Brand New Dye

Here are my new fabric dyes for this year. The Procion dye has a limited shelf life in unused form, so I get all new each spring.

These are the colors I picked this year. It's the same yellow and same blue I bought last year, but I picked a new black and blue and red and purple.


Purple is the only secondary color I bought. Orange and green are easy to make, but when I've made purple, its been dull. Last year I bought purple already made and it was better. I can adjust it by adding blue or red, but I find that I have to start with purple dye.

I'll try mixing red and blue this year too. Maybe these versions of red and blue will work better.

I dyed it so parts of the fabric would dye lighter and I could get a better feel for the color. I like the brown better than last year's. Last year's was too red and I had to adjust it a lot.


This black is good too. Last years black had a green tinge that I didn't like.

I also made green and orange by adding each seperately to the dye bath in different places so I could get a good picture of how they blended.

My first project will be floor cloths. I have some 10oz cotton duck. I cut two pieces about 2x3 and preshrunk them on big plastc pipes. I'm just waiting for them to dry.

I guess the 10oz duck will be my new thing for June.


On Sunday, I fired up the Juki LZ and got it threaded with some 40wt poly thread. This was the first time I used the new bobbin case and the thread I got from ThreadArt.

I quilted a saddlepad panel. It was fun. I was afraid at first because the machine is so powerfull. But I got used to it.

Mary Shelley and Whiskers are not used to me being in the garage, but the machine is set up there. They argued about which one of them got to sit next closest to me.

Dave and Joseph helped me a lot yesterday, Monday. Both had the day off. They came to the barn and cleaned out the water trough that Janow shares with Mucha. They saved the mosquito fish and scooped about two gallons of black goop out of the bottom after they siphoned out the water. Janow drops mouthfulls of food in it.


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Mariners Compass

I finished these two recently, and got them on the Doublecatbatik site over the weekend. I wanted to try a mariner's compass, but thought these needed a corner design.

These are All Purpose. Riders know what that means, but for anyone else, this size/shape fits an All Purpose, or Combined Training saddle.

Combined training is a sport in which the riders and horses compete in dressage, cross country jumping, and stadium jumping. It's not a sport for the faint of heart, rider OR horse! The best saddle for dressage is very hard to jump in, and dressage in a jumping saddle is hard indeed. In a combined training saddle, they try to mix the two, making a saddle that is OK for both.


In the end, when riders and horses get more advanced, they need two saddles. And the combined training saddle? A lot of people prefer it for green horses because it is easy to take a more forward position, as well as a more upright position, as the situation warrents. Trail riders, both competitive and casual, often prefer it because they ride on variable footing and slope.

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R.J. asked for this link.

Community Quilt

Here is the community quilt (that I posted a picture of on March 20) getting it's binding. Almost done. The label that Community Quilts attachedto it says "Guy's Churn Dash" but I thought it was a Shoo Fly block. I'm proabably confused.

I started to applique the mariners compass blocks to Karen's saddlepad, but it is way too heavy for the Juki TL. (that's the one in this picture)I'll have to get some practice in on the Juki LZ (pic on March 19) before I try that on it. I have some lightweight poly thread comming any day in the mail. I'm going to make some quilt pieces with muslin that I can wash and then sandwhich together to make saddlepads. Those panels should give me enough practice to work on Karen's pad.

I got some needles for lighter thread and the new bobbin case, so I'm ready to roll. When I have had even more practice, I will try out my new binder and my new hemmer.

In the meantime, I am way behind on my BTAE Spring Ornie Exchange!

Juki LZ-583

This is the machine I bought used, the one I used for the cat beds.

I have been gathering information of industrial sewing machine needles and looking for more feet and another bobbin case. I am also trying to find good sources of thread. It helped when I figured out what kind of thread I wanted.

The feet are the hardest part. This machine is niether long shank, short shank, nor snap on, so I am having a hard time locating feet. I want to use it to make saddlepads, which doesnt help. Sewing machine people want to know what I am going to use it for so they can advise me, but they don't know anything about saddlepads.

I can make them with cotton or wool batting, which will be interesting because commercial pads are made with low loft needled poly batt. Easier to work with.