Yesterday was dyeing day so I didn't get much else done except for quilting 2 rows on this quilt. The quilting doesn't show at all from the front. But my friend will be able to see it on her quilt from the back. This a pantograph called Spin that I've never used before. It's quite dense and uses a bobbin every 2 rows but I think it's going to look really good on the back. I picked up 12 more veterans quilt tops at the quilt club meeting Tuesday night so Brenda and I will now be lacking things to quilt this month! I also dyed the backing for the big blue quilt so I'll be ready to quilt that one soon too.
Our friends from England arrive this evening so it's possible that I will not post again until Monday. Activity on the blog is likely to be sparse the next few weeks while we are hanging out with them.
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I honestly haven't accomplished a lot the past couple of days. We were offered a FREE truckload of firewood so I've been arranging the various woodpiles and adding the new wood. We are almost fully stocked for next winter. We will pick up one more truckload from the same friend and that should finish it off. I did have some time yesterday afternoon to put the binding on the Tucson placemats. I made 2 sets of placemats from some fabric that I bought in Tucson and I used almost every inch of it making 2 sets of 4 placemats. I bought one large scale print, the yellowish stripe and 2 small scale prints. The two small scale prints did not work together so I decided to make 2 sets. One we will keep and one for our friends who invited us to Tucson. They aren't really my style because I rarely work with commercial printed fabric but they do bring up good memories. I found these peachy colored dyed napkins in my stash that work great with this set. The second set have the blooming cactus print and this set has the better quality center images. I cut them out first. I have solid black napkins to go with this set and these are the ones that will be gifted to our friends when we go to Tucson next January. I have one more set of placemats that need binding but I have to find fabric for those. I'm also starting to think about putting some veterans quilt kits together. These are all of the cutoffs of backing fabric for veterans quilts that I've quilted so I'm going to try to use these in some of the kits. While I'm waiting for the patriotic fabric to arrive I can start making some kits with my bins of hand dyed scraps and symmetry fabrics.
This week I have a new Stash Pack for you! Earthworks has 10 fat eighths of fabrics in brown tones ranging from gray browns, to chocolate browns to orange browns. Stash Packs were originally designed for art quilters and applique artists but I love them for my traditional quilts, especially scrappy quilts. The quilt on the left is one I made with two Stash Packs in browns and grays. Each Stash Pack has 5 streaky fabrics and 5 mottled fabrics. Here are larger views of all of them. The fabrics you receive will not look exactly like these but they will be these colors and general textures. Each fat eighth is a gem on it's own. There are so many possibilities for fussy cutting applique or landscape elements. Black is back!Also this week Black fabric is back! This mottled dark black fabric is sold by the yard. Black is a difficult and expensive color to dye and that's why I developed my own recipe several years ago. The commercially available black dyes just don't give a truly rich dark black.
If you look close you can see that these are not the same quilt. I always like it when someone gives me two matching veterans quilt tops. It makes it an easy job to pair up for a backing, thread and quilting pattern. These are the last two I'll finish before the meeting tomorrow. I'm using the heck out of this Woven Wind quilting pattern. The next quilt on the frame is a 60" square picnic quilt for my friend. Then I'll be back on veterans quilts after I pick up more tops tomorrow night. Friday and Saturday were sewing days with my quilt club and I finished this veterans quilt top. I really love it and when I make the next set of kits (very soon), I'll cut more of this one. When I cut this quilt I did cut two of them. The second one has a beige background and will have a dark brown border. I got all of the blocks made Saturday.
I only have one kit left and it's a string quilt that will go together quickly so I went online shopping and found a good sale on patriotic fabrics. I like to make both patriotic and scrap quilts so I'll cut out lots of kits of both and will likely get started this week. Our friends from England arrive Thursday so who knows if anything will get done for the next few weeks! This week's inspiration is Grief by Julie Griffiths. She made this improve art quilt as a way to work through the grief of losing her husband. I think we makers are fortunate to have creative pursuits to help us process many of the difficult and stressful times in our lives. Julie used the Aurora Gradient in this piece.
For sharing, Julie 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. Anyone remember when I used to do some Zentangling? Well, yesterday I needed to pull out the books and pens and revisit that craft for a few hours. This is the envelope for our files for the tax accountant. Overkill? Maybe, but there's a backstory.
Many years ago we started having our taxes done my professionals because, well, I'm incompetent at it and I really hate doing it. When we moved to Richmond we went to a local firm where my cousin worked and she did our taxes for years. About 5 years ago I decided to start decorating the envelopes for her just to give her something different to see other than a pile of endless manilla envelopes. She liked them but I didn't know that she liked them enough to hang them in her office for everyone to see. Fast forward to last year. My cousin had retired so our new accountant is Samuel. Woohoo! I didn't have to decorate envelopes anymore. Then Samuel called to let me know that the taxes were ready and mentioned that he didn't get a decorated envelope. So here we are. I'm back to decorating tax envelopes! This is what I spent yesterday doing and it was fun to do some Zentangling again. It took several hours but it's such a relaxing was to spent time. Below are some progress photos. Tuesday was primary day in Virginia so I spent the day working as an elections officer. We have a nice group of people in our precinct so the day is really pleasant even if it's brutally long. We have to be there at 5:00 am and don't get to leave until about 8:00 pm. We had about 25% turnout, which was higher than I expected and it was fun to see some of my neighbors, friends and former co-workers. Since football season ended I haven't been watching TV so haven't been crocheting as much. But I do a little here and there and eventually finished this shawl for donation. This is the third time I've made this shawl using Ice Cream Cotton Blend yarn. It's a discontinued yarn and great to work with. I don't love the color pooling but it's going to be incredibly comfortable for someone in assisted living or a nursing home. I have yarn to make one more. I'm making some progress on the baby blanket too. I like the subtle stripes from this yarn.
I've been having fun doing some updates to old Gradients and making new ones. Today I have one new one, one upgraded one and one restock. This one, First Blush, is a new one. This one was inspired by the colors of the sunrise. This next Gradient, Estuary, is an upgrade to the Jenny Lake gradient. It's a subtle difference but, by using a different blue, I like the end result better. I also have Sugar Maple back in stock. Sugar Maple is one of my favorite Gradients and may be the foundation for my next big quilt. Fabric of the WeekThe fabric of the week this week is the Autumn Harvest Gradient. It's 20% off through Sunday.
Mom and I went to the Mid-Atlantic quilt show Friday and went to meet her new Great Granddaughter Saturday. It was a fun trip and we really enjoyed the quilts at the show. Between Thursday and yesterday I was able to kick off March with 4 more veterans quilts. This one was made by Peg. This one was made by Ann. They were both quilted quickly with this fern or banana peel motif and turquoise thread. I even finished off a cone of thread with this quilt. Quilt #3 was made by Clara. She's quite the prolific piecer. It was quilted with loops and stars. I don't know who made this one but I like it a lot. I quilted it with this free-motion fan motif. I hadn't use this in a long time. I need to get it back in rotation because I like it a lot.
I have 2 more to get quilted before the meeting next week. They are on the frame, basted and ready. Tomorrow I'll be working the primary election so I don't expect I'll have anything to post Wednesday. This week I have two quilts to share with you! Both are by the prolific artist, Patricia Caldwell. This first piece, Connections, is one that she made to submit to Sacred Threads. Her goal with this piece was to show that everything is connected in some way, including in nature. The words and tree of life stenciled with shiva paint stick and she embellished with hand dyed yarns. She used the Frolic Gradient. The second quilt is Releasing Joy and this one certainly exudes joy. She used Stash Packs in various colors for this one. Here's a great detail photo of her quilting.
For sharing, Patricia 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. |
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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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