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.