And Now...the End is Near...

No, I'm not referring to my view of the world now that Mr. T. is ruling the U.S....that's a topic for another time and place.  ;-)

I'm referring to the status of several of my projects.  In other words, I'm on a finishing frenzy!  Yep; this week I've been working on facings, labels and sleeves.

Two pieces are now completely finished...

On the way to the finish line!

Another six have sleeves awaiting attachment -- and two of those need their facings (long in place) sewn down before that can happen.

Thus...much work to do yet to get them show-ready -- and by that I mean for possible touring with my 15 x 15 Group, or at the Lacombe Art Show and Sale at which I hope to have a booth again in April.

Still...there has been time for a little bit of play -- to whit, some snow dyeing with my friend and SAQA colleague, Mary Wilton.  She'd not snow dyed before, so a couple of weeks ago she spent the day here with me, doing exactly that.  The snow was still a bit powdery for my liking, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to weather, and as it was a fair day, with slightly warmer temps (minus teens rather than minus thirties Celsius), we worked with what we had.

I did two tubs -- one with blues/reds and one with blues/yellows.  I was aiming for skies and fields.

Perhaps we could have left the batches longer, but Mary had a time limit (getting home before it got too dark as the highway conditions were tricky), so we left them for only about 5 hours.  For my part, the results I got were mixed.  The blues/reds turned out like this:

Fabric: heavy-weight cotton

Fabric: a scrap of medium-weight cotton

Fabric: a poly-cotton blend

Fabric: white-on-white quilting cotton

Fabric: bleached muslin

Fabric: more of the same medium-weight cotton
(as above)

There were also three small pieces of poly cotton blend that came out such pale shades of blue that I couldn't photograph them well, but they'll make lovely skies for "minis".  :-)

As for the blues/yellows...the results were so mixed that this past weekend I "snoverdyed" them!

There's been no fresh snowfall since Mary's visit.  Instead, there's been a warming trend with day-time melts and night-time freezes, so the snow is now "older" and more crystalline.  I still left the tub for only about 5 hours, but I like these results much better:

Fabric: heavy-weight cotton

Fabric: medium-weight cotton

Fabric: bleached muslin

There was a fourth piece -- medium-weight cotton -- which I'd deliberately folded for the first snow-dye, and which I decided to leave folded for 'snoverdyeing'.

Medium-weight cotton, folded for dyeing

I'm not partial to fabric manipulation as a rule, but in this case I threw caution to the wind...and have to admit I rather like it.  I will probably cut it up and stitch on it as I can't (at this point) envision it in a landscape...but one never knows, does one?!

More play is on the way as my Academy of Quilting class with Elizabeth Barton starts Friday...and I've purchased yet another Craftsy class -- "Inspired Modern Quilts" with Elizabeth Hartman -- to give me a foundation for designing them, using some concrete "patterns" (more like guidelines for fabric selection, quantity and placement).  I've plenty of fabric so hope I'll find the right stuff without having to do much (if any) shopping.  If I get the samples made, I'll have some nice pieces to give as gifts...

And knitting continues: one pair of Harry Potter House Socks half-finished, and these also under construction...

Yarn: Paton's Kroy Socks 4-ply
 from my stash
Pattern: "Yin Yang Kitty Ankle Socks"
by Geena Garcia (free on Ravelry)
modified to be made top-down, using
the "Rose City Rollers" pattern
by Mara Catherine Bryner
(also free on Ravelry)

Yes; the pattern calls for the second sock to have its colours reversed... ;-)

Now...it's time for some exercise, but before I go I'll link this up to WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network -- and wish you all a great afternoon!

I Meant to Post This Earlier...

Except for a couple of stubborn drifts in shaded areas (like close to my front steps which are on the north side of my house), our snow is pretty much gone here.  That may not last -- it's 60% POP for snow on Monday, and we're still getting some pretty chilly days and downright cold nights -- but essentially, with my tulips popping up, it's Spring here.

Cedar Wax-wing

A week ago, I decided that if I was going to do any snow-dyeing at all this winter, I had to do it then.  I found a drift of clean (as in not covered by berries, twigs and leaves left from a wax-wing party) snow, and dug in.  This was Very Old Snow, and so very crystalline.

  

Dye-covered
Very Old Snow

I'd prepared the basin with an old baking rack on the bottom (to prevent pooling), on top of which I'd laid three scrunched up fabrics: one printed white-on-white with snowflakes; one plain cotton sheeting; and one poly-cotton blend scrap.  I piled the snow on top, and sprinkled on MX dye powder (from Dharma Trading) in 'Sky Blue' and 'Turquoise' -- mostly the former.

I brought it into the house, placed it on top of my washing machine and closed the sliding door to keep Miss Pookie out.  :-)

Then I forgot about it till later in the evening.

There was still quite a bit of V.O.S. left, but I could tell from the sloshing on the bottom of the tub that it was time to clear it out.

I emptied the V.O.S. into the sink and washed it away.  I then did something I've never done before:

1. I didn't rinse the fabric.  
2. I put the fabric into my washing machine, and poured in the dregs on top of it.
3. I set the machine for a small load on the "Hot/Cold" -- which is the hottest setting it has.
4. I set the machine for a short wash cycle - 8 mins. at most before spins and rinses.
5. I put in a measure of Synthrapol, according to the directions on the bottom, and let it go.

Wash cycle completed, I through the fabric into the dryer...and ended up with this trio:

Top to bottom:
the snowflake white-on-white print;
the poly-cotton blend; and
the 100% cotton sheeting remnant.

I'm thrilled!  

While I usually go for a more 'serendipitous' look for skies, I can use this quite well...and love the way it evened out because I left it so long under the snow, and then did the washing machine routine.

I was fascinated by the snowflake fabric, as the print, essentially 'stamped' on top of the fabric, acted as a resist.  I find I can use on both front and back:

(L) Front; and (R) back.

I think I prefer the back, though!

On other fronts...

I've had 2 volunteer knitters for the MOB Project: Part III, for which I am very thankful.  I am nearly finished my first contribution to that part of the project.  One of the knitters is making her second contribution to MOB: Part II as well.  Such support is so helpful at this stage, over 2 1/2 years into the Project.

I'm plugging away at the Japanese-style Taupe Quilt...I will start the machine quilting of Section 2 this weekend.

Marty and Chereena's wedding invitation arrived last week:

I found myself digging into my stash...and starting a purple silk shawl.

I may not finish it in time, but I'm giving it a good try...

Pattern: Seashells on the Sand
free on Ravelry, written by Anna Yamamoto
Yarn: Hand Maiden Fine Yarn - Sea Silk 
(a Canadian company :-) ) in "Purples" colour-way

Linking this up to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and getting out the door to take 4 pieces to Red Deer, where they're to be hung in the Central Alberta Quilt Show (April 1-2)...

Have a great weekend!

Thinking Along the Line(s)

I've been seeing 'line(s)' everywhere this week.

• In my e-mail I got something from or about Deidre Adams (can't find it now, of course!) and her "Facade" series;
• On the way in to work at The Shop I see the lines of snow melting against the hills...fence lines...the inevitable power poles and lines...;
• On my periodic jogs around this wee hamlet, the roads are corrugated strips of melt-slicked gravel, mud and slush...

And so on.  :-)

Meanwhile, I'm working away at hand-stitching the lines I see in the small piece of snow-dyed fabric that is becoming my contribution to the "Spotlight Silent Auction" fundraiser at the SAQA conference in Portland.  It's nearly finished now...

LTFS: Roses I - WIP (c) 2015

Oh...

And yes, EB got back to me.  Blocking out my design is next, so stay tuned! 

Meanwhile, let's hop over to The Needle and Thread Network for WIP Wednesday -- and see what other Canadian stitchers are up to, eh?  :-)

1300!

My next Blog Anniversary -- 12 years of blogging -- is exactly a week from today.  Who'da thunk it?  Certainly, I'd not even thought of how many posts I'd make between then and now...and yet today marks my 1300th post!  That's an average of 108 posts a year...or just about one every 3 days for over a decade.

Blogging has completely satisfied my 'writer's itch', and given me both a way to share my life and work...and an abundance of new contacts, some of whom have become fast friends.  Thanks to all of you for following and reading and commenting, laughing, crying, comiserating, and sharing cyberspace with me all these years.

I began this blog as "The Lady Who Knits on the Bus", and my original URL, 'knitsonthebus.blogspot.com' will still direct you here, to a blog that began with knitting from a blogger who still has knitting in her life every day.

And...as promised, this morning I used a random number sequence generator  to pick the winners of the yarn I'm giving away in celebration of another long-time blogger, the Yarn Harlot.  Congratulations to Christina V., Rhoda F., and Rav's GeneHunter!  These Gentle Readers have been contacted by e-mail and their yarn will be sent out to them later this week.

Now it's February...and in my books, that mean's only about 6 more weeks of winter, regardless of what the groundhog has to say about it tomorrow!

Yesterday marked the deadline for the latest "Reveal" from my friends at 15 x 15.  Do drop

over to their website to see the beautiful work and varied
interpretations of the challenge theme, "Monochromatic".  Even though I'm taking a year off from the group to do my EBMC, I felt right at home with my first EBMC assignment which was...um...yep -- a monochromatic value study!

EB's e-mail with the February assignment has arrived...so stay tuned for another adventure as I work it through...

My 15 x 15 friends have also been experimenting with snow dyeing.  Many of them live where snow is a rarity, and recent aberrations in weather have found some of them out in their yards with plastic bags, scooping snow into them to keep in the freezer so they could do some snow dyeing!

I'd wondered how this would work out, as I'd only ever done snow dyeing with powdery fresh stuff.  I figured the stuff in the freezer would get hard and crystalline....just like the "old snow" that was in my yard.  Until Friday, we hadn't had fresh snow for several weeks, and what we had was now hard-packed, with an icy crust from rain and freezing rain on top of it.  I decided to dig out some and see results I'd get with it.

I was gob-smacked!

First, I needn't have piled on the amount of snow I usually use, because this hard, crystalline, icy stuff takes longer to melt than the powdery version. I ended up dumping a lot of snow because I wanted to avoid a mess.  Even though my fabric was on a rack in the bottom of the tub, the amount of snow melt would have resulted in "mud" instead of beautiful mottled colour.   Second, "old snow" has bits of leaves and twigs in it, as these close-ups of the tub of dye-on-snow show (look carefully).

     

And the results?  I was delighted with these "sunrise/sunset" cottons and muslin:

But my favourite piece is the silk:

I have nothing specific in mind for these pieces yet, but I'm glad I found the delights of dyeing with "old" snow...and now I better understand why artists in warmer climes go to the trouble of dyeing with ice or freezer-kept snow.  The results can be spectacular!

Happy February, everyone...have a lovely Sunday!

Snow Days

Yesterday was my usual day to work at The Shop.  Today I was supposed to fill in there for the other part-time gal.

Both days, I stayed home instead...because of the snow, blowing snow, drifting snow...and today the temps dropped into the mid-minus thirties Celsius.  Brrrrr!

With an hour "off" here and there to shovel the walks and driveway, I spent the past couple of days on these projects:

Baking for the Second Annual Open House & Tea
at the Mirror & District Museum, Sunday, Novembeer 30

Turning 'strings' into blocks for a quilt top

Prepping more strips and strings for quilt tops
Left & centre: for a string quilt; right: for the Postage Stamp Quilt

Working on Wild Sock #2 -- I'm on the heel flap now -- and adding inches to the "Martyn" infinity scarf.

And what's several feet of fresh powder snow without a bit of snow dyeing?

I quickly soaked a batch of miscellaneous pieces -- one large piece of silk and several bits and bobs of cotton muslin -- in soda ash.  Then I laid the pieces out in a criss-cross fashion on a rack in the bottom of a plastic tub:

I covered the lot to the brim with fresh snow, and sprinkled it with MX dye powder:

Half covered with turquoise; half, with Sky Blue;
then centre third sprinkled with Golden Yellow.
All dyes from Dharma.

The resulting pieces have been washed and are drying.  Photos to follow in another post...

The highlight of today, though, was the release of Clue #1 in Bonnie K. Hunter's 2014 Mystery Quilt, "Grand Illusion".  I'm aiming for half the size (so...44" square vs. 88" square) and am starting cautiously.

For example, the first clue calls for 280 half-square triangles (HSTs); I'm planning on 140 and have, to date, assembled 60. Of the 280, 200 are to be used to make 100 small blocks along with squares in two other colours.  I'm planning on 50 small blocks, which will take 100 HSTs...but will begin with 25 small blocks and 50 HSTs to see how far my fabric will take me.  Capisce?  ;-)

Here's the start of my HST construction.  I'm using fairly deep colour values for the 'geranium' and 'turquoise' -- all from stash.  I'm determined not to buy any fabric for this project!

And here's the first 60 of my HSTs in stacks of 20.  Don't they look pretty?  Order out of chaos!

At 2 1/2" square, they'll finish at 2" in the quilt

I found a stash of "Thangles" triangle paper that is speeding up the construction process; here's my bag of discarded foundation paper from the "Thangles" and from the string blocks, waiting to be recycled:

Don't you recycle your foundation paper?  ;-)

All in all it's been a rewarding couple of days.  On tap for this weekend: start on Christmas cards, sing at church, "pour out" at the Museum's Open House & Tea...

And MOB's First Anniversary is tomorrow.  There will be a special post on the MOB blog for the occasion.  Stay tuned!

Linking this up now with Nina Marie's Off-the-Wall Friday...and will follow that with a cuppa and a good book.  G'night all!

Headway (I Think)

My head is still buzzing, and I'm fairly vibrating with energy these days -- so much so, in fact, that I hardly slept a wink Friday night.  Last night I managed to crawl into bed early and catch up, so I know I can function today without falling over.  :-)

Speaking of catching up...

This blogging business takes time (especially the downloading, sorting and filing of photos) but I do like to do it at least twice a week so that the posts don't become too long and thus...BO-ring.

Last post, I'd torn apart "Lost in the Woods".  Turns out, reworking the sky and the roof of the cabin might just not be enough.  Presently thinking about banishing it entirely from the repertoire!

Thank you all for your encouraging and flattering comments about "A Walk in the Woods".  I have plans for another couple in slightly larger sizes.  I have a limited amount of the hand-dyed blue (did that myself last year) so I thought I'd dye some more.  I put aside two bags for the low-water-immersion treatment.  The dye was...well, not that fresh...and though I'd properly prepped the fabric it didn't turn out as dark as I'd have liked.  Great sky material, but not for the shadows of trees.  NOTE: the top fabric in the stack (right-hand photo) was unbleached muslin, which, I realized in afterthought, had not been pre-washed before I prepped it in a soda ash bath;  the back fabric was a synthetic which I wasn't expecting to hold the colour.  Just thought I'd throw it in to use up the dye.  :-)

"Enough", I thought; I had a full 'customer card' from Caroline's Homespun Seasons in Stettler, and I needed to pick up the cover for my old Husqvarna 225 (RIP), which cannot be repaired (can't get the part any more; it's all of 20 years old.), and I had to stop in to the Cabinet of Curiosities to get more mats for my miniatures.  So...before the next deep freeze set in (forecast for tomorrow), I drove up to Stettler yesterday.  It was a lovely diversion from all I have to do here.  Got the fabric, got some more muslin and some white combed cotton for more dyeing (later).  Got the mats -- and discovered that at the end of January, the gallery had sold the first one of the five minis I left with it last spring: "Prairie Twilight II", which is currently the masthead of this blog.  Yes...a lovely diversion indeed.

In my snow-dyeing this week (we had a squall on Wednesday, that left at least 6" of fresh powder), I did better than I've ever done before.  I have only Becky of the "Solar Threads" blog to thank for this.  She's been posting about her recent adventures in snow dyeing, and in one message, she happened to mention that she placed her fabric, snow and dye layers on a rack in/over the basin she was using.  I happened to have had troubles with melted snow/dye pooling at the bottom of my basin; as soon as I read about the rack I knew I'd have to try it.

Pima cotton, Kona cotton & some muslin
damp (from soda ash) & piled on a rack

You can just see the rack peeking out from under the fabric in the above photo.  As I've been preparing to work with red roses, I decided to use scarlet and fuchsia dye powders on the snow:

Just look at the results!  I'm over the moon!

Small, short piece of muslin

A long, narrow piece; the photo is really 3 shots stitched together

Either Pima or Kona cotton (1st piece)

Either Pima or Kona cotton (2nd piece)

I was so excited that although it was very late in the afternoon, I went out again and gathered snow for a blue batch.  The only fabric I had to hand was some silk habotai, so I plunked it in the soda ash bath for 1/2 hour and then set it up:

I thought I'd add a touch of yellow here and there for a floral centre or hint of leaf...whatever turned out.  Again, over the moon!  The silk just glows.  Think this calls for small pieces, hand stitched...

I have a few other adventures to write about...but this post is long enough and I have studio work to do.  Stay tuned for another report from "Winter School".  :-)

Linking up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...because I still can.  Adios for now...

I Finally Gave In

...and did a bit of snow dyeing Friday.  We've had an inordinate amount of snow this year -- most of it powdery, perfect for dyeing -- but I've been so focused on shovelling it, clearing it from the roof vents, and driving in it (when absolutely necessary) that I've had little energy left for creating with it!

Friday the temps were a bit warmer, so shovelling wasn't such a chore.  In the midst of Shovelling, Phase I (stoop, side and front walks), I made up my mind.  I took a wee break and put together two tubs.

This time I used the PFD Kona cotton and PFD Pimatex cotton I'd ordered from Dharma Trading early in December.  I took 1/2 yard of each (leaving me 1/2 yard for future playing) -- and yes, being from the U.S., these are yards, not metres -- and placed one in one tub, one in the other.  Dry.  Just like that.  I piled pristine powdery snow on top, and sprinkled Procion MX Fibre-reactive dye powder over each tub, using a metal 1/2-teaspoon measure I reserve solely for dyeing.

In one tub, I began with a sprinkled layer of 'Sky Blue', followed by 'Lemon Yellow' and a touch of 'Golden Yellow', as I was going for green as the outcome.







In the second tub, I was going for a 'sunset sky' effect, with golden yellow (at the "horizon") merging to orange merging to red, then purple, then blue at the top of the sky.

I was hoping to leave the tubs in my laundry area -- door closed, for fear of Pookie-cat, who's taken a liking to eating snow this winter -- for 24 hours, a la Vicki Welsh -- but alas, after only 6-7 hours the snow was completely gone and the dye liquid was pooling in the centre of each tub. (This was due in part to the fact that these tubs have a circular depression in the centre of the bottom of each.)  So...I drained each tub, then using the tubs, soaked each batch of fabric in hot water and Synthrapol for 10 minutes, drained, rinsed till clear, then dried in the drier.

Alas, the results for the green pieces didn't photograph well; I'll try to remember to point out the fabric to you if and when I use it.  :-)  However, I am satisfied with the quasi-sunset.  Although the pooling of the dye meant that I didn't have a sky in gradients of colour, I do have some very nice red-orange-pink fabric to insert into a sky or two...

Yesterday and today I've spent in my sewdio...but that's for another post.  See ya later!

Snow Dye Report

Yesterday, as I posted, in a pinch I cobbled together what I hope will be the last batch of snow dyeing till December.  I decided to use the dye powder directly on the snow, rather than mix it with liquid first.  Here's what it looked like at the outset:

Sky Blue/Golden Yellow/Hint of Fuchsia Red

Lemon Yellow, Golden Yellow, Some Scarlet, Fuchsia Red

I let it sit about 7 hours, and the snow was still there, though diminished in volume.  Quite a lot of dye left in the rinsing.  Once washed with Synthrapol and dried in the dryer, this is what turned out:

Pastel, indeed, but perfect for sunrises or sunsets or florals or funky skies.  The pastel results are likely due to a combination of things:  first, the fact that the fabric is recycled bed linen and therefore not likely pure cotton, but a cotton-polyester blend; and second, the fact that my soda ash solution wasn't fresh.  It had been preserved from the last batch of snow dyeing -- about 6 weeks ago, at the end of January.  But I am not disappointed.  I knew those things going in.  And so...the results are not unexpected and entirely satisfactory.

On the "Train" front, I assembled a larger truck-end yesterday.  Don't you think the proportions are better in this view?

The truck is not yet fused down; I am undecided as to whether or not to show a few of the grasses/cat-tails behind it.  I'm going to ponder that for a while, as I await an order of 1/8" silk ribbon from Dharma, which I will dye and use to put those in.  I have only a bright, sunny yellow and a selection of reds in my stash, and can't find any silk ribbon locally to save my soul.  Neither can I find it online except in large quantities, with 4 weeks requested for dyeing.

In the Dharma order, I included a yard of silk habotai and one of silk charmeuse to play with in my online class with Jane Dunnewold through Craftsy.com, and another jar of Sky Blue MX dye powder...for obvious reasons!

And now to prepare to head out to Edmonton.  It's snowing lightly and there's a bit of a breeze, so I'll venture out cautiously and see if I can make it up Highway 21...with a pit-stop at Lori's in Sherwood Park, just for fun.

Have a great rest of the weekend!