Egg #3 and Rust Dyeing

It seems like Mama Bird lays her eggs at night. I was out all day yesterday and checked when I got home and there were still only two eggs, but when I checked this morning I had #3. These eggs are very small, about 3/4 inch long. I just went to check them again and now they are in a different position, not lined up in a row as they are here, but in a triangular arrangement.



After so much talk on Quiltart about rust dyeing, I thought I'd give it a try, but oh, what to use. When my husband was alive and I was living in my former house, I had so much junk in the garage that I could have used, but nothing here in my new house. Here I just used finishing nails. I wet the fabric with white vinegar and put it on a Styrofoam meat tray, slightly crumpled, and put the new nails on top, then slid the whole thing in a zip lock bag. I could see rust forming in a couple of hours, but I left it overnight.



On this one I shredded some steel wool, spead it around on the soaked fabric, then crumped it into a loose ball and put it in a zip lock bag. When I took it out it had a lot of black spots on it, but they washed out. As I was putting this piece on my design wall to photograph it, I saw fish images. Do you? If you click to see the larger picture, you might see it.

I'd like to try some more, but I'll have to look around for things to use

Egg #2

Mama bird was busy overnight. I woke up this morning to two pretty eggs. When you click to see the bigger view, you can see a bit of fine screening on the right hand side. It's amazing to see what they use for the nest, and to think that each piece is carried one at a time.




Today a group from the Woman's Club of Danbury/New Fairfield carpooled to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. First we had an hour tour of the campus and facilities by a most poised, articulate and pleasant 19 year old student. It was very interesting and informative. Then we had lunch (doesn't every outing include lunch?), at the St Andrew Cafe. It was delightful with good food and impeccable service. I can't believe that I've never been there before, living only an hour away. They have four full service resaurants and a casual
lunch & breakfast place. I'd love to go back and try them all.
This is Anton Plaza in front of the Roth Hall, which houses most of the classrooms and teaching kitchens.



The Wisteria over the front door was magnificent.


Another view of the Plaza. It was drizzling on and off all day, which you can see in the shiny pavement.

Looking from the plaza down to the lower campus and dorms and a view of the Hudson River.

They're Ba-ack!

I like to put seasonal wreaths on my front door year round. I keep my Christmas wreath up until the end of January, then put on a Valentine wreath for February and then a forsythia wreath for March and April. It's not my favorite wreath, but it's a bright spot of color on my dark blue door that seems just right for spring. Last year when I went to take it down to put up my very pretty summer wreath, I noticed a small bird's nest on top, not visible when the wreath was hanging. The nest was empty and I didn't know if it had been used or not. I put the wreath back on the door and kept checking it and within a few days I had 4 small pale blue eggs. I photographed the progress and posted to a few friends . I didn't have a blog last year, but now I do and so I'll record the progress here.

I kept checking to see if there was a nest this year, but I thought that maybe they went someplace else. I checked today and as you can see there is one egg. I'll let you know when there are more.

I forgot how late this happened last year. The birds didn't hatch until early June and didn't leave the nest until July 4. I'll be in Europe June 5-17, so I'll miss a lot of it. I have to stand on a little step ladder to see inside the nest and photograph. It was so much fun to see how fast they grew, from little fuzz balls to full grown birds that barely fit in the nest. Contrary to popular opinion, the mother bird does not mind if you touch the eggs or bird. My front door is used all the time and closes with a thunk, but it didn't seem to bother them at all. Mama bird would fly away when she saw me coming, but never scolded me.


The house across the street has Dusty Miller planted and as she did last year, the bird used those soft fuzzy leaves for the lining. I'm wondering what that turquoise stuff is under the egg. If you click on the picture you'll see some white shiny stuff, too. I have no idea what it could be. Do you?


As I said, it's not the prettiest of wreaths and you can't see the nest at all.

Northern Star Quilter's Guild Show

My guild's quilt show was last weekend and as usual it was a great show. Our guild has a lot of talent and it was in abundance at the show. As for me it was a humbling experience. These judges did not like my work and picked everything apart. They were critical of my machine quilting on every piece. If I did not have my fair share of ribbons at home, I would have been very discouraged about entering another show. Oh, well, there's always next year!

This is Ocean Treasures, all curved pieced and heavily quilted with fish motifs in the water and shells and crabs, etc. in the sand. I quilted it in Jean's thread because I really wanted it to show. The judges didn't like my little acorns on the back. Click on it to see all the critters.




Leaf Study II--Silk Expressions. This is made entirely of dupioni silk and the leafs are appliqued down with a free motion satin stitch. If you click on it, you can see all my quilting.


"Succulent Succulents" This has been on my blog before. I digitally altered photos of Hens and Chicks from my garden and printed them on fabric and paired them with my hand dyed fabrics. This did win an Honorable Mention.

Fine Art and Flowers

Last week I took a trip to the Wadsworth Antheneum in Hartford, CT to see their annual exhibit of "Fine Art and Flowers". It's a fabulous museum with an extensive permanent collection. For this exhibit over 60 paintings throughout the museum were interpreted in flowers by many different floral arrangers. Some were done by a group, some individually. I learned later by talking to one of the arrangers that when the artists volunteer to do it, they are assigned a painting, no choice involved. This could be very challenging, since every genre of art was involved, from Old Masters to modern art.
Unfortunately my battery died after only a few pictures. Some of my favorite ones were of the modern art (there was a super Jackson Pollack), but my camera conked out before that. Click on each picture for a bigger view.

I think the arranger captured the feeling of this picture perfectly.....the drift wood, the pine branches, the clouds, the rush of the wind.

This stone cherub is so cunning and sweet and I think the arranger nailed it.

The colors and shape of this arrangement follow the picture so well, so serene and peaceful, and it stands alone beautifully, as you can see below.

I wish that I had write down the names of the artists.  I did some flower arranging in a past life. This made me think that I should have kept it up.

Mountain Laurel Quilter's Guild Show

I was encouraged to enter a small local quilt guild's show, since they needed entries. It was a nice show and I was very pleased to get two ribbons out of the three quilts I entered.


I got a First Place in the Wall Quilt division with Fiesta. It is made entirely out of my hand dyed fabrics and has extensive free motion machine quilting in many different designs.  Click on each picture for a bigger view.



I got a Second Place in the Art Quilt division for Fern Dance II. Also hand-dyed fabrics, the ferns are free motion satin stitched around the edges and fern designs are free motion quilted in the background.



I didn't get anything for this one, Razzle Dazzle. I made it a few years ago for a song title challenge. It was adapted from a pattern in Quilter's Newsletter and was paper pieced. Lots of FM quilting and a little beading.

More Dyeing

Yesterday was the second day of Ann Johnston's two day workshop and these are some of my favorites from that class. As I said in my last post, I was trying to get more than one color on a piece and that's what I concentrated on today.


I think that this looks like a land mass with water to the right. My private country?



This was achieved by wrapping the fabric around a smooth rope (thanks to Benedicte), then bunching it up and rubber banding it. Then green and blue dyes were poured over.


I twisted the fabric on the diagonal and applied pink at one end and yellow at the other.


The fabric was accordion pleated two ways, then clamped with a heavy duty clamp and the edges of the folded fabric were dipped in the dye.



The fabric was put down flat, then slightly scrunched and different shades of green were dribbled on.


This is the result of accordion pleating fabric and putting clothes pins along one edge and standing it up in the dye bath.

Ann gave us a demonstration of dye painting and mono printing with thickened dyes. It was VERY interesting and she had some great quilts to show us using that method. I will definitely want to try that. I had lots of prepared dye left over that I brought home. It will keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator, so I will have to spend some more time on this.

Ann was a great teacher! I bought one of her books, "Color by Design". I'm sure I will have fun "working" (more like playing) my way through it.

Oh, yes, the repair man came this morning and my washing machine is back in business. Hooray!!

Dyeing Class

I'm taking a two day workshop with Ann Johnston. I've done a lot of dying in the past several years, but Ann uses a very different method that I am used to. Hers is a low water immersion with urea and soda ash. I have never been very successful in having more than one color in one piece of fabric and that is what I was interested in learning. These are just a few of the pieces I dyed today.



These three colors were dyed in the same little container. I used diluted solutions of red, yellow and green. Ann calls these "parfaits". They are actually lighter in person and rather yummy. If I hadn't been so tired tonight, I would have dragged out my tripod and got clearer pictures.




This fabric was bunched up and banded with rubber bands and dyed blue. After several minutes, I unwrapped it, banded it again and added red to the same container.



This is a color gradation, using the same color green, but with dilutions throughout.



This is another "parfait" with stronger colors. I know that I started with yellow in this one, then added green and red.

We brought all our dyed fabric home (I didn't show it all) and then had to wash it, best done in a washing machine. Well, guess what? My machine decided to pick today to DIE with all the half washed fabric in it. I had to haul it out and rinse and rinse and wash and wash and rinse and rinse BY HAND. I felt like a pioneer. Since my class is all day tomorrow, I 'll have to wait and see if I can get a repair man here on Tuesday.

Dragonflies

I ordered some small plastic bags and a few beads from Robin Atkins and was pleasantly surprised to see them wrapped in this lovely dragonfly tissue paper.  Isn't it pretty? I hope I can find a way to incorporate it into a quilt.

It's such a nice day today here in CT.  It's sunny and warm, but not hot.  Just perfect for this time of year.  It makes up for the snow flurries we had yesterday.

Slow Going

For one reason or another I haven't had time to do much sewing in the last week. I went to Lancaster over the weekend to see the Quilter's Heritage show and visit the Northern Star Quilter's Guild challenge, Going Green, where it was displayed. I'm having work done on my house and I'm in a bit of an upheaval although that's no excuse for not sewing.

I did manage to piece together some more of these skinny wiggly things. These four sections are just put up side by side with no piecing. They only cover an area of about 12 x 18, so I either have lots more to do, or put something else with them. I may do both.