To Wash or not to Wash

That is the question...........

Do you wash your quilt fabric before you use it?

I used to all the time.

But then some new unwashed fabric

sneaked into my stash.

And I started making sample quilts for a store

and they wanted the fabric unwashed.

I love how unwashed quilt tops slightly shrink up

after the completed quilt is washed.

It makes them look antique right away.

Now you may be wondering why I have posted a picture

of my laundry hanging out to dry.........

Well, you see that bright fushia dress?

I always separately hand wash these dresses because they all tend

to bleed dye every single time they are washed.

Last time I washed them I used a product called Retayne.

It is supposed to "set" the dye in fabrics.

I've used it before in my finished quilt tops,

but never on a purchased article of clothing.

Well.........It was the second washing and the Retayne

worked like a charm! I used a regular laundry product

on this dress today and the Retayne (from last time)

STILL WORKED!

So I would highly recommend using Retayne

if you are unsure of any of the unwashed fabrics

that you have used in your quilt tops!

I bought mine at a quilting store, but

I just checked online and it appears the

Joann fabric stores sell it as well.

Saturday Morning Musings

Would you just look at this cheeky CAT!

You would think that this was HER dish of food!

I'm pretty sure that if she could she would have pushed

poor Dottie completely away from the food dish!

I've been told that dog food is not good for cats.

Does anyone know if this is true?

I finally finished my Design Journal.

When I was in San Diego my mom helped me

choose a pretty ribbon and these fabulous flowers

to use to decorate my journal.

We went thru alot of design elements before we

finally found just the right ones.

I had a great time sharing this with mom...........

hope she did too!

I am finding that I really, really LOVE

using this Design Journal.

It helps to keep me on track now

and will later be a really informative

tool used to remember what

techniques I've used on projects!

Anita Gooddesign Haunted House square 9.

Only 3 more to go!

Quilting and Embroidering

That's about all I've been doing lately.

Well, I've been cleaning pools and going to quilt meetings and going to the chiropractor and trying new recipes too.

(I just made mom's braised round steak last night

and it was YUMMY!)

You know what they say about idle hands!

I finished up this lovely quilt yesterday for Cheryl.

This quilt has an interesting story. Cheryl was gifted with

a bag of SCRAPS from a friend who has a quilt shop in

Intercourse, PA. So Cheryl, clever girl that she is,

took this bag of scraps and turned

it into the lovely quilt pictured above and will be giving it

as a gift for a friend who recently had a baby.

She named the quilt "After Intercourse".

Ain't she sweet?

Cheryl wanted the top to be quilted with a sun

radiating out from the center and also wanted the

child's name, birthdate, weight and size quilted into

the body of the quilt.

Above you can barely see where I have quilted the child's name.

I attended a quilt meeting last night and was inspired by

Anne's sunflower quilt. This is something I'd like to

attempt some day and I've got just the quilt top to do it on!

Now just to get motivated to do it!

Here is the latest installment on my Haunted House project.

only 3 1/2 more squares to go!

Bunko Babes!

Tonight we played Bunko at Tana's house.

It is always a celebration when we get together

since we have all been friends for so long,

but tonight we celebrated Nancy's birthday

in GRAND style!

Left Right Center game in FULL SWING!

The facial expressions and body language are

priceless in this photo!

Guess who the winner was?

Wait!

It was me!

I live in Phoenix

And it is 10PM and 107 degrees outside!

Can you believe it?

I went swimming at 6pm tonight (it was 113 then!)

to cool off and to clean the pool.

I get in the pool with a little skimmer net and clean all the leaves

and pine needles that have accumulated during the day.

You know that little place where the water pours into to go

into the filter? Well, of course there is always a fair amount of

pine needles that accumulate there. I was just about ready to

reach in and grab them (I figured it would save it from going

into the filter skimmer basket) when I saw a mysterious black

orb. I quickly did a double take and you guessed it......

...it was a black widow spider hanging just above the water.

Do you know how many times I have reached into that basket

from the topside of the pool? AND after dark?

I can tell you this..........I won't be doing that again until

that spider is GONE!

I posted this little quilt top earlier today.

I am still wrestling with what color to use as

the inner border.

I had purple there this morning and now I am

auditioning some pink and possibly a gold stripe.

Hopefully I will get up in the morning and will

know just what to do!

I also finished block #7 of the

Haunted House embroidery project.

It is really starting to look good!

Halloween will be here before you know it........

and I'll be ready!

Design Wall Monday

This little quilt is a Ricky Tims Harmonic Convergence pattern.

I wrote about this project about a week ago when I posted

about my Design Journal.

During Rafael and Jenny's engagement I took each of them

separately to a fabric store and asked them to pick out 2

coordinating fabrics that they liked and then I used them to

make this wall hanging.

On my recent trip my mom helped me pick out a border fabric

that would compliment this piece.

It was a tough job let me tell you!

Now I just need to decide on an inner border.

There are 3 choices in this picture......

1) a light purple print

2) a medium dark batik

3) a very dark batik

At the moment I am leaning toward the medium dark batik,

but would love to hear some input on these color choices

or any other color that I could use.

This quilt will be quilted and then beaded, but I have yet

to be inspired as to how to do this.

I'm thinking maybe a trapunto'd heart pattern to begin with.

Just not sure..............any ideas?

Technology is a wonderful thing

Have a look at how Block 6 of the Haunted House started out...

It's pretty amazing to see a plain piece of background fabric take shape

and turn into a house!

Wouldya just look at the detail in this........

It boggles my mind to imagine the technology

involved in this sewing machine of mine.

I whipped up pillowcases today for some

little pillows that I have.

Quick and easy!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post...........

Design Wall Monday