Happy New Year

Just wanted you to know that I finished the quilting on my quilt just in time to bring in the new year.

Continuing Quilting

This the fifth day of quilting. Maybe tomorrow it will be done.

Before I started quilting on this quilt, I worked on this piece of art cloth. It was quite fun to experiment with ways to make images. I used a piece of construction fencing or temporary fencing I talked the manager of Home Depot in cutting off a big roll that you were suppose to buy the whole thing. It was $29. and I only needed a couple of feet. I am sure he hadn't heard of using this fence to paint with, but he was very nice and humored me. It is plastic so you can wipe the paint off of it afterward. I used setacolor and extender and sponges. Then I used a piece of screen, foam circles(another Home Depot expenditure...foam for insulating pipes) and then my absolutely favorite the feet of my egg masher. Now doesn't that sound like a real adventure?

After Christmas

I am working on a California King size quilt that I started two years ago. I am doing the quilting on my quilting machine 6600 Jenome. It is a dream. It is the first quilt that I have done on it. I had a 43 year old machine that I was sure would do all that I needed and there wasn't any reason to get involved in replacing as marketing of companies want you to do. Well, this one sure is worth it. Even with this great help from this machine I am wondering how many days this will take. I am sure it will be rewarding in the end if I can just stick with it.

Santa's work is done

I am wrapping up my gifts today and thought you would like to see the tye dye shirts with matching little shirts for the boys stuffed animals. Pants too.

Christmas Gifts

I found these check book covers in my stash that I had for a long time and I decided it was time for them to be created. I had made a stamp of a poppy seed pod and had a rubber stamp of chinese writing and tried them out with setacolor and extender. I think it creates a nice effect. What do you think? These will make nice gifts for the women in the family.

Tye Dye Shirts

Getting my Christmas gifts done.

Sage green, Imperial purple and Chartreuse.
Fire Red, Black, Purple.
Sage green, Lilac and Amethyst.

Egg Masher

Just had to show you my new purchase. I saw this on Rayna Gillman's blog. She was teaching a class on soy wax and she told her students to bring something to make images with the wax on their fabric. She said that the egg masher was the hit. I can see why and I just had to have one. In case, you just have to have one, I found him on Amazon.

Stamp Blocks

I got inspired to finish up some blocks that I had for some time to create some new texture on some more material. I have tried a couple and they will suit the purpose well. I will be showing you the finished product soon.

More Silk Screening

A couple of cards silk screened with my new screens and using setacolor paint.

New Paper Article

I came home from my sons to the Sunday paper and found a nice article on my jacket win.

Thanksgiving

We meet family up in Paso Robles for a nice dinner together at the Paso Robles Inn. The next day we went over to my sons to celebrate birthdays of his two sons that are now 4-6 and have their birthdays a week a part. I made my carmel pecan rolls for our enjoyment. Then we drove up to see my other son that lives near Davenport on Swanton Ranch. We took a 2 1/2 hour hike on the ranch and looked at all sites.

This is my son with his wife and 5 and 7 year old. Notice that tye dye shirt.
There were so many inspirational things to see.

Screening

These are the pieces that I used at the workshop to try out my new screens which we made at the workshop.

This one I used setacolor paint with my screen.
This one I screened with discharge paste and then mixed discharge with setacolor and then also tried mixing extender with setacolor. These were pieces of muslin that I had dyed with procion dyes.

Suzanne Perilan

Just got back from Los Angeles for a silk screening workshop with Suzanne. She is from Santa Fe New Mexico. She taught a workshop for our wearable art group. She is showing us a silk jacket she has made.

This is the scarf that she demonstrated for us and you can see in the background some of the pieces we tried silk screening.

Cactus

I have never been one with much appreciation for cactus, but seeing these and their blooms brings a new appreciation. I am looking at some to incorporate into my yards landscape.

Working Away

This is our drive way with a huge pile of mulch. I am busy transporting it to the back yard. So you will know what I am doing when I am not putting something on the blog.

Tye Dye Shirts

I am at it again. Doing more shirts for the grandkids. They enjoy them so and I like dyeing them.

This one is lavender, moss green and sage green.
This one is amethyst, lavender and sage green.

Look at the face

Delicate indeed.

Unusual.

Reseeding

Lotus Gardens

I had seen some pictures that friends had taken of this garden and knew it was going to be nice, but seeing it in person was a real treat. For those of you that are not local it is a estate with 15 gardens on 37 acres that was owned by a Polish opera singer and who died in 1983. It is near Santa Barbara CA. It continues on a trust and many volunteers. The collection of trees and plants are really something to see. It is seen by appointment only.

Dyed Fabric

These are the pieces of muslin fabric I demonstrated for the class.

This is moss green and robin blue. I choose these colors by mistake, but now really like the effect.
This is brilliant blue and robin blue.

Dyeing Class

These are students that were in my class from the American Sewing Guild's Fabric Art Group learning how to dye fabric in containers. They did a nice job and had fun with colors.

The women picking out the colors of dyes they were going to use.
The fun part of dyeing is to get to see how the fabric comes out the next day.

T-Shirt

This was a fun challenge. This is a man's t-shirt I decided to decorate. I began by silk screening a design.

This is the back.
The front. I inserted lace panels on the side of the vest. Put knit binding on the front cut edges. Sewed a fine lace trim around the neck and gathered double folded tule for trim around the bottom. Placed two button just under the bust line, so as to form a closure.

Dyeing Fabric

I wanted to try some folding the fabric to see the effects.

This one was folded into fourths. The dyes were fire red and purple. Interesting how the fire red came out on the pink side. I would put more in next time.
This one was folded into triangles. The dyes were tangerine and fire red.
This one was swirled. The dyes are fire red and purple.

Orchard

I am truly delighted to be able to show you the first bloom of my orchards today. When I moved up here from the LA area I had several orchard plants. I didn't know that sometimes they have a freeze here and I lost all of the plants the first year I was here. I went to a estate sale a few weeks ago of a man that collected special orchards and was able to obtain about seven new plants. It is really fun to see what they look like as they begin blooming. Its it beautiful.

Another Version of Marcy's Pattern

This is another Vogue 8582. I silk screened the 2 way stretch knit. Took advantage of it being a knit and didn't turn hems on the bottom or on the sleeves. The neckline is just two cut stripes of fabric sewn around it. Very fast and easy to make. The best part is the fabric I got sometime ago in the fabric district in LA for $1. a yard.