I got 2 more veterans quilts done this week. These may be the last that I get done this year but It's possible that I get 2 more done next week......we'll see. This one was made by Mary and I think it's very striking. She said that she saw a quilt made with this pattern on the web and thought it would be cool if she made the blocks smaller and put 4 of them together. She was right. The secondary pattern where the blocks meet is very cool. This is a really nice scrap quilt made by Peg. I love monochromatic scrap quilts. I wasn't quite sure who made the quilt until I saw this shark fabric. I remembered it from another quilt that Peg made several months ago. Yesterday Mom sent me a photo of her Christmas tree. She has a little tree just outside the door of her apartment and this is her inside tree! Clever.
I had some plans but those plans had to be changed. I was going to quilt 2 more veterans quilts but I needed to exchange the 2 I was going to do with Brenda, the other quilter, so quilting didn't happen. Then I decided to sit down with the Sashiko machine. I got a bobbin wound and, after 4 tries, got it loaded properly. (There's a specific set of steps to get the machine set to sew). Then I decided that I'd do some stitching on postcards since I need to get a birthday card out this week. Look how cool those stitches were looking? Then there was a loud, unnatural noise and now the machine is stuck. I can't even turn the wheel to bring the hook up and release teh card. I'll be taking the machine to the shop this week for repair. Anne knows all about it and isn't worked up by it at all. She told me to leave it until she gets back but I had plans of things I wanted to make! Instead of my original plans, I switched to crochet and finished this shawl. I was waiting for this finish before I take a bunch of items to From The Heart later this week. The yarn is Mandala Ombre that I got on a big sale. I have enough in other colorways to make about 3 more shawls. I even got the leftover yarn added to my scrappy blanket. I hate scrap yarn so I go ahead and add it to a scrappy blanket to use it all up. This will be either a wheelchair blanket or a pet blanket. I'll donate it and let the organization decide where it's needed....once I finish it. I have one of these for each yarn weight (4, 5 and 6) and add whatever I'm working on to the appropriate blanket after every project. There was a lot of football this weekend so lots of good crocheting time and I also made some progress on the last of the big blankets. This one is for Chris' best friend and I'm about half done.
I also started some new birthday cards because my SIL has a birthday this Friday. I'll have those done to share tomorrow. I'm on the home stretch with the last of my veterans quilts for 2023. I finished 2 more yesterday. This is one that I made and I absolutely love it. The blue fabrics are all from leftover veterans quilt backs and the color fabrics are hand dyed FQ sized scraps. This fun quilt was made by Marcy. I always love seeing her quilts because she and I think so differently and I often try to channel a little more Marcy in my quilts. Both of these are quilted with the Square Spiral pantograph. I have 2 more quilts ready to load today and hope to have them done by tomorrow. Then I will dye a quilt back for one of my big quilts and try to work on that over the holiday. After I finish the last 2 veterans quilts I need to get busy making some pet beds. This is the current stash of chopped up batting scraps and it will make a lot of pet beds!
The other thing I want to do this weekend is to get the Sashiko machine out and start learning how to use it. Stay tuned! Yesterday my best friend sent me this photo of her Christmas decorations for this year. She will be out of town for Christmas so she decided to pull out all of the Christmas postcards. I know that the silver tree (second card on back row) was the first card ever so that means that this year is the 19th year that I've been making them! Then she sent me this photo of all of the other cards that I've sent her, mostly birthday cards. The sun looking one in the middle is all thread painted and, I think, the first card I ever sent her. It might be the first card I ever made. A few of the cards are from some online swaps that I used to participate in. It's fun seeing them all together! We had quilt club last night so I wanted to get a couple more veterans quilts quilted and I finished just in the nick of time. This one was made by Becky with a line of fabrics from Barbara Brackman. This one was made by my Mom from some fabrics that I brought home from Maine one year.
I have 2 more veterans quilt tops in the closet and should be able to get on with those today. This weekend was all about catching up on quilting and addressing postcards. I started with quilting 2 veterans quilts. One is this quilt made by Brenda. The second one is this quilt that is one of mine but it was pieced my my friend, Laura, on vacation this summer. I got it quilted and bound. Both of these are quilted with this all-over leaf motif. It's freehand so it was very fast to quilt. I also put a red scrappy binding on this veterans quilt. It's another that Laura pieced on vacation and I quilted it several days ago. I now have 2 more quilts ready to deliver to our veterans. Finally, I quilted this quilt for my friend, Kim. It's 80" square. She is going home to Alabama at the end of this week and wanted to take it home with her. I think the pattern is called Scrapbook but I can't find it anywhere on the web. I quilted it with white thread (as requested) and the Fluffy Clouds pantograph. It's a very quick and easy pantograph and it makes some lovely texture.
All in all, that was a pretty good weekend. The cards also got addressed and will be in the mail today. That means I can get the Sashiko machine out this week! My Christmas chores are almost all done. Kim and I had a great week at the river with Anne and Weesie. We all made a lot of progress on our projects and I think we wore Weesie out. Anne said she slept the whole day after I left. One of the projects that I worked on was this crochet cape. I finished it Sunday while I was watching football and I started another one. From The Heart put out a call for wheelchair capes. I had one already finished, this one is the second and I'll try to get one more finished before I deliver in a couple of weeks. This cape works up really quick. This is a "pattern" that I made from combining some other patterns and the directions are here. The yarn is Lion Brand Mandala Ombre and I think it makes a pretty cape. I accomplished all of the stitching on the postcards that I could while at the river and I did some of the finishing this weekend. I had to stitch the berries at home because I didn't take any red metallic threads with me. The color I used here is kind of a copper color. I wish I had used a more textured background with these but it's too late for that! This is the stitching that I got done on the other two designs. The trees will get some crystal but I'll add those after I stitch the edges. I got the birds outlined and the ribbon added. Yesterday my birds got painted eyes and what a difference that makes! Now I'm ready to fuse the backs and serge the edges. The end is in sight! I also brought home a little toy to play with for the next few months. Anne bought this Sashiko machine secondhand in the Spring. She will be out of town for a few months so she let me bring it home to play with until she returns. It's a really interesting machine. There's no top thread, only a bobbin. It may look like a sewing machine but it doesn't work like one at all. This is what the stitching looks like. You can adjust the size of the stitches and spaces separately. I'm not allowing myself to play with it until the Christmas postcards are all in the mail.
This week I will get the cards finished and I want to get 4 veterans quilts quilted. First a little shop notice: I'm heading out for a few days with friends so any orders placed this week will be shipped Monday, December 4th. After cleaning up from Thanksgiving and putting up the Christmas decorations I got busy on the things I wanted to get done. First off, I wanted to get a couple of veterans quilts quilted. Both of these quilts are square-based patterns with no borders and that allows me to quilt them really quickly with the wavy crosshatch. I'm not sure who made this one but I think it might have been made by Gwendolyn. This is a pattern that I like to use when I have lots of scraps in a similar colorway or pattern, like plaids, batiks or patriotic. I cut this one out earlier in the year and Laura pieced it on vacation in August. All I have left to do is binding. Then I got on with the postcards. They are all fused and I've gathered a bunch of threads for the stitching. I'm taking these to the river today to work on this week.
It was a good weekend here in many ways. For one, it was windy so I couldn't do anything in the yard. The wind mostly took care of many of the remaining leaves. The end is in sight for my autumn leaf blowing work. We attended a memorial service for a hunting and fishing buddy of Chris' who was well known as a long-time high school coach in Richmond. He was the high school coach for a current NFL quarterback and he received wonderful tributes from that player and so many other people he touched in his life. It was really lovely. On Sunday we delivered brownies of a couple of friends. For some reason, people really love my gluten-free/vegan brownies. I don't think it's the recipe. It has more to do with the $10 of specialty cocoa that I use in each batch. I love delivering them to people who need a little pickup. The funny thing is that I don't love them as much as everyone else. I prefer chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. I still had a lot of making time in the weekend and one project I finished is this wheelchair lap blanket that I will donate to From The Heart. You might remember all the blankets that I've been making for the men in my life. They all use Cascade Cartwheel yarn. I don't like having leftover yarn bits so as I finished each blanket I added it to a corner-to-corner blanket project. It actually started with the blue in the upper right corner. That was the first blanket I made with this yarn and it was also a corner-to-corner wheelchair blanket. I used the leftovers to start this blanket. I fell in love with the yarn on that project and then I bought tons of it on sale, and as I've finished each blanket, this blanket has been growing. I thought it was going to be kind of ugly and thought it might end up being a pet blanket. But, now that it's done, I think it's kind of pretty. It's about 27" x 36". I also got all of the pieces for the holly cards cut out. I think I even have the ideas for the 2 other designs. I want to get the pieces cut and fused for all of the cards by Sunday so I can take them to the river and do the stitching next week. Then I did some quilting! Both of these veterans quilts were made by Carla. I really like both of them, especially the bandana fabric. They are quilted with the square spiral pantograph in red thread. Next up is this quilt that my friend Kim made for a friend. Her friend is starting cancer treatment soon so I want to get this one done quickly so she can send it off before treatment starts. I'm almost halfway done and hope that I can finish it before the Eagles game tonight.
This week involves a doctor's appointment (physical) and Thanksgiving at my brother's. All I have to prepare is a batch of cookies. Chris has to make 2 pies. I'm sure the only reason we are invited is for Chris' apple pies! He's famous among our friends and family for his apple pies. Today and tomorrow I want to finish this quilt and work on the postcards. Those are my main goals. It was a beautiful weekend here in Virginia and, of course, I did a lot more leaf blowing. But we also had a fun sewing weekend and I got to reconnect with a friend I hadn't seen in over 10 years. Also, the Eagles squeaked out a win so the weekend was a big success! On the quilting front, everything was all about veterans quilts. I'm really happy to be back to quilting them. They are quick and stressless. These two were brought to me by Ramona. I love the bright geese in this one. I could see making this in my Shades Packs or a Gradient. I decided on just a touch of custom on the geese. It was very fast to quilt. This next one also came from Ramona and I find it really soothing. I quilted this one with the Square Spiral pantograph. This is the top that I pieced at sewing this weekend. It's one of the kits that I had pre-cut over a year ago. I only have two kits left so this Spring I will need to cut a lot more kits. I really like that approach. It makes getting ready for the sewing weekends very easy. The blue fabrics in this quilt are all from the remnants of dyed veterans quilt backs. I save all of the excess fabric and try to use it in other veterans quilts. The color fabrics are hand dyes from my stash. I really like how this looks but it was kind of hard to piece. I had way too much trouble keeping my fabrics in order! But even with all of the unsewing, I pieced the whole thing in 2 days (about 7 hours). I got the next 2 veterans quilts loaded for quilting. Both of these were pieced by Clara. I'm trying to decide between red and blue thread but I will not get to quilting these until next week.
Tomorrow I will work the voting precinct all day. We will setup tonight and will be there tomorrow from 5:00 am until about 8:30 pm. It's a long day but I really enjoy it. Then Wednesday morning I'm going to the beach! My friend, Kim, got a beach house for the week and invited me to join her. I'll pack up the blue quilt and some crochet and head out early Wednesday. I'll post from there but probably will not post again until Thursday. I don't have a newsletter today because I didn't get to do any dyeing last week so today I'm sharing the progress on the Paula quilt. I got it pieced this weekend and quilted yesterday! All I have left is the binding, a sleeve and a label. I might get it bound today after my dentist appointment and some errands. I can't wait to show you this in full color in early November because it's bright! The sashing and border are gray prints but everything else is very bright. This will eventually be a quilt to be donated to the veterans hospital so when I quilted it I used the backing and batting that our quilt club purchases and I needed another quilt to tp pair it with. I was using a gray backing and black thread and Gwendolyn's quilt fit perfectly.
So, at least I've finished one thing! |
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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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