I have not gotten my quilt blocked yet but it will be done before the weekend is out. Instead I got 3 sets of veteran's quilts put on zippers and ready to load. I have a couple of new ideas for my beginner longarm classes and I'm using these quilts to get some photos. This is one of them. It's so fast and I really like the texture it creates. You can see in this photo how I load the second quilt right behind the first one. I match up the tops so that I can use the same thread on both quilts too. On this one I'm doing continuous curves in the print fabrics only. Each row of blocks takes 2 passes of quilting. This photo shows the first pass. I'll quilt back to the start to fill the block. I'm not doing any quilting in the white areas. These 2 will be done by the end of the weekend and maybe one or 2 more.
I finished this over a week ago but completely forgot to share it! This is my second QOV for 2016 and it finished to about 70 x 90. You can see more detail shots on my Quilt Gallery.
Chris went to Vermont last Tuesday to visit with some friends. I used that as an opportunity to try to develop a "no TV" habit. From the time he left Tuesday until he returned Sunday I didn't turn on a TV. Not once. It was delightful. I really thought I'd have difficulty with it because we have the TV on all the time. Mostly I think it's just for the noise but I realized that I was delaying doing things because I wanted to watch something until the end and I needed to get out of that habit. So I turned off the TV and either listened to a book or the radio on my MP3 player. The political news is driving me insane. Each half of the country delights in telling the other half how stupid they are. No one is actually debating issues. It's the same on Facebook. Once someone mentions politics I stop following them, even if I agree with what they say. There's no discussion or debate. It's all name calling. "You are stupid and moronic if you disagree with me." I'm banning myself from news for a while. Maybe the summer, maybe all year. I'll selectively read a couple of balanced news sources but I truly will not benefit from dwelling on the presidential race, Orlando or the next disaster for hours on end when there really isn't anything new to know and absolutely nothing that I can do about it. So, this morning, instead of watching TV I did this. I caught up on the news from the turtles in the lake and watched the Mallards reporting to each other about their own local events. It was peaceful and beautiful. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is lower and I can justify eating more chocolate. Tonight is the Country School Quilters meeting so instead of watching TV last night I quilted up 2 veterans quilts that I can deliver to the meeting tonight. This one was made by Annie, our member from Seattle. This one was made by Carol. They both got fast quilting treatments simply because I thought it was better to finish 2 instead of just 1. That wavy crosshatch grid really works on everything! CSQ buys the batting and backing and since I get to pick the backing out I like to buy white for a lot of it so that I can dye the backs. I love adding hand dyed backing to the quilts and I think this green works really well with both of these.
Today I'm off to do some shopping for white tshirts. A friend and his daughter are visiting tomorrow and Alida and I will be tie dyeing! Yesterday I shared the quilting that I finished this weekend on my next Quilt of Valor. Last night I took a few minutes to write up a tutorial for how I did the faux piano key motif for the background. This was a very fast way to finish off this quilt and I think it looks pretty good too.....and no ruler work! If you are interested you can get check out the Easy Piano Key tutorial. Not interested in my super easy quilting tutorial? Well, maybe you will like these cards that I received in the mail recently. I send a lot of cards but I don't receive many so these were great surprises. The top one was made by Beth Hunter and the bottom one is from Judy Stupak. Judy even used a bit of my hand dyed fabric in hers. It's good to know how others feel when they get a card from me in the mail!
I am fortunate to be able to teach new longarm owners at The Longarm Network in Virginia. I also try to quilt at least 40 charity quilts each year from my local quilt club. I often use my quilting designs on these quilts to teach my students that they can be a good longarm quilter from the first quilt by following a path to proficiency. I show them many ways to quilt simply and easily while still creating nice designs and learning new skills. Yesterday I shared this snowball block quilt. I pondered on this quilt for several days to come up with a quilting approach. I almost settled on an all-over design but really wanted a design that would show off the blocks. Now that I'm on the new website I'm going to do a better job of creating tutorials and am going to create lots of easy/beginner longarming tutorials....starting with this one! This tutorial shows one way to quilt snowball or kaleidoscope-type blocks. It's fast and easy, a great way to build some longarm skills and it creates a great pattern on the back of the quilt. Get the tutorial here. We had a rainy weekend in Virginia so after spreading a 5 gallon bucket of Preen on the driveway Saturday I spent the rest of the weekend on my fun things. I moved some shelves out of my sewing room to make way for the design wall, I fired the kiln and will have those things ready to share later and I quilted veteran's quilts. The next quilt on FloMo will be one of my own. Sometimes I don't know who made the quilt tops but I know this one is Betsy's. She loves small pieces and repro fabrics. I did an all-over swirl because you can't really see the quilting anyway.....even with red thread! I did try to do a little something special in the border with a feathered motif. I know this one is Carol's because she reminded me at the last meeting. I had to ponder this one for a long time to come up with a quilting plan. I'm really happy with what I came up with and I'm going to share the quilting path in another post. I like coming up with simple but but nice-looking designs that beginners can do. This "pattern" is one step above easy and there are some really good skills that can be practiced while doing this design. I think the back is fun too!
I'm off to glass class in a few minutes. I'm focused on glass quilt blocks right now. |
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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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May 2024
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