Row by Row

Almost finished!!  I finally sat down a few days ago and quilted my row from Artistic Artifacts. 

The binding is attached and half-way stitched down on the back, but here you can see what it will look like when finished.

QC6 Day 17

Another rainy day today meant it was time for another shop hop trip for more free row patterns in the Row by Row Experience.  We went to 3 quilt shops - 2 in Maine and 1 in New Hampshire, another store in Maine called Mardens that is a surplus store, but has a large fabric department, and Walmart. The picture with the large FABRIC sign is Mardens - interesting place, some good bargains. That was the first stop.

Then we found the first shop, Sanford Sewing Machine Co.; not too impressive on the outside but the shop was really nice and they have a pretty row.  We bought the kit.  Lots of pretty fabrics, nice shop.

Walmart was right across the street so we made a quick stop for some things we needed, then went on to find a place for lunch.  Next stop was a shop called Kathie's Quilt Shop - a lovely place in a large old house in Sanford.  It was bright and spacious and had a huge variety of fabrics and notions - something for every taste.  She had the biggest supply of perle cotton I've ever seen in one place! Modern fabrics, traditional, wool, flannel, you name it.  This was my favorite shop we've been to so far.

The last stop of the day was back in New Hampshire at a small shop in Milton called Evergreen Country Primitives.  This shop was in the basement of a house on a rural road, but very nice and very friendly.  They specialize in wool and penny rug type stitchery but had some other things of interest as well.  Needless to say I found something to buy in every shop we've been to!

And their "license plate" is the best yet!  (A take-off on the state motto, "Live Free or Die".)

QC6 Day 16

After I finished posting last night, I realized I forgot to include a picture of the one new thing I did yesterday.  I tried a product called Solar Fast, which works similar to sun printing.  You apply the solar fast dye to the fabric and place things on top to create shadows (items from nature, stencils, etc.); you can also make transparencies of photos but I don't have the equipment here to do that.  Cover with glass or something sheer (I used organza) and place in the sun for about 30 minutes.  Then remove and place in hot water with the solar fast wash or synthropol.  I used teal dye on top of a fabric that was previously dyed, a lighter teal color.  That's why the impressions you see are not white.  The actual color is not quite as brown/gray as it appears in the picture.

Today was rainy most of the morning and again late afternoon.  We decided it was a good day to try indigo dyeing - I started getting pieces ready yesterday - all different types of shibori.  Indigo dyeing is very different from the Procion MX dyes we usually use.  Its prepared in a large bucket (vat) and is a yellow-green color in the vat.  Items are submerged for 2-3 minutes, then allowed to sit for 15 minutes; then they can be dipped again if you want a more intense color. When they come out of the dye and the air hits them, the color change begins from green to blue.  The vat can be kept going for several months, unlike the MX dyes that only last a day or 2 (or a few hours depending on the process you use).  The top group of photos show some of the different ways the fabric & scarves have been manipulated.  The second collage shows parts of the dyeing process.  We only dyed some of the pieces today; the others will be done another day this week.

I also did a little bit on two started pieces today.  First is the neutral collage that was dyed blue;  I fused on a binding and wanted to show the 2 side by side.  I also plan to add some hand stitching for embellishment.

Below is the Artistic Artifacts row which I've added a border to and layered with batting and backing for quilting.  The binding will be the same as the strips between each section, so that will tone down the orange a bit.

 And finally, another rainy day resulted in another beautiful sunset!

QC6 Day 12

As indicated in yesterday's post, today was a road trip day.  We started off with a stop at the Tuftonboro library's annual book sale, and I found a lot more than I expected to.  The best find is the big book of clip art - all art in the public domain.  I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet, but I'm sure it holds a treasure trove of images for screens and inspiration!  There are a couple of other books for design ideas, plus some on quilting, embroidery, felting & knitting, and mixed media.  Lots of inspiration!

From there we headed to Portsmouth, NH to the first of 3 quilt shops we visited.  All 3 are participating in the Row by Row Experience shop hop, so we picked up our free patterns and a few other goodies.  The row designs include sailboats, hot air balloons, and a pinwheel-type design. The painted quilt blocks are on a garage door at the Village Quilt Shop in Berwick, Maine - we did  jump over the border from eastern NH to add another state!

In between, we made a stop at Salmon Falls Stoneware outlet store.  They have some beautiful pottery.

I showed a piece of orange fabric yesterday that I did some discharge on, but didn't have a picture of the over-printing.  I added turquoise "bubbles" to help tie it in to the row that I want to use it with.

After the all day road trip, a stop at the grocery store, and then fixing dinner when we got home, there wasn't time for much else.  I rinsed out the pieces in the dye pots from yesterday (the red napkins and the small pieced log cabin piece) but they require more washing before they are ready to show.

Tomorrow there is a fiber art fair in Center Sandwich, so we will probably head over there for a bit.  But hopefully get some more project work done as well.

QC6 Day 11

Today was a wash out - wash out of dye, that is.  I had 3 things batching over night that I showed you yesterday - the shibori pole wrap, clamped piece and napkins.  The napkins weren't as dark red as I wanted so after rinsing I put them back in soda ash and then back in the dye pot with some additional dye.  The pole wrap looks much better now - more balanced, and the clamped piece (circles) is interesting.

I finished my "row" from Keepsake Quilting's pattern.  The pattern is only 4 blocks; I added a third Yankee Puzzle block because I felt it looked more balanced, and plan to use it as a table runner instead of part of a quilt, so length doesn't matter.

I was going to layer my Artistic Artifacts row for quilting, but decided I wanted to add a border to make it a little wider.  Since I didn't have a piece I felt worked, I decided to print my own.  I had a piece of hand-dyed orange, and wanted to add texture and/or print.  I started by printing an all over design with discharge paste, which takes color out when heated with an iron. 

On the left I've applied the discharge and started to iron the bottom corner; on the right is what it looks like after ironing.  Then I went back to the print table and screened another image over top.  But I forgot to take a picture so I will share that tomorrow.

What else did I do today?  I made a peach pie; that's my assignment while I'm here - a pie a week!

I put together a small collage in neutral colors and machine quilted it, then put it in a dye pot - the leftover cobalt blue.  The dye is not full strength, so I'm hoping it will turn out a paler color than the piece with circles above.  This is a process we saw on a Quilting Arts video called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity.

And finally, a little bit of a sunset.

Tomorrow, another road trip!

QC6 Day 9

There wasn't much new on the project front today. I did wash out a shibori piece last night, which you see here.  I was over-dyeing a piece that had large areas of pink, which you can still see.  The fabric was pole wrapped and compressed and the dye didn't penetrate well to the inside layers, so I may do another over-dye with the lighter end on the outside. 

I also started a flour paste resist last night, which is still drying.  When it is dry, it gets crackled and then another color dye is applied which seeps into the cracks.  Maybe it will be dry enough tomorrow.

  
Today we had an errand to do on the opposite side of the lake to pick up a mooring sticker, so decided to combine the trip with visits to quilt shops in the area that are participating in the Row by Row Experience.  We found 3 shops that were in the general vicinity and stopped to shop and pick up the free row patterns.  Some of the shops also have fabric license plates available that can be added to the back of your row or used in some other creative way. 

I love the quirky sense of humor you find up here. These landmarks have been here for years along route 109 around the northeast side of the lake.  But they still amuse me and give you something to look for as you drive the country roads.  Clockwise from the top right: lady bug rock, frog rock, chicken mailbox, tin man, and the giraffe in the barn window, this year joined by the lady in the helmet.  One year there was also a baby giraffe.

QC6 Day 8

This morning I spent some time sewing to complete a quilt row that I started putting together last night.  It is for the Virginia Row by Row Experience.  This is actually a national shop hop for quilters' as they travel around through the summer.  There are quilt shops in 34 states participating, and over 1250 quilt shops!  If you visit participating shops in person, you can pick up a free pattern for a row designed by that shop.  The theme is "seasons" so all the shops chose one of the 4 seasons for their design.  Many shops also offer kits for their row if you want to make yours just like theirs.  If you combine 8 rows into a finished quilt and are the first person to bring it to a participating shop, you can win 25 fat quarters of fabric.  Row by Row Experience is the national page from which you can access all the participating states and shops.

The row I am working on was designed by Artistic Artifacts.  Judy featured thermofax screens created by PGFiber2Art (that's me and Elizabeth!) and wooden printing blocks with strip piecing to create a contemporary spring row.  I followed her lead to create my own fabric featuring text screens ("art" and "stitch") on top of a gelatin plate printed background, and added a final layer of screen printed ferns.  The base fabric was hand dyed, so the whole piece was created from scratch beginning with white cotton.  (I shared the picture a few days ago but will show it again.)  This is the row that Judy designed.

Here is my hand-made fabric.

This is the row that I made using my fabric and pieces of batik for the strip piecing.  The darker strips between the rows is some of the "tree bark" fabric shown in yesterday's post.  That will also be used for the binding after the row is quilted.

I'm not planning to make a quilt with the rows I collect (at this point); so far I'm just thinking table runners.  We got the pattern from Keepsake Quilting (New Hampshire) last week, and will be visiting a few more shops tomorrow.