Most years I try to make some sort of gift for my family for beach week. One year I made a bunch of fused glass things and one year I had commemorative t-shirts printed. The best gift so far was the year that I dyed beach towels. I was in the mood to do that again this year and I decided to give beach bags a try. The bags are from Dharma Trading. The last time I made shibori I decided to add a few bags to see how they would dye. They dye great! The stitching thread dyes too. I also had a few aprons left from previous gift giving and I threw some of those in too. Someone might prefer an apron to a bag. These bags have a pocket on one side so with this group I decided to do something large on the plain side and just do the pocket on the other side. I was going to do a lot more with the Color Magnet but these look entirely too feminine to be appealing to the guys. I didn't want to do too many like this but I love how these turned out. This is another Color Magnet one. I would have done more of these but it took FOREVER to print because I had to do it in sections and let it dry between adjusting. This one might be minee. Then a few more straight up tie dye. The sunrise colors were supposed to be on the blue one and the blue one was supposed to be on the orange/yellow one. I won't tell anyone. Of course I always have to make a patriotic version of everything. Again, with the guys in mind, I tried a couple of gradients and some "solids". I'll spread them out on a table and they can decide pick their favorites. I even ironed them all.
I made more than I needed so one of these might be included in a giveaway next week. Since we stopped doing Airbnb (because the company went absolutely crazy), I don't need as many postcards as I used to so I don't make them as often. But there are lots of summer birthdays and, of course, I needed one for Mother's Day. I rarely make just one of a design. This one worked great for Mom and for some birthdays this month. Lest you think I can draw a bluebird, the pattern for this came from here. I reduced it close to 50% to get the bird to fit perfectly on a postcard. The fabric were all from my pre-fused scrap bin and these clips were a lifesaver cutting out these small pieces. I even had the perfect backgrounds! These are some sunprints that I made at least 2 years ago and they were already fused onto the bases. This is why I keep every little pre-fused scrap of fabric. This was perfect for a tree branch. The one at the top of the post was for Mom. I made 6 more for birthday cards. It was great having the serger out so I could speed through the edges on these. While I had the serger out I quickly finished the edges on these cards that I made from the scraps of my SIL's quilt. I have 6 of these and they will be great birthday cards for this summer too.
If all goes well today our generator and propane tank installation will be done AND the phone line they severed last week will be repaired. Fingers crossed! This week's newsletter is completely devoted to the beach. The new fabric is beachy and I have a special beach celebration announcement. But first, also related to the beach, I'll be away with my family next week so no orders will be shipped May 22 - 31. All orders (not requiring custom dyeing) will ship June 1. New Waves Gradient!My family gets together every May for a beach vacation and I start looking forward to it in April. Who am I kidding? I start looking forward to the next one the day we get back. It's going to be so lovely to be together this year with all restrictions lifted in North Carolina. I've been in such a beach mood that I just had to translate that into a new gradient. I love the way that blue dye travels so that there are lots of dark areas in the green side to give the feel of movement. I had to name it Waves. This gradient coordinates with the Color Wheel Shades Packs in Purple Blue and Blue Green. Gradients Back In StockSummer Vacation Giveaway Week!I'm going to accomplish 2 goals next week. First is a much-needed vacation away from the computer and the other is to clear out some treasures from my sewing room. Check in on the blog every day next week and enter each giveaway. There are 6 giveaways and you can enter each one.
This weekend seemed to speed by. I've put myself into some sort of self-imposed rush to finish some things before we leave for the beach Saturday. None of these apparent deadlines have anything at all to do with actual deadlines but I feel like I want to come home to a clean slate. First up was finishing the walker caddies. Here are 9 ready to deliver the next time I'm near the donation site. I purposely tried to make these look less feminine so that the men might get some caddies that they like. This denim should be very sturdy. One side has a wide pocket and the other has the small pocket. Next time I would make the caddie a little shorter and put wide pockets on both sides with a seam on one of the pockets to make 2 narrow ones. Then I decided to catch up on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge cutting. As a reminder these are blocks for a set of 8 quilts that I'm going to make using up 8 giant 8-pointed stars that my Great-Grandmother made. There are 8 blocks cut for each of these. I stack them on boards with the pattern on top. Here's everything that I've cut out so far. I think this might be the project that I take to work on at the beach. I only need to piece blocks so I won't need a lot of space. While I was cutting and sewing, I finished the last batch of pillowcases. I wanted these particular ones done because we saw the kids last night. They just got back from Disney so I wanted to give Eli a the Disney pillowcase. Ella got the American Girl gardening outfit and she loved it. We had a fun visit and I was reminded why old people don't have children. There's a lot of energy bottled up in those little bodies.
I think my goals for this week are to finish cutting out things to clear off the cutting table and get a few more veterans quilts quilted. When I get back from vacation I'll be ready to quilt one of my own quilts. I remember when Linda Baker ordered this fabric (Navajo Gradient) and told me what she was doing with it. I begged her to share it with us when it was done. This quilt was inspired by Game of Thrones. She machine embroidered the dragon, castle, trees and moon, and wolves. She thought of GOT the whole time. So the name evolved. Machine quilted be Kylee Freisen. Linda was kind enough to share a couple of close up photos too. For sharing, Linda 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 projects have to be complete. It doesn't have to be made totally from hand dyed fabric, just include a recognizable amount.
Yesterday I got back in the sewing room to work through more of the serger projects. I finished the edges on some postcards that I'll share as soon as one is received by my brother for his birthday. He reads my blog every day and I don't want him to see it here first. After the cards were done I got back to the walker caddies that I cut out weeks ago. I had a basket of leftover hand dyed denim scraps from various projects over the past few years and I cut them out using this pattern from my local organization. But once I started putting one together I realized that it wasn't a great pattern. The straps are way too long and there aren't any side straps to keep it from swinging. I had to re-work it. These photos are the 2 sides of 1 caddie. I don't think this one is perfect either but it's better and much more functional. I needed to work within the parameters of what I had already cut out so this is what I'm going with. I spent the rest of the day cutting out large pockets and lining for the other 8 caddies. They are all ready to sew up today and I cleared out more fabric from my stash. But at the end of the day I still had an stack of denim scraps big enough that I didn't feel like I could just toss the out. This is where the serger comes in real handy. I just started sewing them together randomly to see what I could come up with. What we have here is another pet bed cover!
Something out of nothing. I like that. This is what I'll be doing today. This weekend will be lots of cutting out stuff to get the piles off my cutting table. I hope you have a great weekend. Our family beach vacation is coming up soon and I decided that I'd make gifts again this year. After perusing the Dharma Trading website I decided on beach bags. So far, I'm really pleased. They are sturdy enough for toting all sorts of things but supple enough to be able to tie for dyeing. I started a few weeks ago with a few to test while I was doing some shibori dyeing. I also had a few aprons left over from a previous purchase so I added them to the mix. I don't usually dye light colors but I have to say that I really love the light blue one. Yesterday, while dyeing 30+ yards of fabric for the shop I also finished the beach bags. I can't remember the final count but I think I dyed about a dozen yesterday. Some were tie dyed. These two actually got dyed in reverse. The blue one was supposed to be the orange and the orange one was supposed to be blue. They will be fine either way. Some of them were stenciled with Color Magnet. You can see the darker areas in this piece and the Color Magnet absorbs more dye. With some others I tried some gradient techniques and some all-over splatter techniques. I didn't finish up until about 8:30 last night so that's ALL that I did for the day. Later today I'll start washing out and see how they turned out.
The big event of yesterday was finally starting the installation of a generator and propane tank. This has been such an ordeal. The generator was the easy part but working within county code to find a place where we could put the tank (that wasn't in the front yard) has been the challenge. But a project that started in February is now finally underway. After lifting the tank off the truck it just needed a little slide down a hill and it could be put in it's new home. We were without power most of the day while the electrical work was going but I seemed to find plenty of things to keep me occupied. Doing some crochet would have been perfect but I'm off crochet for a few weeks while some inflammation in my left hand relaxes. Instead I removed binding from the vulture quilt that I'm going to enlarge, I stamped some beach bags for dyeing and worked a puzzle. But as soon as the power went in I rushed to the basement to quilt 2 more veterans quilts to take to quilt club last night. Here are the most recent ones completed since Saturday. I have such a backlog of veterans quilts that they are now getting super fast quilting treatments. I'm in "get-'er-done" mode. That means ribbon meander, wavy cross hatch or wavy "straight" lines. Both of these got ribbons. This is the first one that I finished yesterday. I love the red thread on the gray backing. I love the way the piecer used this brick method to create a scrappy quilt. I have a stack of patriotic scraps and I might just have to do this too. Wavy straight lines on this one. I had both quilts quilted in a hour and a half!
This week I have over a dozen new Star fabrics for you. Stars are one yard one-of-a-kind fabrics. These are great for art quilt background, binding or just when you need a larger piece. If you don't see the color you need I can always custom dye a color for you. If you need just one of the 5 shades in a Shades Pack, I can do that for you. In fact, I can custom dye a piece as small as 1/2 yard of any color that you need. I have so many Stars fabrics now that I've decided to make them the fabric of the week. All of them, even the new ones, are on sale! All STARS fabrics 15% off through Sunday! |
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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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