More Scrapitude cutting!!!

Started putting the corner posts on the scrapitude sashing and found I had cut only half of them!  Considered cutting the rest from the batik  jelly roll I got at the Manteca show but then realized I have a box of 2 1/2 inch scrap blocks. So have pulled that out and, other than measuring each one, it has been an easy solution! Phew! (Visualize me wiping my brow in relief!)

This is my sewing table! The box at the bottom is my 2 1/2 ich scrap box. The computer - a little notebook - has the scrapitude directions up so I do it right. The boxes behind my Featherweight have the different pieces of scrapitude in them.

A Day in San Francisco

I went with Artquiltmaker to San Francisco the other day.

Union Square from the fourth floor of the Macy's building (Starbucks kiosk)

We had intended on going to the Asian Art Museum to see the Yoga exhibit. I misread the web site on hours of operation and when we arrived we found that it, like most museums, was closed on Monday. So we decided to do a little fabric therapy and got on Muni and took ourselves to Britex. What a candy shop for sewists! We went up to the fourth floor and worked our way down. Any fabric or notion one could possibly need or want was there. I thoroughly enjoy fondling all the fabric and notions while artquiltmaker found some fabric she needed.

We stopped by the Westfield center to scout out lunch possibilities but decided we were not hungry so toodled up to Nordstroms for sox and cocktail dresses (not to be worn together!) for a big do AQ has this summer. We found two very satisfactory dresses - wish I had taken pictures - and several pair of sox, none of them cashmere.

We had delicious chicken, wild rice and mushroom soup for lunch - hearty, healthy and gluten free!

We then wandered over to Crate and Barell to look at lamps for AQ's living room. The one she had in mind looked way too big for the space so we looked at others but without satisfaction. On our way out we saw my dream, water saver drought watering can!

 

 Ad AQ bought it for me for Mother's day!

Dyeing for eggs!

Couldn't stop thinking about the brown phase the eggs went through while dyeing them earlier. So, hauled out my half dozen brown eggs and plopped them into the left-over dye and cooked them for fifteen minutes. This is the way to go!

The egg on the left is from the first batch.

Red Orthodox Eggs for Pascha

Orthodox Christians call Easter Pascha. We dye all our hard boiled eggs red. Last year (our first in Orthodoxy) I helped dye the 700 eggs we made for the parish celebration. I was appalled when I saw that Rit dye was used! It makes a great red for the eggs but theoretically also makes them inedible as the Rit is toxic. I created a bit of a stir between the older women who have used Rit forever and the younger ones who are in the know, so to speak, regarding healthy, natural eating.

My dye changing campaign didn't change things this year, but did get the idea out and talked about. Change takes time.

In an effort to find a good alternative The Big Guy researched Orthodox dye for Pascha eggs and a friend from church got some powdered dye from an Orthodox store in Sacramento. My Latvian friend at church said she always uses the skin from yellow onions and TBG found a recipe for onion skin dye on the net.

I only had six white eggs and didn't think the brown ones would turn red, so I used the white ones and the skin from two very large yellow onions. I put the eggs in raw.

The eggs first turned a lovely shade of yellow! Not the result I was looking for but good reference for possible future fabric dying!

Then they turned the brown of the fresh eggs I had in the fridge! Maybe I'll use brown eggs next time.

Then they got even more brown.......hmmm. So I splashed in some rice vinegar like the ladies at church do. The poor eggs had cooked about twenty minutes by this time. Not being the most patient person I cheated and put a little of the store-bought, natural dye, in.

Pretty messy stuff but a great color - at least on my hands! BTW - it doesn't wash off. Gloves would have been a good idea.

I've turned off the pot and am letting them sit. Final picture coming up soon!

  

As you can see from the peeled egg, the shell is porous. One should not eat Rit dyed eggs. The color I got with onion skin and natural dye is very good. I did not oil my eggs like we do at church. Perhaps if I had the color would be the same as Rit.

Scrapitude Progress

This is one of the seven blocks I have completed in the Scrapitude project. I showed Artquiltmaker and she had positive things to say about them.
Hope you like them.

Quilting On!

Tuesday I washed our kitchen floor so I could use it to pin the ABC donation quilt. Once again measuring-challenged-Mary mis-measured and bought batt that was just about too small :(  I am using it anyway since I am doing the quilting myself.

Tuesday night I couldn't sleep so cleaned up the sewing room. I hadn't straightened it out since returning from Mom's and dumping a bunch of stuff in there.  I did a poor job of it but at least now I can sit at the drafting board. Oh, once again I knocked over my sewing toolbox! But I found my bone presser that I couldn't find after last time I dumped it at mini-group - yippee!

Speaking of mini-group, the day they meet has changed and interferes with my schedule so I can't go any more. Have joined the Manteca guild so maybe there is a group there I can join.

Still struggling with my new 'smart' phone but am going to go take pictures for this post. Hope I can send them to my computer.

OK, back from taking and sending pictures so will add them to this post!

Have just spent an hour trying to add photos to no avail!  Ah, well.  Maybe next time