magic castle? or dream castle?

the castle is done...whatever i call it.  who knows when it will get quilted. i think pretty soon.

And here are some closeups.

What do you think i should name this quilt?   i don't read Harry Potter but does it remind you of him at all?  would it appeal to Harry fans?  gotta figure out what to quilt in the background.

I think it might need to get quilted soon.....hopefully someone will love it and want to buy it.

Blocks are done!

I pushed on through and the blocks are now all done for the magic castle quilt. now to put them on the design wall and figure out how to get them all together. in the book, they have a sampler quilt but not all the blocks are in it....so i am on my own. we'll see how this goes. i might need help...so stay tuned. LOL

Here is the hippogriff. those tiny little claws were tough.

And here is the second bat. how can these tiny little blocks be so hard. it only has 4 pieces for pete's sake. i had to take it apart and redo it. the first bat gave me fits, too. must be a mental thing.

On another subject entirely, it was a rainy day today...still raining. coming down good but not raining heavy. on Vicki Welsh's site she gave permission to start a new project today. LOL  so i took her up on it and decided to do some fabric dyeing. i have been wanting to dye on a rainy day to see if i could rinse less and just hang them in the rain to take care of the rest of the rinsing. Vicki says she does that....and if she does it....the Queen of Fabric Dyeing...then it is good enough for me.

So i threw some fabric in the washer and got ready. i had 4 yards still of a cotton/silk mix...i love that stuff. each side comes out looking differently. and i washed 5 yards of PFD muslin. so i had 9 pieces. i did a couple blacks, a couple yellows, and some blues and a green. then as i was hanging them up i decided to wash some more 1/2 yard pieces and put it in the remainder of the dyes. so i washed 10 more pieces and put 1 in each leftover dye pot. then took the last piece, put it in a bucket, and as i was rinsing out the 1/2 yards to hang outside, i poured some of the leftover dye onto that piece. before pouring a second bit in there, i poured out the liquid from the first bit. so it sat in the dyes from 5 minutes to about 30 minutes by the time i was all done rinsing and hanging. then i just took it out and hung it outside, too. it is a pretty green, blue mix with some blackish spots. interesting. it may wash all out in the rain....who knows. but i will just let it all hang out there till it all dries. maybe tomorrow.  then see what surprises i get.

The other thing i did differently was to put the soda ash into the soaking buckets. usually i mix it along with the salt into the dye. but i wanted to try it this way....it was easier by far...one less thing to measure and mix. i shall see if it makes a big difference.   the best thing is....even if it ALL comes out wonky.... i can just re-dye the whole lot. dyeing is FUN!!

You don't want to see my hand and arms. hahahahaha  the right glove sprung a leak, so my right hand is dark bluish/green on 2 fingers...kind of like a really ugly bruise. and the gloves never stay up my arms...they always roll down..guess my arms are too fat...so both arms are greenish-yellowish-blue.  guess i better not go to town for a few days...it looks like someone beat on me.

Gotta go to Dharma Trading to buy more soda ash and see what other goodies they have that are crying to come home with me.

 

It's good to have a handyman

My husband is a pretty good handyman...which is a good thing since i ask a lot of him. 

I brought home 2 doors from my sister's and some boards that she was throwing away. and he built me a thread cabinet from all that mess. it is 39" wide and 42" high with 6 shelves. it is 6.5" deep and each shelve space is 5" high. that allows for 2 cones of thread deep so you can always see what you have. 

I think it came out great. 

I was going to set it on my room divider but realized it would be too tall and i couldn't reach the top shelves without a stepstool. Vertically challenged is not fun!

So i moved a few things around and set it on a cabinet. This is actually better...it sits right behind the longarm. i love the little metal inserts in the doors. i will have to paint it one day but i was so excited that i just put some contact paper on the shelves and moved the thread on in.

All my quilting threads fit in it just fine and there is actually extra room for more. i have to do some serious gold thread quilting....i really don't remember getting all that gold.

Each type has it's own shelve. from the bottom up there is...Glide; Bottom Line; So Fine; MasterPiece; King Tut; and then Nature Colors and Ricky TIm's Art Studio Colors and a few Aurafil on the top 2 rows.

Now i need to move the old thread cabinet to another area...i'll have more room on a table then. I don't know if that will be it's permanent home....i tend to move things around when i get bored. but it is a good spot right now.

I stopped my quilting (don't tell Marilea) when the cabinet came into the shop. now i am out of the quilting mood. LOL   guess i will go play with the embroidery machine for a while and put some borders on a little blue and white i am piecing.

It was an exciting day.

Later

The sphinx is done

Last  night i got the sphinx done. i didn't know if i would do a block last night since i got sucked into watching American Idol. so i didn't start this until 9...and finished at 11. not bad time. i think it was easier because it is the same at the griffin...only the head is different. these folks had some wild imaginations for their magic creatures. or good hallucinatory drugs. LOL

I took a vest pattern across the road last night, too. like i NEED another nighttime project. but i have been thinking of making a new vest out of selvages. the front will be all the fuzzy selvages. the lining is an Egyptian print. yet another fabric that i bought and now am thinking 'just what are you going to do with that'. so, inside of a vest seemed appropriate. don't know when it will get started...got to finish the last magic castle blocks first. but it is percolating over there...along with my brain. hahahaha

My hubby is building me a thread cabinet today...or finishing it today. i got doors from my sister's sunroom when she tore it out and was going to throw them away. so i brought the doors home and requested a thread cabinet. it will be large enough to house all my quilting threads in one place instead of several cabinets and boxes and such. will share a pic when i get it over to the studio.

Till next time....have fun.



 

The end is near!

Do not be alarmed...just the end of the magic castle piecing. yes, i think i shall call it the magic castle...unless you have a better name i can use. i believe i have 2 more things to paperpiece and i will make 1 more bat. then it will be time to put them all together.

Here is the griffin.

And the witch

The putting together might be a bit challenging...all the pieces are different sizes. i was thinking of putting the castle in the middle perhaps....or at the middle of the top...don't know yet.

I was also thinking this morning of having a picture of a little boy sleeping on the bottom and this is his dream swirling around his head. but that might limit the buyer of the quilt to a little boy. and perhaps a little girl dreams of castles....or an older child. decisions...decisions. hey, maybe i could call it the dream castle.

What would you do? i'd be interested in your thoughts.

3 more blocks

Yea!!   3 more blocks done between last night and this morning. i really didn't feel like working at the studio yesterday so i went home early...about 3pm and pieced the fairy. wouldn't we all like to have someone with a magic wand in our lives?

 And this morning i did the centaur.  they also call him the archer.

Just a few pieces left...the witch, a sphinx, a griffin, a hippogriff and i'm going to make a second bat. so, in 2 or 3 days i will have all the blocks done and then it will be time to figure out how to put them all together. i wish there would have been some trees...i would like to put them around the castle. perhaps i can find some ghoulish magic trees somewhere. have any thoughts?

I thought i might get a bit domestic today. i made french toast for breakfast. we didn't have milk so i used canned evaporated milk and thinned it down with some water. then what do i do with the rest of it. there was a recipe on the can for bar cookies, so i whipped those up to use up the rest of the canned milk. all in the interests of not wasting anything you understand. LOL

It called for grahan cracker crumbs and i didn't have any but i had a box of ginger snaps so i pulverized those and used them in place of the graham crackers. it worked out fine. it kind of gives a little bite to your tongue. it was just a simple layer cookie thing....base, canned evaported milk, coconut, chocolate chips and pecans. pretty tasty.

To continue the domestic binge i am cooking dinner, too. yes, practically unheard of at my house. i am in a clean out the pantry mood....found some shake and bake and turkey in the freezer from thanksgiving. so there will be shake and bake turkey, mashed potatoes (use those up), gravy (jim's gotta have gravy), and some green beans. simple.

AND i mixed up a huge salad...which i have been meaning to do for a couple days now. lettuce, boiled eggs, tomato, red pepper, cucumber, green onions, sunflower seeds, avocado and some grated cheese. yum.

So, now domestic duties are finished for the day...for the week. haha  perhaps for the month.

Gotta go crank up the embroidery machine and see what project i can finish over there.

Then a little later i made the knight. the knight is wearing the colors of the fairy. isn't that what they did...they wore the colors of their lady into battle? perhaps she should let him take that magic wand and he wouldn't have to worry about fighting the dragon. hahahaha

Introducing Pegasus!

Pegasus is the last 'creature' that i recognize the name and know what he looks like. the others are just strange.

But he turned out well...with me only having to redo 3 pieces. hahahahaha

Now I'm at the point of....how many more are there....will i ever be done with this. i have to push to finish all these blocks so it doesn't wind up as yet another UFO. i still have the knight, witch, fairy, hippogriff, archer and a few more that i can't think of right now. the book is still at the house and i am at the studio.

But, i shall muddle forward and 'git er done'. LOL

Till next time...keep on stitchin'