Baby quilt finally finished!!

I have been working on and off this baby quilt for waaaay too long but it is finally finished and delivered. I used the Yellow Brick Road pattern and pink Minkee for the back. It is tied with 1/8" baby pink ribbon, every 4". The request my DH had was for a PINK, all PINK quilt, as the mother wanted everything for this baby pink. I said there has to be a color other than pink so I chose to pull out the green from the leaves. It turned out nice and the new parents LOVED it so now on to other projects with NO guilt!!!!

Shibori swap and new patterns

I received some gorgeous shibori pieces in the mail today from a shibori swap I did with one of my dyeing groups. We could do any type of shibori so I received a variety of styles. Artist listed left to right - if their name is in a different color click on it to go to their blog

Kate
Karen
Wil
Kelly

Maya, dyelicious.com/
Linda
Ann
Ellen




I also got the Shadowed Squares pattern I bought the brown and teal fabrics for the other day and one I ordered from twowackywomen called Magical Slice and Dice for some kinda oriental fabrics I bought. It is similiar to a stack and whack quilt but is done with 4 squares so it doesn't use as many repeats of the fabric. I saw it on Robin's blog, one of the wackywomen and she has done it with some beautiful large floral fabrics - 3 different ones from Alexander Henry . If you go to Jan 27 she used Astrud, on Jan 21 Abbey Road and Dec 27 Day of the Dead

Ice dyeing aka cracked ice and hostess gifts

Below are some photos of some fabric I iced dyed a couple of years ago. I was using Kona PFD at the time and don't think the results are quite as good as they are with the P&B Dyers Cloth that I am currently using. These were all done but soaking the fabric in soda ash, then freezing in a solo cup. I especially like the one with fuchsia and jet black.


Dharma Sky blue and Fuchsia red











Dharma Golden yellow





Dharma Fuchsia red and Jet black





Fuchsia red




Below are the wonderful hostess gifts I received from the ladies that participated in the Make a Shade swap on Dyehard Runoff. We did a 6 step half gradation of a color and added a small amount of an additive (black, brown or grey) to it to see the shades we would get. If you are interested in learning to dye fabric or have just started dyeing or want to swap dyed fabric, this is a wonderful group to join. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DyeHard_RunOff/

Ice dyeing - a little better explanation

When I have done my ice dyeing I soaked my fabric in soda ash, then scrunched it and put it into a cup or ziploc and put it into the freezer (double bag to protect food), try not to do into too tight a ball or the dye will never get to the inside. This time I just poured the dye over the frozen fabric and let batch on the counter for 24+ hours. About a year ago I did some pieces with fuchsia and jet black and it turned out really neat, I will see if I can find the fabric and put those photos up in a few days.

Ice dyeing

I finally got my ice dyeing pieces ironed so here are pictures of them. The first photo shows them after they have been soaked in soad ash and are ready to go into the freezer. I know some have been doing snow dyeing and used turquoise without much luck but I used turquoise and caymen island green on several of these pieces and batched for 24+ hrs and the colors did very well.








This is the first set before and after dyeing, they were all done in cups.








Next set, top row done in cups, bottom row done in ziplocs









Done in ziplocs













Done in ziplocs

Quilt show and my new stuff

I must confess, I haven't even started pressing all the fabric I dyed the other day yet but hope to get it done after I take DS horseback riding tomorrow and we run a few errands.

When I got home yesterday I had a wonderful surprise in the mail from Thelma, these beautiful lace motifs to use in my upcoming crazy quilt project. THANKS so much Thelma!! You can see some of her CQ here (http://thelmassewnthings.blogspot.com/) AND the Tintzl I ordered from Bonnie McCaffery to use in my Elements in Fabric class came!!











The quilt show was great and you can see pictures of some of my favorites in my photos under March 1 Quilt Show (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismomom/) and of course I had to spend a little money, you know support the quilt shops....








I am hoping to make two laptop bags to use when I don't need to carry too much with me so I can take a cute bag so I got these fabrics to use this pattern to make them and will decide which bag to use, based on where I am going and how I feel that day LOL











After the show I went to a local shop I don't get to often as it is about an hour and a half away and spent just a little more, added to my black and white stash and bought some teal and brown to make a pattern that I am going to call Shadowed Squares until I get the pattern in the mail next week (they are waiting for it to come in). The dark brown will be the borders, binding and the shadow, the light grey/blue will be the background and the teal and brown prints will be the squares. I think it will be really pretty.











Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the purse pattern I got there. If I just made one of each purse pattern I buy I could change purses once a week and use a different purse every week of the year, think I should quit buying them and start making them, huh??

And the winner is .....

#2 - Wil - CONGRATS!!!!! Watch your mail for a surprise!!

I had Morgan draw so I wouldn't be tempted to cheat (only joking, I would never cheat). Then I had him draw for the Nesting Robin we are doing on one of my dyeing groups. A nesting robin is like a round robin but you do all of the work on your piece instead of it being mailed to others and them working on it. We started out by dyeing our fabric-suggested at least 3 values of a color wheel and then choosing a value and doing one with black, one with brown and one with grey. We can also use white, beige or black. Next we were to make a center, it could be as simple as a multicolored piece of fabric that includes most of the colors from our color wheel or a complex as we wanted. I haven't done mine yet as I haven't settled on the colors for my color wheel yet, hopefully one of the sets I have in the washer right now will work. Each month I will post a color harmony and technique to be added. Everyone gets to decide the size of their piece, some will be doing small wallhangings and others large quilts. Not sure on mine yet but knowing me, it won't be small.

Hopefully I will get all the fabric I dyed pressed when I get home from the quilt show tomorrow night and Sunday while DH watches the race and get it posted in the evening, if not, definitely Monday.