I'm back......

from the retreat at Bonny's Quilt Haven and what a great time we had! Need to finish unpacking and get photos loaded but it will be later on Monday before I can get to that. Gotta catch some zzzzzzzzzz's now as I'm a little short on sleep. There was a bit of late night sewing and chatting that kept me up and I loved every minute of it! :-) Later............
Sandi

Hot, hot, hot!!

Yep, it's hot here in Minnesota this week with temps at or near 90 and a big dash of humidity sometimes, too. I'm just glad that I'm not a golf fan or a golfer as the PGA is being played just west of Minneapolis and it would be too hot for me on that golf course. I am very happy right here in my room with lots of AC.
Another way to stay cool is think of how cold it will be when winter returns again. I love fall and it's beautiful colors and mid-range weather. It's my favorite season and it's only a few weeks away. I start thinking of all sorts of projects that involve wool and woolfelt and flannel. I try to work on wool projects in the summer but I just can't get enthused about working with wool when it's hot. I try but it just doesn't work. Perhaps I should paste this photo inside my project basket and it would make me "think cold"!

This shot was taken last February after we had a big snowstorm. That's my antique wooden sled hidden under that snow. Might feel good to jump into a pile of snow like that on a hot day! Anyway, on the day I took this photo, I had bought a bunch of woolfelt and was washing it to get the fluffy, "sherpa" effect. Thought that some of you might like this little tip if you enjoy working with woolfelt. It's all about creating more colors for your projects..........

First, though, I personally prefer to pre-wash all my woolfelt ( do the same with almost all my wool and cotton fabrics, too). I start by filling a small bucket with HOT water and then placing the woolfelt in the bucket. I let it set for 10-15 minutes and then pour the water out and begin rinsing the piece of woolfelt. I rinse it under cold water until almost no dye remains in the piece. I say almost, because sometimes my fingers can't stand the cold water so I figure "almost clear rinse water" is good enough for me. I never wash my woolfelt pieces after they are finished but if they got wet by accident, I wouldn't want the colors to bleed. When the woolfelt is rinsed, I place it in a zippered cotton pillowcase and toss it in the dryer with a couple of big beach towels that I use specifically for this purpose. I use the pillowcase because once I washed a piece of woolfelt and it left streaks on my dryer. This method seems to prevent that. Don't "overdry" your woolfelt. You will need to figure this out using your own dryer but I like my woolfelt to be "almost but not quite dry" and then I smooth it with my hands and let it airdry. You will have a fluffy texture to your woolfelt now (what is called "sherpa") but if you prefer a smoother look, all you have to do is iron it and you can get a nice smooth look to the woolfelt.
Now.......getting lots of color variations from your woolfelt................


See all that lovely color.......it's one of my favorite woolfelt colors, Majestic Plum. Like so many other darker Woolfelt colors, it contains a lot of dye. When you wash it, the water turns a yummy shade of purple. I figured why waste that color!

So, here's what you can do. Whenever I am washing a dark woolfelt color, I always add lighter colors to it and see what "develops". In the photo below, I have taken a 12" square of a pale yellow woolfelt and am forming it into a ball. I take the rubber bands and put them around the ball shape and then toss it in the bucket of dye water. Sometimes, I make several balls using white, pale green, pale pink, etc.

This is just like tie-dyeing a T-shirt only easier because the pieces are smaller! :-)

In the photo above you can see the color variation on a white piece of woolfelt. Once you dry the piece you are ready to use it in your next project. This technique works great because you get colors with variations that look lovely cut up as flower petals, leaves, etc. You can achieve colors that will look like cowhide or just the piece you need for a pony. This technique is great if you are looking for a blue sky with clouds effect! I have loads of color variations in my woolfelt and all because I didn't want to waste the excess dye that comes when the woolfelt is washed!

To enhance this process even more, you can use tiny amounts of fabric dyes, fabric paints, etc. to get special effects on your woolfelt. You can also use bleach - very sparingly- to remove color. I use this technique when I want to create lines on leaves, etc. Dyes from nature work well to color your woolfelt (or wool). I love using real walnut stain from real walnuts still in their casings. This is messy and probably requires a post all its own. :-) One thing, I don't use to color any fiber is kool-aid or sugar based products. I know that some have used these items successfully, but I don't like the idea of putting a food product into my woolfelt or wool that might attract bugs looking for lunch. Wool is much more prone to bug issues than woolfelt - at least in my experience. My best advice is just experiment and see what colors you can create.

Later on this month, I'll be dyeing that white wool yardage that I ordered up from the Amana Colonies and will post about it. However, tomorrow, I am headed out for a weekend quilt retreat at Bonny's Quilt Haven in Hutchinson so I won't be doing any blogging for a few days. I can hardly wait to leave!!! I've been packing for over a week just to make sure that I have everything I need. :-) I'll have lots of pictures to share when I return. See you all on Monday.

Have a great weekend all and do try to stay cool if it's hot where you are!

Sandi

A penny short!

Last spring, I showed you a couple of projects that I was working on (click here to see post) and it took me awhile but I got them finished. Last week I showed you the patchwork table runner and I can cross it off my list with a big check mark. The other item I had started then was this bunny penny rug (pattern available here at Better Homes and Gardens quilt site) you see below. I actually finished it over Memorial Day weekend but didn't post it because......I'll get to why in a minute. Some of you may remember that I recently entered it in the County Fair and mentioned that while it got a blue ribbon, I had a mistake in it. This is a post about "see what I did and then you won't make the same mistake"!!!

My first mistake came when I cut all the pieces. I was careful when I cut them.........or so I thought. There were 18 pennies that were to go around the oval with the bunny in it. Count those pennies.............yep, I'm one short! You see, when I got them all stitched and laid them out around the oval, I realized that I must have cut each one just a little too big and so they didn't fit together well at all. My solution? ....... just take one out and so I did! But you can see that I was stitching every other one in blue or pink Perle cotton. My carefully laid out penny rug was not coming together at all! I finally came up with a pattern that pleased me and I pinned all the pennies in place with safety pins and sewed them all in place.........just like you see here.........

and then I looked at it and realized the oval was at the wrong angle and it may not show too much in this photo but it was obvious in person. Soooooooooooooooo.............I unstitched all the pennies and pinned them all again and within a few days, I had finished it again. :-)

Here's the penny rug with all the pennies placed right (still missing that 18th one). Anyone judging the penny rug might not notice there were an uneven number of pennies and might assume I just meant it to be that way! I like things even and orderly so it sort of bugs me. I really like the little thing, though, because I love the color of the wool. It started as a really nice piece of off-white wool that I painted with SetaColor fabric paints (I bought the product at Michael's). You can use it on cotton, wool and/or woolfelt and you can get some great fabric colors all of your own design.
So, don't do as I did...........count your pennies and carefully cut them. Then pin them even more carefully before you stitch them!
My next post will be a little bit about color and woolfelt. I'm working my way up to dyeing that gorgeous cream white wool I bought last winter.
All for now.........
Sandi

Back in time...........

After taking pictures of aprons yesterday afternoon, I folded them up and put them neatly back in the drawer. As I did so, I noticed a large manila envelope and I knew right away what it was. It contained a poster that my mother had given me a few years ago and I opened it up and thought.........gotta take pictures and post this. It's an advertising poster for Cinderella (Copyright Disney films 1950) and for fabrics at J.C. Penney's!! It unfolds to about 24" by 36". Double click on the photos to read the text.

I was born in 1949 so the prices shown above are what my mother was paying for fabric for our matching dresses. I loved reading every bit of this! Hope you do, too. I'm thinking I need to make a magical Cinderella apron. Perhaps if I wear it in the kitchen, cooking and dirty dishes will be magically taken care of by my Fairy Godmother. There was a time when I wished for those glass slippers. I thought they would be divine. Wishes change with age! :-)

Here's wishing you a very good Monday and a super good week!

Sandi

On the runway..........

is Kaiser the beagle modeling the paint apron that my mother made for me in the early 1950's. He was very cooperative. :-) I dug out the apron earlier this afternoon so that I could take photos and post them on Pat Sloan's Apron Challenge. It's over on Flickr so if you go there you will find my aprons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stitchinglegacy/ . You will also see that I set up a group for the blocks that you all may make for my Seasons BOM group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/legacybom2009/ . You may also notice that I set that group up in February and never posted a single photo. I have this disconnect between wanting to do something and knowing how to do it. I couldn't figure out how to load pics so I gave up. Came back to it when I opted to join Old Red Barn's Quilt-along in June. Finally, I figured out how to load photos. Then I had back problems and never got the blocks sewn together. They're getting there, though! I have more than half done and they go quickly so will have them done by the end of this month. I may send the finished top off to be machine-quilted. Can't make up my mind. If I tie it, it's soft and comfy. If it's machine quilted, it will be securely stitched and will wash well and batting won't lump. Hmmmm, maybe I could do a little of both? Hey, now there's a lightbulb idea!! Anyway, if you want to see some great aprons, then go to the link listed above and from there you can link to Pat's group or go directly to her blog - PatSloan'sBlog!


I'll have a fun post on Monday. It's all about an old advertising poster I found while gathering my aprons together. I'll take photos of it - it's large and colorful - and you will laugh when you see the prices of fabric!


Have a good Sunday!


Sandi

St. Paul's UCC Guest Day

Quilts and hymns and a little bit of history was what I put together for our women's guild "Guest Day". It was easy to set up the quilts. It was harder to decide which ones I would bring! I brought quilts and quilt tops that had family connections and then some that my dad and mother bought at auction. I tied it all together by singing hymns that were written in the decades of various styles of quilting. I love the old hymns and they go well with the stories of the quilts for surely women both prayed and sang and sometimes gossiped or cried or laughed as they worked on their quilts.
In the middle of my program, one of the hymns that I highlighted was "Standing on the Promises". So I used that one for a "stretch" and had everyone stand and sing the chorus with me. :-) I loved combining my enjoyment of quilting with my love of singing. How I love to sing and especially acapella. I used to be a soprano and as the years have gone by, well, I can't hit those high notes anymore. However, when I sing without accompaniment, I can sing in the key that fits my voice and it works great!

Some of the quilts you see in the photos are ones that I have shown in past posts. I displayed my vintage quilts upstairs in the sanctuary. Well, except the one on the podium which is a doll quilt that I started in about 1973 and finally finished in 1998! It is one of my favorites!

I had quilts spilling out of laundry baskets and tumbling down the steps. Don't worry, I had white sheets underneath it all to protect the quilts!

And downstairs where we all enjoyed some scrumptious desserts, I placed a few of the current quilts that I have made. I also brought one of my favorite miniature scenes that I made in the 1980's and the little collection of miniature baby quilts that I made about the same time. It was a very nice afternoon and many of the ladies who came told me how much they enjoyed the program - even those who don't quilt!

Tired tonight, so it's lights out!

Sandi

In memory .......

I have learned tonight of the passing of a good friend. Thinking of her and her sweet smile. I'll share more about her in a post in a few weeks. She's someone you would have all enjoyed meeting. :-)
She was on my mind a lot today while I was preparing for a quilt program that I'll be presenting at church tomorrow. I am developing this program that combines an exhibit of several of my vintage quilts, a little quilting history and things like the cost of bread in 1933 and the wages of a teacher, etc. And intertwined with it all, I will share the hymns that were written in each decade. I do just a chorus or verse of select hymns acapella. I have done this twice now but both times for folks in my hometown of Lehigh. Family and friends always love what you do. This time, I'll be doing it for our Guest Day at church and ladies from churches in other communities will be attending, too. I hope it goes well. My husband loaded three baskets filled with quilts into the back of my car and when I arrive at church there will be help to unload and help to pack up. I'll be sure and take photos. Now I am setting down with a cup of hazelnut Belgian cafe coffee and will go over my notes for a final check. Then I will probably do some sewing because I am never able to fall asleep the night before I do a program or teach a class. I'm like a kid and the excitement of Christmas or leaving for a vacation. :-)
See you tomorrow!
Sandi