 That's all I have to show for Monday. Otherwise, I did a lot of laundry and we had a friend visiting overnight. Hopefully he and Chris are getting some pheasant today for my dinner.
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 The first postcard design involves stockings. I tried and tried to get the Cricut to cut fabric. One of you kind people, Beth, talked me into ordering the rotary blade but it's going to take more than a week to get here. Instead I used the Cricut to cut a template that I could use to trace on the fusible paper backing.  Then Saturday night we went to Charlottesville for a dinner party. I used the 2 hours in the car to cut out about 90 tiny stockings.  I only got about 5 of them stitched before the football games started yesterday. I'll be sewing these all day today.  During football, I worked on this blanket and it's now officially half done. I have 2 more skeins (about 650 yards) left to go. When it's done it will be about 58" long, a great lap blanket for someone receiving chemo or dialysis.
I'm so happy to have the postcards finally underway. I'm feeling a little less stressed about it.  I needed sympathy cards. A normal person goes to the store, buys the cards and mails them. It takes about an hour. My approach is to decide on some new technique or pull out some new product and take an entire day making 2 postcards. I don't regret it for a minute. The fabric and gold butterflies, both, wer cut on the Cricut. I added free-motion stitching to the fabric butterflies and crystals to the vinyl butterflies.  The technique was to learn how to cut fabric on the Cricut. Of course, I didn't look up any tutorials or anything. I had a lot of failures but I'm closer to knowing what to do. I needed to figure this out before I start working on the Christmas cards. One of the main reasons I bought this tool was to help with Christmas cards.  The original design plan was to do a card with the gold ffused on top of the fabric. I absolutely hated the look of it so instead I got two different cards and I'm much happier with the end results.
I still need more practice cutting fabric but I made good progress in testing out the blades, mats and settings. I didn't accomplish anything else yesterday so I'll see if I can get that quilt loaded today between a chiropractor appointment and the chimney repair people being here.  I made some postcards a few weeks ago but I had to wait to share them until Mom got her birthday card. This is the first postcard that I made on the Cricut and I made 2 of them, one for Mom and one for my friend, Cheryl. I painted the fabric with Tsukineko inks. I've had the inks for ages and I don't use them often, But occasionally they are perfect for a project. I added a little stitching in metallic thread.  I made 2 of these cards for 2 of my brothers. "Shell" was a "thing" on vacation. You know how something silly takes hold and takes over and becomes the theme of the event. Passing around a shell and using "shell" in a phrase or sentence was started by my oldest brother and his wife. It seem appropriate to continue the theme for my brothers' birthdays.  These last 2 were for friends who weren't feeling well. The one on the right went really well and the vinyl fused down great. the one on the left was more difficult. The base is just too textured but I eventually got it stuck. I hope it held up through the mail!
 Yesterday I continued with my recent daily habits of a little longarm quilting, a little piecing and a little cutting. But mostly I got sidetracked making some new postcards with the batik scraps that I received. I needed some new birthday cards for the dudes. I got so involved in making them that I didn't take any progress photos. But you can see that they were really simple. I hindsight, I think I would have benefitted from a more rocky shore and maybe a narrower lake. I still like them but, who knows, I might try some more!  I made 6 of them so I'm covered for a few birthdays!
This weekend it's going to be really hot so I'll start my annual deep clean of the basement and continue with quilting veterans quilts, making string blocks and cutting out the farm quilt.  Magic Mushrooms postcards Why send your Mom flowers for Mother's Day when you can send her mushrooms?  These postcards started with the leftovers from the house quilt. I took a bunch of the scraps and added a backing of fusible web. Then I had to figure out what to do with it.  I worked on a few different ideas, including butterflies and flowers, but I was watching a potter decorate some mugs with mushrooms and decided to give that a try. I work out ideas with some free cut pieces in various backgrounds.  So I got several made and stitched them with a black outline. I finished the edges and just wasn't happy with them. They needed something else....like polka dots!  Why, yes! That will do.  This was the most fun part of making these cards. After some experimentation I found that Q-Tips made the best dots. I even used the stick end for some small dots.  I made 7 of these so I have some birthday cards stocked up. I need to work on a new postcard design in June for the boys in my life.
This is my last post until after vacation. I'll be back Monday, May 27. I hope you have a great week while I'm playing with my new Grand Niece. It's been a couple of days. I didn't post yesterday because I dyed fabric Wednesday and that's all I accomplished. Yesterday was a little more productive. How's the pollen where you are? Yesterday I hosed off my car at 11:00 and it was green again by 1:00! I normally wouldn't look forward to rain but we will all appreciate a couple of showers this weekend.  I started the day yesterday by getting my second acupuncture treatment and it seems to especially be helping my right foot issues. I'll keep it up for a few weeks and see how it goes. After I got home I decided to put some borders on this quilt. The blocks are from a block collection that we did in quilt club. Carolyn put the 12 blocks together and returned it to the club meeting Tuesday. It wasn't big enough for a veterans quilt so I brought it home, and after auditioning several fabrics, I decided in lime and navy borders. I think it calmed the blocks down quite well. I cut more lime for the binding and after it's quilted someone in the club will bind it. It will be a true group effort quilt.  Next I decided to start quilting the big blue quilt. I tried to come up with an idea I liked that I could quilt from the front but I really, really wanted a pantograph. I wanted Happy Times. Even though my shoulder isn't totally healed, I'm doing it anyway. I'll quilt one pass at a time and a max of 2 passes a day with a long break between the 2. I like how it's looking so far.  The last thing I worked on was this card. We got word yesterday that one of Chris' friends had emergency heart surgery yesterday morning. He was supposed to join Chris and a bunch of other guys next week for their annual Myrtle Beach golf trip. He even asked his doctor right after surgery if he could still go if he didn't golf! Doc said he didn't recommend it.
Dudes will be dudes..... I decided to make him a quick card with the golf ball just missing the hole. John just missed the golf trip but he also missed dying and we are all grateful. This card is the reason that we keep stashes of things that look like garbage. I the message with some cheap letter stamps. The background a fabric that I printed probably 8 or 10 years ago! The other elements came out of my box of pre-fused scraps. The hole is from a 1/2 inch strip that I would have normally tossed. The whole card took about an hour and I think John will like it. Today and tomorrow are sewing days with Country School quilters. We have 2 months left to meet in our current location. The club has been meeting there for 35 years! It's a little sad to leave but we have a wonderful space right next door and it cleaner and brighter and the center really wants us there. We are quite excited. For now, I'm looking forward to working on one of my new quilt kits.  Every year, as soon as I finish the Christmas cards, I have to get busy making a birthday card for my SIL. Her birthday is the 23rd so it's important that her card not look anything like Christmas. I think I met the challenge with this one! This has turned out to be one of my all time favorite designs, especially since it came together with scraps and leftovers. I decided that, whatever design I chose, I'd make 4 cards. That will get me through birthdays until March. My design challenge was to use nothing but leftover stuff and it started with a box of fused card blanks. I pulled 4 cards that were already fused with a natural denim.  I decided that I'd try to use some elements from this bin of pre-fused fabric scraps. I keep all of my fused leftovers. They often come in handy!  I didn't use much from that bin but I had enough to cut out some rough floral elements.  Next up I added some outline stitching. I thought about using black thread but I thought that might be too stark. Instead I took the lead from the vase and used dark purple thread. I really liked it and thought this might be the final product. But after some studying, I didn't think it was quite done.  How about some purple and green ricrac? I have a lifetime supply of ricrac!  Some purple edging and they are all done. Carol's is already in the mail.
Yesterday I got started on 2 veterans quilts while the plumber was here installing a new filtration system. I'll get the quilts finished today.  I have mailed all of my postcards and I have a few left over! The first 5 people to post a comment here can get one mailed to them. US or international, it doesn't matter.
Do not leave your address, just leave a comment telling me that you want one and, if you are one of the first 5, I'll contact you for your address. Once they are all claimed, I'll turn off comments. All of the cards are spoken for!  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. |
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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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