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Since I am working on some butterfly postcards it seemed time to finally edit my butterfly photos. Mom and I went to Lewis Ginter a couple of weeks ago to see the butterfly exhibit. I took a lot of photo to capture as many different butterflies as we could identify. Here's the gallery. Have a great weekend!
It seems that this is the week for starting new projects. I started the Rainbow Quilt Saturday as my ongoing CSQ/travel sewing project.  Now I'm starting/restarting a few other projects that I'll be working on next. First a quick little project to make some postcards. I found this gray toned butterfly ribbon in my stash and decided that I needed to use it. Under a pile on the cutting table I found a bunch of stencils that I won months ago. One was a butterfly. Voila, new postcard idea!  FloMo is loaded up with this quilt. I started quilting this about a year ago and got stuck. I took it off and loaded Lura's Choice instead. Since then I've been moving this around in the floor of my sewing room. With the Country School Quilters show coming up and the need for smaller quilts, I decided that a deadline was just what I needed to get this done. I've already submitted it for the show so now Ihave to get it done.  I think these Judy Neimeyer patterns are had to figure out how to quilt. They generally don't leave a ton of quilting space. This is an early pattern so there's more space for quilting but I've really struggled with developing an idea. I'm not sure what I've settled on is a great idea but I'm going with it so I can get it done.....hopefully by the end of July.
This weekend I also want to work on the mosaic wall some and make a little glass. So I'm going to get off the internet and go make something. Before I get into my fun day yesterday someone asked a couple days ago about the MP3 player that I use for listening to books. I had a Sansa Clip that I liked a lot but it got to the point where it wouldn't hold charge anymore rendering it completely useless. As a replacement I bought the Sansa Sport Clip thinking that it would work the same as the old one. It does not! When books download in multiple files the new one treats each file as a separate book (the old one grouped them together). When listening to a book I used to be able to press back (or forward) once to jump forward and backward by chapter. I used that feature a lot. In the new one it jumps you forward and backward in books! Too annoying. Now I use the Sansa for listening to the radio. I'm using my new smartphone and bluetooth headphones for my books. The smartphone app is really versatile and I just clip the smartphone to my waistband and listen everywhere. It's a lot bulkier than the MP3 but the app is so much better that it's a worthwhile tradeoff. Now on to tie dye!  Chris' best friend from high school works for the State Department is is heading for his next overseas tour to Basra to run the consulate there. He and his daughter are taking some trips to visit friends and family and we were one of the stops. They came for fishing and so that Alida and I could tie dye.  We dyed lots of things! I got a pack of boy's tshirts from WalMart that dyed perfectly. I also found one camisole in her size and she brought a shirt.  I had a beach towel so we dyed that too. She can use it next week while they are at Emerald Isle.  And a pack of socks for the leftover dyes! I dyed this outfit for myself and I am thrilled with how it turned out. The photo on the left shows how I marked the pieces for stitching. The top is the Y-Front Tunic from Dharma Trading. It's rayon and very comfortable and I have 2 more to dye. The leggings are their capri leggings. I have several pair of these leggings and they are really comfortable and durable.
When I saw the colors that Alida was drawn too I also knew that I had finally found the right home for my Sea Dreams quilt. It's been almost 2 years since I made it and it was desperately seeking out a home where it would be loved. Since I finished my veterans and second QOV top this past weekend at the CSQ monthly sewing retreat, it was time to start something new and that means the Rainbow Quilt!  Here are the fabrics. I'm starting with 1/2 yard each of the Color Wheel Gradients (Warm and Cool) and 8 Stash Packs (Color Wheel, Color Party, Happy Hour, Sunset, Orangeade, Grape Jam, Citrus and Red Letter Day). I'll add some fabrics from my stash (especially blues and greens) and maybe a Color Wheel Medium pack. I felt like I needed some guidance on the size and set out to find an eventual owner for the quilt. My nephew is getting married next month and they just moved into their first house so I sent Ashley (his fiance) a photo of the fabrics to see if she liked them. She does and now I have my directive. I'll be making a king size!  Here are the first 20 blocks for what will is tentatively being called Ashley's Rainbow. Only 190 more to go plus 58 border blocks! I should make reasonably quick progress. I cut and sewed these in one afternoon. This will be my CSQ monthly retreat project for a few months. I already love it.  Some day it will grow up and look like this.
Chris went to Vermont last Tuesday to visit with some friends. I used that as an opportunity to try to develop a "no TV" habit. From the time he left Tuesday until he returned Sunday I didn't turn on a TV. Not once. It was delightful. I really thought I'd have difficulty with it because we have the TV on all the time. Mostly I think it's just for the noise but I realized that I was delaying doing things because I wanted to watch something until the end and I needed to get out of that habit. So I turned off the TV and either listened to a book or the radio on my MP3 player. The political news is driving me insane. Each half of the country delights in telling the other half how stupid they are. No one is actually debating issues. It's the same on Facebook. Once someone mentions politics I stop following them, even if I agree with what they say. There's no discussion or debate. It's all name calling. "You are stupid and moronic if you disagree with me." I'm banning myself from news for a while. Maybe the summer, maybe all year. I'll selectively read a couple of balanced news sources but I truly will not benefit from dwelling on the presidential race, Orlando or the next disaster for hours on end when there really isn't anything new to know and absolutely nothing that I can do about it.  So, this morning, instead of watching TV I did this. I caught up on the news from the turtles in the lake and watched the Mallards reporting to each other about their own local events. It was peaceful and beautiful. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is lower and I can justify eating more chocolate.  Tonight is the Country School Quilters meeting so instead of watching TV last night I quilted up 2 veterans quilts that I can deliver to the meeting tonight. This one was made by Annie, our member from Seattle.  This one was made by Carol. They both got fast quilting treatments simply because I thought it was better to finish 2 instead of just 1. That wavy crosshatch grid really works on everything! CSQ buys the batting and backing and since I get to pick the backing out I like to buy white for a lot of it so that I can dye the backs. I love adding hand dyed backing to the quilts and I think this green works really well with both of these.
Today I'm off to do some shopping for white tshirts. A friend and his daughter are visiting tomorrow and Alida and I will be tie dyeing! This weekend I had 2 days of sewing with my Country School friends. I finished the QOV top that I shared Saturday and a veterans top from the leftovers. I was so excited to start my Rainbow quilt Saturday. I didn't get any photos but I'll pull the blocks out in a few days to share. But the biggest news is finishing this!  So glad to have this one done! Read all about it and see the surprise back in the gallery.  In other news, here are the Eastern Phoebe babies living above our front door.
 Had I shut my trap yesterday and sewed more and talked less I'd have 2 tops done to show. Instead I was chatty Cathy all day and only got this one done. These are leftovers from the last QOV that I made. Today I'll finish the small one for a veterans quilt and that will be the end of these fabrics.....finally.  Then I can start my Rainbow quilt!
Technology annoys me. I had to get a new smartphone last week since my old Galaxy S3 decided that 1) it liked to overheat, 2) refused to hold a charge more than 3 hours and 4) decided that it really didn't like running GPS (the primary thing I used it for). I've been wanting a Galaxy Note for the larger screen but was too cheap to buy one. But when my GPS quit on me 4 times on a 20 mile trip Mom and I were making last week I decided it was time. I love the new phone. It has some very nice features without being hard to learn. But now it seems that none of my old Bluetooth devices work on it! I want to switch to listening to my Audible books on the phone so I can use the data on the phone to download the books instead of the limited data on our house internet. It does recognize my 2 year old Bluetooth speaker (that does work with my tablet) but can't connect to it and it doesn't recognize my older Bluetooth headphones at all. Annoying. Things should plug in like outlets in the house. So I ordered new headphones last night.  Why can't technology be as easy as buying new glasses? I picked these up yesterday and I love, love, love them. Sadly for the bank account I also fell in love with some new sunglasses. They will be ready in 2 weeks. The sunglasses are super cool and I swear that I'm not buying any more for at least a year. I'm not into jewelry, cars or designer clothes but I just love glasses. The new prescription is nice too. I didn't realize how badly I needed an update! I can actually read through my glasses and see road signs again. I did get a volume discount, so that was nice. Technically I SAVED money although it won't appear that way on the credit card bill.  I didn't get much sewing done because I spent the evening visiting with our Airbnb guests. This family has come 4 years straight now and I feel like they are my family. The have 6 kids and the 5th one took her first steps here the second year they came. Baby #6 is only a few months old. All of the kids are very happy and incredibly well behaved so I always look forward to their visit. But after they went back to the guest house I did get a veterans quilt loaded. I'm going to try to get 2 of them quilted before the meeting Tuesday.  My summer wardrobe arrived in the mail so there's going to be lots of clothing dyeing coming up over the next few weeks!  My last bit of news is that the Eastern Phoebes nesting above the front door have hatched! Mom is very busy flying back and forth feeding and is incredible tolerant of me coming and going. Next time I get a photo I'll try to get back a bit so you can see just how narrow the ledge is. They are creatures of habit so I expect that we will have her nesting here every year now. With us so close she's couldn't be in a safer location.
Today I'm hanging out in Montpelier with my Country School Quilters friends. Hopefully I'll get a QOV top and a veteran's top finished and will be able to start a new project tomorrow! Yesterday was dyeing day so I don't have a lot to show for my efforts of the day.
I did finish quilting the challenge quilt. I wasn't happy with how some of the stitching lines met so I covered them up with crystals. The crystals don't like sticking to places where the surface isn't particularly smooth so now I'm gluing them on as they fall off. The crystals are taking longer than the quilting! I hope to have this finished up tonight with binding and hanging sleeve and then I'll show the whole thing. Last week Mom and I went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens to see the butterfly exhibit and walk around the huge rose garden. I took a lot of butterfly photos but haven't edited them yet. But one surprise was finding Lego sculptures in the garden. This was my favorite......and also the favorite of the of birds.
Today I'm off to pick up my new eyeglasses and run a bunch of errands. I don't buy or wear much jewelry but I do love eyeglasses and could easily spend thousands on them. I didn't get any new ones last year so this year I have 2 new "fancy" ones, a cheap pair that I can wear in the playroom when I'm painting and wearing the respirator (so I don't ruin the fancy ones) and new lenses in my sunglasses that I already hate and have to return. I got those done at Costco and they just aren't dark enough. I'm going to have to take them somewhere else. Lots of errands today! The weather is spectacular here today and I'm enjoying having the windows open. I have so many new fabrics this week! I'll give you some highlights here but you can see all of them on the What's New page. Today's fabrics are all from my big day of ice dyeing last week. Let's start with Tapestries. Each of these fabrics is at least 108" square! When I started making these I envisioned them as quilt backs. So far I think each one has become either a duvet cover or wholecloth quilt. I call fabrics that are larger than a yard Galaxies and fabrics that are one yard are named after Stars. Why? No reason except that I like to look random things up on the web. But once when I was snow dyeing fabric I decided to scrunch some fabric in the bottom of one of the bins to see what I would get. When I saw the results I was thrilled and felt that the Galaxy names were appropriate for these cool fabrics. Here are 4 new Galaxies that I made last week during the ice dyeing session. Here are just a few of the new Crystal fabrics in the shop. I think it's easy to figure out why I name these after crystals. Each one of the new ones are about 38" square. Be sure to check out all of them in the shop.
Check them all out in the shop and if you want to see how one of these looks quilted you can see two spectacular examples that were recently quilted by Patricia Caldwell here and here. |
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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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