Wow busy week!

This summer is just flying by!
Wish I had 2 more months, I'm just not ready for school to begin!
Today I drove to Dayton VA to visit with a quilt store and explore the Handi Quilter.
I have been admiring the machine for a while now and thought I dreamed about it for the stitch regulator but today I discovered I might actually do a better without it? Anyone reading my blog out there that has advice RE: regulator or not? Please feel free to comment!
Anyway the drive through VA was nice even with rain! Such pretty green mountain ranges and Dayton is farmland that looked great...rolling hills of corn, horse buggy's here and there. Misty Mountains!
After I got home I finally got to try some dyeing! If you notice from my pics I actually took it seriously and wore my mask and gloves, "suggest we all try to get in the habit of safety. "

My jars are going to sit till tomorrow ;-) I'm crossing my fingers I've done it correctly to achieve wonderful colors? Time will tell. I also have a screen waiting patiently for me to try breakdown printing or dyeing on some of my material? I'm excited to see how my experiments turn out.

My last photo today is of our friendly humming bird who comes out daily to greet Bill as he sits quietly smoking his cigar ;-)

Wow it's my birthday!

So today is my day.....happy birthday to me...........hard to think another year has passed........

I finally got to experiment with some cyanotypes ;-) what fun!

Have to do some more to perfect the technique but here is what I got so far......

Also planning on doing some dyeing this week......... and other surface techniques! Finally, time to explore........

What a busy week!

I'm home! ;-) If you have been reading my blog you know I spent last week at "Quilting by the Lake", a quilting summer program that has been taking place for 17 years! The teachers and classes and quilters were great! I took a week long class from Rosalie Dace on Confident Color. We started off the week by looking at photos of colors that attracted us. From a one inch square cut out we began a project. first you choose your palette and then made a little mock up. From that point we made a second design similar but with something changed, then we added colors that could blend the squares together as a design. I am not completed with that piece yet but posted it for you to see the process. still have more black to add to balance out my piece.We also were encouraged to complete color study squares. By Weds we began "Our" piece.
My original design changed a little due to lack of available large pieces of my fabric.

I do intend to get more of the fabric and complete another quilt but of my original design.

Many lessons learned this week starting with when buying material buy larger quantities instead of Fat Quarters! ;-) Don't be a chicken when it comes to buying fabric!

Anyway now to unpack and try to get used to being home, but not for long cause I fly to Denver in August to see Caleb before I start the new school year!

Wow, Day 3 is over!

The week is passing quickly and we are kept busy from almost dawn to evening, tonight we got back to the room around 8:00. Tired but content!

We discussed neutrals today in class and then proceeded to begin our pieces. It's a new way for me to work so felt I got off to slow start but ended the day feeling decent with what I came up with. Tomorrow I have to try to construct the piece. Here is a peek at my work in progress. The leaf prints I made last year so it was nice to get to work them into my design. The last photo today lets you see where I've been walking. See my pretty toes!

Today was primary color and then black & white

So today we chose one primary color and then proceeded to do color studies.will have to add photo tomorrow I got so busy forgot to take a pic. I enjoyed the day and am very busy thinking, designing in my head and dreams lol....taking it all in and enjoying all the creative people and talented teachers!

These are some of my fabrics for tomorrow.

I'm not disappointed one bit! What a nice day!

So my first day of QBL 2008 has not disappointed me one bit! I am enjoying my instructor from South Africa. Rosalie Dace-(Google her) The classes are superior and next year's schedule is already out@! Wow very tempting! Something to look forward to?

Anyway let's stay focused on this experience first....here is my little color study from day one.

Remember now it's just a color study, have a little more to do yet to complete it......We started with colors we were attracted to from a photo, (see little square on left top....then chose fabrics and got to work. We made 3 little rectangles using our colors then had to bridge them together. Mine is actually two rectangles in the middle column, then two side strips, ending with top and bottom binding and I intend to put some type of binding edge on sides tomorrow.

FYI: Day one was very full and satisfying.

Name of class Confident Color!

I'm back in school? A college dorm!

Gotta tell you they did not make dorm rooms like this when I was in college? We are in a 4 person suite with a full kitchen.

Anyway we drove about 7 hours today and have arrived at Quilting by the Lake. As you would guess everyone is quite friendly and the classes sound like tooooo much fun! Looking forward to meeting my teacher tomorrow morning, she is from South Africa and everyone that hears what class I am taking speaks very highly of her! They promise me I'm going to love my class!!!!!

Still on working vacation in MI......

Okay so MI does have it's lakes......which make for very pretty sun sets and quite enjoyable time on the water! Sadly I have been so busy this trip I have not had much time to enjoy MI as I should.

Here are a few photo's of MI water wonderland.

So funny!!!!

Remember I said we HAD to pack my sewing machine and quilt supplies so I could feel in the ZONE?
Yea right? lol I have not quilted at all during our MI visit! Bummer!!
Was a nice thought but sometimes life just gets in my way!
Thankfully I did get to meet with the Livonia,MI "Running with Scissors" group. Great stuff being created from their group! Look forward to following their work. Then I am enjoying and dreaming about being creative through my cohort's recent creations...check out her new blog! http://shaftel.blogspot.com/

So I did it!

Hey, have you ever watched home improvement shows on HGTV and thought "I could do that"? Well guess what? I can do that! My laundry room linoleum had pulled away from the walls about 6 years ago but with my move to VA 4 years ago I just never had time to attend to it. This summer while we're up north we have a list of items we want to try to attend to and one of the jobs was the laundry room flooring, I just could NOT stomach coming home to look at it in that condition one more time SOOOOO I decided to redo it myself lol lol yep you read that correctly. So first I pulled up the old linoleum (which by the way is very easy when it has already pulled away from the walls) lol then I got some floor primer which I discovered I needed just as I was ready to put down the tile, (reading the directions is also a necessary step, lol ) anyway it's a necessary step before putting down the tile. So got the sub floor primed and then put down new tile myself. Not too bad, I even impressed myself! So our working vacation in MI actually has been non-stop work! Bill is busy in the guest bathroom while I've been tiling. He got the job of priming the walls after WE stripped the outdated 14 year old wallpaper the kids have been harassing me about right down to the dark green paint. So today the job is to paint the bathroom "hot chocolate" We've been told browns are very in up north? Oh well I hope we like the color?....we're just trying to get another item completed from "The list". We're going to need a vacation to recoup from our vacation.