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

Another string quilt

I'm making another string quilt for a baby. Somehow I managed to find all the colors I needed in my stash! The nursery has salmon, yellow, mint green, soft gray, white ... I threw in a few more colors and brightened up the palette a little.

The bunny print has been on my shelves for years and I thought it would make a nice backing.

For those of you not familiar with this easy way of making a scrappy quilt, you start by cutting paper foundation squares a little bigger than your finished size. I use old phone pages. Then you gather a bunch of fabric strips in different widths.

 
Lay a strip right side up down the center of the paper, diagonally. Sew and flip strips out from either side until the paper is covered, then trim it to your desired size and tear off the paper backing. It comes off pretty easily if you use a short machine stitch. (I use 1.5.)

Here are the first four that I made today. I'm using the bright parasol print as my center strip for each square, but you don't have to be consistent.

Have a colorful day

After the sunset colors

I'm normally an "auto" setting photographer, but Dave and I just took two intensive days of Nikon classes and I'm starting to explore other settings. Last night I tried to capture the colors just after sunset.

These aren't exactly like what my eye saw, but I like the colors anyway. It was late -- after 9 p.m. I'll try some more tonight.

Have a colorful day

 

Nourish and the Dungeness Spit

A friend recently raved about a farm-to-table restaurant in Sequim, WA, (pronounced "skwim," rhymes with "swim") called Nourish. My husband and I tried it out yesterday and it was all she said and more!




The photo above is the view from our table. It was so peaceful, with birds, butterflies, flowers and vegetable and herb gardens. So relaxing. So sunny and balmy.

I had halibut tacos on thick, earthy homemade corn tortillas with a rhubarb salsa. Delicious and healthy.

Here is the blurb from the website, nourishsequim.com:

   Nourish, located in beautiful Sequim, Washington, is an exciting garden-to-plate restaurant and so much more… providing a gathering place for the community and visitors alike! Located on the last remaining acres of a historic 1880s pioneer farm at the base of Bell Hill, the garden enjoys views of Sequim, the San Juan Islands and Mount Baker.
 
   At its heart, Nourish serves to raise awareness of our food sources, sound nutrition, sustainable living practices and to stimulate local economic opportunity. Nourish’s Patio Café, Greenhouse Dining Room and private catering, all offer delicious, healthy menus created around locally produced food and beverages; as well as edibles grown on the property. Nourish is a haven for artists, musicians and artisans to share and sell their crafts, as well as providing an array of events to entertain and inform, from yoga to cooking 101. Nourish provides meaningful employment and on-the-job training to young adults in the Olympic Peninsula area.

   Nourish is a place to stop, breathe and enjoy the best of the Pacific Northwest.

Once nourished, we headed over to the nearby Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge to hike on the Dungeness Spit. The sand spit is 5.5 miles long and juts out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca off the Olympic Peninsula. It shelters a bay full of marine life, and thus is a protected area.

When we arrived it was foggy and chilly, but gradually most of the fog dissipated.

We ran into friends from Gig Harbor who we hadn't seen since December! It made a great end to a great day.

Have a colorful day

"Salmon With Asparagus and Lemon"

Here's my finished quilt for Quilt Revolution's salmon challenge. I call it "Salmon With Asparagus and Lemon" and it's 21-inches square. I quilted it by layering it with Sulky Solvy to hold all the woven strips and yarn down. The raveled texture resulted with swishing it around in water to dissolve the Solvy. Luckily, I like texture.

Have a colorful day

Salmon quilt challenge

Our local quilt shop, Quilt Revolution, is having a display of salmon quilts during Shop Hop next month. I've taken up the challenge and am doing a quilt called "Salmon with Asparagus and Lemon." I'm just using those colors. No pictures of salmon.

The background fabric is actually a pinky-orange salmon color, although it looks more orange in the photo. I laid down a few chunks of other colors and then wove a layer of salmon, asparagus and lemon colored strips on top.

 
Then I pulled out some lemon and asparagus yarns from my stash (didn't have any salmon) and wove bits of them in.

So that's where it stands now. Next I have to decide how to quilt it and whether to just pin it like crazy or put a layer of Sulky Solvy over top to hold things down. I'll keep you posted.

Check out what other fiber artists have been doing this week at Nina Marie's Off-the-Wall Fridays: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-colors-of-chop-suey-off-wall-friday.html

Have a colorful day

Sew Day on the deck

Linda in action on the back deck during Sew Day.

Yesterday was Sew Day with the Nuts at my house, which means I did panic cleaning and set a colorful table. I found this vivid cotton tablecloth at a yard sale for $4.

I made my first French toast casserole for breakfast, along with turkey sausage and fresh berries. It turned out pretty good -- I'll definitely put it in my recipe box.

For lunch (below) we moved out onto the deck to enjoy the sunshine, warm temps and view of the water. I made a version of Starbucks' chicken BLT salad sandwich for lunch along with fruit and chocolate chip cookies. The chicken salad had bacon bits and pieces of sundried tomatoes.

Everyone was doing handwork so it was easy to move outside. Here's what was going on out on the deck in between cookies and just watching the water:
 

Nancy brought her projects and supplies in this colorful bag that she made. It's filled with big Ziploc bags to organize everything:

Have a colorful day

Pink through purple in the yard

I just realized that I've only blogged once this month, which is waaaay less than usual. I think it's because I haven't been doing anything creative in the studio. Instead, I've been going to a lot of yoga classes and Starbucks and walking and watching the water.

But I need to blog, so today I went out in the yard and looked for something for every color in the rainbow. Here are my findings, in rainbow order: pink and red, orange, yellow, green, blue (sort of), purple.

 Have a colorful day

Beach Houses detail

I just entered one of my older quilts, "Beach Houses," in IQA's Tactile Architecture exhibit. This is a detail. I used to be a regular entrant in the IQA shows, but when I moved across the country in 2008 I lost my traction. I'm trying to get back in the groove.

Today was a sunny, sparkly day in Gig Harbor, just like in the quilt!

Have a colorful day