Plenty of celebrating this weekend, but no pictures. Thaddy got a new job and we celebrated with a bottle of champagne we'd been saving for over a year and indian food. We also got to meet a friend's new three day old baby and help fix up a nursery for another baby on the way. I sandwiched the embroidered quilt and finished most of the quilting. Above all, we ate plenty of in-season strawberries with whipped cream.

Here are two kitties playing on the results of a big dye party I had recently with the lovely Charrmer. I did two more of these big pieces and then a few small, one yard, pieces as well.

and

I think this blue and green one looks like a contour map.

This red one is the best of the small pieces, the other two turned out like just nice blue tonal pieces that I'm sure I'll use, but nothing special. I can't believe it but I bought 25 yards of the fabric I've been using to dye on and it is all gone now. No idea how that could've happened.

Here's another picture of my adventures in the wonderful world of embroidery! Since I still haven't gotten the iron-on patterns I ordered, I drew these birds based on images of Ms. Hart's patterns that appeared in Adorn. My college contour drawing came right back.

Last night I discovered the wonderful world of embroidery. I am embroidering decorations on the quilt top from my last post. So far just words and hearts but I ordered some of these so whenever they come we will see even more exciting embroidery.

Here's an in-progress shot of the "whole cloth" quilt I am making with my self-dyed piece of pink fabric. I put the "whole cloth" in quotation marks because, as you can see here, I actually pieced the top. But I pieced it so that as much of the original design is preserved as possible except for little bits that went into the seams.

Here's another shot that shows this cool hot air balloon fabric that I think is perfect for the intended recipient of this quilt. I have no idea where I got this fabric, I only had a little piece. So if you gave it to me, thank you!

This is a skirt I made by altering a pencil skirt type pattern to be more of an a-line. Again, I think we are seeing a pattern in the bulky and shapeless department. I actually do have a nice figure, but you'll have to take my word for now. The trim does look cute with the grey corduroy though and check out my shoes, they are really cute and have great arch support. I think this skirt would look better if I had started with more of a flared skirt and then scaled it in if it seemed too big. This is another one to file under great learning experience.

I did a lot more dying this weekend. This is a large piece I dyed using a low water technique for a whole cloth quilt project I have in mind. I love how this looks although I had wanted more of the lighter pink and only a little bit of the fuschia color.

This is a polka dot I made to use on some pillows. You can see that I didn't have time to finish the whole piece but I think I will have plenty for my project. Sometimes you have to go and taste wine instead of printing 100 more polka dots.

Here's a picture of how the dye printing is going so far. There is a lot more yardage with all different patterns but this is a small section. I have 2 problems with this stuff: 1) I don't like how the patterns are turning out, and 2) the dye is bleeding and creating smudges even though I am washing it with synthrapol. Actually, I guess 3 problems total because I am also not thrilled with how unvibrant the images are.

My next idea is to do a base dye on the fabric then stamp on top. I won't be able to get the effects I was originally after but it would negate the smudge problem.