Earth Day dyeing

My husband bought me this beautiful pot of flowers, filled with purple/blue blossoms. I love their cute little purple centers, (the picture doesn't quite show the true color).

For my own Earth Day "party" I clipped off flowers, laid them on some wet pre mordanted  wool,

rolled them up tightly, put it in a plastic bag and placed them into the freezer.

India Flint www.prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com, recommends with purple/blue flowers that they be frozen first, then dyeing the cloth with the juice. I'm trying to print the flower design on the fabric, I left them in the freezer for about a week, now their out and under heavy books, I'll repeat the process a few more times. Hopefully in the end I'll have fun purple print fabrics.

I also rolled some up in pre mordant raw silk.
In a few weeks we'll see the results.

At night I've been hand- quilting on my wool,

two years ago I dye printed these little dandelion flowers,
It's almost time for them to be blooming in my yard.

Easter Decorating

I'm at work today trying to recuperate from Easter weekend. It was wonderful but exhausting. I had 20 for Easter dinner and the kids egg hunt. One of my favorite parts of hosting holiday dinners is the decorating, (keeping fun ideas for kids in mind).
I started with the candle for the table, a cute idea I found on "Pinterest", A glass vase, the bottom filled with jelly beans, marshmallow Peep rabbits surround a candle set in the middle.

I set it in the center of my cake stand,

surrounded by hot-rod rabbits made from Twinkies, pretzel steering wheels, and Life Saver car wheels (another idea from Pinterest). For the gluten-free kids I made a chocolate cake and cut out a few car shapes. They loved them.

 

Sitting on the (finally shut off)  wood stove in an antique pink dish (that was my husband's great-grandma's) was a rabbit my girlfriend made me years ago..

Somehow it worked even with the neon yellow grass!

Outside to greet everyone I changed out my flower pot by taking out some of the winter greens and berries, adding in fresh pussy willows and eggs. Soon I'll be replacing all with flowers for the summer. I can't wait. 

Last week at quilt bee my friend showed her quilt she just finished for her grandsons high school graduation, made with his favorite sports t-shirts and some pictures of him playing sports transferred to fabric. Keeping this idea in mind for my grandsons, luckily quite a few years away.

Tomorrows my birthday and Earth day so I will be celebrating (a little after work) in the studio natural dyeing with some flowers my husband bought me. See you soon and have a great day!

I missed seeing the Blood Moon in all it's glory but this morning there was the full moon reflecting off the ice in the bird bath. At 24 degrees we have a lot of ice patches still around.

The past 2 weeks I have spent every minute of my free time Spring cleaning the house and outdoors raking the yard. By Saturday hubby and I will be finished and ready to enjoy summer.
I also spent a little time cleaning this quilt I made a few years ago called "The Florida We Know". Every winter for the past 30 years we've taken the our kids vacationing in Florida. We spent most of our time at different beaches swimming, snorkeling and of course collection shells. I made this piece using some of  the shells.
I still had a few more pieces that the grandkids collected that needed to be sewed on.

Horseshoe crabs and a blue crab. Before stitching them on I coated them with a thick coat of white glue, inside and out.

The crabs are so fragile and this seems to give them a little more strength.

They dry clear.

The grandkids also found sharks teeth along the beach near their old home.
(I didn't coat the teeth)

Quilt Guild with Kim Diehl

Last night at Quilt Guild our guest speaker was Kim Diehl from Utah. She taught classes for 2 days and put on a beautiful trunk show last night of  her quilts.  Kim has written several quilt books and designed several lines of fabric.
The following are a just a few of her own design quilts she showed (patterns are available in her books).
 

Starting with this beautiful heavily appliqued and pieced quilt.

This is just a simple pieced quilt with great applique boarders that turn it into a great piece .

Her applique designs are beautiful.

A intricate pieced center with applique boarders. Love the corner treatments.

Another applique boarder, wonderful on black fabric.

This quilt was so much fun with the great color choices and applique running all through the blocks.

I never would have picked this background color but wow it is sharp.

I believe this was one of the classes she taught, one way done all in cottons.

and another way done in cotton with wool applique.
I love the use of both fabrics.

Another quilt pieced with cotton fabric and appliqued with wool.

I'm not a big pink person but this is a beautiful "Summer" piece in muted colors.

A little Americana.

More pieced with cotton and appliqued with wool.

This was one of the guild members work. A cute Easter quilt with great paisley fabric boarders. I believe this is a commercial pattern.