Little Miss Gardener, Blog Hop Party, and Give-Away

This Give Away is now Closed.

How about a Blog Hop Party with Give-Aways?

It's being organized by Michele Foster over at Quilting Gallery.
I'm taking part.  I'll share what I'm giving away in a bit, but first, a little more of Little Miss Gardener, much more quilted, but not yet done. Life just keeps throwing little surprises my way, but she will get done--hopefully, I'll have her completed before we get too far into the weekend.

As a reminder, here's the top, completed last weekend:

 And here are some of the quilted nine-patches and snowballs:

 Yes, quite a few thread changes.

 I especially love the plumes I'm quilting in the snowballs.  

While I'm using Fil-Tec Glide thread for most of the quilting, I'm using Fil-Tec Affinity on the pale aqua.  Affinity is much like Glide but is variegated.  This has soft blues.

 Yes, this quilt is being made on my Necchi BU in a treadle cabinet.

 And, yes, it's really easy to forget one is treadling--and the exercise is a great bonus.

 I've been asked to show how I do the plumes in the snowball blocks, so I plan to do that in an upcoming post.

 And now for the give-away.  These are eight of my hand-dyed fabrics.

I began dyeing some of my own fabrics sixteen or seventeen years ago--inspired by a lovely lady, a former student in Chattanooga, who wanted fabrics "in the colors I see in my head."  Of course, shortly after I began dyeing, children entered my life, limiting my sewing and quiltmaking time.  Every once in a while I'd steal some time and do more dyeing--which has resulted in shelves well stocked with an array of colors more likely to be found in someone's head than in stores.  I used unbleached and bleached muslin in 36" width and, occasionally, I splurged on Kona cotton. These were dyed from narrow fabric, so they are not quite the same size as the "fat quarters" most of us are familiar with today.

The colors above are a grape-y violet, dark fuchsia, sky blues, sea blues, and a blue green.  All were dyed by mixing Procion MX dyes from Dharma Trading and with very little movement in the dye bath (usually in Solo cups) so the textures are lovely.  About the same time my quilting friends back east were ordering their dyes from Pro Chemical & Dye, and here we are years later, still saying we should do some kind of exchange of our hand dyed fabrics.  (Pro Chem is having a sale on their dyes through August 31, including PRO MX Grape, which is hard to find in an MX dye.)

If you would like this little bundle of fabrics, here's what you need to do to enter the drawing:
1. Be a follower.  Leave a comment telling me you are a follower and something about your quiltmaking endeavors or your first quilt--or if you are not yet a quilter, what you'd like to be able to make.

That's it.  No other hoops to jump through.  We'll draw a winner September 5.  I'm willing to ship this little bundle internationally.
It would be a good idea to check your settings and be sure you are not a no-reply blogger.  I'll e-mail the winner and post the name of the winner on this blog. (And if the winner does not respond, I will do another drawing.)

Please be aware that if you are a no-reply blogger, I will not be able to contact you if you win.  It would be okay to leave your e-mail address in your comment.

You might want to head over to Michele's and check out more blogs and more give-aways. (She says she expects the list of links to be up shortly after midnight in the wee hours of August 26.) Sounds like fun Sunday surfing and the chance to make some new blogging friends.

Happy quiltmaking....

Robin's Song Quilting Complete....

  ...except for being signed, and it still needs binding.

 I quilted feathers with s-spines in the borders--3 different colors of thread, alternating a Fil-Tec Glide green, a Fil-Tec Glide pearl, and a ThreadArt variegated that ranged from almost ivory through apricot.

 The border is beautiful, but, boy, did I get tired of rethreading the machine.  I like the effect, but I don't think I'll try so many color changes on a border again--at least not for a while.

 I do love the serenity this border adds to the quilt. This quilt was made from two Moda charm packs, 3 Sisters' Papillon, from a quilt designed by Mary Lane Brown from the old Florida cracker pattern and featured on the Moda Bake Shop. This quilt was made entirely on my ca. 1940's Necchi BU in a 1919 Singer treadle cabinet. (Yep, it represents a lot of treadling!)

 And this is the little lady who will receive the quilt.  Blanche is almost five months old, and look at the personality in that face and those eyes.  Her mother's eyes were equally as deep blue at that age. (Blanche was designed by Karen and Max and named for Karen's paternal grandmother, who died almost 60 years ago.)

Now that I'm pretty much finished with the fun of quilting, it's time to get the binding cut and applied. I once let a quilt sit around for almost a year waiting for the binding to be sewn to the back!  I need to be a bit quicker this time. I'm pretty sure I should have cut out the binding when I pieced the quilt--would have made it less painful!

I'm going to link to Connie Kresin's Quilting by the River:

as well as Quilt Story:

and, in the hope that this won't be a WIP for long, to Esther's Blog (sorry, tried numerous times to paste the html for Esther's pretty little badge, but it didn't work).

...blogs where you can catch up with and be inspired by what a lot of other quiltmakers are working on this week.

Happy quiltmaking.......

Robin's Song Blocks Complete

Advisory:  Another Picture-Bounteous Post

I am happy to report that the Robin's Song block quilting is complete--although I will still check for missed spots.

At least temporarily, the best part of all this quilty goodness is that I will now be able to begin on the quilty-wonderful borders!
I'm quilting this on a Necchi BU from the late 1940's in a 1919 Singer treadle stand.  The variegated thread is from Thread Art, but the other quilting threads are Fil-Tec Glide available from www.bobbincentral.com ...And, if I'd realized I'd end up using mostly the pearl colored Glide in the bobbin, I would have ordered a bunch of their Magna-Glide bobbins.  I realize many people may look at those little bobbins with nothing but a round magnet at their core and think they wouldn't work in our vintage class 15 bobbin cases.  However, they are absolutely a delight to use!

I'm thinking this means I can actually link to some of those linky parties in my left sidebar!

Happy quiltmaking......

Green?....

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

Back during the wicked weather of January and early February, I began these so I'd have something green and special to wear for St. Patrick's day.  I'm thinking it's likely that too much time was spent while I watched a few movies with my hands were pausing.  Anyway, they're not quite long enough, so I can't wear them today.  (I'm wearing a Kelly green knit top instead.) 
And for my green activity, I'll be working on some quilts using one of my people-powered sewing machines (PPM).  That counts as green, right?

I thought I might have lunch at my outdoor table since we're supposed to have the warmest day we've had thus far this year.  But we also have high winds and regional fire danger, so I'll have to be content with eating inside, since I wouldn't want my lunch to blow to the next county! Here's our current wind/fire danger map, courtesy of www.weatherbug.com

I'm taking comfort in the fact that it's still yellow and not red--which is what we'll see later this afternoon.

Have a fun St. Paddy's Day.