I've added 4 new Reflections fabrics this week! I designed these fabrics primarily for landscape elements but they also make great borders or stripe elements for any quilt. This week I've added a yellow/pink sunset, some deep blue water, a deep purple night sky and some great bark for your next fiber tree.

​Because it's Thanksgiving I want to thank all of my great customers so
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The sale even includes these 4 new Reflections fabrics. The sale ends Sunday, November 29. 
​Happy shopping and have a very happy Thanksgiving!
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As with every weekend I started out with a pretty long list. The difference this weekend is that I actually finished most of it! The big project of the weekend is one that I can't share. Every year I volunteer to make a sample quilt (0r 2) for Paula Nadelstern for her new fabric line. Usually I work on this on September - October but covid changed the schedule this year. My goal was to start it this weekend and finish by December 10 but once I got into it I came up with a simple design that used the fabrics in an amazing way. I finished the top Saturday afternoon and got it quilted Sunday. All that's left is binding. I'll take it with me on my Thanksgiving trip and get the binding and sleeve stitched. I should be able tos hare the quilt sometime in December.

I'm able to focus on my projects so well because I'm listening to a great book. It's Robert Galbraith's latest installment of of the Cormoran Strike series. I've been waiting for the book for months and now that I have it I can't turn it off. So I sewed and quilted and drew Spirographs all weekend. Here's the stitching on the first Christmas card design.

In case you are wondering how I drafted the star, I used Electric Quilt. They have the star shape in the motif library and I was able to play around with it until I got it the size I needed. I love EQ. 

These 37 cards are all set aside and ready for backs and edges. I'll serge the edges so I'll wait until all the cards are done and finish them all off together.

I also quilted! I finished Mom's quilt and that's why I was able to get my Paula quilt done yesterday. Mom made this quilt for someone who works in her apartment complex. It's a really pretty quilt. 

I dyed a gold backing and quilted it with the Woven Wind pantograph using Superior Rainbows and Superior So Fine threads. The tension was perfect all the way through.

Mom is an expert at scrap quilt and this one is a winner.

I don't have a new customer gallery quilt to share today so I'll catch you up on the floor cloths. I actually got to do lots of things yesterday. Mom's quilt is half quilted and the tree postcards have half the stitching done but I didn't get photos of either of those. I got 2 sessions on the floor cloths in yesterday and it was warm enough in the afternoon to leave the door open for more fresh air. Here's where they stand at the moment. 

As a reminder, these are canvas pieces primed with gesso and then painted with satin finish house paint. When I finish the spirograph designs I'll fold under and glue a hem and then they will get a couple of coats of polyurethane. They will hold up on the kitchen floor for years.

I started with some small designs. I'll add big designs "behind" these for a layered effect.

These 2 medium sized designs show how I do the layering. It requires drawing slowly and carefully. Fortunately mistakes can be erased with the tan paint and there have been more than a few slips to cover up.

Below are all 3 floor mats and how they look today. There's still lots of drawing left to do but I do love them so far.

Yesterday was a really good day. I ran errands in the morning and found almost everything I needed between Walmart and Wegmans. The only think I need to order is printer ink. There seems to have been a run on printer ink lately because it's been out of stock for weeks. I also noticed that there's another toilet paper run. My friend in California told me about it there so I looked down those aisles today. How much more toilet paper do people really need? Isn't everyone stocked for a year now? 
​Crazy.

Back at home I now have 36 postcards ready for stitching! These will be done in no time and then I'll need to think about the next design. I quite like how these are turning out and I think the simple stitching that I have planned will look really nice.

I also spent a couple of hours on the floor cloths. I'm sorry that these photos are a bit chopped off. I uploaded them from my phone and I might have selected the unedited images so the blog software cropped them for me. I'm writing this late at night on Thursday and don't have the human or cell battery to reload them. You will see loads more photos to come but here's a peek at what I did yesterday.

This the second of the 6 foot rugs and you can see that I'm starting to layer the designs. It takes more time but it's so worth it, don't you think? I've got lots more space to cover. I'm working no more than and hour and a half at a time and I do wear a respirator but some of the fumes still sneak through. I'll be back out there this afternoon to finish the inside of that big circle and to add more elements to all three rugs. It's so zen and relaxing to work on these. You have to concentrate so you have to purge everything else from your thoughts. 

Yesterday was dyeing day and after 40 yards of fabric dyed I didn't have time or energy for much else. But I did have time to think about a different postcard design and I got a little start on it.

I do some sort of tree design every year so I decided to table the design I was working on Tuesday and move forward with a tree design. It took some editing but I now have a plan. I have 34 or 36 postcard bases ready and I've started cutting out trees. Next I need to add fusible to the gold metallic fabric and cut out my star template. I'm determined to make fast cards this year. I don't have time for a lot of details, there are too many other projects to do!

​I've got errands to run today but I hope this afternoon that I can get these substantially done and get some quilting done on Mom's quilt too. All I have to do is stay off the internet!

I had to take a break from the floor cloths. Between the VOCs from the Sharpies and all the mold outside from the biblical rains, my asthma/allergies went a little crazy. So I'm working on some other things.

I got Mom's quilt loaded on the quilting frame and started quilting. This is a huge quilt and she made it for someone who works in her apartment building. It's a really pretty quilt. This is the second quilt that she has made with this pattern. The person who's receiving this had seen and loved the first one.

Quilting is going to be fast because I'm using a simple pantograph.

It's also time to start the Christmas postcards! I'm going to try to get one set done by this weekend so that I can then spend the weekend working on a new Paula Nadelstern sample quilt. These threads always inspire me! I use these in the bobbin or couch then with a narrow zigzag.

In my first prototype I used the threads in the bobbin and stitched from the back. I did a couple of versions of this prototype and I didn't like either one. I'm going back to the drawing board for this one.

But that one did give me an idea for the 3 December birthday cards that I need. I can't show the designs because 2 of the recipients read my blog. But I'm excited to have at least one thing done ahead of time!

This week I'm excited to introduce a brand new gradient design that I'm calling On the Horizon. I love the effect of the blended colors in the middle of the fabric, on the horizon. It's a blend of my new Midnight color and Sunset, my favorite gold. As with all of the gradients, it's sold by the half yard. Multiple quantities come as one continuous piece.
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The fabric of the week this week is the Midnight Shades Pack because it coordinates with the new gradient. Midnight is my new favorite blue and I seem to be using it in everything that I make lately. This Shades Pack of 5 fat quarters is 20% off through Sunday. If you want larger cuts just order multiple quantities and I'll custom dye it for you.
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It was sewing weekend with my quilt club Friday and Saturday so, of course, it was a great weekend! 

This is the project that I am working on. I'm using every green from my green hand dyed leftovers drawer and a lot of my favorite "waste" fabrics. I like having one project dedicated to sewing weekend so that it's always ready to go and I don't have to do too much thinking to get ready. This is likely to eventually be a king size quilt and I'm contemplating a couple of different layout options. One would include sashing. I love the effect I'm getting with the waste fabrics in the windows. I have a lot more to make before I have to make any decisions.

At home I'm slowly working on the floor cloths. I'm so sensitive to the Sharpie marker fumes that I can only work on then about an hour at a time and that's with a respirator.  I can get 2 designs done in an hour so this is going to be a long term project. I'm totally cool with that because I love working on them and spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to do each one. I still need to add something in the centers of the 2 on the bottom row.

As a reminder there will be 2 6 foot by 2 foot rugs and one 2 x 3 foot so I've got a long way to go! In fact I'll be ordering a lot more markers today. They don't last so long when you start coloring in!

This week I'll get started quilting Mom's quilt and I will finally start the Christmas postcards. I've got the first design figured out so I'm ready to go. I also need to get photos of Kim's quilt but it's sooooo big! The idea of photographing is is kind of daunting. Maybe I can get some people to help me photo it at the quilt club meeting Tuesday night.

I wanted to get all the veterans quilts quilted before sewing weekend with the quilt club and I did it! Someone asked earlier this week where these quilts go. We've been making them for the local VA hospital (used to be called McGuire before we went radical PC this year). I don't know what it's called now but it's in Richmond VA. We are currently giving them to the Interventional Radiography department. They do lots of procedures there but one of them is inserting ports for chemo patients. The doctors and nurses there absolutely love having the quilts. Newly diagnosed cancer patients are usually in shock and many are angry. Sometimes they can't get the patients past the anger long enough to work productively with them. So they stop and give them a quilt and chat about our group and why we make them. We are told that these quilts make a world of difference for the patients and for the staff. You know it's important when the doctors take time out of their schedules to specifically come talk to you and than you for making them. We get such great feedback that we are all really dedicated to making them. 

I think that both of these are from Betsy. They certainly look like "Betsy quilts". With these 2 I will have personally quilted 39 for members and made 15 of my own. Other quilters in the group have done lots of them too. I will not be doing any more until Christmas gifts are made and postcards are done and in the mail.

I quilted both of these from the front of the machine. I was just tired of the pantographs. This one also had a little fullness in the border. It wasn't a problem at all but by quilting it from the front I could make sure that I didn't quilt in any pleats. 

I am 100% certain that this is a Betsy quilt. Isn't it lovely? I quilted this one with free motion lines. It's a fast method of quilting and I didn't want the quilting to take away from the bold geometry of the circles. Both of these got a light tan backing.

Today I'm off to sew with my friends and it's going to be a great day!

and it's still raining! I apologize to all residents of central Virginia. I knew it was bad luck to wash 2 cars on the same day and here's my punishment. Before I explain this photo know that our house is perched , basically, on a cliff so that grassy edge you see there is actually a drop and I'm taking this photo from the second story. So there's absolutely no chance of water getting anywhere near our house. The black line should be the edge of our property but you can see here why we call that area the flood plain.

Here's one edge of the property. Both side property lines are basically drainage ditches that are often dry. Not today! We actually have a waterfall.

I actually hate drenching steady rainstorms like this. It reminds me too much of the rain that we got in 1972 from Hurricane Agnes when our neighborhood was flooded. It rained heavy and for hours. There were fears of the dam breaking so they had to open the flood gates and it surely flooded. We got 2 - 3 feet of water in our basement and an entire beach full of sand dumped in our backyard. What was a little 15 foot wide creek behind our house turned into a river about 200 yards wide. It was miserable and I have hated steady heavy rainfall ever since. I can't sleep through it, I have to wear earplugs. It's the reason that I always will try to live on a hill. Give me a thunderstorm any day. I sleep like a baby during thunderstorms.

Plus we have satellite internet and TV and it's been hit and miss for 2 days. I was finally able to get in to do this post. The weather should be clearing up later today. Virginia is definitely not in a drought this year. Chris, my personal climatologist, says that we have received about 160% of our annual average rainfall this year. I believe it because the yard has been a mud pit all year. I'm glad my hobbies are mostly inside!

Yesterday was dyeing day so I didn't get a ton of time at my hobbies but now that the quilt is done I'm back to the crochet. Let me just say again that I LOVE this Lion Brand Mandala Ombre yard. I'm almost at the end of the first of 4 balls. I'll be able to put a border on this one.

Here's my first Spirograph design on the floor cloths. I've done more but it was raining too hard to go out and get photos. More to come on this project.

My main goal today is to get the last 2 veterans quilts quilted. We have quilt club sewing days tomorrow and Saturday so I'll take the finished veteran quilts to the owners for binding. Most of them will be at sewing tomorrow or the meeting Tuesday.