Michigan Quilter

Quilt Retreat

2009-11-10T12:22:00.005-05:00

The weekend before our quilt retreat Kay, Carla and I got together and natural dyed wool as gifts for the girls on the retreat. We decided to use the fabric for next years quilt challenge.It rained all weekend but stopped long enough for us to do the indigo dying outside. This is a picture of our blues and greens (Osage orange bark over dyed with indigo).

I always machine wash my fabric after dying it (if the color doesn't make it in the wash I don't want to use it for making quilts). After washing all the fabric I didn't know where to hang the large amount so I put up lines in my studio. As I looked at it when I finished it looked like the prayer flags the Buddhist monks hang in Tibet. This shows some of the wonderful colors we got.

This gave everyone a nice color selection for their quilt.

This was a few pieces we dyed at the end when we mixed dye pots and over dyed. I love how all natural dyed pieces go together. Only "nature" can accomplish that!

This was my piece for this years bee challenge (I'm in the balcony photographing it. This year you were suppose to make a block for every month. The block was to tell a story of your month. I had started making a quilt like that before and just continued on. My blocks were different dye plants and other plants that I use in that month. I designed and hand appliqued each block using my dyed wools. Some of the blocks are the plants I picked with my grandchildren, another one is from when I went to the dye workshop out West (wild carrot). The ceder I embroidered when we we're in Seattle on a Native reservation. Ceder is so important in their lives, from the canoes they carve to the hand woven hats they wear. So when I see these blocks I am reminded of the times my family and I spent together. The blocks in between I used my natural dyed wool (except for the black).

The day was so pretty out I took my quilt out for a "photo shoot"! Lake Michigan in the background.

This is Judy's piece, she button-hole stitched all the felt pieces by hand.

Mary made a "base" of crazy quilted blocks (her sewing machine did all the stitches, they almost look hand embroidered). She then sewed on Velcro to hold the small quilts she made to change for every month. This is a few of her months, she tried different techniques on the pieces.

May, she did hand applique and yoyos.

January, hand embroidery.

And November, a pieced "taco salad". Every year Mary makes a taco salad for us to eat while at the cabin.

Lillian made four pieces to represent the special things of each season.

Kay, recycled a piece she made in 1984. It was a group piece from a different bee. Everyone made 12 of the same blocks, each representing a different month. Then they got together and exchanged them. Everyone put their on top together.

We were at the cabin for almost a week so a lot of projects were made. Quite a few were snowmen quits. How can you not love a snowman quilt! This is a few of them, Kay made the red and black one and the little wall hanging (they still need to be quilted). I machine quilted a piece I started a few years ago. Lillian had given us all a large panel of snowwomen having a quilt show. I cut mine apart and pieced it with flannel sashing and added flannel boarders. It made a nice lap size quilt to curl up with this winter.

Close up of the blocks.

I did have a few pictures of the sunsets we had while there but somehow I deleated them, oh well, the camera never looks as good as in real life.

2009-10-30T10:15:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween! I love this holiday, just a fun day for kids (and big kids) with no gifts to buy. I only wish my grand kids were here to help celebrate the holiday.I had to show you this pumpkin I bought. It looks like it's a cross between a pumpkin and a cantaloupe. I think it looks like its covered with lace everyone else thinks warts.

Again this year a group of the top floral artist from all over the Midwest gathered and created floral art at one of the designers home. The theme this year was "Floral Art - Museum Inspirations", with over 30 exhibits through the candle lit trail in the woods. This is open to the public with the entrance fees going to charity. This gazebo is the entrance of the walk. I love it and want to build one in my back yard.

This is a beautiful hand made cement bird bath set on a old tree stump. The following pictures are a few of the exhibits inspired by the great masters in the art world.

Along the creek was this exhibit inspired by the artist Andy Goldsworthy (1956-). A British artist that collaborates with nature to make his creations. Works with twigs, leaves, stones, reeds etc.

Guiseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) An Italian painter best known for creating portrait heads of fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, books.

Ford Smith (current). Introduced to painting at age 12 by elderly Japanese painter. He paints primarily landscapes.

The floral artist who lives here designs and creates twig sculptures through out the woods.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Spanish born but lived in France. He formed a style known as "cubism". His works reflect crisis and conflicts in symbolic terms.

Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939). of Moravia. Czech art Nouveau painter and decorative artist known for his images of women.

I believe everything is natural (no fabric etc. only some wire).

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). A Russian artist is considered the original abstract painter (painting has no recognizable subject).

Peter Max (1937-) Born in Berlin. A multi-dimensional artist who works with oils, acrylics, water colors, dyes, charcoal.

Tiffany (1848-1933) Developed the Tiffany glass and with colored glass made vases, cigarette boxes, lampshades, and tile for walls and floor. This "lamp shade" had bit of colored glass worked in. It was beautiful hanging in the tree tops.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) French impressionist paintings of ballet dancers and other performers. He sold his paintings for a respectable sum.
There were many, many more wonderful exhibits along with homemade cookies, coffee, cider and other treats. If you'd like to know more, this is their web site www.naturescreativeedge.com.

Next week I'm leaving with my girlfriends for a week of quilting at our yearly retreat on beautiful Lake Michigan. I'll see you Nov. 10 with lots of "show and tell".

Home from Florida

2009-10-23T12:20:00.006-04:00

We've been back home from Florid for about a week, I've been so busy at work (where I do all my blogging) I haven't had time to blog! I guess that's a good problem to have now days. My husband and I had a wonderful time babysitting our grandchildren.

I did finish all their new full size "sports " quilts, I did the hand work on the bindings while on the ride down and finished the last one while they were in school. Here they are with their new quilts, big brothers I made a couple of years ago is on his bed. Hopefully I have everyone set until they graduate from high school!

As soon as mom and dad left on their vacation we got out all of the Halloween decorations. The quilt on the left is a wall hanging I made for them a couple of years ago but the twin thinks it's his bed quilt and sleeps with it every night. Their watching TV as I took the picture.

The littlest one loved this Halloween kitty.

We went to visit all the neighbors decorations. Big brother played football with the neighbors, he's growing up.

The littlest one didn't quite understand this scarecrow.

It was 94 degrees when we got there and very high humidity we spent a lot of time in the pool. The youngest loved the shop vac and was so funny vacuuming with his swimming gear on. He is such a character, he could have his own cartoon show.

Very seldom am I awake at sunrise but on the ride home we start early. This was a beautiful sunrise over a farmers field with hundreds of wind turbines.

Earlier in the summer I dyed with this bright red hibiscus flower and wanted to share the pictures with you. I picked a bag full of the blossoms discarding any green parts.

Simmered them in a pot of water until the petals turned clear, you could see all the color came out of them and the water became like jello. Added my fabric and let it simmer an hour, left it cool overnight. The fabric was purple when I took it out, I tried to keep it but as it hit the air and I washed it, it turned a gray shade. Half of the fabrics I did a after rinse with a little vinegar which made it a truer gray and the other half a added a little ammonia to the rinse water and got this beautiful green.

This picture does not do the color any justice, they are different dark greens from different batches of the flowers.

Row by Row Quilt

2009-10-05T13:59:00.006-04:00

One of the quilt bees I belong to are having a "row by row" quilt exchange this year. We started by making our own first row. We then met and exchanged them. Next Sept. we will get our own back with an additional 5 rows and lattice strips added from each bee member.

I have been collecting Halloween fabrics for years always planning on making myself a quilt. This was the perfect time to finally get my "ultimate" Halloween quilt made. This is my row I passed on with a lot of other fabrics they can use. We exchange rows every 2 months. You won't see yours until next Sept. A close up of a great fabric by Alexander Henry.

An old traditional piecing pattern called spider web, I embroidered in the spider.

Laura with a snowman themed row.

Close up.

Joni's row by row, goes with her living room.

Close up.

Cathy's black and white with a spark of tropical color.

Close up.

Jody's row by row, goes in her living room.

Close up.

Jamie's row by row with Christmas theme fabrics.

Close up.

My husband and I are leaving for Florida to babysit our grandsons for a week. Living in Michigan it is peak apple, squash and pumpkin time. I went to the farmers market today and stocked up on the produce to bring to the kids. I also finished the little ones "sports" quilts and have them packed in the car. By the time I finish packing I hope hubby and I will fit in.

Fiber Festival Weekend

2009-09-29T13:00:00.008-04:00

A couple of weekends ago I invited some friends over and we had "Fiber Fest". The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny. We all worked on our own "fiber" projects, some playing with natural dyes all weekend. On the Wednesday evening before Carla came over and we began mordanting her cotton fabric (which takes a good 3 days to complete), then Kay came Friday night and we mordanted her wool fabric and yarn. Becky and Windi came Friday, set up their camp in my backyard and threw their linen in the mordant pot. This was everyone Sat. afternoon, taking a break and sharing ideas, Judy is showing Jody a cute wool pincushion pattern.

One of the first dye pots was onion skins, one of our favorites, this is Carla's cotton in first before the wool goes in and sucks up all the dye. We would give her fabric a "head start".

Kay checking out some of the first dyed fabrics. She's loving her wool!

Some of the wool fabrics (some with onion skins still clinging) and a couple of skeins of Kays yarn, 70% wool and 30% cotton. It is so beautiful in real life, the way the dye reacted to the different fibers.

Windi and Beckys camp, they do Renaissance reenacting and this is a traditional "tent" called a lean pee.

Becky with her raw sheep wool, she spent a good deal of time washing and sorting it.

Becky learning how to spin with a drop spindle.

Her first hand spun skein of wool!

Carla with the indigo pot. She was very careful not to get bubbles in the dye pot and ended up spending a lot of time in this position, dipping the fabrics and yarn.

Some of our fabrics, the green was originally yellow (goldenrod) over dyed with the indigo.

At night Windi and her friend TJ fired up their torches and made glass beads. They made some beautiful beads, I was so tired I didn't get a picture of them.

Some of the linen fabrics the girls dyed. The fabrics with the tie-dye look Windi wrapped around blown-out goose eggs and dipped them in different dye pots. She dyed her fabric and eggs at the same time. She's very clever.

Carla's cotton fabrics.

Becky's linen.

And Windi's eggs, the front left one she cut out a feather sticker and stuck it on before putting it in the dye pots.

This was a basket of "favors" for all who came, the white premordanted fabrics had daffodil bulbs wrapped in it, ready to plant to use for the first dye pots of the spring. The yellow wool fabric shows the color I got with my daffodils. And of course we had a big bowl of chocolate to enjoy!

A little more Colorado

2009-09-25T12:06:00.007-04:00

As we traveled and camped while on our vacation I collected different plants, wrapped them in my premortanted wool, simmered them in the dye pot for an hour or so, and then left them for a week in zip lock bags. On our way home from the workshop I opened them and rinsed them out in the mountain streams we camped by, I could not believe some of the prints, it was like magic. I saw this technique done on India Flint's blog http://www.prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com/ I'm not exactly sure how she does it, this is how I did it. Check out her blog, she is definitely a master at natural dying. She has also wrote a book Eco Colour.
This was my first bundle, I picked some sunflowers along the roadside in Nebraska, wrapped them up in wool and tied them lightly with string (the flowers wrapped around them were for photo purposes, then I threw them in the dye water). Simmered them a good hour, then left to set in the bag with some of the water for a week.

I had to do Aspen leaves and bark in Colorado.

And lichen.

This was one of our camp sites, we had tall cliffs on one side of us and a mountain stream in front.

I was in heaven.

At night we had a campfire along the stream, I quilted for hours.

At the next camp I began rinsing out my fabric bundles in the stream along our camp.

This was the sunflowers, they didn't have much color so I put them in the cochineal pot before I unwrapped them and simmered it awhile. Now they have yellow blobs with the red around them.

Before I left home I wrapped up eucalyptus leaves and stems, (I planted them in my garden this summer). I simmered them, then opened them a week later. Oh my goodness they are unbelievable.

The fabric turned a pale yellow, the leaves left different orange, rust, and deep yellow prints. This picture does not show how wonderful it is. When I hot home I did two more each one better.

And here they are hanging to dry at our camp, left to right, lichen over dyed with wild carrot, lichen over dyed with Navajo tea, eucalyptus and sunflowers over dyed with cochineal.

Another river we camped on. Camping in the Rocky Mountains every night is a wonderful experience, we were on different river or mountain lake every night. Of course we never stayed in "commercial" campgrounds, we camped in the wilderness, in "God's Country".

My fabric rinsed out from the dye workshop, left to right sage, Navajo tea and rabbit bush.

Lichen, cliff rose and wild carrot fresh and dried. It amazes me all the color you get out of the desert plants. More than I can get out of my Michigan plants without an after rinse.

Mesa Verde, Colorado

2009-09-15T13:25:00.008-04:00

When we left the dye workshop stopped and to explore the Anasazi (meaning ancient ones)ruins in Mesa Verde, Colorado. These Native Americans lived in the Southwest 1400 years ago and lived in the cliff dwellings for around 100 years. No one knows for sure why they left but it is believed they became part on the Hopi and many other Native American tribes. Mesa Verde has some of the largest cliff dwellings. Their tucked high into cliffs for protection from enemies and the weather. The parks now has special trails made for the public to hike in.

Close up of one of their kivas where they would have had their sacred ceremonies, pray for rain, luck in hunting, healing rites, good crops and also as a gathering place to weave. The hole is where a fire would have been.

This is how the kiva would look with its' roof in place and the ladder for climbing in and out. Notice the shape of the doors, T shape, one ranger told us they think it was so young children wouldn't fall out. (It still looks pretty big to me).

They have a wonderful museum with beautiful displays of the artifacts that have been found in their garbage dump (they threw everything they didn't want over the cliff in the front of their dwellings). The Anasazi are accomplished potters, I love this piece of pottery with a horn lizard (nicknamed horny toad) painted on.

And the real horn lizard. When we were collecting sage for the dye pots hidden under a plant was a live horn lizard.

Another great pottery shard with pictograph's painted on.

I don't know if you can read the card but it says they found this corn in a vessel buried in a cave and the corn dates back 7 centuries.

They also have a beautiful display of Navajo rugs dating from the 1800's.

There's not much detail to see photographing through glass, just the wonderful colors and design.

We spent the night at the campground near the dwellings, there are many thistle in the area, they are not native to the area but spreading fast.

And this is how it spreads! The seeds blow with the wind.

Navajo rugs

2009-09-08T14:08:00.007-04:00

While at Rose's her daughter in law Leba showed us her weavings she's working on. She weaves with hand spun wool that was Rose's mothers.

This is Leba with her 2 year old son. I was excited to buy this piece from her. This is a "protection" rug. The four dark corners represent the 4 Sacred Mountains, the light brown is lighting, the white with gray tips water bugs and they all are protecting the center which represent the home. A very old tradition is to weave in a "spirit line" near the end of your weaving so your spirit does not become trapped and you can weave another rug. Leba puts these in hers but I'm not sure you can see it here.

Another of Leba's rugs she is working on, I love the details on it, near the bottom is a big mother spider (black with white tips) and running along the bottom are her baby spiders.

One of Rose's granddaughters showing some of the dresses Rose wove for them for important occasions. Their called "biil" dresses.

On Friday night Mary took us to the Crown point auction. The natives bring in their weavings (of all sizes) to be auction off. The auctioneers keep it moving fast. Everything is displayed on the tables before the auction for people to look over. We learned so much from Mary.

This piece was a crowd favorite. Not everyone does this type of weaving.

This was a beautiful piece, it reminds me of an old style weaving.

I didn't buy a weaving at the auction but bought this piece (before we went) from LaVera. Her family, the "Spider Rock Girls" are well known for their top quality weavings. I was happy she had one available for me to buy. Up by her left hand you can see where she "signed" her weaving, it the symbol for squash blossom. She also weaves in a spirit line. Her little sister is with her. There's quite of few girls in the family and they all weave.

The pots are brewing

2009-09-01T08:57:00.009-04:00

We arrived early in the morning at Rose and Henry Dedman's home, they had been up for hours getting the fire and the dye pots going. Henry was still chopping wood for the large fire under the dye pots.

Rose had all the plants cut up and simmering waiting for our wool. The pots she uses were her mothers, where Rose learn how to natural dye. The aroma was wonderful, no chemical smells just nature! It was a beautiful day.

A close up of some of the pots, starting from the back rabbit brush, ground lichen and sage.

Fresh canyaigre (wild carrot) in the front and dried wild carrot in the back with a handful of baking soda mixed in.

Navajo tea, my fabric (premordanted with alum) on the right and wool yarn (premordanted with alum) on the left and natural yarn in the middle. The color difference was fascinating.
I brought some Navajo tea home and have been dying cotton with it and it also turned out a wonderful orange. I was so surprised.

My wool fabric in rabbit brush, it turned a much richer yellow gold after it simmered awhile.

Rebecca (she has a great blog- http://ecologicalartist.wordpress.com/), Rose and myself stirring the pots. The piece I'm holding up is from the lichen pot.

Some of the yarn drying on the fence. My fabric is not there, after it came out of the dye pots I put it in plastic bags and left it a couple of days before I rinsed out the dye in the mountain rivers as we camped our way back home through Colorado. I'll post these pictures soon.
Another great web site is- http://weavinginbeauty.com/ Mary the coordinator for all the workshops has this site and lists all the Navjo weaving happenings in the area. The dye class for next summer is already posted. It was a beautiful experience, I hope some of you are able to attend.

Natural dying in Window Rock, Arizona

2009-08-27T11:51:00.007-04:00

We're back from our vacation and there are so many things to share I don't know where to begin, so I'll start with my dye workshop and collecting the plants for the class. We began our class Thursday night at the Quality Inn in Window Rock, Arizona under their shade house. Mary, (the coordinator) began the session with a "Cochineal Cook off". Although the Navajo really aren't known for their use of the cochineal (insect) in their dying, it is well known for its use in many other parts of south west, Mexico and all the way down through South America. Mary first crushed the bugs and put them in a pot of hot water, then prepared the dye the way it is done in Mexico, with a handful of cream of tarter and a couple of big splashes of lime juice. We let it simmer about an hour then added the wool yarn and my wool fabric. (my fabric was premordanted with alum and most of the yarns were not).

Here you can see the variety of colors we achieved with the different wools. My fabric turned a bright magenta shade while some of the other yarns have an orange shading. What a variety from one dye pot.

The next morning we were up early and met with Rose Dedman (Navajo) our teacher who took us to her "secret" spot to dig for canyaigre (wild carrot). You have to locate it in the early spring because when it's time to harvest the roots it has died back to look like this and it is not easy to spot in the fields.

Here is Rose showing my son how to dig for the roots, they look like sweet potatoes and are any where from a one foot to two feet under ground. Their not easy to get to.

After you find the tubers you finish by digging and pulling them with your hands.

This a nice bunch of fresh tubers, when you dig you find old dried out tubers and new ones. Both are used for dying giving different results. In my next posting I'll show you both colors.

This bush is cliff rose, the other girl in the picture is Rebecca, she is writing a book on natural dying. She worked very hard at collecting all the correct information and her photographer Page took a lot of wonderful pictures. It should be a great book when it comes out. I'll let you know when it does. Anyway, back to cliff rose, you clip off about 3 to 4 inches of the ends of the bush, it leaves your hands feeling like their full of sticky pitch but it washes off very easily. (Rose, Rebecca, my husband and I

We picked a lot of Rabbit Brush.

And a lot of Sage, it's every where you look and smells wonderful. (my husband, Mary and I)

In this "secret" field of sage under some of the plants you find ground lichen.
See you next week for the color results of all these wonderful plants!

Grandma's quilts

2009-08-04T13:27:00.005-04:00

My quilt bee is full of Grandmas, (it's nice to be with friends your own age!) and we're all busy making quilts for our grandchildren. The following are a few of them.This first one is one of 3 I am making for my 3 little grandsons for their big boy beds. They love sports, so I incorporated 4 different sport theme fabrics into each quilt. I made the quilts quite large and no "little kiddie" prints hopefully they last them until they graduate for high school! I made big brothers his a few years ago, football fabrics one side of the quilt and basketball the other.

This is a close up of the first top, the next one will have red lattice in place of the blue and next will have green. I hope to have them finished by October.

Ok, this isn't a grand kids quilt but another block for my "Family Tree" quilt. This is a picture of the first Jolman school that was built in 1865, a one room school. The school has gone through many changes, now it is big brick building. Under the applique I'm starting to embroidery in all the history.

Back to Grand kids quilts, my girlfriend Laura's daughter had twins, she made these beautiful little quilts for them for their baptism. Their pieced with different white on white fabrics. The middle has the babies names and birth dates embroidered in, blue one for the boy.

And a pink one for the girl.

Jamie made this one for her first grand baby (this is the fourth one for the new baby who isn't born yet). It's a pattern but I'm not sure of the name, it is so cute and whimsical.

I'm leaving on vacation Saturday, My husband, son and I are heading out West for a couple of weeks. I am going to spend 3 days in Window Rock, Arizona on the reservation with a Navajo lady who teaches natural dying. We will go out in the desert and plateaus and harvest the plants, bring them back to her home and set the dye pots up on outdoor fires (my husband and sons job is digging the plants and chopping fire wood). I have my wool fabric premordated and ready to go, I'm very excited. There is no weaving at this workshop just natural dying. There is also a women coming who is writing a book on the subject, that hopefully will bring out even more great information.
On the way there and back we will be doing a lot of camping in the mountains in Colorado, I packed a dye pot and hope to do a little dying along the way. I'll see you the end of August (wow, summer is going fast).

Japanese artist

2009-07-24T10:12:00.004-04:00

At our art museum last evening, Tousui Tanaka an internationally acclaimed Japanese sumi-e (black ink painting) and calligraphy artist gave a wonderful lecture and demonstration. She does traditional and contemporary work. This picture shows her demonstrating her painting technique on paper with black ink and her natural bristle brushes.

She demonstrated 5 different styles of Japanese calligraphy, all of the above papers spell "moon". Some are very ancient styles.

With her contemporary painting she did different kimonos while here in Michigan at Ox-Bow Summer school of art as an artist in residence. This first sleeve has a beautiful poem written on it (of course, I can't remember the words).

The rest of the kimono is a drawing of bamboo, but when she explained all the meaning it was so much more and beautiful.

This kimono has another poem written on the sleeve and also a branch with plum blossoms. Another element she worked with is the gold leafing.

This final kimono design was inspired by the wisteria vines growing around the school.

Camping craft for children

2009-07-09T15:19:00.006-04:00

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 right 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

2009-07-08T13:02:00.010-04:00

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

2009-07-02T12:32:00.004-04:00

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

2009-07-01T13:20:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-11T11:45:00.007-04:00

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

2009-06-03T09:51:00.010-04:00

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

2009-05-26T11:17:00.003-04:00

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.

Students teaching me new dying tricks

2009-05-21T13:25:00.006-04:00

I have my dye studio open and a pot of comfrey presoaking, waiting for the fabric. Comfrey is an medicinal herb and it is suppose to give a green dye color, we'll see. This is my friend Windi, a couple of summers ago I had a dye class and taught her and her friends natural dying. Now, she leading her own dying class for her Renaissance (Kings, Queens, Knights and castles etc.) group. She came over and we went into our woods collecting plants to dye with. Here she's holding wild onions for the kids in the group to taste test (she also heads up the children's craft group.

The fiddle heads ferns are beautiful, she picked a few a those to try.

We've had a nice raining spring and the creek was overflowing it's banks. I love to see the sunlight coming threw the woods on the water.

I couldn't resist showing another picture.

These are a few of her class samples. The indigo is linen, it was beautiful. I think I'm going to try playing with linen some day. How easy is it to make a linen quilt? The rest are wool.

Windi is a very creative person (this picture I took a couple of years ago when I was teaching the class, I don't know why it uploaded so small). She is dying several yards of wool here to make into a cloak and wanted different color bands. She rigged up this rack and has the stove and dye pot underneath the fabric. She's dying it with cochineal.

Her fabric is drying on the right. The other fabric is Becky's, she tied hers to achieve different designs. Hers also was made into a cloak. You can see Windi's has a wide white band yet. The next day we dyed it with indigo.

This is Windi now, modeling her finished cloak, she is quite clever! My lilacs are beautiful this year.

Round Robin Quilt

2009-05-12T12:12:00.004-04:00

I haven't blogging lately due to computer problems, I could not up load my photos, but I'm up and going now. A couple of years ago I did a round-robin quilt exchange with one of my quilt bees. We all began by making our own mariner compass block then sending the block with extra fabrics around to each other in January. At our Christmas party the next Dec. we got our quilt top back. They were all wonderful. This was mine, I've finally begun machine quilting it, hopefully I will finished it this week.

I went to a lecture on color by Kaffee Fassett last week. He lives in England and is very well known for his knitting, needlepoint, quilt patterns and books. He is also well known for the fabrics he designs. A lot of designers now use the computer to color in their fabric design, Kaffee still hand paints all of his.

I love this picture (it was a slide on the screen). This is a picture of his dinning room, a little busy, but wonderful! It reminds me of his fabrics he designs.

His books are a feast for the eyes. I love how he photographs his quilts with nature. This is one of his first books and I think they keep getting better.

This is one of the pictures in the book, it reminds me of his dinning room. (of course this wouldn't be one of the outdoor pictures).

A lot of the women at the lecture were knitters, this women is working on a afghan pattern that is popular around here now. Knitters are exchanging their left over sock yarn and knitting little bias squares with tiny needles.

She has great color sense.

2009-04-29T09:52:00.003-04:00

Well, my vacation is over and it's back to the real world. When we came home I began spring cleaning the house, went back to work and then late Sunday night my husband was diagnosed with pneumonia, its been a long week. He's starting to feel a little bit better today but it worries me with the swine flu going around. I haven't done much quilting but I did make this card with my natural dyed wool for my girlfriend. She is cooking this weekend for a Christian women's retreat. For the women on the retreat she took tea bags and changed the paper tag to one with a Bible verse on it, hence the tea cup card.

On out way to Florida we stopped at the Canton Museum of Art, on exhibit was a collection of 40, 8 ft. landscape art silk kimomo from Japan. The collection was breathtaking! It featured Mount Fuji in autumn and winter. The kimono hung along side eachother making a panaramic view of the mountain. Itchiku Kubota, the Japanese artist created them with layering dyes, inks, and embroidery. It took him 26 years to figure out the lost art of tsujiganhana dying. When he was 60 he started the Mt. Fuji series. He died before it was finished. One interesting fact he is the only artist to have his collection shown at the Smithonian museum while he was still alive.

Of course you could not photograph any of the collection. This vintage kimono hung in the entrance.

This life size fabric and paper cherry tree also graced the entrance.

And on to Florida where we brought the boys new fishing poles, here their trying them out in the small lake behind their home. They got pretty good at casting. Mom usually dresses the triplets alike.

I thought this was a cute picture, big brother walking the littlest one home. The oldest one is so good to his little brothers.

Here we are dying Easter Eggs, big brother went to play football with the neighbors. He's growing up.

One day we went to a children's Science museum, this is the opening of the "body works".

My last picture is my grandsons (not the blonde) at their friends house for Passover, wearing their yamikas (sp?). My daughters good friends are Jewish and invited them over for the Passover celebration.

Quilt guild & Happy Easter

2009-04-07T13:03:00.006-04:00

One of the quilt guild members made these cute Easter cookies for the meeting last night. Our gust speaker was Kay England, she said one thing she loves is cookies.

This is Kay giving her very funny lecture and great trunk show. We laughed from the moment she got on stage until she finished. I highly recommend her for your guild programs. This is her tribute to Betsy Ross quilt. Some of the information she gave on Betsy was she "supposedly" taught George Washington how to make a 5 pointed star. We don't know if she made the first American flag but she did design and make many. She out lived 3 husbands.

This is Kay's favorite antique quilt, a nine patch from the civil war era.

This Burgoyne surrounded quilt is also from the civil war era. Kay hand quilted this one.

We also had our annual Earth Day quilt show, I took a few pictures of some of my favorites. This first bug is from a pattern.

This clown fish I believe is also from a pattern. Her colors were beautiful.

This was my favorite, I love the bug jars and wonderful little sayings and poems were sewed on.

One of our guild members doesn't quilt, she's a rug hooker. I love this rug, the style is Pennsylvania Dutch done in the fraktur method. Ok, what that means I can't remember. She design the rug and washed some of the wool together so the colors would run into each other and tone them down.

My husband and I are leaving for Florida to spend Easter with our kids and grandchildren. Part of their Easter basket goodies are these pillow cases I made them. My friend Mary has a wonderful sewing machine that does embroidery, she put their names on them.
I hope you have a Blessed Easter and I'll see you April 20.

Signs of Spring

2009-04-02T11:00:00.006-04:00

Being very tired of winter and painting, last weekend I packed a picnic lunch and my husband and I took a drive in the woods looking for signs of spring. We came across this big flock of turkeys, and as they say in the Bambi movie, I think the Toms are "twitter painted".

A lot of the farms were collecting the maple syrup as it begins to run.

And my friend Lillian made a new summer purse, it's beautifully lined with zipper pockets and of course she made a matching check book cover.

Being in Michigan just because the calender says it's spring the weather doesn't always cooperate, we're suppose to be getting between 3 to 6 " of snow in the next few days. My girlfriends came over the other night for bee and wore their finished wool scarves (although no one would model for me). It was fun to see from one pile of wool we all shared, how different they all looked. You could tell whose scarf belonged to who just by the color. The first one is Laura's.

Mine.

Joni, who left the Abercrombe (sp?) label on the patch.

And Cathy O's. A couple others didn't get theirs finished yet.

National quilt day

2009-03-25T12:00:00.002-04:00

I haven't been doing a lot of quilting lately, our snow is gone and I've begun spring cleaning and sprucing up our house. When it finally warms up here I want to be outside and in the dye studio, it's been a long winter. This hutch had a maple finish, my husband sanded it and I painted it black and put on new knobs to update the look. We painted the kitchen terra-cotta with cream color trim around the window. I still want to finish the wall paint job with some glazing, so it's not such a solid color and have a little more depth. When I was putting the dishes back in the hutch I had on a old Clint Eastwood movie playing, "A few dollars more", I love his "spaghetti" westerns and with the movie and music my hutch turned out with a little bit of a Mexican theme. Then, my grandmothers rose pattern dishes just didn't seem like they would look right in the black cabinet.(I have another glass cabinet in my dinning room for them). The clay pot on the upper left my mom bought in Mexico in the early 70's from an elderly women along the street. The piece of fabric in the right upper shelf was some of the silk tie scraps I bought. There is also a clay women I bought when I was in Mexico. The casserole dish is part of my grandmothers dishes and a few other family heirloom dishes are tucked in.

Saturday, our guild celebrated National quilt day with an all day quilting and eating. Quilters really know how to cook. I worked on this table runner for my hutch. It brightens up all the black and looks good with my wall color.

The following are some of the pieces from the quilt day. This orange quilt, draped over the railing is a class Lori Simpson will be teaching at our quilt guild this summer. She designs fabric for Moda and has a pattern line out with her sister.

This star is also a class she will be teaching. It was very striking.

One of the guild members brought this to show, she made this for her nephew who is becoming an Eagle Scout. The scarves, shirt and green pants fabric are parts of a scout uniform. The blank scout shirt is going to be filled with his patches. The scout patch fabric she bought from Hancocks in Paducah.

Some of the guild members were working on crazy quilt blocks that will be put in a quilt and raffled off, the money donated for breast cancer research.

Another piece.

This is another piece Sue had stitched. Her work is beautiful.