 Today is Christmas for is and I'm ready! We celebrate at my brother's house and it's a real treat to be around his and Karen's grandkids for the holidays. I got all the gifts packed last night after a couple of last tasks. This stack is for my brother. He likes the hand dyed t-shirts so I keep some around all the time and use the shirts for my leftover dyes. I've got 6 new long-sleeved shirts for him that I've been slowly dyeing for several months. I'll go and buy a pack of short sleeved ones next.  This is actually the first gravity dye that I did and I really like it a lot. I think it's my favorite of the group.  I then printed his logo on the back of all 6. The screen printing had mixed results as I was trying different inks and techniques. He just wears them mostly around the house so he won't mind the ones with not-quite-perfect prints.  The last task was to print off some heat transfer vinyl names for the kids. They can decide this afternoon if they want their names on one or 2 of their shirts. Ella's are really pink and purple (not red and blue) to match her sweatshirt. She'll have extras if she wants to put them on something else.
I've got to make cookies this morning and then we should have a fun afternoon. Next week I get to start quilting the Fab Farm quilt and I get to make a baby version of Fab Farm for my cousin's new grandson due in May.
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 Yesterday was sewing day and I finished sewing all the bow tie blocks. I came home and put them on the design wall. I think I'm happy with this but I'll study it for a couple of days to see what needs to be moved around. When I came home I got busy washing and drying the rest of the dyed items.  These tie dye shirts are for brothers, Sawyer and Lincoln. They are fans of the Washington Commanders and the Naval Academy (because they live in Annapolis). They will also get the orange gravity dyes that I posted yesterday.  These shirts are for their cousin, Eli. He's a fan of JMU and the Buffalo Bills. I did a gravity dye for him as well. I love the gravity dyes but I'm not sure how little kids will feel about them. If they like 2 out of 3 shirts, I'll be happy.  Their Mom's are sisters and both went to JMU so I made a set of bandanas for each of them. They can wear the to game or use them as I do, kitchen cleaning cloths. These are about 18" square and they come from Dharma Trading.  I have a big stash of tea towels and I like keeping them on hand for gifts. People love them. I like to use my old dyes on these because the exact color doesn't matter. I always dye a pair so these are ready for gifting. I have 4 more sets that were dyed with the leftover dyes from the tie dye. Those are plain and I will screen print something on them later.
There are a few more things but I can't quite share them yet. But, all in all, I'm really happy with everything. I also dyed 5 veterans quilt backs and the big quilt back for the Fab Farm quilt.  Yesterday was a great day. It rained all day and that was all the encouragement I needed to declare it a quilting day. I got both of the veterans quilts on the frame quilted. After they were quilted and trimmed I had enough time to bind this one. The blue fabrics in this quilt are all leftovers from hand dyed veterans quilt backs and the print fabrics are the last leftovers from several veterans quilts that I made with patriotic batiks. I will make this pattern again. It went together really fast.  It's quilted in red thread in the stars and ribbons pantograph.  The second quilt was made by Marsha and is actually a little longer than our standard size. I didn't catch it ahead of time (like I usually do) so I had to cut a custom back for this one. It all worked out and it was a good reminder for me to double check the quilt top sizes. It will work fine to donate but anything longer than about 60" is inefficient for out quilting process. Since we made over 150 quilts this year, we need to keep the quilting process efficient!  After dinner I even had time to use up all of my batting scraps and make 4 pet beds for donation to Richmond Animal League.
Today there are appointments and a couple of errands but, in the afternoon, I hope to get busy preparing for a dyeing days tomorrow and Saturday.  There wasn't much time but I needed to get mug rugs made for quilt club tonight. We are having a mug rug swap for our Christmas program.  The batik one started with this bin of skinny strips that are left over from a recent veterans quilt. Finding the purple for the border took the most time. Also, binding a little project like this is kind of a pain.  The second one started with a search through another magical mystery drawer where I found this sun printed fabric. It was printed from a lacy thrifted curtain panel.  I freemotion quilted around the motifs to finish this one up pretty quickly.
Tomorrow or Thursday I'll share the one that I receive.  I didn't get in a lot of sewing this weekend. Mom and I went to Chesapeake Saturday to see her Great-Granddaughter. She was adorable, as expected. I'd love to share a photo but I have a personal rule not to share photos of kids on the internet. You'll just have to trust me that she's the cutest 1 year old ever! But on Friday and yesterday, in between addressing Christmas cards, I got back to the veterans quilts and I put the binding on this double 4-patch. This is my 10th veterans quilt finish for the year and probably the 3rd or 4th time I've made this particular pattern.  The border is quilted with straight lines about 1" apart and the center is wavy crosshatch.  I also got this veterans top together and ready for quilting. Now that the postcards are done, I can get back to quilting some veterans quilts.
I don't know that I'll get much done today because I have set up some appointments to get estimates for re-siding our house. It's a week of appointments! 3 for siding contractors, 1 to have the carpet stretched and 1 to have a ding in the windshield fixed. It will all be balanced out by drinks with friends tonight and quilt club tomorrow night. Next week starts jury duty assignment so who know what that will bring.  I have 3 December birthdays and I make sure that their birthday cards do not look like Christmas cards. This is what I came up with for this year and I love them!  This card started by looking through my Cabinet of Fun. I found this random piece of copper and a sheet of some fiber paper that looks like silver. I have no idea where the copper came from but I have 4 sheets of the fiber paper in 4 different metallic effects. I suppose it's possible that all of it came in some sort of kit. All I know is that it's time to finally use them.  I did draw out the design on paper first but it was pretty simple to develop. I've used similar arrangements before, especially the floating background shape that I cut from the silver paper. I picked a marbled black for the background and then free cut the silver shapes and stitched them down with a metallic thread. Next I cut the flower buds freeform from the copper. I used a pencil yo draw my stems and then stitched the copper in place. Then I added the stems by couching a metallic couching thread with copper metallic thread in a zig zag.  The threads I used are from Superior Thread and are the same ones I used on the Christmas postcards. When the Razzle Dazzle couching thread came out I think I bought every color and I use them a lot. I also have mos of the metallic thread colors too and I use them quit a bit as well. In my lifetime, I'll never use all of them!  Here's a close up of the stitching.  Next, I fused on the back, edged the cards with a copper colored rayon thread and, as a final touch, added dots of liquid beads to the ends of the stamens.
I made 8 of these cards. That will get me through birthdays for a few months. Now it's time to get back to veterans quilts.  Before I get too far into this post let me just point out that my phone hates taking photos of sparkly things. I did the best I could with these!  This card started by pulling out my basket of sparkly fabrics and I decided on the blue silk and the sparkle dot fabrics.  Then my Cricut rotary cutter arrived and I could practice cutting fabric on the Cricut.  Stars and stems worked really well!  I used a 4 x 6 postcard to lay out the design before I cut the fabric.  I fused Mistyfuse on the back of the sparkle fabric and the Cricut cut it perfectly. I cut the branch from some heat transfer vinyl.  I fused the blue silk to cards for the background and then fused the branch and stars. then I zig zagged some metallic couching thread to "hang" the stars. Then I fused on the backs.  I next sprayed all the cards with the Krylon Glitter paint, fused on some crystals and edged the cards in blue shiny thread on the serger.  I have 24 of these cards.  After all that glitter, the serger needed a deep cleaning.
 I didn't post yesterday because I didn't get to work on the postcards at all on Tuesday. I ran a lot of errands Tuesday and wasn't in the mood to sew when I got home. But yesterday I got all of the cards finished! Today I'll share the tree cards and tomorrow the star cards.  This card also started in Cricut. I cut a couple of tree shapes and a star out of glitter vinyl. I had a white fabric painted with pearlized paint in my stash for snow and a green painted with metallic paint for the trees. After studying this a bit I wasn't happy with the blue background. But the rest was good.  I cut the stars with the Cricut. The trees were traced on fused fabric with a paper backing and then cut out by hand.  I found a much better background fabric in my stash. I fused the snow on first and stitched it with a zig zag stitch. then I fused the trees and star. The trees are stitched with a straight stitch in a copper metallic thread.  A fabulous employee at Hobby Lobby introduced me to this little can of magic.  I fused the backs on and then took them outside to spray them all together. The glitter paint stinks and I didn't want to be ironing the backs on after painting and risk releasing the fumes into my sewing room. I left these in the garage for a few days for the smell to dissipate.  I finished them off with a dark blue serger edging.  There are 30 cards in this design.
 I thought I'd get all of my postcards finished yesterday but that didn't happen. I did get the 30 Christmas stockings done and I'm really happy with them.  This is the first time in several years that I've actually purchased fabric for postcards. But, in my defense, I got all of it 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I knew the look that I wanted and my hand dyed fabric wouldn't work.  I got my template from Cricut and cut out a few samples to get the size right. Once I had the size I cut 3 of them from index cards and glued them together to make a thick template for tracing. I fused paper-backed fusible to the 3 fabrics and traced 30 stockings on each.  I used the time on a car trip to cut them all out.  I used one of my oval quilting rulers to trace a line for the gold cord and then I fused the the stockings in place. The hanger is a zig zag over a glittery couching thread and I was able to do all the stitching in one pass.  There are 30 of these ready for addressing and mailing.
Today I have a few errands but I hope to get another set of cards finished.
I actually don't have a lot of finishes for November but I have this one late one. I hate having leftover yarn from a project so I have some corner-to-corner blankets in process that use up all of my leftovers. This one is the 4 weight yarn and I took it to the river this past weekend. We were hanging out with my friend and my very favorite dog, Ouiser. We mostly just relaxed, watched football, ate a lot of food and binge watched the Great British Bakeoff. I was able to finish this blanket. It's about 28 x 36 and is meant to be a wheelchair lap blanket. I'll let the charity decide if they think it will be OK for donation. Otherwise, they can donate it to a pet charity. The only other projects that I finished in November are one veterans quilt, one birthday postcard and 3 shawls. I quilted 3 veterans quilts because that was all we had for the month. I have a few more now to get quilted this month.
I started a lot of things that all should be done in December, including over 80 Christmas postcards that will be done this week. Here are my YTD stats: Quilts - 2 Veterans quilts made - 9 Donation lap quilts - Veterans quilts quilted - 55 Fabric Postcards - 24 Pet Beds - 9 Quilted for others - 3 Crochet blankets - 4 Crochet shawls - 4 Crochet/loom knit hats and scarves - 24 Placemats and Table Runners - 14 Potholders - 63 Dyed shirts and towels - 21 Other Donated items - 232 Garments (sewn and cochet) - 1 Balls of yarn used or gifted - 51 Here are my goals for December: - Finish 80+ postcards - Bind three veterans quilt - Quilt 6 veterans quilts - Quilt and bind the farm quilt - Dye some t-shirts and tea towels for Christmas gifts - make pet beds |
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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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