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I thank/blame my sister-in-law for teaching me to Zentangle for getting me into a situation where my quilt labels are no longer simple printed labels. I really enjoy the challenge of Zentangle but it's not something I'd just sit down and do. I'm not a random doodler. I wish I was, but I'm not. I need purpose and quilt labels seemed a fine purpose. You can see all of the ones I've done in my Zentangle Gallery. The next one was the label for the wedding quilt and I needed to get it done because the quilt will be gifted this Friday!  I start my labels the same way every time. I print the text on paper (2 or 3 copies to allow for starting over). Then I pencil in the "tangle". The tangle is the backbone of the design. Honestly, I get a lot of my tangle ideas from Google. In this case I Googled "zentangle heart" and saw one done with this shape and started with that.  The next step is the hardest and that's picking the first design! My favorite source is the Tangle Patterns web site. Their patterns are grouped by name so I randomly pick a letter and go to that section and make myself pick a pattern from that section.  I just kept going like that until it was done and I love the finished design. Sometimes doing these stresses me out a little but I'm always happy with the finish. I think it makes the quilt just a timy bit more special.
My poor Mom has been through hell lately with her eyes. She had cataract surgery on her right eye in June and she's still recovering. It started with a violent reaction to the steroid eyedrops that were intended to help with healing. She has glaucoma and the steriods completely screwed up the pressure in that eye. The glaucoma specialist has been very diligent trying every option to get it under control. He finally ran out of options and schedule a surgery to install a drain of some sort in her eye. Of course that didn't' go as planned either. The surgery lasted about 2 hours longer than it should because she was bleeding a lot. All of that is to say that she was with me all of last week and she looked like she had been punched in the face. The first couple of days she was just recovering from the trauma of the surgery but as she started feeling better she was getting antsy for something to do but her vision still wasn't very clear.  But being the devoted daughter that I am I found a couple of projects for her and this is one of them. I've done so much quilting lately that I had a lot of batting and fabric scraps ready to become dog beds.  I didn't want her to have to do anything at all fiddly so I changed up my process in this tutorial ot make tufts instead of channels. Can you see how I marked them?  Here's a closer photo. Everything for this project is free! Someone is always donating fabric to our quilt club and I pick up decorator pieces from time to time to use for the dog beds.  I rarely use thread in this drawer but it's all heavy weight cotton and it's perfect for the dog beds.  After a couple hours of work she had 3 dog beds made. The sizes of the beds depends solely on the fabric that I have. One of the green ones is smaller because that how wide the fabric was. It's that simple. My friend, Lora, will be happy to have these for Richmond Animal League.  Mom has a pile of batting scraps at home so she's taking the yellow one to fill herself.
Now to get back to quilting and make more scraps! It's the last day of the Gradient Sale! Have you gotten the gradients that you "need" yet? What better way to end the sale than to share a very unique customer product using gradients!  Katelyn Morley is the proprietor of Dandy Dog Designs and she makes and sells adorable dog collars. I was excited to see that she used some of my fabrics for them!  These use the Morning Glory gradient.  These use the Summer Sunset Gradient.  These use the Thrive Gradient. Aren't they all cute?
I have my first finish for August!  Girly-girl QOV 55 x 71 I started this quilt several years ago when I hosted a half-square triangle quilt-along on my old blog. We called it HSTeria. last month I finally took 30 minutes to sew on the borders and planned to quilt it. I didn't have a plan for the quilt but Alycia saw it and said it would be perfect as a QOV for a female PTSD group that she works with in Colorado. Well that was all the incentive I needed to get this one wrapped up. It will join the Rainbow Lap quilt to be shipped to Alycia this week. I have a soft goal of 2 QOV quilts a year and this will make 3 for 2017 so I'm good for the year!  This is a real girly-girl quilt and isn't me at all! But I do like it and I made it even more girly with pink quilting thread and my favorite quilting motif, wavy crosshatch, keeps it really soft. The batting is Hobbs 80/20 and it's what I use on any quilt that I want to become a cuddly blanket.  Well, one I decided to go pink I went all in with a pink quilt back. While the quilt isn't "me" I do think it will be loved by someone.
 I have been ignoring my mosaic wall for a while but I've had some time recently to add a couple more beads.  I'd guess that I'm about 1/8th done. What do you think? I surely need to pick up the pace!
Normally I do this post on the first of the month but I thought the sale announcement was a little more important than my little project accounting. Although I'm really happy with my project accounting this month! Starting UFO 19 Finished YTD 6 (Goal 11) Started YTD 6 (Planned 6) Ending UFO 19 (Goal 14) Veterans YTD 21 (Goal 40)
I finished 2 projects in July (the wedding quilt and the rainbow lap quilt) and am very close on 2 more (HSTeria quilt and Rainbow's End quilt). Both just need binding. I'm back to even on the UFO count but I don't plan on starting anything else in August. I'm also thinking about tackling the 3 beaded Christmas ornaments starting this month to see if I can get one of them off the list too. I also quilted 5 more veteran's quilts! It was a good month.  I even did an absolute boatload of sun printing this month!
How did you do on your projects? You are welcome to post a comment or share a link or even to just think about it on your own. The Fabric of the Week feature this summer has been fantastic. It's been so fantastic that starting in September I'm going to make it a permanent feature. I'm taking August off from the weekly sales and instead we are having one giant sale, the annual Gradient sale!  Copper Mine Gradient All Gradients are 20% off through Saturday, August 5! Use coupon code AUGUST20 |
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In Bloglovin you need to search "Colorways By Vicki Welsh" to find the blog. About Vicki
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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