State Fair Fun! Part One.........

Last Saturday, we - my husband, me and our son and his girlfriend - joined thousands of Minnesotans who enjoyed all the sights and sounds of the Minnesota State Fair!!

We are headed into that "sea of people"!! The weather was gorgeous and it was a perfect day to be at the Fair! Lots of people took advantage of it and enjoyed the day!

One of the most popular venues was the "Birthing Center". There were lots of new babies being born and this place was crowded with folks anxious to see the new babes. I loved these yellow fuzzy ducklings. There's not an ugly one in the bunch (remember that story from when you were a kid?). :-)

None of these little piggies are "off to market" anytime soon as they were just hours-old when we stopped by. I think there were about ten of them and mama was tired!

My favorite were the baby lambs. They were all kind of skittish so I couldn't get a good picture of a little one.

From the birthing center we walked on to the cattle barn. This is the kind of cow that I remember from when I was kid. I thought they were so huge. I have to remind myself that I was so small back then! :-)

And then there were the horses, so many beautiful horses. I liked this one as he (or she) is my favorite color - chestnut. Looks like he (or she) is about to say something. Hmmm, a cousin to "Mr. Ed" perhaps (Mr. Ed was a TV show from the 1950's that featured Ed the talking horse).

There were lots of sheep and pigs and even one great big pig/boar that weighed over 1300 lbs!

My husband wasn't crazy about wandering through all the sheep aisles but I loved looking at the little critters. Look at these guys, all sheared and dressed for a party.

I was seriously coveting the wool these sheep provided and especially this sheep..........

I looked right at that sheep and pronounced him a winner because of his curly "Santa Beard" wool!! You laugh, but wait til you see "State Fair, Part Two". Some of that curly wool (not necessarily from that sheep) shows up in a project at the Creative Activities building where all the quilts were on display (and lots of other cool stuff). I'll post Part Two on Sunday afternoon.

Til then have a good Sunday morning!

Sandi

Grace and A Prayer...........

In remembrance of 9/11, I decided to make a block for my "Grace and a Prayer" quilt. The block is for more than just those who lost their lives on 9/11 or lost a loved one then. It's for anyone who served our country in the military and those who loved them, from the World Wars to Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and Irag.

It doesn't matter who you are, where you live, what your faith is or isn't, or what your political views are or aren't. What matters is that we remember those who gave their lives and also those left behind. We just need to remember.

One day next week, I'll post a little tutorial on this block and some corner tips for any size block. Tomorrow, I'll get to those State Fair pics and the ribbon-winning quilts. Every day this week, I have been dyeing wool so I'll be posting about that next week. Lots of other fun stuff in the works, too. Oh, "sew many blessings" in life!

Sandi

Painting on Fabric

As you know, my grandson was here at this time a week ago and we were busy, busy, busy. We did a lot of projects, enjoyed time at the library (we each got some really good books), ate at the Hog Wild and saw some Classic Cars (just go here to see them). Then we went to the State Fair so it was no wonder I needed a rest!! I'm plenty rested now so it's time to tell you all about ourfabric painting project...................

The paints we used for our project were purchased at Michael's but you can find them at local art supply stores, too. The brand name is SetacolorSoleilPaints. And if you click on that link, you'll go to a site that tells you all you need to know about using the paints. Our photos are just a quick look at the fun you can have with this project. Just gather your paints, some brushes, jug of water and a spray bottle of water, and some plastic spoons for mixing. Also, have a couple of plastic surfaces to work on and a plastic tablecloth to lay the fabric on while it dries in the sun.

We used 100% cotton and also 100% wool. You'll want to mist the fabrics so that they are damp and they will take the paint so much better. In the photo above, Jacob has begun painting one of the cotton pieces. We used a slightly thinner mixture than suggested on the paint bottles. That's the fun of this.......you can use it however you wish!

And in this photo, he is almost finished.

And then he did another one!!

This was my first cotton piece.

And then I started a wool piece. Painting on the cotton fabric is easy as it is thinner and absorbs the paint better. But the wool takes the paint nicely, too. It just takes a little more patience. I applied some color here and there. I wasn't going for a pattern. The fabric will be used for birds, flowers, etc., anything where I might want a blended color. Click here and you can see how I used the painted wool for the birds in Anne Suttons' Bunny Hill Blocks (click the button on the lower left if you want to collect her free basket blocks).

I added more color and at this point, I misted it all with water and then I poured droplets of water on this piece so that the colors would "bleed" into each other.

And the piece above is the result.

We painted all sorts of color to the fabric and then left it in the sun to dry. You will notice that there are paper cut-outs on a couple of pieces. They were there so that the sun would imprint that shape onto the fabric. It sort of worked on the one with leaves but it didn't work on the other pieces. When the fabric is dry, it must be ironed to heat-set the color. Jacob took his pieces home to show Mom and Dad and will bring them back next time he comes to visit. Then we plan to make a piece of framed art with them or perhaps a pillow. Who knows what we'll come up with but it will be fun whatever it is!

This was a fun project! It's kinda messy so you'll want to work in a basement like we did or some area where it won't matter if you spill the paint. :-) I especially like the colors that I get when I paint on wool and did six more pieces in a variety of mixes that can be used for autumn leaves, flowers, etc. I have also begun dyeing some wool with fabric dyes and that will be another post in a couple of days.

Have a great day!

Sandi

A nine word post on 09-09-09

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"To err is human, to forgive divine."

Alexander Pope

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Back-to-School Time!

This morning in Minnesota, kids all over the state are returning to school. It's also first day of classes for many colleges and universities. I am just glad I do not have to be in traffic this day!! I had my time when the kiddies were in school and also when I worked full-time so I have served my time in traffic. :-) I am happy just be here blogging and tending to that long list of "to do" quilting and embroidery projects. Labor Day weekend is over and I finally got some labor done......so here are the September blocks!!!

Sorry I didn't get these posted last week. I loved having my grandson visit and we did lots of fun things. That meant that I didn't get to some of my own things when he was here. And after he left I had to clean and regroup and then rest! That's life, I guess.

Hope you enjoy September's designs. I drew inspiration for the chalkboard block from memories of writing on thechalkboard when I was in school. The Snowman for this month was inspired by memories of football my senior year in high school. It was the first year that our school had a football team. I was a cheerleader and we were excited. However, the team never gave us any tips on what cheers to yell when they were making plays. So, imagine our shame when we started yelling "Block that kick"and it was our team kicking. Oh, boy, you can bet the team gave us some pointers on what to yell after that one! LOL!

The remaining blocks for the applique series are finished and all the designs for the snowmen are complete. Now it's back to work on stitching the blocks. If you want PDF files of each of these designs, just click on the snowman button on the sidebar and join my Yahoo group. You'll find all the patterns there!! I will be keeping them posted through January of 2010 and then will remove them from the group. I'll be starting a new BOM in January, too.

Now that the blocks are posted, I'll either post photos of our fabric dyeing fun or of the State Fair in my next post.

Sandi

Holiday weekend!

Whew! it's been a busy few days! My grandson, Jacob, went home Thursday afternoon and then it was time for me to do some laundry and cleaning stuff around the house. Friday, it was groceries and errands to run and Saturday, we were off to the Minnesota State Fair. We had a great day and thanks to our neighbor who walked Kaiser for us, we were able to make it a long day of fun. ;-) I was tired today and stayed in my p.j.'s all day long. Since this is a holiday weekend here in the U.S., I am taking it as just that......a holiday. I'll post photos and share our fun starting Monday evening. Seasons blocks and the Snowman for September will be posted then, too. I'm guessing that none of you are "waiting on pins and needles" to stitch these if you are on holiday, too. Sometimes we just need to take a break. :-)
Sandi

Oops! Grandma is too tired!

Oh, boy, what a busy day. Jacob and I are having a great time doing projects and made another trip to the library. However, that left no time to get to the September blocks posted today. I did so want to get them posted but I'm not even going to try to do it until Jacob goes home. He'll leave late Thursday afternoon and then I will re-group and load photos and pattern pages for the blocks and also our fabric painting venture. We painted lots of fabric and took lots of photos to show you. We had a lot of fun painting fabric!! I'll have detailed info on the Setacolor paints that we used when I post the photos.
Later then.......
Sandi (or Grandma Skeeter as Jacob calls me) who is going to bed and get some much needed sleep because Jacob says when you are too tired, you should go lay down in bed. Good advice! :-)