What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I don’t usually do this, a year end post, but for some reason I wanted to wrap up some of my latest projects. Unlike many people, I did not get loads and loads of things done this year. I spent a lot of time fretting and eating and drinking and read lots of books. But I’ve had a creative spurt this Fall.

This was one of my favorite projects – candy cane towels! I’d seen the pattern on Pinterest and then I discovered it was on Ravelry. I made an appointment with my local weaving store, Lofty Fiber ...

I am not a parent or a grandparent, but who doesn’t love tiny baby clothing? So – when a local crafts school asked for items to sell at their Holiday Craft Fair, I decided to play with shibori dyeing.

I haven’t dyed clothing and I discovered that the results are quite different using knit fabric, rather than a tightly woven quilting fabric. There was a lot more bleeding than I am used to and I had to tie the dental floss or cord very tightly!

Ice dyeing is unpredictable, but such a great fun. As the ice melted, this ...

If you’re a weaver, you probably know that this isn’t an ideal end to a weaving project! I have been avoiding finishing up my looper rug project because I knew I was running out of warp. Silly, right? Like the warp fairy would come in the middle of the night and add 12″…. In all the years that I have been using the loopers, I never remember to add enough “take up” for the warp. (That means that the loopers are fat and take up a lot of room and thus warp.) The result is that I have ...

When I am feeling stressed, I have trouble concentrating. Normally I am full of ideas for projects that I want to try, but not in times like these. I need something soothing, dull, repetitive. Something I can work on, using my ear buds, listening to music that I can hum to.

When I lived in Japan, my mother became ill and a two week Home Leave turned into two months. Peter went back to work in Tokyo, and I stayed in Mom’s apartment (with my sister (ugh)). Luckily I had brought hand stitching with me; I was working on ...

I am a member of ATHA – which stands for Association of Traditional Hooking Artists! Quite a mouthful and funny to many, I know. In case you don’t, I’m writing about hooking as in Rug Hooking. Every two years ATHA has a biennial show, and recently it was held in Denver, Colorado. This was the perfect chance to head back there (we lived in Colorado for many years) to see relatives and friends and to drive, drive, drive.

Rug hooking shows are few and far between. I have no idea how many hookers there are, but not many in ...

Handwoven Hand Painted Silk Shawl

Here is the completed shawl!

In case you didn’t read the post before this one, here is one of the painted warps that I made with Neal Howard at the Southeast Fiber Forum.

After consulting my notes and emailing Neal a few times for added support, I got the warp on the loom. It was pretty exciting to see it all spread out and admire the colors!

I wove several tests to check the sett (how close the warp threads are) and then unwoven them. The warp was not long enough to weave a ...