Love That Sewline Pencil!

I was at Quilt Country today and saw Sandy's display of the Sewline pencils. Everybody has been raving about them but I kept forgetting to get one. I knew that I was going to have to draw the butterflies in the corner triangles of the Make A Wish quilt because there was no way I could just freehand them and keep them fairly symmetrical.

This pencil is THE BEST! Several colors of lead are available--I bought green and white. I used the green on the blue fabric to draw the butterflies and I was surprised how easily it went on--no dragging and pulling the fabric. The fine line is perfect and the lead is very strong, although you don't have to apply much pressure to make a mark. The marks stay on long enough to get the quilting done, but they are easy to remove (there is a special eraser on the pencil, but I just rubbed the lead off with cloth--okay, it was the sleeve of my T-shirt).
Top photo: lines drawn on fabric
Second photo: right half of butterfly quilted
Last photo: butterfly completed

Here is our new, gigantic puppy. Kingston (a/k/a King, or The King as we fear he will become) is only four months old but he is almost too big for me to pick up. If the loose skin and gargantuan feet are any indication, he will be approximately the size of a cow someday. Dolly is bossing him around and he is taking it well. Cici the cat is still in hiding.

Quilt Crawl at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science

The hair on my arms stood up the first time I saw my quilts hanging at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science. When I was a child, my parents would bring me to Fair Park to visit this museum, which at that time was called the Museum of Natural History, if I recall correctly. The building is so familiar to me, and walking up that staircase, running my hand along that cool, smooth metal banister, well, it was a wonderful feeling of deja vu. And to imagine that I would someday have my work hanging there...it just wasn't something I could have imagined.


I spent last Saturday at the museum, talking with visitors, many of whom were participants in the first of three Quilt Mania II Quilt Crawls (http://www.quiltmania.org/). Eighteen Dallas-area venues are participating in Quilt Mania II and you can check the web site for locations and schedules. Here are a few photos from my visit on Saturday.

Mikey, The Certified Safety Professional

Looking over my shoulder, he said, "Why is that funny?" Yes, it is his jacket draped over a heater. No, the heater wasn't on, but still...

But Can I Drink It?

I'm always on the lookout for odd signs. This is one of the best ones I've seen lately. I was so glad I had my camera with me (I try not to leave home without it). I navigated a quick U-turn in the parking lot, briefly parked my car in a no parking zone, ran up the incline to the construction site--to the puzzlement of other shoppers--but it was worth the effort.

I know what it was supposed to say, but I couldn't help but think of possible captions for this photo.

1. So, how did it get here?

2. How will it get back?

3. Okay, I can't move it, but can I drink it?

Lucky Woodpecker!

I was in the bedroom when I heard the louder-than-usual "thud" on the living room window. I always cringe when I heard that sound because I know that a bird has flown into a window, mistaking the reflection for the wide open sky. Just a couple of weeks ago, a goldfinch crashed and I picked him up and put him in a safe place. In only a few minutes, he regained his senses and flew away. But this poor woodpecker looked like he might not survive. He had knocked himself unconscious, so I couldn't tell if he was dead or alive. His little pointy tongue was hanging out and he didn't move at first, but then I saw him blink. I put him in a notch in our biggest tree where he could not fall out. In half a hour or so, I checked on him and he was perking up, so I took this photo. A few minutes later I checked on him again and he jumped up and flew to the top of a big tree, apparently as good as new.

Naaahhhh, I'll Stay Inside Today

There's lots of fresh snow in Breckenridge! Everybody went skiing today except me and I had a fine time sitting by the window, watching the snow blowing by. It was too windy, too cloudy and too cold for a fair weather skiier like me!

Tidying My Dyeing Workspace

It might look messy to you, but I should have taken "before" pics so the relative tidiness could be fully appreciated. My little shed feels so spacious now, even though Mike moved my boxes of printed patterns in there. He put lots of heavy duty shelving up to hold all those boxes (and get them out of "his" garage to make room for his fancy new table saw). Having a clean (sort of) space has inspired me to do a little dyeing and fabric painting in the last few days. We got a tiny refrigerator from our neighbor's garage sale so that I can keep dye solution cool in the summer, and I've also got my old microwave out there for batching small things during the cold weather, like one or two yard pieces or socks.

Brown Sugar Meteorite

I found this mysterious object in a bag of brown sugar. It was darker and smoother when I found it. It has been sitting on the spice shelf for a couple of years. It always makes me smile when I see it. I thought I'd better photograph it before it deteriorates more.

Dye Discharge Mystery

The spot remover removed not only the butter spatters but also the dye (see previous post), so I thought I'd finish the job, this time with an intentional dye discharge since the shirt wasn't fit to wear in its current condition. My first attempt involved using the same spot remover that had removed the butter and the dye. I gathered the shirt in pleats and put rubber bands on it and put the spot remover on. After two attempts, no additional dye had been discharged. So, I rinsed the shirt, mixed up a thiox solution and applied it. Again, no luck. Odd, it always worked before. I thought maybe I'd mixed it incorrectly, so I made ANOTHER thiox solution and applied it and, you guessed it, no luck! The shirt was ruined anyway, so in desperation, I rinsed the shirt again, pulled out the chlorine bleach, applied it to the shirt and TA-DA! The color disappeared in a wink. I had some anti-chlorine drops on hand, so I soaked it in a solution, so the shirt should be okay.

More Poppies

I finished the orange version of my Georgetown Poppies just in time to send it to Roswell, New Mexico, so that they could have it on hand for the guild meeting. I'll be going there in February and we'll make the poppies in a workshop. Quilting this on my George machine was a snap!

The first version was shades of red.

Got The Butter Out, or A Tale of Accidental Dye Discharge

Krissy always has her camera ready. She snapped this one while I was standing in the parking lot of the Crab Trap. Phyllis loaned me her handy travel-sized spot remover so that I could try to get the butter out of my T-shirt. The sauteed scallops were very good, but very buttery and I must have been hungry and sloppy. The spot remover didn't work, so I tried a 24-hour soak with another spot remover when we got to the condo. Still no luck. When we got back from Florida, I tried an extra-strength stain remover that I had at home. TA-DA! Got the butter out, but got some of the dye out, too. This is why the label says, "always test in an inconspicuous area before treating garment."

Doodle-y Two-fers

I really enjoy this technique. Over the last few years I've made several of these doodle-y quilts. I have a sketchbook of swirly doodles that I drew with quilting lines in mind, but ended up using the designs for fabric shapes instead. It's so much fun to cut out the shapes and then separate them onto two backgrounds to get the positive and negative effects. This photo is of two little quilts, about 9" x 12" each, sitting side-by-side on the interfacing and backing so that I can quilt them both at the same time.

Did I mention that I love my APQS George? It's doodle-tastic!

S'More Retreat at Hummingbird Music Camp

Every year the S'More Quilting Retreat takes place in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. We had a wonderful time there this year--good food, perfect weather, and fun people! The class this year was the Georgetown Poppies project, one of my fused flower patterns. I met so many nice people and I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Texas Chainsaw MANIAC

Don't you love the sound of a chainsaw on a Sunday morning? Our neighbors needed to have a huge limb removed and Mike a/k/a "Have Chainsaw, Will Travel" was eager to take care of the problem. Given his history, I was a little concerned about the combination of chainsaw + extension ladder + rope, but all's well that ends well.