Woodland Quilter

Bee Challenge

2012-02-01T12:46:00.006-05:00

Every year we have a new quilt challenge in one of my bees, this year it's a different kind of challenge. This challenge you must use fabric from your stash adding up to two new purchased fabrics. My daughter wanted a summer quilt so I decided to use this fabric with the (right side) brown & green purchased for boarders. The outside green fabric kind of changes the look of it a little, not so Moda "sweet". A pattern was picked for everyone to use.

The pattern came from this issue of Quiltmaker.

This is how the block will look,

With 6 different ways to place the light & dark fabrics and rotate the block, you can end up with 6 totally different looking quilts.
One of the layouts.

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

And number 6.
I have my design picked out and half the quilt cut out, hopefully to have it pieced by the time Spring comes.
OK, Deb C. how is yours coming?

Speaking of my quilt bee's, at my other quilt bee we finally were able to have our Christmas party last week. A month late but still great. Cathy made us all aprons with fabrics to match our style.

Joni always gets us new slippers,

And this year on her cruise, while on Grand Cayman Island she had a bracelet made for each of us by a native women.

Jamie's husband made us each a ruler stand. How nice was that!

Jody made us each a pair of pot holders, we all needed them. It seems like you always make cute things as gifts and never keep yourself a set.

Cathy shared with us how to make this cute "pin". I believe this was a commercial pattern but I don't know the name. She took a 2 1/2" x 12" strip of fabric, cut it with pinking sheers, folded it leaving about 1/4" edge. Stitched the folded edge and gathered the fabric around a bobbin or (sew on a button). I think this would be nice made out of wool with an antique bobbin to wear on sweaters or winter coats.

Cathy also brought some of her new journal quilts to show. She loves going on cruises to the islands and just finished this wallhanging with all her memories sewed in.

Cathy also suffers terribly with migrains and has been going to Mayo the last 2 years trying to get some relief from them. This wall hanging is her at Mayo with all her migrain symbols sewed in.

I love how she did her hair and facial expression during migrain.

Making Herbal Dream Pillows

2012-01-24T11:12:00.009-05:00

Last summer while at the Herb Conference I bought this book by Jim Long on how to make herbal pillows. The book is very well written and goes into the history of herbal pillows along with different recipes for the pillows ( such as restful, romantic, lack of nightmares, creative, good memories etc).
This past weekend I made these pillows with my grand kids and daughter. A perfect project for a cold winter day.

We choose the herbs for restful sleep with no nightmares. The herbs we used were:
Lavender-aids restfulness, soothes, reduces stress, eases headaches.
Rose- loving thoughts and warmth.
Rosemary- deep sleep, keeps away bad dreams.
Thyme-restful sleep, lack of nightmares.
Mullein- guards against nightmares.
Some added a pinch of Mugwort to help remember their dreams.

The boys picked out their fabric, I washed it in a detergent with no scent. Cut them approx. 5"x12". These are little pillows that tuck into/with your big bed pillow.
It's also nice to use vintage handkerchiefs, (a great women's gift).

You sew up two sides. Leave the top open for stuffing.

The boys each sewed their own.

Their getting pretty good on my machine.

We discussed each herb and it's benefits then took turns adding them to the bowl, about a 1/2 cup of each.

Everyone broke up the dried Mullein that we harvested last summer.

Aren't kids little hands precious?
After mixing it we added 1/2 cup to each bag, folded the top down and sewed them shut.
The next morning everyone confirmed they had a very good nights sleep with no bad dreams.

Dyeing with avocados

2012-01-16T13:29:00.009-05:00

I received my Handeye magazine in the mail Friday, this issue was on COLOR in textiles from around the world. It is a wonderful issue. The magazine also has free online issues that they send out every week to your e-mail. There's usually around 3 different articles on traditional textiles from around the world and how the people are bringing them back and relearning the old traditional skills. Once in awhile there are articles on traditional pottery, jewelry etc.
The address to sign up is http://www.handeyemagazine.com/
I was inspired by an article in this issue on dyeing with avocado pits.

So out came my year old dried avocados pits (from the last Super Bowl) that I saved just for this purpose.

I placed them in a pot of water on my wood stove and simmered them for about 2 hours, then placed alum mordanted wool fabric in and simmered another couple of hours, left it to soak overnight. I removed the fabric the next day and put the pot back on the wood stove and boiled it hard for a hour or so, then place another piece of fabric in and let it simmer hard for a couple of hours then left that piece overnight.

I ended up with two peachy pink pieces. They look more pink in real life.

We bought the grandsons new snowshoes, with all of this beautiful snow it was perfect time to try them out. So out we went to the campground where we take them camping every summer.

We hiked along the creek where they play with their nets and catch crayfish in the summer.

The big soccer field is now perfect for making snow angels even with your snowshoes on.

It was beautiful.

With just a little color.

Back home we have so much snow the boys think the snow covered bushes are forts.

They each had their own.

As grandpa finished plowing the driveway down they went on their snowboards.

First Snow

2012-01-13T09:48:00.007-05:00

We had our first really beautiful snowfall last night, everything is fluffy and white.

The trees look like their full of cotton.
The kids are so excited to go sledding/snowboarding this weekend, so instead of curling up by the fire quilting I'll be at the sledding hills laughing, drinking hot cocoa and enjoying the snow. OK, that's a fair trade off.

Wolf moon

2012-01-10T11:58:00.005-05:00

Last night was a bright, clear night perfect for viewing the first full moon of the year called the "wolf moon", so called because the cold, icy branches of trees rubbing together sounded like a wolf's howl. The Native Americans would closely watch the seasonal cycles and named the moons in reference to their life cycles, their gathering of natural foods, planting and harvesting times. They kept track of the seasons by assigning a descriptive name to each recurring full moon. Variations in the names can be found across North America due to climate and temperature conditions affecting local regions.

In Michigan we have alot of cloudy nights due to the lake so this was great.

The light clouds made the moon seem to glow even more.

Being a "sky" watcher, I thought this would make a wonderful series of blocks to work on this year, a new little moon every month. Then add them to my little earth quilt I've been making the past year.
There's a new book out called Magical Moons & Seasonal Circles by Susan Betz about the study of the timing of the natural periodic events in the plant and animal world influenced by the local environment, especially weather, temperature, seasonal change and climate. It goes into detail about the moons' names and their meaning. (all the moon information in this post is from her book).

So, last night after enjoying the moon I went in, grabbed some fabric and supplies, climbed into bed and stitched my own little wolf moon with ice crystals floating from the howling wolf.
(The moon fabric is icy white but appears pink in the picture propped up against my legs)

The next morning I pinned it up on the design wall with my other "earth" blocks, summer solstice, pink moon (May), sliver of a moon Halloween 2010, lunar eclipse, winter storm with a sliver of a moon and my favorite, twilight.

I had to show you a picture of my grandniece who is 1 1/2 years old. She was over the other day and found my new Hancock's fabric catalog, she laid on my bed for the longest time studying it. A future quilter?

Tom & Jerry Quilt

2012-01-04T11:12:00.006-05:00

My grandson and I spent New Years day piecing his Tom & Jerry quilt. Piecing is a little slower when you have a 5 year old "helping". He even had to press the foot pedal.

Two days later it was finished and he was one happy boy. That night he slept with it on top of all his other quilts I made him, first was his sports quilt ( very puffy batting), then his new Christmas quilt and on top of all that was Tom & Jerry! Mom removed a few once he was asleep.

Vintage Tom & Jerry side.

Flannel Loony Tunes side.

Happy New Year!!

2011-12-30T14:27:00.005-05:00

This little wool bird was a kit Deb C. made for each of us to work on at our bee Christmas party. I just finished mine, instead of using fiber fill to stuff it, I filled it with dried lavender and a couple drops of lavender essential oil. It smells wonderful.

It's nice to have a hand project to work on during the party, a couple of years ago Kay and I made up kits to embroider these fun snow people. Mine have been finished waiting to be put together. I'm going to photo transfer pictures to fabric of the grand kids playing in the snow and make it into a wall hanging. Hopefully, this winter!

Have a wonderful New Years Eve, we will be celebrating the kids move back to Michigan and looking forward to the adventures we will have in the coming year.
See you next year!

2011-12-27T11:56:00.005-05:00

When the mailman delivers a package from Alaska you know it's going to be wonderful! It starts with my favorite wrapping paper, white wool ready for dyeing.

Inside the package was a beautiful, full of texture and color silk scarf, hand dyed/shiborri by Deb H. Topped off with a vintage pin who used to belong to Aunt Ethel.

Perfect for Christmas Eve!

Another package held ornaments from Deb's husband Warren. The center of the ornaments held copies of his original art work he drew and painted many years ago. He was a artist who worked for I believe Hallmark.

His original paintings hang in their home. I was tickled to get these.

Thank-you Warren.

This last two weeks have been sooo busy when I wasn't at work I felt like I was either in the kitchen, laundry room or emergency room. I really needed some me time hand-sewing on my wool quilt. So last evening I lit a fire in my studio, turned on my favorite CD, and curled up on the couch ready to stitch. When what to my wondering eyes should appear... the twins, with their own wool projects that their hand-stitching! After I got them going it turned out to be a nice peaceful evening.

They design and cut out all of their own story characters. The beginning of his turtle in a pond.
Then comes little brother wanting to know when we're starting on his Tom & Jerry quilt!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-22T13:17:00.005-05:00

We've had some major illness at our house this past week so some of my Christmas sewing, decorating and baking had to given up but everyone's on the mend and the really important sewing, decorating and baking did get finished. So I guess I'm ready (or mostly).
For all my gardening friends, last week I was at Sam's Club and bought this hydrangea, I was fascinated by the petals, they are icy white, very thick and textured.

Absolutely beautiful. The tag said it was a perennial but I don't know if it would survive a Michigan winter, does anyone have any idea how I should take care of this after the blooms die off?

With all the sickness I missed one of my favorite Christmas parties, my quilt bee party! My quilt friends give the best presents and are the best cooks! Kay delivered my gifts later and I photographed a few of the handmade ones.
Mary made this pincushion with left over scraps from her tree skirt she made this year. Her tree was beautiful with ornaments to match the tree skirt, I was going to photograph it at the party but that's how it goes.

Judy hand stitched this wonderful wool pin cushion. I photographed both cushions tucked in my tree, there so pretty I think a whole tree of hand-made pin cushions would be beautiful. Being quilters we can never have too many. Judy also sent homemade fudge, peanut brittle and white chocolate peppermint candy, how nice was that?

Deb C. bought us all these cute embroidery scissors. Their just too wonderful to look at.

I wish you all a Blessed Christmas.

Herbs & Cookies

2011-12-14T11:51:00.007-05:00

Last night was my Herb Society's Christmas party. It was full of wonderful holiday tastes and smells. The talk was on different spice and herbs mixes to make for your holiday cooking, herbs to mix together for potpourri, and hot holiday drinks, like white hot chocolate (sinfully rich:) and spicey hot tea.

We all received a package of a parsley and dill herb dip mix, just mix with sour cream and mayo.

Six lucky winners received herbal "soup wreaths". The different wreaths were made with herbs that either go well with chicken or beef soup.

To make, when your herbs are fresh choose about six springs, bend the longest woody herb to form a loop, wrapping ends around each other. Add herbs and wrap with a long leaf herb such as chives to hold herbs on the wreath. Dry them and then package. They can be embellished with a small dried pepper or chive blossoms.

The out-going board members received a wonderful journal to record all our herb growing/cooking (dyeing) ideas in.

Like you I've been very busy getting everything ready for Christmas, we have two trees up, our whimsical Christmas village is set out, the outside fences are twinkling with little white lights and last weekend we started our cookie baking. This was my mothers favorite cookie book (I believe it's from the 60's).

We always made Mary's sugar cookie, I believe it's the best cut-out cookie there is! It's made with all the perfect ingredients, real butter, real vanilla & almond extract, and powder sugar. I always made them with my kids, using my childhood cookie cutters and now....

I'm making them with my grand kids, still using the my childhood cutters and ones I bought when my kids were little! Try that with 3 little boys!

They each cardfully cut out their own and placed them on the cookie sheet.

This weekend we're baking peanut butter cookies with chocolate stars and snowballs cookies with lots of crushed pecans.

Loony Tune quilt

2011-12-06T10:28:00.008-05:00

I just, just finished making and giving my grandsons their Christmas quilts and said "I'm not making them any more quilts until they get married"! Well, my daughter and I we're looking in her cedar chest for something and we found a quilt top she made when she was 14. To make a long story short the youngest grandson loves the Loony Tune cartoons, especially Tom and Jerry. We thought we should finish this quilt and he can have it but there wasn't any Tom and Jerry fabrics in it. I went on e-bay and found a collection of vintage, never used Tom & Jerry fabric. I believe they may been fabric samples, all the edges are cut with pinking sheers.

We were planning to cut it into boarders for the top but there is so much we decided to even up the blocks and piece it together (make one more block), add boarders and use it for the back of the quilt, make it a reversible quilt.

We went to the fabric store to look for some fabric for the boarders and with all the retro fabric so popular now we found some that matched perfectly! The green and blue dot fabric in the middle is the new fabric surrounded by the vintage fabric.

Vintage fabric.

Another close up, I love this piece, could they be from the 50's or 60's?

My grandson is going to help sew his quilt so I told him he needed to draw his pattern. He ran in his room and quickly designed the layout. Perfect.

I guess we're ready to begin!
I just realized the fabric for this quilt will be from the 60's, 1994 and 2011. Try to date this one 100 years from now (if it makes it).

Last night was my quilt guild Christmas party, every year for the leaving Chairman the board makes her a thank-you quilt and presents it to her at the Christmas party. This is this years quilt. This year was our 20th anniversary, during the past year the guild had every member sign a piece of fabric and pieced it into a quilt. One member won that quilt last night. This quilt was based upon that quilt with the board members signing and writing message in the squares and a wonderful appliqued flower vine in the corners.

My favorite type of quilts!

2011-11-29T11:19:00.005-05:00

My girlfriend Sandy passed away from breast cancer in 1993, her daughter Vicky was 13. Vicky had learned to quilt with her mom when she was 5. Vicky has now grown into a beautiful women, graduated from college and I believe has 2 master degrees. She has a great job and now is buying her own home. She's done all of this on her own. Well now she has some free time and has begun finishing up her moms quilts. This first one were friendship Christmas blocks made and exchanged between Vicky, my daughter, her mom and me when the girls were around 7 years old. They were never put together, I was so impressed how well Vicky pieced this quilt, (with the little girls piecing blocks every block was a different size). The only instruction Vicky received was talking to me over the phone. She still has two boarders to put on and quilt it.

Her mothers very first quilt she made was also unfinished, it was pieced but needed to be quilted. Vicky took it apart and divided up the blocks, bought new lattice and boarder fabric and proceeded to make two lap quilts for her two brothers for Christmas. How wonderful is that? This is one of them. (I had separate pictures of the two but accidentally deleted one of them).

This is the two together, they just need to be quilted. What a family treasure.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T09:58:00.004-05:00

I'm getting ready for our Thanksgiving guests, we'll be having around 20. This little turkey and quilted mat will be part of our centerpiece, my vintage linen table cloth will be underneath and the candles will be glowing.

This mat was our leaf pounded fabric we made while on our color tour. I trimmed up the sides, added batik boarders, layered it and machine quilted in the leaf veins, a few winter green berries and a acorn. The grand kids signed the back and wrote cute messages to their mom and surprised her with it for her birthday.
I hope you have a wonderful Thansgiving and eat to much!

Northern Mi. Quilt Retreat

2011-11-17T12:43:00.011-05:00

Last week was my bee's annual quilt retreat, we are so blessed to be able to get away for a week to a beautiful log home over looking Lake Michigan. Our views from the sewing area are perfect, the colors of the sky and lake continuously change.

We had some stormy weather which makes staying in quilting all the more wonderful.
The following are just a "few" of the projects that were made.

Over achiever Mary pieced this spectacular Christmas tree skirt.

Kay made a tee-shirt quilt for her grandson with his out grown tennis shirts. Her blocks were so nice and crisp, not tee-shirty looking at all.

My daughter came up for the day (then ended spending the night when a storm came up, which was wonderful). She finished piecing a wool quilt she started several years ago. She's going to add black wool boarders.
(Thank you Sandy for all the beautiful wool!)

Martha pieced this summery piece, it would look wonderful on a wicker chair in a sun room.

Our bee challenge this year was using the left over pieces of fabric from the quilt we made Lillian last year. These were made in memory of Lillian.
Martha made the pillow, Lillian had one in this pattern in her sun porch where we quilted. The buttons were from Lillian's button box.
Kay made the wall hanging on the left (she still had to put on the binding), the block pattern was the pattern we used in Lillian's quilt. She added the hearts and hand-quilted it.
Mine is the middle one, it's called "Gracie". Lillian never had any children and loved her cat Gracie. Gracie passed away a few months before Lillian.
Mary made the next one. Lillian had named our group the Log Cabin quilters years ago, Mary made a Log Cabin Friendship Star, actually a Friendship Star in a Friendship Star.

Some of us made this style purse with purchased handles. Mine is made with flower printed wool I dyed for the main body. I love how the clasp are off to the side.

Kay's with hand-dyed wool.

Martha was this great "black butterfly" cotton.

Kay also did a batik bag. The purse easily come off the handles so you can change the bag out.

We had some visitors peak in our windows.

And stay for breakfast.

Mary, who made the intricately pieced tree skirt also made this apron from a Debbie Mumm panel.

She finished piecing this wall hanging.

I was hunched over machine quilting the whole time I was there, except for the small break to make the purse. My neck and shoulders were sore but I finished quilting my grandson's Christmas quilts (I had them pieced before I came). This one is for the youngest, the center is a cute panel with reindeer hanging out the windows stringing Christmas lights on the tree. I pieced the pinwheel blocks around it. The striping along the edge is the binding waiting to be turn back and hand sewn.

I quilted this for one of the twins, binding still needs the hand sewing.

This one I finished before but I brought it along to put the binding on.
I'm going to secretly put them on their beds Thanksgiving night to start the holiday season, they have no idea I made them.

Mary made this very time consuming purse. It's still was not finished, the pocket flaps need big buttons,

the binding needs hand sewing and the strap needs to be put into the side hooks.
It looked like a designer bag, I don't think anyone could do a nicer job making it.

Kay made this great scrap quilt with lots of different batiks. I love it.

A neighbor Eileen Bien who lives near the cottage (Mary met her at a quilting class back home and became friends with her) invited us over for lunch and show and tell. I love this quilt she designed of different "Suns". The workmanship is beautiful!

Living on Lake Michigan you have a lot of inspiration.

And speaking of inspiration I captured this sunset when the sun was just going below the horizon. They say you see a green flash when it does, did I capture that flash?

Textiles of Frank Connet

2011-11-07T12:02:00.004-05:00

Our local Art Museum has a wonderful textile collection on exhibit. The work combines all of my favorite things, hand-woven wool fabric with shibori techniques, and natural dyes. Who could ask for more!
Frank Connet is the artist who blends all these techniques beautifully. He is a textile conservator who has worked with antique textiles for the past 25 years.
The dyes he used on these large pieces are natural indigo and black walnut. The indigo was a deep warm blue, he dipped the fabric into the dye vat 25-30 times.
He has other pieces he dyed with assorted natural dyes and hand quilted but they weren't on exhibit with this collection, (I wish they were).
The collection is at the Art museum until Jan. 15, all my local friends. Try to see it, it's much more wonderful in person, and we need to support the museum so they bring in many more textile collections.

Double click on the pictures for a closer look.

Close up.

This one was titled Blue Pearl II

Limestone II

Tomorrow I'm off to my bee's annual week long quilting retreat in Northern Michigan. I'm going to finish my grandson's Christmas quilts. Their all pieced and layered, I just have to machine quilt them and sew on the bindings. I also packed some of my natural dyed wool to make myself a purse and we'll see what other projects I can't resist making.
I'll see you next week with "show and tell" from all the projects of the week.

Herb Society Craft Night

2011-10-31T11:21:00.008-04:00

Our last Herb Society meeting was filled with making herbal crafts. President Veronica was our speaker, she had so many wonderful ideas we didn't have time to get through them all. Here are a few.
We started by learning how to make an herbal gathering basket out of 3 grocery store bags. Fold the first one down 3 folds, then insert the next bag inside and fold down 2 times. The folding down makes them sturdier. The third bag cut off the bottom and place it in the bottom of your new basket for reinforcement. Cut a long strip off the same bag, fold it in long thirds for the handle and hot glue it on inside the basket.

This is my finished basket, we tied raffia on it that could be used to tie a pair of small scissors on for cutting herbs (or dye plants).
The little "herb card" was another project, a cute idea for gift tags held on with a small clothes pin. I liked it so much I hot glued it to my basket.

The inside has 2 smaller brown bags used as dividers for the plants.

Another cute idea, a small glass bottle filled with cotton and a few drop of lemon eucalyptus essential oil, a quick smell during the day to give you a natural picker upper and great for stuffy head.

Veronica filled a big bowl with lavender, herbs, flowers and drops of essential oil. She passed the bowl around and we each made little sachets.

Another idea she had was filling a glass bottle (hers was beautiful cut glass with a pineapple on top), with witch hazel and adding a vanilla bean. This makes a wonderful skin freshner applied with a cotton pad.

For cooking and the table, sea salt with your favorite chopped herbs mixed in. Leave a couple of weeks then enjoy. You can sift the herbs out if you choose and place the salt into a shaker.

And to sugar add lavender. Use the sugar with your favorite sugar cookie recipe, cake recipe, or tea. Sift out lavender if desired.

My bitter sweet vines were full of berries this year, last year I had 1 berry on all the vines. My grandson helped me take off all the leaves. This one loves helping with projects.

I finally had enough to make a swag over my dye studio door, redo the other windows in the studio and my kitchen window.

While on our fall color tours we collected beautiful red maple leaves.

Which when dye printed (steamed in the dye pot) on wool became teals and golds. I've never got the teal color before, this piece will be added to my wool quilt that's in progress.

Red leaves from the yard.

After steaming become golds and greens.

The kids had a great time carving their pumpkins they picked from the pumpkin patch. While they carved I baked the seeds: I melted 1/2 cup of real butter on a cookie sheet, washed the seeds and spread them all over the butter. Sprinkled seasoned salt over all. Bake 325 degrees 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally and test tasting to see when done.

Have a Wonderful Halloween!

Tempting Tables

2011-10-26T10:59:00.012-04:00

Tempting Tables is a grassroots volunteer organization that showcases exquisite, elaborate and creative tablescapes as well as unique personal collections. All proceeds from the ticket sales go directly to breast cancer research. Even the 400+ volunteers pay to see the exhibit. Every year the exhibit becomes more and more over the top, instead of just tablescapes the tables are now set in complete scenes. I wish I could have posted them all, there were 33 total. My pictures don't do them justice, my camera was in the process of taking a big dump (I have since bought a new one) and there we're so many people there it was hard to get great pictures. Double click on the pictures to see the detail.

This first table is Irish Eyes are Smiling, complete with a little tree stump centerpiece, Irish china and glassware.

Venetian Carnival. The gondola was built buy the designers husband, the desginer painted the background bridge and water scenery. A wonderful table setting on a velvet tablecloth with her hand painted masks.

Good Morning, Red Rooster. This complete room setting even included the old cupboard, bales of straw on one side of the table for seats and a old sewing machine with a thirty's quilt waiting to be sewed.

The old cupboard in this farm kitchen.

The Twelve Days of Christmas, the large cards behind the plates were painted by one of the designers.

Beachy Christmas. I love the wooden arbor built around the table, I want one built in my own backyard complete with the grapevines, little lights and hanging jars with candles in them.
What a beautiful way to decorate for the holidays if you live near the sea side.

I believe this was called A Very Special Dinner For Two. Tucked in the trees was a beautiful table set for two, my favorite place to eat, outside!

The Mystic Canopy of Light.

Forever Best Friends. This table is the story of 4 girls who were best friends all their life and had their weddings together. This was their wedding table, beautiful with all it's silk, tulle, lights and flowers.
I'm not sure if this is a true story but it sounded good.

Close up, there are gold fish swimming in the glass tube holding up the centerpiece.

Into the woods, I love this one (also!), with its birch bark tree running through the table, twig chairs, field stone with moss tucked between on the ground.

Birch bark cushions and beautiful red roses.

Alice In Wonderland. The designers were our local garden club. the table cloth they made with antique pieces of fabric. There was a beautifully painted back drop.
This picture is a little fuzzy, camera was really getting bad.

The Mad hatter, white rabbit and Queen of Hearts we're there.

And of course Alice, whose eyes seemed to follow you everywhere.

More guests at the party.

Green and Red Gingerbread. What child wouldn't love to have this play house.

Complete with wonderful cushions on the chairs with matching window valances and table cloth.

The Cornfetti Table. How cute for fall with a scarecrow sleeping under the table.

The Art of Dining.

Antique Quilts

2011-10-18T11:41:00.011-04:00

At our last quilt guild meeting the world famous Pat Holly was our guest speaker, she shared with us her antique quilt collection. Pat is famous for her quilts made entirely with her sewing machine, she has won many awards with them, including top awards from the AQS quilt show in Paducha, Kentucky. The antique quilts she collects all have machine work on them, be it the quilting or the piecing.
I posted them in order from the oldest to the newest, most from around 1890's. I tried to remember as much as I can about the quilt as she spoke, but I miss a lot while trying to photograph it. So, to all my antique quilt loving friends, enjoy the quilts, double click to see the workmanship a little closer.

This has an all over machine quilting pattern.

I love this cactus.

Close-up of.

Fun tulips with a tulip boarder.

Matching tops. Still late 1800's.

Beautiful red and green quilt.

Two more matching quilts, one being the negative of the other.

I didn't hear but I believe this was appliqued, no tricky modern piecing method!

A beautiful blue and white.

This is one of my favorites, Seven Sisters pattern. Love the color combination.

I love tree quilts, this one is wonderful.

The appliqued polka dots in the lattice are too fun.

Pat also makes miniature quilts and has won top prizes at AQS with them. I believe they are 12 to 14 inches in size. They are beautifully appliqued. Notice the tiny little trim she uses on them.

The workmanship detail is beautiful

Her silk Pink Elephant she made for her daughter.

2011-10-12T11:07:00.007-04:00

Last weekend was warm and sunny and the leaves were at their peak color for viewing, we made a pot of chile, packed up the Coleman stove and canoe and went north to our favorite little lake.

The grand kids we're excited to ride in the canoe and later went out one at a time with grandpa and got to paddle themselves.

While they canoed I warmed up the chile and set up a area to play around with pounding leaves on fabric.

I brought along some white (premordanted with alum) cotton, we collected leaves, laid them on the fabric, covered the leaf with clear packing tape and pounded it with a hammer.
The tape keeps the leaf from breaking up and keeps the dye in place.

Everyone pounded a leaf or two during the day.

We ended up with pleasing pattern, I'm going to make my daughter a round quilted mat for her table with machine embroidery accenting the leaves and quilting in between.
I did this years ago when my kids we're little and didn't use premordanted fabric, it took just fine. I would make sure the fabric is prewashed.

We took a wonderful walk through the woods.

Found this fallen birch tree, the boys took turns learning how to take off the bark.

At the end of the day Melissa carried up the canoe to the vehicle, the boys were a lot of help!

OK, back home and the boys still haven't gotten enough of the leaves, Grandpa rakes them up and they dive in. Have you ever seen a swan dive into a pile of leaves?

Or a cannon ball dive?

And one more dive!

Halloween purse

2011-10-04T12:17:00.010-04:00

I found this wonderful Alexander Henry fabric called The Ghastlies, I knew right away I wanted to make it into a purse for October/Halloween.

I love the three knitters on this piece.

I fussy cut out my favorite pictures.

Laid them out on batting with the purse design sketched in.

After figuring out the placement I took them off, spray basted a piece of gray (tweed) print fabric from Kaffee Fassett placing it on the batting, then spray basted the Halloween fabric and placed it on the gray tweed. Machine quilted around the figures and patches then stitched the purse together. I finished the edges with black binding.

My finished purse, the front.

And the back. Ready for October.

I also finished another lattice strip for my family tree quilt, this will be sewed on next to my mom's childhood home block. I have learned sooo many family stories while making this quilt. I knew my grandparents loved farming but didn't realize they raised chickens in their back yard while living in town. After the children were grown they bought a big beautiful farm out in the country, they were quite old to start over farming.

OK, if your sick of seeing my grand kids you might want to stop reading this blog now.

We have been having so much fun showing them "Michigan in Fall".

Last weekend we took them to a big farm in the country on a wonderful hayride with horses.

Of course you had to have homemade cinnamon & sugar donuts to eat on the ride.

Over the river and through the woods and at the end of the hayride there was a huge field full of pumpkins that you could choose from and pick your own.

A picture with their cousin. This reminds me of the movie Charlie Brown's Hallowen with Linus in the pumpking patch.

Pulling our treasures with grandpa back to the wagon for the ride back.

They also had a apple orchard. We picked a big bag to use for making apple pies.

Back home the leaves are just beginning to fall, the kids couldn't wait to rake and jump in the pile.

2011-09-27T11:42:00.006-04:00

I played with dye printing my coreopsis flowers. Look at the wonderful color they dyed. The yellow of the petals gave a beautiful peachy orange. The inner red of the petals dyed navy blue! And the dark center dyed red. The fabric looks a little like leopard spots.
Double click on the picture to see the blue.

My cosmos dyed fabric is a completely different peachy orange. I'm going to make this piece into a winter scarf, blanket stitching the edge with the wool yarn I also dyed with cosmos.

I planted two different types of eucalyptus this year, the long oval shaped leaves didn't give the orange color but the stems did.
This piece will be beautiful in my quilt.

I love how translucent the leave prints looks with the orange stems.

The silver dollar eucalyptus leave give the dark orange color.

My grand kids have never really seen the changing color of leaves in fall so off we go taking picnics and color tours up North. Even though the color isn't at its peak yet we're enjoying Autumn hikes with many more to go.

I believe this is a artisan spring bubbling up from the ground and spilling into the waterfall.

Of course, if there is water and rocks the boys will be in them.

We're home

2011-09-21T12:46:00.005-04:00

We're home and our family is here too! My husband and I went to Florida to help pack up our daughter and her family and help them move back to Michigan. Talk about a lot of work, but we made it and everyone is getting settled in. What fun we'll have, everyone is excited to be back and looking forward to spending more time with family.

The guys drove the moving truck.

One final time buying Southern boiled peanuts.

Last night at our Herb Society we had a special guest speaker who is a chef at Disney World. He prepared a special meal for us, making dishes from around the world.

Our tables are always wonderfully decorated. Guinness cupcakes, (recipe from the United Kingdom).

Wonderful ceramic Mickey Mouse kitchen figurines.

Disney sugar cookies.

Our chef Justin.

Marrakesh Curried vegetables with curry powder over couscous.

Pineapple bread pudding, (Polynesian).

Raspberry Fool. Rose & Crown Pub-United Kingdom.
We also had Kjottkake, traditional meatballs for Norway with Lingonberry Demi Sauce.
Tandoori butter on pita bread, and spiced ice tea.

Coreopsis

2011-09-06T10:53:00.004-04:00

I spent some time this past weekend dyeing with coreopsis. They are tiny little flowers but hold a lot of color. They're a few different varieties, the type I used was coreopsis tinctoria, I've noticed if the Latin name for the plant has tinctoria in it, it is a great dye plant.

The flowers are about the size of a penny.

I simmered them about a hour then put the wool fabric in, it became a beautiful peachy orange color right away.

Some of the fabric I bundled so it would have different shades. The wool yarn I had dyed before. it was a brassy yellow so back into the dye pot it went.

This is the collection of vintage linen napkins I've been dyeing all summer, starting with daffodils last spring.

And cotton fabrics. They seem to take the color the same as linen.

I don't know if I showed this before but I just finished needle felting the rabbits tails in. This is one of the lattice strips for my family tree quilt. This will go around the husband's childhood home.

My sunflowers are beautiful this year, I think they're about 10 feet tall. The plain yellow ones are Hopi sunflowers (I sent away for the seeds). I'm going to try dyeing with the seeds later.

I won't be posting for the next couple of weeks, I'll be visiting with family.
See you the end of September.

Girls Weekend

2011-08-29T13:56:00.006-04:00

My girlfriends and I left Friday night to spend the weekend at Laura's cottage in "Northern Michigan". The weather was perfect, we packed a picnic and spent all day Saturday in her boat cruising around Torch Lake. The lake is very large and deep and crystal clear.

And a beautiful turquoise color.

Rapper Eminem has two estates on the lake.

The deeper the lake the deeper the color.

Some trees are beginning to turn color.

Laura giving us the tour. It was so relaxing, some of us had a hard time staying awake. Ok, I took a snooze.

Norther Michigan has beautiful rocky shorelines.

A stone hunters paradise.

And the land is full of field stones. This was Laura's grandfathers house he built and her father was born here.

It is beautiful.

With all this inspiration years ago Laura began collecting and making her own stone houses. Her first one on a doll house base.

A bird house with a heart shape door.

This bird house is covered with Petosky stones. Their fun to hunt for as their only found in and around the northern lakes of Michigan. They're a fossil from millions of years ago.

OK, this picture isn't quite in order, but this is the inside of her stone covered outhouse.

And this is the outside. How cute is this?

I would show you pictures of all the quilts we worked on, but their isn't much to show. After your on the Lake in the sun all day you don't have much energy left, just enough to eat and sleep.

Thank-you Laura, is was a wonderful weekend!

New Blogs

2011-08-23T13:40:00.011-04:00

Windi and Becky just started new blogs to share their journey's with their handmade quilts and crafts.

http://birdblog.themediacentral.com/ Thank you Windi for the wonderful review of the weekend, I don't know if I deserve such kind words. Your poem is beautiful and perfectly describes natural dyeing.

http://blog.themediacentral.com Click on "Fairy Tale" quilt to read the story of Becky's quilt in progress.

Natural dyeing weekend

2011-08-23T10:29:00.012-04:00

I had some friends over for a "natural dyeing weekend". Windi and Becky camped in my back yard, and the others went home at night to sleep. Friday night we mordanted the wool. Saturday morning we began. First cochineal....

great raspberry colors.

Pam did a nice graduated color scheme.

I believe this was onion skins.

All of natures colors go together.

While the dye pots brewed hand work was done. Pam working on a appliqued quilt block.

Becky with the beginning of her "Fairy tale" quilt.

She's hand embroidering and appliqueing the story on different wool blocks. The first is the castle.

She had a lot of light blue wool that she played around with over dying. They took pretty well. They will be the back ground blocks in her quilt.

While Windi's fabric simmered she played around with natural henna on t-shirts.

Great turtle designs.

On Sunday we played with indigo. What a fascinating dye. This is the color in the pot, yellow/green.

As I carefully pulled it out of the pot so no air bubbles got in, the fabric began changing to blue.

Jody dyed 6 pairs of cotton socks (bundled up) for gifts. We kept dipping and then hanging a few minutes then back in the pot until the desired blue was reached.

Becky's hand spun wool yarn.

And Pam's wonderful collection of blues.

Becky tie-dyed some light red wool with indigo. This will be the middle of Windi's quilt, with henna designed blocks pieced around it. Beautiful.

Pam over dyed some cochineal to a beautiful plum/purple.

And yellows over dyed with indigo make green.

There was a lot more, here's a picture of Pam's dyed collection packed to go home. Isn't this beautiful?

By Sunday evening everyone was exhausted.
Windi and Becky loaded up their tent, tied the poles on top of the car and headed home, or should I say back to the real world.

And the party's over!

Herb Society Picnic

2011-08-18T10:39:00.008-04:00

Last Tuesday night we had our Herb Society summer picnic at one of our member's house, (Kathy S). We gathered in her beautiful back yard. Herb people are such great cooks, I guess that's why they love their herb gardens.

I wandered around taking pictures of some of her garden accents. There were so many to choose from. The following are a few.

She has 4 of these antique chairs painted with herb words and pictures.

This is a great outdoor stone mosaic clock. I think she may have made the mosaic pieces throughout the garden.

A glass beaded sculpture.

Paths leading to other gardens.

A little rusted doll chair tucked in the flowers.

Sea shells strung on a rope to remind her of time spent at the ocean and a rusted gate.

Another rusty gate with a vine growing up it.

A mermaid.

A gargoyle watching it all.

Bottle bush with vintage bottles.

She had several bird baths throughout the gardens with this wonderful little spinner in them, it keeps the water moving so no mosquito larvae settle in.

A great piece with North, South, East and West each on a different side.

A beautiful bird cage hanging in the flowers.

This weekend I'm having a natural dying class in my dye studio, stay tuned next week I should have some wonderful pictures to share with you.

Dyeing with cosmos

2011-08-09T11:33:00.010-04:00

My cosmos are blooming like crazy and I've been using them as fast as I can, and drying those that I don't have time for to use later.

Last week I placed them on this wool, rolled it up tight and steamed it for a hour. Then I put it in a zip lock bag and left it in the sun for 4 days. Look at it after it's been washed! I love it. The flower prints turned out wonderful, they have so much detail.

Up close it looks like I outlined the flowers with pen. They almost look like red poppies.
Double click on the picture to see the detail.

I think this would make a beautiful winter scarf. Tonight, I think I will do just that with a larger piece of wool (scarf size).

I wrapped one of my vintage linen napkins in eucalyptus and steamed it. I was expecting a wonderful rusty red but instead got dull yellow prints (4Th napkin on right). The orange spots on the side was from the cosmos touching it while they steamed.
Well this is my napkin collection so far, cosmos, rose leaf prints, daffodil and the eucalyptus, with more to come.

Our July Herb Society meeting was touring a few local gardens, I thought I'd share with you a few of their ideas. This was a great recycled brick path winding through different garden areas.

I wish I had a chandelier in my garden, the candles are great in it.

I also love these Lace Cap hydrangeas.

I really don't believe in having quilts out in the elements but this quilt was completely worn out, so OK, it works for this back porch. There is a roof over it.

This was a beautiful piece tucked in amongst the plants.

And back to my house, I loved picking this bouquet of Queen Ann's Lace along the road side. The stems and leaves are used for dyeing, getting a light yellow.

Gardens and Dyeing

2011-08-02T10:40:00.010-04:00

The wild flowers are blooming, I wanted to try this flower, I believe it's called tick seed, I was suppose to get a orange

but I got a nice yellow gold.

My daughter sent me some sweet gum leaves from down South, some I simmered in a pot with wool, linen and cotton and some I wrapped up in wool fabric and steamed. The little balls are the seed pods.

They took wonderfully on wool (cotton and linen not so good).

I love the detail on this piece. This will go in the quilt I'm making, well actually all these pieces will.

I also wrapped wool fabric with mullein leaves, steamed them and left them wrapped for a week. One piece I placed them running in a straight line and the other like a flower or sun.

They are a beautiful bright yellow.

Some of my dye garden plants are starting to bloom, on the left are orange cosmos, the right is madder root I planted this year. It is not a beautiful plant, with little yellow flowers and sticky, picky stems and leaves. The roots must be 3 years old to be of use for the dye pot.

Close up of the Cosmo.

I didn't have a lot of flowers but they are full of dye. I love the color. From left to right wool fabric, next wool fabric thrown in at the end with a little dye left, next an vintage linen napkin, and a piece of cotton fabric. The color of the linen and cotton are much peacher in real life. I love this dye and I have a lot more flowers coming.

A few skeins of yarn I dyed awhile ago and finally washed out, chamomile, dill, carrot top in iron pot, and black walnut. I think they are so pretty hanging there, I hated to put them away.

A few more pictures from Dow Children's' garden. This was a wonderful rain barrel with a spout at the bottom to hook a hose to.

The raised beds are part of a community garden, you pay $25.00 a year, you take care of it and enjoy all of the veges. Each family makes their own scare crows for their garden.

Another part of the children's garden with a great straw scare crow. I felt like I was in Peter Rabbit's garden.

Along the sidewalk was this tunnel with grape vines growing up it.

And from the inside you can see all the grapes.

This was the cutest "green" turtle in one of their ponds.

Update

2011-08-01T11:42:00.006-04:00

Ok, as you can see I'm trying to change my blogs heading so it's not so boring, Deb's been helping me. Were still working on it. This picture though doesn't show the rich colors of the quilt.
Tomorrow I'll update my blog with some wonderful peachy, orange fabric from cosmo flowers. My dye garden is starting to bloom and the wild flowers in the fields are ready to play with!
Also a few more pictures from the Dow's children's garden.

Dyeing Silk Scarves

2011-07-25T12:28:00.012-04:00

I took a natural dyeing class at the Herb Conference, this was our instructor Anna, her and her husband just retired 2 weeks before, selling all their greenhouses, home and almost everything else they owned. They are now moving to Hawaii to build a new house and start a new life. She was a really sweet lady and I learned some new dyeing tricks.

We each were given 3 silk scarves to bundle with dried herbs. Look at our selection. Although some of these you don't get much color with.

More...

And still more. I tried different herbs I don't normally use.

OK, instead of premordanting the silk with alum, we laid out the scarf, sprinkled on the herbs and then wrapped the scarf with different wires. This scarf has dried carrot powder, annantto seed and steel be bees wrapped up with steel wire. Then I placed it in a zip lock bag with white vinegar. I let all the scarves soak for a week in their own bags before washing them.

This scarf has dried kelp and St. Johns wort wrapped with copper wire, in a solution of balsamic vinegar. Using copper gives green tones.

The last one is barberry and dried hibiscus flower with copper wire and soaked in balsamic vinegar.

After a week I rinsed them out, left to right: kelp and St. Johns Wort, next barberry and hibiscus and the last one that I wasn't too excited about but turned out beautiful is the one wrapped with carrot powder, annantto and steel be bees. This was a fun workshop but I wouldn't use the wires on my wool, on one of the scarves the copper wire with vinegar ate away the silk. I would be afraid to use the wool fabric dyed this way in a quilt.

Back to the Dow Home we toured while at the conference, this is a little side entrance with it's own little garden.

Mrs. Dow had her own beautiful beautiful sewing room which now serves as a library. This silk quilt was on the master bed, I don't know if she made it or it was purchased as she had beautiful antiques and art from all over the world. This is a silk whole cloth quilt with hand sewed oriental trapunto (stuffed & stitched) designs.

Another design on the quilt.

This is a needle pointed stool in the sewing room. It was well used.

And in a guest room were two beds with hand crocheted spreads with a trapunto "D" hand monogrammed in the center.

They had a lot of beautiful paintings, this one hung in one of the living rooms. I love this, the woman and girl are knitting while at the sea shore and the little boy is playing with a boat.
(Veronica this would be you)

International Herb Conference

2011-07-19T11:30:00.009-04:00

Last Friday and Saturday my girlfriend and I went to the International Herb Conference in Midland, Mi. What a wonderful conference, the local herb society hosted the conference and they out did themselves.

A nice welcome bag and herbal bouquet greeted us when we went into our hotel rooms. Homemade cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels and kettle corn, herbal soaps were in the bathroom.

We signed up for the garden tour around Midland, one of our first stops was the Lavender Fleece farm. What a beautiful farm and a very ambitious lady who owns the farm (with her husband). She has a large lavender garden which she uses to make lavender products for her store and for bouquets for weddings.

It smelled heavenly.

Look at one of her garden fences. The whole farm was charming!

The owner is a wonderful weaver. I love these rugs, how good would they feel on bare feet. Click on the picture to see the close up details.

Their made from her Icelandic sheep she raises. They also raise lamas, peacocks, goats, chickens etc.

This is her weaving studio and store.

With her lavender door. She had lavender tea, cake and dip with crackers for us.

Her pottery studio with a lavender door. What a farm, it would be a great place for a retreat.

Our next stop was Dow Gardens, this is where Dow Chemical's original owners home was. Actually, I think it's still in the family. Anyway there are acres and acres of gardens and the original house from the late 1800's is open to the public. There was a great blown glass exhibit by Craig Mitchell Smith displayed throughout the gardens. Here are just a few. A tall dandelion seed head.

Some of the seeds blowing in the wind.

Jumping fish in a pond.
This is just the beginning of the tour and the conference hadn't even begun, next blog will continue with the conference and the natural dying class I took.

I love this piece of blown glass with stones stacked in between. When I went to purchase it my girlfriend had already bought it for me! How nice was that. I has hoping it was made by the artist featured but no it was made in China!
I have it in my white sage bed.

PALS

2011-07-12T10:58:00.008-04:00

Last evening our local quilt guild celebrated our 20 anniversary. PALS- Patchers at the Lakeshore. All the past chairwomen who could be there brought in their quilt they received when they finished their term in office. Here are a some of them, (I missed the first few). I was the 4Th chairman, here I am with my quilt.

Some years we had "group" chairwomen, with different styles of quilts.

This wild boarder fabric was a guild challenge fabric the chairwoman had for her year so the board used it in her quilt.

A sampler.

These 3 ladies called the 3 amigos all received a quilt, only one brought hers.

Crazy quilts.

My good friends Kay and Mary.

My friend Judy with her co-chair Kathy.

They made all the past chairs a wonderful "corsage".

One of the founding members Pat Holly came back for our celebration. Yes Pat, the famous quilter who has won numerous 1st place awards at Paducha and is published in many quilt publications.

She shared with us one of her newest "India" inspired quilts made all from silk. It was beautiful, the intricate detail and the richness and shimmer of silk. My picture does not do it justice.

She also made a small piece for her daughter titled Pink Elephant.

I took a close up of my quilt at home, the little girls are our quilt guild logo. The different guild members who made the blocks made the girls in their image, (hair color, clothing etc.). This quilt has so many memories of great friends with some of the blocks of friends who have moved away or passed away.
Mel that is you, third from the left bottom row. The only one with a 3 dimensional dress that lifts up.

A few of the blocks, my friend from Alaska in her parka with silk ribbon embellishment.

Sue, in her corduroy jumper who moved to California. Joni with her lace vest and tote bags full of fabric.

Jody with her pearls, Kay with her quilted vest and quilt.

2011-07-08T13:41:00.007-04:00

Ok, I'm at work with extra time on my hands, I thought I'd share with you just a few more of our family vacation photos. Hopefully your not too sick of them. After spending a week at the first campground we regrouped and took the kids camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On the way we stopped at the Mackinaw bridge. Crossed over and went to the Tahquamenon Falls State Park campground.

After setting up camp we rented this little row boat (from the park) and rowed across the Tahquamenon river to this little island that the falls surround. You can hike around the island and see all the little falls. Its a great little hike.

One of the first falls on the hike.

Little islands surrounding the big island. Beautiful.

Another set of falls.

Another fall.

Then went drove to the Upper (much larger) Falls and hiked back to the Lower Falls. This was a much harder four mile hike, through the woods and along the river.

Over woodland creeks.

Along the Tahquamenon river.

This is a beautiful, woodland hike.

Back at our campsite there was this cute little chipmunk who would take peanuts right out of your hand, run it across the road to his home and then come back for more.

Camping crafts

2011-07-05T11:53:00.011-04:00

We had one rainy day while camping, out came my bags of left over wool scraps (yes, Deb, I know, save every tiny little scrap). The boys made memory pictures of camping. This is a hard project because there is no drawing the picture first, you just cut it out.

But they love it. They glued the pieces on the wool background with fabric glue.

Big brother even got into it.

Right to left, beach scene with driftwood.
Bridge over the creek with clouds and a tree, snake in the water.

Tree with pond and snake, sun and clouds.
And little brothers snake with tonge sticking out, ok, he's not into it!
Someday I'm going to sew them altogether (with last years, and the next years) and make a little memory quilt.

One day we went to the nature center and learned about turtles and how to draw them and their patterned shells.

Then a hike through the woods to Lake Mi.

Back home to regroup for our next camping trip with a little bit of time to tie-dye some 4th of July t-shirts. We started by mixing up soda ash to soak the shirts in.

I taught each one how to twist the shits for the traditional pattern. Everyone did their own.

Waiting for turns.

I mixed up red and blue Procion dye, then everyone dyed their own.

Even little brother.

My sister-in-law, her daughter and grandson came too. Mom dyed a onesie, then grandma dyed shirts for her other grandchildren.

Big brother.

Hope you had a wonderful 4th!

Camping

2011-06-21T10:32:00.007-04:00

Off to the campground, while we set up camp the oldest took all the little kids down to look for critters in the creek.

Mama watching them.

Vicky and her new dog came camping too!

In the afternoon its down to the beach, this is where the creek emptys into Lake Mi. The little ones climb on all of the old trees while big brother climbs the dunes with his friends.

Its very hot, humid and foggy.

Gardens

2011-06-15T11:29:00.011-04:00

And then there was a moon........

With a sprinkling of stars coming soon.

I haven't done much quilting, outside every free moment working in the yard and gardens. I thought I'd show you a little bit. I bought this flower cart from a artist who uses old steel and welds it together to make new garden art. The wheel even roll!

This year we put in a little raised vegetable garden by our back door, full of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, fancy lettuce and pumpkin plants. Handy for a quick salad. Our bigger garden space now holds my dye plants, when they get bigger I'll post it.

Years ago we pulled this old hand hued barn beam from the river and brought it home, hoping to use it for something one day. (it's about 12 foot long and looks like a giant Tinker Toy). Well, we haven't used it but it looks charming with berry vines growing over it.

Our front fence along the sidewalk is lush this year with ivy, sweet cicely, and bleeding heart plants.

With the bird bath on the other side setting on a old pine stump overgrown with ivy.

Local Made Antique Quilts

2011-06-07T12:53:00.015-04:00

Last night at our quilt guild meeting our local museum put on a wonderful trunk show with antique quilts from their collection. The quilts were all from our area.

This first quilt is a wool log cabin from the 1850's in the barn raising design. The story of the quilt is the owners were moving West and traded the quilt for a can of lard.

This crazy quilt from the 1860's. The silks in this quilt are disintegrating.

This hand-pieced and hand-quilted piece from the mid1800's was a donation quilt. People donated money (.10?) and the quilters would embroidered their signatures in the boarders. Then the quilt would be raffled and all the money would go to some cause.

Another silk crazy quilt from the mid1800"s. This one was made by one of the most prominent families in our are at that time, Mrs. Charles Hackley. Her husband made his fortune in lumber.

Black with cream embroidery mid1800's. This quilt was hand embroidered by the women of a local church probably as a fund raiser. All the blocks have different local business advertisements.

I love this one with the picture of a Whirlpool washer.

A red work quilt, each block was embroidered by a different women. One was done by another Lumber Barron's wife, Mrs. Hume. Their signatures were also embroidered on the top.

I like this spider web, it says "come into my parlor"

A very heavy Star of Bethlehem, mid 1800's. This was hand-pieced with wool fabric then appliqued onto a plaid blanket.

Another silk and velvet quilt in the rail pattern, mid 1800's. The silk is deteriorating on this also.

A wife of a local Judge made this wool quilt with his old robes and suits. Mid1800's.

This quilt was hand-pieced and quilted by a elderly women. After using it a few years someone dear to her was getting married. So she bought a new back for it, requilted it and gave it to the couple as a wedding gift.
Late 1800's

Look at the size of her new quilting stitches. Too cute.

I don't remember too much about this quilt except they have called it a Cherry Basket from the late 1800's.

Our local museum focuses on the Victorian era, when all the beautiful mansions were built with all the beautiful Michigan trees.

Memorial Weekend

2011-06-01T09:03:00.006-04:00

My husband and I planted all our gardens (vegetable, herb, dye) and flower pots Saturday and Sunday, then the final touch was adding this "Sun" stepping stone. I'd seen it done at our local health food store Utopian Market Place last year. Theirs was tucked in their gravel paths.
We went to a landscape store and picked out the correct shape stones. It looked really great until the maple tree let loose all it's whirly birds, I had to sweep off the sun to get a picture. My yard is full of them, some as thick as snow!
Next we want to put in a crescent moon.

Speaking of Suns, I cut out my next block for my wool quilt. I love how this fabric dyed, I solar dyed it last year. One jar contained cochineal, madder root and Osage orange bark with the wool fabric. The other jar held Osage orange bark and annetto. I haven't sew this yet.

On Monday I packed a picnic and we took our boat out on the river for the day. We try to stay off the main branch and explore the little tributaries, so much more wildlife. This was a wonderful sight, Who lives in this little home? With spruce tree landscaping and moss covered logs

leading down to the river. How charming is that?

New natural dye book

2011-05-25T10:37:00.005-04:00

This is a wonderful new natural dyeing book by Rebecca Burgess. The chapter on Navajo dyeing was written and photographed while I was in class with Rebecca in Arizona. The photos in this book are beautiful. Lots of great inspiration.

I've been working on my wool quilt, dye printing leaves and cutting out new squares to piece.
Not all of these are sewed together, some are just placed on my new flannel board I made for the dye studio.

My girlfriend Laura quick whipped up this patriotic quilt to be used on the grandkids bed at her cottage this holiday weekend. And when I say quick I mean she is fast! She has made a few other patriotic quilts for the beds, now the babies have theirs.

Oh, and look at this wonderful mushroom growing in our back woods, I love the pointy cap!

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, I see you next week.

Daffodil on linen & cotton

2011-05-18T10:59:00.013-04:00

The daffodils were in full bloom last week, I bought this beautiful bunch (with wonderful orange centers) at the Weaver's guild meeting, I put them in a vase for a couple of days then.....

into jars to soak for 3 days getting them ready for the dye pot.

While they were curing I soaked 4 yards cotton fabric and 10 old linen napkins (Thank-you Sandy) in tannin water to begin the mordanting process.

I then simmered them using this type of Alum and water, it's recommended for cotton and linen. I'm very excited to see how they take the dyes, it's very difficult to get a good color on plant fabrics.

The linen (on the left) took the dye beautifully, a nice butter yellow, the cotton was OK, not great. By the end of the summer I should have a 10 beautiful linen napkins all dyed a different natural color.

Next, since we have such a good crop of dandelions in our yard I tried them with the cotton. When I first took it out of the dye and hung it on the line to cure it looked a very pale dirty white, when I washed it with our city water and gentle soap it turned a nice yellow. With wool the dandelion dye is usually a greeny yellow, which I don't care for.

My good friend passed away about 18 years ago when her daughter Vicky was 13, I taught them both how to quilt when Vicky was about 6 years old. Now that Vicky's grown into a wonderful young women (putting herself through college, getting her master degree) she wants to finish up some of her mothers quilt tops. Last Saturday she came over and we set up her new sewing machine. She hadn't sewn on one in years so she decided to begin by making her nephews new "camping" pillow cases.

She bought 4 nice size travel pillows to put in them.

Two ready for camping.

Quilting for tornado victims

2011-05-10T09:25:00.013-04:00

Last week our local quilt shop Quilted Memories organized a two day quilting to make quilts for the victims of the tornado's in Mississippi. The owner Jill donated all the fabric, batting and machine quilted all the quilts the volunteers pieced. Mary worked nonstop for the two days, Kay and I came up after work Friday and pieced two. Here we are "team" quilting!

They were very simple pieced but good size with good quality fabric. This top if folded in half.

And a child's quilt made out of this beautiful fairy fabric.

Some of the tops waiting to be quilted.

This machine ran nonstop.

Some of the finished quilts. The final count of the quilts made is around 50!

Cute kids quilts.

A local church that some of the quilters belong to also donated 20 quilts.

Back home I unrolled my wool fabric with the rhododendron leaves. I premordanted them both in alum but the one on the left I soaked overnight in tannin before rolling it in the leaves. It definitely picked up the leaf image better.

Leaf prints.

Pretty yellow prints.

5 Days spent with the Arts

2011-05-03T11:04:00.018-04:00

I spent last Thursday night, Fri. and Sat. quilting with my girlfriends, I added the boarders to Christmas quilt #2, made a easy apron for grilling and also this great purse. I didn't plan on making the purse, Kay brought the fabric and pattern to make one with enough fabric left over that Mary and I could make one too. I love this batik. This is a commercial pattern I believe called Wallet & Grommet (?).

On Sunday my husband and I went to the Grand Rapids Art Museum to see their "Art in Bloom" exhibit . Floral designers created floral arrangement inspired by paintings in the museum. These are a few of my favorites.. cute bird

How wonderful is this.

I love this crane made of dried leaves. The painting is behind him in the middle.

And this is the painting that inspired it.

Another one of my favorites, notice the red house in the middle of the painting with colored squares around it. And the floral design, a little red house made of old barn wood and flowers tucked in square pockets.

This one 2ND place. I believe the painting had the word Ghostly in the title or maybe I just thought that it should.

A tough painting to recreate but wonderfully done.

This piece has little bird nests tucked in with little feathers,

Inspired by this painting filled with passenger pigeons.

A little modern art.

Another modern piece.

Outside the museum by the BOB is a large piece of Steam punk art, a flying pig. I believe the legs move as their are hydraulics in the belly. You can see how large it is by the cars underneath it.

Last night I went to the Woodland Weavers and Spinners guild (I love that name, it should be my blog name Woodland Quilter). This was part of the "show and tell", Joni Rosen wove this tallit (prayer shawl) for her granddaughters Bat mitzvah. It is woven out of fine wool and silk (not quite finished with pins holding the collar on) with secret messages woven in only Joni and her granddaughter can read. She also wove a bag to store it in.

Close-up of the wonderful weaving.

Sharing plants!

2011-04-26T09:33:00.011-04:00

Our local herb society meetings are the greatest, full of talented, generous women. Not only are they gardeners, a lot of them are textile artists, artists and crafters. This is Veronica's (our President) first weaving, she designed and wove it on a child's loom! Beautiful, I love how it looks with her outfit. She is also a master knitter.

Our snacks are always great and I loved this punch made with Rose scented geranium leaves and lemons. If your interested in the recipie let me know.

This months meeting we met at PJ's art studio and shared plants and seeds to get our Spring gardens going. Marsha is showing us how to take clippings from plants, dip them in root tone and plant to get great results.

And we begin, too much fun. We all went home with lots of new plants and seeds.

One of our members makes wonderful natural creams, soaps etc. We couldn't resist buying them.

Some of my herb clipping, Hot and Spicy oreganos, French tarragon and rose geranium. I also have lots of seeds planted.

My daughter and her family sent me flowers for my birthday. Thank-you I love them! When the flower start to wilt I will pick the iris and try dying silk with them, more on this later.

Speaking of fabric dying, my neighbors cut their rhododendrons back last week (your suppose to trim them right after they bloom in the spring or else you cut off all the new buds), they had a huge pile to discard and one ended up in my yard, I thought "some one must want me to try it in the dye pot".

So, I wet down some of my premordated (with alum) wool and rolled them up with the leaves, then steamed it for a good hour. I now have them in a plastic bag in a warm place working their magic. Next week we'll see the result.

Silk Egg Dying

2011-04-18T10:38:00.006-04:00

Last week I had some of my girlfriends over and we dyed Easter Eggs. I saw this on "Martha" a few years ago and have been anxious to try it. You start out with raw eggs and pieces of 100% silk, can be old ties, scarves etc. The more contrast the better. I had scraps of tie silk.

You wrap the egg in the silk, pattern side toward the egg. Secure with a twistie.

Wrap white fabric over the silk to catch the dye that bleeds off so it doesn't run onto other eggs. We used PFD fabric hoping it might dye the fabric also. (It didn't) I put the eggs in my stainless steel and enamel pots, filled them with water and about 6 tablespoons of white vinegar per pot (for 10 eggs). Brought the water to a boil then simmered them for 40 minutes. When they cooled we unwrapped them.

What a beautiful surprise, the eggs picked up all the small patterns and colors from the silk. They say you can use the silk more than once but mine looked much lighter in color (used up). I did save my white fabric to used next year, this will be an annual project with my bee. This was a wonderful way to dye the eggs. I don't know if you want to eat them though, 40 minutes is a long time to cook eggs and the chemical dye from the silk?? Double click on the picture to see the egg patterns up close and personal!

Great Herb Shop link

2011-04-13T10:54:00.003-04:00

I've been busy machine quilting my grandson's Christmas quilt and doing Spring cleaning, when it finally warms up around here for good I want to be outside. Since I didn't think you wanted to see a picture of the Christmas quilt in progress I took a quick picture of some rabbits I made years ago. Their made from cotton quilt batting with jointed arms and legs, the one I tea dyed. The eggs Deb H. also made me years ago from hand-dyed fabrics. Their 6-sided pieced eggs. Too wonderful! For all my Natural dying and Herb friends I found the best Herb shop on line- http://www.horizonherbs.com They have every herb you can think of, culinary, medicinal and Natual dying seeds, I'm so excited. I ordered madder root (my favorite dye plant), Navajo tea and dyers chamomile seeds. I cannot wait to put in my new natural dye garden. Make sure you have time to enjoy when you go on this site, there is so much great information.

Spring and pansies

2011-04-06T09:19:00.007-04:00

I have Spring Fever so bad, warm weather has been very slow in coming to this part of Michigan. Pansies are the answer. They are one of the first flowers you can plant as they can like it a little cooler, they really are not that happy during the very hot months of summer. I found these new type of Pansies their edges are ruffly. I don't know how well you can see it in the picture.

I love them, they are so cute.

I've been working on the next lattice strip on my Family Tree quilt. This lattice represents my husband's grandfather who lived in California. They had a rail road near by and he used to jump into the box cars and hitch a ride across the state and country. His son (my husband's dad) raised rabbits as a child.

I needle-felted mohair yarn in for the rabbits tail. Now to embroidering in the story.

Grandmas & grandchildren

2011-03-29T09:15:00.012-04:00

I found this great camping fabric and couldn't resist making pillow cases for my grandsons for Easter.

The fabric has so many cute camping details, including the top cuff, sticks with marshmallows ready for toasting. I made these for the 3 little ones.

And for big brother who plays on his school baseball team I made this baseball pillow case.

My girlfriend, Laura who has twin toddler grandchildren is making "big" bed quilts for them. She started with Hungry Caterpillar fabrics and added lots of bright color fabrics to go with it.

They are so cheery and fun.

And here are the two together ready to be quilted with their cute boarders.

For my birthday Deb H. sent me this new book by Allie Aller on Crazy Quilting. The book is wonderful with a lot of great ideas for crazy quilting. A nice modern look. Deb H. has one of her crazy quilted pieces in the book. Allie has a great blog you should check out http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/ I have no idea why this post is so "squished" together. Why there is no space between the end of the sentence and the next picture even though I have put a space in there several times.

National Quilting Day

2011-03-22T09:31:00.013-04:00

Last week was National Quilting Day (not sure what day it actually is), I spent the last two Saturdays quilting with with friends. Boy, you get a lot done when you don't have the normal household interruptions. One of the Saturdays I worked on my grandsons Christmas quilt. I have it all pieced except for the boarders.

Boarders coming soon.

This is another one of Mary's (the over achiever of the group) Christmas quilts shes making for her grand nieces and nephews. Notice the 2 small quilts on the back of the chair, each made from the scraps of the larger quilt. Oh brother, she makes us look bad! (She had this all pieced before our quilting day).
Lil Twister pattern.

Another one of her Christmas quilts. She now has 5 pieced with 2 of them quilted. She's making 10 total. She'll be done soon, with other projects done in between!

One of our dear quilting friends is terminally ill and some are finishing up a few of her quilts. Kay worked on this one. This is like a breath of Spring, I love the striped lattice strips.

And how cute is this, Melanie Ver Duin designed and made this wall hanging, winning a ribbon with it at a local show. The pin cushion and quilt are 3-D. The machine is correctly threaded and has a real needle and vintage button dials.

Melanie's mother embroidered these blocks in the 70's to make a quilt for the baby she was expecting (Melanie). Never completing them she put them away and forgot about them until now when Melanie is expecting her third baby. Melanie is now finishing them into a quilt for her baby. I love stories like this.

Close up of the lion.

OK another Mary project. This tote bag is pieced with the salvage edges cut from her fabrics, with tape measure ribbon handles.
This is a commercial pattern.

Companion Planting

2011-03-16T09:02:00.010-04:00

Last night was my local herb society meeting, this was one of the center pieces on the refreshment table. How cute is this, the herb box is a old sewing machine drawer.

And the front with the pull knob.

The lecture was on companion planting, there is evidence that some plants are protected and grow better when planted near the correct neighbor. Odors seem to repel insects and protect the companion plant.
This group of companion plants is called "Three Sisters", squash/pumpkins, beans and corn do well planted together.
The quilt under the plate was one of the speakers, her grandmoter made it with scraps from the family, there is fabric in it from 30s to one of her shirts from the 50s. Too wonderful.

Another great companion planting, roses with garlic, onions or chives planted around it.

And just like in cooking with tomatoes and basil they do well planted together.

Another really good pair is tomatoes and asparagus, and tomatoes and carrots.

Potatoes and horseradish make wonderful companions. At the Herb Conference they served a potato salad with a little horseradish in the dressing, it was wonderful.
If your interested they're is so many more companion planting tips on the internet and in gardening books.
Another great plant is Marigolds and Calendula. They are good to plant near potatoes, tomatoes, roses. Along all the edges of your garden to help keep out pests. And their beautiful.

Michigan Herb Conference

2011-03-14T12:26:00.013-04:00

Last week my girlfriend and I went to the Michigan Herb Conference, it was so nice seeing "green" after the long winter. I purchased a few new herbs, the tall pot is mojito mint perfect for summer mojito drinks, rose scented geranium and Irish moss.

In the moss I tucked in some spun-cotton mushrooms from the 1960's that were made in Germany. I purchased them from http://www.blumchen.com/. They have a lot of vintage and new goodies.

This was the welcoming display "Horseradish-what a kick!" Herb of the year.
I went to a lot of lectures from unusual herbs to making your own bent-wood trellis. All of them great.

And one craft class, making herbal garden fairies. This was the class sample.

This is the beginning of mine, I started with a seed head from last summers coneflower for the head, twig arms, and a wooden skewer for the body all bundled and tied with raffia. They gave us different dried herbs to used for the dress.

This is my fairy, with it's bay leaf wings and acorn cap. It needs a little more flowers in the skirt and sleeves and hopefully I will soon be able to get back to it.

They had beautiful displays set up, this is a garden party, with a "bee skip" candle holder.

Flower pot napkin holders and tea cup arrangements.

Another display was a vintage kitchen.

Porcelain basins

Canning equipment and canned goods.

Another lecture I went to was Creating your own herbal liqueurs. That was interesting. I actually thought I might learn something new to use with my natural fabric dying.

They auctioned off different herbal gardens, this one is a live salad bowl with wooden serving utensils. Pick the greens as needed and let it keep growing.

Turtle Table

2011-03-07T11:03:00.006-05:00

My husband designed, carved and made this sea turtle table for me. The Native Americans believe that we live on turtle island, which is the back of a giant turtle swimming in the ocean. This is the story told to us by the Native Americans in our area who are the woodland people.

White-birch legs.

I put it in my hallway with our Navajo weavings above it.

I spent some time this weekend hand-piecing some more of my quilt. I say "hand piecing" because some of my friends thought I was machine piecing it. Nope, it will all be done by hand. I also cut out a few more blocks.

One was a nine-patch with birch leave squares and the other "spotted" squares I made while in Colorado with lichen pieces.

Another 9-patch with euclyptus print squares, the others I dyes with Navajo tea.

My friend Judy made this quilt (not quilted yet) with a pattern called (I believe) Four-Patch stack. All the blocks are made with the same fabric as the boarder. How you stack and cut and sew them make the different patterns in each block. Like the "Stack and Wack" pattern a few years ago.
This is a cute, perky quilt for the last long days of winter.

Tahquamenon Falls

2011-03-01T10:46:00.013-05:00

Last week my husband and I went up to the U. P. and camped at Tahquamenon Falls. There's a State Park there and they keep a few campsites plowed open for winter camping. Not surprising we were the only ones there, we loved that. The really sad part is they are 60 inches below normal in snowfall! Not good, global warming.

We did a lot of snowshoeing through the woods, it was very cold but beautiful. Without my hood on I would get a instant "ice cream" headache.

From the campground there's a 2 1/2 mile (round trip) hike down to the lower falls. It's hard to believe the falls can freeze but over half is frozen and so is the river they run into.

This beautiful poem is posted along the hike. How can you not love trees.

My husband on the viewing deck above the falls.

At night at the upper falls the State park has a gas lantern lit trail through the woods. It's about a mile. You felt like you were in a Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's story.

It leads past the upper falls which are much larger than the lower.

And back to a camp fire and refreshments.

My husband and I took it twice, once at dusk and once in the dark when the lanterns were lighting your way.

Back in our R.V., this is our queen size bed. I made this flannel quilt about 13 years ago. I made different quilts for what ever type of trip were on. This is my "official" winter snowshoeing quilt.

Close up of fabric, these were hand screen printed at Michigan Rag Co. I sewed vintage black buttons on in all the corners.

And our little gourmet dinner, Apricot glazed Cornish hens, herbed rice, green beans and a little Winter White wine. I put the chicken in the oven while we went out snowshoeing and come home to a wonderful dinner. This is the recipe if you interested:
1 cup apricot preserves
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup "I can't believe it's not butter"
little salt and pepper. Mix together and pour in and over the chicken. Roast breast side up.
Roast 1 hour and 350 degrees. Mime took longer because their squashed together in the pan.

I did a lot of sewing at night. I have this block all sewed on and ready for the names and dates.

Stitched together the next section of my other wool quilt.

Two sections done with many more to come. I can not wait until spring to come to dye/print more leaves.

The following is a wonderful blog by Barbara Brackman, she is a well know textile/quilt historian. This year is the sesquisentennail of the Civil war and Barbara's blog focuses on a historic block every week representing something from the Civil war. Even if you don't make the block there is a great history lesson with it. http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/

New projects

2011-02-22T10:50:00.007-05:00

On to my other grandsons Christmas quilt, last weekend I cut out the next one. Here is a little of what it's going to look like. Nothings pieced, the peppermint pinwheels will have nice points when finished and the quilt will be full size.

I love this Santa fabic with the Arican print fur on his hat and socks. It celebrates my grandsons African heritage.

And the beautiful reindeer fabric for the boarders.

I also cut out my next block for the "family tree" quilt. My husband and I have owned for the past 25 years a truck and automotive service center. The building has 8 large garage doors but I drafted up just a small portion of the building to represent it.

This is the beginning.

I've been enjoying hand sewing the first sections together of my new wool project. I love how all the natural dyed colors go together.

I bought this wool thread/floss when I attended a lecture by http://suespargo.blogspot.com last fall. It's by Genziana and works wonderful with this project.

New wool quilt

2011-02-16T10:35:00.010-05:00

I've been trying to think of a way to use my wool fabric that I dye printed leaves on without having to cut it up into small pieces. I saw on a blog http://paintspinknit.blogspot.com/ last week a lady used her printed silk to make a quilt and shaw somewhat in this manner (without the lattice in between the blocks). I've just started laying it out, (everything will be cut even and I have many more blocks to dye print), I want it to be a good size quilt or blanket for the top of the bed.

Close-up of the top half (so far).

The bottom (so far). I think I'll applique some wool leaves throughout on the lattice.
Next on the list I'm going to try dye printing persimmons. I read you get a beautiful yellow dye we'll see if it leaves a nice image.

Last night was my Herb Society meeting, this is the historical home we meet in. It was built in the late 1800's by a lumber Barron. It's a beautiful place with lots of hand carved fireplace mantles, stair railings, and trim.

Across the street is the old college built around the same time, now it is a office building with a great clock tower.

Our herb lecture last night was "Mustard", who knew there could be a whole lecture on the history and uses for mustard. It was very interesting with great home made mustard dips to try .

Our refreshment table was full of different dishes using mustard.

The table was decorated with an antique linen table runner with hand-made lace over a red table cloth. Placed throughout were old mercury glass hearts.

And a old celluloid heart box that the owners great-aunt received as a gift years ago with a watch inside.

A couple more mercury glass hearts.

I made some herb cards with left over fabric from my table runners. There are a few ill members I'm mailing them to.

Happy Valentines Day

2011-02-09T09:59:00.006-05:00

My friend Judy's quilt top using the Lil Twister pattern. I love the updated colors of the reproduction 50's fabrics.

Years ago while at a garage sale I bought this package of old Valentine day cards. The post marks on the envelopes were from the 1920's. I have them on display on my piano for the holiday.

Some of my favorites.

This is a cute hand-made one. The verse inside reads:

Happy will you live,
Happy will you be,
With twenty little kids,
Sitting on each knee.

I hope this was a joke and not the real way of thinking for women in the 20's.

The styles are all so different.

And the "ultimate" Valentine that fold out with red "honey comb".

And a few more styles.

I hope you have a Wonderful Valentines Day, I'll be celebrating with my husband eating chocolate mousse and watching the movie Chocolat, you can not watch that movie without eating good chocolate!

Christmas quilts

2011-02-01T11:10:00.004-05:00

Last Friday and Saturday my quilt bee had a winter quilt retreat. What a great way to spend time with good friends and get a lot quilting done. This year by Thanksgiving I want to make my 3 youngest grandsons full size Christmas quilts (I made the oldest brother his a few years ago). Not that I'm in the mood for Christmas but I thought I should get started on them. On this first quilt I got all the rows pieced but their not sewed together. This is a older Santa print from Debbie Mumm. I love how it has Santa snow boarding and sledding. This quilt will be for one of the twins.

Close up of the quilt. I love the peppermint pin wheels. I'm thinking about putting a narrow medium green strip between all the rows, not sure.

Mary's making 10 for her great nieces and nephews for next Christmas. This is one of the first tops she has done.

And this is the second.
She had these done before the retreat.

This was a cute snowman quilt Mary made for herself a few years ago. It's a pattern but I not sure by who.

Bottom.

I bought this wonerful Valentines fabric last week and made a few cards to send out to my and my husbands parents, and one to include in the grandsons Valentine package. I simply used blank cards and stamped red dots along the edge. Cut the background fabric and batting and sewed along the edge with gold thread and my sewing machine. Then cut batting and the heart and sewed it on. The batting makes the cards come to life. Playing with the red fabrics is a nice color change on the eyes, It's pretty white here and another major snow storm coming in tonight. Actually I'm very excited about it, I hope we're snowed in tomorrow.

Steampunk art

2011-01-26T12:45:00.004-05:00

My husband and I went to a art show last weekend, we say this wonderful exhibit of "steampunk" art. I never heard of it before but it had a familiar look to me. A short definition: steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980's and early 1990s. In my words "Victorian and modern objects are blended together to become work of art". OK, that wasn't a great explanation but you get the idea. The name of this artist is Brent Scofield and these are a few of his pieces.

Some great jewelry, I wish I would have gotten a close up. I also like how he displays it on a antique pillow case.

A few more of his pieces.
Some of the films that used this type of art were: Wild Wild West (1999), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I finished up this little heart pillow this past weekend. It's made with a wonderful cotton velvet Deb C. shared with us while we were on our quilt retreat. There is a pocket behind my antique heart button.
And the snow keeps coming!!

Herb of the Year

2011-01-19T11:54:00.005-05:00

Last night was my Herb Society meeting, our topic this month was horseradish, 2011 Herb of the Year. Now, you may think of horseradish as being a lowly little unimportant herb, used only as a condiment to beef, but let me tell you I learned differently. Myself, being part of the program and helping with refreshments I had to study up on it. This is a little of what I learned, for centuries this herb was thought of as medicine, not a condiment. The fresh root of horseradish has been used by herbalists as an internal and external medicine for centuries. The chief active constituent of it is mustard oil, and it also contains an antibiotic substance and vitamin c. It is a powerful stimulant to the digestive organs. It has often been used as a poultice to relieve aching joints and rheumatic pain. Horseradish is believed to be one of the more potent herbal diuretics. One favorite way to take it when you want to flush fluids out of your system is to mix it with white wine. A syrup made of grated horseradish, honey and water is one of the standard remedies for hoarseness. And last week on the tv show The Drs. they talked about to lighten dark spots on your skin you can used a little grated fresh horseradish mixed with a little lemon juice and white vinegar. Use it to help bleach out the discoloration. Its medicinal qualities goes on and on.
For my part of the refreshments, for our "centerpiece" I purchased this huge horseradish root and placed it in a vase with curly parsley around it. I found this cute herb fabric at Jo Ann Fabrics designed by Debbie Mumm and made a couple of simple table runners for the tables.
This is one.

This is the other one with yellow sashing.

And this is the back, actually as cute as the front with no piecing.

At the meeting, someone made and brought these cute snails out of herb kitchen towels.

We had lots of refreshments with horseradish as the star. From a big pot of soup to meatballs and everything in between, except for desert and the punch.

All that "green" at herb society this time of year was wonderful, here are a few pictures showing our yard, boy did we get dumped on. The snow is thick and heavy. You can hardly see the spruce trees.

I love how the snow shows the "bones" of the maples.

And my bird house with the vines twisting around it look wonderful in the snow.

Snow

2011-01-12T10:06:00.006-05:00

We had a wonderful snowy weekend, just a light nice snow perfect for a taking a ride to the lake. What a different look with all the snow fences and ice but still beautiful with the light house.

A little too cloudy for a bright sunset, but very inspirational for another block for my "earth quilt" .

So back home I went, dug out some of my natural indigo dyed wool challis (I think that's what its called), cut a piece out for background, thinking I can position the white tie-dye spot to be the new moon in the sky. I cut a green tree out, then some snowy lace fabric to stitch over it, and some for the snow on the ground. I added mohair snowflakes in the air. I'm loving doing these little pieces, nothing better than curling up by the fire and doing hand work.

And this is the next block to add to my quilt. Under the snow and tree fabric I added some Angelina fibers for extra sparkle.

I also played around with natural dying wool and silk using pomegranates (good idea Deb).

Cut them open, some slices have great patterns.

Bundled them up tight and steamed them about 1 hour.

Left them for about 4 days then opened to reveal the print. On the wool, the seeds left a great purple print with yellow rind print around.

The silk was more subtle but beautiful.

In between this and work I'm still working on redoing all our family photos, that is going slow but steady. I know someday when I'm finished I will be happy but not feeling it yet.