Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Pretty Colors in my Etsy shop

All of these gradients have been added to my shop this week. You can find these and 26 other gradients in the shop!

Irene and the Blue Footed Boobie

One good thing about events like Irene is that it forces you to do something different. Without electricity I couldn't spend time on the web and I couldn't quilt. I did a few hours of hand sewing and then I remembered that I had my ornament kits and they dont require any electricity at all!

I seem to work on these mostly in the Fall while I'm watching football games and the last time I worked on this was last November! Days without electricity are also good candidates for an ornament project.

I was adding the last 10 little dangles at the bottom when the power came on at 2:00 Sunday afternoon and I didn't get up to reset clocks until I was totally done.

For those of you new to the blog. This is an ornament from a kit. They are called Cracker Box Kits and I've been making them since about 1992. I have a collection of over 110 now and I display them on rotating metal trees with spot lights shining on them. If you like a sparkly Christmas, you would love these trees. Let's just say that it doesn't appeal to everyone!

All of the ornaments have wonderful names and I love that this one is named for the Blue Footed Boobie. My friend Cindy loves it too. I think she laughs out loud ever time she reads about it in my blog. Well, Cindy, this is the last time because it's finally done!

I think this one is really unique because it has 2 different sides. This side has all of the cool dangles and the other side has the beading in the melon shapes.

Yup, all those dangles took a very long time!

All of the ornaments have really cool details and the designers will take apart braids and bend/break things to get the look they want. 

In the instructions they will even laugh at you as they tell you to do something that's going to take hours and hours to complete. They have a great sense of humor. They can afford to because the instructions are incredibly detailed and the kits are meticulously put together. If there's something wrong with a kit, they usually find it out before you do and will send out any additional supplies without you asking. If you like detail work and sparkly things, I highly recommend Cracker Box Kits!

My next kit is called Catherine the Great. It's red, green and gold on a white ball.

Design Wall Monday

Well, I have to say that last week has to have been one of the most exciting natural disaster weeks in Virginia history! We were lucky, we got the excitement and experience without any damage. Our mailbox did collapse but that hardly counts since it was about to fall apart anyway. I think a squirrel climbing on it could have probably knocked it off too. Chris is fixing it right now.

We did lose power for about 22 hours but I was prepared. I got several hand projects lined up, my MP3 player was charged and loaded with new books, I made ice blocks for the freezers and saved a lot of water. When the power finally went out I moved my chair close to the window, plugged in a new book and enjoyed every minute of it!

I sews sleeves on the back of quilts for the museum exhibit, did a little applique and finished a ornament kits that I started last year. I'll share that tomorrow.

Without power, I did not get the log cabin quilt quilted so I am a little behind in getting the museum quilts ready but I think I can catch up on all of that tomorrow.

When the power came on yesterday afternoon I spent the first couple of hours putting everything back to right in the house and then I wasn't really in the mood to do much of anything. So I got out my tumbler blocks and finished the "blocks". I'm calling 7 tumblers sewn in a row a "block". There are 3 blocks on each row of the quilt. Here they are all on the design board arranged how I will sew them together.....if I have managed to keep them all in the proper order when I took them off the board! I really like it and I think I can have some real fun with the quilting if I am so motivated. After I get these blocks together I will determine if I am going to add borders. At the moment, I'm thinking not.

While I ponder, chech out what everyone else is doing over at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.

Coastal Currents Fabric Palette Projects

The power is back on so I can finally post this week's palette projects! If you are interested in the Coastal Currents palette fabrics, go here.

This first one is a 4-patch Variable Star block.

The block for this next one is called Mosaic 18 in Electric Quilt.

This final one is called Plaited Variation. It's a reasonably simple block that makes a complicated looking pattern.

Our pet fish

We've had quite a bit of company and visitors in the past week or 2. Between them I have only been working on the bidning of the giant star quilt. As a result, I don't have much to share. Not even a journal quilt. It will be dome this weekend though. Meanwhile, let me introduce you to one of our pet fish, Bob.

We have a little pond next to the house that is stocked with bass and spot. We believe that they are trained to jump on hooks and it makes our pond perfect for training new fishing enthusiasts.

Chris' friend visited this week with his daughter. She loves doing just about anything as was really looking forward to fishing in Uncle Chris' pond.

First, there's lots of advice and guidance.

Then a lesson on how to hold the fish. (She was already a master of handling worms.)

Look! I caught it all by myself!

Then we put "Bob" back in the pond for the next visitor.