 I accomplished a lot of things this weekend but today I'm only going to talk about yesterday. It's the first time since July 2020 that I've had an opportunity to mosaic. It was a great day although my back is a little unhappy.  My friend, Nadine, has a back patio with a pergola and a HUGE Wisteria tree on it. The weight of the tree on the patio slabs has cracked and tilted the slabs over time. It's a huge trip hazard. They are afraid to replace the slabs because it might kill the Wisteria. We've been talking for several years about doing a patchwork mosaic to level out two areas of the patio and yesterday was the perfect day. The weather was absolutely beautiful, the Wisteria was in bloom and the bees were having a blast around the blooms. They didn't come anywhere near us. This the the biggest section where we started. The tiles are mostly Mexican-style tiles. We edged the area with small square tiles, placed some big tiles randomly throughout and filled in with broken tile pieces. Nadine is on the right. Her son is on the left and the impetus for getting this done is to prepare for his wedding in June that's going to be held at the barn on their farm.  Before we started that corner in the upper right was at least 3" lower than the surrounding slabs! Her son poured concrete earlier in the week to give us a level surface to work on.  Here are the last tiles going in behind the post on this section. This took is about 4 hours, start to finish.  This is the second section and it took us about an hour and a half. We were all EXHAUSTED by the end but really happy with the results. My back is not happy at all but I don't care. It was so much fun to mosaic again.  Here you can see both sections finished.Nadine and her son will grout it later this week and then I'll go over and get some photos of it finished.
Next on tap for this week is helping a friend move. I may be doing some today and will definately be helping Wednesday. I'm leaving my schedule open for later in the week too. So I don't know how often I will be posting. It's been a couple of days. I didn't post yesterday because I dyed fabric Wednesday and that's all I accomplished. Yesterday was a little more productive. How's the pollen where you are? Yesterday I hosed off my car at 11:00 and it was green again by 1:00! I normally wouldn't look forward to rain but we will all appreciate a couple of showers this weekend.  I started the day yesterday by getting my second acupuncture treatment and it seems to especially be helping my right foot issues. I'll keep it up for a few weeks and see how it goes. After I got home I decided to put some borders on this quilt. The blocks are from a block collection that we did in quilt club. Carolyn put the 12 blocks together and returned it to the club meeting Tuesday. It wasn't big enough for a veterans quilt so I brought it home, and after auditioning several fabrics, I decided in lime and navy borders. I think it calmed the blocks down quite well. I cut more lime for the binding and after it's quilted someone in the club will bind it. It will be a true group effort quilt.  Next I decided to start quilting the big blue quilt. I tried to come up with an idea I liked that I could quilt from the front but I really, really wanted a pantograph. I wanted Happy Times. Even though my shoulder isn't totally healed, I'm doing it anyway. I'll quilt one pass at a time and a max of 2 passes a day with a long break between the 2. I like how it's looking so far.  The last thing I worked on was this card. We got word yesterday that one of Chris' friends had emergency heart surgery yesterday morning. He was supposed to join Chris and a bunch of other guys next week for their annual Myrtle Beach golf trip. He even asked his doctor right after surgery if he could still go if he didn't golf! Doc said he didn't recommend it.
Dudes will be dudes..... I decided to make him a quick card with the golf ball just missing the hole. John just missed the golf trip but he also missed dying and we are all grateful. This card is the reason that we keep stashes of things that look like garbage. I the message with some cheap letter stamps. The background a fabric that I printed probably 8 or 10 years ago! The other elements came out of my box of pre-fused scraps. The hole is from a 1/2 inch strip that I would have normally tossed. The whole card took about an hour and I think John will like it. Today and tomorrow are sewing days with Country School quilters. We have 2 months left to meet in our current location. The club has been meeting there for 35 years! It's a little sad to leave but we have a wonderful space right next door and it cleaner and brighter and the center really wants us there. We are quite excited. For now, I'm looking forward to working on one of my new quilt kits.  Our friends returned home Monday and we are slowly getting back to our normal life. I decided that I'd get the big blue quilt loaded so that I'll quilt it before the veterans quilt tops that I picked up last night at the club meeting. I think I know how I'm going to quilt this with some simple continuous curve motifs.  I didn't have anything ready to start sewing so I decided to tackle this bin of fabric scraps. These are the quilt back leftovers from veterans quilts that I've quilted. This pile was much higher before I started putting together veterans quilt kits but I couldn't use all of it in the quilt kits and had this big pile left over. I keep adding to it every month. Last week I found out about another group of local sewists who make quilts for Lutheran World Relief. The quilts they make are very utilitarian and they use 11" cut blocks. The woman who is our contact gives me occasional bags of napkins to dye. People give her orphaned fabrics and sometimes it includes things like napkins and other unusable items. She works really hard to find homes for everything. Anyway, I found out about the 11" squares and thought I could turn that mess of backing scraps into something they could use.  I cut and sewed and sewed and cut and in no time I had almost 100 squares to donate to their charity. I hope these work for them because it would be nice to have a destination for the leftover backing fabrics.  Then I found a stack of 3.5" strips leftover from another project. I spent about an hour sewing them together and produced another 15 blocks for them.  I got the pile down to this. I kept the gray and dyed blue fabrics because I do use those in my own veterans quilts. I feel like I really accomplished something!
I'll be getting on with quilting the big blue quilt today or tomorrow. First I have to do dyeing today. Last week I had time to dye some new Reflection fabrics. I originally designed these as water and sky fabrics for landscape quilters but I like them for borders on traditional quilts. I'm sure your imagination is better than mine for uses for these streaky fabrics. I have 5 new ones this week and a big selection in the shop if these don't meet your needs.  Bhana  Patria  Ociel  Irria  Falak  Our friends left this morning to return to England. We had a really lovely visit. We had tons of rain during their visit but out last day, yesterday, was beautiful. We love it when they visit. We are so compatible that we could all probably live together. We are already planning their next visit. In between time with our friends I got the last 2 quilts quilted and ready to return to the piecers tomorrow night. These two quilt were made by either Jennifer or her mom, Clara. They are a dynamic duo and make lots of quilts for our veterans.   I'm still favoring my shoulder, although it's better. So I'm quilting from the front of the machine and I did a ribbon meander on these. I really love the effect and it's fast and easy to do.
I'm ready to pick up some more quilt tops tomorrow night but I think I'll quilt the big blue quilt next before I do more veterans quilts. It's time to get back to my normal routine!  I've had these placemats ready for binding for about 3 weeks. I just didn't have binding fabric. I rectified that last week by dyeing a purple that is a reasonable match. These fabrics are leftover from a veterans quilt (in this post) that was made from scraps that I cut into 4.5" squares. I had leftover from that quilt and I couldn't toss the out. That means placemats! I will most likely use them as 2 sets of 2 and I found some napkins in my dyed collection that work with each set.  They are quilted with all-over leaves.  They aren't my favorite placemats but they will be serviceable and I can always use the back side as the front.
I already have an idea for another set that I absolutely do not need. But this weekend I need to focus on getting 2 veterans quilts quilted.  These two quilts were super fast and easy to quilt. I'm glad my shoulder pain had forced me back to the front of the machine and away from the pantographs. This one was made by Becky. She fussy cut those strip borders so that they look pieced.  It's made with 4" blocks and borders so it was perfect for a wavy crosshatch.  I think this quilt was made by Clara and I decided to pull out the rulers for a very simple continuous curve pattern.  I used red thread on this one and it shows nicely in the tan blocks.  It's a nice orange peel pattern on the back.
Today is going to be spending time with our friends. They are back from a few days away. I might get some placemats finished or get two more quilts loaded. I was able to get back to quilting but just a little at a time. Daily stretchy yoga has really helped to start unwinding my shoulder enough so that I could quilt about 30 minutes a day. So these 2 quilts were on the frame about a week. Yesterday I tried an acupuncture treatment and will do a couple more. It did seem to help quite a bit but there's a ways to go before I get the knot totally undone.  The best thing about quilting the veterans quilts is seeing the creativity of the quilt makers. This quilt was made by Margaret and she made great use of some African fabric scrap blocks.  It's quilting pantographs that really set off my shoulder so I have to do any quilting right now from the front. For this quilt I did one of my favorite, fast overall designs. I used a variegated black and white thread and I'm not sure I did the quilt any favors with it. Chris says he likes it. Hopefully the eventual owner will like it too. I used the variegated because I'm making a concerted effort to use some of my unusual threads this year. I have SO MUCH THREAD and I need to try to stay away from the creams and blues and use up some of this stash.  This quilt was made by Gwendolyn and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. It's so unique that I had to do something different with it for the quilting and I could use lime green thread!  Quilting this one was so much fun with a little ruler work.  The bonus is that I almost finished off a cone of lime green thread. I'll use the rest of this cone for basting and I still have one more big cone of lime green. What was I thinking when I bought it?
I have two more on the frame now and another 2 to get done before our meeting next Tuesday.  New Joyful Gradient! It's been a few weeks since I had new fabric. We've had friends visiting and we've been taking full advantage of their time here. But last week I got back in the dye studio to work on some gradients. First I have this new gradient, Joyful. It's a lot like Bliss, but brighter. I've got to make a quilt plan for this one. It's one of my favorites. Back in StockI've got 3 other gradients back in stock this week.  Clear Day  Daybreak  South Beach  March was an unusual month. The last two weeks we spent most of our time with our visiting friends. As a result I didn't feel like I accomplished much but, as I look back on the month, I did OK! The last 2 weeks I've been cutting out quilt kits like mad. These are all veterans quilt kits and I decided I would cut kits until March 31 and then stop. In the end I put together 22 kits. I generally work on these during our monthly quilt club sewing days. I like to be able to arrive, set up my machine and start sewing. Having kits ready to go makes everything easier and faster. This stash will probably last me 2 years.  All packed up and stored away for when I need one.  I always leave some leftover fabric in case I didn't cut enough pieces or miscut some pieces. There are lots of 2.5" strips in here for 9-patch blocks in case I run out of things to sew. At the beginning of the month I got 6 more veterans quilts quilted. I haven't quilted anything since because I hurt my shoulder with all the quilting I did in February and early March. It's getting better with daily yoga and visits to the chiropractor. I'm even going to try acupuncture this week to see if I can get it resolved. I have 6 more to get done this month and I have the big blue quilt that I want to quilt this month. I also expect I'll pick up a few more veteran quilt tops at the meeting next week. I haven't done a lot of crochet but I did finish a wheelchair shawl and will get back to my other projects soon. I also quilted a quilt for my friend, finished 2 sets of placemats and decorated the envelope for our tax accountant.
The only other goal I had for March was to quilt the big blue quilt. With my neck, I just couldn't do that. Instead I cut out 22 quilts! My stats for the month: Quilts - 1 Veterans quilts made - Donation lap quilts - Veterans quilts quilted - 20 Fabric Postcards - Pet Beds - 6 Quilted for others - Crochet blankets - 1 Crochet shawls - 1 Crochet/loom knit hats and scarves - 5 Placemats and Table Runners - 17 Dyed shirts and towels - Other Donated items - 102 Garments (sewn and cochet) - 1 Balls of yarn used or gifted - 17 Other items - My goals for April are: - quilt the big blue quilt - quilt 8 - 10 veterans quilts - bind a set of placemat - maybe start cutting out the Fab Farm quilt |
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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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