What am I wrapping up? The Maine scraps! This post marks the official end to those with this last set of cards. I didn't have any more screen printed images to use with these fabrics so I headed to the ribbon drawer and found a ribbon with these 2 motifs alternating. I had use most of the ribbon a few years ago for another project and it seemed poetic to marry the ribbon leftovers with the Maine leftovers for these really fast cards. Ten ribbon trees means 10 more postcards. This big stack of cards should last me with our Airbnb guests for a while! Bonus! I've almost used up a whole spool of Valdani thread serging the edges! In other news it's about time to start a new project! This is one of the Galaxy fabrics (3 yards) that I had in the shop. I thought it would look nice as the focal fabric for a new quilt for the guest house so this week I'm dyeing some matching fabrics for that quilt.
Here's the third set of postcards. For these I had this screen printed leaf to use as my focal piece. These were incredibly fast to make but it took a few tries to get the final design. This was my first try. It's OK but I didn't like it enough to do a flip and sew technique for 13 more cards. I reminded myself to keep them really simple and that means using the cut curves of the fabric. Then I tried this with a simple 3 piece background. I though that with the curves that I could make a landscape out of the background: sky, hill, ground so that's what I did for the other 12. I will still use these 2 "rejects". For my purposes they are just fine! 14 of these! I think I have a focal piece and enough scraps for one more set of these. I'm going to be golden for Airbnb cards for the year!
I've got so much stuff to get done over the next 2 weeks that I can't really concentrate on a big project. Playing with the Maine quilt scraps a little each day is the perfect recess from work. I have several fabrics that I had screen printed a long time ago and these images make a perfect focal point for the cards. I showed how I made these last week. I finished them off with some variegated Vandani thread that I bought YEARS ago. I think the variegated thread on the edge is what really makes these cards. I made 10 of these and I have enough fabric scraps left for at least 20 more. It seems a little nuts to make that many cards but it will give me a nice stash for our Airbnb guest for the year. There's no reason for out Virginia visitors to know that these fabrics were created with foliage in Maine!
I made the first set of postcards from these scraps back in November and they have already all been given away. The fabric if the week is Sunshine and Shadows Gradient. If you want some for your stash get it before it sells out. Through Sunday (or while supplies last) this fabric is 25% off or $6.75/half yard. Sunshine and Shadows was developed from a custom dye order That Patricia Caldwell used to create Copper Trails . I loved the color combination and decided that it needed to be part of my shop gradient collection. Gradients Back in Stock!Three of your favorite gradients are back in stock this week!
I only got 2 more rows added to the Maine quilt this weekend. We had a full house for sewing Friday so there was a lot more talking than sewing. I suppose we were all ready to get out after the snow and icy roads that we had early last week. I still love this quilt and only have 4 rows left. I couldn't sew in Saturday as we had a funeral to attend (parent of a friend).
There was also football to watch. Next weekend my team (Eagles) will play Mom's team (Vikings) for the NFC Championship. There might be some trash texting during the game. This week I'm going to be working diligently on my Birds of a Feather conference preps. I'm planning to leave myself an hour every day to work on something. If I had that ruler foot washer for FloMo I'd do some quilting. Instead I'm going to make as many postcards from the Maine quilt scraps as I can. It's just a warning that the posts might get a little boring this week! Don't let the gray days of winter get you down, let this bright quilt perk you up! Margaret made this bright and happy quilt with Stash Packs in purple and blue combined with batiks and other fabrics from her stash.
If you want more inspiration check out Margaret's blog. She is a very prolific quilter and has galleries of all of her work. If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months! I made a set of Dragonfly postcards in November using scraps from the Maine quilt and some screen printed dragonflies that were in my stash. I used those cards mostly for our Airbnb guests and I just gave the last one away. While I'm waiting on the new ruler foot washer to quilt I'm going to make some new postcards for upcoming Airbnb guests. I have loads of Maine quilt scraps left and several different screen printed elements in my stash so I'm going to see how many cards I can get out of them. Last week I had an hour to fill so I pre-fused and pre-cut the Stiffy for card bases and pre-fused and cut a lot of postcard backing fabrics so I'm set to go. The first dozen start with a little screen printed leaf image. Because the Maine quilt is an apple core block, most of my scraps have curved edges and I'm just going with it and sewing it all raw edged. I'm using the Quilt Highlights braid to accent the stitching. These are going together FAST which makes them perfect for Airbnb guests who might not appreciate something handmade. Although most of the guests say that they really love the cards....even these simple ones.
These will get their backs and serged edges soon. I'm going to stretch the Maine Quilt scraps as far as I can! Today is sewing day with Country School Quilters so that means I'm working on the Maine quilt! I don't get to go both days but there's a little chance that if I'll sew more and talk less that I might get the top done today. Yep. I'm going to call it "Lost My Marbles". I can't think of a better name for the effort that's going into this quilt. I spent some time Tuesday starting the quilting and as you can see my thread choice was a very bad one. It matches beautifully! It will show great in the dark blocks but the light side of the quilt will look unquilted. So back to my obscene thread collection to find something else. I have lots of choices! These are the first 3 that I pulled. I love these colors The 2 on the right are acrylic threads from the collection of threads that I bought from Lunn Fabrics years ago when they were closing out these threads. I used some of these threads in Parasol. Do you see how the thread on this one is really loose? Have you ever had that happen? This is how much thread I had to let fall off the cone before I could get it down to something relatively neat and controllable. I don't think it's a problem with the thread, I think it's because I had the cone upside down in the drawer. I haven't paid a lot of attention to how I stored these threads but now that I've gone through the drawer I see that almost half of them were upside down. I've fixed that now. It's a really pretty pile of thread though! But after all that I didn't choose any of these 3 threads. I decided on a bright orange that shows even better than in this photo. It's going to even stand out more in the darkest and lightest blocks. But then I ran into another snag. My ruler foot wobbles left and right a little bit. It has to do with how tightly the foot can be screwed on and still hop up and down. Michele, from Virginia Longarm, is bringing me a new washer that Innova developed to fix this. I thought you might want to know how I'm marking my circles.
Right after I made this quilt I saw Sue Heinz at Birds of a Feather and she had these tools. I knew they were exactly what I needed! I can easily divide circles into and multiple of thirds, fourths and fifths. So once I get the new washer for the ruler foot I'll be ready to go. I'm going to document every circle that I stitch and will share the rulers that I use for each one as well. But I have to wait until next Saturday to get the washer. I'm going to try to use all of the time between now and then to get everything ready for my classes and booth at Birds of a Feather on February 8 - 11. During my break times I'll work on some postcards and maybe plan a new quilt. Two more applique blossoms means that the 3rd border is half done and I'm 57% done with the border applique. More playoff games this weekend means I should get more blossoms done. I've also been working a little on a new batch of postcards and doing some testing of thread colors for the "Lost My Marbles" quilt. I'll share both of those over the next couple of days. For the second time since we moved here almost 20 years ago, our pond froze solid over the last 2 weeks. It was thick enough to walk on. After the snow we saw fox tracks across the pond. It should be totally melted by tomorrow. These two photos are of the river behind our house, the South Anna River. I took them from the bridge as I was taking Mom home the day after it snowed. I've never seen this much ice/snow cover on the river before.
I'm glad we've had the wood stove to help supplement the heat for the house. Let's kick things off with the Fabric of the Week. This week it's the Denim Shades Pack and it's on sale 20% off through Sunday! Shades Packs are dyed when ordered so there's no limit to what you can buy. If you order multiple quantities it comes as one cut. For example, order 2 quantities for 1/2 yard cuts. Orders received by Wednesday morning (EST) will be shipped by January 15. Orders placed after Wednesday morning will be shipped January 22. New Crystals!I've added some great new Crystal Mandalas fabrics to the shop this week. I'm trying to dye some that are a bit more muted so that they will better show off your beautiful quilting. New Galaxies!Galaxies are fabrics that are more than a yard in length. The extra fabric yardage allows me to get greater texture on these pieces. They are great for borders and sashing in traditional quilts and are great backgrounds and landscape elements in art quilts.
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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April 2024
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