 Makana by Ann Jensen, 18" x 27" This week's inspiration is a hand appliqued wall hanging by Ann Jensen. She used Pumpkin Patch and Navajo (discontinued) Gradients.
For sharing, Ann 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.
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 I'm usually a big time procrastinator when it comes to the annual Paula Nadelstern quilt but this year I don't have time for that. I decided on a traditional layout with 3 x 4 blocks and some sashing and a border. I will make this to eventually be a veterans quilt.
Yesterday I had a little warm up session and got 2 blocks made. I can't show you the fabrics in color but I figure black and white might be OK.What are they going to do? Fire me from a volunteer job? I'm happy with my first 2 blocks and hope to get all 12 made by Sunday evening.  Yesterday was a long dyeing day so I didn't get into the sewing room at all. I finished dyeing right before dinner and, after that, only had the energy to sit and listen to the latest Lisa Jewell book and crochet some on the baby blanket. This pattern goes really quickly because it's all double crochet and the stitches are in groups of 3. Three together, three DC in 3 sts, three DC in on stitch. Nice and mindless so I could keep my focus on the book. I was so hooked that I had to stay up to finish it.
Today I start making blocks for the Paula sample quilt. I'll share black and white photos as I go along.  but I still got a couple of things done. About every 12 - 18 months Chris is plagued by an attack of vertigo. It's awful and I really feel for him while he's going through it. He has medicine that works now so at least I don't have to take him to the ER anymore. It always happens in the middle of the night and that's the surprise he woke with at 4:44 yesterday morning. After that we were both up until the worst of it passed around 9 am. He's absolutely fine now but it threw the day off for both of us. I feel for all of you who deal with vertigo issues. What a nightmare. I'd much rather be the person cleaning up from the consequences of the nausea than the person with it. Between about 8 and 10 am, while he was resting, I got all of the rest of the blue blocks cut out for my bow tie quilt. I wanted to get that done to clear the cutting mat for the Paula quilt that I'll start tomorrow. Now the bow tie quilt is ready to sew on whenever I have a few minutes. Once Chris was recovered, relaxed and sleeping, I left to have lunch with Mom and my cousin.  After I got home I got this quilt loaded and basted. This is a quilt made by our quilt club. It will be donated to our local food pantry to use as a raffle quilt fundraiser. I've had it entirely too long and it's time to get it done!
Today is dyeing day but I hope to have an hour or so to maybe start doing some of the stabilizing stitching on this. I expect that the quilting motifs will be things like cross hatching and feathers. I'll try not to get too carried away because the quilting isn't going to show on the floral fabrics.  New Reflections! It was so good to be back in the dye studio last week! I have a lot of catching up to do so will be rolling out lost of fabric over the next month and will especially be focused on restocking Gradients. But it won't be all Gradients! This week I also have new Reflections! Reflections are 1 yard cuts of streaky patterns. These were originally designed with the art quilter in mind. I see these as sky, water and landscape elements. But I'm a more traditional quilter and I like them for borders. They give a nice, wild, stripe effect. There are over a dozen to choose from, these are just the 4 newest. Gradient news! Deep Sea Gradient First up is a brand new blue gradient called Deep Sea. I know, I already have several blue Gradients. But these are the most popular, for obvious reasons, and I want to have a good variety of shades of blue. I think this is a good addition to the blue Gradient collection. I also have 3 other Gradients back in stock for you.  Ebb Tide Ebb Tide has more of a turquoise tint than Deep Sea. It's got more of a Mediterranean feel than the ocean feel of Deep Sea.  San Francisco San Francisco is perfect for stormy skies.  Oasis Oasis is just right for a fantasy scene. Black is Back! Black - By The Yard If you have followed me for a few years you will remember the one year odyssey I went on to create a perfect black dyed that would also gradate to light gray, like in the San Francisco Gradient. It took me 67 tries but I eventually mixed 5 dye colors to get this dark black. It's available in Shades Packs, Gradients and also in yardage. The yardage is now back in stock! That's all the news for this week. It's great to be back and I look forward to being by on the dye studio tomorrow with possibly some autumnal colors. Fabric of the Week Paradise Stash pack is 20% off through Sunday The fabric of the week is the Paradise Stash Pack. Stash Packs have 10 fat eighths in a theme color. Paradise has a wonderful collection of bright greens with yellow and blue. Paradise is 20% off through Sunday!
This weekend was mostly a weekend of starting new projects. The Paula nadelstern fabrics arrived and I got them all washed. I plan to spend this evening figuring out exactly what I'm going to make. I want to get it done before we leave for a trip October 7. One thing for sure is that the design will be simple!  Friday afternoon Mom and I finished the very last task in her sewing room by getting the design wall together. It took a full roll of the extra duty Gorilla Tape so I think it's secure and will last another 5 years or more.  Her sewing room is all set up. It's smaller than her previous sewing room but we were able to arrange it to fit in everything she needed. She actually built that cutting table herself over 10 years ago and it's been very sturdy. Her fabric is stored in a cabinet in her living room, otherwise, everything fits in here nicely.  Back at home I got more fabric dyed for the blue bow tie quilt. I mostly needed lights and the fabrics were end cuts and odd sized pieces.  I was cleaning up the cutting table to get a backing ready to load on the longarm and I found the leftover squares from this quilt that Laura pieced on vacation. This is the very last of a set of fabrics that I bought years ago and I tried to talk myself into just tossing them. I couldn't do it so I pieced them into 4 placemats. These will get quilted later but, at least, I can move them to another location for the time being. I have a bigger quilt that needs to go on the longarm this week.'  I watched a lot of football this weekend and that gave me the opportunity to start 2 new crochet projects. One is another of the big blankets that I have been making for the men in my life. This one will go to a good friend of Chris'. The other is a second baby blanket for my soon-to-be Great Niece. This one is going to come together a lot faster than the one with the squares.  We are also spending a lot of time looking out the windows. We have lived here over 20 years and have never had turkeys hanging around. But since we returned from Maine we are seeing this one flock of 8 hanging around a lot. It's fun having them around.
 Art Deco quilt by Patricia Caldwell, 24" x 40" This week's inspiration comes from Patricia Caldwell. She made this quilt for New Quilts from Old Favorites 2024 at the National Quilt Museum. The theme is Roaring Twenties. This is her interpretation of the Sunburst Block. She will find out if it's accepted in January. She added feather quilting in the design and freshwater pearl beads.  She used Black By The Yard, Blue Sky Shades and a Stars (one yard cut).
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.  Yesterday was kind of a chore day. First I had to deal with the weeds on the driveway. It needs treatment at least 3 times a year. Then I decided to sort through a big donation to our quilt club. If you belong to a quilt group I'm sure you are experiencing the same situation where you re the recipient of multiple donations a year from retired quilters. Sadly, it's getting quite frequent for us. Conveniently, we have an annual trash-to-treasure fundraiser in October so this donation was timely. I won't be at that meeting so I wanted to get all the stuff sorted and tagged for the auction. This woman had so many packs of hand sewing needles! She, like me, had lots of stuff. There's a separate pile for the thrift store.  I also got the blocks I sewed on vacation cut and finger pressed. They are ready to start sewing into blocks. I don't know how quickly I'll make progress on that because the Paula fabrics arrive tomorrow and making the sample quilt for her has to be my quilting priority.  This weekend, during football games, I will start 2 new crochet projects. One will be another baby quilt for my new Great Niece and the other will be another of teh big "dude" blankets. This one will be for Chris' best friend.
This afternoon I head to Mom's to help put up her design wall. She will be ready to start sewing again! Thank you to Cheryl B-J for sending us these two lovely quilts for our veterans quilt project! I got the quilting finished Tuesday so I could take them to the meeting Tuesday night and got two volunteers to do the binding. These will be ready for our veterans soon!  Quilts based on 12"blocks always seem to make really nice quilts and these are no exception.  I quilted both with my favorite patriotic star and ribbon motif. I've probably quilted that pantograph about 100 times! I might need to start looking for a new patriotic pantograph just to have something new and different.
We gladly accept donated tops for our project. The optimal size is 48" x 60". Since most of these go to cancer and dialysis patients, this is the perfect size for them to take with them when they are getting treatments. You can contact me if you want to donate a top and I'll give you the details. The following winners of the Moving Week giveaway have been notified. Thank you to everyone who entered! If you didn't win, don't worry, there will be more giveaways to come!       |
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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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