What I Quilted on a Saturday Night

Hi all!

Summer is finally here and I am loving it!  Last night while my husband was golfing I decided to load this hexi baby quilt top (that I had made ages ago) onto my frame and get it quilted.

 

I cut this entire quilt using dies and it went together so nicely.  I used the Accuquilt Go! Hexigon die (55011) and the Equilateral Triangle (55079) die.  

I am very happy with the way that it turned out.  I used the 40 weight Fil-Tec Glide polyester thread top and bobbin and I just love the way that it shines!  It shines like a rayon thread without the finickiness of rayon (is that a word?) and without all the thread breaks.  I am also in love with the magna-glide pre-wound bobbins.  They are awesome and there is so much thread packed onto one!  If you can believe it this quilt used almost one entire M-class pre-wound bobbin!  That's a lot of thread!

Ok enough gushing about the Glide thread!  Now to bind this little guy :-)

Dying to Hook!

So here I was at my last post - my Pickering Oak rug wasn't very colourful at all and I was kind of stuck until I dyed some wool.  This rug was designed by Gene Shepherd.

 

It is sort of sad how much progress I made until I really had to stop and dye the wool.

 

I pulled out the un-dyed wool that I purchased for this endevour.

I prepared my wool and dyes and water and took a deep breath.

And I started to spoon the various dyes onto the wool to look like turning leaves.

I stacked and repeated the process while watering down the dyes as I went until I had all of my pieces ready to go.  Then into the oven they went.

Until the wool had cooked and came out steaming and colourful.

After the wool had dried I had a much better idea of what I had - I had some splotchy wool that just might work!  Yey!

Hooking the wool in order and paying attention to where the colours were in concentration I hooked almost three leaves so far and I love how vibrant they are turning out!  They look like leaves slowly turning on the tree in rich fall colours and against the dark background they really pop - the picture is actually a little dull compared to the reality of the wool.

Needless to say I am very happy with how it is coming along and I am looking forward to hooking the other leaves and the rest of the rug!

Rug Hooking - Pickering Oak

Hi all!

I hope that you have been enjoying the nicer weather - even the humidity is welcome ;-)

Yesterday I decided to just relax and do some more rug hooking and make some more progress on my Pickering Oak rug.  Pickering Oak is a pattern on Gene Shepherd's web site.   I just love the colours he used. 

 

 

This rug is destined for our bedroom and I can't wait for it to be finished so I can stand on it every morning!  I already stood on the small part that is done just to test it and - you know what - it works LOL!

I know it looks a bit odd right now but that's because I haven't hooked the leaves yet - and I know that's not correct - but here's my confession - I have to dye the leaf wool still!  Yikes

 

Here it is - that natural un-dyed wool just staring at me waiting for me to step up and dye it.  But I am a bit nervous about it to be honest.  It is a new technique for me - spot dying or as Gene calls it ordered wool pancake dying or something close to that.  I've watched his video on it several times but I am just a bit nervous about it.  I know I know!  Just get to it and I can over-dye if necessary LOL!

Maybe I will put the wool in to soak tonight and just get on with it tomorrow.  I really want to start hooking those leaves!