Today was a Good Day

It rained hard in southern California yesterday.

I have a dog visitor in addition to Bella. When the weather folks began talking about this rain last week, I began to dread it coming. The dogs hate the rain and stay in the house and the studio under foot all day long. Drives me crazy. So this morning when we woke up and the sun was shining, we were all happy.

I dyed some yardage that I didn't like one more time. Had coffee with my sister. Worked in the garden. Block printed a quilt top.

The quilt top is interesting. I've dyed this particular piece at least six times. After the second dye bath, I thought the piece was lost. One good thing about working with folded fabric in the low water immersion process is the large amount of white space. So if you don't like the results of the first dye bath, or the second you can just keep dyeing away.

My primary issue with this piece was that terrible washed out somewhere between rust, puke and flesh color that you sometimes get when dyeing two colors. I so dislike that color. Also I thought I dyed the piece midnight blue and rust, it came out light blue and that other color. This was one of a huge batch of pieces I dyed at one time. Sometimes, I have a senior moment and completely forget what I'm doing, especially if I am dyeing ten or more pots at one time.

Anyway, the dyeing on that piece is completed and today I block printed the center of the fabric with a silver metallic ink in a harlequin pattern. (My mother used a Jack Lenor Larsen harlequin patterned wall paper and drapery fabric in our living room and dining room when I was a kid.)

The block I used creates many possibilities for quilting. At the moment I'm thinking I might pick up the square created by the two positive areas of the diamond. The borders would be quilted in some variation of a square pattern. I know it's not fair to write so much about a piece you haven't seen. Patience.

There is a 48 inch square piece of this fabric left over and I plan to overdye it with a rich chestnut brown tomorrow.

I also  listed a set of four fat quarters. (The images are the fat quarter. Tomorrow I'll post some images of the quilt top.) These are the last of the fat quarters. The remainder of the fabric from the week of batch dyeing will become quilt tops and shawls or stoles. I'll begin listing the quilt tops tomorrow. The shawls and stoles need to be hemmed and fringed, so they will take a while.

Quilt Visions in San Diego has called for quilts on the topic of Fantasy Flowers. Small format due by April 1st. I'll probably make four or five, send two to Quilt Visions and sell the rest in my 1000markets store.

So I'm rocking and rolling along.

Good news to share tomorrow, stay tuned.