A Thursday play day at home

We haven't had any sort of schedule at all this summer, so every day has been catch-as-catch-can around here. Today I had to forego attending my quilt guild meeting, as Roger had to be up at his college in Ukiah for business matters, so Caroline and I decided to experiment with painting with dye.

We spread fabric that had been soaked in soda ash solution onto large plastic trays and then painted on them. Here's Caroline, smearing the dye dribbles on her tray in preparation for doing a print onto another piece of fabric:



Here's some our work, spread out to dry on the lawn. Bet you can tell which are mine and which are Caroline's!



Caroline has decided she wants to sandwich hers and practice free motion quilting on them. She calls that "Crazy Quilting" and it's her favorite thing to do with the sewing machine.

Meanwhile, we had Gemma keeping us company. She's now about 5 months old, and doing great.



If you think that's an adorable puppy shot, get a load of this one:



You'll notice that she's rather wet in this shot. She loves to play in the sprinkler, and in the wading pool that used to be Caroline's sandbox (and, most recently, home for a bunch of giant tadpoles that were fostered until they became frighteningly giant frogs and I insisted that they be returned to the creek before they learned how to open the screen door and come into the kitchen).

Gemma keeps us entertained, that's for sure. For some reason, she has become very fond of an old beach bucket of Caroline's, and loves to carry it around the yard with water in it.



You should see how proudly she struts when she's carrying it! Here she is, resting happily with the beloved bucket: