Wolf's Den

'Imperial Garden, June 2006'

Both Commercial and Hand Dyed fabrics, Beads, Metal Charms, Genuine Goldstone
Hand sewn, hand dyed, hand beaded, hand painted
Approx. 9 3/4" wide x 11 1/2" long x 1/2" thick at center.
Triple layered quilting in center.

(2 Color Run Series I : Wanderer's Garden, 2006)

Finished size -11"w x 6 3/4" l
Completely hand dyed, and handsewn.
Kona Cotton fabrics, Czech pressed glass beads, metal word plaque, fun fiber, single button, 
hand painted and melted pieces of Tyvek, metal watering can charm





To be listed at Dante's Spirit.

Why yes I am, why do you ask?

So I was straightening up various papers and magazines on my cluttered desk(yes I do that once a week), and I had these scrap pieces of fabric a kind person on the QuiltArt list had sent me, laying out. 
Well I moved them aside, threw out some stuff and turned around to put them back when I saw this....



Mind you, not as neatly stacked, but in that general idea and configuration. I had planned to make 3 seperate artquilts from them. they had other plans for themselves apparently.



All three have very different textures and patterns. But they compliment each other beautifully. They even have a name already.

(Front)

Lap/Baby Quilt
Hand dyed/Sunprinted fabrics, Hand sewn

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The back of Dante's Quilt has been sewn together. 2 borders, 5 inches wide each on the sides, 4 and 5 inches wide on the top and bottom.
Unfinished size right now is 60" wide x 99" long. I expect the finished size to roughly be 61-62" wide x 101-102" long( 8.5 ft long x 5.1 ft wide or 6324 sq inches or 43.35 sq feet ). Yes, it is all hand dyed, and hand sewn thus far. Took 2 days to sew all 8 border strips on the back. Unfortunately, I don't have a wall tall enough to display the entire length, so the top quarter is draped over the door. But the top looks like the bottom. So use your imaginations}:P
Two more days I'll have the front sewn together, then I'll need to workon the budget to buy two packages of precut King sized batting for the middle. I say 2 because it will have 2 layers of batting with Dante's shed fur spread and quilted in between. I have two bags of it waiting already. Might get a third bag when she starts blowing coat to make sure I have more than enough. And yes, I'm serious. I believe they call this types of quilts 'memory' or 'album' quilts. Way back in the frontier days, they used to sew bits of hair, paper, leafs, etc, into quilts to remember people/places by. One of these days I'll remember what they actually call them. Or maybe I'm just imagining this.



The Boys are currently very unhappy with me. I think the shots yesterday at the vet's made them sore. Neither slept on the bed last night. Max hid in his box, Aries slept downstairs in his chair. They're moving very slowly and Aries actually snarled at me when I went to pick him up. O.o If they are still this way tomorrow, I'm calling the vet. They did eat breakfast tho, so they aren't that bad off.



Nyx, the black Gerbil, is conspiring to turn me into a zombie or a night owl. I haven't quite deduced which yet. Between the hours of 3am and 4am, he wakes up and decides it's time for me to be awake for several hours as well. he then proceeds to gnaw on the loudest thing he can find. Obnoxious little bugger that he is, he also refuses to sit still for more than 1 second, hence the fuzziness of the above photos. He is fat, sleek and quite pleased with his various stashes of pumpkin seeds and corn.



Dante is doing good. Some mornings she moves slower than others. But over all, she runs up and down the hill, and gets tangled around trees like a dog half her age. She keeps me on my toes and while her health remiins excellant, she's nearing the age where I'm waiting for something, ANYTHING, to go wrong. So I spend as much time as the currently cold again weather will allow me with her. Her black mask has faded alot more in the past 6 months. It's more charcoal grey and fawn now than black. Her appetite remains good, she loves raw bones, she loves any and all treats she can get. And she allows me photos such as this. What more could anyone ask for?

She doesn't yet know she has a 6 month check up vet appointment in May. She'll be 12 years and 6 months old then. I'm still looking for 15 years tho.}:P Would prefer forever, but I'll settle for 15 years with her.

Am getting tired of being asked if I dyed my hair for St. Patty's Day. Have a new color- Ultra Violet. I'm considering bleaching the remaining Green Envy out rather than waiting for it to wash out, then redyeing it with Ultra Violet. Might do that tomorrow. We'll see.

The real reason why it takes so long to finish a new piece.  I left the room for 5 minutes and came back to this.




They don't care what it is that I'm working on, just that they get to sleep on it. In this case, the backing for Dante's Quilt.


The hair is now Green Envy, instead of striped.

Today was stock up on pet stuffs and run errands day. Its also pay a few bills day. Heh.

Only just stopped to eat something finally. No wonder I was running out of energy.

Ordered a book at Barnes and noble last week, "Shibori-Creating Color and Texture on Silk". Picked that up today. Gorgeous photos in this sucker. Can't wait to try some of the the techniques in it. Knew I was saving that 11+ yards of silk for a reason. No I still haven't even opened the wrapping on it. Heh.
Picked up a book on Eddie Guerrero for Mark. Eddie G was/is his favorite wrestler who died a few months back. The book is is autobiography. Mark's been asking me to get it for him when I could for awhile now. I finally remembered.

Stocked up on Dante's food, canned and dry, got more treats for her. She loves the sample sized Natural Balance food rolls. Wish I could afford to buy the 2lb size for her. They'd last a day at least as a treat.

Went by the vet's to get the Boys' canned food. They still have 2 Katrina cats left. They adopted out the two that had to go together. Tabitha and China are such sweethearts and so lovable, I doubt they'll be there much longer. Seems a news broadcast was done on them and the kids at Back Creek Elementary did something for them as well. Got the Boys more LeanTreats(Butler makes them). They love them. also got a 4 pack of 'crinkle balls' for Max. He'll have two of them shredded in a week. He absolutely loves anything that crinkles.

Got lots of Vitakraft treats for Rufus and Puck. Got Puck a new timothy hay 'Hide-a-way Hut'. He loves to chew them to pieces. Rufus still has his timothy hay ball, so he was fine in that department. Nyx is still mad at me for completely tearing apart his setup and washing it all down on him. You'd think he'd be happy with the wooden 'Fiddle-Sticks' thingy to chew on, hide in, climb over, but noo.... ah well, he'll get over it. Besides, he's getting fat, and needs more exercise, so having to run around and find new hiding places for his pumpkin seeds will be good for him.

Stopped by the gas station on the way home. Some things never change. Donna was there by herself. Seems the schedule had been screwed up and she had to work the entire shift herself. She was not happy about that. Saw a few of the regulars while I was there. They all say they miss seeing me, asked what I was up to. commented on the hair, etc.

*pauses to give Aries attention as he walks between me and the keyboard*

Its windy as all get out right now. But nice and warm. So I have the windows open at the back and front of the house to create a crossbreeze. My Earth windchime I hung up in here, it's catching gusts as they come through the window. Nice and soothing, a good counterpoint to the traffic noise and the noise of the other windchimes out front, as this one is a deeper tone than them. Really need to restring Cathedral Bells this spring, so it'll sound better.

My neighbor is funny. When the Saturn was in the shop, he thought Mark had left. He never came over to knock on the door cause he was afraid to. So when Mark asked him why he never looked in the window to see if the PS2 was on, he said he did, but the TV was always on, and "You don't watch TV, man!" Poor Chris. He never said anything to me, and he'd seen me a few times while the Saturn was gone. Sheesh.

Speaking of the Saturn. Mark had to drop it off at the dealership again. He had no parking lights and just figured that out. Seems they blew a fuse and didn't know it. So they fixed the fuse for free. Changed out the bulb on the left front turn signal of the Demon Truck. And it still doesn't work. *headdesk* Still have to change out the burned out bulb on the plate light. Amazing hyow much better it runs when it's not a quart low on oil as well. Added water to the radiator too. Runs smoother and with less heat now. Hopefully we'll be getting the driver's side door fixed sunday. Gotta figure out what's up with the damn turn signal though.

Did some dishes earlier. Mark and I came up with a deal, I'll wash, he puts away.}:) Works so far. Now if I can get him to pick up after himself in the living roomn, we'll be set.

Was supposed to go to Danville this sat for a birth day party for Mikayla and Dale. She'll be 5 on Sat. He'll be, who knows how old. 34 I think. His sister is coming up with her daughter and several of her daughter's friends, from North Carolina. So there'll be a good 5-6 5year olds running around. Never been happier to hear that Mark has to work on Sat. We can deal with Azrael and Mikayla, but not 3-4 other kids as well as them. Mark's parents aren't even coming from Jersey because that's too many kids for his dad to deal with either. Heh.

The wind through the Oaks out back sounds like a dull roar, building to a crescendo as it bursts through the windows, stirs the Chimes and rushes out the other window again, on its way past the side of the house, tickling the Chimes there next.

There was pollen on my windshield this morning. Spring is definately on its way.

Have 2-3 yards of fabric currently in a dye bath. I didn't have the color I wanted, so I mixed 2 colors together to get what I wanted. Hopefully the fabric will look as nice as the dye bath does. this is the last of the fabric I needed to have everything for Dante's Quilt. After I rinse it and it dries, I can frinally start cutting and laying out the design. This will be my first full sized quilt, approximately Queen-sized. Will be interesting to see how long it takes.

*picks up papers and cd cases from floor* That was a impish gust of wind that time. No wonder the fire danger is high today.

Remember this post?

Well I finished 4 postcards for Fiber Art For A Cause.



Only 4, but that's for more than they would have had. They weren't hard to make, took maybe 4-5 hours each, from concept to design to handsewing to completely finishing.

They'll be sent to Virginia Spiegal tomorrow. They go on sale at the International Quilt Show in Chicago, in April. Here's hoping all of them sell.}:)

To see more photos of my postcards, go ( here. )

I'd been interested in making Fiberart Postcards for awhile now. Haven't really gotten around to it. Seemed something else needed to be made first, needed to be tried first.

Heard about Fiberart For A Cause via an email list I am on. It lingered on the peripheral of my thoughts, as something to look at, to check out and see what it was all about.

Emails came and went for the past few weeks, still I didn't check it out.

Finally today, I took a break from dyeing stuff, went through my fabrics and pulled out scraps and fat eighths and set them aside. I already had a booklet of 15 Strathmore watercolor postcards that I'd picked up several months ago. I decided that today was the day to try making a fiberart postcard.



My brother had testicular cancer. My dad had prostate surgery a number of years ago, a spot of cancer was found and removed. A good customer from when I worked at the store had breast cancer, under went chemo and was clean for 2 years. It came back with a vengeance. She recently under went a double mastectomy.

My Dante had a brush with cancer, granted she's a dog, but cancer is cancer. And who's to say that when we find a cure for human cancer, we won't also cure cancer in our pets.

I have until March 15th to get these postcards done. I have 8 planned and the bases ready to be put together. Hopefully I'll be able to donate those, if not more.

If any of you are interested in attempting to make some and send them in, here's a couple good links on how to make them.

http://www.art2mail.com/faq.html
http://debrichardson.blogspot.com/2005/09/how-to-make-fabric-postcard-debr-style.html

Mark's work was getting rid(destroying) spools of 'outdated' embroidery thread. The employees were allowed to take what they want. His boss said I could come pick out whatever colors I wanted. There are at least 100 different colors for a total of 113 spools of rayon embroidery thread. Perfect for handsewing. Its very similier to Sulky rayon thread, which I generally use and is expensive. THIS was all FREE.

Aries investigating while Max lounges in the background. Each full spool, the ones wrapped in plastic, have 5500 yards of thread.

That's roughly 16,500 FEET of thread per spool. The photos are untouched as far as color contrast etc. Talk about being able to threadpaint til the cows come home}:P

For a comparison, that's a full, plastic wrapped spool from Mark's work, on the left. On the right, is a 250yard spool of Sulky thread.

Downpours and showers nearly all day yesterday. Today, cloudy grey skies and windy as Hel. Sounds about right.

The sun keeps trying to peek through, it manages it for all of 2-3 seconds and disappears again. The Oak leaves on the groundf out back are being swirled around by mini cyclones of wind gusts. The Boys are being endlessly entertained by this.

Took the Earth windchime (I have the bronze version, and I guess they don't make my Cathedral Bells anymore, huh)down from the tree out back, so it wouldn't get blown off and damaged. Mark called me silly when I asked him to do so, but the hook it was on, wasn't an enclosed style, so it could have slipped off.

Mark got a 50cent raise this past payday. Jumped his paycheck by nearly 100.00, before taxes, 50-60.00 after. So that really helps. He's taking his last class at collage before he gradautes, with an Assoc degree I believe. He wants to go for the next degree above whatever this one is , next.

The Boys are hyper. Aries keeps running through here, jumping up on the deesk, zipping past me, around and across the design table and back out again, while Max watches from the floor until he jumps down, then chases after him.

Speaking of Max-

It's hard to work on a new piece (number 1 in the series of 4) when one or the other of the Boys, usually Max tho, decides to come sleep on it, very nearly the second I put it down. By the way, those of you on dialup- I made the file size of the photo smaller, let me know if it loads any faster for you, or not. Yes he is defiately feeling much better. He's playing and is more lavable now than he was before he got sick. Aries too. Heh.

In case anyone missed it, there's two new small quilted wallhanging pieces for sale here.  And the other piece is here. Not that I expect them to sell, as while I appreciate the compliments in regards to my work, this just doesn't seem to be the place for people to be willing to buy any, other than Saysh, but even that piece wasn't really displayed here, that was discussed via AIM.}:P But, it is the compliments and such that give me the encouragement to continue at any rate. So thank you all for that.}:P When I have the spare money again, I'll go back to eBay. But in the meantime, I shall build up my number of pieces and try for a showing at the Mojo Cafe within the next year.

( Leaves Series )

For saysh -

Front-

Back-

"Mikayla's Sunrise"

From This, two days ago-

To this, after tonight-

And here it sits, as I'm not quite decided as to how I want to quilt it. Its got two layers to quilt- the actual sunrise part, and the background sky part. So its currently hung up and I'm waiting for it to tell me how it wants to be quilted.

This morning, I woke up to this-

I have my scraps seperated into three bins. This was courtesy to this Boy-

His 'Good morning, now love on me.' look.

( This is what the studio looks like now )

As you can see, I've been busy. There are 6 projects up on the line. A seventh is on the design table. Max is sleeping in the box by the window, heh.

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( With The Boys, several large pictures... )

This was the second piece I'd finished , it was a Gift for aithlyn -

( Five pictures, some large. )

This quilted wallhanging only took 10 minutes to design and less than 2 weeks to completely finish. Fastest I'd ever finished a piece yet.

I have veiledone to thank for the inspiration of this piece.}:P

( Warning Large Photos... )

( Warning, many photos, some rather large. )