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! 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. 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. There's also a new Stars (one yard cut) fabric also in the same theme.
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.
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. Farewell to Summer Giveaway winners!Thanks you to everyone who entered the giveaways last week. I use Rafflecopter to manage the entries so that it's easy to get random drawing results. Here are the lucky winners: Golds and pinks: Nancy Sumner Autumn colors: Gene Black Sundance: Melenda Pomykal Wholecloth: Donaleen Kohn Fat quarters: Shirley Bruner Gift Certificate: Paule Marie Fabric of the WeekThe fabric of the week this week is the Paradise gradient! If you want some for your stash get it before it sells out. Through Sunday (or while supplies last) this fabric is 20% off or $7.20/half yard. New Fabrics! |
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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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