Color Wheel of Fabric

I've been pretty busy with work, but I'm loving it. The job, the people, the area. Love it!

Saturdays are my play day and snuck up to Charlotte's Quilting Gallery and picked up some fabric to make this really cool quilt I saw there,called Crzy Curves. There's an image of the quilt on their site.

Only, even though I love the pattern, I didn't like the fabric they used and the ones available in kit form. So, what's a girl to do? Well, the store is pretty cool. They had batiks by the bunches in packs of 16, 24, or 36 batik fat quarters. I bought 36 fat quarter batik color wheel. I love it. Here's an image of the batik fabric wheel with the 8" Rainbow Block Template (by Elisa's Backporch) at the right. That's what will allow me to do the blocks I want.


I didn't have much chance for anything other than shopping and relaxing on Saturday, and Sunday was spent working, so not much fiber stuff going on right now still. However, this weekend is Labor Day weekend, so maybe I'll have two days of play. And even though I haven't done any fiber things, I did get something fibery in the mail. I got the dyes I won from Selling Dye 2 You in the mail. I requested the Permabril ones, which are fiber reactive. I haven't ever used any fiber reactive ones, so this should be fun. Now, I just need to find a blend of fiber. Hmmm. I'll look in my stash.

I'll be visiting with Robin and her hubby this weekend, so maybe I will remember to take photos of her items that she has finished and actually post them.

That's it, happy fibering!

Quick Post

Okay, this is a very short and quick post. Yes, we still exist. No, I haven't done anything fiber related. Oh wait, I have done some spinning, but it's the same old stuff right now. I was going to Navajo ply it up today, but I didn't get a chance. I was playing on the computer all day. I've also been busy with work and getting things unpacked still.

Robin? Well, yes she has done some fiber things. She's off from school right now. Well, sort of. She's got internship things and work. But, she still managed to plan a quilt and lay it out as well as take a class. Who knows what else she has done. She is much more prolific than I am!

I'll share one quick thing I know Robin did. She took a class today at that quilt store I mentioned: Quilt Gallery. She took the "Flower Doodles" class. I'm cursing myself now for not taking it with her. I can't wait to see what she did. I'm hoping they will offer it again some time.

That's it. Hopefully I'll have an actual fiber-oriented post soon with pictures. I'll try to remember to take my camera and take a picture of Robin's work.

Till then, happy fibering!

Not Quite Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

I have one more oddball item worth mentioning. Our new rental house is great. It's old and has a few quirks, but is pretty nice otherwise. Except we have horrible pantries in the kitchen and there's about 8 feet or so in the middle of our kitchen with nothing in it. We were using my craft table as a sort of workbench in the middle of the kitchen. Well, that is until Gilligan came to live with us. This is Gilligan:


My husband nicknamed our cuisine cart Gilligan, as in Gilligan's Island. My hubby is the creative writer in the family, definitely not me. My mom helped us find it on-line, and we ordered it from KitchenSource (under accessories, the mix and match cart) during my parents visit. I had food in boxes still as the pantry shelves are about 2 feet high (no other shelf in there) and 2 feet deep. I can fit some things, but I can't stack things that high and I can't find things that deep! So, my mom suggested an island. It was a great idea too! We love Gilligan!

The company was pretty fast. The cart even came during my parents' visit. They only stayed with us for 2 weeks, so that was a pretty fast delivery. My mom helped me put it together with the guys watching on. We did a good job putting it together, but we did have some minor problems. First, I tried to install the drawer upside down. But that wasn't my fault! Honest! I followed the darned image and the sides, which were numbered, were in the wrong place in the image. We were also missing some holes for the shelf on one of the sides. My dad came to the rescue on that one, getting the drill out.

Alright, enough non-fiber things. I'll post soon about fiber things, honest!

Oh wait, I do have one fiber thing. I won something from the Dye-o-Rama swap! How cool is that? I won 5 dye pots from Selling Dye 2 You. I haven't worked with Permalon/Permabril dyes before, so this will be interesting.

That's it for me. Happy fibering!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program for. . . Bugs?!

That's right, I'm going to briefly mention and show some insects. Okay, only one type of insect, but it is a pretty cool species. Or at least I think so. My parents came over for a visit and recently left. I miss them already. On their last day here, we went up to see the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden (DSBG) in Belmont, NC. It's pretty nice.

But what caught our eyes was not just the flowers or plants (cough, grin), but a species of hummingbird moth, the hummingbird clearwing. We tried capturing the moths on film, but you have to be fast as these moths flit from flower to flower so fast. See, I told you I was diverging from our regular content. I love these moths. The species we were looking at was diurnal (coming out during the day). The moths look like small hummingbirds but have antennae. We saw two different morphotypes out in the field, shown below. The photo on the left was taken by me, the one on the right by my dad. Other than cropping the initial photos, I left them in the slightly blurry condition. Like I said, they are hard to photograph as they hoover just like hummingbirds do.

I found the sighting of this insect fascinating as the plant I did my PhD work on was pollinated by nocturnal hawkmoths, similar to the moth we saw at DSBG. However, I never saw a single nocturnal moth during my thesis work. I even used infrared videotape and still never saw the moth. I did however see a diurnal species of hawkmoth. So, it was great that my parents got to see some of the types of organisms I worked with during graduate school, or tried to work with anyways.

Happy fibering and insect watching!