This project is officially done! Completing this project has a completion satisfaction rating right up there with The Great Wall. It was not easy, I had a ton of allergy issues with the Sharpie markers and it took a long time but it was worth all the pain and suffering in the end. Drawing the designs was great fun; it was the other elements that were kind of a drag. There are 2 cloths that are about 7 feet long in front of the sink and stove and one that's less than 3 feet long in front of the fridge. In case you are wondering, yes, we still have white appliances. Black or stainless will replace them when they die. I expect that because we want to replace them that they will never die and I'm fine with that too. These started with plain artist canvas bought on a large roll. They were primed on both sides with gesso and then I painted one side with satin wall paint in three shades of a brown to blend with the floor. If you look close you can see that I painted them with grain line directions to match the wood planks. Here's the smaller one that's in front of the refrigerator. We had fabric covered floor clothes here before that had to be at least 10 years old. They did a great job of protecting the floor and they are still in fine shape. They will go into the guest house. Click on a gallery image to see larger views Here's a gallery with close ups of the designs. All of the designs were done with Wild Gears. Wild Gears are an ingenious upgrade of our childhood Spirograph. You know that Spirograph was brilliant because it's just as popular as ever. It was one of my favorite toys and Wild Gears is one of my favorite grown up toys. (I was going to say "adult toys" but it really doesn't fit in that general category.) I used Super Sharpie markers to get a really bold line and I probably went through a dozen or more on this project. As soon as I noticed any fading in the mark I got out a new marker. The designs that appear to be "on top" were the first drawn. To draw a layered design I had to be careful to stop and start lines at the edge of the design on top. There were mistakes and I did have to do some "erasing" with paint. Chris and I finished them by folding under a hem and using the glue gun to stick it in place. He coated the underside with one coat of polyurethane and 3 coats on top. The have rug pads under them to keep them from slipping on the floor. I hope these will last as long as the last ones or until we leave this house because making a 7 foot floor cloth is a pain. If you are interested the Wild Gear Sets that I used in this project are: Compact Set Enormous Hoops Full Page Hoops Modular Oval Plentiful Strange Shapes 3-Way Modular Connectors Triangle Hoops How's this for cute? I'm making the doll outfits to go along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors. February is yellow month so I made this sun dress Monday night. I had just enough of that fabric to make the dress. It looks like it would be easy but the dress is fully lined and you have to turn it through the shoulder. It was a pain but I did it. I hope it fits Ella's doll. Yesterday we finally had a beautiful sunny, warn day so I decided to get a start in trimming bushes and cleaning up beds. If the ground ever dries out I'll start bringing in and spreading 8 or so truckloads of mulch. My trimming method makes mulching easy! There are Barberry bushes. They don't mind this harsh treatment at all and I won't have to tend to them again for a few years. Then I came in and started sewing my star blocks together. These are the blocks for the small stars. I thought I'd get all of the star blocks together yesterday but it turned into more work than I expected. This quilt is made on foundations that you leave in. That's generally a great idea but it leaves way too much bulk in the seams so I'm spending a lot of time tearing out the material where seam allowances are pressed. It's a pain but it's necessary. In the evenings I'm making progress on this blanket. One ball of yarn is done and I've started the second one. This pattern has a border and I will not have enough yarn for the border. I bought what the pattern called for but my gauge is different because I crochet pretty tight. As a result I think I'm using more yarn. I had to run an errand to Lowe's yesterday and Hobby Lobby is nearby. I thought I'd see if I could find something that might work for a border. Pretty much everything looks awful. White is too bright, ivory makes it look old and dirty and every pink clashed. In the end I decided to go bold and see if this will work. It has the peach and pinks from the blanket plus every other color. It might look like crap but crochet is really easy to pull out. It's a low risk experiment. The blanket can always go without a border and I can make hats from this yarn if I don't use it on this blanket.
I've talked about all of this stuff during the month so this is just a little wrap up[ post. I'll be linking to the RSC main blog. My project is to make blocks from a hoard of repro fabrics and then to use those blocks to make 8 lap quilts from the last of my Great Grandmother's UFO projects. She made 8 big string stars that will be the centers of the blocks. Since I like to take pre-cut kits on my vacation to Maine, I will just be cutting out blocks each month and will take them with me in August to sew. I'm picking only 9-patch patterns in the hope that it will be easier to put these quilts together in the end. This month I cut 8 blocks in each of these patterns. They are placed on cardboard pieces that came with some glass time. They are going to stack really nicely for travel. My other goal is to make a doll outfit each month for my SIL's granddaughter. She wrote me the cutest thank you note for this little nightgown and even gave me a A+ sticker! There's nothing like a little positive feedback to keep you going. This is the start of a second outfit. I've got a hat cut out and probably need to make a t shirt to go under it. The February color is yellow and here are the fabrics that I've pulled to start with.
My best friend and I finally exchanged Christmas gifts last week so I can now share the gifts that I made for her. I hadn't realized the habit I had gotten into of buying gifts for her as I shopped gift shops on vacations. I couldn't do much of that this year so I had to be creative. I was really stumped for a long time. One day I was in the shower (where I solve most of my problems) and thought about things we did the past year and the biggest thing that came to mind was this project: her mosaic pizza oven. That gave me my sunflower theme and I was off and running. She has an outdoor screened porch so I thought that placemats and pillows for outdoor entertaining (or just lounging) might be good gifts. I got out my Jacquard Color Magnet and borrowed this stencil from my friend, Marcy, to make some center panels for placemats. I absolutely love Color Magnet. The images are always so crisp. Then I dyed 3 half yards with my own leaf and sunflower screen prints. At the same time I dyed some lengths of denim in matching colors. Starting with the pillows, I fused and the satin stitched two sunflower pillow covers. I even had enough gold fabric to do piping. These should look pretty good on her outdoor furniture. And I found these great sunflower buttons for the closures on the pillow backs. The placemats were really straightforward. I made 8 and each one has the gold center strip. With another strip top and bottom. I mixed the blue, green and tan among the placemats. I had dyed a mottled fabric for the backing and I used that for the binding. These were really a lesson in letting the fabric do all the work. The piecing design couldn't be simpler. The best part was finding these vintage Corelle sunflower plates! The set is finished off with dyed napkins. I even found matching plastic flatware in gold, vanilla, blue and green to match the set. She's ready for her first outdoor cookout.
I had a lot of fun making these and she really liked them. At least, she said that she did! She got me a bunch of crochet stuff including some books and a big project tote and she gave me some really cool things that she's printed this year. She's been busy carving stamps and now I have a tote bag and some bandanas with her designs. Christmas in January is a good thing! I've been working on a little bit of everything but the most noticeable progress from the last 2 days is the floor cloths. This new motif too FOREVER because of having to work it under 3 other designs and having to change holes on the gear and move it 2 spaces every time around. There is a mistake but I don't think it's noticeable enough to "erase" it and start over. Then I added this design and I did make a a mistake that had to be erased. Erasing here means painting over with a tiny paint brush. This one was particularly complex to draw to get under and through the other designs. I had to go very slow. This is after fixing the stray mark and coloring in part of the design. Here's that last design added to the small floor cloth that will go in front of the refrigerator. Here's one of the long ones with it's new design in place. I really feel the end in sight now. In other news, I got a photo of Ella happy with her new doll outfit so I'm cutting out a jumper and hat. I think I'll try to do a couple each month along with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors. January is pink. I, thankfully, don't have a lot of pink fabric but at least this one has pink in it. The next set of star points are underway too. Soooooo close.
Yesterday was dyeing day and that usually means several hours straight in the basement but the plan for this week was shibori. Shibori takes a lot more elapsed time (about 8 hours) but there are some breaks while the fabric is on the dye bath. I probably should dye shibori more often but, frankly, it's just too fatiguing. Once every couple of months is a good pace for me. I do love seeing the color combos develop. In between sessions I'm working on Summer Sunset. The 5th set of star points are almost done. And here's the surprise pink RSC project that I did this week! My SIL's granddaughter, Ella, is 7 and she's delightful. She is also obsessed with American Girl dolls. Personally, I've always hated dolls. They creep me out no end. But I have always liked doll clothes. I tried making Barbie clothes for another little girl once but Barbie clothes are way too tiny and really hard to make. After spending some time with Ella I thought I might try to make some clothes for her collection of TEN American Girl dolls that includes her mother's AG dolls. I ordered a pattern off Etsy and this is the first piece. The fabric is a cute vintage feedsack fabric and the pattern is a nightgown and sleep mask. As I was sewing it I found some unforgivable flaws in the old fabric that I patched as best I could so I consider this one a prototype and will send it to Ella just to see if this pattern fits. Has anyone made anything from 18" doll patterns? Do they generally fit OK? I even added some vintage buttons as decoration. I learned a lot making this little dress so I'm better prepared for the next outfit. Back to dyeing, I found this photo that I forgot to share last week. When I was doing the impromptu sewing room cleanup last week I found a box of linens that a friend had given me. She used to haunt thrift stores and find all kinds of cheap linens. I've decided that I need to just start dyeing them. I dyed these in the bin with the Coleus Gradient and they turned out really nice. I have a friend who is now big into carving stamps and printing on fabric. I'll give these linen cocktail napkins to her for to add the final decoration.
Tomorrow I finally get to share the project that I did for Paula Nadelstern last year! Yesterday was a day to catch up on some chores and a day to devote a lot of time to wrapping up this coaster adventure. I started with a plan to make 4 coasters (no bowl) out of a pile of green scraps. You'll see in a minute that plan did not work out. It produced 1 ugly coaster that will probably be put by my sewing machine because we always keep the ugliest things we make for ourselves. I switched gears and combined a small pink/red pile with some of the green ones to make some rose inspired coasters. There weren't any of the pink strips left so this set did not get a bowl. They are tied with a bow and put away for future gifting. I had this much clothesline left. Not enough for a set of coasters but maybe enough for a trivet. I rolled it into a coil to see. Compared to the ugly green coaster that looks like just about the right size for a trivet. My biggest pile of strips was a mix of greens and blues so that's what I went with. It actually doesn't look too bad! It's pretty darned heavy and sturdy. I used cotton thread so that it can tolerate hot pans. Would you look at that? I have a whole other roll of clothesline! What was I thinking? I'm putting this away for now. I'll use it as I make quilts and need to use up trimming strips. For reference, I used 2 packages of clothesline (200 feet) for all the things I've made the past couple of week. One package goes a long way. I didn't need 3! Honestly, the biggest news for me lately is that I've found a great new (to me) website with wonderful vegan gluten free recipes. Gwen from Delightful Adventures makes the best GF/Vegan recipes that I've ever found on the web. I've made several of her recipes but the latest are these Ginger Molasses Cookies. They taste like the Ginger Snaps that I haven't had in ages! Look at that, they even look like real cookies. In my world that's a miracle. The things I make rarely look like the recipe picture. Even Chris likes these cookies.
I'll probably take most of the rest of the year off. The main project I'm working on is one that I can't share. I'll stop in when I have something new, otherwise, I'll be having fun, relaxing and will be checking in on all of your blogs. Most of what I've been doing the past 2 days I can't share. I'm making a couple of gifts that I can't show yet. But I do have 2 things I can share. This is the lovely stack of veterans quilts that I delivered to the VA hospital contact yesterday. If I counted correctly there are 26 and that makes our total for the year 108! It's our biggest year ever. So there, 2020 isn't all bad. We know how much the doctors and nurses love having these quilts so it motivates us to make more. One of our members made 20 of them on her own this year. I think I made 10 and I hope to do the same next year. I've made one more set of coasters. These are for the wife of one of Chris' hunting buddies. She loves the beach so I think she will like calming water colors of these. I bought way too much clothesline so I'll probably just keep going for a while. I've got lots of fabric and lots of clothesline. It wouldn't be a bad thing to have a few sets of these in the gift closet. When I gift them I wrap them in a strip of the fabric that I used in the coasters so they can see what they are made with. I have some of these coasters that I probably made 10 years ago and they are still in great shape. They are very sturdy.
Today is dyeing day and I'll be dyeing some quilt backs and some fabrics for the remaining gifts that I'm making. I should be done with Christmas making by Christmas day! Yesterday was "dyeing day" so I really didn't expect to get a lot done. In the end I surprised myself. I got started on the dyeing earlier than usual so I finished earlier than usual too. I finished off this set of coasters. You can see a strip of the fabric that I used in these. I think this set turned out really pretty. After this I took a break to address some Christmas postcards. Then I went back to coaster making. This set of 4 (no bowl) are made from batik scraps from one of the veterans quilts that I made this summer. There weren't enough for a bowl. That's OK because some people aren't getting bowls and they won't know what they are missing. After I finished these I addressed some more postcards and I have 24 ready to go out tomorrow. That's about a third of the addressed ones. Of the 79 cards, I give about a dozen to the people who work in my post office. I don't have to address or stamp any of those! Here are all the sets that I have ready so far. I'll make a couple more but I have all I need for Friday gift giving. Tomorrow I have to get the label on Kim's quilt so that it will be ready for Friday delivery too. Then I'll make another set of coasters.
I'm looking forward to Friday and Saturday sewing with my quilt club so I can work on something else. Hey Pauline!First a shoutout to Pauline. She's the MIL of a new friend and new quilt club member, Brenda. Brenda told me that Pauline likes reading the blog so I wanted to say Hi! I have a small group of friends that I used to work with and we still get together regularly. We exchange small gifts at Christmas. Two of them make awesome treats that Chris loves (Rum Ball cookies and Peanut Brittle). I try to do something handmade too. Last year, I think, was dyed tea towels. This year it's coaster sets. I made a couple of sets during the year in an attempt to not have a last minute panic. But here we are again, just a few days away from gift giving and I'm catching up! I decided to use some of my waste fabrics for these. Each set takes 2 pieces (about 7" wide x WOF) and I cut the strips to about 5/8" wide. My friend Estelle makes lots of these as a fundraiser for the Virginia Quilt Museum and she's right, making them is very addictive. Once you get going it's really relaxing to make them. This set is made with waste fabric from the Beach Walk gradient. This set is made from the waste fabric of the Barrier Island Gradient. I really love how these fabrics are working out in the bowls. The set I'm working on now is made from the waste fabric of the Georgia Peach gradient.
So now you know everything I'm doing this week! I will start addressing cards this evening too. All my Christmas stuff should be done by this weekend. |
FeedsTo subscribe click the RSS Feed button and copy the URL of that page into your blog reader.
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
All
Archives
May 2024
|