Quilting Karma Part 2

Twenty two crazy scrappy backpacks -- done -- bagged -- and ready to go to Honduras.

This has been a project that has taken on a life of its own!  I thought, hmmm, 10-12 bags.  Good to go.  But as I was culling my stash and finding bins of 6" strips, more bags kept happening.  

This photo isn't all of them, just the ones that had been completed by yesterday afternoon.  I spent the evening with a friend, watching a movie and stringing the last of the clothesline straps, tying the knots and finally, folding and bagging each one.

Two more are headed to a friend in Virginia..  one to the widower of a dear friend, and their eldest daughter. 

Mission accomplished!  Until the next time when I make more..

Quillting Karma

I'm so not a good blogger... I just looked at the date of my last post!  And now 6 months later... here I am.

The Mala quilt top is done but its all hanging in the laundry room until it tells me how it wants to be quilted.   So far, it has been very silent, but I know it will tell me one of these days.  In the mean time, I did a baby quilt for a friend, a donation quilt for the local Planned Parenthood Gala, and just finished the top for this design by my guild sister Sarah Whitney from her line at Sweet Clover Canyon -- ok, I will get pix up one of these days.

And a blue jean quilt is in the works... just waiting for some helpers to add their straight stitching skills to the construction.

And....  my boss goes to Honduras in June for a medical mission and while we are collecting medical supplies from various offices, one the big needs is for fabric bags since most of the folks they serve don't have any containers for their personal belongings.  They have a need, I have a stash.

After purusing several patterns on line, I came up with my own.... a simple long strip of fabric that becomes a lined bag, and with poly clothesline for the cording, these will do quite nicely.   The finished size is about 17" square...  

Quilting karma, for sure.

Bag open

Bag closed

More, more, MORE!

Saffron to Red!  Yep, got it.  Mala project, next version.  After the yellow got overrun by everything else with the first run, I decided to do another set.   (I need a direct pipeline to fabric from Dharma -- I'll be ordering more soon!)

This time, I decreased the concentration of the red and added 2 cc increments (yes, using a syringe) to each bag.   As you can see the first and last colors are very different, but the in-betweens are a gentle gradation.  Exactly what I wanted.

Last weekend, I had an A-HA moment.  Most weekends, I have dinner with my best friend, and we watch Netflix.   But I had become intrigued with a story I read on line about the Nangchen Nuns of Tibet.  These Buddhist women have an incredible story, now a feature-length documentary entitled Blessings.  As I watched this incredibly beautiful story, I realized that the colors I was seeking are the colors of their robes, which made the project all the more special.  And the next day, I dyed them.

Now to complete the saffron to blue run.  The first one was a bit too yellow, so back to the dye pots today.  Stay tuned!

More Hand Dyes....

Last weekend, I started dyeing fabrics for a new project.  Being in a new office building certainly requires a new quilt (at least in my mind!)... and since our focus walls are a warm grey/blue, I want to bring some yellow in for a pop of color. 

The gradation was supposed to be more yellow based but the red and blue overran the yellow in a big way!  The photo shows 20 gradations, but no yellow to be found, even though it was the base of each mix.

Back to the dye pots today.... more yellow, less red and blue.  Actually the colors are great, but not what I intended ...  oh, yeah, they will get used....

My last big dye run (20 yards) is finally almost used up.  With the help of a friend, we dyed 20 yards of blue yellow gradations for my labyrinth quilt....  this year, our guild had a mystery quilt and I used most of the leftovers to create "Green Nebula" -- 66 x 66" and I thought I would never finish it!  Its hanging at the county fair right now, then it will be for sale.

For my friend, Nathan.....

Many many years ago, when I first got on the internet, I met Darryl, a nurse from Australia via a bulletin board on alternative health practices. He was doing his thesis on the same topic that I had used for mine. And a long distance, long term friendship developed thru the wonders of the internet.

In 1998, on his way to London, Darryl came thru the US and we got to meet face to face for the first time! On his visit to AZ, we played tourist and one of our stops was Sedona, nestled in the beautiful red rock country, and one of our stops there was the Chapel of the Holy Cross. There in front of a statue of St. Francis, Darryl began to hear the call to religious life, even though neither of us realized it at the time.

Throughout his time working in England and the Middle East, the call became stronger and when he returned to Oz, he began to pursue his calling. In 2002, he joined the Society of St. Francis and became Br. Nathan James. Now he is completing seminary and will be ordained as a deacon in December, 2011.

One of the magical things about our friendship has been thru quilts. At several crossroads in his journey, I've had a psychic hit about a quilt for him.... and several quilts have crossed the ocean to his hands, and often answered questions that he was holding. As he nears ordination, I truly wanted to make him a very special gift and in correspondence with a mutual friend, decided to make his ordination stole as a surprise.

Lo and behold, he soon emailed me and asked if I would make his stole! He had no idea that I was already thinking about it. Our minds were as one as we discussed the designs. One of my sorority sisters from college had been making stoles, and she graciously sent me her pattern. It all came together.

This past week, Nathan again journeyed to AZ on his way to London and again at the Chapel in Sedona, I was able to gift him with not one, but two stoles that I created to mark this part of his journey.

The first (he didn't know he was getting two!) is called Sunrise, Sunset after the song Cradle of Dawn by Libby Roderick. The song speaks to global connection and is very special for both of us. It's a rainbow of colors of the earth and more specifically those of sunrise and sunset. (click on any image to enlarge)  

And the second, is the red stole of ordination. I dyed 13 different reds (more like 22, but only used 13), then created a brickwork pattern. On the ends, I've embroidered the outline of the chapel and most importantly, the image of the statue of St. Francis where the journey began.

I've never made liturgical garments before, but I'm really pleased with the way they came out... and of course, Nathan is as well. Who knows, I just might have to go to Oz to see him ordained in December!

More Dyeing!

Sometimes I think I'd rather just dye fabric than use it! My dear friend, The Singing Quilter Cathy Miller (and her wonderful husband John Bunge) have been visiting for a few days between their gigs. Cathy wanted to try freeze dyeing, and no one has to ask me twice to dye fabric.

She has carefully documented our experiments on her blog (which has lots of other fun stuff, too). But here are some of my favorites!

Cerulean Blue and Moss Green. Folded in 8ths, frozen before dye was added.Fire Red and Cerulean Blue. Scrunched in bag and frozen.Fire Red and Golden Yellow. Scrunched and frozen.

Catching Up.....

I'm so far behind in blogging..... the usual excuses apply... busy at work (we are moving to a new state of the art building in July), and life in general. I haven't done a lot of quilting, my weekends tend to fill up and those blissful at home days have been few and far between.

I did do one small piece this spring. It's called "Jonah's Mountain" and was a birthday gift to my yoga teacher. He had posted some fabulous pix on his Facebook page and one was of this mountain-scape. My brain, doing its thing, immediately said "That's a quilt!" I dyed the fabric with gradations of true navy and fire red to get the purples. The oranges were golden yellow mixed with some fire red. Pretty true to the photo, and yes he loved it.

The big news of spring is that I had an article in the May issue of The American Quilter (you have to be a member of AQS to view the issue on line)... my four labyrinths were featured and since the feedback was so good, AQ has contracted with me to produce a pattern of St. Omer's Labyrinth (shown in the background of this post).... I'll get another pix up soon. I'm working with one of my computer buddies to create the graphics and the instructions are done for the most part.... stay tuned!

Snow Dyeing - Day 2

Two of my friends wanted to do snow dyes, so we started the process yesterday..... I decided to let them use the mesh platform and just place my fabric in the bottom of a bin. When the snow melted, the dye liquid was very murky but I wasn't worried.... and am very pleased with the results.

Top left: accordion folded fabric, then folded in half.

Top right: scrunched

Bottom left: gently folded then twisted into spiral

Bottom right: scrunched

Colors used: Fire Red, Cerulean Blue, Golden Yellow, and Moss Green (Procion MX).

The blues are still an issue... they need more heat. But I got better blues than with the turquoise.

OK, this is totally addicting!

If it snows, dye fabric....

Flagstaff. Winter Storms. Snow Days. Time to do some snow and ice dyeing! We had about 18" of snow yesterday and today, so the fresh powder was perfect. And here's a mini lesson on snow dyeing! My deck had a nice layer of fresh powder to play with.

So here's a mini lesson on snow dyeing!

After soaking prewashed PFD fabric in soda ash for about 30-40 minutes, I wrung out the excess and then gently scrunched it into two batches.

The first was on a plastic screen clipped to a large plastic bin. This suspends the fabric and lets the dye drain into the bin. I covered the fabric with fresh snow, about 3-4" deep. Note to self: wear gloves to handle the snow. My hands were freezing!

Over that, I poured super concentrated Procion Dye. For this batch, I used turquoise, fuchsia, and golden yellow. I used 1 cup of prepared dye for each color. I should have made more!

Now comes the hard part... wait for the snow to melt. It's sort of like watching paint dry!

It took about 6 hrs for the snow to melt, in the house! Then I rinsed and washed it!

And here's what I got:

The turquoise really washed out.... the reds did well, the yellow was so-so. Note to self: use more dye. Tomorrow, I'll try a different blue and hope it doesn't fade. Turquoise needs warmth to activate so the snow kept it too cold. The piece in the upper left was plain white muslin, instead of PFD. The dye was not take as well.

The second batch was scrunched into a tub and placed outside in a snow bank until it was frozen almost solid. Then I used Fire Red and Bronze and let the fabric defrost in the house. And here's what came out:

I like these a lot better, except for the white spot in the lower right. At the end of the batching, I flipped two pieces over in the dye at the bottom of the tub, I think that's why they got more saturated. I'm tempted to cut these into rectangles for an art quilt.

I'm declaring success... altho limited. More dye liquid, and maybe let them sit even longer than just until the snow melts. Tomorrow... more fabric and more dyeing!

I made the paper...

My local guild has a biannual quilt show at the public library and this year for the first time, we got a local reporter to cover the event and a lecture we gave for the public. I was gobsmacked today to see a huge picture of me with some of my quilts on the front page of the Arts seciton. Click on the pix to see the whole thing! You can read the article here http://www.azdailysun.com/lifestyles/article_841815e0-6456-526a-b127-bb64b2f9e8b9.html

Storm Update - Is it Over YET?

Day 5, but who's counting? This storm series really started on Monday afternoon, and its still going.... I have no idea how much snow will be the offical total, but I'm betting close to 60"! Last night, it raining like crazy..horizontal for the most part. That was ok, because the snow rinsed off the trees and did decrease the drifts a bit. But the snow started again about 10 pm and by 1 am (I woke up and had to look)... the view from my window made me think of a cake covered in white fondant. Here's the deck this morning, the chunk on the railing fell off in the wind last night so this is a new crop. And now its taller than the railing, which is at least 36" high. The neighbor's house from the same place on the sidewalk as yesterday's pix. Below, my house is on the left, and yes, that is BLUE SKY peeking thru...

The sun is just starting to come out! So welcome!

My poor elm tree on the driveway....

The ice cave, AKA the path to the mailbox (no mail delivery for 2 days).... those drifts are taller than I am!

Maybe we'll see more sun tomorrow!

Storm of a Century? Hunkering down in Flagstaff!

Flagstaff AZ, January 2010: The predicitons have been dire. Up to 7 feet of snow in a week. Huh? Is this Alaska? Wisconsin? North Dakota? January 18, we got a few inches..... my deck is a great place to gauge the snow. Watch the wind chime.... January 19: A bit more. And this morning, January 21: Where is the wind chime? By the way, the gap between deck rail and roof line is over 24". The front of my house about noon today, after I shoveled the walk:

The drift at the end of the driveway, and no, that's not a child size snow shovel!

The neighbor's house

Trees behind the house:

And the other view of the back, yes, its still snowing!

Luckily, my condo area has snow removal. The guys have done a much better job this year than last. but I have no idea how they will keep up if the snow continues until Saturday AM! The city is pretty much shut down. But I have power, water, my sewing machine, lots of food, wine...... It's hunker down time.

Campus is closed, no work for us! Time to get going on those quilts and enjoy it. Well, sort of.....

The Great Kitchen Dye Caper

So at Quilt Camp this year, I won a tub of dye supplies (door prizes are good things)... and its been a while since I've had a day to really get into it. Last week, my friend Judy and I dyed some blue-green-yellow combos, so now that I have the bug, it was time to pop the top of tub and see what was inside. The tub was donated by Hands On Hand Dyes ( http://www.handsonhanddyes.com/) (Thanks, Cindy!) and is a great way to get the basics going. They offer 3 color ways, mine was "Garden" with rich primary, secondary and tertiary colors. All from 3 dye colors. So in the tub was all the stuff, the dye: the chemicals, the tubs, the fabric, oh, and instructions.

Since I don't have a dye studio at home (yet!), I cleared the kitchen, put painter's plastic on the wall and counter, plopped down an old beach towel (that could be sacrificed to dye goddess if need be), and went to work.. These are the dye "parfaits", each layered to get a light, medium, and dark fabric in each shade. The full strength dye is at the bottom, and "bleeds up" into the next fabric and the next, so the lighter shade is on top.

After I did the first set of dyes, I had some of each base color (blue, red, yellow) left over. So I grabbed an addtional half yard of prepared fabric and tossed it in a bucket, sort of folded pleated scrunched. And poured the left over dye over the fabric in sections. The dye will bleed and flow where it wants to, and that was the idea. Since this fabric was dry, I had no idea what I would get... After the dye played for a few minutes, I added the soda ash solution and it turned a horrible green color, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. And I like it!

And finally, after several hours, crossed fingers, incantations to the dye goddess, a good dose of Synthrapol to set the colors, and a hot iron, I had 36 fat quarters in 12 families and 3 gradations... only 2 are so pale that I'm not sure where they came from, but the rest are YUMMY! And the pale ones can always be overdyed.

Now, what to do with them? The wheels are turning... and I'm off to dye more fabric this afternoon.

Dragons at the Door

One of my annual treats is to participate in Quilt Camp in the Pines (quiltcamp.com) held here in Flagstaff. We enjoy nationally recognized teachers and take classes that address a wide range of skill and interest levels. I was very excited to see Esterita Austin (http://esteritaaustin.com/) was one of the teachers... her classes were on depth and perspective, something that I've struggled with over time. "Dragons at the Door" was my quilt in the first class that I took from her. The handdyed fabric had perfect serendipitous images of dragons that just sort of landed at each side of the door. We also added paint to highlight some areas which added a lot. I like this one. My second class project was not nearly as successful. It's covered on my design wall, I'm not sure I'll finish it! I just don't like the colors she chose for me.... I might do the image again someday, but in colors that speak to me!

Called

Many years ago, in the early days of my internet experince, I met a nurse from Australia who was doing his graduate thesis on the same topic that I had pursued in my master's program. We began an email friendship that has lasted until this day. Darryl visited AZ in the mid 1990's, our first eyeball encounter. During that visit, we did all the northern AZ tourist things, including the Chapel of the Red Rocks in Sedona. It was at that chapel that Darryl began to feel the pull of the religious life. He tells the shory better than I do on his blog http://www.mendicantsoul.info/ - and is now known as Brother Nathan James, a Franciscan brother in the Society of St. Francis.

I have followed his path over these many years and when he told me that he would be taking his vows of Life Profession, the universe bonked me on the head and I knew what quilt I needed to make.

"Called" is the image of not only the Chapel in Sedona, but the statue of St. Francis that graces the courtyard and where Nathan first heard his call. Machine appliqued on a pieced background. Machine quilted. And cherished by my dear friend from Oz. He is currently visiting the east coast with Franciscans from around the world and was, to put it mildly, gobsmacked when it arrived to his hands this past week.

Namaste, Nathan. Sunrise, Sunset and Big Bug Hugs.

Safari and Moebius knitting

So I haven't been a total slacker of late. Safari is a fun kid quilt (made with fabrics from Laurel Burch's Secret Jungle line) for a friend who is expecting in April. I promise to get a better pix when it comes home (its hanging in the quilt shop right now).... free pattern on line for everyone http://www.clothworkstextiles.com/pdfs/patterns/secretjunglequilt.pdf- I had it all ready to quilt in a weekend.

With the opening of a new yarn shop here (and conveniently located inside the LQS), I'm back in my passion for fiber and knitting (esp good on cold winter and windy spring nights).... this is a felted purse that was big enough to pack up a small village before I felted it. The strap is a moebius strip and its all knit in one piece... fab button, too! The moebius is the brainchild of Cat Bordhi, who I think, stays up nights thinking of new ways to torment knitters (and we love her for it)....

Click on the images for larger views.....

Stepping Stones

Last summer, I bought a jelly roll. That's 50 cuts of 2 1/2" strips of various fabrics. It was all batiks (one of my favorites) and in colors I would have never dreamed of putting together. A great creative challenge. After unrolling them, and putting them all on the design wall to see the choices, I decided on a simple log cabin variation. The result is Stepping Stones.

Front and Back

And since it's a bed quilt for ME (first time since 2003), I decided to have it machine quilted, and my quilter did a fabulous job. Yes, that's some trapunto in the alternate blocks.

Now, to remake the bed with my new quilt!

NeedleNooks

So lately, I've been pretty dry in the quilt inspiration department.... and so since its winter, I've felt more like knitting. We have a new yarn shop in town (conveniently located inside the quilt shop!) and I've been playing with samples and hats and little projects. I opened my knitting box and found a nest of needles, and I wasn't able to really tell what was what or what I had. I've seen fabric needle holders and decided I could make them! Here are my three, all folded up and easy to store. This one holds my smaller metal and plastic needes (single and double pointed): This one has my larger wooden needles and circulars:

And the last one has my crochet hooks, rug hook, cable needles and other small assorted accessories (in the small pouch on the left):

And NeedleNooks were born..... now the yarn shop is carrying them and I'm taking special orders!