Busy

Some of the things that have been keeping me busy lately. 

Dying with rust.  That will get it's own post soon.  It's totally fun.

A name tag challenge via my Modern Quilting Guild.  I used some of the linen that we dyed with indigo and was inspired by denim badges of the seventies.  Funny how even when I don't use denim, I use denim...sort of.

And my parents have been visiting.  During which time, my husband and father put up a shed and we (Well, mostly they and a little bit I) built a coop and run for the chickens.  It's not quite done yet but it's incredible sturdy and I'm thrilled with it.  

Blown Out

Well, I had hoped to share pictures of our awesome both set up at Elver Park for the Fresh Air Craft Fair today.  But we got blown out.  Literally.  The vendor agreement said that the fair would go ahead rain or shine; it did not say that it would go ahead with crazy, gusty winds.

So here's our booth part way through being taken down.  That's when I remembered to take a picture.  It looked great and we actually held out longer than the people around us before the big wind came through.  The secret:  Attach the canopy to cinder blocks.  We were helping someone else keep her canopy from blowing away when the wind knocked everything off our table.

Look at the poor gourd lady.  This is when they cancelled the fair.  It was a bummer to do all that prep work and then have it cancelled but, ya know, shit happens and we met some nice people there.  Also, the wind distributed many of our new business cards far and wide.  

So on to planning our Etsy Shop opening.  It's May 21st  and I'm too superstitious to make a crack about the weather not being able to affect that opening.  

Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road!!!!!!!!

So, this will seem pretty random but when I was in college, I had to bring in a song to learn for Musical Theatre class.  I knew nothing about sheet music or what to pick so I asked the guy at the shop to pick for me.  I don't remember which song he picked but it was from the musical "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road".  I think the reason I don't remember the name of the song is that I never sang it.  My teacher said he didn't want to spend the semester hearing it over and over again so we picked an old standard from the '40's for me to sing.  It was actually pretty funny.

In any case, any time I am getting myself organized my brain shrieks: I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road!  And that is what is ringing in my head because I am vending at a craft fair (My first in years) this coming Saturday.

I made cards.  I sewed on them a little bit.  

We're probably going to change the design eventually so I only made 40.  

It doesn't seem sustainable to always sew on our business cards but I like the way it looks.

I made a big ol' sign.  I sewed on that, too.

But you can't really see the stitching unless you're up close to it.  I need to fix that somehow.  I don't want to sew on it too much because it perforates the paper and if I do too much, it will fall apart.  

I have some stuffed animals.

Jewelry out of electronic components in muffin tins...Yes that's right, muffin tins.  They're good for storage.  

Pin cushion bonanza!

Jewelry out of tee shirts and my partner has a lot of wool crowns and balls.

And I have the ability to take credit cards which feels like a super power.  I know there's butt loads more of stuff to prepare but I feel like I'M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER etc...  

PS - I still can't carry a tune.  That poor teacher was tortured by my singing for a whole year, 

Quilts Up!

Last night I joined my Modern Quilt Guild at the Alicia Ashman Library to help put up our first annual quilt show!  It was a blast.  I use the term "help" for what I did loosely because my feet were having a bad day, but I did offer some moral support.

Check out the picture on the ad, it's of one of mine.  :)

We first piled them up roughly by size.  There are so many beautiful quilts in the show.  At first we didn't think there would be room for all of them.

After some measuring and figgering we realized we had the room but just barely.  Which is perfect, really.  One doesn't wish for blank spaces when hanging a show.

There were two basic hanging areas, here by the magazines.

Check out the Mrs's Courageous Pantses:

They were calmly and coolly hanging stuff up so high that looking at them from the ground made me dizzy.

Up goes the denim quilt I made for the Project Quilting Challenge.

I have to say I feel like mine kinda stick out in that they are the only really heavy, not made out of quilting cotton ones there.  No judgement of either kind of quilt there (I've made lighter ones before), just an observation.

How cool is that.  Giant book quilt in a library.

Please indulge my abuse of the panoramic feature.  It's just fun to do.

This one's by the bathroom  

And so it this one.  It's my corduroy quilt.  I almost didn't get to hang it.  In my mad rush to get out the door, I drilled too wide of a hole on the hanging pole thing for one of the eyehooks.  I threw some wood glue in the hole but there was no time for it to dry and honestly, the glue wouldn't have done the job for the two months this monster is slated to hang.  It really was unhangable.  It's just heavy as hell and really needed all the support it could get.  

I brought it along anyway.  I mentioned to one woman there that I need some wire or something to secure the eyehook to the pole and she pulled a short length of wire right out of her pocket.  Quilter to the rescue!  

Who carries wire in their pocket?  I may from now on.  You never know.

The rest are all hanging in the children's room.

They put all of the most colorful ones there.

There were some improvisational hanging techniques going on since we had more quilts than they had hanging apparatuses. 

This is my favorite one there. (Am I allowed to have a favorite?)  It's so simple but colorful and I love the layout.

Love it.

How cool is that?

This one matches the wood and the wall so well, it's like it was made for that space.

Finally, another library appropriate one that fut just right under a spotlight, like it was made to be put there.  

The quilts will be up through the end of June.  I hope you can stop by and see them!  

Labyrinth

Totally and completely finished!

I kept in a couple of pockets but cut them up for fun. 

I made sure the stitching was just on the outside of the pockets so they're still somewhat usable.  I went over the back side of the quilt with running stitch so it wouldn't have a blank space. 

Here's some gratuitous closeups.  Note the red wheels in the back ground.  That's my tree trunk table, pushed off to the side.

And yes, before you even ask, I did walk the labyrinth.  Several times.  It's a short trip.

When I turned it over I realized that the backing is upside down.  D'oh.

Nothing to do about it now except call it quirky.

I added a sleeve for a hanging rod at one end but I don't think it'll get use much.  Why would someone take up a giant hunk o' wall with this when it could be keeping you warm and toasty on your couch?

Also, check it out:

Someone else's picture of my OCD quilt up at Absolutely Art for the Habitat for Humanity ReStore benefit.  ...tee hee...

Queen of Corners

I'm soooooo close.  I attached the binding last night.  I had to stop though because of the corners.

I am not the Queen of Corners.

It's this double binding thing that I did for the first time on my last quilt.  I never looked into a better way to make corners - which I totally have down on the other way to make binding.  So, today my royal responsibility is to figure it out. 

I hope to have a finished quilt to show you tomorrow.  

Finally!

I'm done with the quilting!  

That's really all I have to report.

Second picture because the lighting isn't great.  But it'll be days before we get actual sunshine.  

By then, it should be all done.