Memorial Weekend

 A couple of  weeks ago we packed up the camper, as we were heading in the house for the night I snapped a picture of the crescent moon. How beautiful.

 We arrived at the campground early Fri. morning, quickly set up camp and went on a hike. It felt so good to be out in the woods. Here we are at the top of a dune over looking Lake Michigan. It was quite a long hike up and we're not in top shape after winter, but we made it and after doing it for a few days we're  now in better shape!

 The Lady Slippers were blooming.

A woodpeckers buffet. This tree was still alive even with all the woodpecker holes in it.

We came back with alder branches.

 We cut up the branches and put them in the bottom of my dye pot with wool fabric. Rolled the leaves up in wool fabric.

Rolled beach nut leaves up in wool.

 And rolled up oak leaves, I'm not to sure if any color will come as all the leaves are so soft and flimsy. They felt like tissue paper.

 So on top of the alder bark went my strainer and the rolled up leaves.

 Put the lid on and placed the pot on our fire and let it steam an hour.

This is at home 3 days later. The alder bark fabric, on the right is premordanted wool and the left has no mordant. I love the mottled look, they will be perfect background fabrics for my quilts.

Back camping, this was one of our nights supper, I got this recipe off Martha Stewart. You double your foil and layer sliced red potatoes, cod fish, dill, sliced lemon, peeled uncooked shrimp, and fresh corn. A few slices of real butter, salt and pepper more dill and lemon.

 Roll up tight put on the coal for about 20 minutes, rotating every once in a while.

Heavenly!! It was so good I made it the next night too.

The rest of the rolled up fabric is still processing in a zip lock bag with a heavy book on top of it. Next week we'll see the results.

Cherry Bark

 My wool fabric in the cherry bark dye turned out great. The piece on the left was premordanted and the one on the right had no mordant, it dyed a much more rosy color. Bark has so much tannin in it you really don't have to premordant it for great light fastness.

I like to bundle my fabric to get lots of shading in the color, but I wish I wouldn't have bundled it up quite so tight and let a little more dye get through.

 For all my herb society friends, at last weeks meeting we had a salad potluck.

 We had a wonderful variety (Deb I brought your pear salad, everyone loved it).

After eating we cleaned up the gardens and planted flowers at our meeting house.

I hope you have a great holiday weekend, my husband and I are going camping "up north". I can't wait, I have my dye pots and fabric packed waiting for treasurers from our hikes.

Quilt Guild Challenge

 This August AQS (American Quilt Society) will be having a show in Grand Rapids, Mi.  Local quilt guilds are invited to submit quilts to represent their guild. Our guild accepted the challenge, the following are a few of my favorites. (I didn't participate). This first one shows the two challenge fabrics required, the rusty red and the Asian print. The name of the Challenge was Patchers at the Lakeshore.
This quilt was made by Judith Cantu.

 The title for this quilt is Patchers Past and Present by Barbara Hassenrik. What a great design idea.

 Bathing suit from the present,

 and bathing suits from the past.

 Paggy Iverson designed and made this beautiful quilt.

 Up close you can see a scene from a day at our lakeshore complete with a flag flying the Pals logo.

 Designed, painted and quilted by Aimee Maas.

 Nancy Boxer used the print fabric to applique on a beautiful vase and flowers.

 Sue Baker show cased our light house and the sailing ships.

 Close up of the light house with pieced quilts on a fence. Cute little metal gate hinges.

 One member brought this cute quilt for Show and Tell,

with lots of wonderful details. This is a comercial pattern.

 With a resent wind a huge branch broke off from our (choke) cherry tree.

 I gathered up some bark and twigs,

 put them in a pot with water and simmered them on the stove for a hour, it smelled wonderful like cherry tea.

They say to let bark soak for a week or so but I put in a little piece of wool in overnight, it came out with a wonderful orange, gold color. In a couple of days I'll put in a large piece of wool.

Girlfriend quilt getaway!!

 My girlfriends and I left Friday after work for a weekend quilt retreat. We went up North to Laura's cottage. We didn't sleep much but we did sew and laugh a lot. Saturday night we went down to the lake  and enjoyed the full moon, full and big it was! The moon was beautiful with it's reflection in the water and fog on the hills.

 We stayed quite awhile photographing it from different areas along the lake.

 And finally back on the deck at the cottage. Then the clouds came rolling in.

 Good night moon!

The following are a few of the projects that were worked on. Some made these cute totes, that in real life are quite large, great to hold beach towels.

 Ok, now my grandsons are playing baseball so of course they need baseball pillow cases.

 I finished putting on the last star boarder on my quilt. I started this quilt about 18 years ago, picking wildflowers from our river property and printing them on treated fabric with the sun. Then I purchases the navy blue African printed fabrics years later and finally dyeing the last boarder fabric myself  years later. There will be one more indigo fabric strip added to finish the boader.

 Cathy O. finished binding a t-shirt quilt she made her grandson for his high school graduation.

 Jamie finshed a cute, cute dog quilt she's making for her grandson. This is a commercial pattern.

 Jamie and her husband just returned from visiting their son and his family in Japan. I asked her before she left if she found any used Kimonos would she bring me one back. She found this beautiful silk one. My "model" Joni tried it on for pictures.

 She looks great in it.

 Detail of the cranes flying along the ribbons. Cranes are a sign of good luck.

 Hand couched gold cording along some of the flower edges.

Along our ride the woods were full of trillium's.