The Watermelon Dress

Today was a fun day of dying a watermelon dress for Bella's 7 year old daughter who lives with her father.

We used a ready made white cotton dress from Dharma Trading and all their dye stuffs, too. Here is the Link.
First was a little green dye for the watermelon rind towards the base of the dress.

Bella did a great job of following Dharma's instructions!

We were surprised at how much red dye it took to do both the front and back of the little dress.

After all the dye had been carefully sponge-brushed onto the wet dress, we gently turned the big kitchen trash bag inside out to enclose the dress for it's overnight resting/soaking period down cellar.

We had fun and can't wait to see it when it's all finished!

This post is linked to Love Laugh Quilt's linky party! Link.

Hope you got to do some fun projects today, too!

Cooler Times

Here in New Hampshire, we were all breathing a huge sigh of relief that the thick, hot, muggy air has, at last, been swept away by a wonderful Canadian High! Cool and refreshing breezes danced in the sunlight and made you glad to be alive.

Below is the Upstairs Group of the Friday Quilters with Claire at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop on 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire.

We all work on our own projects, with or without our sewing machines, help each other out if we can, and share a story or a giggle.

From the Downstairs Gang, Maureen was hard at work designing a pouch for her beloved granddaughter, Ashley.

Maureen did this name piece on her embroidery machine. Really nice!

Sue was off at a family gathering for a loved one who had passed away, but Beverly, seen below,
was making progress on her circles design.

As she struggled with the layout of patterns, she made a decision to leave off the blocks that had any of the bright white.

We all liked it better without the white! Do you, too? Below is what it began to look like without the white blocks.

I have loaned Beverly my pair of "Red Glasses" for viewing those tricky value placements as this is very much a work in progress.
There are many more blocks to be made and Bev liked my suggestion that she might make pillow shams from the now-leftover white blocks.

As for me, I was lazier than usual and only finished stitching up a pair of Civil War pillowcases that feature a Mary Koval magenta madder paisley.

I was pleased to get them finished and to have used two yards of stash in a quick but inspired way.

The cheddar accents are a Judy Rothermel and you may click on any picture to enlarge it.

Before I go, I'd like to share a photo of two very dear friends of mine that I introduced to each other. On the left, is Frances, who is 99 years young and still enjoys a glass of wine now and then, but she quit smoking cigarettes when she was 85. 
And on the right, is my neighbor, Ilse, who at 83 is single handedly caring for her failing husband, Alfred (89), as well as keeping chickens and raising a great garden. These two remarkable women are my role models for graceful aging and I love them for it!

I had a few "Stars In A Time Warp" (link) blocks that got forgotten and here they are for you:

Happy quilting!

Magical Window Screens?

Ahhhh, turkey reds are on the discussion over at Barbara Brackman's Civil War Quilts blog.

It was delightful to be temporarily distracted from the intensely muggy air that seems to make the damned houseflies appear and constantly land upon you. Yes, that's right, I'm still trying to go without the AC when the temps are only in the 70's.

I had fun downstairs in the cool of the cellar but I refused to run the iron to press the above block!
Some other time, perhaps? 

Those reds were found in one of my ancient hoards of plastic scrap bags from Keepsake Quilting's Annual Tent Sale. If you happened to have missed that post, here is a link back to it so you can vicariously enjoy the fun of the hunt for bargain-priced quilting cottons. Link.

On Tuesday, yesterday, The Sunshine Club met at The Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center, and we enjoyed seeing each other's progress.

Beverly, above, has decided to use a classic black solid background for her soccer-based Tee shirt quilt for her grandson's high school graduation next year. She tried auditioning it and liked it!

Sue made great strides on her electric blue strippy quilt and already had it sandwiched and pin basted from home.

Sue was quilting merrily along and doing a great job at it!

You go, girl!

Before leaving, I gave a brief demonstration of the "Sausage Roll" pillowcase construction. There were no pictures of that, but if you wish to view the tutorial here is the link.

The reason that I left early is because I also join up with the Evergreen hand-sewing circle on the last Tuesday of each month.
Below you can see that I'm working on my hand hemming of my binding of Grand Illusion designed by Bonnie K. Hunter. Her pattern can be purchased here. It is soooo worth it! Thank you, Bonnie!

We had a great time sewing and chatting and even chomped a little chocolate, too! Our hostess, Camille, who owns the Evergreen Country Primitives Quilt Shop, had a sale basket of lovely Civil War cottons.

They had been precut into one-yard hunks that were priced at $5.25 each. Wheeeee! Those two fat quarters were at her regular price of $3.50 each, but who could resist those cuties???? Click to enlarge the picture.

Today, Matthew's fiance, Bella, celebrated her 27th birthday and we all wished her well! I took this photo of the dew at dawn on a cobweb for her card. Isn't nature spectacular?

Lastly, before I go, one more random pinwheel block snuck in here. Who left that window open?

I say keep the houseflies out, but let the random silly quilt blocks fly into your sewing room! Now those would be truly magical window screens, wouldn't they?

Happy quilting!

Upstairs and Downstairs on Friday Afternoons

Friday there was lots of going on, both upstairs and downstairs, at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop at 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire.

Here is Maureen, from the downstairs gang, holding up the first of her Christmas table runners. Looks great, Maureen!!

I took a close up of the fabrics so that you could see them better. Click to enlarge the picture.

The upstairs gang all laughed when I came to visit them with the chocolate dispenser, but they happily helped themselves, LOL!

Jan, below, had brought in her special project of re-covering her antique hassock with blue batik strips. Wow, it looks fabulous, Jan! Nice save! She also brought a delicious blueberry coffeecake, yummy!

Jan was working on that cute Sea Turtles pattern with the batiks.

Beverly, below, was working on the curved seams for her newest Drunkard's Path.

She had all her pieces cut out and matched together in stacks. Ready to sew?

You betcha!

Sue, seen below, was doing a new zipper pouch bag in an oriental fabric that had metallic gold printed on it.

She had wisely refrained from using it for the microwave bowl potholders!

Sue was also happy to show us her completed quilt in the medallion pattern. Wow, it came out so cool! Good job, Sue!

I stayed briefly to stitch a few 10" squares together to make more hourglass blocks as per Jenny Doan's tutorial on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's video. Remember these that I made on Tuesday? Link.

I also had gotten a much needed haircut, wheee!

It is muggy here and hot, so I have no desire to work on my hand hemming on my big quilt. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

On the other hand, I did finish up the little 40"X60" donation quilt that I had done as a Quilt-As-You-Go project.

This project used an Ebay scrap bag from Moda of their Country Orchard line from Blackbird Designs.

I did augment the strips with some pretty florals from my stash and made a scrappy binding, too.

That backing was a score from Marden's Department Store of Sanford, Maine!

The label and machine binding were "crude but effective" and I got it done. Done is better than perfect!

Linking up to So Scrappy Saturday, link.

And linking to Oh Scrap! Link.

And to Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt! Link.

Happy quilting!