Just Goes to Show You

Or at least it showed me....that would be the 33rd Annual Tyler Quilt Show.

One event after another had delayed the finishing of a quilt that I had committed to enter into the show. (Have you ever "picked out" any quilting?...At least three hours of pulling strings was really annoying.) The day the quilts were to be delivered another un-anticipated event made it necessary to leave town no later than 11:15....quilt receiving was to last until 1:00. (I had anticipated being the last person to deliver my quilt.)  So, the moral of this little tale....Even if you are sitting in the parking lot of the convention center using every last minute to sew the binding close...it can be worth the effort!

My favorite judge's comment was about how bindings should be smooth without puckers! If she only knew.

Now that all the drama has settled, it is back to things unfinished. I had pulled out the 10 completed blocks from the 2013 Saturday Sampler Block of the Month from a local quilt shop. I completed the last 2 today, but before I could get my sewing mess cleared away here comes...

It was just supposed to be a brainstorming session on what designs I wanted to fill in the "blank" spots...

Hey! No Sock Monkeys in this quilt!

...and before I knew what had really happened, I was coloring. 

I think I will call this quilt Saturday's at Home. I am going to color in those things that happen in my back yard. (Like mushrooms, toads and insects! And maybe some flowers too...dandelions teehee)

Lots and lots of coloring still to do!

Linking up with 

Happy Coloring, 

Tana

One Thing Leads to Another (and Another)

So, the painting and decorating that has been happening in the living half of our home sometimes goes by "the remodel", but there isn't anything structural being done, so that really isn't accurate. Then sometimes I will say, "Updating," but since I am not necessarily young and fresh and I like what I like...updating is a relative term. Face-lift....I think that is the description I have been searching for and as I suspect, when you get a face-lift, you then need to color your hair, then you need new clothes, and then you need....well, then one thing leads to another and then another.

Needing another thing is where this large expanse of freshly painted light gray family room wall has found itself.

All the nick knacks and wall hangings have circled round and round, into the entry hall and into the dining room and when the music stopped, this wall remained empty. And this is when I broke my main New Year's resolution.  (Finish the 2013 projects before starting anything new in 2014) 

Enter the new project to hang on the empty wall. The thing that sent me off to sew, was 

being able to finally use some of the hand dyed fabrics in a project for me.

My hubby estimated the wall quilt to be up in about 2 days. (He was seriously being generous on the time frame.) I am ready to trim the blocks and the borders are cut.....it has taken, just shy of 40 hours to get to this point. I am doing raw edge applique on the sewing machine, I would never finish if I was doing hand applique!

It was so hard to make the first cut into my batiks, but so glad I found a fun project where they look really happy.  Wish I were ready to do the quilting...

Happy coloring,

Tana

Confession ~ Lawn Sabotage

Crafty Serenity ~ the hubby is with fishing buddies, playing 42 on the cabin porch while it rains ~ I'm home alone with yards of freshly colored and waxed fabrics that are waiting their turn in the pot of boiling water ~ hot water frees the fabric of batik wax ~ returning the material to soft and supple ~ all the emerging patterns and colors makes me as giddy as a school girl with a new box of crayons...

Suddenly ~ totally encircled by a steam that smells like cooked greens. Wait, was that right? NO! cooked GRASS! 

In my haste to dash between raindrops and the overzealous desire to remove ALL the wax from EVERY project ~ I cooked my yard with a pot of boiling, wax saturated water. 

But ~ I sure am happy when I look at the fabrics and scarves I made that weekend.

Happy coloring,
Tana

P.S. Some of the fabrics and scarves are slowly being listed on my etsy site, www.grannysgift.etsy.com 

The Tweedles in Colorland

Or maybe I should say, "Two happy days of living under the rainbow!". This picture was even taken after an unprecedented July rain. My friend, Sharon and I recently adventured into creating hand dyed fabrics and other items. This is an event that we have talked about for some time and finally managed to feel confident enough to jump into little puddles of color and just create.

The coloring started by mixing our 20 plus dyes with urea water in individual little cups. We could then pick

and choose which colors to add in a direct dye method. How fun to see the colors explode onto the fabrics and to be able to lay a variety of colors next to one another.

I also tried my hand at wax resist or batik. I think this was probably on my unofficial bucket list of things to do.

However!!! When you add rain
to wax....






You get something that looks like...

The batik process may have been cut short, but I was still able to get some really fun fabrics out of the two days. Calling this fabric group Orange Slice. The process consisted of applying wax to white fabric, (leaving 1/2 of the fabric un-waxed) dyeing it orange. Then I waxed the orange 1/2 yard of fabric and discharged the

color from the background. I'm already planing my next dye and discharge colors!!

 These wild orange flowers started with a potato stamp and then used a tjanting tool to make the petals.

And then, just how much color is too much color on one yard of fabric? The brown and the green fabrics started as a single unit. After I had added the smaller, darker triangles I cut the fabric in half. One side I dyed in deep orange for the brown background and the other half was dyed in chartreuse for the green background.

This was way more fun than any old coloring book, but I can see it will certainly take some planning to ensure a successful dye process.

Happy coloring!
Tana