New Crystals!It's been 2 years since I last made Crystal mandala fabrics. It's not that I don't love these fabric. I adore them! They are simply very labor, water and dye intensive and they need to be done in the summer. But there's no other way to get the incredible colors and texture that you get from ice dyeing. For those of you who want to do your own I will soon have a free tutorial available, but for everyone else, I have a lot of new Crystal mandalas in the shop. Each of these is at least 40" square. There will be large quilt back mandalas available next week. Not quite sure how to tackle one of these fabrics? Check out how three of my customers treated their Crystal mandalas. Click on each photo to see the details. New Galaxies!When I started doing ice dyeing I quickly realized that there was a lot of wasted dye that dripped through the folded fabrics and into the bin underneath. I started playing around with putting fabrics in the bottom of the bin and quickly discovered my favorite fabrics. All of the Galaxy fabrics are larger than 2 yards and all were created through the ice dyeing process. Some are scrunched, some are folded for symmetry and the scrunched and others are folded and arranged carefully in the bottom of the bin. I love using the Galaxy fabrics in my quilts. For the Antelope Canyon quilt (left) I started with a Galaxy fabric and dyed the blue, brown and green to match. For the Maine Quilt (right) I used a Galaxy fabric for the border of a quilt made with all sun printed blocks. Click on either photo to see more photos of each quilt. Summer ScheduleThis is your weekly reminder that my summer vacation is going to be a really long one this year so I want to give you notice now in case you need something dyed for your next project. We have plenty of time to get it done if we start planning now. I will be away August 6 - September 5 so the shop will basically be closed the entire month of August. If there's fabric that you need please get your orders in by the end of July. The cut off for custom dyed fabric will be July 26.
I had big plans for the weekend to get back to my list of projects. I was going to load the green quilt for quilting and cut out the very last of the veterans quilt kits. But before I could do either of those things I had to clean off the cutting table. Squirrel! The first thing I picked up was these scraps of fabrics from Anne's quilt. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she left it behind by accident because she LOVES this fabric. I really wanted to just toss it because I don't keep much in the way of commercial fabric in my stash. But then I got an idea from the crochet YouTubers that I follow. They are big into drawstring project bags which makes a lot of sense. Crocherters and knitters travel with their projects more than us quilters do so drawstring bags are essential. I thought that maybe I could make a quick drawstring bag for Ann with her Spam fabric. And so I did. The cording is Craft Cord from Hobby Lobby. I had bought some because I was thinking of project bags for my travel crochet. FWIW, this bulky weight craft cord is really nice and also inexpensive. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I have a bin of "unique" fabrics in my fabric closet. Some are special because of the print, some are special because they are heavier weight and some just don't have a logical pairing with any other fabrics that I have in my stash. I eliminated a good bit of these fabrics when I used them to make walker caddies in May. Squirrel! In that bin I found a panel of this fabrics that Anne gave me right after it came out. There was enough for 2 project bags. The big one is big enough for my loom knitting projects. Squirrel! Also in the bin are these 2 fabrics that are also going to become project bags. The batik one is a heavier African fabric that I bought about 18 years ago when I was working in England. I've had both of these fabrics for more than 10 years. Squirrel! But also in the bin were a stack of these fabrics. I expect that I bought them in England too. It's a pack of pieces with none of them bigger than 14" on any side. They are clearly a scrap bundle. They are from a South African company. The fabrics are VERY stiff and I have no idea what I intended when I bought them. But I started thinking about what I might do with them. The stiffness of the fabric makes them ideal for some sort of storage item. Well, why not a little zipper pouch for loom knitting, sewing or crochet tools? I used this tutorial and had one sewed up in no time. Is that not he cutest thing? I'll use this one for my loom knitting tools. Let's make more, I thought! I have a huge stash of zippers and it's time to use more of those too. So very cute. Mom was here when I was working on a couple and we figured that the sewing of each pouch takes less than 10 minutes once it's cut out. Cutting each one probably took about 2 minutes. Zipper colors are based on what I have in the stash. I know that because I cut out ALL of that fabric into pouch kits. These will be really cute gifts. For Christmas I could fill them with candy. They would make great little travel medicine/vitamin packs.
I'll get back to my original plans in a day or so but for now I'm having fun using up some fabric making bags and pouches. I'm so happy to be using some of these "save for something special" fabrics. This week's inspiration comes from Teresa Ballard. I love all of the colorful birds in this quilt! She says that all of the birds and backgrounds are from my fabrics. The background is a discontinued gradient called Sea and Sky. It was replaced with Midnight. These birds show the variety of colors that you get from gradients. They are great for fussy cutting for specific effects like the wings of these birds.
For sharing, Teresa 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. Yesterday wasn't ALL ironing, but it was close. I started off the day visiting (and sewing) with my friend, Marcy. She also has an Innova and we provide moral support to each other when things aren't going quite right. She helped me when I tried timing my machine the first time and I went over yesterday to help her with tension issues. I took this quilt kit to work on using her machine. I started this in February when I got to go to the beach with Kim. I'll take it to Maine to finish putting together. I think I'm going to really love it. It's got kind of a soothing vibe. If this one works out to my liking I'll make more with my hand dyed scraps. Eventually I had to leave Marcy and come home to the giant pile of ironing. Here are all of the ice dyed fabrics except for the quilt backs and the few pieces that are already in the shop. My plan is to get all of these in the shop by Monday. I'll work on the quilt backs next week. Aside from editing fabric photos I think I will tackle the bin of batting scraps left from the June quiltapalooza. I'm seeing my Richmond Animal League friend tonight and it would be nice to get these made and out the door today. I haven't done a yarn update in a while but I have been slowly plugging away on my projects. The blanket is almost done! In this photo it's folded in half and there's only the upper left corner to finish. I let myself crochet twice a day for 30 minutes each and I have 3 left hand fingers taped up (thumb, pinkie and ring). It's working and my hand continues to improve. I absolutely love this Cascade Cartwheel yarn. It's a bulky weight (great for my hands right now) 100% acrylic roving yarn. It is a little splitty but it's so beautiful that I don't mind the sporadic splits. I want all of the colors!
Once my crochet session is done I switch over to loom knitting. I'm working on my first scarf and I will make a hat to match. The scarf will be blocked. It's not the best scarf in the world but it's good for a first try. The yarn is Premier Serenity Chunky and it got it because it was on clearance. It's super soft and easy to work with. I'll talk more about my thoughts on loom knitting (good thoughts) when this scarf is done. It's time to get busy on some dog beds. |
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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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April 2024
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