Dye Retreat 2010

I spent a week in steamy East Texas dying fabric with my friends. Four of us have been getting together since 1996. You can read more of the history here.

Ken added a wonderful deck of the back of his wood shop this year. We hooked up our sinks and a shade cloth. Very civilized.

Progress on the first day!

We tried a bit of discharge this year with 25% bleach and had better results than in previous years.

This one is cotton velveteen.

Chewey, the supervisor, sleeping on the job.

...a monoprint of a floor piece.

Kathi made the traditional cappuccino mousse.

Kathi, Tonya, Jill and Linda visited Ken at the lake one evening. The breeze from the lake was a nice change from the heat. This was another wonderful retreat. I can't wait to get started making something with my new fabric.

Happy 10th Anniversary, Twisted Stitchers!

The Twisted Stitchers art quilt group met at Julie's house for a 10th Anniversary party last night. We shared a wonderful Mexican pot luck meal and played with her darling pups. 

I'd been holding on to a package of PMC (precious metal clay) for a couple of years. Julie has been experiment with PMC and encouraged me to bring mine to play with. It's so fast!

A 16mg package of PMC3 yielded all of these charms.

The larger two in the foreground have been burnished.

The two circles to the left have only been brushed with a brass brush.

The whiter ones toward the back are straight from the kiln.

They baked at 1200º for 20 minutes. So after an hour, including warm-up and cool-down, I had all these fired pieces. Very fun! Thanks Julie!

Rusty's second Birthday

We had a birthday party for Rusty last night. He is two years old today.

Roady, the backyard neighbor, arrived in his stylish Doggles.

The humans enjoyed ice cream while Rusty and Roady romped in the backyard.

A rose is a rose...

I was the fortunate recipient of a box of fancy and sheer fabric from mixed media artist, Lisa Qualls. Several of her pieces included stitching and screen printing. Lisa agreed to let me finish some of her tidbits to make donation items.

This cool leaf was the inspiration for a small bag purchased at the "It's in the Bag" auction by a delightful lady in a matching purple dress to hold her Kindle.

A Rose is a Rose... (16.5x16") was almost a top when Lisa gave it to me.

I added the folded red rose and bound the left and bottom edge

 in red to balance the red on the top right.

I backed the sheer screened roses with red felt and machine quilted them with white thread.

I added these red glass discs,

and some red seed beads.

This mini and lots of other handmade art will be in the Denton Quilt Guild silent auction on June 17 from 6:30 to 7:30 at the Center for Visual Arts in Denton, Texas.