Kids On Adventure

I am leaving the pix small so you can click and enlarge.

Ben and Stephanie went off on a 'field trip' yesterday to find Blue Lake in the Cascades.  There are 2 of them in the cascades, so don't confuse Blue Lake with Blue Lake....

Anyway, they passed a waterfall, a sign in a cave and a fur tree...not a normal fir tree.

 The crossed a river, saw a graffiti wall. and mist in the hills.

 They saw this really large rock, many times, but where is the top?  Very strange.

 That sign for the cave??...well here is the cave.  This is Layser Cave, very famous here in WA state.  It doesn't look that large...until you see Ben standing in the opening.  The kids had to take a pick of the rocks of the cave ceiling....of course.

 They also passed 2 dams, here is one of them.  The bird.  That's the bird that scared the heck out of the kids....it just made a bunch of noise and popped out on the trail...coulda' been a bear!  That cool tree is next to the cave.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out here.  Quick, take a picture cause no one is gonna believe you......and quick take a pic of the cat before she sees the camera!

This is the MD cloth.  Now you can see the sheerness of the top fabric, the leaves, and the striped gauze fabric I have basted it to.  Oh...and that's one of the dogs.

oh yea....the kids found Blue Lake.  They were hiking to it when the bird jumped out and scared them.  After laughing for a few minutes, they gave up and went back to the car.

Meet My Leetle Friend

Subtitled "Something The Cat Dragged In"

Sub-sub-titled "Slug Guide: Hitchhiking"

The cat. She refused to speak on behalf of herself. 

And now onto to more clothy stuff.  I was itching to tear up some fabric last night. It started out as a secret garden kind of thing....until I happened across a couple of  black starry scraps....then the cloth suddenly took on a whole different look.

I even broke out the scissors for the star!  I had no intention of adding a mythical being to this....until I got a good look at the scrap of fabric I had cut the star from....

 ...there it was....a being shape....that gained a head shape...and a starboard to cruise the universe on....

in case you can't see it...i 'painted' around the original being shape

No Sun

This is the fabric I want to use for the Magic Diaries {MD} adventures many of us are taking with Jude over at Spirit Cloth.

My idea was for you to see Steph's silhouette holding up the cloth to get an idea of it's sheerness.

 But it doesn't work that well when Mr. Sun hides behind clouds....

You can almost see the 70's gauze fabric behind the print fabric.  I will get a better picture of it, hopefully, sometime this summer...

I love this print.  I think it's a 'curtain sheer'.  It's wide.  Not sure where I got it, I think it was remnant.  

Experiments

A while back I ordered these sample packs of fabric from Dharma Trading  just to see what fabrics are what.  And to play a bit maybe. I also like to know how a needle goes through the fabric.

Viscose [Rayon-a pure cellulose] Challis. Needle slides nicely thru the white part of the fabric, not the inked part because it's not rinsed well.

 And an even longer while ago, I had gotten a Dr. Ph Martin's India Ink set for Stephanie.

So since the inks, and Steph, were home for the summer, I thought I would play a bit.  These are 6 different fabrics, un-washed, that I dropped some ink onto...and a little water....and some salt on a couple.  Then put the tray on top of the fridge and left them for 2 days.  I then rinsed them out a bit and pressed with an iron to dry.  The samples come with the fabric name and  other info, sticker-ed  on them.

My Design Wall...for now

Thought it time to update how my design wall looks at the moment. 

 Closer view of the top half....

 ...and the bottom.  Yes, that is a flamingo on there...there is also a bumble bee hiding under the yellow piece. Megan's art.

 Below are samples of sheer silk on the bright 'batik that has gone through many changes'.

 I have been offered a piece of this silk, but which one???

the beige is kinda stocking color, which might give me a mental picture I don't want....the white is to heavy I think.  So that leaves the blue and the green....I wonder if I can beg for a bit of each and weave them on to the batik????

What Once Was Used....

.....snort...snort....is now USED again....

This was a t-shirt for the band "The Used". I pulled it from my daughters thrift store pile. "1 used hole"

I had to show the skeletons other leg to walk away with.

Morbid humor? Who...me?

More Woven Bits

So here I sit on days with no girls....weaving bits of cloth together....or just adding shapes....or scraps.  

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

fun fun fun

Speedo's are Textile-ish?

The swim world is stumped...no world records will be made for 'at least a decade', because.....

The reason, of course, can be traced back to the ban on rubberized bodysuits at the beginning of last year. Since swimmers were forced to wear textiles again, no world records have been broken in an Olympic-size 50-meter pool.

'Textiles' does not exactly bring to mind a Speedo....maybe a gunny sack.... 

           

just sayin'

Piece! Dude

Tossed this one together last night....still basting.

green peace

 Did this one a few days ago....I was going to use this as a base and put something on top....but I like it too much just this way....so maybe it will just get some stitching....or not.

orange peace

 This is the base of "i decided to weave a tree" cloth.  I have torn out so much stitching on this, the batt on the back is starting to fall apart.  I like this batik,  but didn't want it to be the focus, so back to the design wall.  The small piece in the corner is one of the silk bits my niece picked up in India for me. I think I would like to cover this with one whole piece, then snip holes here and there to let the batik show through.

dotty peace

Anyone have something sheer-ish they could part with?  I have lots I could trade with, whatcha want???  I'm thinking something kinda like lawn....not so light as organza...smaller than a fat q.

I Told You So

I had reminded everyone that Rhiley would do this with her doll, just like mommy does with Avery.  Even has a pillow tucked under the doll.

Thank You Rhi-Bear for being the fantastic little mama that you are.

And for another snorter....Steph is off with a friend to chaperone the high school seniors boat ride tonight....."when did I get old enough to chaperone high schooler's??"  said CollegeGirl.

Fabric. Ebay.

I wanted to get some unusual fabric for an upcoming Jude Hill class, so I surfed eBay and came up with this offering. The yellow stripe, in the middle, is a kitchen towel weight...maybe shirting?

 Below...gauze with texture....like a peasant blouse I would have made and worn in the 70's.  I kept all the gauze type fabrics I had from those days...and can't find them....I may have tossed them. *F**K*.  They were just scraps....but still.  How long do you hold onto something????

You can kinda see the fabric underneath.

 Not sure what this fabric,above/below,  would be called...dobby? dotted swiss w/ dobby?

 This is a nice weight, below, not as sheer as the above fabric, but a nice hand.

 This is more brown than the photo shows....lots of it....gauzy/shirting weight.

 This is more denim color than you see here.  Like a bandanna in weight and color.

  I. Love. Seersucker.

Think I might use this for a blouse addition I am thinking of doing....

More on that if I ever do it.

Now all I gotta do is wait for July 1, the day the class starts!!  We will be doing a bigger cloth, so what I already had wasn't quite enough.....hah! 

Follow that red car....

 keep following.....

 there it is....

 in front of her house....Ashley's house, the one she built!  She is sooooooooo happy, having her own home!  Danny is kinda low key about it, but that's ok, they did it!

 I like this fixture hanging in the stair well.

 Looking down on Ashley in the entryway....that baby face down on the floor...that's a doll...

 Steph standing in the living room.

 gratis picture of newest baby, Avery.  By far an unattractive pose! 

 Shes a very good baby though.

 Above is the picture of the backyard....this is a big joke in the neighborhood.

 Rhiley wanted the camera, so I took a picture of our feet.

 Steph and I found this 1970 Bug, it's for sale....

 I got to playing around again....

not sure what this "is".