New computer and Rug Hooking

Hi all!
I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. I received an IMac for Christmas :) What a lucky girl I am! I have to say that it is really wonderful and sooo much better than my old PC. My poor old PC would chug along and crash on me. So I have been in the process of trying to remember my passwords for my e-mail accounts and this blogger account. What a lot of passwords for everything! Now to get my ITunes library transfered over :)

I have been working on a little rug hooked sheep over the holidays. I wasn't really sold on it when I first got it but I have to say that it is really growing on me :) I added the little swirls in the sheep's body as a detail; but, I'm still not really sold on it yet. I like the way that the nine-patch squares are working out in the background though. I was thinking of expanding it a bit by putting a picket fence or something around the outside of the sheep. There is quite a bit of burlap left around the outside of the sheep so I think that it might look nice.

Now I just need to get onto finishing the 30's Dresden Plate quilt top for next week!

A New Baby Quilt in the Making!

Hi all!

Here is one of my next project! I have a new baby quilt to make! Yey! Well, actually I have two now to make but this is the next one that needs to be finished LOL!

This quilt will be a simple one patch four patch design. The bottom fabric is the feature fabric and border fabric. The yellow poke-a-dot fabric is going to be in the four-patches and the small orange is the first border. The orange batik fabric is actually from the expectant parents' wedding quilt. You can see the quilt here. The top green fabric is the brushed cotton backing fabric. The pattern that I am going to use is from the Ursula Reikes book Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC. I've done it before several times and I always really like it (you can see another one here). I like a simple baby quilt so that people will use it instead of putting it away to be an heirloom! Do you like my fabrics?

Christmas Pencil Toppers Finished

Hi all!
We are starting to get really close to Christmas and I am working frantically trying to finish up a few more Christmas projects!

Here is another one finally finished! I thought that I would make Christmas pencil toppers for my two son's classes. Well 44 toppers, and many hours, later I have them finished!! Wow! I don't know if I will do this again but it was fun to do it at least once! I think that this project would have been better started in the summer LOL!

The snow man is from Ann the Gran and the Christmas tree is a freebie from Embroidery Garden. They both stitch out very nicely and use felt as the backing so it's not all a fill! just add a pencil into the spot underneath and you are finished. I am going to go out tomorrow and see if I can get some Christmas pencils for the kids. I think that would really complete the gift.

How are your holiday projects going??

Snowmen Fabric Postcards

I finally finished making these snowmen fabric postcards today! I will get them out into the mail tomorrow and heave a sigh of relief. I don't know what I was thinking signing up for a swap that had to ship out right before Christmas; especially, with all the fabric postcards that I made for friends and family. I really liked the theme of the swap and I love that it is so international. Two of the cards are going to Australia, one to Turkey and one to France. I think that's pretty cool!

With all the snow that we have had over the past couple of weeks I could have built about a dozen or two snowmen in my front yard today!

Christmas Fabric Postcards

Hi all!

Well, this is this year's batch of Christmas fabric postcards! They are finally done! What a lot of work but I just love them :) All the white ones are addressed and ready to go I just have to do the coloured ones. I bought some of those clear peel and stick envelopes that a lot of people use and I think that I will put them in the envelopes this year since the postcards are white. What do you think? I bought a few hundred of them so I don't mind using them :)

These were fun cards to make. I saw the metallic net fabric at Fabric Land a few weeks back and thought that it would be a nice easy way to make cards if I layered the fabric over other fabric. I didn't buy any of it and so the idea took firm root in my mind. I went back a week later and guess what?? It was on 50% off!! Gotta' love that! So I grabbed a meter of each and then dug into my stash for some other fabrics.

The white trim is just a knitting yarn. I think that it really finishes them off and makes them look cozy.

Are you all done your Christmas preparations yet?

Christmas Yo Yo's

Hi all!

Here is a yo yo Christmas tree garland that I started a while ago! Now that I am thinking about putting up the tree I thought that I would pull it back out and start sewing the yo yo's together. I am using the Clover yo yo maker and it is wonderful!!! I saw this idea several years ago in a quilting magazine and loved it but I really didn't want to make yo yo's the traditional way. Way to tedious for me :) So when this tool came out I promptly got it and started these. I figure that this can be one of these projects that I add to every year and it just gets better and better. I have realized though that I need to make a whole lot more of these and in many different fabrics if I want the garland to be interesting :)

Now I just need to finish a couple more gifts and my Christmas fabric post cards and I will be all set!! How are you all doing with your Christmas projects??

The Center of the Dresden Plate Quilt is Finished

Well here is the center of the 1930's Dresden Plate quilt! I really like the way that it is turning out so far. It's so cheerful and very different from anything that i have made so far. I usually use a lot darker colours so this is out of my comfort zone a bit. I think that it will be so nice for the summer time. I will be putting a sawtooth border on next followed by a solid white border.

This quilt will be hand quilted, in the bee that I belong to, in crosshatch. I think that it is going to look beautiful when it is finally finished.

I am a terrible blogger

Hi all! Sorry I have been MIA lately. I haven't actually been doing that much sewing lately and what I have done I have done for other people. I machine quilted two quilts for a friend of mine and made a bunch of neckerchiefs for the local Wolf Cub Troop that my son belongs to. Lots of busy work but not for me LOL!

The one quilt that I am working on is for my Quilting Bee "The Silver Thimbles." It is a 1930's reproduction Dresden Plate quilt. I am using the Mardi Michelle templates and hand appliquéing it. So far it is turning out wonderfully! My quilt goes on the frame next to be hand-quilted by the group. I love hand-quilting in a bee! There is something really wonderful about sitting around in a group and working on a project together.

I need to work on some more UFO's and get them out of the way and I need to start working on some Christmas presents. I need to make some place mats etc. And, I need to embroider some ornaments. Oh so many things to do!

Rug hooking mug mats

Hi all!
I hope that everyone is well in blogging land!

These are some rug hooked mug mats that I just finished. I drew the patterns on some burlap and hooked them with some left-over pre-cut strips. They were really fast to hook up and did actually use up some scraps. Then I steamed them and glued some cork-board to the back of them. I didn't whip the edges or anything I just turned them to the back. Whipping the edges seemed like too much work for these little coasters :) Maybe I'm just lazy!?? Anyways, on to the next project!!
I got this older rug hooking pattern from a fiber show a few weeks ago. It is an older Rittermere pattern and still had the original tag on it. I'm not sure if you can really see it but I am going to do the sun flowers in yellow, the star in orange, the background in blues and I'm not really sure about the boarder. What do you all think? I think maybe that the first boarder would look good red and the second black; but, my husband says no! Maybe a dark green would be nice actually HMMMMM! Too many decisions sometimes :)

Sorry about another rug hooking post but I do love doing it!

Hummel Emboirderies

I am currently stitching out some of the Pfaff Hummel collection of embroideries. I started these about three years ago and never got around to finishing them! I feel so bad :( Anyways, they are wonderful embroideries and very well digitized. I have 12 done her but I can't decide if I should do 16 or 20 of the embroideries to make a wall quilt.

I would also like your help on the borders. I am thinking of a thin flap of the brown around each Hummel followed by a small, maybe 2" sashing around each block. You can just see the sashing fabric in the top right hand corner. What do you think? I would really appreciate some help with this one :)

Another Sweatshirt Jacket

Hi all!

I put the finishing stitches in the binding on this jacket this morning! I am happy to finally have finished this jacket. I made it for a friend (who owns the local quilt shop) and it was started in the spring if you can believe it. I cut apart the sweatshirt and did almost all of the piecing then I put it away until this week :) I really didn't do too much sewing at all this summer and this was one of the projects that got put away. It's very embarrassing that I put it away for so long especially when it is for someone else. Oh well!

Here's the back of the jacket. Just a very simple piecing pattern. I cut 4 1/2" strips and joined them together. Then I made them all into a tube and sub-cut it into 4 1/2" tubes. I rotated the tubes until I found where I wanted the pieces and then cut them apart. Very simple but with such amazing fabric you really don't need anything fussy.

If you want to see my explanation on how I do sweatshirt jacket you can check it out in my older blog post Part 1 and Part 2.

If you have any questions at all please feel free to post them and I will do my best to answer them.

An Older baby Quilt

Hi all!

I thought that I would share this photo of an older baby quilt with you all. I made this about 2 years ago for two very dear friends of ours. The baby's father and my husband go bird watching together so I thought that a backyard birds quilt would be great for them. From top left and down we have a chickadee, a cardinal, a gold finch, a blue bird and a nuthatch. They are all completely out of proportion but hey! They still really like it! The embroideries all com from Ann the Gran website and are free designs. i really liked how they all stitched out and the little boy who recieved the quilt still absolutely loves it. When I was trying to take this picture he was trying to pick the quilt up off the floor to take it back. I think that that is one of the most rewarding reactions that you can get from a child about their quilt! When I took the quilts back last summer to repair them the three children, to whom they were given, were all a little bit disturbed that their quilts were being taken away (even for just a little while!). I know that that might sound a little odd but it means that the quilts are loved and appreciated. And, to me, that is what quilt making is all about :)

More preserving :)

Hi all!
Again it is not quilting but here is what I did today :) I put up two full bushels of Roma tomatoes! We bought the tomatoes at the Parkdale Market in Ottawa yesterday and last night I chopped one 10 pound bag of onions and and about 6 pounds of chili peppers and red peppers. Wow was that a lot of work but it made a massive difference when it came to doing all the tomatoes this morning. I started preserving this morning at about 8:30 am and i finished at about 4:00 pm. Whew! You can see a picture of the three tomatoes sauces here. On the far end is tomato sauce with onions and red peppers and chilies. Big pot closest to us is tomatoes with onions and red peppers and the small pot is just crushed tomatoes.
Finally at about 4:00 pm or so today I had all the jars water processed and labeled! Not too bad huh? I can't believe that I was able to do this many tomatoes all in the same day! My secret is the Lee Valley European Tomato Press! It is the most amazing thing and if you like to preserve tomatoes you should definitely get one. This is not an ad I'm just saying that this is something that you can not live without once you've tried it :) 8 years ago I tried to process one full bushel of tomatoes the old fashioned way and it took me three days! (Maybe I'm slow) With the Lee Valley press we did two full bushels today! All you do it take off the stem end of the tomatoes and quarter them; put them into a pot and scald them until they release their jouice and their skins start to come away from the flesh; then put them though the press. I put them through the press three times to get the most out of the pulp. The press removes all the skins and the seeds! How cool is that!! Sorry but I just love this press a lot and it has eliminated a million hours from my preserving hours!

BTW I use this for jams in exactly the same way :)

Sorry about another no quilting post but this took up a lot of my time and I wanted to share my day with you all :)

Another Baby Quilt

Hi all!

Thank you all for your responses on if it is me or my age. I really enjoyed reading all your comments and found your perspectives very interesting. I really appreciate it!


I finished and delivered another baby quilt to a new-born little baby girl yesterday. What a cutie! The Mother is also a quilter so she really appreciated the quilt. I think that just because the Mom is a quilter doesn't mean that she shouldn't get baby quilts as well LOL! This is a pattern from Ursula Reikes' book "Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC". I love her baby quilt books! She has I think 3 or 4 out and I would highly recommend them. The patterns are a good size and simple enough to whip up in no time at all. I have done this pattern several times and really like it since it showcases a nice children's print so well. This is one of the few baby quilts that I have had the opportunity to do for a little girl. I had to actually go and purchase the pink ducky fabric because I just didn't have really any baby girl fabrics! Shucks, I had to go fabric shopping LOL! It seems that most of our friends have had boys. Hmm . . . .so much for women being 52% of the population! :) Just watch now my friends will all start having little girls now :) Well, another excuse to shop for some more fabric :) Like I need an excuse :)

Is it me or is it my age??

I have to say this is a question that comes to my mind very often when I go into a new quilt shop. When I was on vacation last week I went into a quilt shop that I've never been in before. There was only one other customer at the time and they were having a great conversation then she left within a minute of me coming in. I said hello to the owner and smiled the owner just smiled at me and said "Let me know if you need anything" and proceeded to go and sit down in the back and start to sew. I looked around the shop for about 10 more minutes and took some bolts off the shelf looked at the fat quarters. I was the only person in the shop and she didn't even look at me again. I was going to purchase some fat quarters but then I thought "No way! Why should I after that service!"

At another time I was in a quilt store and I asked a question about a pattern for a Lone Star type of a quilt. The worker looked at me and handed me a pattern for an easy nine-patch quilt and said "Maybe you'd be better with this pattern." I couldn't believe it!

Now don't get me wrong I've had great service all over the place; but, I have to wonder if it is my age that's the problem. I am in my mid-thirties and I have been quilting since my late twenties. I ask this question because I have seen women of an older generation getting excellent service from the same quilt store employees. I've even been in one store several times and I keep getting the same service (I've stopped going there now). Do people assume that because I am younger that I can't be a serious quilter or that they'd be wasting their time with me? You'd think that store owners would want to foster the younger quilters not discourage them. I guess I just don't understand this one. I would love to know your view-points on this one :)

Not quilting or sewing but it's what I did yesterday!

Hi all!

I thought that I would post a photo of the work that I did yesterday! I know that it's not quilting or sewing but it took me 11 1/2 hours to make all of these so I thought that I would post it. I allowed myself 6 hours to process a whole bushel of pickling cucumbers and man was I wrong. I finished the last batch at 11:30 pm last night. I was exhausted!

From left to right: sweet sliced dills, bread and butter pickles, lemon cucumber pickles (this one is new to me) sandwich stacker dills, and kosher-style dills. I love doing preserving work in late summer. I love looking at all the different colours in the jars and knowing that I made it myself. I have done jam the past two years so this year I decided that it was pickles and tomatoes that would be put up. Do you guys do canning as well?

UFO Finish #16! for 2007

Hi all;
Sorry I haven't been blogging much :) I really haven't been sewing much and the weather has just been so wonderful right now that I want to be outside.
I have just finished my UFO #16 for the year. This one was left over units that I made while demonstrating the Eleanor Burns Triangle Square Up Ruler and flying geese ruler way back when! I made it into a baby quilt that will be on its way very soon. I am very pleased to get this one finished since there was no reason for it to be left for so long! I have got to learn my lesson and finish things soon after starting them :)

More Fabric Postcards

Hi all!

Are you all as excited about the release of Harry Potter 7 tomorrow as I am :) I will be spending the weekend with a good book and a few cups of tea I think :)

Here are my latest fabric post cards. These are for three different swaps. On the far left is "June Brides." I did the ring-bearer pillow complete with rings. In the middle is "Orange You Glad" and this one was completely open as to what we could do. On the far right is "Somethings Fishy." I did small snow globes with fish confetti in them. When you shake them the fish all move around. I got motivated and finished all these swaps early and mailed them out so that I could enjoy watching the cards come in without worrying about getting mine finished. I find that when inspiration and motivation strike you gotta go with it!

Smiles For Children

Hi all!
I have been working on getting a box of embroidered items ready to ship out to the Smiles For Children Project. People from around the world send items in to a wonderful woman who bags them up and ships them to places around the world where the children have very little. I've been working with this project for a couple of years now and just love it. We make tic-tac-toe boards, finger puppets, paper dolls, pencil toppers and sucker covers and much more :) If you have an embroidery machine and would like to volunteer, or would just like more information, you can check out the link on the right or here. You can also see one of my previous shipments here. I did more sucker covers and pencil toppers this time and I am running my x's and o's right now. I think that the kids will like them? What do you think?

Fabric Post Card Display

Hi all;

I thought that I would post a photo of the way that I have just found to display my fabric post cards. This is a cafe curtain wire rod system from Ikea :) Here is a link to it if you want to see it. It has little clips that clip onto the top of the cards and an adjustable thick wire that is strung a few inches away from the wall. I was never happy with the way that I had them tacked up onto the wall; and, when we were in Ikea the other day I was looking at this system and a light bulb went on over my head. I love "a ha!" moments. I am going to go back and get a couple more of these. I also think that they would be great for hanging small wall quilts. Sorry the picture couldn't take in the entire post card display but this is the best that I could do :)

Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt

Hi all;
We had out quilt guild final meeting for the year last night. Wow what a great meeting :) We had a potluck appetizer type of buffet and the judging to the challenge last night.

The challenge was neat. We had 32 people enter so the challenge got divided into two groups. Out of the groups of 16 we all had to submit one meter of fabric. The next month we got back 1/16 of each of the meters of fabric. We were allowed to add one neutral and one other fabric.

This is my entry into the challenge. It is a pattern called "Magic Circles' from the book Scrap Frenzy by Sally Schneider. The pattern appealed to me since I teach pilates and we use a tool called a magic circle. The rings are mostly the different fabrics but my "other" fabric is in the rings as well. The neutral is the cream background fabric. I hand quilted this quilt 1/4" outside of every seam in the background and on a diagonal in the border. I didn't place but I had a lot of fun with the challenge especially since I didn't find myself inspired by the fabric so I had to come up with something that would be usable later and that I would like.

What do you all think? :)

UFO #15 for 2007!

Hi all;
I have been off my UFO challenge for a while but I did manage to finish another one. This quilt is made up of triangle in a square units that I made when I was demonstrating the Eleanor Burns Triangle in a Square ruler. I had planned on making a much larger quilt initially but I lost interest in the project and these blocks sat in a bag for 3 or so years. I needed to make a baby quilt so this seemed like a good use for the blocks. I didn't have enough of the fabric on the border so I came up with this design to use up some more blocks too. I think that it looks pretty funky. I'm not sure if you can really see the quilting but I think that it looks pretty funky too :) I almost don't want to give this one away.

15 down and only 18 more to go :)

Fabric Dyeing Workshop

I took a fabric dyeing workshop on the weekend from a local hand dyer named Elaine Quehl. Her fabrics are wonderful and she has been dyeing for many years so I thought that a class from her would be great :) I like to take classes like this from people who have been doing it for quite a while and whose work I have seen before. I wasn't disappointed! It was a great class. I have done some dyeing before in the brights so when I took the class I decided to dye the "earthy" 12 step colour wheel. They are pictured on the top. We also did some direct application dyeing using all kinds of colours. They are on the bottom.

At the beginning of the class we were given some socks that had been scoured and prepared for dying. This was in case we spilled any dye on our feet. Well, if you can believe it no one did so we had to do some direct application dyeing on our socks to get them coloured. Pictured is my oldest son posing with the socks on. They look pretty cool :) Personally, I prefer lower socks so if I do that again I'll get some shorter socks LOL! I love the effect though.

I've had some PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric for a while now just waiting for me to get some inspiration to start dyeing again so hopefully this will give me the kick that I need :) UPDATE: I dyed 7 meters of fabric today with the dyes that were left over from class. No one else wanted to take them so I said that I would since I knew that I had everything ready to dye. I'll see how they turn out tomorrow.

Another UPDATE:
Here are the one meter cuts of fabric that I dyed from the left over dye from the class. I used the same "baggie" wet application technique for these ones and wow do I love the colours. I was really loose with the formulas and just added a bit of this and a bit of that to the baggies. I really love that blue and I love the second red :) Some of the baggies had more of the soda ash solution added to them then others since I was running out. Likewise, some of the baggies had more dye in them than others. I love the freedom of dyeing and the experimentation.


This is a two meter cut that I dyed in the direct application method of dyeing using the little bits of dye that was left after I finished the above pieces. I added a bit more water to the dye solutions to dilute it a bit more. I did a lot of scrunching of the fabric and tried not to get too much mixing. I absolutely love the way that this piece turned out :) I love the colours and the tones :) I love how vibrant the colours are. I showed this at my quilt guild (to a few of the ladies) last night and they thought that I had purchased it so I guess that is a pretty big compliment :) Too mcuh fun! I think that I need to buy more PFD fabric :)

Bella Fiori Table Runner

Hi all;
I am trying to be a better blogger :) Here is another project that my friend Sandy and I did together. We didn't want to take the whole summer off so we decided to do this Bella Fiori table runner together. It is from Creative Expressions Magazine, issue #11, and the embroideries are by Jenny Haskins. We could only see part of the table runner in the picture so we made our best guess to the rest of it. It is a really neat project with the way that the diagonal lines are done, with a 6 mm twin needle and the serpentine stitch on my Pfaff, first then the embroideries are laid down.

Here is a picture of the table runner from a bit more of a distance. We rounded the edges (you can see that a bit). The quilting is done after the backing is on but only in some of the squares. This makes the table runner lay really flat and adds a lot of interest I find.

I'll post a picture of my finished rose bouquet wall hanging once I get the binding turned to the back.

What do you think :)

Rughooking

Hi all!

Long time no blog again but this time I can say that we went to the cottage and then I had a major computer melt-down :( I tried it again yesterday and it worked again :) So here I am :)

I started a new rug hooking project. I am doing a chair seat for a 150 year old chair that I stripped and re caned. I had to weave the cane by hand and it turned out wonderful. I have some more chairs to refinish and re cane and I plan on making chair pads for all of them. It will be a big project but I think that it will be worth it in the end. This is the first one that I am working on. It is out of scraps from the pumpkin rug that I made for my son.

The only thing that I am not sure of is the reddish plaid that I have started in the border. What do you guys think?

I didn't have enough of any one background type of wool so I over-dyed and off-white wool that I salvaged from a jacket using the onion skin dying technique. The wools on the left were the first ones that I did (with LOTS of onion skins in the pot), and, I thought that they turned out too dark for the background; but, they are perfect for the insides of the flowers.

The second set worked out really well for the background of the chair pad. I wanted some mottling but not a ton so these worked out well. Now to finish the chair pad :)

This weekend

What a great weekend :) Two of our friends invited us to their friend's cottage for the weekend and what a great weekend it was :) I could get used to that :) I love the cottage life. I can just envision myself ina cottage. I could take my Featherweight and have a great time :) I didn't do any sewing at all and I relaxed on the dock. Life is good.

Update

Hi all! I hope that spring is treating you all well. I have been spending a lot of time outside lately of course. My garden is growing like mad and is making me very happy. I can just stand there looking at it :)

I haven't been doing much work for myself lately. I have been quilting for other people and trying to get all of that finished up.

Here's what's new for me :) This is my new sewing machine!! Isn't she a beauty?? This is the Pfaff Hobby Grand Quilter. It is a straight stitch sewing machine with a larger harp (throat) and does it ever sew fast and beautifully. It is a semi industrial machine and I will use it for machine quilting. I am loving using it and getting to know what it can do. I need to get my husband to build me another table so that I can sink this down into the table. Right now I am using it on top of my table and using the extension table.

Joyce asked if I got the stitch regulator and no I didn't. I have been machine quilting for several years now and I find that my stitches are pretty even without it. The machine already has a speed control so that is enough for me. I don't plan to use this on a frame but rather just sink it into a table and quilt like normal. Thanks for the question!

Redwork Postcards

Hi all!
What a great spring we have been having here in North Eastern Ontario :) My garden is looking amazing and I have been spending a great deal of time outside. So of course on this long weekend (Victoria Day) I came down with an absolutely wicked cold. It's only today that I am starting to feel a little bit better

Having a bad cold gave me the opportunity to finish these fabric postcards. They are for a red work swap and I just love these little Sunbonnet Sue designs. I hope that everyone likes them. I kept the one of Sue playing jacks for myself since it was uneven on the bottom. I love dropping these little gems off at the post office :) The postal workers just love seeing them and I get a real kick out of seeing their faces. I wonder what I will get back this time? The swap was pretty wide open, being just red work, but, I always think of red work as being fairly traditional. I did these by machine of course :) My hand embroidery is no where this nice :)

My New Project

Hi all;
I can finally post a picture of this project for you all. This is a picture of the project that my friend Sandy and I have been working on together. It is from Jenny Haskin's magazine and is a project using her "Roses For Mary" embroidery card.

My project is on the right and Sandy's is on the left. I really like both of the projects and think that they are both wonderful.

I'll post a better picture when I finish the machine quilting on it.

I had a comment about my friend Sandy and I and our projects together. Sandy and I are really good friends and we sew together quite a bit. We get together on Mondays at about 10:30 am to work on a project together. She lives about 15-20 minutes away from me in a small neighboring town. We meet at my house and we sew until about 3:00 pm. We are going to be starting a new project on Monday, a small one this time, then take the summer off. Sandy brings all her stuff to my house and I make a nice lunch for us to thank her. We are having a great time learning what out Pfaff sewing and embroidery machines can do and making beautiful projects. Thank you for your comment :)

Hi all;
I did another silly blog thing and I found this one funny because you answer only a few questions and they give you your personality. it's amazing how easy it is for some people to pigeon-hole other people don't you think? LOL!

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISFP)

Your personality type is caring, peaceful, artistic, and calm. Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 8% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Finished the hooking on the rug

Hi all;
I finished hooking my primitive house rug. Now I just need to block it, trim it and turn the black binding tape to the back. After I sew a hanging sleeve onto the back it will be ready to hang. I really didn't think that I would like the way that it turned out but I really do. I want to get into some more funky rugs and some chair pads so this kit was a little bit primitive for me. But, it did really grow on me :) Shows what I know LOL!

What do you guys think?

I have just recently been introduced to Facebook. Are any of you on it? It is really addictive :) Basically it is a way for you to link up with friends and share photos and things with those people that you have allowed to be your friends. So far I have been able to reconnect with a bunch of people from high school that I haven't seen in years. I've been having a really good time but I can see that you could seriously waste some time there. And I thought that The Sims 2 was addictive LOL! :)

Another Yard Sale Find

Okay so this is another yard sale find but it is not mine :) My Mother found this great sweatshirt jacket at a yard sale in Florida this winter for $2.00 and bought it for me. Isn't it wonderful??

It is only a few years old and made from a Sandy Gervais fabric line from a few years ago. It fits me really well and I can't wait to show it off to my quilt guild at our meeting in a few weeks.

The funny thing is that my Mother didn't think that I would like it since I didn't make it myself. Isn't that wild?! I love all forms of fiber art whether I made them or someone else. Considering that I kept a quilt top for 5 years before I made it into a sweatshirt jacket i find it remarckable that someone would think that I wouldn't like someone else's work.
Anyways, here is a picture of the back of the jacket. Please notice the great small piecing work that was done on the jacket around the top and I don't know if you can see it, but, under the arms.

Someone did some wonderful work on this jacket and it was put in a yard sale for $2! I almost feel an obligation to purchase things like this so that they find a good home. The wonderful use of decorative stitches and the attention to detail on this jacket make it worth saving so I wonder why someone wanted to get rid of it?

Anyways, I am very happy to have this jacket in my wardrobe; but, if anyone has any information on it I would love to hear about it.

My Friend's "In Full Bloom" Quilt

Hi all;
This is a picture of my friend Sandy's "In Full Bloom" quilt by Pineneedles. Didn't she do a wonderful job?! She ordered a complete kit from Hancocks, I think, so that she had all the patterns and all the fabric for the quilt. It is embellished with hot fix crystals and various stones as well as silk ribbon. I posted this picture because she had asked me to do the quilting for her. When I quilt the Pineneedles designs I always do the machine appliqué and quilting at the same time to get a great effect. That way you don't have too much mono filament thread on the quilt and it makes the pieces pop up a bit. I think that Sandy did a great job on it. She hangs her quilts in her hair salon so that all her customers can enjoy them. Aren't they lucky :)

Sorry it's been sooo long!

Sorry it's been soooo long since I last posted. Life has just been happening lately and I really haven't had the time to do much. First of all it is spring so the need to clean up the yard can really take over for a while. Not that i mind getting outside :)

My Mother came up for a week to visit so I spent a lot of time with her which was great. She was down in Florida for several months so it was great to see her again.

I also machine quilted a quilt for a friend and that took a lot of hours. Good thing I like machine quilting. I have also been working on hand quilting my guild challenge quilt that I can't post a photo of yet until June in case anyone from my guild sees it :)

I news about me :) My Mother brought up my new rug hooking gripper frame from Bee Creek Ltd. Isn't it great! I love how sturdy it is and how nice the metal looks. I like industrial looking things and this one looks nice. I must say that it is far easier to hook on a frame like this rather than a Q-Snap.

I also got the lap base for the frame to make it more portable if I want to travel with it. I figured that I might as well get everything that I wanted all at once LOL!


I have been working on the rug hooking kit that I got at a local thrift store just so that I have something to get working on right away. I ripped out the work that had been done, so that I could replace it with my own work :), and have been working on it in the evenings. It's a very primitive rug but I think that it will look nice hanging over a door.

I'm not really sure how to hang these half round rugs like this though. Anyone have any ideas?

Just Ducky Postcards

Hi all;
I thought that I would share this picture of these fabric postcards before i send them away today. These are my two "Just Ducky" fabric post cards for the Fabric Postcards Yahoo list that I belong to. There were only three of us participating in this one so I send two off and get two back. I hope that everyone likes them.

I love making fabric postcards. There is something so amazing about a textile piece of art that goes through the mail. People always ask me if they get through the mail okay and I have to say yes! The postal workers love seeing them when I bring them in to be hand canceled and I have to think that they get even more special attention by the delivery people. My Christmas cards that I sent out got to all over Canada and the USA without any problems. You can see them here and here. And, I have to say that this was the first time that I have received and Thank You note for a Christmas card that I sent out. Now to think about what to send this year.

I thought that I would also share the results of my dying experiment yesterday. These wools turned out a little more purple than I wanted but I still think that they look great. I think that they may be darker because I started with gray and brown wools. I have ordered a couple of dying books to help me along; but, right now I am working in the dark a bit :) I want to take a course in dying wool this summer; but, it is hard to wait when you want to get started.

I'll dye more wools late maybe. I think that greens and blues may be next :)

Adventures in Dying

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I've been working on quilting my guild challenge quilt and quilting a quilt for a friend. I'll have to see if she will allow me to post a photo f it when I am finished.
I thought that I would try and over-dye some to the reclaimed wool that I have been purchasing. So I weighed out a pound of wool and put it into my dye pot with some dye. I used the Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes from Dharma Trading. I know that a lot of wool dyers like Cushings dyes but these were what I had on hand from dying fabric. Dying cotton and dying wool are two different procedures. When you dye wool it needs to be heated up on the stove for quite some time and then left to cool. I got the wool dying instructions from the Dharma Trading site since I was using their dyes.

I think that I may have added a bit too much dye. I wanted very vibrant colours, so I added a lot of dye; but, these came out a bit darker than I wanted. I added a touch of blue to the mix so that is probably why.

They are all lovely shades of purple :) I wanted it to be burgundy but this is fine for my first attempt :) I have some more wool in the dye pot right now. This time I added half the amount of red, left out the blue, and, added just a touch of orange to the mix. So far it is more of a cherry red in the pot.

Isn't it amazing how a bunch of brown and grey plaids and tweeds can look so different when they are over-dyed? I just love the transformation and I love that these were all reclaimed wools that now look just like wool that you buy in stores. I'll post a picture of my second batch later hopefully.

UFO #14 finished and a new purchase!

Hi all;
I finished my UFO #14 last night :) I am really excited to have 14 out of my 33 UFOs finished and it is only the end of March. This is a Celtic table runner that I started in a course from Quilt University. It is a great way to do Celtic designs that is much easier than the usual way. I finished the hand quilting on it and got the binding on it last night. I love the way that the inserts look. They really add a great design element to it but since the runner is all batik fabric it was hard to hand quilt through since batik has a higher thread count. I really wanted to hand quilt this runner though, since it is all hand appliqued, so it was worth it. Now onto the next UFO.
This is my new purchase :) Yey! I finally got a rug hooking strip cutter. Yes I know that I can cut the strips with my rotary cutter but this is sooooo much easier. I got a great deal on this new Rigby cutter from a local quilt shop. I am building up a pretty large stash of recycled wools so it is a good idea to have something to cut them so that I can actually use them properly.

Speaking of rug hooking I got two GREAT DVDs by Gene Shepherd on learning to rug hook. If you are interested and can't find a class in your area this is a great resource. I took a class a couple of years ago and I learned so much from these DVDs. I also like that you can watch over and over again in case you forget something.
This is another rug hooking thrift store find if you can believe it :) This came in a kit with yarn and a small, and very flimsy looking, cutter. I got it for all of $1.00. I decided not to use the yarn, and since I have my new cutter, I cut some strips of a purple wool that I have and I am going to try it out with my own wool strips. It is just a small little pattern and I had to add leaders onto the sides so that it would fit into my Q-Snap; but, I think that it will be a nice little project to work on while I wait to get my new frame.

In the corner you can see where I was trying out some of my black and white plaid strips. They make a really cool effect I think.