Ah, Opening Day............Go Mariners!!

Another sign that Spring is here..................BASEBALL!! (Although you wouldn't be able to tell by the cold temps & the snow that we've been seeing in the lowlands this last weekend.)

Across the US, today & tomorrow, is Opening Day for baseball & it's just wonderful!! I'm not much of a basketball, football or soccer fan, but Seatte Mariner's baseball....................my husband & I live, breathe & sleep it. Every Opening Day, we have tickets & although, I'm sure that we will probably freeze our tookus' off today at the game, it will be so worth it!!


Steve Kelly, a writer for the Seattle Times Newspaper sums it up quite well.

"Opening day doesn't announce itself meteorologically. There isn't some drastic change in the air temperature that gets us out of houses and out to the ballgame. Our internal clocks just seem to know. Baseball fans have a sixth sense that tells them it's time to get going.

For a sports fan, this is the best time of year. College basketball is in the final leg of the great celebration of its sport. Brackets are filling up like reservations at Canlis.


The Masters is looming and the possibility of Tiger Woods winning the Grand Slam is as real as the azalea bushes around Amen Corner.


But opening day trumps all of them.
Opening day isn't just about today. It means something important in our lives is back and is going to be with us for the next seven months, every day, as dependable as the phases of the moon.



It is baseball, returned from its hibernation, a day that should be celebrated like a national holiday, the firing of the starter's pistol to begin the magical, marathon march to October."



Sorry this isn't an entry on Fiber(I'll post tomorrow on what I did this weekend). Today, it's all about Baseball!!

Spring ATC's

Remember this?

This is what I ended up doing with it & I like how it turned out! I actually started over. Hand dyed neon green cotton base, then layering metallic eyelash yarn, black Misty Fuse, & finishing with the neon green eyelash yarn & touching it with an iron to fuse it all together. (You might have to click on the second picture to see the metallic eyelash yarn.) I love how the colors worked out!

A little different shade of green..................looking back upon different things that I've created, I guess I can say I find comfort in analagous colors. Again the base fabric, a hand dyed green that I didn't think was successful, but used in these ATC's, I think they turned out ok. Layered with machine stitching, hand dyed cheesecloth, lumiere rubber stamping & metallic spiral clips. (I think this is about as close to pastel as I will probably ever get & still like it.)

Fun weekend of dyeing

Had to show you these two parfaits that I did over the weekend. When I first learned how to dye (many years ago), I worked a lot in the colors of the first photo. In this past year, I've grown to love other colors as well, like in the second photo. I have to say that my intentions for the orange parfait were to be a spiral. No spiral, but I think it turned out quite nicely.

I used the left over Golden Yellow & Turkish Red from my "make orange" study.

Wished you could see the colors just a little bit better, it's a really subtle gradation from the golden yellow (looks orange) to the turkish red.

Beautiful work from Purple Missus

aka Lynda Monk................ Lynda & I traded PC's & I think I made out WAY better than she did. These are absolutely GORGEOUS!!

Every one of these have such wonderful "have to touch" surfaces. The textures are just wonderful. The first one reminds me of (forgive me, Lynda) cow hide, with the colors & when I run my fingers over it, that leathery feel. The next two have a very, shimmery, shiny feel to it. I love how the light plays across the surface of the organza. While admiring the orgazna, you then notice, "oh my, she's melted it in places" but then in those melted surfaces, she's opened it up to even more wonderful colors of foiling and painted Tyvek.

The last photo, I just LOVE the colors!! She machine stitched Tyvek over cotton velvet & then Xpandaprint was then applied. She then hit it with a heat gun & then applied household emulsion paint. If you go to her blog & find her Sunday, February 24th, 2008 post, she discusses in detail most of these photo above.

Lynda didn't stop there with her wonderful gifts. She also included some beautifully hand dyed cheesecloth & foil that I've been interested in trying ever since I saw her using it in her blog. If you click here & go down to her entry of January 5, 2008, you can see some of her beautiful foiling work. You can also visit on her site Fibre In-Form where you can purchase these foils & this site also has free downloadable tutorials on basic techniques for foiling on fabrics.

Thank you Lynda for such wonderful gifts, I cannot wait to try out my new foil!! (I will post my experiments here for you all to see.)

All that glitters part 2

As promised, here are the postcards that I said I would photograph again & they still didn't turn out as well as I had hoped (they look SO much better in person). I have a feeling that the metallic threads don't play well with the camera flash. If you click on the photos, you can see a little bit better detail.

The top photo, I used hand dyed navy kona fabric, black misty fuse & a beautiful dark navy metallic eyelash yarn. (Maybe this eyelash color would show up better on a lighter colored back ground fabric?) The second & third photos are the same piece. The second photo you can see the background parfait color better & the third photo you can see the eyelash yarns better. I do apologize that I couldn't capture the colors better because I have to say, I think they turned out wonderful!! Maybe, I'll try them out on some lighter colored backgrounds & see what happens??

All that glitters

I had so much fun making these!! I made these for a Bookmark trade in F.A.T. I really like how they turned out (especially the neon green ones). They're made from hand dyed fabric (remember those parfaits I did in a couple of posts back), black misty fuse & metallic eyelash yarn.

I was going to post some postcards that I did as well, but I wasn't happy with how the photos turned out, so will try to photograph them again tonite & get them posted here tomorrow.

A woman after my own heart!!

I just LOVE this!! (of course)

Johanna Fritz sent this to me from our "Paper Pieced PC" swap, in Surface Design. LOVE that swirl & the colors are just fabulous!! Thank you, Joanna!!

It Ain't Easy Being Green...............

..........as Kermit the Frog used to say.

Here are the green runs I mentioned in the last post that I dyed over the weekend. Love the first run, Turquoise to Sun Yellow. (I found the neon green that I was looking for!!) The second run, Turquoise to Golden Yellow, I wasn't very impressed with. I think because the Golden Yellow was so orange that when you mixed the orange with the blue (turquoise) you get a muddy brown. Maybe the colors would work in some project out there but I don't forsee it happening very soon.

Below, you can see what I did with the leftover dyes from both runs. Think some of them turned out great.

What a weekend.................

...............can't believe it was only 2 days long!!!

Here are the postcards I briefly mentioned in my last post. Remember the bright green run I did awhile back? This is what I did with those colors. Wasn't sure at first, since it's not colors that I'd normally work in, but as I progressed, I think the colors really grew on me & I started to really like them. They're paper pieced pc's & they're the first project I finished with my new sewing machine, the Janome 6600, which I just LOVE by the way!!

I also did 2 more 11-step runs of make green (trying to find that neon green that I used in many of my past pieces). I did one run with ProChem's Golden Yellow & Turquoise (talk about nasty drabby green) & the other run with ProChem's Sun Yellow & Turquoise. I knew that neon green had to be in there somewhere & Michelle mentioned doing a couple of steps in between that I didn't do in the first run & she was right!! I found it, thank you Michelle!!! (I'll try to get those runs posted tomorrow so you can see the wonderful colors.)

It was Daylight Savings, "Spring forward" this weekend as well. My brain nor my body seems to do very well when we have to set our clocks an hour ahead. I feel like I'm always trying to catch up. The one nice thing about it though is that daylight tends to stick around a little bit longer in the evenings.

The topper to my weekend was when I got carded at the grocery store for alcohol. I'll be 39 in September, not looking forward to turning 40 & this wonderful cashier makes my day by asking for my ID. I think she was a little embarrassed when she carded me & realized how OLD I was. She apologized & said, "there's no way you're that age, you look so young, whatever you're doing, it's working. You look great!!" (Made my ENTIRE weekend!!)

Signs of Spring in my mailbox

Aren't they beautiful?!! I signed up for a Bird Bell Tota swap in Surface Design. We are to create 7 birds (one for each of us in the group) 4" in size. These birds are then to be hung from each other to create a bird tota, like the picture below.

In the top 3 pictures, the first bird was made by Lorri, I think the wire work is as gorgeous as the bird itself!! The second bird with the beautiful colors & wonderful tassel was made by Aynsley & the third bird that's so beautifully felted was made by Jan Z.

I have to admit, that I haven't started making mine yet, but I know exactly what I'm doing & I'm working on another trade that is due before this April trade. (Remember the earlier post where I did "make green" & the colors turned out VERY bright.....I'm using them in a paper piecing swap.) I was a little unsure when I started with those colors. Was afraid that the piece might scream when it was finished. After working with it for awhile, I think it grew on me & I thought the colors reminded me of Spring, which we are very anxiously waiting for here. Here is just a teeny section of the postcard of what I'm doing with these colors. Plans are to finish it over the weekend & I'll post it here, on Monday.