Diaper Bag Set

Yesterday was the 4th of July, our 17th wedding anniversary. Warren had worked his 7 night shifts, & slept until 230 pm. I quietly played in my studio, tidying up my bobbins,

& painted some cord, that I ended up not using.

I needle felted some wool on a new bar of soap for the bathroom. Warren says he can't use naked soap anymore. He likes in bundled up in the wool.
We went out for dinner. On the way out the back door, I tripped on the front of my skirt & ripped the skirt, managed not to fall, but even though I had my sling on, I jarred my shoulder enough that it ached hard all night & 1/2 of today long.
I went to quilt guild today. Ran errands. Bought a few groceries. Stopped at Joanns, & bought webbing to make straps on the diaper bag. I was hoping for green. Instead I ended up with black, that I applied green rick-rack to. To carry out the black & green theme, I also dug into my yarn collection, & trimmed the front flap with yarns to match.

I used a pretty bead to help weight the front flap.

Added a bit more of the rick-rack to the side panels.

Here's the back side.

Here's the little quilt-pad I made for using when diaper changing away from home.

& here's that pad tucked into the straps on the back of the bag.

Here are the diaper bag & quilt set, all ready to go.

I had a lot of fun creating this bag. It has pockets inside, & I'm going to make vinyl liners to help keep it clean.

I also picked up a plain scrap-book that I'm thinking I'll cover with some more of the scraps from this set, & give it to Laura (my DIL) for her scrapbooking, as her birthday is coming soon too.

Progress on Baby stuff

Today I worked on this pink terry cloth bath towel & a couple of little wash cloths for my new , soon to be born grand daughter. My son called this evening & said Laura was having some contractions, so she may deliver a little early.

I also worked on a bag I'm making for her, it's kind of a large purse, or medium-small diaper bag. The following are close ups of the quilting. It's pieced from left-over scraps, from the rag quilt I made for the baby, & I also made a smaller quilt, to carry in the bag, & use as a pad to lay her on for changing diapers. I got my tension right this time! Click on the pictures to see better.

Below is the front flap, I just quilted the fabric design on the green & blue pieces.

Neck Purse for Cynthia England

This is what I made today. It's a little neck purse, hangs like a necklace, is big enough for a credit card, drivers licence, & little cell phone, or for needle, thread, thimble & wax, etc. You get the idea. Cynthia England is coming here to teach in September, & I'm the official gift maker for my guild.

I used a bit of the soy wax batik fabric that I made last week, & layered some of the silk chiffon that I painted over the batik, then quilted it. I like how the silk softens the colors.

A gift &Lesson Learned - again.

Well here was a nice surprise that came in the mail, it's a hunk of lovely silky feeling fabric, from Africa. My friend Kathy Jolman sent it to me, as a little get well gift. She said the label said "For EKO People" Finest Real Wax Prints. I love it. It feels so nice. I'll have fun with it, I'm sure. Thanks Kathy!
Here's what the Irish Dance dress is looking like today. I've made a little progress, but realize I'm going to have to make a few more snowflakes.

This is some scraps of Batik, that I want to make a diaper bag, & changing pad out of for the new grand baby. This I'm mentioning as a lesson for us all. When I teach my quilting class, I always start out on a potholder sized scrap quilt, to test my tension before quilting on the quilt itself. Tonight, I didn't bother. After all, it's only a little blanket to lay under the baby when they need to changer her diapers. Nothing fancy, who cares if the tension isn't perfect!
Well, this tension was so bad, that the little loops felt rough when I ran my hands over the flannel side, so I ripped it all out.
So, NOTE TO SELF: ALWAYS TEST THE TENSION FIRST!

Oh well, it was good therapy for my shoulder.

Sunny Play Day

It was a beautiful day today, so I decided to take advantage of it & go out on the new deck (or at least part of a deck), & play with paints & fabrics. I hadn't realized until reading Vicki W's blog that Dynaflow paints can be used for sun printing. I knew it was possible with Seta color, (& I have some small bottles of that too), but I have big bottles of Dynaflow, so that's what I decided to play with.

I looked upon it as sort of a Mad Science experiment, nothing really specific in mind,
just wanted to see what I could do. The doily on fabric, made a great sun print.

So did these paper cut snowflakes I made.

I think this will be the beginning for my auction quilt for our quilt show at Conoco-Phillips this year.

I just found out that Jeri's son is working there now!

I also did a couple of paintings of my favorite wildflower, Fireweed.

They don't look like much now, but when quilted & dimensional flowers & leaves are added they'll be beautiful.

I also painted up several pieces of silk organza for layering, & some batting & cotton scraps for art quilts.

Now I need to go bleach my hands, & shower, & get supper going!

PS-thanks for all your healing wishes. My shoulder is coming along nicely. Aches when I do to much, but really isn't bad.

4 blocks done & 7 random things

I made a little ATC today to trade with Nadia Bekker from the Netherlands. Nadia found me here, & emailed to ask if I would trade with her. She says if anyone else out there would like to trade with her give them her email address, so give a shout if you'd like a trade.

Here is Warren's progress on the deck. He says 4 down & 12 to go. So in about 2 weeks I should be able to plunk a lawn chair out there without being in his way!
I worked on the Irish dance dress today too. I'll save that post for tomorrow.

Oh, & Vicki W tagged me for 7 random things about me...Gee thanks Vicki...hmm,...

1. I won an Abominable Mention in the 3rd World's Worst Quilt Contest, by entering my 1st quilt. Ami Simms nearly fell off her chair laughing when I showed it to her. Fortunately I'd already improved quite a bit by that time, & realized it was really baaaad!

2. To counter balance #1, I'll tell you I've won a Best of Show in the international Feel Free Contest, sponsored by Husqvarna Viking in 2002.

3.I was a synchronized swimmer in high school. It's the only sport I was ever any good at. I'm a major klutz, my DH says I trip over color changes in the carpet, but I'm graceful in the water.

4. I had a woman tell me I was a Dali lama in a past life.Ha!

5. I love my vegetables so much, when I was a kid, my mom would cook 1 head of cauliflower for me, & 1 for the rest of the family, & I don't eat beef, or pork.

6.I am afraid of spiders.

7. I believe in Aliens, & I think Criss Angel has to be one!

I'm going to say if you'd like to play along with this feel free. I don't know who'd like to be tagged, so if you would, then do it!

Garden Tour

We had a nice weekend. Saturday Warren worked on the Log cabin quilt-deck.

He got his first block completed & is anxious to do the rest now. This is the FUN part!
Sunday it rained, & was a good day to take a stroll. We got about a 3 mile hike in, with umbrella in hand, & went to the Outdoor Art Show at the Botanical Garden.
There were 60+ vendors, showing their stuff. I loved this little potting table,

& these architectural birdhouses, but we were on a mission.

There were, of course, lots of flowers. These are the columbines that grow wild around here.

I loved the yellow foxtail grass in this garden.

The smell of the wild Sitka roses were Heavenly.

Forget-me-nots, are the Alaska state flower.
I love daisies.
This arbor was made by Brenda Milan, one of my favorite Anchorage artists. Brenda has been doing trellises with willow & copper wire for a LONG time. Her art has been copied by a lot of people. She also does fantastic metal works.

I thought this bird was great too, though I'm sorry I didn't get the name of the artist.

This fancy fused glass bird bath was pretty. The gal that made this also had a little Bistro set that we are very interested in. We will probably have her make one for our deck once we get it together. She asked I not take a picture of it though, so you'll have to wait until we buy it!

Her name is Laura Mendola.

This piece below is FELTED WOOL! By Lucy Zercher. Isn't it a HOOT?!!

Below is Paul Dungan. He was our "mission".

I had bought this sink for our master bathroom from Paul, & warren liked it so much he had gone & given Paul money for another sink, to put in his bar, last October when we were in Homer. Later Warren found a hammered copper sink that he liked better for the bar (it seemed safer for the sink to be non-breakable). He called Paul & cancelled the order, & told him to NOT refund the money, we would buy something else from him the next time we saw him.

These stumps have nothing to do with Paul, I just love stumps....

well Paul maybe likes them too, because here's one he made for the garden (no we didn't buy it).

He also made this piece he called the Cairn, (I thought it was funny because it looked like a pile of giant moose droppings to me).

This is what we got from Paul. A platter that I loved. A bowl that matched, so Warren said we needed it, & 8 wine glasses with pottery stems, so the next time someone wants a glass of wine here they can have it in a real wine glass. Auntie Ethel had broken all of our wine glasses, before she'd moved out. Not intentionally of course. She just had shakey hands.

Speaking of Auntie E, we visited her after dinner, if you want to see how she liked her book, look here.