Peach shawl woven from recycled yarn and variegated sock yarn

Got this shawl off the loom just before lunch.  Here’s a quick shot of it.  I was really pleased with how the self-striping sock yarn worked out.  It created a really nice muted stripe pattern.  The purple and lime green really zip it up.

Andrew thought just throwing the shawl over the rocking chair was a good way to display it for a picture.  He liked seeing my spinning wheel in the picture, too.  What do you think?

The picture could be a little sharper, but it was a quick shot.  The anti-shake feature on my camera doesn’t work when I turn off the flash.  Don’t know why they made it like that.

Andrew wanted to go fishing this afternoon before the weather turns bitter cold.  So I went with him and took a walk in the snowy woods.  He almost caught a BIG steelhead, but his line broke, and it got away.  I happened along right after he lost it, and he was not happy.  But he’s pretty much recovered now, and vows to get it the next time.  And he will, too.

When we got back, I worked in a few yarn ends on the shawl, and twisted the fringe on one end.  I’ll finish the fringe on the other end tomorrow and then wet finish it.  It always looks so different after you wash it and let it dry.

Already have my next project in mind!  Burgundy and pink for the next one.  Recycled yarn, of course!

Hope you all have a great New Year.

Purple shawl handwoven with recycled yarn

Hope you all had a great Christmas.  It was a pretty low-key day for Andrew and me, since we don’t have family in the area.  We decided to go out to eat on Christmas Day, and wound up at the Big Boy, since our other choices were closed.  They had a very nice holiday buffet though, with turkey and stuffing and the works.

Then we rode over to Presque Isle Park, to watch the waves crashing into the breakwater.  No matter how many times we see it, it never gets old.  We also saw someone in a Santa suit jogging around the park.  It was a gray foggy day, so that red suit really stuck out.

Finally got my purple shawl off the loom yesterday.  This is my first project with recycled yarn, and I was quite happy with how it came out.  It finished at 64″ long, and 21″ wide, plus a four-inch twisted fringe at both ends. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Finally figured out what the problem was with my camera.  It has different settings for fluorescent, incandescent, daylight, etc.  It’s amazing how that improved the color.  Can you believe my dad was a professional photographer?  It sure didn’t rub off on me!

My artful arrangement didn’t quite work.  Oh well.  I’ll have to look around online and see how other people do pictures of their stuff.

The light box was full of cat hair.  Guess Molly must have been sleeping in there.  It’s the little things that sneak up on you unexpectedly, and grab you by the heart.

Managed to miss the deadline for applying at the art co-op.  I thought it was the last day of the month, but it was the last Monday instead, which was today.  Oops.  Oh well, it’ll give me time to make some more stuff to sell.  And I’m going to try selling some  of my shawls and scarves here on my blog, too, which is why I’m trying to figure out how to take decent pictures of it.  Stay tuned, as I hope to be putting up a sales page in the next week or so.

Ice on beach at McCarty's Cove

Went for a walk this afternoon, as it was a sunny, albeit cold, day.  But it was nice on the beach.  The lake was calm today, so I could walk right down next to the water, instead of having to stay back.

This picture shows how the waves undercut the frozen sand.  Then the snow on top melted enough to make icicles.  They look like teeth!

The winter sun is so low in the sky, and the shadows are blue.  Is the snow reflecting the sky?  Maybe.

There was lots of glass washed up on the beach today after all the storms.  I usually pick up what’s been tumbled and worn by the waves and the sand, but not today.  The lake will take the glass back in the next storm, and wash it up on another beach somewhere for someone else to find.

Mean Pumpkin

Well, this month is nearly gone already, which is hard to believe.  I snapped this picture of the Mean Pumpkin on one of my walks around town.  Actually the first time I saw it, the little pumpkin had a beer bottle stuck in its mouth, which seemed appropriate, considering what’s happening to it.  But by the time I came back the next day with my camera, somebody had removed the beer bottle!  Too bad…

I played a lot of hooky this month.  Fall was glorious here this year, with unbelievable leaf colors, and mild temperatures.  Andrew and I went on many, many walks, and even a few bike rides.

We climbed to the top of Hogback Mountain on Columbus Day weekend, which surprised both of us, since Andrew is a disabled vet who sometimes has trouble getting around.  It was a long hike back there, and the last bit to get to the top was quite challenging.  But it was worth the trip.

View of Harlow Lake and Lake Superior from the top of Hogback Mountain

Here’s one of the views from the top.  Harlow Lake is the gorgeous blue jewel in the center of the picture.  You can see Lake Superior in the background.  It was warm and a little hazy that day, so it’s hard to see where the Big Lake ends and the sky begins!

It was amazing how many people made the climb up to the top.  There was quite a crowd up there that day.  If you ever visit Marquette, you really have to go.

The very next day, we took a hike back to the Lily Pond, which is in back of Wetmore Bog, and southwest of Hogback Mountain.  All the trails are interconnected.

The Lily Pond was a total surprise.  We were expecting a little pond with a marshy area around it.  This place has to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Upper Peninsula!

Me by the Lily Pond. It was absolutely gorgeous back there.

Andrew snapped this picture of me.  It was a perfect, glorious fall afternoon in this incredible place.  We stopped and rested on the rocks overlooking the Lily Pond, and ate our snack there.  It was hard to tear ourselves away from it!  If we get another nice day, we may get back there again this fall, even though the leaves are down now.

Somehow the season changed, when we weren’t looking!  It’s been a lot colder since that big storm went through last week.  And I even had snowflakes hitting me in the face on one of my walks along the beach on the Big Lake last week.  Winter is closing in.

But I’ve been weaving up a storm on my new rigid heddle loom.  Molly Cat was afraid of it at first, but now she skulks around underneath while I’m weaving, looking for loose yarns she can grab at.

First project on my rigid heddle loom! You can see Molly lurking underneath.

Here’s my first project.  This loom is so EASY to use, and it’s even easy to warp.  I totally love it!  I’m working on my fourth scarf now, with plans for another as soon as it’s off the loom.

I also want to order some carpet warp so I can do some rag weaving.  I have several ideas for rag tote bags.  I used to do a lot of rag rug weaving when I lived in Tennessee.  I have LOTS of material already cut in strips, so I’m ready to go!

The business cards I ordered from VistaPrint should be here in another week.  When they come in, I’m going to try selling some of my scarves at Zero Degrees, the local art co-op.  I just applied to join, so we’ll see what happens!

Winter may be coming, but I have lots to keep me busy.  Plus I’m looking forward to getting out my snowshoes again!

Hand-dyed fabric curing in cottage cheese containers

Here’s what I did this morning.  The green on the left is made from yellow dye with a little black mixed into it.  This was a tip from Melody Johnson from Fibermania.  If you’re not familiar with her work, go visit her blog.  I wanna be like her when I grow up!

More hand-dyed fabric

Playing around with low-water immersion dyeing was my objective this morning.  This is a dyeing process where the fabric is crammed into a small container, and the dye is poured over it.  The more the fabric is crumpled up, the more mottled it will will be.

Mostly I twisted the fabric, and then poured the dye solution over it.  I untwisted the fabric from time to time to see how it looked, and added more dye as needed, using an eyedropper.  Then I smushed the fabric around to blend the colors together.

When I was finished playing with it, I twisted it back up and put in into an empty cottage cheese container to cure.  To avoid having dark spots on the fabric from sitting in the excess dye, I poured any extra dye off, and used it to dye more fabric.

The fabric containers were slipped inside a plastic bag so they wouldn’t dry out while the fabric was curing.  Don’t know if it makes any difference or not, but it can’t hurt.  The basement is pretty chilly, so  the little containers of dyed fabric were kept warm and toasty on  a heating pad for most of today.  The warmth is supposed to help the dye react better with the fabric.

Batik-like design made with gel glue

This yellow fabric shows my attempt at batik using gel glue.  Now I need to paint it with some dye.  After it’s cured, then I wash the glue out, leaving the yellow designs.

The shapes are from a picture I took on the beach the other day.  It was warm enough for the snow to start melting, and the water made some neat designs in the sand.

This is such an amazing design.  It’s so graceful, and it just flows.  It makes me think of a tree with the leaves blowing in the breeze.

If you click on the picture of the sand, it’ll make it bigger so you can see the design better.

Design made by melting snow water in sand on the beach along Lake Superior

The best part about dyeing fabric is that no matter what happens, it’s a success!  It’s just so much fun to play around with the colors, and I’m learning something every time I do some dyeing.  I can see that there’s a bolt of white fabric in my future.  I’ve already used up about a third of what I bought at the fabric sale!

Fabric soaking in soda ash solution. A bucket of possibilities!

Played around with dyeing some fabric this afternoon.  Here’s a bunch of fabric soaking in the soda ash solution.  The white is the cotton I bought yesterday.  The tannish is some printed white cotton I had on hand.  I’m not much for using white, so it’s been sitting in my stash for several years.  Not any more!

Dyed fabric curing in zip-lock bags

The second photo shows a (hopefully) lime green and a bright blue.  They’re curing in zip bags, per the instructions at Fabric Dyeing 101 for dyeing solid-colored fabrics.

Fabric curing in cups. Cramming it into a cup causes a more mottled appearance.

The third picture is four pieces in cups.  The only one you can see is the yellow.  There is a blue-green, a berry red, and I think a dark purple (can’t remember!), along with the yellow.  The berry red is a piece of the printed fabric.  I’m curious to see how it turns out!

I plan to use the yellow piece to play around with making batik using gel glue.  Or I may try stitching a resist and overdyeing it.   I dyed it pale yellow so I could play around with it.  Just need to find some gel glue.  I expect they’ll have it at Target.

It’s a bit chilly in the basement, so I may let it cure for longer than the recommended 24 hours.  I’d bring it upstairs where it’s warmer, but my Molly Cat LOVES plastic bags.  If I’m silly enough to leave one where she can get at it, she drags it all over the house, after killing it thoroughly.  Better to leave my dye project in the basement where it’s safe from predatory kitties.

Dyeing fabric is so much fun that I may overdye some boring or outdated prints in my stash, and give them a new lease on life!

Quilt pinned to batting and backing

Been busy working on my AAQI quilt.  I decided against fusing it.  I wanted to keep the frayed edges and the softness.  Another reason was that I would have had to disassemble it to iron the Wonder Under onto it!  I learned that if you want to fuse something, it’s a good idea to have the fabric fused ahead of time!

So this quilt top is not sewn together.   It’s being held together with the quilting, which is working surprisingly well.  The edges of the strips are fraying a little, which is the effect I was looking for.  (I suppose I should add a note saying that this quilt should not be washed in the washing machine!  It would probably be OK to hand wash it carefully, roll it in a towel to absorb excess moisture, and let it air dry on a flat surface.)

Pieced backing

I probably spent too much time worrying about the backing, but I finally hit on this combo, using leftover fabric from the front.  Now I just need to come up with the binding!

My collection of "darning silk"

I have a big bag of embroidery floss that I ran across recently, but do you think I can find it now?  I need to tear apart my closet to locate it.  In the meantime, I ran across a bunch of darning silk thread that I’ve had for years.  I probably got it in a box of stuff from one of the many farm auctions in South Dakota I used to go to when I lived there.

Darning silk?  It’s probably from the days when women used to take the time to darn wool socks.  The thread is probably at least thirty years old, but it’s still strong and usable after all those years.  The colors are goofy in the photo; the blues are really gray.

I settled on a light tan to quilt the piece with.  The hand quilting is going well.  I haven’t done any hand quilting in years, and I forgot how relaxing it is.  I spent several hours quilting the piece yesterday, and should finish that today.

I recently ran across the concept of “slow cloth.”  This is a reaction to all the quilting shortcuts that are available today.  While I don’t have a problem with the shortcuts (they do make it possible to finish quilts in a short time), there is something to be said about taking your time with some pieces, to just enjoy the process.  This is something I want to explore further, in another blog post.  In the meantime, take a look at Considering at Judy’s Journal.  This is a thoughtful post on what quiltmaking is today, and what it could be.

So I haven’t been in a hurry to finish this piece.  This is a change for me.  I’m deliberately working at a slower pace, not rushing the process.  Because the piece is small, even though it’s taking longer than I expected, it’s OK, because it’s nearly done now anyway.  It’s interesting that I’m using the darning silk to quilt it.  It’s like the thread has come full circle, from an era when women took the time to darn socks, to taking the time to handquilt my challenge quilt.

On a different note:  I’ve joined two Yahoo groups.  The first one is the Liberated Quilters.  While they’re not affiliated with Gwen Marston, they follow her liberated quilting methods.  In the words of the group, “We just want to have fun and say boo! to the quilt police!”  I love it!

The second group is Studio Quilts–Goldilocks And Friends.  This group was started by Debbie Babin, “to offer learning opportunities and communicate on topics that relate to textile (fiber) arts and quilting.”  This group is a bit more serious-minded, which is good, also.  My goal this year is to find my voice, my own personal style, so this is a place where I can go to explore this aspect of my quilting.

I would also recommend visiting any of the blogs on my blogroll.  Seeing what other quilters are doing has two advantages.  Not only are my horizons being expanded, but I already have ideas for my next two AAQI Challenge Quilts!

Liberated Challenge Quilt for AAQI

Today my inspiration came from Playing Games With Squares by Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth.  She’s combining patchwork with weaving strips of fabric.  This seemed like something I could try with my Liberated Challenge Quilt.

My quilt is tentatively titled “Winter Journey.”  I wanted to portray the journey Alzheimer’s patients and their families face.  In the lower right corner, the strips are still woven together, although things are a bit off-kilter.

As you move across the quilt, up, and to the left, , the woven strips start losing their orderliness, until at the upper left corner, there’s no structure left, just disjointed pieces.

I’m going to use the smaller wolf image, and place it towards the lower right corner.  The wolf is moving into an inner landscape where once-familiar things have changed into something unrecognizable.

All the strips are pinned down right now.  There will probably be a little more tweaking, but this is close to the finished arrangement.  I think I’m going to fuse the strips right to the batting, and then hand quilt with large, primitive-looking stitches.  Then I’ll applique the wolf on the top.  By adding the wolf after the piece is quilted, I’m hoping to give the impression that the wolf doesn’t really belong in this place where it finds itself.

I’m still not sure about the fusing, since it will make the piece stiffer, but since the edges of the strips are raw, I think this will stabilize them.  I’m not sure that the quilting alone will hold everything together.  And it would be a disaster if it fell apart later on, after it’s sold!

Salvaging a quilting disaster

Remember my quilting disaster from last week?  I cut all the blocks in half this morning, and looked through my fabric to find something that would go with the scrappy triangles.  I had lots of possibilities, but not enough of any one thing.  I wanted to use the same fabric throughout, both to tie things together, and to calm down all that frenetic activity.

I found a large piece of a chestnut brown.  It looks redder than it really is in the photo.  But I think it will work well with the wild combination of scraps.  I tried a dark green, but it was a print, and this quilt REALLY didn’t need another print!

So I’ll cut some strips tomorrow, and start sewing my triangles down.  Then I can see how they fit together (if they do) and try some different arrangements.  The pinwheel looks pretty good.  I also did a barn raising design that I didn’t take a picture of.  I’m sure I’ll find lots of ways to put the blocks together.

The nice part about is that that I’ll have 60 blocks, instead of just 30.  Hopefully they’ll finish around six inches.  I may need to do some creative piecing to get them close to the same size!  I can either do two lap quilts to donate, or a twin quilt.

Molly, looking innocent, before The Great Avalanche

Molly just wouldn’t leave me alone this morning.  She walked around on  my ironing board, supervised closely while I was trying to cut and arrange strips, knocked things in the floor, and generally helped in any way she could.

I keep my fabric in one of those three-drawer plastic bins.  This is a bit unstable when one of the drawers is open, especially when a cat jumps into the open drawer when you’re not looking!  Over it went, along with the iron, which was off, thank goodness.  The noise startled me, and I let out a yell.  My hubby thought something had fallen on me, while I thought Molly was trapped under the mess.

But kitties are very fast, and she was crouched in the hallway, with BIG eyes, wondering what had happened.  I was annoyed at her, but I was also glad she was OK.   Of course, she came traipsing in while I was picking up, reminding me what a wonderful kitty she is, and maybe I could feed her a little something to help her recover from her traumatic experience?  Cats.  Ya gotta love ‘em!

Front of quilt. The spots are from snowflakes that melted on the camera lens.

Here they are!  Pictures of the finished baby quilt!  It was quite an adventure getting them.  I was all set to shovel a path to the clothesline when my wonderful husband, Andrew, said, “Why don’t you just put on your snowshoes to walk out there?”  Duh.  And he didn’t even laugh at me for not thinking of it myself.   His comment was, “I hate to see you shoveling all that snow for a path you’ll only use once.”  Now you know why I married him.  I wasn’t letting him get away!

Or course, it was dark and snowy and windy, so it’s not the best picture. I even managed to drop the quilt in the snow, too.  But if you click on the pictures, you can see somewhat bigger versions.  Click on the little icon on the picture, and it will get bigger yet.

Wish I could have shown more detail, but it was COLD out there!  It was also very windy, so I had to wait for the quilt to stop flapping in the refreshingly frigid breeze to take a picture!

I appreciate my warm gloves every time I have to do something bare-handed outdoors.  They were $60 gloves that I got at the end of the season for $15.  I would never have paid $60 for a pair of gloves, but these are definitely worth it.  My hands do NOT get cold when I wear them!

With this quilt, I started out to do the Crayon Box design from Quiltville.  If you’ve never been there, go visit right now, and check it out.  I’ll wait for you to come back.  This is a totally awesome site that I highly recommend.

I had bought a panel of Laurel Burch cat pictures a while back.  Each little picture is a portrait of a cat family.  I thought of Sarah right away when I bought it.  Of course, I forgot I had it, but I found it when I started digging through my scraps.  I cut the panel up into individual pictures, and used the Crayon Box idea to sew the quilt.  It was a fun quilt to make.

I emailed Sarah pictures as I was working on it, and she showed them to my grandsons.  The oldest one, Tal, said, “Granny sure does like cats, doesn’t she?”  He’s right!  Three out of the four baby quilts I’ve made for Sarah have a cat theme!  I didn’t even realize it til he mentioned it.

Back of quilt.

The back could almost stand on its own as a quilt.  It was an experimental piece that took off on its own.  The strips were an experiment with the Wave Runner tutorial from V at Bumble Beans.  I was intrigued when I read the tutorial and wanted to try it.  I couldn’t imagine getting wavy seams like that to lie flat, but it worked!  I will definitely be doing more with this technique.

The purple cat (who’ll you’ll recognize from my blog header) was my first experiment in liberated piecing.  I just sketched the kitty on a piece of paper, and pieced it without a pattern, or anything.  Now that was fun!  I was really tickled at how well it came out, and it was easy, too.

Between shoveling the driveway, running to the library and grocery store, and fixing lunch and cleaning up, I haven’t had a chance to work on my AAQI quilt yet today.  I might later on, but Andrew may go fishing this afternoon, and if he does, I’m going to go with him so I can go snowshoeing.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress with that project!

Well, I promised you pictures of the finished baby quilt, but it will have to wait til I can get outside and shovel a path to the clothesline, probably tomorrow, since I’m feeling lazy today.  I tried laying the quilt on my bed and taking pictures, but between the lighting and my cat, and other logistic problems, I think I can do a better job just pinning it up to the clothesline outside and taking pictures outdoors.  Since there’s probably 18 inches of snow on the ground, I either have to break a trail or clear a path.

"New Territory" by Robert Bertram

So instead, I’ll show you what I’m doing with my Liberated Challenge Quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  Lots of ideas were perking in my head, but inspiration struck this morning, in my basement, of all places.

My hubby picked up this poster last year at the local DNR office.  When I went down to the basement this morning to put the baby quilt in the washer,  the poster caught my attention.  Here was my subject!

Tracing around wolf's outline on tracing paper

I taped some tracing paper to the wall and traced around the image of the wolf.

Auditioning fabrics for the AAQI Challenge quilt

The finished quilt will be around eight by eleven inches.  I wanted to make the wolf smaller, so  I used the old artist’s trick of putting a grid on the tracing, so I could make the image smaller.  This is a slick trick for those of us who can’t draw!

Here are the fabrics I’m thinking about using.  The wolf will be cut from the gray batik, and the snow from the lighter fabrics.  You can’t really see the fabric under the gray piece, but it gives the effect of snowflakes.  I’m thinking of using it for part of the sky.

I’m trying to decide if the wolf should be isolated on a whte background, like in the poster, or if he should be coming out from some pieced or appliqued trees.   At this point I’m leaning towards using the smaller wolf image by itself, appliqued to a background made by using the Wave Runner Tutorial from V at Bumble Beans.

I’m thinking of calling it “Winter Journey,” to symbolize the journey Alzheimer’s patients and their families must make.  I want to symbolize hope by having the wolf moving towards a patch of blue sky. I also have a piece of light-colored batik with pale multicolor spirals on it, too, that may work.   But we’ll see how it all plays out.  Sometimes a project takes over and tells you how it wants to be done!

Sarah’s quilt is nearing completion!  I just have one block left to quilt, and then three border sections.  Then I can bind it, and give it a much needed trip through the washer and drier before mailing it off to my baby.  Woo-hoo!  I’ll take pictures when it’s done so I can show it off.

So now the question is, what’s next?  I started a scrap quilt last year and made 30 blocks.  I’m somewhat challenged when it comes to making my blocks the same size.  No matter how carefully I cut and sew, they still seem to have a mind of their own!  The blocks were supposed to finish at six inches, but they range from five-and-a-half to five-and-seven-eighths.  Sigh.  This is why I love improvisational quilting so much!  No need to worry about this sort of thing!

The quilt from hell

I had tried sewing the blocks together into a top for a lap quilt, which was a bit of a challenge because of the size differences in the blocks.  I managed to get 25 of them sewn together, but I was disappointed in how it was coming out, so I abandoned it in my Closet Of No Return.

I was digging around in there the other day and unearthed it.  Since I hated the way the top looked, I spent a couple of hours in front of the TV taking it apart.  This isn’t a bad thing to do while watching NCIS reruns.  (Mark Harmon is a hottie, and Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) is one of my favorite TV characters, so I watch this show a LOT.)

OK, back to square one, or should I say block one?  I laid the blocks out in the floor and took a picture of them.  What should I do with them?  I could use them as the center of log-cabin type blocks and sew strips around the outside edges (like what I did with Sarah’s quilt).  This would make them bigger, and I could square them up, too.

Another option is to cut each block in half diagonally and add an inch-wide strip to the diagonal cut.  Then I could sew a half-square triangle to it, and make an entirely new block.  This would certainly tone them down a bit, especially if I used the same fabric for the new half-square triangles, while still keeping the diagonal movement.  After squaring them up, I could arrange them in a barn-raising pattern.

Or I could cut the blocks into quarter-square triangles, and make pinwheel blocks by sewing them to solid color half-square triangles.

Anybody have any other ideas?  Leave a comment, and let me know what you think!