Sunday, December 27, 2015

Day 108

It's been three weeks since my last post.
YIKES!!
I hope you're enjoying the holiday season.
We've spent a lovely week at the beach and a couple of days
with our grand cherubs.
Fantastic and fun!!!


I've been inspired by some lovely designs 
from the latest Pottery Barn linens catalog.
Why not????
I had thought that there was only one Greek key design.
Am I the only one who thought that the above was 
THE GREEK KEY?
Come on, fess up!
If you look here, you'll discover many more designs.
So, I've carved one today....
and perhaps will make more in days to come.
As you may know, I love carving stamps.

I've finished embroidering the names on Maggie's family tree!
Yippee!!!


I've been in contact with several machine quilters,
and hve discovered that there may be a problem,
which had never occurred to me.
The machine quilter that I like is afraid that 
the embroidery on the backof Maggie's quilt
 may cause pulling on the quilting stitches.
Oh no!
She would like me to wait to do the embroidery until
after the quilting is finished.....
too late!!
I may just go with it and hope for the best.
Any suggestions?????

I've finally made it back out to my dye studio.
It's been three weeks.
I was in a deep blue funk,
and realize now it's because I haven't been dyeing.
As soon as I got out there and started mixing up dyes,
I felt 100% better.
Amazing!!
So, while this isn't much, it was plenty to lift my spirits.
Here is the first layer of one piece:


It is, as you must know, low water immersion 
on some heavy cotton.
I mixed three shades of yellow together,
and am really pleased with the varied and mottled result.
Below is a smaller piece of cotton that was also
low water immersion dyed with Pro Chem's scarlet.
Hmmmm, where will these two pieces end up?


I've been knitting up a storm:
 a sweater each for the kids for Christmas,
plus mittens for Charlie.
Of course, it's 70 here today,
so they won't need them just yet.
Right now I'm having a ball knitting the first sleeve 
of the Breckon Cardigan for myself.


The yarn had belonged to the sister of a knitting friend,
and for some reason she decided she didn't want it.
The friend brought it to our knitting group,
and I snapped it up....just enough yarn for this cardi!
It is lovely to work with.

I've also started the Stony Hill Scarf for myself,
out of some very cool Clara Yarns Shetland.
Thus far, the pattern is simply garter stitch,
so it's great for public and tv knitting.

That's it for today.

Thanks for dropping by.

Peace to you and yours








4 comments:

Carol said...

I'm loving your key stamp, Judy, and will eventually get to look at the link. Your stamps are great. I think your temperatures sound better than ours in this week of summer. Very cool, and lots of rain, which is annoying as we're at the beach. Still wonderful family gathering though and the kids are loving it. I hope you solve the quilt problem. How annoying... Happy new year, my dear friend, Carol xxx

queenopearls said...

Hi Judy and happy holidays, Christmas and such. :) Glad you have had such a great time! :)) I really love your new dye pieces and am always in awe of your knitting. Great idea with the stamping and carving a stamp too!
As for your longarm quilter... if she does an all-over edge-to-edge design, maybe she can quilt with the back on top instead so she can see any issues IF they come up. If she is doing a custom quilting job then she can quilt around the embroidery?
Happiest new year to you too! ~ Christina

Maggi said...

Love the stamp and I confess i hadn't realised there were so many Greek Key variations. The dyeing is so fresh and cheerful.

I wonder if you could do a small sample with the embroidery so your quilter, or you, could try it out and see what happens. I would have thought that, as the embroidery is on the back, it wouldn't catch but I don't know how long arm machines work.

Happy New Year dear friend xx

Laura McGrath said...

I know what you mean about not feeling right until you start dyeing SOMETHING again! And hope everything works out with the quilting of your embroidered piece, I've never heard of embroidering first, then quilting, I'd be worried that the quilting would mess up the embroidery design, hope it doesn't after putting all that work into it!