Headed to Sisters!

My class supplies are packed and ready to head out the door tomorrow for the big quilt festival in Sisters, Oregon! This will be my first time for the show and I can't wait. The big buckets are for my dying class and I'm also taking a class on fabric painting with ink.

I'll report in when I return next weekend.

Have a colorful day

Great Blue Heron

A Great Blue Heron fished behind our house yesterday. In the bottom photo you can see Mt. Rainier looming on the horizon beyond the heron. Today a heron family -- two adults and a juvenile -- flew down to our beach, but I didn't have my camera handy.

Have a colorful day

String quilt top finished

 
I finished the top of my latest foundation string quilt. It's going to be a surprise baby quilt, but I sort of wish I had one like it for myself. I love the colors!

I took the blocks out on the deck in the sun and peeled off the paper foundations, which were telephone book pages. Next will come the quilting, which I don't like to do.

I did another post here on how I started it:  http://sherriequilt.blogspot.com/2015/06/another-string-quilt.html

Have a colorful day

Sew Day color explosion

It was another color explosion last Friday with Sew Day With the Nuts! We were greeted with a lovely breakfast table setting at Carolynn's house -- her gorgeous crazy quilt table runner and roses from her garden floating is a sea star bowl.

Breakfast had one of my favorite food color combos, cantaloupe and blueberries. That's a breakfast casserole behind it, and it was gooood.

Show and tell commenced with a painted floor cloth made by Linda J. and a cute bird pincushion that she also made. The bird is from the book "Pincushion Appeal" by Cecile McPeak and Rachel Martin, published by Martingale.

 The projects being worked on also included birds, birds, birds:

... Except for mine. I was surrounded by a pile of bright strips for a baby quilt I'm making. Love how they matched my coffee cup.

Then, onward to lunch! Carolynn served a taco salad and a dreamy low-cal cheesecake that I forgot to take a picture of.

We ate outside, where we had glorious views of Carolynn's garden and the Puget Sound. Flowers grow really well here in the Northwest -- unless they're planted by me. I'm a terrible gardener.

This last shot has nothing to do with Sew Day, but I wanted to show off my newest furry grandchild, Bailey the Bunny, who visited over the weekend with Julia.

Have a colorful day

Summer Solstice party

Our friends Paula and Duane had us over for a Summer Solstice party where we celebrated with glorious balmy, sunny weather. First they took us for a leisurely boat ride with appetizers.

Then we strolled through Master Gardener Paula's incredible, colorful gardens. She told me the names of everything, but I've forgotten. I was too absorbed in the colors and shapes to stop and write anything down. 

I posed with my daughter in front of some of the hundreds of lilies.

Then we headed to the house, where the table had some cute quilted potholders and a table runner made by Duane's mom, Marge.

On the menu were giant Northwest mussels, in addition to Copper River salmon and salads. Good summer fare.

Dave and Julia made cherry pies, which they're holding here just before putting them in the oven. Cherries are another Northwest summer staple.

Topping off everything this Solstice weekend was the blimp, shown here from our back deck flying over Fox Island after hovering most of the day over the U.S. Open at nearby Chambers Bay.

Happy Solstice!

Wordless Wednesday

Have a cool, colorful day

Swan Creek with Feet and Forks

The Feet and Forks explored new territory last week, hiking through the shady canyon of Swan Creek Park in Tacoma. It was a blistering hot day but refreshingly cool under the thick green canopy of trees.

I think Nancy, our Master Gardener, said the red berries are elderberries.

We try to remember to get a photo of our feet to document each hike.

 

And instead of the traditional "forks" photo, I shot the cool blueberry drinks that we had afterward at Duke's Chowder House. Delicious. 

Have a refreshing day

Dyeing with STITCH on Anderson Island

My art quilt group, STITCH, hopped on the ferry yesterday for a trip to Anderson Island to dye fabric at Andrea's house. It was a gorgeous, sunny, hot day.

We tore fabric into quarter yards, lugged 12 buckets of hot water onto the deck ...

... measured dye and diluted it more for each step in the gradation ...

... and stirred, stirred, stirred.

In between stirring sessions, we soaked in the bright colors of a perfectly cloudless Northwest day. Temps were in the 80s, which is hotter than usual, but it sure beats the grey days of winter.

When it was time for show and tell, Andrea showed an amazing totally thread-painted owl. The back side (second photo) looks like a snow scene.

Carol showed her first experiment with making her own cordage by zigzagging with a cording foot over several strands of yarn. She followed directions in Susan Lenz's blog: http://artbysusanlenz.blogspot.com/2015/05/making-cord-and-tags-for-keys-plus.html. Susan makes fabulous bowls from her cords.

After a delicious potluck lunch and more stirring, we put our wet fabric in baggies to take home on the ferry. We had this view of snowy Mt. Rainier.

 

The photo above is the Chambers Bay golf course, site of next week's U.S. Open. I think the browns of the course and blues of the water look like the two gradated color runs we dyed. We used bronze and cerulean blue.

I've linked up to Nina Marie's Off-the-Wall Fridays if you want to see what other fiber artists have been doing this week:  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

 Have a colorful day