It's been a busy week around here! In the last 2 days I dyed about 110 yards of fabric and now I start the washout, soaking and ironing for the rest of the week. That's why I didn't post yesterday. But I did share this photo on Facebook yesterday. It's a sneak peek at a new gradient that will run from black to light brown. I've gotten some great suggestions for names and you are welcome to add your ideas in the comments. naming the gradients is one of the hardest part of my job!

I actually have plenty of things to share on the blog but simply haven't had time (or energy) to edit the photos until today. These are things that I added to the ice dye bins last week. These for folded fabrics are napkins. They are going to be the inspiration for my next set of placemats.

In the same bin as the fabric was this shirt. I love how the pattern turned out but it's got way too much yellow for me to wear. This one might get overdyed with a blue to turn it purple and green. That would be more in my color palette. I think to make it look right I would do a full immersion dye. That way the added blue would be even and the ice dyeing pattern would still be the dominant image.

This one was in another bin and was supposed to be red and blue, not pink and blue. But I like it well enough and may leave it alone.

My favorite item from that session is this tunic/dress. I got it from Dharma Trading a couple of years ago and I don't think they carry it anymore. It's rayon and has a tie in the back. I'm going to shorten it about 4 inches and it will be perfect to wear with white or pale blue leggings.

The fabric of the week this week is the Pendleton gradient! This one was designed based on the color palette of a traditional Pendleton blanket. If you want some for your stash get it before it sells out. Through Sunday (or while supplies last) this fabric is 25% off or $6.75/half yard.
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There are a dozen new ice dyed Crystal mandalas in the shop this week. These always go fast so get them while you can! Need some inspiration to use one? MQX Midwest is having a ice dyed mandala challenge for their show in September and you have over a month to get your entry in. There's nothing like a deadline for motivation! Check out the rules here.
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My weekend was solely an ironing marathon. I had gotten very behind because of my arm. But it's getting better now and I couldn't take the pile of fabric anymore. I ironed, ironed and ironed over 115 yards and I'm much happier.

In between ironing sessions I would sit down for a break and make circles for my 2 applique projects. So since I don't have anything except this stack of unironed fabric to share, today seems a good day to share how I'm doing the applique circles.

For starters, I basically use this process from Leah Day. Her video is very clear and it works great! So start by watching that.
My first step was to decide on the size of circles and cut the Wash-Away Applique sheets and freezer paper in those sizes. I based the size on the size of Go! dies that I have. I used 5" for the shibori and 1" for the centers of my flower applique circles.

Leah doesn't use the Wash_Away Applique sheets but I like them because they stay inside the applique and they prevent anything under that applique from showing through.

I fuse the applique sheets to the back of my fabrics. The biggest thing I learned from Leah was to leave large margins around the applique. I used to trim the fabric to about 1/4" but watching the video I learned how much easier it was to work with them with wider margins.That tip was genius!

Next I fused 2 layers of freezer paper together like Leah recommends and ironed that over the applique sheet.

Then it was time to make some starch. I use this recipe. I don't use much but it's cheap to make. I put a little into a small cup and found a small paintbrush.

With the paintbrush I add some starch just around the edge of the applique shape.

Leah's video give more detail about the process but you can see here how much easier it is to get a great sharp edge when you have more fabric to work with. I just carefully work around the applique painting and pressing with the tip or edge of the iron.

After it's all pressed I'll trim the excess fabric, peel out the freezer paper and press it one more time.

That's a pretty cgood circle!

Here are a set of circles ready to applique. 
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That hideous background fabric is just something I use to cover the ironing board to protect it from getting a lot of starch on it. That gem is from my Aunt's fabric stash that she gifted to me over 10 years ago. 

​Marcy is back doing more quilting today so we'll have a post soon to show how to fix a major quilting faux pas.

This week's Gem is from Rene Iannarelli. This is a departure from the quilts we are accustomed to seeing from Rene and but it's no less striking. She made this in a class with Elizabeth Barton. The greens are all hand dyed fabric and she used a variety of green Shades Packs including Juniper and Pine.

​If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months!

I occasionally teach a new longarm owners class at Virginia Longarm, my local Innova dealer. The class has 2 goals. First is to get everyone over any apprehension by getting them on the machines quilting. The second goal is to get their mind-set right about what it takes to become proficient at longarming. Just because someone can quilt free-motion on a domestic machine doesn't mean that they will be able to immediately quilt beautiful feathers on the longarm. It's a very different technique and, like with anything new, it takes practice. 

The analogy I like to use is driving a car. When we first learned to drive a car we didn't expect to race at NASCAR in the first week......or even the first year. So why do we get frustrated with quilting if we can't create a ribbon-worthy quilt in the first month? We get frustrated because we have set unreasonable expectations. It takes hundreds of hours of practice to be able to quilt a Best of Show quilt.

That brings me to my friend, Marcy. Marcy loves longarm quilting but doesn't get to do it all that often because she rents time to longarm. When I injured my arm I knew that longarming was out of the question for weeks so I asked Marcy if she might want some practice. We struck a deal. She could get practice if she would practice on some of the backlog of veterans quilts and then she could quilt a couple of her own quilts.

I picked Marcy because she's had the Innova renters class and has some experience under her belt. She needed a little help at the beginning but she's totally independent now. ​ I simply didn't have time to teach a totally new longarmer so this worked out perfect.

As I mentioned, Marcy has some experience quilting but when you go months between quilts there's a big learning curve every time you start to quilt. This time she has access to the machine for about 4 weeks so she can get a lot of hours in. She wanted to focus on learning to quilt with pantographs which, luckily, are perfect for veterans quilts. Let's see how she did.

This photo is the first corner that she quilted using the Popcorn pantograph. Like any new quilter, she struggled with getting smooth curves.

But just after one quilt you can already see marked improvement! No more flat line curves and more even spacing.....just in one small quilt! We load 2 veterans quilts at once time so the first 2 were done with Popcorn.

eFor the second 2 quilts we switched to that Burning Bush pantograph and by the end of her 4th quilt she had the pantograph nailed! Also by this point she had everything else about longarming nailed: winding bobbins, threading the machine, tension, aligning the pantograph....everything. She didn't need any more help after that. She's now on her own and having a blast quilting.

Here are the first 4 quilts that she quilted.

The first 2 quilts were made by my blog friend, Patty.

The quilt on the left was made by our member who lives near Seattle and the one in the right was made by a local member. That one is going to give us another lesson! We discovered that it has a major tension issue in one area and we didn't see it until after the quilt was trimmed. DOH!
But we are going to get that fixed next week.

I'm really grateful to Marcy for helping me catch up on veterans quilts and she seems happy to have the practice time.  She's proving that you can take dozens of classes but if you don't take the time to practice you will never get better.

My life these days is almost 100% focused on dyeing fabric for the AQS Virginia Beach show in October. Since I haven't done a big show before I'm going in totally blind about what I need so I'm trying to make sure that I have too much. That means that every day is either a dyeing day, ironing day or planning day. Last week had 3 dyeing days because I decided to add in some ice dyeing and I thought I'd share my process for anyone who hasn't seen it before.

 To be perfectly honest I don't really like ice dyeing but I love the results and there's really no other way to get them. Ice dyeing a pain in the neck. It's messier than regular dyeing, takes a lot longer to set up and wastes a TON of dye. I really couldn't abide the dye loss so a few years ago I started putting extra fabric in the bottom of the bin to catch the runoff dye and that's how I accidentally created some of my favorite fabrics, the Galaxies. It's a Galaxy fabric that is the feature fabric in my Antelope Canyon quilt.
​So I start by arranging 2 - 3 yards of fabric in the bottom of my bins. The sheer fabric over it is cut from old sheer curtains and helps to keep dye powder dots off the fabric and it works great.

I had folded and soaked the fabric in soda ash several days before so I was ready to arrange the fabric on my screens. These screens are made with PVC pipe, plastic landscape cloth and zip ties. Next I surrounded the fabric with a wide plastic collar. Some people use cardboard but I had a roll of this heavy duty vinyl in the basement and this was a opportunity to use it. Don't ask where it came from because I don't know! Clothes pins keep it upright. Now it's ready for dye.

For my regular dyeing I use dye concentrates. The most, and probably only, dangerous part of dyeing is working with the dye powder because it gets airborne easily. I start my dye sessions by mixing the concentrates that I need for that day and then put the powders away. Ice dyeing requires working with powder so I load up some spice shakers with each of my colors and have them ready to go. While I'm using the powders I ALWAYS wear a mask. A caveat about safety, if you are a klutz like me the whole process can be fraught with danger.

Because of my arm Chris had to help me out with this session. While he went to buy the ice I planned out the colors for each bin. He did all of the heavy lifting. I think that most people apply the dye directly to the fabric and then cover with ice. I like to put down a layer of ice, then sprinkle on the dye powders and the cover with more ice. I think it reduces the appearance of dye powder dots on the fabric. If you haven't figured out yet, dye powder dots are a giant pet peeve for me. This particular tray had 40 lbs of ice! 

Here are 6 of the 7 trays hanging out in the sun doing their business. I like doing this outside because the ice melts faster and rinsing with the garden hose is so much easier! As soon as I get caught up on my ironing I'll have the new ones to share. The fabrics in the bottom of the bins turned out great too!

Yep, that's what I'm calling this new quilt. Because I'm determined to drive myself insane with some of these quilt ideas that I pursue and it might as well be this one that takes me over the edge.

Every time I dye new shibori fabrics for the shop I add a fat eight on each pole for my personal collection. I've created quite an impressive collection of fabric and, so far, have only used them in Lura's Choice quilt and that was a few years ago. I've been wanting to do a quilt with appliqued circles and now is as good a time as any to start. 

​I began by dyeing a selection of black/shades of gray fabrics and cut out some chunks of shibori for the moons.

Estelle kindly came over this weekend and cut some square out for me so I could get started. (By the way, my arm is finally MUCH better! I can drink with the glass in my right hand. That's big!)

I used the Go! Cutter to cut out some fusible applique sheets. I'm using a 5" circle simply because that's the largest Go! die that I have. While Estelle cut I fused these to the back of my shibori chunks. 

I'm working on another post to show you how I shaped the circles but here's the first one. Man, I love these fabrics!

I made a little paper template to help me position the moon in the center of the block. Later, when I put the quilt together, I'll cut these blocks down to a smaller size. I know I'm not going to use the blocks this big but until I can get several done and see them together I won't know what size I want.

After the moon is centered on the fabric I tack it to the back with some Mistyfuse. 
​I seriously love the moodiness of the background fabric. This quilt will basically use a combination of the Black and Gray Skies Gradients.

OK, I know this basically looks the same but in this photo it's actually stitched! On another block I'll show you the back and the tiny stitches that Becky taught me to stitch. I did the first block just to make sure I enjoyed it and want to continue.
​Who was I kidding? It's tedious and there are dozens of them to do. Of course I'll continue!

The last step in setting up this project was to put together a dedicated sewing kit with the needles, scissors, Bottom Line threads (because that's what I have), magnifying glasses and a folder. I"m ready to go!

I still have lots of the circles to prepare (for this and the other applique project) and I'm slowly working on these a bit each day. But I'm ready to start stitching the second block and I think it's pretty stunning....if I do say so myself.

The fabric of the week this week is the Walnut Shades Pack and it's on sale 20% off through Sunday! Shades Packs are dyed when ordered so there's no limit to what you can buy. If you order multiple quantities it comes as one cut. For example, order 2 quantities for 1/2 yard cuts. Orders received by Wednesday morning (EST) will be shipped by June 18. All other orders will be shipped June 25.

When we first moved here 20 years ago I didn't expect to find a vibrant quilting community in my little village of Montpelier. I joined the Richmond Quilt Guild and there was the Country School Chapter in Montpelier. I came to the first meeting expecting about 5 people. I was surprised to find a very active and vibrant quilting group. We have traditional quilters, applique quilters, art quilters, scrap quilters, charity quilters, beginner quilters and everything in between. More importantly, it's a wonderful community as evidenced by my weekend.

Marcy is still keeping FloMo occupied while I can't quilt. She's finished 4 veterans quilts so far and will probably finish the 5th and 6th today! This has been a huge help to me and she has been so happy to get in some practice. When I can get these on the design wall to photograph I'll be able to show you how much she has improved just in 4 quilts! She's totally independent on the machine new and doesn't need my help at all. I'm absolutely certain that there's an Innova in her future. 

Estelle wanted to borrow some threads and offered to do any cutting that I wanted. I had just dyed these fabrics for a new hand quilting project so I got them ironed (left handed) and she cut enough squares for me to get started. She also found a few threads to use in her latest art quilt.

Becky came over Sunday and cut these pastel solid fabrics for my next flower applique project. She also trimmed the veterans quilts that Marcy quilted. While she was cutting I looked through my personal stash and found some great hand dyed fabric bits for leaves in her current applique project.

I'm so grateful to all of them and very excited to have some hand sewing to do. My arm it getting better but I'm a week or more away from sewing and longer from quilting. Having a little hand sewing might save my sanity. Fortunately I can do my fabric dyeing, if I'm careful, so I'm getting lots of that done. Ironing is coming along a little slower but I'm getting my left arm slowly trained! 

All in all, I'm doing great. It jut takes time and now I have some other activities to fill that time.

Today's featured project is a quilt made by Mari Heidt as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge making 3 blocks each month in that month's color theme. Mari used Kona for the background and hand dyes for all of the color blocks.

Mari made this quilt as a homage to her Great Grandmother. She has a treasured block in this pattern from her Great Grandmother and that was the inspiration for the quilt.

This photo shows off the great texture that she got using wool batting. You can follow Mari and read more about this quilt at her blog, The Academic Quilter.
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If you have made anything with my hand dyed fabric I hope you will consider sharing it in the Customer Gallery. In appreciation you will receive a 20% shop coupon that's good for 3 months!