Funny story, the last "new" person that I met before the pandemic hit in full was Lauren Furey. We met at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival at the end of February last year.
Lauren is an award winning textile artist and for the last ten years or so have created primarily one of a kind clergy stoles. She ahs her own dedicated section in the Customer Gallery now where you can see a collection of her stoles. For Goddess she used a Denim Shades Pack. Notice that this one came with a coordinating mask. Brilliant! For sharing, Lauren 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. So I mentioned Wednesday that my goal Thursday was to get the Innova timed. It all started when I wanted to get these 2 veterans quilts done quickly before vacation. For this one I was happily quilting along with the wavy cross-hatch when the machine started acting up. I think I ran up on a thick seam and it messed up the hopping foot height. That's not uncommon and it's not a big deal. I fixed it and moved on and finished this one. Then I started on this one just doing some wavy horizontal lines. On both of these quilts I was using thread that wouldn't really show so I could get away with really simple quilting. This quilt legitimately deserved some fancy quilting but I have to remember that I'm quantity over quality when it comes to veterans quilts. This quilt should have taken 40 minutes, max, to quilt. As of these evening I expect that it's taken me 4 hours! My machine is unhappy. It is quilting great from left to right but right to left is awful. Yesterday Marcy came over and we went through the timing steps and I think we did everything right but I still have some sort of problem. It's possible that there's a burr somewhere that I can't see or something. I've taken a lot of photos and sent an email to Innova for some help. I'm not frustrated with the machine or anything. I've had it since 2014 with so few problems. I'm sure this is either a damaged part or something stupid I've done in my attempts to adjust it. I expect it will be resolved soon. Here's what the back of these quilts look like. It's nothing special except the specialness of being done! I'm all caught up on veterans quilts until the meeting Tuesday night.
This weekend is all about getting the green quilt top together. I still don't know why I'm making these doll clothes but I can tell you for sure that I'm not done because there are other ideas floating around in my head. This diversion is simply bizarre for me. This is my newest outfit. Ella, the recipient of these, went to Disneyworld recently. I found this fabric when I was in Lancaster (along with the "handbag"). The next week Pixie Fairie had a 1950's shirtwaist dress pattern for free. It was meant to be! I've ordered a belt for it to complete the ourfit. Do you remember when I made this evening dress a few months ago? We're saving it to give to her on her birthday in July. That worked out great because a friend gave me some fake fur scraps. A fur trimmed cape seemed in order. The claps really isn't in proper proportion but I found it in the button cabinet and seemed like a fine way to finish it off. Anne gave me a bag of sparkly knit fabrics so I expect some sparkle t-shirts are in my future. I've put the doll stuff away for the moment. It's time tog et back to quilting. I will spend part of today trying to re-time my longarm so that I can get back to quilting. I messed it up before vacation. I've been meaning to purchase the timing tool for a while but now I have the need. It was time to invest. If I can't get it right I'll get my brother over here to help. He can fix anything.
I don't know about you, but I don't travel without some sort of sewing or craft project. I took some crochet for the car and my sewing machine for the house. I barely touched the machine because the weather looked like this EVERY day. I parked myself on the beach with books pretty much all week. But Anne and my SIL, Carol, got busy with the Cricut machine. Anne recently bought one and Carol offered to help her start it up. The first thing they did was make this iron on vinyl for me so that now I have dedicated crochet travel bag! Anne also brought along a dozen water bottles to decorate. Carol designed this cool puzzle label because we worked 3 puzzles during the week. There are 4 puzzle pieces: a fish, a beach sign, lounge chair and lighthouse (for the Hatteras lighthouse). I did help "weed" then. I learned that term last week. Aren't these cool? When I handed out the dyed tote bags, Anne chose an apron and added these designs to the pockets. Carol had the idea to put the apple stem inside the pocket. I can't wait to come up with some other ideas that Anne can make for me. I'm having a lot of problems with my hands so I haven't been crocheting at all. But I have to do something in the car to do. I've told you before that I'm a horrible passenger. I took along this car crochet project and I stitched really slowly and carefully. It has 2 skeins in it so far. I'll use all of this third skein and then add a fuchsia border. Here's a closeup of the pattern. This is my "go to" car project because it's so easy. It's all double crochet and chains. While on vacation I always feel it's my patriotic duty to support local shops and I was a good patriot this week at several shops. Mostly, I bought t-shirts and hats. But surprisingly in the little village of Hatteras there's a very nice yarn/gift shop that has the added bonus of a sweet welcome dog. They have beautiful yarns. Most are wool that I can't use but I found this beautiful chain spun yarn that's a cotton blend. Carol found me a really simple duster/cardigan pattern for it. I really need for my hand to get better so I can crochet again! Back at home I've got all the green quilt blocks sorted and paired together. These will be sewn together in pairs to make 12.5" blocks. I've started sewing these together. I expect this top can go together pretty quickly.
I'm also working on more doll clothes and I should be able to share those tomorrow. I've totally lost my mind over the doll clothes! New fabrics!The last new gradient that I introduced was Waves that was inspired by my trips to the beach. As I was making it I was also thinking about how I would feel when I leave the beach and I created this gradient to reflect my vacation ending Mood. It's all tongue in cheek because I really don't feel sad about vacation ending. I'm always happy to be back in my sewing, quilting and dyeing spaces. But I just had to call this one "Mood" for my inspiration thoughts. I've been wanted to combine black and purple again for a while and I'm really happy with this one. All that texture meeting in the middle makes me so happy. To coordinate with Mood I created a new Shades Pack in the purple from the gradient. Lupine is very grape leaning toward red. All of the black-based fabrics also coordinate with Mood. Back in Stock
Fabric of the Week The fabric of the week this week is Apple Cider Gradient. I selected this one because it would work really well with Kashmir.
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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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May 2024
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