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Isn't is interesting how we can go in the same rooms every day and we eventually just stop seeing what's there. Maybe it's a pile of clothes in the corner of the closet or a stack of fabric on a shelf. Our remodel has really forced me to look and see the accumulations around me. We had to unpack the kitchen and family room and fit it all on the foyer, living room, sewing room and guest bedroom. It's total disarray.  We are watching TV in the sewing room and that's working just fine except that now I have been actually looking at this wall. Usually when I'm in here the TV is on but I don't really watch it much. But for the past week I've been looking at the mess and it's been driving me nuts. Last night I had had enough.  I have also reached my clutter tolerance for the cutting table, currently the dinner table.  The project wall is also a total mess. So I got busy to see how much I could clean up in 3 hours. It turns out that I was able to fill 2 trash bags, create a 2 foot stack of magazines for the recycle bin and a few dozen books to give away.  I got the project wall back in order. The top of the cabinet would be clear if I could get to the bench where I store quilts that happens to be my kitchen pantry at the moment. Mostly I emptied a couple of bins and got things off the floor and in the shelves. I could easily empty more bins but since this was the last place I tackled I'll take what I've done and be happy for now.  The empty cutting table makes me feel like I can breathe again. All of the patterns and projects have been put in their appropriate places and a lot of junk was thrown out.  But the best of it is here. I actually got rid of a shelf! The remaining top shelf even has about 12" of empty space. Now I had room to put up the flowers that have been hanging out in the living room waiting for a home. I stuck them up with Command tape. I'm very much a function over form person when it comes to my work spaces but it is nice to have a little color in here now.   I got all of the the flowers from my booth put up in the sewing room and this makes me very happy....until they get covered in dust. But mostly I'm happy to have a little bit of order back to my room.
Our mini kitchen remodel is going beautifully. We really couldn't ask for things to be better but there's no avoiding the noise of saws and hammers and shop vacs. So yesterday I escaped to the basement to quilt two veterans quilts.  I've mentioned many times before that I load and quilt two quilts at a time. I match them up toa hand dyed backing and pick a thread color that I can use on both. This one is a great patriotic quilt that I would expect to go together very easily and quickly. The "block" seems to be a rectangle with tan in the middle, blue on one side and red on the other in varying widths. It's a very clever design.  I shined a light across it so that you could see the quilting. It's my new star/ribbon pantograph that is going to become a staple for me. I quilted both of these quilts in less than 3 hours and that included basting.  This meticulously pieced log cabin was made by Betsy. Even if she had not personally handed the quilt to me I would have known it was hers. Her style is so very distinctive.  Her log cabin blocks have 1" logs!. I used the taupe thread as a way to bring some of the block color into the white with the same pantograph.
I have several more ready to quilt and hope to get to them next week. I'm going to Atlanta this weekend with some friends so I'll get a brief break from the construction zone. But that means no quilting for a few days. Fabrics of the week!
The fabric of the week this week is actually TWO fabrics of the week and you'll see why below. The two Shades Pack on sale 20% off are Conifer and Eminence. Both are on sale through Sunday. Eminence is a slightly grayed purple and Conifer is brighter than forest green. Fat Quarter packs are ready to ship, larger cuts will be custom dyed for you and shipped January 28. New Gradient - Flourish! Flourish Gradient I've been working on a new green/purple gradient for a while and eventually found a perfect match with Eminence and Conifer. Yes, the new gradient coordinates with the sale Shades Packs!
This one was inspired by my Grandmother Lura's iris garden. It was a huge garden and it flourished under her exceptional care. It's a lovely combination of iris purple and leafy green and a streak of sunshine to help the garden flourish. I intended to post today to tell you about a beautiful new gradient and the fabric of the week. Instead we had some sort of ghost in the internet last night that didn't want me to do that. But it did finally let me upload these two photographs. Well, I can be flexible so let's go with moons today.  I actually finished these 4 Loony Moony blocks in early December and I just forgot to post them. Every time I make one I'm certain that that one is my favorite. In this batch I love the light blue highlight in the bottom right one and the cross-over patterning of the upper right one. The lower left one is so wonderfully moody and the top one looks almost floral.  Here are all of the ones that I have done so far. With this many complete you can start to see the background effect that I am going for. I have dozens more blocks to make and I could easily see getting 2 quilts out of this set of blocks. I could also make one giant queen size quilt. I'll see what kind of mood I'm in when the blocks are done in about 10 years.
Progress will slow a bit now that football season is over. Once we get the kitchen/family room back together I will make a little progress watching movies and TV with Chris. We hit a major milestone yesterday with the kitchen. We have officially made every decision that needs to be made. Now it's all on the contractor and I'm really happy about that. I'll be back tomorrow with a beautiful new gradient! It's been a few days since I've posted and that's because I spent most of last week finalizing decisions on countertops, sinks and faucets. We are going back to the tile store today for the third time and we will not leave until we've made a decision. That's the last decision to be made. So far, the project is going very smoothly so I have no complaints. But we are watching TV in the sewing room and for the first time in a long time I've actually been looking at the shelves on the TV wall. There's a major decluttering about to take place here! Oh, the stuff that we keep......  Another decision that I've needed to make is what to do with these fabrics. This is a stack of gradient samples that I used for display in my booth at the AQS show. I could just store them in my stash but I really wanted to make something with them. There's one of almost every gradient that I have.  I've had this pattern for a long time and it was even on my wish list of project from last year. It turns out that I need a new project to work on for my monthly CSQ sewing weekend. Since all of the veterans quilt kits that I made up for mast week were taken, I needed something to start working on this past weekend. I decided to give this one a try and use it with the stack of gradients.  I don't love the medium blue background of the pattern quilt. Instead I searched through my stash and pulled every dark fabric that I could find for a scrappy dark background. I'll use the mediums and brights from the gradients for the star points.  This is a Judy Neimeyer pattern and you know that they have a lot of prep work...most of which I did not do. But I had to do some and that took some time. I got one block made and 3 parts of a second block. I'm going to make a few and see if I like how it's going. This project might be a 4 block wall hanging.  But it also might be queen size because I apparently bought a pack of extra foundations. I don't know how long I've had this one but it is discontinued now so it's been marinating here for a long time. I'll give it a few months and see how it goes. I do love foundation piecing. I've missed doing it.
 Lady by Stephanie Wilds  Wraith by Stephanie Wilds Quilt artist Stephaine Wilds is knows for her monochromatic portraits. You can see several of her pieces in the Customer Gallery (scroll to the bottom). These two commission pet portraits are made with the Black Shades Pack. For sharing, Stephanie 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.  Black Shades Pack  Last year North Carolina was devastated by two hurricanes that produced major flooding in a large part of the state. Residents there are still trying to recover from the effects of Florence and Michael. One of my blog friends (and fellow football addict) is helping with the coordination of gathering quilts for the victims. The latest reports estimate over 4500 homes totally destroyed and over 700,000 have sustained flood damage. It's mind boggling.
There are lots of organizations helping with the rebuilding efforts but these people also need help rebuilding their hearts and souls and that's were we quilters come in. The Carolina Hurricane Project wants to deliver bed size quilts to as many affected households as possible. The goal is one quilt per household. Twin, full and queen size quilts are the requested sizes and there's no set pattern or color scheme. You can send finished quilts or tops with backing. Maybe you already have a finished quilt that's looking for a loving home. Get all of the details including shipping locations here. If you can't make a quilt you can help by making a donation to help defray the cost of batting. The project will last through the summer so you have plenty of time to help mend a family in North Carolina. Fabric of the Week - Bay of Campeche Bay of Campeche Gradient - 20% off!  Mermaid by Teresa Myles The fabric of the week this week is the Bay of Campeche gradient! Through Sunday this fabric is 20% off or $7.20/half yard. Teresa Myles use Bay of Campeche as the background for her mermaid quilt. New Crystals! This week I've added 8 new 58" Crystals. This is just 4 of them. The fabric for these is a tightly woven cotton similar to batik. You can see all of the Crystals in the shop. Coffee and Cocoa Gradient is back! Coffee and Cocoa Gradient Everyone should do some level of kitchen remodel every 20 years or so. I unpacked the cabinets this weekend while I was watching the football games and I can't believe some of the old stuff that I found. I've been gluten free at least 8 years and we still had wheat pasta in the cabinet. I thought I had been keeping the spice cabinet pretty cleaned out but I discovered that I was pretty wrong on that front too. We got a lot of good laughs out of the things we found. We got it all done and today the work has started and given the Eagles win last night, there's nothing he could do today that would dampen my mood. He could play rap music and I'd be OK with it today.   Regiment is the 4th veterans quilt that I designed for my program tomorrow. the perfect block size for these 48" x 60" quilts is 12" so I decided that for this one I would do straight blocks with no sashing or borders. I don't know what this block is called but it's really just a variation of the Churn Dash, one of my favorite blocks. This is another one that's good for scraps. You could even do both backgrounds as scrappy tonals.  Regiment 48 x 60 I have a pretty sizable stash of black on white and white on white fabrics. I bought all of them with plans to overdye them. Like the 10 year old pasta in the kitchen, these fabrics have been around at least that long. I'm trying to get them all dyed up this year to use in veterans quilts. The light blue background in this quilt was a black on white fabric. The dark blue was a flawed fabric that I couldn't sell. I dyed it and cut around the flawed areas. The centers are one Midnight Stash Pack of fat eighths. I would have used dark blue for the binding but I didn't have any if that left so I used the extra print.
So I'm all ready for my program tomorrow and I have 10 kits cut out for anyone who wants them. Now it's time to get back to some of my project, like the beaded mosaic wall and Lost My Marbles quilt. I've also got to come up with a project for the monthly Country School sewing days...unless I come home Tuesday night with a bunch of veterans quilt kits.  Infinite Expansion by Patricia Caldwell We're kicking off the new year with this very cool quilt from Patricia Caldwell. She made this quilt with a Crystal mandala, Blue Sky gradient and Regalia Shades Pack. She added couched yards and metal features. What a creative use of one of the Crystal fabrics!
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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In Bloglovin you need to search "Colorways By Vicki Welsh" to find the blog. About Vicki
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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