Best laid plans

No pics tonight. I have been scrambling around all week trying to get everything done before we leave town. Not going to happen.

The fabric for the custom order took longer to arrive than I planned, the dyes struck the fabric at an alarming speed, so had to do several colors over. I will have to shoot for the end of the month.

I did manage to get the top put together for the kids' Christmas gift. My savior (Jamie) at the quilt shop agreed to quilt it before Christmas.

The dog knows something is up. We put the luggage next to the front door and he hasn't let us out of his sight since. He and we love his sitter. Cinnamon (yes, that's her name) stays here when we're gone and I thing she spoils him worse than we do.

I will return with pics and a golden tan!

Preparing for the Holidays

I overslept this am, so have been rushing around trying to get stuff done before I leave for work. I managed to assemble 13 Christmas cards (need edges finished), sew 12 blocks for the kids quilt and rinse out 12 yards of fabric.

I have an order for 88 yards custom fabric. I had this novel idea that maybe I should run test swatches (is a yard a swatch?) this time. I will be using Egyptian instead of the regular 200 TC which costs more. The Egyptian is on order and I want to have all my recipes ready when it arrives. I want to have this in the mail to Judy before we leave town.


I fudged on the cards this year. We will be gone Dec 10 - Dec 20 so I just won't have the time to design and make them from my fabrics. Oh well, they are still handmade and come from the heart. I still have several rows of the king sized quilt to finish for the kids. Not sure if I will have time to actually quilt it thought. They may receive only the top.

Here are the basic materials for the cards. Only 20 more to go!

Random Images

I was clearing old images off the camera when I came across a few that I thought would be interesting. Above is a common sight here in the Northwest. The ridge lines are covered in these. I find them strangely beautiful.


Tray dyeing in my state of the art studio!



View from my patio this summer. We have some of the most awesome sunsets. Sunrises aren't bad either.

Test runs for Judy's newest order. Normally I just jump in, but I will be using Egyptian for this, so don't want too many oops pieces.


This is my dream studio. It is actually a horse barn down the road from us. I would buy this property in a heartbeat just for the barn.

Supernova

Something new!!! I love this fabric. I haven't been this excited about a technique since I first learned how to dye. The color combinations are endless. Off to do some more.

Wax on, Wax off

Spent the day with Loretta playing with thickened dyes, thiox and silkscreens. This is one of my work aprons that didn't turn out as planned. Of course it probably would have helped if I had a plan!

Before discharge:



After Discharge:


Now I just need to put down a few more layers.

Face time with the laptop

Some days I have to force myself to sit down at the laptop. My stores desperately needed updating, so finally got to work on the one at Bonanzle. Here's the link for the store. http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/annettewink You can see a few of my items at left. Pictured is a few of the items I put up for sale. Gotta run for now. I'm on a roll!

Tabs and other random thoughts

Tabs, the kind on your web browser. How many do you have open at any given time? 2, 4, 8....?I just counted my tabs and29 is a little extreme even for me! I don't like bookmarks as it requires you to search for whatever page you want. Well there are some days that I don't know what I want. I'm looking for inspiration.

Here is a sampling of my open tabs:

I love the rotating gallery on the SAQA home page.
http://www.saqa.com/index.aspx

Go here if you are looking for inspiration.
http://www.surfacedesign.org/default.asp

I love Rayna's blog. I want here life.
http://studio78notes.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

Hmmmmm...... not one of my pages. Well at least DH didn't close out the entire browser like he normally does.
http://www.mgshooters.com/shooterinfo.htm

One of my online stores. There are a few pieces of fabric and a bunch of random fiber pieces.
http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/annettewink

Here's the other one.
http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Badger-Canyon-Hand-Dyes__W0QQ_armrsZ1

We want to retire here someday. Will have to settle for a winter vacation for now. I think this would be an awesome place to open a surface design retreat.
http://www.google.com/search?q=costa+rica&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Project Runway, need I say more?
http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/project-runway/about-project-runway

This is the owner of my LQS. I love this lady, she really does enjoy teaching new quilters. She has helped me along on my twisted journey.
http://www.villagequiltworks.com/workshop.html

Think I'll go dig thru all those old bookmarked pages. This ought to be interesting.

Something Fun

I am trying to jump start my creative engine, but I'm having some difficulty. I just can't seem to dive into my projects with the single minded drive I used to. I have several things I need to get done besides the normal Christmas stuff. I know it's only August, but you have to start early.

This is something fun I put together this morning. Thought it may help the process. I took a toddlers jean jacket, removed the sleeves and made a backpack. Added a little hand dyed lace I had laying around, lined with a piece of hand dyed fabric and voila! a fun little bag.

Oh, the background fabric is something new I am playing with. I had some dyes dry out in the garage, so instead of wasting them I decided to play. I soaked some fabric in soda ash, crumpled it into trays, sprinkled the dried up dyes over it and added some extra dye powder. I'll get some pics of the other pieces and post them next time.

Marbling Day

Today was another wonderful day weather wise. Whinny and I decided to take advantage of it a get some marbling done. I prepared the fabrics and sodium alginate last night so we were ready to roll first thing this morning.

These are our mop up rags. The full size fabrics are still hanging in the garage. I want to make sure they cure a little before heat setting them.









Works in progress. Beautiful workshop huh? I really can't complain too much, hubby gave up his side so I could have the extra space.




Looks like this is at the end of the road for the size. Pretty yucky looking after 12-14 yards.


Ran out of hanging room. Driveway works pretty well!


More works in progress. I think a few of these will be fantastic.


Here's Whinny busy laying down paint. She got a lot less artistic about getting that stuff down. When you're working in one yard pieces, it really doesn't matter how you get it on there as it takes a lot to fill it.

That's it for me tonight. My back is really talking to me about bending over the tray all day.

Recharge

The new year has arrived, and it is time to take stock and recharge my creative batteries. I thought I would share a few of my pieces today.

Here is a rust dyed piece. I just love the organic feel of these.





This piece is available here--->
http://tinyurl.com/8hhmb5

Here is a bright and shiny piece to brighten even the darkest day.




This piece is available here--->
http://tinyurl.com/7gn54p

That's all I have time for this morning. Have to get busy taking down the tree. The sooner I get the holiday stuff taken care of, the sooner I can focus on new work.

Last ones, I promise

I swear these will be the last holiday photos I post this year. I am really looking forward to getting back to being creative. My fabrics have been calling to me. I do this every year. Spend weeks preparing for the holidays until I'm burned out on it. I think I have hit the wall, so it must be time to drag out the dyes again.

Holiday update

Well as you can see, we haven't gotten very far with the decorating. After 2 trips to town for more lights I was able to get the garland and angle on. It has been a little hard to get motivated this year, as the kids and grand babies won't be here this year. I did talk with the G-baby yesterday via Skype, so was able to show her the tree etc.....


A few of my much treasured ladies that go on the tree each year. When we bought this tree I found normal sized ornaments got lost on it. All of the over sized ones I could find were cheap looking plastic. After wracking my brain it dawned on me that the angles that go on top of the tree would be the perfect size. I cut the plastic cone out and added wire to the back.



Close up of the garland I custom made to fit the tree. I had all of these beautiful ornaments that were dwarfed by the tree, so I took lengths of fabric and beads and created my own garland. The ornaments were wired on every 18" or so. The downside of course is I am stuck with the same color scheme each year (burgundy, gold & white). Maybe I'll get busy some year and do another other colorway.

Celebration!

I have finally finished editing all my listings on eBay. I started with 300+, ended with 268 I think. Every one of the listing had to be updated for shipping, price, return policy's, etc.........

So to celebrate my loving husband decided it was time to begin the holiday tradition of setting up the tree. This is a huge event in our house. It entails many hours of hard physical labor, quite a bit of mumbling bad things under your breath and dodging varies animals underfoot.

Here is my husband trying (unsuccessfully) to convince blue his services are not needed. We did manage to get the tree into the house and assembled. Loving husbands part is finished for now while I "fluff" branches. His services will be required to help hang the lights. The tree is 15 feet tall, so I am not able to climb the ladder holding 100's of feet of lights, and hang said lights without some help.

Here is another member of the crew. Boo sticks to supervising, unlike Blue who feels the need to be hands (paws) on.



Yep, definitely supervisor material.



Doesn't he look proud of himself? I am not looking forward to bringing in the ornament boxes. Blue is only 8 months old, and everything on the floor is a toy. Things could get very interesting around here.



These are a few of the Christmas cards I have managed to complete while I edited listings. I don't know about the rest of you, but I must do something creative most days or go crazy. Spending hours on the computer editing HTML about cooked my brain.





Here is the tree in all it's unfinished glory. I'll keep the camera handing to update our progress.