Fabric of the Week Gelato Stash Pack - 20% off! The fabric of the week this week is the Gelato Stash Pack and it's on sale 20% off through Sunday (or while supplies last)! Stash packs contain 10 Fat Eights of hand dyed cotton fabric. These are great for artists that work with smaller sizes of fabrics or those who want to build a nice variety of hand dyed fabrics. Each piece of fabric is approximately 9” x 20”. Gradients Back in Stock! Bay of Campeche  Helios  Before Mom moved to Richmond she was apparently very busy piecing tops. She had a ton of time to herself when she lived with her sister. So when she moved here she had 3 quilt tops and another QAYG (quilt as you go) quilt underway. Now she has 3 quilts that need binding!  This log cabin is the third of the quilts that Marcy and I quilted for her this summer. I'm pretty sure that this was the oldest of her UFO projects. I think she wasn't sure that she liked it but once I spread it out to see the full quilt I actually like it a lot. I think it will be beautiful on a bed.  As time goes on I'm doing more and more with my arm. So for this quilt I decided on a pantograph with some diagonal movement but short strokes. The Loose Leaf panto worked great and also looks really good on the quilt. If you are a new longarmer this is a great beginner pantograph that also looks wonderful on quilts.  I like that the center of all of her blocks start with this fussy cut motif. I think this will also be the binding fabric.
Next up for me is my Stars At Sea quilt. It's intended to be a booth sample for the AQS show in October so I need to get it done! Looks what I forgot to post Saturday!  Perkins Quilt by Jane Sleeva  Jane Sleeva's quilt was inspired by a Philip Perkins painting that she has in her home. She used gradients to make a sofa quilt to use in the same room. The Blue Sky, Copper Mine, Black and Gray Skies gradients helped her get the same color effects as the painting.
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!  In the evenings after a day of dyeing or ironing I'm pretty much out of energy so it makes for some great hand sewing time. I alternate between moons and flowers and am slowly making progress on both. Here are the 4 most recent moons. Every time I finish one I think that one is my favorite. They are all favorites.  Here are the 9 that I've finished so far. I soooooo love these!
I may not post the next 2 days because I know I won't be doing anything particularly creative. I'll be back Saturday with another great customer project. I'm sick of talking about my arm and I know you are sick of reading about it. I'm actually doing much better and continuing to improve. But if you had told me when I first strained my coracobrachialis muscle that it would take 2 months or more to get back to full function I would not have believed you. I'm so much better but there are some movements that are still uncomfortable and one of those is moving the quilting machine diagonally. But I was itching to get back to quilting something.  That something was this quilt that Mom made. She agreed to let me quilt it with straight lines.  In the end I think that straight lines were just about perfect for this quilt! More importantly, another quilt is closer to being done.  Mom used some hand dyed fabrics that I gave her a while back but she needed more for a border. We couldn't decide on green or purple so we decided to use both. I pleated a fabric and dipped one folded edge in green and the other in purple. It resulted in a cool stripe texture.  A couple of people on Facebook have asked for the pattern. I don't know the pattern but it would be easy to draft. This is the block and it's 12" finished. The wide green side pieces are finished 3" x 12" and the center section is 6" x 12". The littler squares are 2" finished, They are bordered in 1" finished strips. After the 3 blocks are sewn together a 1" finished strip is sewn on each side to bring it to 6" wide. Does that make sense? Very easy!  She found a commercial print wide back that is an almost perfect match to the green. Here you can see the secret to straight line quilting. I space my lines randomly so that I don't have to do any measuring. It's consistently inconsistent so it looks "right" and it's much faster than measuring for equidistant lines.
Next up will either be one of my quilts to get straight lines or Mom's third quilt (a log cabin) to be stippled with my left arm.  Morning Glorified by Irma Lubbe, 22 x 46 Irma was inspired by the work of Jane Sassaman when she made Morning Glorified. She used Jenny Lake, Morning Glory and Sundance Gradients. It's machine appliqued and quilted.
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!  After a month of nursing my arm I've decided it's time to quilt again. I still have some issues with certain movements so I'm not ready to do ruler work yet. Fortunately Mom has a couple of quilt tops that need quilting. Marcy did one last week. This is the second. I know the purple and green are fabrics that I dyed and I think they might be from a whole palette of fabric that I gave her several years ago. Once it's quilted I'll show you the border fabric that I custom dyed for her after she made the blocks.
I think I'm going to quilt it with straight lines. That will look nice, it will be quick and it will be easy on the arm. If all goes to plan I'll have the finished quilt to show you next week. I hope you have a fun and creative weekend.  As I mentioned yesterday my stitching time these days is mostly limited to an hour or so in the evenings while we watch TV. My two new hand stitching projects have been great to have around. I usually alternate between them: a flower block, a moon block, flower block, moon block...... For June I have 4 flower blocks to show for my efforts. I didn't want to prepare any other blocks until I saw how these would look with the 2 background colors and blue thread. I'm really pleased! I plan to piece then in checkerboard fashion like this. Quilting will make it even more subtle and it looks like I'll actually have some quilting space on this quilt.  Here's a close up of the stitching. I love the blue floss and I think the red, yellow and green are going to work fine for the centers too.  This week my goal is to get the rest of the blocks fused (with Mistyfuse) to the backgrounds.
 I keep talking about all of the dyeing that I'm doing to get ready for the AQS Virginia Beach show. I thought I'd give you a brief tour today. Now, keep in mind that my business is a little business and my inventory is basically stored in one closet and on one shelf in the office. I estimated that I needed double that amount of fabric for the show and consequently the whole house has turned into a warehouse! Chris is exceedingly patient about it. I lucked out that when Mom moved and unpacked she had several large plastic bins that she no longer needed. I brought them all home with me. I'm filling this one with Black Shades Packs and single color Color Wheel Shades Packs. It will be stuffed once I get all of the 10 Color Wheel colors done. There will be one more bin filled with the Color Wheel Shades and Stash Packs eventually.  This bin is getting filled with all of the other colors of Shades Packs.  This is one of those bins designed for wrapping paper but I'm filling it with Stash Packs. I'll have to find another bin for overflow.  The guest room closet is filling up with Gradients. A month ago I was nearly panicked about how much I needed to do to get ready. Now that my bins, closets, living room sofa and other surfaces are filling I'm feeling better about it. I'm a little more than half way to my inventory goals.
But, I think now you can see why in the evenings all I can do is sit and hand stitch a bit. |
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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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