To dye for

 The other day Friend Laurie and I took a class in natural dyeing.  This wasn't completely new to me, in past years I did some dyeing and documented here when I tried to book teach myself how to dye with indigo.  That was rather intimidating, and I was a little afraid of it but kept everything and stored it in the dye pot in the garage.  This class was enough to ignite my curiosity again.  I don't need a new hobby but this process can be really simple.  One by product of taking this class.  I'll see about color fastness and maybe dye for a quilt project.  Maybe.

There were stainless steel dye pots set up with pomegranate, avocado, onion skins and black tea.

Onion skins are about the easiest thing of all.  I've dyed Easter eggs with onion skins, like my grandma used to do.  I just go to the grocery store and scoop out the skins into a bag and when the produce people ask what I'm doing and I explain it, they say, "go for it!"  They are free and the easiest way to get skins.

Each dye was natural and then another pot was set up with an iron mordant.  I learned that the iron can just be the iron pills people take.  Simple!  Adding the iron definitely changes things. Adding any mordant changes things. The avocado was the seed and the skin but the fruit carefully completely removed.  Lots of them.

Look at the difference in pomegranate! The instructor used powdered pom.

And the onion.  In the photo below you can see that adding the iron to onion makes a nice green

We were each given four cloth napkins. Everyone tied theirs for the tie dye effect but I have never liked tie dye and of course I was different by leaving my napkins flat.  The ones on the right I just dipped into the iron vat so you can see the halves with and without for the two.

It was a good class, fun, and I'll buy lots of marigolds at the nursery this summer to grow enough for a good dye pot.  

I've seen how some of you pack for retreat but this is what I'm taking. One tote with three projects, a tin with the Liberty circles and my hoop. the white bag has Elizabeth's BA quilt in for show and tell.  That's it. Hand quilters travel light!  I DO take my lamp, my chair and a small foot stool, too.

Bits and Pieces

I bet you can't think of anything more the same than a bag of marshmallows. Well, this author/illustrator has taken the idea of being different to a whole new level.  I could look at these illustrations all day. Most marshmallows live the same, are born, live in homes, go to school, etc. But if you look closely you'll realize there is one who is different from the rest. Marches to his own drum, doesn't quite follow the crowd. And that is the one who will soar.

The Full Belly Bowl is an older book but I read it every year.  The very old man and his cat live a quiet life where they are usually always hungry.  One day the very old man goes for a walk and hears a cry for help and finds a very, very small man who he takes home and cares for till better.  The little man leaves but in his place gifts the old man with a full belly bowl.  It's magic.  Whatever is put in the bowl multiplies so as the note left with the bowl says, use with caution but you will never go hungry again.  Oh, and when finished turn it upside down.  Well, the very old man discovers it works with anything and when he tries a penny in the bowl he gets a little star struck and hurries off to town with a bag full of pennies to exchange for a gold piece. But in his haste for riches he forgets to store the bowl.  

The teacher thought this a good writing prompt - "what would YOU put in the bowl?"  The kids were all shouting their ideas and all of them were grandiose.  I told them, "Be careful what you wish for." 

So far on my March temperature tree.  It's warming up - we are transforming all of that blue into green and yellow. I'm saving up days so I can do a week or two at a time.

Now that Elizabeth's graduation quilt is finished I found myself at odds a little.  What to do next?  It's not like there isn't a long line of projects waiting or wanting but I need a breather and retreat is coming up next week so those projects are packed.

I started cutting nine patches - little ones that finish at 3 inches - to use on the Little Women dish towel. I have no idea yet what I'm going to do, how big I will make it or what. But you can always use nine patches anywhere, right?  I love them so they won't be lonely for long.

Last night I thought I'd give the peasant ladies a test run.  I've cut the pieces and parts for all of them and labelled them by the number I gave each lady, stored in baggies.  After awhile looking at it I knew if I started at the top the others would nestle in next to each other. No reason to make this hard.

The nestling seems to be ok and for now I'm just going to do that, fit the bodies together then worry about the faces.  It's big and hand appliqueing them means a lot of wad in my left hand thus the crinkle.  After a couple more I'll know for sure.  When I make things up as I go along I expect a lot of forgiveness of a piece. 

Pi Day

                                                                    Happy Pi Day!

Black raspberry pie from the berries we foraged for most of July.  We pick at a friend's house and PH walks along the roadsides with a container.  It's hot and prickly and we really do crawl through, over and under but I keep cheering us on with "this will pay off this winter!!"  I make one in January and one for Pi day. 

Big News and Books

 First the BIG news!  I FINISHED QUILTING ELIZABETH'S  BA QUILT LAST NIGHT!!!  Just have to make and apply the binding but the quilting is finished !!!!

But I still can't show it.  

 March is Reading Month around the U.S. and the school where I read does a fun activity.  They list 16 books and every classroom reads all of the books and in an elimination bracket like the basketball tournaments a clear favorite stands out in the end.  Usually I have several of the books and have read some of them to the kids.  

This year the second of the Knight Owl books was listed and the kids in the class I read to had just heard the second book.  They didn't know there was a first book.

This is it, the first one.  Knight Owl wanted to be a knight his whole life.  When the big, strong knights begin disappearing a call is put out for replacements and Owl gets his chance.  He's perfect for the job even if he is teeny.  He's an owl.  He doesn't sleep at night so is perfect for the night watch. 

It doesn't take long to find out why the other knights were disappearing. A dragon was eating them.  Knight Owl uses his cleverness to dissuade the dragon from eating HIM.

This is the second book (because Knight Owl was such a success the author did another.) Knight Owl was a successful knight and along comes Early Bird.  Early Bird is a chatty little thing that won't let Owl sleep during the day like he's supposed to.  They have words.  Early Bird leaves. There is an adventure - like wolves in the night forest. 

 

I asked the kids - how do you read a wordless book?  One little girl said, "you look at the pictures." And I replied, "carefully."  I absolutely adore this book.  It's wordless and the nuances in the artwork are brilliant.  You simply must spend time on each page finding the story.  

The prehistoric humans are living in a cave and their fire goes out.  No matches, of course, so someone has to go find fire.  The red headed son raises his hand to volunteer.  He takes his roll of fur for a bed, his spear and off he goes.  He encounters saber toothed tigers, injures himself, rescues a baby wooly mammoth and well, finds fire.  Then he has to get it home.  

The Story

 I've got to stop using scraps.  I have to start using my stash.  I will never live long enough to use it and have to find a project that makes a start.  I'm tempted to not go so much for innovative and artsy and just cut it up and sew it back together in old fashioned squares.  

All of this has been coming home to roost lately since Friend Marilyn has moved into an assisted living home and her house is being dismantled.  Now, we've been friends for as long as her son and my daughter became an item back when they were 14 and 16 years old.  They are now 48 and 50.  Marilyn and I had adventures, went to MANY retreats, took some small trips so basically I know the story behind most of her 'stuff' because I was with her when she bought it, which makes me part of her stories and lately the keeper of them.

But I'm not the one clearing out her house.  I will only tell the stories so the kids know.  They dismantled her sewing room last weekend.  Marilyn had already called the local quilt guild months ago and donated all of her fabric and books to them but there were still boxes of unfinished projects, quilts, threads, bits and pieces.  A few weeks ago she asked for her embroidery threads and her wool for felting.  I brought them to her.  

This week my daughter brought to me the bits, pieces, a few pieces of fabric, some fats, lots of patterns, unfinished projects.  I canNOT absorb anymore into my stash, I'm in the process of being ruthless with my own stuff but there is a story behind everything I sifted through.  I found the pattern for a quilt she made that I LOVE so I kept that.  There was a pattern for a pieced turkey wall hanging that she bought when I bought the gingerbread man pattern.  There is the red and green unfinished Christmas quilt that is only as big as a nice sized table top, but it's NOT bright Christmas but her colors, deep, deep hunter green and very deep reds done in traditional blocks.  It looks just like her.  I kept that. I kept the thread.  She bought good thread and I will never have to buy thread again in my life. I kept very little and will take the rest - just a consolidated totebag of patterns and a couple of boxes of unfinished projects to quilt retreat at the end of March and if no one wants them then they will be donated.

I went to visit her yesterday to tell her what I'm doing with her things.  She gave back to me the box of embroidery floss and the wool for felting.  She said she doesn't have the attention span anymore and while the spirit is willing the brain isn't engaged.

I told my daughter when she found this I wanted it.  This was a flimsy Marilyn found at an estate sale one day and she hated it.  I loved it.  It is NOT her color palette but I loved the springy feel and the 30's fabrics.  She layered and pin basted the thing and dragged it along whenever we were doing a demonstration or to the clothesline quilt show we put on.  She had it on a floor frame and quilted it while people stopped to talk and she let the kids try their hand at it.   One day she cut it in half and gave half to me because I loved it and she hated it.  So when the kids were clearing out her room I asked for this half, the other half.  

Everything has a story.  Our blogs help us tell our stories or at least keep track of things for us.  In our house most everything we have is inherited from a grandma or purchased at an estate sale or made by me. I tell the kids everything in this house has a story and I can tell that story to you.  Taking apart Friend Marilyn's story has been hard for me and I'm not even doing it, but the pieces and parts make up the stash of our lives and when I go visit we talk about them. 

Reading Under a Tree

 

Here's my Temperature Tree with February finished.  I find it very blue with just a couple of peeks of green. February was very cold but it was February and it's supposed to be cold in February in Michigan. 

I don't mind the cold but I don't like the snow. When the sun came out this week you could see it in people's faces.  Smiles. In these very trying and troubling days we need something to smile about and in Michigan in winter it can be something as simple as seeing the sun.  

Everyone needs to sit under a tree and read a book don't they?  These are this week's books I read to the kids on Tuesday.

This is the one I talked about in the last post.  The one that left me blubbering as the author signed it. The pup isn't the one who did that to me, it was the other dog in the story.

Kate wakes up one morning realizing she needs to share her bed once again.  Her cat died and now she announces "let's get a pup!"  Off the family goes to the shelter and come home with Dave. Dave is 100% puppy energy but the family can't get the sad look of the older dog they left at the shelter out of their minds. So, next morning the four of them go back to the shelter and bring back Rosy, the old dog that is eternally grateful for a home. 

This one is just plain giggles on every page.  The kids, the teacher, everyone was giggling.

Prudence wants a pet.  Mom and Dad give her every reason why not - cost, trouble, mess, etc. She persists in her imagination.  She finds a branch but after dad tripped over it and broke it into bits she went for a stick, then an old shoe named Famous Footwear (the name is right inside!) then an old tire.  She keeps trying and finally, finally mom and dad relent.  Even on the last page there is a giggle. 

I'm following along with Kathleen Tracy's March Civil War era little project.  Each Friday she is posting a new little and I was trying to think of something to do with the Little Women towel thing in my head. So I thought "the squares are little, they finish at 3 inches, she did the math, they are quick to make so I'd do something Civil War-y because that's the time of Little Women, too. 

                                                                        Still auditioning.

Kathleen made 4 squares, I made twelve because I was thinking border.  This is NOT how I'm going to use them, they are too much for the softness of the picture but laid them out this way to show you. And if in the end I don't use them at all, they will make a good pillow.  

More books and a project

 Kids are back in school after mid-winter break long weekend- and this year to hopefully get them healthy after the sicknesses that are ravaging through town.  So Tuesday I was back reading to the first graders.

Kids all think the magic of life happens when they are grown up.  If they would only relish their little lives now!  These two stories are about wanting to be big, grown up, and stubbornly proving it.

I LOVE Bob Graham's books.  Oh, my.  I remember standing in front of him at an autograph table blubbering through tears because in the book he was autographing, Let's Get a Pup!, he drew the dog that looked exactly like our dog who we had just sent to heaven.  I know the poor guy thought I was a crazy lady but I wasn't over what we did to our Polly.

Anyway, April and Esme are tooth fairies and just got a call (on their cell phone) from Daniel's grandma that he lost his first tooth and she specifically asked for April and Esme to come take it.  Mom and Dad, of course, think April and Esme are too young at 6 and 7 years old.  But they beg to prove they can do big things.  Graham's illustrations are a treasure and studying the details is both wonderful and hilarious. You really have to look at every inch of the page to marvel at his detail.

Regina thinks she's big enough to go hunting on her own, even though mom told her to stay home till she gets back. Of course she doesn't and encounters her own challenges.  

Do you take photos of your projects in progress?  I try to.  I've always relied on a camera to see what I can't see because cameras DO see what we can't.  Maybe I should have tried that with those basket pillows, come to think of it.  

Anyway, I've had these ladies laying on the dining room table for a couple of weeks and am now trying to decide if they should float 

or sit on the bottom of the background, next to where a border will be.  I kept changing the layout and finally took the photo.  Seeing it this way I'm thinking next to the border otherwise they look like they are floating with no anchor. At least that's for this trip around the table. 

Progress on Elizabeth's Baltimore Album - all 20 squares are quilted and half of one border side. Had to let my needle pushing finger rest for a couple of days but the border will go well. First time I've done this but I've got three needles going at the same time on the border.