Ice dyeing in progress......

 I hadn't planned on it but decided to ice dye 6 more scarves this morning - they're now 'marinating' or the official term is 'batching' until tomorrow morning.  I can already see some of the scarf above under the melting ice - I think it's going to be a beauty...….

 This one is interesting looking, not sure if that's good or bad.....

…..this one the scarf is toward the top of the picture under the melting ice, it's going to be another beauty, I think.  Then on the bottom part of the picture there's some cotton fabric, that was white on white design, that the ice and dye are dripping over. My quilter neighbor gave me 4 pieces of fabric to try under the ice dyeing.  This one looks beautiful. Two of the others look pretty good but the 4th one is up in the air - it's a pretty big piece of fabric to be bunched up plus it may be a poly blend - it looks strange where the dye is hitting it - who knows, it may wash out to white tomorrow.

I have more scarves to dye, some shawls and even a couple tops, summer tops for me that I never got around to dyeing in the spring so I could wear them this summer...…..

A bit of this and that

 I'm working in Santa's workshop when I get free time so I can't really show what I'm working on but here's a glimpse of some sewing going on. I have a stash of lovely ribbons I'm putting to use.  After the holidays I'll show complete pictures of what I've made.

And here's some knitting - I'm coming down the home stretch on knitted gifts for a few family members. During our trips back and forth to the coast I work on the hexxie quilt squares, very fun project for down times like riding in the car. Some ask me how I do that kind of work riding in the car - I couldn't if I didn't wear Sea-Bands for motion sickness - they're great, I can stitch, knit or read in the car wearing those puppies.

Where did the year go?  I've made our holiday cards and am now working on gifts but the first part of the year seems lost, not much accomplished. Too many appointments for us and other family members......what happened to the days when I spent all day in the studio creating???  I thought I'd get back to that this year after the move but it still hasn't happened. There's always hope for next year......

Another project crossed off the list......

We've crossed another house remodel project off the very long to-do list. This room is actually kitchen dining nook but I've taken it over for my office, orchids and pottery......we have bar seating and a dining room, we don't need a third eating area. The before picture isn't the best since our old chair is right in the foreground, this pic was taken months ago...…...I didn't take it, I forgot to take a before picture so this is one Sam had taken early on.

See that drop tray ceiling?  It's a monstrosity. All the ceilings in the house are 11-12 foot except for here. What possessed the builder to put in that heavy drop ceiling???  We knew it had to come out.

Just a couple weeks ago Sam, a friend and my cousin took that drop ceiling out - it was built so well the house could have fallen down around it and it would have still been there. Here it is with new insulation before drywall and texturing. Unfortunately I didn't get an in process photo - plastic hanging down with around a foot of blown in insulation and drywall trash laying all around.

And here it is finished - it looks so much better. I have since put décor on the desk shelves, I decided it should be handmade baskets for the time being....not sure if that's what will stay. I even question if I want to keep the hutch on the desk or put art on the wall above the desk instead. I've also given thought to painting this furniture. No need to decide now.

Next project up - new gas fireplace and mantel. The old gas fireplace puts out 0 heat, zero, nada, nothing. This winter we'd love to swivel around in our recliners to read or knit (me) in front of a cozy fire.

Last week's spinning......

The county fair is over for another year - we had the best time spinning everyday and visiting with the public...…and chatting and chatting amongst ourselves.  It's amazing that we never run out of things to talk about after spinning together all day long. 

I was close to finishing up spinning some other fiber so didn't want to take that as I'd have to ply and didn't feel like plying the entire time.  This is the last of my hand-dyed roving in my stash, it's a merino/bamboo/nylon blend in a colorway I call bandana. I am ready to ply 2 huge bobbins I spun on my Hansen (electric) mini-spinner which was so easy to roll in and out each day in it's Zuca rolling tote. I have no clue what it will grow up to be, it may have to sit on the shelf and marinate for a while until the perfect project comes up. I wasn't sure what it would look like spun up, I really like it. 

Ice dyeing.....

 I finally got out the dyes to do some ice dyeing so I could show a neighbor how it's done. We each dyed 2 scarves and a pair of sox.  I love the way my sox came out although they are a bit lighter now that they're dry. I can't wait to try some more sox.....also have more scarves, shawls and a few tops in the queue to dye...….maybe next week......

 I love to watch the dyes migrate as the ice melts - it's always makes such interesting patterns on the ice.

So much more fun to see on full size cubes rather than crushed ice.

It's that time of year again......

It's that time of year again, county fair time. This morning we put up our spinning display - come Wednesday we will be sitting in front of it in a big circle spinning the days away. Always fun to visit with the public but by the time the fair is over I'm exhausted from being 'on' for days on end. 

Shameless plug......

I entered a tea cozy contest and voting is now open.  If anyone likes my cozy they can go vote for me at The Larkin Tea Co website. There are lots of other really cute cozies too but I obviously am not plugging those.  Mine is called Happy Dancing Sheep.  Click HERE to vote.  I probably won't win but I'm a winner regardless as they sent me a bag of loose leaf tea and a subscription for an online tea magazine just for entering.  I may have to think ahead in case they do this contest again next year.

The cozies all had to be knitted.  Mine was knit out of handspun yarn and felted, then I needlefelted the dancing sheep and flowers on it.  I use it all the time.

This and that.......

 Our d-i-l saw the snap bags I use for my Kindle and the power cord and said she'd love some so I stitched those up today, will get them in the mail headed back east early this week.

 She's getting an extra small bag because the first one I made was too small for the power cord. I hope she likes my fabric choices, I love them.

 Working on planning out some holiday weaving - can't say what my projects are at the moment......

…...but it's sure been fun to have time to spend planning projects...….

…...and yes, these 3 projects are all related...….

I've also done some gift knitting but can't post that for a few months......I'm about to start some more gift knitting that I can work on in the evenings while we watch tv.

More rag runners......

Someone asked me for a table runner to go with her new furniture/décor so I finally put a warp on (she's waited for months) and am giving it a try. Special orders are difficult for me because I don't really know what someone is envisioning. Hopefully one of these will work.

The warp has two shades of aqua, a light green and gray....perfect for her colorway.....but getting fabric to end up weaving to match is more difficult.  I love the one above.

This one is much more subtle but I like it also.

This one turned out much lighter than I anticipated - still very nice but not sure if it will work.....

This one using a gray print is not long enough for her table but I had warp left so I wove it - maybe I'll keep this one for myself.

As I look at these photos I realize that they really don't show the colors in the warp or even in the fabric very well - much more attractive in person.

R & R weekend on the coast..........

This and that.......

 I finally got a decent picture of the shawl that I blocked last week, the one that I spun the Inglenook Fibers 12 days of Christmas fibers for. Love how it turned out but in this heat won't be wearing it until fall or winter.

And here are the hexxie pieces hand stitched together so far. They're in sections with the flower and part of the white background. I was laying them out to see how many I'll need for an afghan size. I'm thinking 5 flowers across and 9 flowers down but will decide for sure after I get more stitched. Im undecided if I'll put half flowers on the edges or if it will all be white.....will decide that later too.  No stitching at the moment, finger is still sore but I'll be ready with the stick on thimble once it's recovered.  Don't ask me why pictures with the phone sometimes turn when I upload them to blogger - it's not this orientation on my computer. Technology...……

A relaxing 4th

 We spent the last 5 days on the coast, it was great to escape the heat although it's not horrible here in the valley at the moment, but still 70 with an ocean breeze does good for the soul. I finally finished warping the loom over there - a towel warp has been wound on the back beam for months. I got the heddles threaded, then sleyed the reed and tied on.

 I only wove 2 towels to get it started as I had other things I wanted to do - like reading and stitching hexxies…....and relaxing. I can't remember which draft this is other than it came from the Strickler book - my notes are over at the beach cottage. I'll have to get a picture of the hexxie sections I've sewn so far - great  handwork for while riding in the car. I do have a problem though - I can't seem to wear a thimble and I did so much stitching the pad of my middle finger on my right hand is irritated. Maybe I'll put a small bandaid on it for the next round of stitching......which won't be until my finger is no longer sore.

We went crabbing one day - how relaxing can it get just sitting out on a dock throwing the crab ring and pulling it out...……..well, having Sam throw the crab ring and pull it out...…….and put the stinky fish head baits on the hook while I watched birds diving for fish and watched the sea lions watching us throw out bait.....we did lose a bit of bait to them. We caught a ton of Dungeness crab but they were all just a bit too small so they had to go back but we did get to keep the red crab....which we ate for dinner. Being a smaller crab they are a pain to pick but they were yummy. 

12 Days of Christmas

This morning I blocked the shawl I spun and knit from the Inglenook Fibers 12 Days of Christmas spin-a-long. It's hard to see the colors sitting on the rubber squares plus the shadow of the house at the top of the picture but I'll get a better pictures on my mannequin once it's dried. It will be interesting to see how the asymmetrical shape works on the body.

This and that......

Once again I've been missing in action - we had Sam's cousin Trish and her friend Ruth visiting from Virginia on their cross country adventure. On Friday we took them to Crater Lake (national park) with a stop at a quilt shop along the way.

This is a picture of the Rogue River Gorge which is in Union Creek on the way to Crater Lake. It's the only one I took which is unfortunate because the scenery is beautiful but then I can go up there anytime to see it.

Here is Crater Lake - look how blue that water is and yes, that's snow in the foreground. The entire drive around the lake isn't open yet due to snow - perhaps early July. It is the deepest lake in the US at 1949 feet and one of the most clear lakes in the world. It's volcanic caldera was formed 7700 years ago after the eruption of Mount Mazama. The elevation at the water is 6,178 ft, it's over 7000 ft where we were standing.

Here's a Clark's Nutcracker sitting on a tree in front of the lake - many thanks to birder friend Yvonne for identifying it for me, she used to work at the park so is very familiar with the birds there.

And what's a trip to Crater Lake, or anywhere out Rt 62 without a stop at Becky's Café for pie.

I'm going to be starting a long term project - a hexxie (hexagon) afghan quilt. And I'm going to use all fabrics in my stash - what a novel idea. I have tons of beachy fabrics. I'm using the same coral seahorse fabric for all the flower centers and I have 9 different fabrics in sea glass greens for the petals. The white background is a white on white design with all things beach related, can't see it in the photo. Originally I planned on doing two rows of flower petals but that would have meant I had to buy more fabric and my goal is to not buy anything other than more white quilting thread for this project - I even have a package of free batting won at the quilt show in May. Yesterday evening I decided to hand sew one section to see how it went before I start cutting out fabric and making up little kits for each section. This will be am on the go project for when riding in the car or waiting rooms, etc.

Here's the backside so one can see the paper pieces used to create the hexagons. As a piece gets surrounded I take out the pieces of cardstock as they can be reused. I saw a trick of punching a hole in the paper to make it easy to put a needle under to pull it out. Hand sewing this was very fun yesterday evening.

Finally........

 I finally finished the gingko wall quilt.  It's fairly large - approx. 32" x 52" but once up on the wall it's looking small for that big wall....and only a portion of the wall is visible in this picture. I need to re-hang art on the left side so there's not quite as much blank space. Maybe eventually get some other small art to add. The quilt matches perfectly with the linen charcoal gray sectional.

 I agonized over making this quilt. I'm not an art quilter. I'm not even a quilter. I piece quilt tops and have someone with a long arm machine quilt them. And I had no pattern to work from - I got inspiration from all things gingko on the internet.

Rather than put a binding on the quilt I faced it. For hanging I got help from a neighbor who is an experienced quilter. She suggested putting fabric triangle pieces on the back in the corners and a sleeve in-between and use a metal slat (not sure what it's called) to slide in those sleeves & corners. Sam drilled a hole with a slot toward each edge to slide over screws in the wall. It worked perfectly.


 I used gingko stencils as my guide for the golden leaves. I drew them on paper, scanned them and then resized them on the computer to make patterns. It's hard to tell but the gold fabric is a batik printed with gingko leaves - that was from my stash, the background fabrics mostly bought from Jordan Fabrics but a few picked up elsewhere. If you don't know of Jordan Fabrics it's a great online and brick & mortar store. So many online tutorials and free patterns too. What a treasure to have just a few miles from home.

I free motion stitched the gingko leaves using variegated thread. Then using a gray thread I quilted gingkos in the background and in some places echo stitched. On a small sample this was easy - not so easy on my actual quilt as it was a lot to work with at my machine, a lot to be able to move around under the needle. So, my stitching is pretty wonky, I was distressed seeing the quality of my stitching but once up on the wall it looks fine.

Will I do free motion stitching again?  Yes, but only on small items - maybe small art quilts, placemats, table runners - anything larger is too much for me with my machine.

Now that I've finished this project which has held me up in my creative life I'll move back to the looms and some other quilt/sewing projects.

(afterthought - noticed in the picture that the quilt looks like it's hung crooked - Sam used a level......I might have to double check it for level, if it's right then it's the couch or the floor that's off!!!)

Out of the heat.......

We escaped the heat for 5 days while the A/C was out - just over the coastal range 80 miles the temp was in the 60's with a breeze...…..rather a stiff wind.  It was a wonderful getaway and just what we needed.  The A/C was fixed as of yesterday, ice maker also working again and computer files retrieved from the beginning of time to August 2017, I can live with that.

In the next day or so I expect to get the hanging sleeve on my gingko quilt so it can be hung over the couch - photo to come once done.  I have some napkins to serge, a shawl finished while on the coast to block and then hopefully back to the looms.....also some yardwork/garden to be tended which I started on this morning.

Photo is of the labyrinth we walked Sunday morning while on the coast in Bandon. I didn't get a good pic of the entire thing. For those of you who get the AAA magazine there's a photo of one of Denny's labyrinths inside the back cover.

What the ??? I don't use profanity but you know what I mean......

This is how I'm feeling this morning.  105 degree temp yesterday and the A/C went out early evening, temp today predicted to be 103. This house gets no shade so it heats up. The A/C went out within the first month after we bought this house last summer but we had a one year home warranty compliments of our realtor so it was fixed - dual compacitor needed to be replaced.....that happened when the temps were well over 100 also.  Well here we go again. We did have the option to pay for another year of the home warranty so we did since the A/C and furnace are original to the house. Right now we're waiting for a call back to schedule a repairman. It would be great if it was the entire unit that needed replacing rather than just one more part. 

On the computer/lost data front - we did have a ghost image of my old computer in the safe deposit box from August 2017.  So, I have everything up until that date, I think...... The hard drive is still being analyzed to see if we can recover everything which would include the past two years.  Yep, going to have back up drives to my back up drives in the future......since the back up external hard drive failed in addition to the one in the computer. When did life get so complicated???

This is a picture I took recently when we took family to Wildlife Safari. This guy was just inches from my camera. 

Life can suck at times........

I've been absent from my blog as life has gotten in the way and I don't have too much to share.  We did have family visiting and had a great time with them doing some fun activities like jet boat rides on the river, going to Wildlife Safari, the coast and just catching up. Sunday I made 2 batches of strawberry jam and one of strawberry/blueberry jam. This is the only photo I have to share at the moment.....you'll see why below.

I have been working here and there on my gingko quilted wallhanging - only snippets of time but as of yesterday I've finally got the entire thing free motion quilted. Now I need to trim it up and add a facing onto it as I don't want a traditional quilt binding....then the hanging sleeve.

Disaster struck (why life sucks at times) Friday morning when my desktop computer wouldn't boot up - the computer that has my life on it. Long story short the hard drive failed...….automatic external  back-up drive also recently failed....and the power supply was going. So, I guess backing up my files on the external hard drive wasn't enough, I should have had a back up to that. This affects everything - personal files, business files & artwork, artwork, photographs, everything...….well, almost everything, I've got my weaving software files and embroidery machine files on the laptop that I back up on thumb drives. When something pops into my head that I may have lost tears come to my eyes, like all my photos of Bailey. So, new desktop computer bought but no files on it yet. IT guy at Sam's office worked on it but can't retrieve them off my old hard drive or back-up drive so they're now at a local computer store but no guarantee. We did have a ghost of the computer made 2 years ago in the safety deposit box so that's with Sam at work now with hopes he can pull files off that so then I will have only lost the last 2 years worth of files. Not good but way better than losing 25+ years worth. (No, my computer wasn't 25 years old, just files transferred from computer to computer over the years)

I did have some other pictures to share but they have been downloaded to the new desktop and that's at the office at the moment so I don't have access to them.

Maybe I'll get more time soon to create more that I'd like to share here but alas, more family coming to visit soon (a good thing) so it will be a while...….