Cipherin'

That's what one of my old engineering buddies used to say he was doing when we'd find him sitting at his desk totally lost in thought. And that's kind of what I've been doing.

I took this during the 1st grade field trip to the National Zoo. It's representative of me during much of the last few weeks.

Just before Spring Break I realized that my major, huge, pieced quilt would not be finished in time to quilt before June. I've segued to Plan B.

I printed out 5 large strips of fabric to combine into one big design. I'm letting them sit another day or two before piecing them together, and in the meantime custom dyeing a border. Let me just say that it's hard to be me. In the first picture below you can see the border tryouts happening on the kitchen floor. It depicts numerous hand dyes of yore. Note the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator.

None of these gals made the squad! Custom dyeing commenced.

Here you see one of my dye studios (hah!)

And here's the other one. Regrettably both rooms must be shared with others.

It's interesting to look at these pictures and see how autumnal the fabrics look, because I don't think the quilt will look that way in the end. But that's how the borders shook out.

So that's the scoop. And of course I'm very much looking forward to spending some time Saturday with the knit girls at Maryland Sheep & Wool. If you're there and see me please say hi!