feathered friends.....

I guess we might need to hang a for rent sign outside of our new birdhouse to attract some feathered friends, but how cool is this birdhouse.

My friend Cathi gave it to me and it is just so precious.
It's made with felted wool from reclaimed clothing and was made in Nepal. The newspaper packing that was inside was the Himalayan Times ~ no really ~ and it was an english version.
Haven't read it yet.
Anyway, we hung it up on a tree the other day, facing east as recommended by birding sites, but so far we have not seen any little moving trucks show up. We're hoping that perhaps a wren would find it appealing. It is nice and cozy and it's supposed to hold up to the elements for a year. I almost hated to put it outside because it's just so darn cute. But, if a little bird can make it a home I don't want to deprive them.
Maybe if we offer a move in bonus like some pretty thread or other irresistible nesting materials we'll get a taker. We'll just have to wait and see.....in the meantime I'm free motion quilting some leaf shapes on a small quilt I made. I should be organizing my tax paperwork but not today.....

part 2 - Cathi's summer art camp

Okay....so our fabric has been sitting in plastic bags with all manner of rusty things, and hopefully it is becoming fabulous. I rinsed out my two smaller pieces that were scrunched up on the cookie sheet by the end of the day Saturday and they had already been sufficiently rust dyed. I used a white on cream fabric and after rinsing it out I laid it in the sun to dry and then stenciled over it with this cool timepiece stencil  that Karen got from Karen Pharr Studios, a vendor at our recent local quilt show. I used a brown/bronze color Shiva Paintstik and a stencil brush to stencil the designs.

Linda's rust dyed and stenciled piece

This really cool looking piece is Karen's. This is the piece she wrapped around the rusty piece of rebar. It looks like fish bones or a fossil of some crustacean sort of creature....very cool

Karen's rust dyed fabric

 
I think she waited until the following day to rinse hers. Karen any insights???? Can't wait to see what she does with it....no pressure. :)

These are the other pieces Karen did and they turned out very cool too.

I really like this one of Karen's too. A lot of depth to this piece.

more of Karen's ..... see the safety pin design at the upper right.

This is the piece I wrapped around the rusty chain and put in a large plastic bag. The fabric I started with was a mottled pale yellow/pink. 

no distinguishable chain links, but a lot of great rust dye.

This was the piece I had setting under the rusty gear thingy....... it was done on a tone on tone fabric.

Linda's gear thingy piece......hmmmm

I don't have Cathi's pix yet. I can't wait to see them. When I took a peek Saturday it looked like they were rusting up good. Will post them as soon as they are available.

Cathi's summer art camp - part 1

WOW...... what a fun-filled day of fabric play at "Cathi's summer art camp" Last Saturday, me and 3 of my bff''s spent the day at bff Cathi's house where she hosted an awesome day of creative play.
We have been trying to plan this day for months and it finally came to fruition. Cathi had her large cutting table all set to go and we protected it with a large canvas tarp she purchased. This is the before picture.....

We had numerous techniques we all wanted to try and we decided to begin the day with rust dyeing as it takes awhile to produce results.
We had all collected interesting rusty pieces.....

we also had a helper..... this is Clancy, Cathi's adorable dog. Maybe "helper" is a bit of a stretch, but he seemed to enjoy the day.

The technique of rust dyeing is simply arranging rusty items onto fabric that has been wet with ordinary vinegar. You then place it in a plastic bag to keep it from drying out and then it is left to stand. From what we had read it takes up to 24 hours for it to set in. We used old cookie sheets to arrange our rusty pieces onto, under, and around our fabrics. The rustier the better. We sprayed them with the vinegar and bagged them up and waited........

This is Cathi's rust composition, can't wait to see the results

This is one of Karen's compositions

This is one of my compositions, (I scrunched my fabric)

Karen also wrapped another piece around a rusty piece of rebar, and I wrapped a piece of fabric around a  large chain and those we put into a large ziploc bag to "stew".
Rust dyeing fabrics is a safe alternative to "powder" dyes although you are limited to rust for the final color. We did come out with some interesting pieces as I'll show you tomorrow........

A new sewing machine.....

Goodness, sewing machines seem to be multiplying like rabbits in my house. My dearly loved and much used Viking 990 died on me a few weeks ago (r.i.p.) and the part to fix it is not to be found right now. Rest assured I will keep looking, but in the meantime my dear, sweet generous friends all offered the use of their spare machines to use. First I had Marti's Janome and it was very easy to learn and so I stitched away on that until the other day. My friend Cathi sent me home with her Bernina to try.

my dead machine, and two loaners from my BFF's

Then,  before I got a chance to try it, a used Viking came up for sale here locally. I kind of wanted to stay with a Viking because I have had such good service from mine these many years and it has sewn virtually everything I could throw at it. Poor thing just finally got tired I guess. I also have a lot of extra feet for the Viking.
Anyway..... I brought my new machine home and I hope it is happy here. It's a Viking Designer 1, but it is missing the embroidery unit. I finally had a chance to try it last night and so far so good. As with any new machine there is a bit of a learning curve but it stitches great and has a lot of cool features. I'll let you know how I like the stippling quilt stitch when I get a chance to use it more.
But..... I got it for a good price and I don't think I would use the embroidery unit right now. If I want to I can always purchase that later.
Now I just have to bling it up with my Studio Bling so it feels like mine.

my new Designer 1

I know a lot of people like using the embroidery units, do you have an embroidery machine and how much do you use the embroidery features?????
What do you like most about the sewing machine you have???
What do you like the least????
How old is your most used machine???
I bought my 990 in '84 or '85 - wow - that was a long time ago!
Now I can begin returning the borrowed machines to my BFF's and hope I can return the favor some day.

how to traumatize a quilter... day one

I didn't start out with the intention of traumatizing anyone but as it turns out I have.
It all started with a new project of mine that is intended to bring to conclusion, an aging, unloved, and bothersome project.
A couple of years ago I started a new quilt design. I was actually working on it at one of our quilt retreats a.k.a. giggle fest. It is a small quilt and when I was making it I did have my doubts about the colors of some of the 4 patch units but forged ahead anyway.
I finished the top and sandwiched the quilt and then started quilting it using my "Fearless Blonde Quilting" method. This is a technique using freezer paper shapes to quilt around. I cut out a bunch of freezer paper daisies and ironed them to the quilt sandwich and started quilting.

 At our quilt retreats we all share ideas and inspirations and it was suggested more then once that I make daisy appliques to put on the quilt. So even though the quilt was already sandwiched, and partially quilted I went ahead and prepared the appliques and started machine blanket stitching them to the quilt through all layers.
Learn from my experience - do not try to machine applique AFTER the quilt has been sandwiched!!!!
Needless to say it was a real pain in the patuttie trying to wrestle the quilt round and round while trying to stitch down those darn daisies!

I am not one to quit something after I start it, but this project was losing it's luster really fast!
I kept at it and got about 10 or 12 daisies stitched down to that @$^%* quilt top.
It has now been sitting in my closet for about 2 years and has been haunting me.
I pulled it from it's hiding place the other day and decided enough was enough!
I need to liberate myself from this thorn in my paw. This UFO has got to go!

Which brings me to  -  how to traumatize a quilter........

My good friend Marti was painting her living room/dining room and I volunteered to help out one day.
I headed over to her house armed with a variety of paint supplies, trim brush, paint roller, extension handle, and a new addition .....a colorful new dropcloth.
OH YES this quilt is not going to just gather dust in a closet and disintegrate it's going to go out working.
Poor Marti tried her best to save the #@&* quilt. She offered to take out the blanket stitching, the quilting and she even offered to quilt it, if only I would spare it. She was traumatized at the thought of my actions.
I must admit I almost relented, after all I LOVE quilts, all quilts - except this one.
I took one more look at those orange and purple 4 patches, and all those daisies yet to be done and I held steadfast in my mission to be released from this quilt that has been haunting me.

Despite Marti's best pouty face I headed over to the paint area, spread out my colorful new dropcloth, placed my roller pan on top and proceeded to paint her walls a beautiful new green.....

Come on, admit it. Don't you have a UFO project or two that has been haunting you??

 To the faint of heart.... yes, I am going to make up for this quilt destruction by making a new one and donating it to charity. I will post my progress of my liberation from this @&^%* quilt and the emergence of the new.

plum crazy!

Those crazy squirrels are at it again! Well, okay we may encourage them a bit.
We finished off a jar of peanut butter (yes, making cookies again) and we thought the squirrels might enjoy cleaning out the jar.....we were right.

I missed getting our buddy "Spot" while she was enjoying the jar, but I was laughing too hard to think about the camera. This other little fella came along and was more than happy indulge while being photographed. Needless to say there were some skirmishes going on over the jar. They are just plum crazy. Speaking of plum crazy...

Our neighbor called ( no - she's not crazy) with some water heater problems and so my dh and I  headed over to check it out. While we were there I noticed some fruit of some sort on one her large trees that I hadn't seen before. Turns out they are Japanese plum trees. I've never had Japanese plum...are they tasty!!! I am now plum crazy! (not exactly a state secret)

She sent me home with the ripe ones we could reach and told me to come back for all I want as they ripen. I will surely take her up on that.
It also seems my dh got her water heater working again. Yay!
It's been a rainy day so far and so no sun printing for me today.....I did put some printed squares and kits up for sale in my etsy store.
I guess I will do some dusting - oh fun - and some laundry - more fun - and then hopefully get into the studio for some stitching time. Oh - here's some more craziness....
Look what my hubby found out in the garage while he was cleaning up out there.
Yikes -  it's a black widow spider, now deceased.

Thankfully our garage is away from the house and I have never seen one in the house - you would have heard the scream. Well, enough craziness for now, I need another yum yum plum.

In case you missed it...there is still time to enter my Sweet Vintage Giveaway. You have until April 24th to post a comment to my April 9th blog post to be entered. If you blog about it or facebook about it, leave a separate comment for each and get more chances to win. 

One of my FB friends (Robin) is having a fun giveaway at her blog  - check it out !