Prescott quilt shop hop with Tie Dye Judy

Yesterday, I hit the road with blogger friend Tie Dye Judy for a day of fabric shopping in Prescott, Arizona. Can you tell by our clothes that we both like the same colors?

First stop was Cloth Plus, located in an inconspicious warehouse building.

Despite the plain exterior, it was bursting with color inside, the prices were right, and I went a little beserk.

After paying for my first pile of fat quarters and half yards, I noticed a bin of tie dye prints ... back to the cutting board! But I have a good excuse. My son is getting married in July and I'm making colorful table toppers for each table and the bride loves tie dye.

Next stop was the equally colorful Seams Sew Right quilt store. It was hard to contain myself, there was so much color!

They had great colorful bins throughout the store stuffed with more goodies.

By then we were famished and ready for lunch at the very colorful El Gato Azul (The Blue Cat). Good choice, Judy! The food was delicious, but we dove in so fast that I forgot to get a photo of my turkey/avocado/tomato/lettuce wrap.

 

This is the view when I looked up from our patio table. The trees were starting to bud out -- spring in the desert is wonderful.

Then it was time for one last fabric store, Love It Again! This was a resale shop for all things fabric, and I got some good books and yarn. It also had a nice selection of quilt and dressmaker fabric precuts at good prices.

Sated and happily tired, we headed back down the highway under a turquoise sky while the hills rolled by.

Have a colorful day

Flagstaff fun with Tie Dye Judy

We took a break from hiking a few days ago to visit one of my blog friends -- Tie Dye Judy in Flagstaff, AZ. Here she is showing me the Artists' Coalition of Flagstaff, where she sells some of her work. She learned how to make the Sulky Solvy scarves from my blog tutorials, then she really took off and made them glitzy and eclectic. Here are some of them at the gallery.

 

On our way to the gallery we passed this cute shirt in The Sweet Shoppe. It says, 

"Save The Earth!

It's the only planet

with chocolate."

 

She also showed me her studio, where the magic takes place. You can see from her quilts behind us that she likes color as much as I do!

She also learned to make coiled bowls from my tutorials (and I learned from a friend who learned from a friend ...) and took off running with all kinds of creative finishings and shapes. She's making them with lids and exploring new shapes. There are a lot of books out there now on the method, but offhand I can't remember the titles.

Cooking in her dye studio was some fabric in an ice bath. I can't wait to see a photo of the results.
 

After our visit, Dave and I toured the Museum of Northern Arizona and its spectacular collection of native art and artifacts. The building itself is a treat.
  

In the gift shop, Dave was photographed for some publicity material, so I had to get of photo of him having his picture taken. The publicity is for an exhibit of "Earth paintings" made on cloth with paint from ground rocks, earth and meteorites. Here's a link: http://www.musnaz.org/exhibits/Ulrike.shtml

Back in Sedona, I did a little embroidery on my mandala and then hit the sack, getting rested for another day of hiking.

Have a colorful day

Sedona mandala

While I'm in Sedona, I decided to make a mandala with colors and shapes I see around me ... fiery orange rocks, golden orange sun, purple sunsets, green cacti and junipers.

First, I fused the shapes from some of my painted fabric and then satin-stitched around each.
 

This is just the base for what I hope will be a lot of hand embroidery and beading: 
 

Before I left home, I stuffed this little cosmetics bag with hand-dyed embroidery threads from Artfabrik and beads in many colors. I added scissors, pins, needles, beeswax -- I remembered everything except beading thread! (There are even more beads in the bag.) So I was forced to make a trip to the local beading store, darn : )

While I was laying out my colors, I noticed that the beaded coasters in the house where we're staying go along nicely with my project. I love synchonicities like that. So tomorrow evening I'll switch to hand-work mode and report back when I've made progress.

Have a colorful day

Mountains from Washington to Arizona

Red rocks of Sedona, AZ, from the Bell Rock Trail.

Beautiful Sedona, Arizona, glows in today's late afternoon sun. We just arrived here last night after a marathon two-day, one-night road trip from the soggy gray Northwest to the brilliant Southwest. My artist's muse is already revitalized after just one day in the sun!

This is how the trip started, with snow and threatening clouds over the North Cascades outside of Seattle.

After way too many miles of plowing through the morning gloom, we approached the pass in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. Trucks slowed to a crawl heading uphill through the slush.

The mountains really were blue!

 
Hours later we rolled into Boise, Idaho, and I rolled out of Subway with three double chocolate cookies. They didn't last long, and the next day I was quite upset when I hit up four Subways in Flagstaff and not a single one had the double chocolate.

But before Flagstaff, we saw a real flag staff in yet more snowy mountains, these ones in Utah south of Salt Lake City on Day 2 of our journey.

More snowy mountains in Utah.

Then we finally made it to southern Utah near the Arizona border and the climate changed dramatically. Snow was replaced by scrubby vegetation and puffy white clouds in a blue sky.

We stopped for lunch at the Rocking V Café in Kanab, Utah, just north of the Arizona border. It was colorful enough to deserve two photos here. Love that purple wall!

Then we barreled through northern Arizona and the skies turned dramatic again:

 
We made it to Sedona after dark, and this morning I woke up just in time to catch the tail end of the sunrise. It promised to be a glorious, sunny day, and it was.

Sunrise in Sedona, AZ.

We hiked the Bell Rock Trail, and late afternoon sun cast long shadows and turned the ground and rocks fiery orange. And so it will go, day after day ... can't wait. The old batteries definitely are recharging.
 

Have a colorful day

Paisleys

I just saw this cool paisley Kleenex box at the store and picked it up to put next to my bed. That's when I realized it was really similar to a Dover book of paisley designs that's been on my bedside table for a week. It's "A Treasury of Design for Artists and Craftsmen" by Gregory Mirow.

The book, which I must've gotten used somewhere, is copyright 1969 and is a real treasure trove of paisleys and other designs, including florals, geometrics that look like quilt patterns, and folk and primitive motifs. The designs would make great inspirations for quilts, although so far I've just enjoyed looking at them.

Have a colorful day