My Quarantine Project

 And three years go by...

Here we are after a year of quarantine, and I spent my time writing and illustrating a children's book. But not just any illustrations, I embroidered the entire book. And I'm going to have it printed! If you are still getting my posts from this blog, head on over to my new website and blog at www.kittymccarthy.com .

The book will be out in the summer and I'll be selling it on Amazon. I'm looking for opportunities to sell it in yarn/quilt shops. The book is about knitting. Here is one of the illustrations.

The title is "A Yarn about a Tree".

I hope all of you survived Covid, mentally and physically.

It's been a long time...

I haven't posted anything to this blog in almost 4 years!  I decided to reactivate it, but I have started a new blog.  The new one is about crafts, but also about my travels.  I've been traveling a lot since my last post on this blog.

You can follow my new blog by going to Granma Kitty's Travels | My trips and the arts/crafts I make along the way
If you click on Follow, they will send you an email every time I post.  The new blog is mostly for my family and myself, but I am happy to share!

Flu and Inspiration

I have the flu.  Back in September I was the 12th person in my Dr.'s practice to get the vaccine, so naturally I though I was protected.  Then we went on our cruise and I came home with some kind of bug, so I told myself that it hadn't been long enough since I got the shot, but I was definitely protected now.  Immune system and all that.  Friday morning I woke up with a sore throat, a fever and all the rest of it.  So where are those antibodies when you need them?

But here is the news portion of this blog:  a friend of mine has it too and went to the doctor, who told her that the CDC had sent out a warning about a very new and bad strain of flu going around.  And guess what?  We didn't hear about it on the nightly news because they are so busy reporting on a missing airplane.  Now I know the plane went through a wormhole, but we'll never get the government to admit that.

Today I started feeling better, not well enough to go over to the studio and sew, but well enough to drag out my sketch book.  I signed up for a craft show next month and decided maybe I'd make a few table runners to fill in the blank spaces in my display.  First I started a Pinterest board on Quilted Table Runners, then I searched that site.  I found a grand total of 4!! that looked interesting.  Then I looked on Etsy and found a grand total of 0!! that looked interesting.  Where is my inspiration?  I guess I'm going to have to design them myself.

While looking, I found this blog with a really simple runner.

If all else fails, I can make this one.  I'll just be sure to use fabric with shells or blue crabs on it, that always sells around here.

If you are a new follower, here is a link with instructions to an Easter table runner I made a few years ago for kids to color.

You've got plenty of time to make it, if you don't get the flu.

Midnight Sun II

I just mailed this off to the the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival today.  I wasn't surprised that it was accepted in the show, but I'm anxious to see what kind of reaction I get.  It took me two years to perfect this technique, and even thought I've looked everywhere, I can't find any other example like it.  The water and the sun are actually weavings in the quilt.

I'd love to hear any comments you might have about it and if you are able to attend the quilt show, please look for it.

Thinking Ahead a Few Weeks

I know that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I'm ready for it.  The turkey is thawed, the cranberry sauce is made.  I've got all the ingredients for the rest of the feast, and now I'm almost ready to start thinking about Christmas.  Actually, I've done more that think about it, I've done about half of my shopping and wrapped everything that I've bought so far.  I've also wrapped about 25 empty boxes to be used in the window of the thrift shop where I volunteer, but that window won't get done until next week.  As a result, my dining room looks like I'm more ready for Christmas than I am in reality.

Thinking back over the blog-posts I've done in the past, I decided to revisit some of the Christmas ornament tutorials in case you are wanting to make something after the turkey and parade tomorrow.

The tutorial for this little sewing basket ornament can be found here http://weirwoodstation.blogspot.com/2011/12/sewingknitting-basket-ornament.html



The tutorial for this little tutu ornament can be found here http://weirwoodstation.blogspot.com/2011/12/tutu-cute.html



This little heart can be found here http://weirwoodstation.blogspot.com/2011/12/heart-ornament.html



This is the easiest one of all, especially those of you with a large "stash" of fabric scraps.


The link to the tutorial is here http://weirwoodstation.blogspot.com/2012/04/easy-ornament-tutorial.html

Hope these will inspire you to do a little sewing in the upcoming weeks.  Happy Thanksgiving and Hanukkah!

View from my Porch

Each morning when I get up, I look across my yard and see the cotton field.  It looks like snow, especially on these early fall mornings when there is fog.  Actually, I walked down to the road to take this picture because there are trees and plantings between my porch and the road, but its quite beautiful.  The farmer, who I have known since childhood, alternates this field each year between cotton and soybeans.  He'll probably be harvesting it in a few days and there will be huge bales of cotton sitting there.

And speaking of fields, I thought I'd share a picture of Dan standing in a pineapple field in Hawaii eating pineapple.

When we first talked about going to Hawaii, Dan said all he wanted to do was stand in the middle of a pineapple field and eat a pineapple.  I told him that I didn't think you could just do that and I was right.  First of all, there is only one working pineapple farm left in Hawaii.  Its on Maui.  All the other farms have closed due to high labor cost.  All our pineapples are now grown in Costa Rica or the Phillippines.  Fortunately, there was a tour available to tour this farm so of course, we had to take it.  The guide was great and let Dan and others eat all the pineapple they wanted.

Here are a few other pictures of our trip.

Farmer's Market in Hilo.  

Some Things I've Been Doing

I spent most of the summer experimenting with fabric painting techniques.  When I was in graduate school, I worked with Procion Dyes and painted my quilts with them.  Later, I became worried about the adverse health effects for long term exposure (I'll admit I was not always as careful as I should have been.)  I used acrylics for a long time, but did not like the texture that they left on the fabric, so this summer I tried a variety of inks. The six quilts or paintings above are the best of the results.

I pieced the backgrounds,using mostly 1"to 1.5" strips and then "drew" the shells with my sewing machine.  I then painted the shells using the inks.  Finally, I stretched them on 16" canvas stretchers.

This is now hanging in my bedroom over my bed.  I painted the wall that pumpkin color when we moved in the house, but had not found just the right thing to hang there.

We've just returned from a trip to Hawaii and I'll post some pictures of our trip later.  Right now I'm recovering from a terrible cold that I caught near the end of the trip and trying to get all the laundry finished so that I can get back in the studio next week.