Monthly Archives: March 2013

A Little Sunshine

     I finally woke up from the last few weeks of March. The sun shone here for the past two days and I could feel March lift off from me like a bad dream or the fog. I put my machine in the sun today and just let it wash the winter away. Maybe I was depressed and didn’t even know it. Or maybe I am just ready for spring. Or maybe I just had nothing exciting to share.

     But either way, the grey and cold days made me buckle down and work on a big piece. I never looked up the past three weeks.  The piece is huge -78×83 and involved lots of piecing.  I am not ready to share yet but I will. It is too close to feel comfortable…

     I woke up and it might be spring.

Winter Fabric Dyeing Fix

     I needed an excuse to sink my hands into the dyes.  I really missed it.  With all the heavy, wet snow, I thought about snow dyeing. But I resisted.  It took so much willpower to not get distracted by unnecessary fabric dyeing. And then, a friend twisted my arm to take a class with her.

      Nope. That is absolutely not the truth. A friend reminded me about a class at our local sewing store given by the wonderful Betsy. So, I jumped right in.

We dyed fat eighths of fabric and I used fuchsia, deep navy and golden yellow from ProChem.

What a beautiful summertime rainbow. I didn’t spend any time smooshing and just went with the mottled look.

And this is the lovely Elizabeth Brandt who distracted me.

I came home relaxed and refreshed from my fabric dyeing fix. And then there is leftover dye to play with.

Introducing Curves

     No time for pictures yesterday. The day floated by me.  I started this piece at the Nancy Crow’s  Lines, Curves, Circles and Figure Ground workshop last  December.  It has been taking up my big design wall for way too long and is one of my few workshop pieces that I want to finish.

     I really enjoyed this class and loved learning how to piece curves.  I can’t believe I was so fearful of sewing a curve. I felt like I had been set free. I didn’t want to make it too complicated as I wanted big, bold and chunky. The assignment involved using bold, bright colors, too.

©Colleen Kole, 2013, Set Free  -work in process, 74 x 75

I haven’t quilted it yet, of course. But am looking forward to free motion quilting it. I folded it up for later to finish as I need to get going on my original goals of 20 Roofline pieces.

 This was my favorite class from the Barn workshops.  What great memories I have of spending time with a wonderful teacher, friends and creating together. What more could you ask for!

3 Days

      I gave myself an ultimatum: In three days, get this off the design wall so you can move on to a large piece for the Rooflines series. I had sixteen pieces to finish but only made it to eleven before I left.

in process….

I underestimated the amount of design work I had left to do.

Love taking black and white photos to see where I am missing contrast.

I was sidelined by a twelve hour college trip with my senior daughter -one way the is to the far reaches of Iowa. This was my scenery for the majority of the trip.

Very white and wintery and flat. Farmland. Hours and hours of driving through farmland. Hours.

She was in cow heaven and I am traumatized as I think I have lost one to a college which is very far away. I hit me this weekend that she is really a senior and will move on to the next phase of her life. I just want to sit and cry for awhile but that really isn’t at all helpful, is it?

I came home and finished my piece. I will photograph it in daylight tomorrow and be able to move on to the next one. Woohoo!