Squeezing a little Garden in

I love this time of year!  Even when it's crazy busy with work and family events, I can take breaks and squeeze out some time to play in the garden.
 

This week in between things I've been getting some lavender harvested.  This is what's currently drying in my laundry room right now.  Some day it will be in some pretty sachets :)

Elsie and I also potted up all of these little plants this week to use as the favors/centerpiece for Heather's wedding shower that was at my house last weekend.
 

 Surprise, surprise...yes we went with a gardening theme for the shower :)

It was a special day, and I think everyone had a wonderful time sharing best wishes with the bride-to-be :)  Now, Operation Bridal Shower is over...back to some quilting...  

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Playing with Color

Who doesn't love some rich, mottled, hand dyed fabrics?  Well I spent some time last week enjoying the day under the canopy of trees with friends learning how to dye my own :) 

Our friend Ray graciously shared her home and lovely backyard deck area, and six of us took a class with Karen Amelia Brown who was a wealth of knowledge, and very patient with those of us who didn't have a clue what we were doing (eh hem...me).  

There was a lot of measuring, stirring, a bit of shaking, dipping...dripping and pouring going on  (This was my workstation before I really made a big mess out of it).  Then later we had to follow up with rinsing, rinsing, rinsing...and rinsing...then washing and pressing.  But it was all worth it because...

I learned how to make a rainbow!

 ...And gradations... (I chose blue for my gradation experiment, because one can never have enough "sky" fabric).

...And we did some manipulations ~ folding, twisting, rolling, tying and rubber banding.  Every one came out different, and seeing how each piece turned out was the most fun.  My friend Mary at Keep Me in Quilts blogged about it Here, if you want to see how her fabrics turned out, (and she caught a photo of me in my messy clothes). 

From our day playing with color, we each came home with about 6 1/2 yards of new dyed fabrics ~ Yea, I'm feeling another quilt project coming on :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

My Cool Blue Quilt is in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting!

I finally have something to Show & Tell :)  This is my "Cool Blue" quilt, and it's in the current issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine!

It's a nice wall hanging/table cover size made with the Indigo Blues fabric collection from Fabri-Quilt .

Just to show how far ahead we have to work on projects for publication, I actually finished piecing and quilting this quilt back in the end of January, as you can see from the snow on the ground in the photos I took here before I shipped it off for magazine photography :)

So look for your copy of Love of Quilting magazine on the news stands, or you can click Here for the current issue info on the Fons & Porter's website and see all the beautiful projects in this issue :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn