How are you all?

My quilt life this year was almost for charity quilts. An average of 5 quilts a month were turned in to my guild including 12 quilts that will be turned in at the December meeting. Some were easy kits provided by the guild, but the majority of them were derived from my own kits made with donated fabrics. Many people donate fabrics for a good cause, so I can enjoy making quilts for free - I pay for batting though. Donated fabrics are often out of my taste, so I enjoy a different world than mine as well. Due to COVID, my husband and I didn't go out much except for grocery and daily goods shopping. I think I just had more than plenty of time to sew. (I am glad we both have hobbies to focus on. While I sew, he does amateur radio, especially in the field of teaching kids. He has been enjoying gathering materials for the future. We are having a nice time.) I do love making quilts and I really don't know what to do after the quilts are done. The charity quilts project nicely works for

So, I finally tried to dye cotton fabric and wool yarn with marigold flowers. I first needed to know how many flowers can dye how much of fabrics, and found around 200-250 flowers can make 1 oz of dried flower petals. (A bag of 1oz of dried flower petals.) And these are how much I was able to dye from 206 flowers. (The yarn in the most left with some darker sections had grayish-brownish color in advance.) I watched a few youtube videos and read some blogs about dyeing with marigold flowers. I appreciate those who share their knowledge and experience but I am not good at following instructions from those dyers, so did a minimum of what I thought I needed to do - so often my experiences don't turn well and waste some time...  Anyway, a little over a pound of cotton fabric and 14 oz of wool yarn became mustard color, which the color I love. The color becomes lighter while dyeing a few times. I wasn't thinking of dyeing yarn but got tired of cotton and I got the impress

I have been collecting marigold flowers for a few years to dye fabric, but haven’t tried it yet. Since   dying fabric with marigold flowers needs a lot of flower petals and I am not sure how much I really need. This is from previous years. I dried flowers and cut the petals off from the base of the flowers. Since this process of cutting flowers from he plants to getting dried petals is time consuming, I wasn’t doing it much but the marigolds in my garden have been blooming one after another, I thought I would start collecting flowers again. And this is what I cut last evening. Marigolds bloom until the first frost kill the plants. There will be more. (Full of 2 baskets made about 700 flowers.) (Drying.) I have seen online shops carry dried flowers with the flower base in a bag, but I think the color after dying is less intense. Or, is it on purpose to use the flower base in a dye bath? The seeds contained in the flower base is black, so it may add depth to the color? I am not sure. A f

 I am the president of the sewing club at the local community college. Due to the COVID19 situation, there is no club activity this semester but one of the regular members of the club sent me a photo today that she finally bought a sewing machine for herself. I started the club in Spring 2019 by myself. I hoped the club to be a quilting club, but most of the members are not interested in making a quilt, so had to change the club to be a sewing club.  They usually sew a small item, sometimes a dress. To start the club, I had a few extra sewing machines that were given by my quilting friends from the previous guild and sewing notions. Then, my quilting friends from the current guild donated materials and another sewing machine.  The club now has three sewing machines and a lot of materials to practice sewing. It is difficult to keep the same members through semesters since most students change what they want to do every semester. There is a club fair at the beginning of each semester. I