 King Quilt by Cheryl Kotecki This king sized quilt was made for Cheryl Kotecki's niece and her husband. They sent her a list of color preferences, and photos of two commercial bedspread as inspiration. She sent them links to some fabrics she thought might give the feeling of the photos and complement the zen feeling they were remodeling their bedroom with. She used a Refections fabric in gray and blue to create the trees and to make a watery border for the wintery trees. and to tie it to a silk kimono fabric they loved that I used in a wall quilt modeled on a Japanese scroll. The kimono fabric had a much warmer blue than is in the trees print. Vicki's fabric has both blues!   Wall hanging by Cheryl Kotecki She also made a wall hanging using a silk kimono that the couple loved. She modeled the wall hanging on a Japanese scroll. The kimono fabric had a much warmer blue than is in the trees print but the Reflections fabric tied them together because it had both blues!
For sharing, Cheryl 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'm still rolling my eyes at myself for starting TWO hand applique projects. Part of me wonders what I was thinking. But the other part of me is happy to have some variety. I tend to do 2 or 3 vintage flowers and then switch and do 2 or 3 moons. Here's where I am on the moons.  Here are the 4 most recent ones.  I finally have enough of them done that you can get an idea of how they will looks with a gradient background effect.
I'm in love! Lots more to do. The AQS Virginia Beach show is coming up quickly and I'm madly trying to finish off my to-do list. One of the big tasks is to finish the booth decorations. I've got some great quilts to hang and display but I'm doing a wall of fabric flowers at the back of the booth. I showed you the first ones here.  The point of these is to simply show off the fabrics. I've made ones using the Color Wheel fabrics and I just finished this one using one of the Crystal mandalas. This one is huge! It's about 36" across and I am THRILLED with how it turned out. The center and the large petals are from one Crystal. I think it's going to really stand out against the booth backdrop of dark blue.
Next up is one made from Shibori, one or two from Gradients, some from Shades packs and something from the Black Shades Pack. My goal is to have them done by the end of the weekend. Wish me luck!  It's football season so you know that I'm spending more time in front of the TV so my handwork projects might see some significant progress. I had 2 of these done before vacation, finished one on vacation and finished the other during football Sunday night.  I have 12 blocks finished so far. Look at all that quilting space that I'm going to have in this quilt.
But I'm no where near quilting time on this one.  Vintage Rose - 30% off! Sometimes I make mistakes. OK, I actually make mistakes pretty often but usually I can hide them. Not this time. I made this one on a larger scale and you get to benefit from it! I was dyeing fabric for the AQS Show last week and did some bad math mixing my dyes. Instead of a deep ruby red I got this beautiful deep rose red. I love it but it's too close to my Cranberry Red so I'm not going to carry it in the shop as a new color. Instead, you get the opportunity to get this Vintage Rose at 30% off. Vintage Rose is on sale 30% off through Sunday! That's $15.75 for a yard and a quarter of fabric. This is a one-time offer and it comes only as sets of fat quarters. Get yours while supplies last. Gradients Back In StockAs you will see, last week's dyeing had a theme of reds and oranges with these 2 restocked gradients.  Solar Eclipse Gradient  Imperial Dragon Gradient There's also a new Stars (one yard cut) fabric also in the same theme.  Enif - One Yard This past weekend was sewing weekend with Country School Quilters. I probably should have stayed home to do more prep work for the AQS show but I preferred 2 days hanging out with Mom and our quilt friends. I took my Indonesian batik quilt to work on. I got started on this while we were on vacation and could have probably finished it there but I didn't bring my diamond ruler to cut the edge pieces.  As a reminder, this is the layout for the quilt. I bought the fabric at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. They were pretty expensive.....more expensive than my hand dyed fabric...so I didn't want to cut them up too much. That's why I chose this design and I used the Diamond Design Ruler from Quilter's Apothecary. These design rulers are specifically for cutting, not for longarm ruler work.  I got all of the rows stitched on vacation and this weekend I got all of the edge triangles cut and these 4 rows put together.  Putting rows of diamonds together turns out to be very tricky! The method I used in the end was to chalk a seam line across the sashing to help line up the next row. It's fiddly but it works. I started with the longest rows and there's only one more this long and then I start going up each side.  The edges are not necessarily on straight of grain so I'm stay stitching them as I go along. The quilt will have a solid purple border to finish it off. I expect I'll have this one done in November.
 The Cave by Patricia Caldwell Patricia Caldwell is back this week with another of her beautiful art quilts. The Cave is 42" wide by 24" high and is made with a custom gradient. Follow Patricia on her Facebook page to see more of her work.
For sharing, Patricia 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. While we were on vacation we established a routine pretty quickly. We learned that, in Acadia National Park, if you want to find a parking place in the park you better be where you want to be early. From about 9:30 - 3:00 the place is a beehive of activity and parking is nearly impossible. We weren't staying on the bus route so driving was a must for us. We would be out of the house by 7:30 for whatever hike were were doing so we were usually back around lunchtime. 7:30 is REALLY early for me but it gave me a lot of afternoon time for sewing, reading, napping or floating in the lake with a tasty beverage.  I honestly didn't have a lot of confidence in my hiking abilities. I had no plans or ambition to hike any of the taller mountains. But we set a strategy of starting off with some easy, but long, hikes and worked out way up. By the end of vacation Chris and Ian convinced me that I was ready for Sargent Mountain, the second highest peak in Acadia. It tops out at 1373' and I was thrilled to make it. Next year we are doing Cadillac Mountain for sure....via the easier South Ridge. I wore my celebratory Eagles cap all weekend and met lots of other Eagles fans. I even met someone who went to the Super Bowl to see it live. That's Chris in white and our friend, Ian, in blue. Laura passed up this hike and enjoyed a day alone sewing. One day the three of them went out to eat and I took that opportunity to stay home, take over the machine and work on Antelope Canyon.  I was able to finish the Antelope Canyon quilt! A absolutely love this quilt and pattern. Laurie Shifrin designs very unique patterns and they are very well written. I think that I will likely make this one again and I love one of her other patterns, Mirage. Just Google the pattern names to find several sellers that carry them.  I'm making this for the guest house bed and I needed it bigger to have a nice overhang for that bed so I dyed the custom gradient for it and I love the effect of how the gradient sort of washes out the edges of the geometric pattern.
After the AQS show in October I want to get a quilt back dyed and get this one quilted and done before the end of the year. Today and tomorrow are sewing days with Country School and I hope to make some progress on my Indonesian Batik quilt. When my friend Laura comes to visit from England I'm not sure if she's coming to see me or my sewing room.....and I'm OK with either! This year she was here for a month. She came over at the beginning of August into NYC so she could meet up with Anne, Lora and me for Lora's birthday celebration then she was with us in Richmond for about a week before we headed to Maine.  While we were in Richmond she decided to make some pillow covers for her lounge and discovered my shibori stash. You know she's a good friend if I let her in the shibori stash!  While in Maine she wanted to make a sofa quilt for a friend and my plaid stash was perfect. My Mom had made this quilt and Laura saw it while we were visiting her apartment. It seemed a good way to use a pack of plaid charm squares  You could draft this block to any size but we selected 8" because that was the easiest for the finished size she wanted. The muslin strips are cut 1.5". The middle could eve simply be one piece of fabric.  The last time Laura visited she made a baby quilt for her niece using Mary's Quick Strippie quilt pattern. Her niece loves that quilt and sent her this message "Hey, aren't you with the quilting lady? Could you make me another baby quilt? The baby loves it and I'd like to have one at Mom's house." Fortunately there are fabric stores in Maine and she found these fabrics (plus Minkie for the back) to make another one. This pattern is the best baby quilt! She put this together in an afternoon. She'll trim it up after she gets it quilted.  This is a little better photo of the fabrics. the dark blue is more of a dark teal. THe backing is teal and white polka dots and the binding will be pink.
She kept the machine humming while we were in Maine! She sews just like I like to: headphones on, listening to a good book and tuning out everyone else. She's also funny and wicked and kind and a great friend. Vacations are wonderful things and we all need them whether we actually go anywhere or not. A staycation can be just as relaxing and refreshing as traveling. But one thing that's true about these breaks is that there seems to be a lot of work on the front end to get ready and on the back end to get everything back to normal. Nowhere is that more evident for me than the blog. Today I believe that I'm finally catching up with my UFO update post.  Innes Baby Quilt I was determined to get SOMETHING done in August and this baby quilt was the perfect project. I made the top several years ago so I just had to quilt and bind it.
I picked up some lobster fabric just because I was in Maine. I'm going to make some new potholders with them because, really, you only need so much lobster-themed stuff around your house! I found that fish fabric and had to get some for Chris. Most fish fabric has images of lake fish like trout, because they are so pretty but Chris likes off-shore fishing and this fabric has all of the fish that he likes to fish for. I'll have to let this one sit for a while until I decide what to do with it. The 12 fat quarters are all Maine-themed and I think I'll make myself some placemats with them.....eventually.  After I finished the projects that I brought with me I was looking for something else to make. I was in the kitchen and saw this. That's one sad cushion and I though maybe I could make some new cushions for these chairs. I'm sure that it's impossible to find cushions for these chairs because the seats are smaller than normal. Laura and I headed for the fabric shop (again) where I searched for some appropriate fabric. The owners of this house are understated so bright prints or giant blue and white lobsters (my only options) weren't appropriate. I had to settle for khaki canvas.
Here are the finished cushions. I overstuffed them because I know that they will flatten out some over time. The stuffing is from 2 Wal-Mart pillows ($5), the fabric was less than $15 and the buttons less than $5. The owner of the house was thrilled. He's apparently been looking for cushions to fit these odd-sized chairs for a long time. So that was my good deed for the month.
I also quilted 4 more veterans quilts in August, bringing my total to 16. Here are my stats at the beginning of the month: My starting goals for 2018 were: Starting UFO 15 Finished YTD Goal 12 Started YTD Planned 6 Ending UFO Goal 9 Veterans YTD Goal 40 Here are my stats after August: Starting UFO 15 Finished YTD 3 (Goal 12) Started YTD 6 (Planned 6) Ending UFO 18 (Goal 9) Veterans YTD 16 (Goal 40) Fabric Postcards 57 Pet Beds 2 Garment 2 Placemats - 4 Chair cushions/pillows - 3 Quilted for others - 2 How are you doing with your goals for the year? |
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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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