Field Trips in Fiber

That darned rug is done!

Tonight I finished my locker hooked rug. I'm happy with it and I think it looks good in my mosaic tiled bathroom. I believe I'm finally done decorating the tiniest room in my house! So would I make another? Maybe. I liked that I picked a very simple pattern so that I could work on this as a TV project but it wasn't a particularly exciting project!

I suppose I'd do another if I had a place that really needed this style of rug but I'm not planning one anytime soon. It was good for one thing - using up lots of ugly fabrics! I will need this 4 - 5 yards of fabric for my stash report this weekend!

For something much more interesting please check out Summerset's post on her Midnight Garden outfit. She completed it and all of the accessories this weekend. I am so excited that I will get to see this outfit at the Mid-Atlantic in Hampton, VA in February. She is one of the most talented people I have ever met and she generously shares her knowledge on her blog every day. If you don't read it you need to start!

This morning we awoke to this sunrise out our bedroom window. All in all, a perfect day (except for the work part in the middle).

Christmas and Kumihimo

I took a break from the sewing room today for Christmas with my family. We had a great time seeing everyone although my niece had a cold and didn't feel up to any festivities. There are a couple of sewing-related gifts to report. First, my Mom got me the Myrna Longarm Ruler Organizer. We saw this at Houston and I almost bought it there and have been wanting it ever since! After I finish this post I'll be setting it up with all of my templates and rulers.

The second gift is really one that Chris received. It's the Coleman Hands-Free Utility Light. He really should put this thing away somewhere because I got very attached to it on he ride home! I was able to use it in the car and start the pink and green braid that you see in the photo. I started the other braid last night and finished it on the ride to Mom's house.

This Kumihimo disk is lots of fun and you quickly get in the rhythm of the braiding steps. These braids are all the standard round braid. Next I want to try a couple of other braid methods. What fun! Why didn't someone tell me about these earlier?

Tomorrow it's back to real work........

The end of the Christmas boxes

Thanks to Kate I got the last of my Christmas packaging done today! (We are not celebrating Christmas with my family until tomorrow so I am not late.) Kate posted this link to the pattern for a small gift box. These are perfect for my last packages. I had a half-yard piece of the metallic fabric and half yard of a red poly/cotton that I was able to use for the lining. I used left over bits to make the gift tags. I made 8 of them!

The Pink and gray thing is a pencil case for my SIL, the artist. Her gift wouldn't fit in the small boxes so I made this instead. The outside is a piece of corduroy that I dyed and printed several years ago. This is another of those fabrics that I was saving. I think it makes a cute pencil case and I still have a good chunk of it left. The hanger is made from various pink and gray yarns braided on my new Kumihimo Disk.

Now I will rest for a day.

Can you take one more box today?

I promise, I am ALMOST done with the boxes. This one is for my friend Denise. She lives in California and I have not mailed her Christmas gift to her yet because I didn't have the box for the gift made! I talked to her today and she wanted me to open my gift, which she sent on time. I told her we will open them together on the phone when hers arrives. At least I now know it will go in the mail on the 24th.

This one sort of fits in the stash control category too. This is a fabric that I bought several years ago at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. I've been "saving it for the right project". I think that has become a very bad habit so I've been trying to breal it. I cut the fabric so that the pattern matches around the box. The box is about 11" x 8.5" and 2.5" tall and the lid is attached in the back. I added 3 rock beads (from an old necklace) to the front of the lid. The inside is a commercial fabric that looks hand dyed.

More info on locker rug hooking

I was really surprised at the interest in the Locker Hooking post yesterday so I thought I'd add a little step-by-step information to answer some of the questions. I'm not going to show the steps to start the rug but if you decided to get into this craft, The Happy Rug Hooker series of books by Cindy Murray are the ones that I have learned from. Each of her books has the same basic set of instructions but different individual rug hooking patterns.

I decided that I didn't want to follow a pattern because I wanted it to be mindless. So I an simply working around from the outside in. I started with 3 rows of a brown print batik for the hem followed by 7 rows of blue, 5 brown, 7 blue, 5 brown, etc.

These photos will show the basic steps of hooking the center of the rug. Click on any photo for a larger view. This is the hook. It's basically a large crochet hook on one end with a large eye on the other. The string is threaded through the eye.

The strips of fabric are cut about 1 1/4" wide. The book instructions have a cool way to tie the ends together but I didn't like the lumps of the knots on the back of my rug so I overlap the ends about 1/4" and hand stitch them together.  The fabric is folded together in half as you work the loops.

To start, put the crochet hook end of the tool through the next hole in the canvas and lay the folded strip over the hook and then pull the loop to the front.

 

Continue like this loading several loops on the tool.

make sure the string is still threaded in the end of the tool and pull the tool and string through all loops. It's the string that keeps the loops in place.

Here's what the rug looks like from the back.

As you get to the end of the string just tie the next string on with an overhand knot, pull the knot tight and cut the tails about 1/2", When you pull the string through the next set of loops the knot will be hidden under the loops. Sometimes it takes some effort to work the knot through all of the loops.

And that's all there is to it! There is a finishing step and other instructions in the book. You can also do this technique with yarns, other types of fabrics (wouldn't old plaid shirts bee really neat?) and even batting strips (sturdy cotton batting like Warm and Natural). Hope that answers any questions.

WIP Wednesday - rug hooking

I mentioned in an early October post that I bought a book and supplies for Locker Hooking. I even started the project! I decided to make a rug for my newly tiled bathroom that is tiled floor to ceiling in a gradient of brown and blue glass mosaic tiles. I was going to follow a pattern in the book but it started to seem too much like cross stitch. I wanted this project to be easy and mindless.

I cut lots of brown and blue strips from my scrap bins and decided to do alternating bands of blues and browns. You can tell that I am using a wide variety of values in the colors. The first few rows seemed to take forever but now that I am about 9 rows in it's going pretty quickly. This is a great project for using up a LOT of scrap fabric! It's not a particularly exciting project but it is what I am doing this Wednesday. I hadn't done a WIP post in so long that I wanted to do one tonight.

So this is my WIP as I watch the premiere of Project Runway. I love this show!

A color matching tip

Mom reminded me to post about a tip that we picked up in the Jean Wells Keenan class at Houston. One of our classmates brought this one to us. It's a tip to help isolate and match colors in small quantities in photos or fabric (or whatever). All it takes is an index card with a 1" (more or less) square cut into the card along with a very small hole at least an inch and a half away. In this example I have placed the hole in the card over a small patch of an orange daylily. With that color isolated I can then place fabric or color chips under the larger opening until I find the matching color. I thought this was just brilliant!

Mixed Media Class - lesson 3 another vase

Yesterday I picked up some pre-dyed silk hankies. My Mom picked the color to match her bedroom. Here's the result. I split one hankie into 4 layers and this vase is made from two layers. It's about 5" tall.

The weekend is here!

The weekend is here and it's all creating all weekend! Things got off to a good start last night. I finished all of the blocks for the Friendship Star QOV while my Mom quilted her Quilt For an Hour quilt. (She will kill me when she sees that I posted a picture, I had to sneak to take it).

The photo was actually this morning while she was on her last row of quilting. While she did that I worked on some mixed media surfaces - this stuff is so addicting! Two of them are collages for photo book covers for my niece and nephew - made from their graduation announcements and programs. The other two are painted paper towels for Joggles Mixed Media Class. These are for lesson 4. I admit I though painting a paper towel was kind of lame - now that I've done it, I GET it!

All of these photos are of the surfaces still wet. This afternoon I'll start putting the QOV top together and Mom will start her second quilt. Then we will go meet some friends at our favorite LQS. Not a bad day, huh?

Mixed Media Leftovers

What do I do with my mixed media leftovers? Why, make a tissue box cover!  I had a big piece of my mixed media sheet left over from the box that I made yesterday so I had to do something productive with it.

More Sunprinting Testing

Today was a beautiful hot sunny day so I decided to do more sunprinting testing. A week or so ago I did some testing with Dye-na-flo paint. Since then I ordered some Setacolor Soliel. I wanted to test red and blue, heat setting vs not heat setting and 2 types of heat setting. Here are the results.

Mixed Media Class - Lesson 1 book

I finally finished the first lesson of the Mixed Media class at joggles. This is a sketchbook made from a surface of torn pattern pages ant then painted with some Radiant Rain. After cutting the mixed media page apart and positioning it on the felt, it is covered with tulle and then zig zag topstitched around all of the shapes. The thread is a Superior Metallic. I enjoyed this one!

Next up is the box with drawers. I just painted organza for that project and will get started once it's dry.

Sun Printing Test

Can you tolerate one more post from me today? You may remember that I made this charity quilt from some commercial sun printed fabrics and I was very unhappy with the performance of the fabric. The first time that I washed the fabric it faded like crazy. Recently I tried some sun printing for a postcard project. The fabric would not be washed so I didn't worry about colorfastness. I decided that I wanted to do a test to see what would happen with the sun printing that I an doing with Dye-Na-Flo paints. Here are the results

Mixed Media Class - Lesson 1 pages

I started the Joggles Mixed Media class this week. It is being taught by Sue Bleiweiss.  In the first lesson we are making three different papers and two projects. I don't have my projects done yet but I did finish the papers. These are great fun to make. I did have one little problem - I'm allergic to one of the products. I think it's the gel medium but might be the paints. Going forward I'll be wearing gloves! Here are the first papers:

Clay's Birthday

After I finished the Summer postcards yesterday morning I spent the afternoon playing with two other postcard designs. I'll report on those later - when they are done. But I also got this quick postcard and music pillowcase made for my cousin's son, Clay. We don't know where the music gene originated in our family but that generation seems to have a lot of music talent. Clay plays drums in his high school band. I used the leftover gray/red/black fabrics from my nephew's quilt because Clay's room is primarily red and black. I really like doing something quick occasionally!

I also signed up for the Mixed Media class and ordered my supplies - what fun!

Every little scrap

I got a little side tracked off of the list today and yesterday! I did finish getting my Snails Trail class stuff together and that leaves the Indygo Junction Jacket and the Carol Taylor class project. I've decided to skip both of those for now. The jacket is for autumn and I'm not very interested in the class project - so I'm movin' on!

I have 3 sets of fabric postcards to make this week so I looked at this

and decided that it would be the base of my cards.

Pillowcases

I wasn't in the mood to quilt last night so I decided to make my nephew a couple of pillowcases to match his quilt. I have LOTS of fabric left over! I also needed one to go with the Hour A Day QOV quilt. It only took about an hour to make all three.

There are several sets of instructions around the web but here's how I make them.

A simple pillow

Remember this list from Wednesday? Here's my first bit of progress.

• finish the binding and label on the baby snails trail.
• make my class notes and the class samples for the Snails Trail class at Quilting Adventures.
• finish my nephews graduation quilt
• make the pillow for my boss
• My Indygo Junction jacket
• My class project from one of the Carol Taylor classes
• I also have to finish the Hour A Day quilt that's currently on the longarm for quilting

My boss is a big sports fan - he loves all sports - but he's first and foremost a St. Louis Cardinals fan. I bought the T-shirt when the Cardinals won the World Series last year. I'm just getting around to completing this for him. This isn't a photo of 2 pillows - it's 2 sides of the same pillow. I fuse a knit stabilizer to the T-shirts to make them more table and I used blue Ultrasuede to make the corded piping. This is a really quick project and guys LOVE them - I can't believe I took almost 5 months to get this done for him!

WIP Wednesday

I'm feeling better today and the conference sessions today were actually interesting and valuable. Tonight there is fund-raising show featuring Dennis Miller. Should be fun!

You might think that because I'm out of town that I don't have a WIP report. One of the side benefits of cleaning out the sewing room was getting my WIP projects in order. So to try to get things a little under control, I've identified these projects that must be completed before I start another new one.  I am glad that Judy has decided to postpone starting another Hour A Day project for a couple of months! This last one has been fun and they are a great way to use stash and make a new charity quilt.

If I finish everything on this list by the end of May, my reward will be taking Sue's Mixed Media class.

Should I take more classes?

I still feel handicapped without a camera! Wednesday can't get here quick enough. Today I got Barbara's second female QOV loaded and started. This is a really pretty quilt and I am doing a couple of different (but speedy) techniques on it. I also got the backing made for my Quilt For An Hour QOV quilt and a birthday postcard made for my 13 year old nephew. I never get quite as much done on Sunday as I want. Those darned chores always get in the way!

This evening I was reading the Joggles newsletter. The new summer classes are posted. Do you think I would be crazy to take 2 classes at the same time? I did that with the silk fusion and tea dyeing and got OBSESSED. But I really like both of these: Mixed Media Surfaces with Sue Bleiweiss and Beginner Photoshop Elements. I NEED the Photoshop class but just take a look at all of the really cool projects in the Mixed media class! Can I do both? Hmmmmm

I'm also flattered that Lisa selected me as one of her inspiring blogs. It's her blog that inspires me! I'm supposed to select 5 blogs that are most inspiring to me. I've decided not to do that - as you can tell, I have a long list of blogs that I read regularly and they all inspire me in some way. I wouldn't want to single out a few and risk offending someone. I can just tell you that if it's on my blog list, it's one that I read regularly!

A week from today I have to go to New Orleans for a business conference. I'm not particularly looking forward to it. I have a feeling that I'm going to have plenty of trouble with my allergies there. But if anyone can recommend any fiber, fabric or bead store that I need to visit please let me know! I will pick up a Saints T-shirt since I selected them as my NFL team last year. It's was a long analysis process but I wanted to have a team so that I could participate in the football season with my Mom and brothers (Vikings, Panthers, Redskins and Cowboys).   In the end I picked the Saints so now I need a shirt and I'll be ready for Autumn!

Arc-i-Textures class

Today was the second Carol Taylor class called Arc-i-Textures. It was a great class and I am happy to report that my project is DONE!

Egads! Another UFO!

Thanks for all of the nice comments on the new blog format and my red specs. I hadn't even made the connection that I had changed glasses. I have a serious Jones for eyeglasses and have about 6 pair - these are the oldest but still my favorites!

Today was class day. The bad thing about taking classes is that you generally leave the class with yet another unfinished project. A few years ago I decided that I would not necessarily do class projects. I would allow myself to just make samples. The project from today's class  with Carol Taylor was a big wall hanging. I knew that I did not want another wall hanging but thought I might be able to translate the components into a padded case from my new travel laptop. So the good news is that I still think that the project is good so although it's a new UFO, it's one that I'm excited about. I want to get it done to use to carry my PC to MQX in 2 weeks. Here's the progress so far:

Am I obsessed with tissue boxes?

After finishing the quilting on the snails trail today I wanted to do a quick little project. First I did some major straightening in the sewing room. I had a pile of scraps from all of the recent piecing projects so I cut them into strips and squares and put them all away. Then I decided to cover one more tissue box. Understand that with allergies, I have tissue boxes cluttering the entire house. They all really do need to look better since they are permanent fixtures. After this one I still have one to do for my office, one for the half bath and one for my sewing room. The office one will be made of silk fusion. By the way, this one that I made for the car isn't working. The velcro doesn't stick to the carpet well enough. Even industrial strength velcro will not work. Anyone have another idea of something that will stick well, but temporarily, to car carpeting?

Here's the newest tissue box cover. I used some of that fancy ribbon that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I think it turned out pretty cute! Looks better than a plain ugly box.

Weekend Report

Things didn't work out so well this weekend from a productivity standpoint. It all started well with a great Sewing Guild meeting Saturday. Audrey did bring her SWAP garments and they were awesome! She's inspired our guild to do a mini-SWAP for November. We also have picked up a few new members in the past two months. I came home to a mailbox of goodies from joggles so I could get back to my Silk Fusion class. First though I made 5 more of the baby snails trails blocks (only 5 left) but then got a migraine. My migraines are either hormones or allergies or both and I don't know where this one came from. But than goodness for Imitrex. I was better in the evening and able to make two more fusion sheets - no photos yet but I'll have some later in the week.

Silk Fusion Tissue Boxes

How nice it was to have the energy and desire to spend yesterday in my sewing room! I did some quilt piecing in the morning and will write about that later. Yesterday evening I went back to Silk Fusion class to work on my 3rd lesson - making a box. Since I spent the week hugging tissue boxes I decided that I wanted my tissue boxes prettier - so my boxes are tissue boxes! I made two - one for my car and one for the large tissue boxes that I use in the house. Let' start with the car box...

Directions follow..

Silk Fusion Projects

I woke up yesterday morning with a horrid cold that seems to be going around the world right now. It's sure going through my office. But after a long nap yesterday I was able to finish two of my silk fusion projects. The photos aren't great - I just didn't have the energy today to continue retaking them - I think you'll get the idea. Both of these projects are from my Silk Fusion class at Joggles.com. You can read my previous posts about these projects here and here.

Tea Dyeing is done!

Boy, this was fun! You can read my previous posts here, here, and here.  Today I got the last of the 17 yards in mordant, rinsed and dried. I actually only dyed 16 yards so that I would have an original for comparison. Unfortunately the photo just does not do justice to the results.

The 3 pieces to the left of the blue are actually light sage greens, there are 2 light yellows in addition to the one bright yellow and there are 3 really good pinks. The original muslin is the background fabric. Even though you can't see all of the colors you can see the variety of color depth that can be achieved with tea dyeing. I tried many times to get the photo right but I just could not get anything close to accurate representation of color. The whole project was a big surprise to me and I really enjoyed it! Now they go in the fabric cabinet while I ponder an appropriate project (or projects) for them.

WIP - Evidence of Insanity

It's Wednesday and I should be working on the "water" themed postcards that are supposed to be in the mail FRIDAY! Sorry ladies, they will be a day or so late. Why? Because I am in the middle of a (hopefully) brief obsession with tea dyeing. Suzanne asked in the last post why I used coffee to dye the blocks. Well, it's because I had that whole jar of instant coffee left from the sample I made for my Quilt University class and I didn't want to just throw it out. I wanted them "tanned" and the coffee gave a good tan in the sample. That's about as far as the analysis went!

More Tea Dyeing

The primary reason that I am taking the tea dyeing class is that I wanted to tea dye some really ugly blocks and my original attempts have failed. After my sample dyeing this weekend I was ready to dye the blocks. I decided to use coffee instead of teas on these but I did get the effect that I wanted. The coffee smell was so strong that it almost made me sick! In the end, it was worth it.

Postcards and weekend roundup

What an incredibly productive weekend!  All the tea dyeing and silk fusion yesterday kicked things off well. Today I made my postcards for the "from the kitchen" swap on Artisans Square and I coffee dyed a set of scrap blocks that I made ages ago and hate.  They are all drying on the kitchen counter now.  I can't share the winter postcard until it makes it to some of the recipients so for now I will share these great cards that I received this week....

Tea Dyeing

Second project of the day.....tea stain dyeing from my Quilt University class.  if you have ever considered doing any tea dyeing you should consider this class - it's excellent!  Here are some of my samples from the day....

WIP -> A little late!

We lost power yesterday morning so I didn't get a chance to post my weekly WIP.  Here's a quick round-up of projects underway:

1 - Here are my first two sheets of silk fusion from the Joggles.com Silk Fusion class.  I just pressed them this morning.  I'm looking forward to using the dark blue one in a postcard swap this weekend.

I learned a couple of lessons for the next round - 1) you really do have to wait until the paper is COMPLETELY dry before removing the netting and 2) I should hang them to dry.  I laid mine on a table and the lighter one has a dark water mark at the bottom of the piece.

Kim's quilt is done and more trash-to-treasure fabric

First off, last night (Friday) I finished quilting Kim's quilt!  It's a queen sized quilt done in pretty autumn (manly) colors and is for her brother.  Details about the quilting are here.  This is a really crummy photo and really doesn't show the great colors in the quilt - it's just my proof that the project is done!

In other happenings.....

Samples for Saturday Guild

First, thanks very much for all of the comments on Anne's Snails Trail quilt.  Anne loved it so it must be OK!  I got a couple of comments about my samples for my Guild meeting this Saturday so here they are!  This all started with this scarf

I made this just after I got my longarm.  Marilyn Badger  teaches this technique to new longarmers and it's a great way to get comfortable with the longarm.  Tension and stitch quality do not matter - all that matters is that you do a lot of stitching!  I volunteered to do a program on this technique months ago - as usual, I waited until the last weeks to get it ready.

Here are the samples for the meeting tomorrow...

WIP Wednesday

Once again I am posting my WIP as a montage photo.  It seems to reflect best when I am in a quandary about what I am doing or feeling a little disorganized.  Today I am behind on preparing materials for my ASG guild meeting Saturday.  I've known for months that I was doing the program this month and just haven't been able to get motivated.  I am going to work on it tonight as soon as I am done with this post.  I really want to be quilting Kim's quilt but will not let myself do it until I have everything ready for the Saturday meeting.  Here's a roundup of the current activities....