Safe as Houses

Here' the fling that I kept for myself - my nap blankie these days.

Some history here, here and here

The Stars Out of Place

This one is finished. I sat with it in my lap for an hour last night trying to choose the next color thread. There were no answers.

I'm going to set it aside for a while before I decide whether to mount in on canvas like the other recent pieces, or leave it soft, in the cloth.

Easter/Ostara

Ostara - Goddess of Renewal. I like better than chocolate bunnies and peeps.
We haven't done much about this holiday since the boys have outgrown thinking it was a sort of mini-Christmas, minus the tree and wrapping paper.  Oh, I'll still bite the ears off Jake's bunny and put it back in the box and of course, I love to dye the eggs if I remember.

This one kind of looks like Easter colors. Untitled and about 42"x42" from back in 2005 I think.  I was disappointed at how several pieces of very soft muslin refused to take the colors the way I was expecting. That's how I learned that the even the cheapest muslin from HoAnns had to be boiled in prep for dyeing.  Once I got over the color failure I hand appliqued these bars and hand stitched the whole thing. There was a lot of music involved.

last large work

"Front Runner"
is the last of the large pieces that I completed early in 2009.
I think its 7 feet long.

The real trouble comes when it's finished - trying to find a place to display and photograph the piece.

Spring & Summer flings

I've decided to sell this series of unlined, "summer" quilts . Most of them are machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted. Just enough cloth to keep off the chill.


I've add a new page  called "Flings for Sale"
That should add an element of excitement to the spam I already get.

They might as well be living a useful life somewhere, as I intended.

the crayons that got left in the box

I've just ordered a batch of clearance priced dyes from ProChem . Given the way monitors will distort colors, who knows what these will look like in person.

I've never wandered far from the primary, basic colors before preferring to mix up my own mayhem, but these prices were irresistible - and I can't imagine I'd be using them straight from the jar anyway.  Strange, wonderful and new.

spring

 
Spring comes all at once to Georgia and lasts about a week before the heat and humidity set in.

I like to go to the big box store and pick over the plants that they left out to die in the unpredictable overnight chills. They get thrown into a basket, priced down to 25 or 50 cents. If rescued in time they manage just fine. These were all on death's front porch yesterday afternoon including the grape tomato plant that will soon take over the whole pot and give me tasty little treats all summer long as long as I remember to water it each day.

Sweetie has learned that the cat door is her key to the outdoors and she gradually learning the bounds of her territory. Unfortunately she thinks that the squirrels next door are somehow more interesting that the ones that live in our yard.

They are good neighbors and accustomed to our cats lurking about in their yard but I'll bet they think they are seeing Jinxs' ghost doing her usual thing.

Put & take

I'm really taken with the quality of that sheet that I dismembered.

Yesterday I put several of the less than stellar pieces through several other surface design techniques - some  kitchen chemistry involving Elmer's Glue, Soft Scrub and more dye, this time with a little heat boost. 

the more I look at this cloth the less inclined I am to cut it up.  I've been admiring Jimmy McBride's quilts and hammer & tongs way he goes about it.

Once I finish torturing the 8 different sections I may just put this sheet back together like Humpty Dumpty and make a bedquilt out of it.

dye results

Not so fierce anymore. It's hard to say if the intensity loss was due to the advanced age of the dyes or the temps outside which were chilly at best.

All subtle and interesting. Some destined for other treatments. You can see the woven pattern in those pricey sheets and the coarseness of the linen. You can click on the picture for a close up.

cleanup

It occurred to me that letting these dry completely and then shaking out the grains of cream of wheat and the bug carcasses would be much easier than trying to rinse it all off the fabric. Fortunately it's not sticky at all and is blowing off like so much colorful sawdust. If the sun would only come out for a bit I could have this bunch in the washer and dryer before I leave for work. Maybe. Remember, these are wet pictures. It remains to be seen if this old, old abused dye powder will take to the cloth for real but a preliminary rinse and wash by hand showed almost no dye run-off!

the early returns

I just couldn't wait until morning. Around midnight I was rinsing this one out in a bowl out on the deck, in the dark.

I did not examine the cream of wheat closely but it looks like the bugs (and their eggs?) took up the dye particles  and redeposited them according to their size - you can see the ghosts in blue here. the brownish lines came from the radiator where I draped this to dry for just a few minutes. Live and learn with that one.