quilting road trip

Yesterday I went on a fabulous road trip with 3 girlfriends from my church quilting group.  We went to 6 quilt shops and the Herbert Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa.    It was a long day and I slept very well last night!  My favorite quilt shop was a quaint place called Helios Stitches n Stuff in the Old School Shops in Mount Vernon, Iowa.  Very arty with fun fabrics - it was my place!

Four yards of fabric came home with me:

Bees always catch my eye.  Someday all my bee fabric will go together into a quilt.

This piece screamed, "dye me".  

This looks stenciled.  Love the colours.  Had to have it.

Doodles!  This one came from Helios.  

Art Journal: Let the Blessed Sunshine In

Crazy Woman: Fall Attire

She reminds me of fall colours.  Maybe she needs a jacket with the cool weather we've had!

A to Z ...

I've been trying to come up with a brilliant idea for A to Z posts.  Something fabricy, quilty, creatively fresh and new.  Nothing...  Until I was cleaning my art pig sty this morning.  (Yes, it is a horrible mess, but I've dragged out 3 big bags of trash in the past few weeks so it must be getting better.)    Anyway, I came across a clipping from a magazine of a label on a lovely piece of fabric.  The name of the fabric was "raspberry tea".   I love the idea of fabric colours being named with food names.   How easy is that?  I just need to come up with 26 food colour names by April!  I think I can do this. 

Art Journal: Growing Brighter Every Day

I dug deeper into the old art supplies and came up with some mica chips to use on this page.

Art Journal: Let God's Sunshine In

Finding sunshine on a grey foggy morning...

Design layers

layer #1
ice dye using chartreuse and aqua dyes... too bright

layer #2
ice dye with nickel dye.... too dark

layer #3
stencil using paint

layer #4
??? What's next!?!