 is what I'm worked on yesterday. I almost have all the pieces pre-cut for the new quilt. I'm having to create templates (like Judy Neimeyer does for her patterns) but it's totally worth the time. The sewing is going to be (almost) easy.
Shipping Schedule Reminder I'm sorry for any inconvenience for you and your projects but my sole employee needs a break! I'll be back in September ready to go with more fabric and anything that you need custom dyed. Meanwhile I do have one new fabric to share this week.  Malachite Stash Pack Greens are so much fun to play with. There are so many options! There are bright spring greens, golden greens of autumn and deep blue-gray greens of winter. To me, Malachite, represents those deep winter greens of junipers and cedars. That's what I was trying to capture with this new Stash Pack. I hope you like it as much as I do!  Cobblestones Stash Pack Malachite joins Cobblestones as the newest Stash packs in the shop. Stash Packs have 10 fat eighths of uniquely textured fabrics that are great for landscape quilts and other small projects. Check out all of the Stash Packs in the shop.
I got the flower quilt loaded back on the longarm this weekend and started quilting the flower blocks. Yay! I'm going to do 2 different fills and this is what I'm going to use in the pink blocks. This quilt also has a new home now! My friend Kim loves it. I got to hang out with her Saturday for a while and this is now her quilt. I think it's going to be named for one of her grandmothers but I don't remember the name. But I'll get that straight before it's time to put a label on it. My goal is to get the pink blocks quilted before we leave and then I can finish it in September.  I've also officially started a new quilt! I've been wanting to make a quilt based on the Summer Sunset gradient for a very long time. I bought this pattern 2 years ago so it's finally time to start it. I'm going to take this on vacation too but I'm going to try to get at least 1 sample block made this week and cut some of the strips for the foundation piecing. I'm going to use the gradient as a border so that the quilt will be big enough for our bed. The pattern calls for a LOT of fabric. There's a total of 26 yards there so when this quilt is done there will be a few "leftover" projects to follow. The pattern is Mardi Gras by Vector Quilts. The printed foundation are done on fabric that can be left in the quilt so no papers to tear!
My focus this week is getting ready for the trip. I want to get the car crochet project started so that I'm not fiddling with the foundation chain in a moving car. I also want to get this quilt started. Otherwise, I'll be packing.  Birches and Berries by Rachel Derstine This week's inspiration comes from Rachel Derstine. She used the Paradise Gradient as the background for her birch trees. Midnight and Monterey Bay Gradients would also work well in a piece like this.
For sharing, Rachel 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. I like an "and then" day. It means that I didn't waste too much time and got lots of things accomplished. After my morning torture exercise session Marcy and I delivered the veterans quilts and then we stopped by a local yarn shop on the way home. I didn't buy anything! Yay! But it was good to see a shop open.  After lunch I headed to the sewing room and was going to put the last stack of patriotic fabrics away but instead I decided to challenge myself to quickly make a veterans quilt top out of it.  I don't like working with printed panels like this. By "like this" I mean panels with printed borders. They are impossible to get square. I had a fat quarter of the same blue used on the panel that I could use to camouflage the wonkiness of the panel print. I didn't have enough to go all the way around so star cornerstones seemed like a fine plan. And then I started looking for the next border. I had 2 half-yard cuts of the red and tan stripe. That seemed a fine choice.  By this point I had decided that there would be two more borders in blue to hold everything. That means that there are 3 remaining borders: blue, something else and blue. So far so good.  The blue round got star cornerstones to tie in with the first blue border. For the next border I had 4 fat quarters of tan prints. I cut 4.5" strips from the 4 fabrics and then sub cut those into random chunks. I didn't want to have to measure out blocks to fit the border exactly. Random chunks solved that.  Finally one last blue border and this was done in just a few hours. I had a half yard of the red stripe left so I cut it into binding strips.  This is the rest of that panel. I don't think I'll be using it in future quits. I just don't think it will be very uplifting for a veteran dealing with a cancer diagnosis. And then the power went out.  We had a great summer storm around 5:30 last night and that knocked the power out for almost 2 hours. I got my lantern from the basement and added a lot more rows to my blanket. I'm almost halfway through the first ball. And then the power came back on.  So before heading to bed I decided to clear out 2 big bags of batting scraps and make some dog beds. I'll drop these off with my friend tomorrow. Everything about these is about turning trash to treasure. The fabrics are all free giveaways and I use thread that I don't use for anything else anymore. It only took about an hour and a half to make all 4 of these.
Today is another day full of options and I don't really have a plan. I'll just see what I'm in the mood to do next. Isn't that the way it always goes? I promise that I'm still working on them one at a time but I needed to plan a few for the vacation. I'll have 16 hours in the car and, as I've mentioned before, my marriage is strongest when I'm occupied in the car. We've picked our audiobook so with a crochet project Chris will be able to drive in peace. He never lets me drive, which is fine because I really don't like driving his car. It's got a big blind spot for this short person. It used to be my car but after the third near-miss I bought myself something else. His car is the "fancy" car so it's the road trip car. I used to do the blanket stitching on the vintage flowers for my travel project but those are (thankfully) done and crochet is easier because the stitches are so much bigger.
But first here my 10th finish for the year! This is the biggest blanket so far at 38 x 48. It's 110 stitches wide and all double crochet. The patterning is 3 rows variegated, 1 navy, 3 variegated, 1 navy, 3 variegated, 7 teal. I could see making it again but with better color choices. I think it would be a great toddler blanket. Since I donate most of these blankets I'm going to try to make a few larger ones for small kids. It didn't turn out quite like I envisioned but I do like it. I had enough navy to do two rows of double crochet for the border. As with quilting, the border made all the difference. The yarn is I love That Yarn from Hobby Lobby and I really overbought. I have enough to use for a granny square afghan....later.
Next I'm working on this. The yarn is Lion Brand Mandala and the stitch is blanket stitch. It's basically a copy of this blanket that I made in February. I can almost do this in my sleep! When I made the first one I had a ball of yarn leftover so I bought another so I could use it up. Now I know that these blankets take only 2 balls of Mandala.
When we took our trip to the Great Smokies in June I took this blanket project to work on. It was perfect for the car so I bought more yarn to make another just like it, although this one will likely be a bit bigger just because I have more yarn. This will be the northbound project.  The southbound project is probably going to be this blanket from Daisy Farm Crafts. I really like their patterns. They are well written and pretty simple. They have great video tutorials too. I'll probably take at least one more set of yarn because these do come together quickly.
I hope there's room in the car for my clothes! Today's post is a summary of the past few days of work. I needed to get the piles of patriotic fabrics off the floor so I decided to devote a few days to just working on veterans quilt stuff.
I have a total of 7 quilt tops that need to be quilted. One is going to Marcy to pair up with one of her quilt tops and I hope that some of the other quilters can take some of the others at our meeting next week. But I did get these 2 done Sunday after I finished my own veterans quilt that I shared Monday. I know that Betsy made the one on the left because tiny blocks in repro fabrics are her signature. Her quilts are always precise! The one on the right is similar to 3 that my Mom made a few months ago but I don't think she made this one....I'm not sure. We'll figure it out Tuesday at the meeting. After I finished these it was on to a couple of days of cutting kits.  I purchased 2 of this panel with a coordinating fabric for borders and binding. I pulled lots of hand dyes that coordinated and will create a wide border of 2: strips around the bordered panel. think they will go together really quickly. I cut all of the pieces so I can just jump right in to sewing.  These are a couple of fat quarter sets that Anne gave me. I saw that block on Alycia's blog and thought it would be perfect for these fabrics paired with white. I've had this roll of triangle paper for probably 20 years. It looked like it was finally ripe and ready to use. I cut the white and print chunks and I'll be ready to go to make enough HSTs for 2 quilts. I think it will look really cool.  These fabrics came from 2 kits that I bought on sale. They are all half yard cuts. I dithered over about a dozen ideas, including the one in this photo that was ultimately rejected. I wanted something that would use all of the fabric. In the end the answer was a rail fence. Everything got cut into 2.5" strips and should come together really quickly. There's enough here for 2 quilts also. While we are on vacation I usually have a couple of hours of sewing time every day so these can easily get done in 18 days. I'll take one other new project that I'm planning.  I have one other set of fabric that is a set with this panel. The panel has other parts to it but they are too "memorial-ish" to give to veterans dealing with health issues. This one will be a series of borders and I'll work on it here because I'll need to cut as I go and I really prefer cutting on my big table.  The kits are packed and ready to go.  Here's the current stack of 19 finished quilts! Marcy and I will deliver them to our VA hospital contact tomorrow.
Shipping Schedule ReminderFirst let's get the administrative details out of the way. - No orders will be shipped August 15 - September 5, shipping will resume September 7 - Any custom orders will be dyed the week of September 7 and shipped September 14  There's no better way to get through a very hot summer than to stay inside and shop! This sale is for all of you stash builders. It's the only time of the year that you can get all of the gradients on sale. All in-stock gradients are on sale including these 2 that have been restocked this week.  Frolic  Helios Not sure how to use a Gradient? Here are some great examples from my customers. They use them for backgrounds, applique elements, bargello piecing and other fun projects. Their creativity has no bounds! Top Row: Katelyn Morley, Donaleen Kohn, Adri Herman
Middle Row: Irma Lube, John Anderson, Louise Hall Bottom Row: Miriam Ahladas, Patricia Caldwell, Rachel Derstine |
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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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