Playday and Hoops

I had an artist playday with our very own Karoda yesterday. And believe me when I say I was playing that is what I did. While Karoda was busy dying 30 yards of fabric (yes, you read that right), I was just playing around. She had rented studio space for an entire week at the Mary Anderson Center and was kind enough to invite me to come up for awhile.

I don’t have any dyes so I gathered up some supplies and just spent some time playing around with a few small pieces of fabric. I found out that white felt doesn’t take paint very well. I had 3 small pieces that I painted using Jaquards Dye-na-Flow paints. When they eventually dried there wasn’t much color to them even though they looked good while they were wet. I painted 2 pieces of PFD fabric using spray fabric paints. They too looked better wet than dry, but with these I can go back and add more to them. I also did a little bit of stamping on a piece of commercial fabric. Didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped but I should be able to salvage it also. And I took a couple of pieces of cheesecloth to soak up the excess paint left over. (sorry no pictures, I didn’t take my camera).

Since I don’t get to do this kind of thing very often I especially enjoyed just talking and being with her.

Now on to other subjects. Does anyone know where I can find an 8” or 10” square wooden machine embroidery hoop in the U.S.? I found a source in the U.K. but was hoping to find one here. I did a search online, but the UK site was all that came up. I have several of the good round hoops, but would like to have a square one also.

Here’s a pic:

More on the Jungle Quilt

I just thought I would see if blogger is uploading any pictures. I wanted to show the fabric I used on the back of my Jungle piece from the last post. I just thought this fabric fit the bill for the backing.




















And this is the vine that I free-motion quilted in the border. It's nothing fancy but it was all that I wanted.




















I have the label printed, but I still need to get it and the hanging sleeve sewn on.

Printing, UFO's and Blogger Problems

*note* I tried to post this last night and just gave up. That is why the time says 1:32 a.m. when actually I didn't post this until 6:58 p.m.

I finally got around to getting the new printer out of the box and set up. It took a little while as I figured I might as well do a little straightening up and dusting while I was at it. LOL. Once I got that done I did some fine tuning of some quilt labels I had composed in PSP8. I had purchased some time ago some of the cotton and silk fabric sheets for inkjet printers, so I gave it a try of printing on one of the cotton sheets. I clipped the corners of the leading edge and placed the sheet in the printer. The sheet went in okay but once it was in, it got caught and couldn’t advance and the first labels got messed up. I turned the sheet around to print from the other end and the same thing happened again. So I got a second sheet, cut a little bit bigger pieces off of the corners and tried again. The sheet still wanted to jam but this time I was able to keep it from doing so and got the first set of labels printed. I then set up for the second set and printed those with just the slightest of problems. The page sort of got crooked as it fed through but the labels still came out okay. The problem seems to just be with the fabric sheets, because I didn’t have any problems printing on regular paper. I will just have to pay particular attention when I am printing on those fabrics so as not to waste any more if possible.

During the past week I have worked on and off on another of my UFO’s. I started this one about two years ago. I apologize for the crappy picture. The prints in this seem to make the photo fuzzy. I call it:

It's A Jungle Out There




















I was going to post a couple more pictures, but as you probably have discovered yourself, Blogger is being a big PITA and won't let me.

You can’t see it, but I did free-motion quilting around the animals in each block. I did stitch in the ditch around all of the blocks also.

I also quilted a vine in the border.

I had everything done except the binding. I normally do the usual double fold with mitered corners, but I decided to cut the backing fabric so that I could double fold it over to the front to create the binding. I figured since this is a wall hanging it would be okay to do it that way. I still have to make a hanging sleeve and stitch it on along with the label. Then I will be able to say I have one less UFO in the pile.

Ho Hum.....

Up until this morning, it has been hot and humid here for the past week, making it really miserable to be outside doing all of the yardwork and gardening that needed to be done. Last night it started raining and has rained up through the afternoon, which cooled things down some. So I haven’t been doing much of anything today other than sit at the computer.

I’m in one of those restless moods where I want to be making something but not sure what. I have been browsing magazines and the net, hoping to see something to give me that little bit of inspiration. The newest issue of Workshop on the Web is available and I have downloaded it, but I have only glanced through it quickly, so I guess I’ll be spending some time reading through it later.

I started a couple of art dolls, but they are not going quite like I had hoped. I spent last night doing beadwork on the cape/wings for the art doll I started a few months ago. I still have to redo her face and make a stand. If I ever get her finished I will post pictures.

I bought a new printer last Friday. Guess what. It’s still in the box. It’s an Epson C88. I am hoping to get better results when it comes to printing on fabric. I should be thinking about what I am going to do for my June journal. I will try to stick to the nature theme, but we will see.