silk dyeing-pole wrapping-shibori

I've been on a roll with my quilting but I've also been having loads of fun with my color-hue dyes and silk[dharmatrading.com]. I just added more dyed scarves to my inventory ;-) technique was pole wrapping - shibori style. So here are photo's of some of the process.

silk wrapped around pole using string

silk is dyed using color-hue dyes now drying

silk is removed from pipe and rinsed and hung to dry

completed silk scarves

Now back to my quilting... ;-) Enjoy.

Learning curve....

Since my last quilt has been delivered to the special person it was created for I am guessing it is now safe to show it off  ;-)
This quilt proved to be a good example of how much my quilting skills have grown since I first began quilting. ;-) My hubby's comment; "Wow I remember when you were scared to turn on your HQ16 and look at you now!" his comment gave us a chuckle, and lol lol he was oh so true about how scared I was when I first got my HQ16.
Another thing I noticed.... "my last 3 quilts have been created without patterns and designed semi as I moved along in my process.....lol lol  
proved to be quite enjoyable!!!
I saw a post this week the question {Why do you create your art?} and I realized I find it easiest to create my art when I am creating it with someone or something in mind. Guess that would fit in with my goal oriented personality? lol But basically I create my art because it feeds my soul. ;-) How about you, why do you create your art?
Well onward to my newest quilt........
Here's some photos of the process steps taken while I was creating my latest quilt.
This quilt came about because of a special person we know that has courageously had to take on some of life's tough stuff we sometimes get hit with.
I wanted to create a special quilt for her but it had to be completed quickly!
I luckily had on hand a 'layer cake' [40-10 inch pre-cut squares for those of you who do not know what a layer cake is] so decided to come up with a very simple design using 35 of the 10 inch squares and solid white fabric as spacing strips.
As I began sewing the design together I realized some of the sizes of white strips were becoming boring or stagnant looking so decided to become friends with my seam ripper and redo some of the white strips widths. ;-) Aren't digital camera's handy to help one see design flaws?

Deciding on square placement and original strips being sewn

Black and white photo to give me an idea of lights and dark placement

Completed quilt top- if you look closely you might see the white rows alternate thick and thin, hard to notice in the photo

Loaded on HQ16 ready to quilt, but now how to quilt to try to make the simple design stand out?

Became courageous in my free motion design, used hearts in the squares and zig zag lines elsewhere, row of hearts at top and bottom row of quilt.

Possibly you can see  the stitching in the solid soft backing

Completed quilt ready to mail off

Close up of quilting

Backing is nice and soft ;-)

I admit my husband's observation was very true!  I've come a long way in my quilting skills and have enjoyed every minute of my journey.  The plus on this quilt is that I have been told the recipient loves it and my youngest son gave his approval ;-) his quote sent via a text.... "it is so soft" ;-)

Enjoy.....more catch up posting to follow soon...

Finally will post about some process.

I have been busy sewing and have been very productive lately EXCEPT in my blogging. I sure wish there was a way to dictate my thoughts to my blog..lol

So long ago I promised to post about my latest t-shirt quilt. I made the t-shirt quilt as a gift to our niece who graduated from Rockford High School in MI this past June. She will be a freshman at Michigan State come Sept. Part of the quilt design were her personal t-shirts along with some quilting squares that our niece actually designed and sewed while she was a 6th grader with full intentions to make a quilt. She managed to sew a few squares before losing interest and off and on through out the next couple years we would tease her and ask where that quilt was? Her mother managed to locate those squares and any left over fabric and sent that off to me along with some of her t-shirts.
From my photos I am hoping you will understand my design process. When making a t-shirt quilt you first want to cut your squares from the t-shirts and iron on knit interfacing.

Here you can see the various squares of t-shirts and my nieces quilt squares on my design board

I've sewn borders around the t-shirt shapes and am trying to decide on a design composition.

After struggling with the design for a few days I come up with a new idea.

Beginning to sew my shapes into strips or rows

after sewing top and bottom rows, the middle area was sewn into 3 columns then sewn together

final borders sewn on quilt

quilt top is quilted using my HQ16

completed quilt

Graduation party- Niece did recognize her squares. ;-)

Quilt happily turned out to be perfect for a twin bed.

So tomorrow I hope to post another catch-up post; topic - my latest quilt ;-) Enjoy!

Wow where has my time gone?

Sadly life has just kept me too busy to focus on my blog ;-(
Which since I enjoy reading blogs I follow regularly you would think I would set aside the time to try to keep up with mine? Possibly I had hit a funk? lol
Oh well now is better then NEVER ;-)
Hubby and I made some other roads trips (*NJ -to see Charlotte)
since our MI trip but we freely admit our MI trip was too much squeezed into a week so we both needed some quiet shutdown time to get back on track. ;-) Since he is still working it can be rougher for him.

Hubby and Charlotte

back of quilt

We've had a nice quiet 4th, I've been back to the pool daily doing my walking/jogging laps which is making me stronger and an extra bonus in hot weather the pool feels great! Yesterday while hubby played with his photo editing I enjoyed a very creative day. I got my quilt top quilted (though cannot show off the quilt yet) and I enjoyed some creative dyeing of silk scarves. Here are some photos share the process.

silk dyeing

stitched dyeing

removing stitching

close up of two styles

finished scarves

close up of scarves

[Wish I could photograph the silks to show their true beauty]