house Saturday we passed by these poppies growing along White Lake. They were beautiful swaying with the wind off the water. My good friend Beverly collected a large amount of fabric and a few weeks ago drove down to Gee's Bend and delivered it to the quilters there. (and no, she doesn't know anyone there and they didn't know she was coming). A quilter there gave her this wonderful small wall hanging she made as a thank you. She calls the design Brick Layer. It was designed and made by Mary Ann Pettway.

The back shows the free style hand quilting.

Our speaker at guild this month was Laurie Simpson. She designs a lot of "Americana" type patterns and her and her sister design fabric lines for Moda under the name Minick & Simpson. She's been quilting for around 30 years and bought her first sewing machine 8 years ago, a Singer Feather weight. Most of her quilts are hand pieced and quilted. She works a lot with wool fabric. I loved them. The following are a few of her quilts. This first one is a wool summer/ sailboat wall hanging.

Laurie's sister is a rug hooker. A lot of the quilts Laurie makes her sister makes a coordinating rug. This is her hooked star rug, she uses old wool clothing. Laurie with her wool star quilt.

This wool quilt Laurie made to hang in her dinning room and coordinates with her vintage Fiesta ware dishes.

Her sisters matching hooked table topper with wool "tongues" along the edge.

Laurie free hand cut wool circles for this quilt, while her sister hooked the vine surrounding the quilt.

If your interested in learning more about her and her quilts she has a wonderful blog http://minick%20and%20simpson.blogspot.com/

Memorial Day weekend

Nothing is better than a obligation free long holiday weekend, beginning Saturday I quilted this mariners compass I pieced of few years ago. I love the background fabric on this piece, it so represents my family members that come from all over the world. I also finished my round robin compass and hung it up in the gable end of my dye studio. It looks wavy on the edges due to the fact I have it pinned between the different height frame boards of the structure. I also found a good place to put some of my natural dyed yarn.

On Sunday I packed my hand quilting and went to a pow wow with my husband. A native women did this bead work on the back of her vest. She told me this was her husbands favorite t-shirt and when he died she beaded it and sewed it on the back of her vest to honor him.

When one of the dancers came by I realized years ago I had natural dyed his breech clout and sewed a silk binding on the edge. I'm not sure if I used onion skins or turmeric but the color was still beautiful.

Monday morning we packed a picnic lunch and spent the day boating on the river. It was so beautiful and peaceful. After all winter it feels so good to see green!

My husband motoring our boat.

We try to stay off the main branch of the river and take the little tributaries, there's so much more wild life there. The water lillies were just beginning to open. The color was beautiful.

This is a huge blue heron taking off from the lillies.

Along one of the banks this huge turtle was sunning himself. His neck and head are on the right side.