West Michigan Quilt Show

Saturday was the day that I think 1/2 of our guild went to the West Michigan Guild Show, Quilts on the Grand.  West Michigan does a great job with their show. I brought my mom and 2 of her friends to the show.  All three ladies quilt on quilts for St. Patrick's Parish so they are always looking for ideas. I like WMQG's guild booth where they sell every manner of items related to quilting donated by their members.  There were books, quilts, quilts tops, fabrics, magazines. I picked up a few fat quarters from the guild booth. From Everlasting Stitches from Holt, I picked up the new Miss Rosie's Spice of Life Quilts book by Carrie Nelson.

Here are a few photos from the show.  I especially liked an exhibit they had of antique red and green applique quilts.  I'll put those up first.

I think all of us took a picture of this one.  So much fun



I really liked the border on this quilt.  I have never put a pieced or appliqued border on my quilts but would like to start considering it.

After the show we got lunch  and headed home.  Then mom and I finished putting the borders on an embroidered quilt that she finished.  Last weekend we pieced the blocks together and but the borders.  Then on Saturday we finished piecing it.  Once she gets the backing she'll be able to put it up.  She was hoping to get it up before a lot of quilter's head south for the winter.  But right now there are 3 church circle quilts up so it looks like it might be just she and I working on it.  But that's ok, more quality time with mom.



Found fabric

The Variable Stars dyed fabric on September 14th. And I came home that night and washed everything (I thought) that I had dyed that evening.  Imagine my surprise when I went to throw some groceries in the back of my truck on September 22 and found an oblong plastic container and a zip lock bag with fabric and dye in them.  They must have fallen out of my big box on the way home that evening.

So now they are washed and ironed and here they are.



This and the next orange were in a ziplock bag.

These were all pieces that I had folded and put in an oblong plastic container because they were extra and I was getting tired of making decisions on what colors to dye.  So I just mixed different dyes and just poured them into different sections of the box.  I think they turned out interesting.



Michigan Quilt Network Show

Saturday after water aerobics, a massage and laundry I went out to the MQN show at the summit.
Unfortunately I thought that the show was open until 8 pm when infact it was only open until 6.  I didn't get to the show until about 5 so I quickly found out that I didn't have much time to look around. The following are just a couple of  the quilts that I enjoyed.

Morris Magic by Margaret Iscaro

Shadow Daisy by Dorothy Doyle

Spring Beauty by Betsy carlson

Celestial Dream by Susie Manning

Dying results

Dying turned out to be a lot of fun.  A bit messy, a bit chaotic and always interesting.  This was my set up, many of the girls used plastic ziploc bags for their dying.  I think some wanted colors and fabric that turned out more solid.  I really enjoy getting very mottled colors so I use plastic food containers for my colors.  here was my set up on that evening.

These were the base dyes that Wendy brought and the laminated recipe cards that we used for the dyes.  On the bottom of the picture was a sample book that Wendy had made up so we had an idea of which recipe we wanted to use.



Things were pretty orderly at first, lots of decisions of what colors to do.

The following are my batches of colors

This are some of my favorites out of the bunch.  I am always amazed how the dye takes to wadded up fabric.  And I go in with no expectations.  I'm happy with whatever I end up with.

I love the almost crystalline effect of some of the pieces.

Well we all survived and really not to spattered in the end.

Carol  on the far right was a new addition to our dying group.



Dying Decision made

First things first I had to get my block for the block exchange done.  This month's block was Wendy's and it turned out great.

After I got the block made I just jumped in to cut up the fabric for dying.  I ended up with 18 fat 1/4's. 27 fat 1/8's and then a few smaller pieced.  I also have one yard of black and white flowered fabric to over dye. I did this the last time and this is how it turned out.

  

But this time I'm going to try to use a paint brush to apply the dye on specific places and see how that works.

Well, upward and onward. 

Dying Dilemma

So here is my current dilemma.  Tuesday night the Variable Stars are going to be dying fabric again. I have finally found a pattern that I would like to use to use my previous and present hand dyed fabrics.  The pattern is out of the June 2010 The Quilt Life.  Pattern is Summer Night Sky by Elsie Campbell.

I have my previously dyed fabrics from the last 3 or 4 times we have dyed.

I have my dye kit ready to go.

And my EIGHT yards of dye ready cotton.

Now I just have to decide what size I am cutting my 8 years into.  Fat quarters? half yards? Fat eights?

The pattern calls for 56 fat eights.  I need to look over the colors that I already have and try to figure out what colors I need more of or more variations of.  Guess I have some homework to do before Tuesday night, plus I have an exchange block to get done. Oh boy, fun and games.