February BJP is Finished

"Come To Me Pump"

I know it's a little past February, but it's finished.  And I have already started March.  My goal for this month was to use different colored beads to show depth.  Hence, the white beads for highlights.  I'm not sure it was successful -- to me, the white beads just look like stripes.  Maybe if I had just used lighter colored red beads like I did on the toe.  Or maybe I should have used some of the white beads on the highlights on the toe.

Frogs and More on Design Wall Monday

This is on my design wall today.  Off to the right are the frogs I did in the previous post.  This quilt is the result from last Thursday when I went to Monroe, Wisconsin, and met with the Very Friendly Ladies for a class taught by Klaudeen Hansen.

This is the pattern we did.   I love the sample quilt she made (I even offered to take it home with me and take very good care of it, but, sadly, no dice).  I think it looks more like a pond than pie, so I made some frogs to fuse to the top.   I tried it with the green in the center, but it looks better with blue.

To see more design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Frogs, Stencils, and Inks

I needed some frogs for a project I'm doing.  So I found some copyright-free pictures and traced them onto freezer paper.

I cut them out and ironed them to some lime green fabric.  I got out my Tsukineko inks and those Fantastix "coloring tools" and inked in the frogs.

Then I heat set the inks with a hot iron and added fusible to the back side.  I removed all the paper and cut them out with my favorite sharp scissors.  Here they are stuck to my design wall.  I think I'm going to need at least one more frog for this project.

Bloggers Quilt Festival!

My entry for the Fall 2010 Blogger's Quilt Festival is Flora!

"Flora Checks In"

24" x 24"

I made this for a challenge using this fabric.  This is so not my style that it truly was challenging.  I used it for the ears and cut out individual flowers for fusing.  

Flora's face is all turned edge appliqué.  I created a pattern from a photo of a cow that I took last summer.  The ears were covered with thread after appliqué and before layering and quilting so that they would stand out from the background.

The background was hand-dyed especially for this -- I was going for a field and sky look.

For more detail shots and more information about Flora, click here and here.

To see more Blogger's Quilt Festival quilts, click here.  There are lots and lots of really beautiful quilts -- it's well worth the time to check them all out.

Catching Up With Stuff - Quilts, Hand-Dyes, and Cattle

Last week, I went to the only Waunakee in the world for the St. John's Piecemakers quilt show.  I have been going for years because I know a bunch of the ladies in the group, but this year I had a quilt in the show.  They were kind enough to invite us non-members to exhibit our "Pieceful Nights" quilts and they hung mine right in front!  I forgot to take a picture because I saw my friend Chris of Dye Candy in her booth and forgot all about my old quilt!

Here is a picture of Chris in her booth.  She had the most wonderful earrings for sale, so I spent my fabric money on them instead. They are on display on the table at the lower right hand side of the photo.  She has great hand-dyes -- you can purchase them here.


There were a lot of nice quilts (besides mine).  This has always been a nice little show -- but it seemed even better than usual this year -- no, not just because my quilt was in it...


And long time readers may remember my attempts to photograph these long-horned cattle.  Well, this past spring, I found out something about them -- they're cows!  Yep, they had babies.  And they left even more quickly when I came out with my camera.

But on Friday, they were much friendlier.

This one was hanging out near the fence and kindly allowed me to photograph her.

In fact, she came even closer when I switched my attentions to her herd-mate.  Yikes!  Those horns look sharp!  I hope the fence is strong...

Marbling Results

After spending the entire afternoon marbling with my daughter, we have six beautiful fat quarters.  Yep -- it took us that long.  But we had fun.  If you click on the photos, you can see more of the detail.

This fabric was originally turquoise.  I got a little heavy handed with the greens and there's not much turquoise showing.   It's the only one that has enough paint to affect the hand of the fabric.  I've never done that before when marbling. Usually, the paint floats in such a thin layer that the fabric stays soft.

This one is probably my favorite of this batch -- I wasn't sure about the black and turquoise dots when I first pulled it off the size, but it has grown on me -- now I really like them.

This was a pale striped hand-dye -- blue and yellow.  I like the soft colors, even though I can't think of what I will do with this.

This was a snow-dye that I thought was kind of ugly.  I used it to pick up paint that was left in the tray after another piece, so there is only a little marbling on the right side.  I put this on the to-be-marbled-again pile.  Yes, you can do that -- some of the most complex and beautiful marbles that I've seen are over-marbled.

This was my daughter's first attempt.  It's the one that I showed here as the paint on the size.  It looks much brighter on the fabric because the size was a little murky from use.

This was her second attempt.  We had trouble with the purple -- it kept sinking.  I wound up mixing new color for her.  The stuff in my little bottles had thickened and couldn't be revived.

I think I like hers best -- would it be wrong for me to add them to my stash?  We did use my supplies...

Friday Magpie -- Mag 38 "Bones"

Mom didn't want to be buried.

"Dead people should be done

with taking up space here."  So we

scattered the ashes late one afternoon.

Unlike Grandma, whose grave is crowded

with the bones of those she had dug up

and moved when the ground changed hands,

"They're not spending eternity in that

heathen place."  So today they rest in a place

on a continent they never visited while

alive.  "There won't be any rest for anyone

in there," Pop pointed out.  Too many

talkers -- too much noise.  I feel like I

can hear their chatter when I visit -- two

whom I knew and two known only

from the stories Mom told. Like her,

they died too young.  It's nice to visit

and talk to the stones.  After

wind scatters the ashes, there's

nowhere to go to talk to the bones.

-kls 2010

This was written in response to the picture above which is courtesy of Magpie Tales.  Write your own and link here to share with the rest of the gang.

So Happy Halloween!  My kids love it for the candy -- I love it for the kids' costumes.  I was asked to make some costumes yesterday(!), but I declined.  I told them that had they asked a month ago, I would have been happy to make them.  The weekend of, not so much.

So now I have to go sample some candy -- it you're going to hand it out, you have to check it out.  It's a public service.