Andy and I now:
He's a wonderful brother! I just got back from taking him to the airport. I hate hate hate to see him go, even though I know that his family will be glad to have him home. But it was wonderful to be with him, even if our time together was just too short!
The antlers are hard to see in the picture, but I'm afraid they show up well in real life.Secondly, Boomer warming up a box of Christmas presents:
How did he know that there were presents for him inside the box?.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Pat wanted them all quilted very simply, so I used a medium meander:
The second quilt is bold and bright. A very complex pinwheel star:
I think the red and plaid star block was my favorite. Or maybe the yellow and gray block next to it:
The third quilt is a pumpkin seed pattern pieced with a very coarse, heavy red cotton and the same mattress ticking as the bowtie quilt, with the addition of a polyester border. Very pleasing to look at, but a challenge to quilt. Nonetheless, I think it came out beautifully:
This is a very difficult pattern to piece. The other two quilts had been pieced on a sewing machine. This one had been pieced by hand:
I can't wait to see what Pat thinks of them! I have to bind them, and will get them to her next week in plenty of time for Christmas.
And there were three amazing quilts by my friend Susie Monday. I'll have to ask her if I can post photos of one or two of them here.
All in all, a very stimulating afternoon.
This piece was a rather blah yellow. I overdyed it in dark orange and chinese red:
This piece was orange. We stamped it with a silicone pot holder and overdyed it in chinese red, sun yellow and rust:
A closeup of the potholder marks:
I don't know why all of the dyes I mixed for us to use were orange, red or yellow. Well, I guess I do know, they are my favorite colors. Happy colors. My next quilt (after Christmas, when I'm caught up with longarming) will undoubtedly feature the color orange.
Wow! Blast from the past!
During the meeting I demonstrated soy wax batik. This piece was plain white pfd muslin stamped with a water glass and dyed dark orange:
The next piece was a yard of yellow I'd dyed several months ago. Everyone joined in, stamping it with slotted spoons, sprigs of rosemary from my garden, wine corks and bottle caps (and whatever else we could think of!) and drawing on it with the tjanting. If you click on the picture, you can see the drawings a little better:
I overdyed this piece with rust and chinese red. A closeup of the rosemary bits:
And the slotted spoon:
I wanted to try batiking and overdying a piece of commercial fabric. This was a piece of dusty pink. We stamped it with a potato masher and overdyed it with purple. Way better! 
More to come!
And a red and green star quilt by Billye:
Billye does exquisite work. Her quilts are always very flat and square and her points are perfect. We decided that an allover pattern would be best for this very busy quilt. I quilted roses and leaves over the borders and leaves in the center using old gold thread by Permacore. Here's a closeup of a rose in the border:
A closeup of the straight lines in the white areas. Cindy had the brilliant idea of radiating lines:
While working on this quilt I clunked the needle bar on my ruler and caused some major damage to my machine. Which put me two weeks behind. I'm repaired now and Cindy's quilt is finished. And it's truly a lovely quilt!
Doesn't that kind of thing always happen when you've got a pile of work waiting for your attention?
Cindy also had me quilt a flannel star using the "heartstrings" pantograph. A closeup:
And the whole quilt. Another beautiful quilt!
New acquisition for the garden. A metal fish sculpture from found objects by Tim Flynn of Denver. Brian and I bought it at the Stoneheart Gallery in Evergreen, CO.
