Yesterday was mostly a day of chores and today will be as well. The big event is that we got our new wills and other documents all signed yesterday. That was one of my big goals for the year and it's not even July yet! We are also running errands to get Chris ready for a trip that he's taking tomorrow. He'll be hanging out with his best friend, Dave, and Dave's 4 daughters this week. They are all adults so it's a miracle that they will all be together and they do love having their "Uncle Chrissy" around.

​What does that mean for me? 6 glorious quilting/dyeing/glass making days. (We have Airbnb guests so that's why I had to stay back. Looks like it's going to be chilly there anyway so I'm good.)

I did get the challenge quilt loaded on FloMo. It looks kind of ridiculous doesn't it? I was going to do it on my sewing machine but remembered that I wanted to test something on the longarm and figured this small project would be a good way to do that. I'll show you what I was testing when it's done.

I'm not going to go crazy with the quilting. I just want to get it done.

For those of you near Richmond here are some classes that I have scheduled for the summer:

I've been teaching the new owners training at The Longarm Network for a year or more and will be expanding to teach several other classes. These aren't on the schedule yet but will be soon.

​June 25: Don't Fear The Longarm - This class is for beginner longarmers, people who rent time on a longarm or people considering purchasing a longarm. I developed my skills longarming by practice (of course) and by trying to learn one new skill with each quilt. This class will give the new quilter a path for developing quilting skills while still quilting beautiful quilts starting with the very first quilt. This is a one day class that's about half classroom and half hands on.

​July 30 - Ruling Rulers - Learn the basics of using rulers on the longarm and then practice several ruler techniques including cross hatching, stitch in the ditch, continuous curves and lots of fun ways to use circles. This is a hand on class with students sharing a machine.
Contact The Longarm Network for information on registering for these classes.

I'm excited to be teaching at Visual Arts Center in Richmond again in the Summer. Their facility is fantastic and the people running it are the nicest you will meet.
My class schedule is:
Introduction to Fabric Dyeing
In this class I'll teach you the basics of fabric dyeing. You will learn how to mix dyes, the general process and techniques including: managing texture, making shades/gradients, color parfaits and color mixing to make a color wheel. You'll get 5 yards of cotton fabric and are welcome to buy/bring more for the second day. You'll rinse out and wash the fabric at home.
Sat, Sun Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm, Sunday 1:00pm-4:00pm
Session 1 - June 18 - 19
Session 2 - August 13 - 14
10 Things You Need to Know to Sell Online (lecture)
This lecture is for people considering opening an online business. By the end of this lecture you will know for sure if it's something you want to pursue or not.
Fri 6:00 - 8:30, June 24
Successful Online Selling Workshop
Once you've decided to open your shop this class will walk you through the process of setting up a successful online business. We discuss various selling platforms, photographing your product, writing great descriptions, creating your business image, marketing and lots more.
6 Session(s)
Thurs 6:30 - 9:00 pm, June 14 - July 18

Country School Quilters has an exhibit coming up at the Montpelier Center For the Arts. They invite us to exhibit every 2 - 3 years. We try to have part of the exhibit be some sort of group project. That last time we featured our veterans quilts. This year we decided on a fabric challenge. The last time we did one of these fabric challenges I made my Magic Carpet quilt. That was 11 years ago and I went way overboard on that project. I promised myself that I wouldn't do that again this year and it's easy because I really am not inspired by these 2 fabric.
​It's OK if I say that I hate them because I'm the one who picked them out! I was looking for fabrics on sale and fabrics that would come in 2 colorways and this is what I came up with. I bought these and another set in blues/greens. members got to choose from cool or warm colorways.
​Our exhibit is in September so it was time to get on with it. Also, I wouldn't let myself start a new project until I finished this.

Here's what I came up with. We had 1 rule: no larger than 80" in perimeter. Otherwise we could use as much or as little of the fabric as we wanted and could add any other fabrics or embellishments. Now I need to do the quilting and will likely start that today. I want this project done this week!

In other news I fired the kiln yesterday and was greeted with this today. Some winners (the quilt block) and a few losers (the blue blob) but nothing that can't be fixed and re-fired. I also have tons of fabric photos to edit and post.
​It's a busy day!

Do you remember when I was playing around with this design a few weeks ago? I've finally written up instructions and fabric requirements!  Honestly there isn't much in the way of instructions but I've worked up layouts and fabric requirements for 6 sizes from crib to king. I've also put together 3 color palettes that I think would look great in this pattern. You can see the palettes and download the Rainbow Quilt Pattern here.

Yesterday I shared the quilting that I finished this weekend on my next Quilt of Valor. Last night I took a few minutes to write up a tutorial for how I did the faux piano key motif for the background. This was a very fast way to finish off this quilt and I think it looks pretty good too.....and no ruler work!

If you are interested you can get check out the Easy Piano Key tutorial.

Not interested in my super easy quilting tutorial? Well, maybe you will like these cards that I received in the mail recently. I send a lot of cards but I don't receive many so these were great surprises. The top one was made by Beth Hunter and the bottom one is from Judy Stupak. Judy even used a bit of my hand dyed fabric in hers. It's good to know how others feel when they get a card from me in  the mail!

For Memorial Day I decided that my activity would be quilting and I set a goal of finishing the quilting on this quilt. This will be a Quilt of Valor and I decided to use it to practice 2 things.

First I wanted to practice on a mandala and see how I might define the spaces when I know that they aren't PERFECTLY symmetrical. It wasn't nearly as tricky as I thought. You can easily fool the eye into thinking something is symmetrical.
Second I wanted to practice the Spirograph shapes. I know that computerized quilting systems can do these easily but I'm using rulers. I want to do this all over another quilt so I had to make sure I enjoyed doing it. Well, you know me, I totally grooved on these!
All of the marking is Crayola Washable Markers and I'll wash those out after I bind the quilt.

I did ribbon stripes for the background. Later I'll post a tutorial for how I did this. It was really fast and easy.
After I get it bound and washed I'll have more photos.....it looks really cool from the back too.