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....