It must be winter.

It must be winter, because Broc is back to sleeping in his bed, & there is white stuff on the ground & trees now. We woke up the the world of new snow yesterday morning. This looks like it's here to stay, & more is falling today. I hung the bird feeder up yestrday, & the birds are enjoying the feast.

Tracy's latest quilt

I finished Tracy's quilt this morning. Here is the final result.

The back is pretty too.

I have to tell you, I broke down & bought these tension guages from Superior Threads, to use on my  longarm. It has made my life SOOooo much easier. I found that even I had my thread tension balaced, I was having trouble with skipping stitches. When I got he tension guages, I discovered I was running with my thread tension way too tight. When I turned it down to the reccomened tension on both the top & bobbin, it made all the difference. So much better. No more skipping & breaking.

I wanted to tell you about the visitor I had at this window this week. It was a young black bear (sorry no picture, the camera was upstairs at the time). I was setting right there at the machine when the bear litlerally walked right up against the window. It was so cute. It had thick fur, ready for winter. He looked like a giant teddy bear. The mama was in the yard too, but further away.

It's chilly outside. The ground is frozen, with ice puddles in the driveway, but no snow here yet. It seems to be coming later & later. I guess it's the global warming.

A Quick Pumpkin Quilt

Thursday, when I went to Quilt Guild, there were little white pellets on my windshield cover. by the time I got back home from the meeting the white stuff was all gone. It seems like the snow is coming late again this year. I believe global warming really is affecting our environment.

At the guild, April talked about her project, "Pedals For Africa". She founded a non-profit organization, to raise funds to buy bicycles for students in Africa, to ride to & from school. This needle work was donated to her, by ALCQ member Clara Jo, to be used at one of her auctions.

Friday evening we had Kathy Kansier for a lecture. She is an AQS certified quilt appraiser, & judge.

She also gave classes on Saturday & Sunday, but I didn't take any of them, because I was teaching classes, myself, at Quilt Zone. Sunday evening my friend Mary G. brought Kathy up to my house for dinner, & to appraise 2 of my quilts. We had crab with lemony-butter, pumpkin soup & home-made rolls.

I had Kathy appraise my "Oh! to Dance With a Dolphin!" & "Ravages of Time~Port Townsend truck thread painting".

I had a vacant space about my front door, & threw together this little pumpkin wall hanging to fill it for the autumn months. It is simple raw edge machine applique', & a bumpy yarn edge instead of binding. I made it in just a few hours.

Quilt- purse & Autumn Bits

I've been busy working & quilting. I have 3 borders left to quilt on Tracy's quilt, which I will post when I've finished. Below is the "Cool Cat" card I made for my DGD Darian. She turned 17 yesterday.  I can hardly believe she's so old!

I taught my Basic Threadplay class on the 8th. This coming weekend I have Advanced Threadplay & Free Motion Machine Quilting to teach on Saturday & Sunday.

I always enjoy sharing the fun of free-motion with my students.

Today I made a small purse for the ALCQ to give to Kathy Kansier when she comes this weekend. It started with an experiment with a bit of gold polyester fabric. I tried to see if I could dye it. I couldn't. It didn't take any bit of the dye, but it did hold the shape of the rocks when I tried the pole wrap with rocks. I used it for the front flap, & added burned silk for leaves. I'm pretty happy with the final results.

Autumn being my favorite season, I enjoyed making my pumpkin soup for my DH & 2 of his fellow RT's  who came over on Sunday. It was a farewell dinner for James, who is a traveler that Warren has worked with once before. James was brought up to Alaska this time, to work while Warren was off for his knee surgery.

For dessert, I made another Esspresso Cheesecake. This one cracked a bit on top, so it got a heavier coating of coffee frosting than the last one. (Not an all bad thing).

Birthdays

Today is both my DH Warren, & my DS Brandon's birthday. Brandon is far away in Kwajelein, but Warren & I went to Girdwood, to the Double Musky for dinner to celebrate. The drive down the Seward Hwy is always beautiful.

There was an unusual sight in Turnagain Arm. 2 boats. I've never seen boats out there before. They just don't go up the Arm. It's  tides are dangerous, & there are spots that are shallow. I'm not sure what they were doing, but it was a strange sight to see boats there.

The bushes along the road were colorful.

We saved dessert for home. I made an Espresso Cheesecake, that was really good.

Other projects I've been working on are Tracy's quilt is on Lily right now (pictures later), &  dyeing some silk.

                     Below are some grapes I dyed, by the shibori wrap method that I learned from my friend Sandy Winfree.

This was the card I made for Warren.

Quilting Design, Mystery books & a gift

Vivika DeNegre sent this little Prayer Flag to me, as on the the Fiberactions group. Isn't it sweet? It's always fun to get a little surprise bit of art in the mail. Thank you Vivika!

I've been eating up the books lately. As I quilt on Lily (my longarm), I like to listen to books on my Kindle. Recently, I received an email from Mary Pomponio, who is a publicist for Clare O'Donahue.

Clare is a quilter who also write Mystery books. She has a new book coming out soon, & Mary is asking some quilters who blog to read her new book. Well, since the new book is the 4th, Z& even though she offered to send me all 4, I decided I wanted to get started on them now. The first 2 aren't available to my Kindle, so I'll have to read those the old fashioned way. I found them at Titlewave today. The 3rd,"",Double Cross I was able to get on Kindle. I've already got started on "Lovers's Knot", & I'm already hooked. This will be my bedtime coffee in the morning reading for now. Since I'm a Gemini, I can continue listening to the "Anna Pigeon Series" by Nevada Barr, on my Kindle when I want to quilt. There will be a give-away here soon for the newest book, along with something made by me.

For what I'm working on next, is a quilt by Tracy. These are the designs I offered her, & she chose B (my favorite). She wants it double batted, so it'll not only be really warm, the quilting will stand out well. I loaded it today, tomorrow I hope to start quilting.

As far as what is TERMINATION DUST: it's the first snow on the mountains in the autumn, that marks the termination- hence the end of summer. Time to get ready for winter.

Autumn Inspiration

This fella took a nap in our yard yesterday. Isn't he handsome in his homely moosie way?

Today I took a little walk around our yard, looking for a little autumn inspiration.

Termination dust has been on the mountains behind the house for a few days now.

This is what I made after my walk.

Oh, by the way, ...If you want to be my neighbor, this house is for sale!

The Case of the Mysterious Oompa Loompa...

      

Yesterday my DH went into his closet to pull out a shirt. Weather is getting cooler, so he went for long sleeves. The shirt he chose, was one he hadn't worn in a long time. This Oompa Loompa doll was neatly buttoned under the collar of the shirt. Neither one of us recall ever seeing this thing before. We have no idea how it came to be in his closet, or on his shirt. I find this a little creepy....

Catching Up

One of the things I finished recently was the quilt for our past quilt guild president, Pam Harris. I didn't want to post about it until we gave her the quilt, as she reads my blog pretty regularly. The blocks were made by lots of the members of the Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters.(You should check out the quilt show pictures too). Jackie Carley put them together into a top. We gave Pam the top a year ago, & I promised her I would do the quilting for it. She added the small green & wider purple borders herself, & with the help of Sandy Winfree & some extra blocks, pieced the back.

I did all the quilting, & made the binding, put it on by machine, then Jetta Brewer- Huber, Donna Evans,

Marge Seidler & Barbara Clinton hand finished the binding.

I took one of my photos from the front of the quilt, & made a label for it using the Colorfast Printer fabric.

I cut it into a circle & hand appliqued it on at the meeting just prior to presenting it to Pam.

Today we had breakfast at the Meyn's house. Their youngest, Hope is going off to Southern Oregon U. in a few days.

Next to her is her BF Ethan.

Pete & Lily came too. (Pete is the Orho Doc that fixes our arthritic joints).

I made 2 pans of sticky, gooey, oh so yummy carmel buns. They were gone pretty fast.

Texture

Today is the reveal day on the Fiberactions Blog for the word "Texture". Above is my completed piece. I finished the quilting on it this morning. I started with the black satin background quilt. I finished the edges with a nubby black yarn Already that's 2 different textures.

Detail shots from left to right, & top to bottom below. I made 9 white wool mini quilts 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. Each has a Timtex-like stiff batting for thier center. I painted green or orange around the edge of each block after blanket stitching each edge with a white wool yarn.  In the center of each little wool square, I did a small study of different textures.

The first, below was done by sewing a grid on wash-away stabilizer, then weaving my hand-dyed cotton string left-over from a shibori dying project that I did about 8 years ago. This took me back to those little pot-holders we all made as childeren. After the weaving was complete, I free-motion stitched another layer of threads to anchore the piece together, & washed out the stabilizer.

The 2nd is a piece of fused glass made by my Mindy. She's the best! Always giving me little beautiful bits, that I can include in my pieces. I did some simple thread-play on the wash-away stabilizer, rinsed, & hand sewed it to the top, trapping the glass underneath.

This on is a bit of silk chiffon that I simpley pole wrapped & dyed, & dryed.

The green is another Thread-play on Wash-away. I did 3 layers, washed them out, & layed 1 on top of the next to give depth.

For the center block, I did a little bead scene with a mirror sun cabachon. 16 hours of beading & all I have to show for it is a wonky 1 3/4 inch square. Maybe I should take a class to learn how it's supposed to be done.

For the next one, I got out my wool rovings & a felting needle. I sculpted this little flower in a very short time.

It's hard to tell here, but it's very dimentional.

The next is another little bit of silk that I hand dyed, & pole wrapped with little beads inside, to give the fabric shape & dimension. This was after my friend Sandy showed me how to wrap rocks under fabric & on a pole.

I dug into my botton collection for the next square. I love sorting through old buttons.

For the last of the 9 squares I painted a bit of Mulberry bark, & added some hand embroidery stitches for a different texture.

In the empty space at the bottom, I did 3 squares of free-motion machine quilting. All in Sulky Holoshimmer thread, 2 green & one Copper.

                                             Check out all the others on the Fiberactions Blog.