Daffodil on linen & cotton

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.