I hope everyone had as nice a weekend as I had. I got to hang out with some friends Friday night and have a scotch tasting evening with another friend Saturday. In between I did some quilting things. This is a baby quilt that Mom made and I got it quilted for her. It's a baby quilt so it got a simple Happy Times pantograph and lime green thread. The backing is yummy minky. Minky doesn't want to be over quilted so this panto was just right. But here's the big news for the weekend. The Summer Sunset star is together! I still need to add corners and the border and remove the paper from the back. That's another story for another day. I can't wait to get this quilt finished and on my bed. Speaking of "on the bed", this is how huge this quilt is! It's actually going to lose some effect once it's on the bed but I don't care. These are my colors and it's going to make me happy to see it every day.....once it's done. I also got caught up on my Bethanne Nemesch class and started another veterans quilt for practicing. I'm getting really comfortable with feathered wreath centers now. This quilt has 20 blocks and I've got 16 more to go. But I'm really getting faster with more confidence and that's cool.
This week I want to get both Summer Sunset tops completely together, quilt 2 veterans quilts with feathered wreaths and finish cutting out a bunch of veterans quilt kits. Today's inspiration is this serene lap quilt made by Peg Shealy. She used a combination of Shades Packs and Stash Packs with batiks. The border is a custom dyed piece of Periwinkle Blue.
For sharing, Peg received a 20% coupon for the shop that's good for 3 months! If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. The only rule is that project has to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount. Chris left for his golf trip this morning and I got busy on my home alone weekend. Look! Thanks to a little prodding from Mom, I've got the star points sewn into pairs now. She always knows best. Tomorrow I'll get the rest of the seams together. It's getting really unwieldy at this point. I meant to load and quilt a baby quilt for Mom today but I was more in the mood for cutting. So I cut. I started tackling my bin of patriotic batiks. I just want to get them all cut out and ready for sewing on vacation this summer. First up I cut fabric for 2 rail fence quilts. I even cut the binding. That's 6 yards down! 17 yards to go. Next up was this quilt. I cutout tropical versions of this one when I was at the beach in February. I've got the red and blue parts cut out for 2 quilts. I still need to cut the background but I have to get more of the background fabric for that step. I'll pick out a couple more patterns this weekend to use up more of the fabric. Meanwhile THIS arrived in the mail today! There's a story to go with it. Do you remember this quilt that I made a few years ago? It's one of the samples that I make for Paula Nadelstern to show off her new fabrics each year. This one was made with the line called "Where In The World". Ironically I named this one "Where In The World Is My Cat?" Well, Paula and I have been asking that question of Benartex for several months. The quilt is gone. I believe that a cat lover saw the quilt and decided to take it home. I received a very kind note from the President of Benartex apologizing for losing the quilt. Paula had told him about the work my quilt club does and he offered to send fabric for our veterans quilts. Their generous contribution to our veteran's quilt project arrived today and I've already started cutting fabric for members to pick up. I can't wait to see how many different quilt designs that they all come up with. My weekend plan is to quilt Mom's baby quilt, start quilting 2 more veterans quilts, finish that darned star and cut out some more kits from my patriotic batik fabrics. Yesterday was dyeing day and it was a big one. Business has been booming (that a relative term based on my small one-woman-show business) so Wednesdays and Sundays (ironing day) have been long and I'm perfectly happy with that. Since I didn't do any sewing yesterday I'll catch you up on my crochet and a special dyeing project that I did this past weekend. Last week I started a new blanket with this Caron baby Cakes yarn. I like the yarn and the stitch but once I got a few rows in I realized that it was too wide. So I spent one evening unraveling the whole thing and started again. I've gotta say that frogging a crochet project is much easier and more satisfying thank frogging a sewing project. Now I'm back in business and I'd estimate that I'm about a third into the first of 2 cakes of yarn. I think the body of the blanket (this part) will be about 30" square then I have a cake of pink for adding a border. They recommended an H hook with this yarn but I'm using a J. I think an H hook would make this blanket really stiff. It's coming out soft and cuddly with the J. Chris is off for his annual golf trip today. He goes with a large group of guys from his high school. I don't know about you but I kept in touch with exactly one person from my high school and, sadly, she died a few years ago. Chris, on the other hand, has most of his close friends as people from high school and college. His high school colors are basically the same as Green bay Packer colors. I found some really inexpensive "utility towels" on Dharma and offered to dye them up for everyone. For no reason other than boredom, I tied 5 different designs. As you can see here I had no intention of pressing the towels before I gave them to him. But I did stack them neatly. I expect that they are in some sort of ball in the bottom of his suitcase. I was just happy to get them done in time! Well, you know what a golf trip means - FOUR DAYS ALL TO MYSELF! I have so many plans. I have a baby quilt to quilt for Mom, I want to practice more feather quilting on some veterans quilts and I might spend some time on the serger projects that I cut out this weekend. Mom was over yesterday and I was showing her everything I wanted to do this weekend and she had the nerve to suggest that I actually finish this quilt! So, I think I will finally buckle down and get the center of this one done.
Let the weekend of solitude commence! This week I have a new Stash Pack for you. Stash Packs are sets of 10 fat eights in a loose color theme. Sets of browns are only second in popularity to greens. This new one is called Underground. Each set has 10 fat eights of fabric with lots of color texture. This quilt to the left is one that I made with 2 Stash Packs mixed with a hand dyed solid. I used the Accuquilt Hunter's Star die to cut the pieces. Stash Packs are very highly textured fabrics. Half are mottled and half have stripy effects. Here are 6 of the fabrics in this new set. So many possibilities! New Stars!I also have some new Stars in the shop this week. Stars are one-of-a-kind one yard cuts of fabric. Stars are available in a wide variety of colors but this week I focused on the colors of summer at the beach because I can't wait to get there myself. Fabric of the WeekThe fabric of the week this week is the Skyscapes Stash Pack. It's like having the beach vibe of the new Stars in a Stash Pack like Underground. Skyscapes is 20% off through Sunday.
It was a darned good sewing weekend. At quilt club I almost finished all of the blocks for the giant green quilt. Next month I will finish the last 16 blocks, arrange them by value (light to dark) based on the green frame and then start sewing them together in pairs. By June I should be putting the top together. At home I'm still taking the Bethanne Nemesch quilt class and trying to get in as much practice as possible. Since I have a lot of veterans quilts to quilt they seemed to be fine candidates for practice. In this quilt I finally learned to quilt some halfway decent feathered wreaths. I've always been able to do the outside of the wreath but I've never been able to do the inside. I used the 12 blocks in the center of the quilt to practice wreaths and I even did them in 2 directions. On the outside blocks I did a feathered curling vine. This quilt got the heirloom (hump and bump) feathers. Here's the back where you can better see the quilting. I'm pretty pleased. On the quilt I wanted to do something faster but still practice feathers so I did a big meander with continuous, spaced feathers. I wasn't quite as careful on this quilt but I do like the end result. Here's the back of the second quilt. If you start studying individual feathers you can see a lot of fingers but I know that 99% of quilt recipients actually never look at the quilting so I think it will be fine!
On the next 2 I want to do some of her fancy feathers. Some in wreathes and some as an all-over design. The class is simply amazing. She is such a good instructor. This week I WILL get that Summer Sunset star quilt done and I'm in the middle of processing some tie dyed golf towels for Chris to take on his trip this weekend. I hope to get more veterans quilts quilted and get some veterans quilt kits cut out. This week's inspiration comes from Erica Prince. She was inspired by an album cover to create this piece. She used Shibori for her background.
For sharing, Erica received a 20% coupon for the shop that's good for 3 months! If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. The only rule is that project has to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount. Starting with the scraps. I'm still procrastinating finishing the Summer Sunset quilt top. Instead I spent much of yesterday playing with scraps. When you cut diamond shapes from fabric there are a lot of odd triangles left. I had just enough to crazy piece them together for 4 placemats. If you study them carefully you will be able to tell that the one on the loser left was the last one. I think they are fun. I'll probably quilt them with an orange/bronze color thread in straight lines. I have no idea when that might happen but it will likely be a week when I feel the need for a quick finish of anything. With the last of the leftovers I patched up some postcards. These still need backs and edges but I can knock those out some evening soon. I will save one of these to send my SIL for her birthday. I still have the equivalent of about 18 fat quarters left over from that fabric. I'm pondering ideas for what to do with it. I might make Karen some placemats and I might make a veterans quilt or 2. I'm debating on whether I might want to order some more fabric on one of the darkest patterns for sashing. I might be able to dye a mottled dark brown that will work. My dyed black doesn't look good with it at all but the darkest brown in Coffee and Cocoa might work. I'll think on that later. Today I'm supposed to be at the monthly sewing with my quilt club. I'm delayed because we have to wait around for someone to magically appear between 11 and 2 to give us a quote on some work. I hope I can at least get my station set up this afternoon for sewing tomorrow. But before I can go I had to "fix" my travel sewing machine. I've had this Janome Gem Gold for ages and it is a wonderful machine. I think I paid about $300 for it over 15 years ago. It's never been serviced and it sews like a dream. It has the best 1/4" foot of any machine that I own. The case is soft so anything that sticks out gets abused. On this machine, that's the thread holder. It broke over a year ago and held up pretty good with duct tape for a while. It finally gave up the ghost at the river last week. I have looked and there is a replacement part but I can't get the broken pieces from the old holder out and I'm not taking it to be repaired. It will cost more than the machine is worth and I've already bought a replacement travel machine ($75) when this one deicides to pass on to sewing machine heaven. I rummaged around Anne's house and found a skewer in the kitchen. One piece of duct tape later and I was back in business. The problem came when I was packing up. I can't leave this thing taped to the back of the machine because it won't fit in the case. I pulled he tape off, packed up my skewer and decided to figure it out at home. The fix was simple. I just needed to line the tape in the center so that it doesn't stick to the skewer. It can be removed for packing up and inserted for sewing. I used the large thread cap for a base and, from the front, it doesn't look redneck at all. As long as I don't lose my skewer, I consider this a long term solution. I think the white duct tape classes it up a lot. In fact, I might even paint the skewer white and then no one will notice.
Today is a day to get myself organized, get everything put away from last week and make a list for what I want to work on this weekend. On the crochet front, here are 3 hats that I finished last week. I found this Bernat Bundle Up yarn a few weeks ago and thought it might be good for chemo hats. It's so, so soft! Out of one skein I got 2 adult hats and almost one baby hat. I had to add some leftover velvet yarn to finish the baby hat. My favorite is the hat in the top left. I'd make that one over and over and I'd probably wear it too. The pattern video is here. It's a good hat for men or women. The hat in from is from this video. Mine looks difference because I had to add 3 extra rows to make it big enough. These will get delivered later this summer to a local breast cancer doctor's office. I'll make more chemo caps but will likely not buy this yarn again. I have a feeling that this yarn pills. I think next I'll try some of the bamboo/cotton blend yarns. They are also soft but probably less likely to pill. I used up 2 skeins of yarn since past week on hats so I was ready to start something new last night. I picked up some Caron Baby Cakes a few weeks ago to try. They were on sale a Michael's. I looked last night for an easy pattern and found 2. The first is this video and it's the stitches in the bottom rows. I really like the texture and I will use it sometime but I was in the mood for something even faster. That's when this video popped up in my feed. It's a simple cluster stitch and there are dozens of patterns for them. This one was convenient and she's using the same yarn. In my swatch I tested I and J hooks. J was the right answer. This is the yarn and the start of my blanket. I'll use 2 cakes and make it as big as those cakes allow. Then I have a cake of pink for the border. On the dyeing front I have 26 towels to dye. I volunteered to make golf towels for everyone for Chris to take on his trip next weekend. I got them all dyed and soaked in soda ask. He's picked the right shades of green and gold for his high school colors so I'm ready to go on these this weekend. I also need to do something with the scraps from Karen's quilt. There are a LOT of leftovers. Because I cut diamonds most are odd triangle shapes that I think I will crazy piece into placemats. There's also probably the equivalent of 20 fat quarters left and those might make some fun manly veterans quilts. I had to order more of one of the animal prints for the binding of Karen's quilt and I found these cute Sesame Street fabrics! These will be more pillowcases for the boys. I have heard that I might have inadvertently created a laundry crisis in one house as one of the boys refuses to sleep without his dinosaur pillowcase. I think I can solve that problem soon. Pillowcases for the boys will be an easy counter point gift to the doll dresses for Ella.
Time to get busy! There's also a lot of dyed fabric to wash out today. Today's post is all about Ella. She's my SIL's 7 year old granddaughter and the one I make the doll clothes for. I've got the new dress to share and a couple of photos from a visit with her yesterday. First up is the dress. This was one epic dress to make. The pattern is called Opening Night and it has something like 36 steps. But it's so incredibly well written. I'd say that it's better than many patterns from the big pattern companies. I know that the AG McCalls pattern that I have is full of errors, including mis-labeled pattern pieces and spelling errors. This Opening Night dress pattern is incredibly detailed and very accurate. So it was hard and easy at the same time. It's hard because there are lots of pieces and some sewing gymnastics required but easy because the directions are clear and as long as you take it one step at a time and accept that hand sewing is sometimes faster than machine sewing, it will come together without too much of a headache. The fabric is silk shantung and was donated by my friend, Kim. The company we worked for has a lovely annual holiday event that was a great opportunity to make some beautiful evening wear. Kim loved full skirted dresses and this fabric was from the skirt from one of her party dresses. Silk shantung sews like a dream and has great body for a dress like this. She also gave me a pink silk that I'll use for another outfit at some point. Hand sewing was critical for this dress. I tried, for example, to do the edge stitching on the sheer fabric on the machine but this dress just didn't need to have that much profanity sewn into it. The story was the same with the invisible zipper. After 2 tries on the machine I sewed it in by hand and was done in 20 minutes. The dress is fully lined and it's hand sewn at the waist and around the inside of the zipper. The lining was some I had leftover from when I used to make my own suits for work. Ella's grandmother and I have decided to save this dress for her birthday in July. She's even getting some shoes to go with. Ella was staying with them for a couple of days this week while she's on Spring break so we went to visit yesterday and had a blast. Apparently Ella was excited for me to come because she had made me a thank you gift and card for making the outfits for her. She was so cute. We had a fashion show with each outfit and combination that I had made and then she gave me this potholder and thank you note. She definitely knows how to work me because she made a point of telling me that my clothes were special and that she kept them is a separate place so that nothing would happen to them. Soooooo cute. I love the potholder because it brought back so many memories of when I used to make these things by the dozen when I was a kid. I loved getting a new bag of loops whenever we went to the store. I didn't even know that this was still a thing! We did not go for our visit empty handed. The last time I ordered yarn I found this loop yarn from Lion Brand. The loops are all worked out so that as you "knit" them together you get an image. She loved making it and has decided to use it as a doll blanket. This type of yarn is available in big skeins and adult colors so you could make a giant afghan if you wanted. It's good because it doesn't require any tools other than your fingers but, I have to admit, I hope to never use it again. It's really easy to skip loops so you have to be very attentive. It also sheds like crazy and all that fluff stuck to my pants and nowhere else! I even brought some home with me. But, for kids, this is a fun project and the blanket is incredibly soft and snuggly.
We will be doing another because, in my wisdom, I also bought the unicorn skein at the same time. She got really good at it be the time we finished so the second one should go faster. PS, Ella is covering her face because I made her. She was happy to have her picture taken but I don't think it's appropriate for me to share photos of someone else's child on the internet. I don't even like to share my own photo on the internet! |
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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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