 Our first day sewing in our new location went great. It's a really nice room in a facility with a nice kitchen and very clean bathrooms. This old building was "home" but we've gotten a nice upgrade. I was really tired today so I only stayed a couple of hour and I spent most of my time yakking. I started this quilt and only got 2 of 20 blocks finished. Hopefully, I'll get more done today.  As usual, I had a miscut in the kit. I was short piece for one block. Fortunately I had a scrap of this fabric at home.  I spent the rest of the day being grateful for you. The final sale has been successful beyond my imagination.  Our quilt club has moved to a new location that's actually right next door to the place where the club has met for 35 years. The new place is an old school building. That building was constructed at a time when the cafeterias were built as a separate building. The old cafeteria is owned by the County and that's where we have been meeting. Fun fact: my college roommate's Mom was the last principle of that school! Today we have our first sewing days. Yesterday I worked the voting precinct and it was a really long day. Normally, I'd do nothing today but I don't want to miss our first day. I may only stay a couple of hours, but I'm going. This is the kit I'm taking today. I have 2 quilts in here, one is patriotic. The other is animal print batiks. The batiks are left over from Karen's quilt. The pattern is this one. I've made it several times because it's simply a churn dash block and comes together quickly.
Summer has arrived in Virginia. We're hitting temperatures around 90. That's not unusual. It's just summer and that means it's a good time to stay inside.  I got my two veterans quilts quilted and they are ready for binding. I might get them finished this coming weekend after I get the string quilt top done and the stringy mess cleaned up.  The next 2 quilts are basted and ready to start quilting. That will also probably not happened until the weekend. I've got some appointments today, I work the voting precinct tomorrow and the we have quilt club sewing days Wednesday and Thursday.  I made some progress on the string quilt. Only 3 more sets of diamonds and I can put this one together.  I also got the rest of the Farm quilt cut out! It was nice to clear that off the cutting table. Now this is packed up and ready to take to Maine.  But the big project of the weekend was cleaning the basement. We use a wood stove in the winter for heat so after the season the basement needs a deep clean. Plus, it was perfect timing to clean and reorganize the dye space for post-business use. It's a true deep clean that includes mopping a cement floor. I hate doing it but it feels good to be done. I proposed to Chris that we eat dinner on this floor last night. He didn't accept the offer.
Tomorrow I'll be at the voting precinct from 5am until 8pm. Since I've give up my regular dyeing schedule I've discovered that I have a ton more time. I don't think I realized just how much of each day was spent dyeing, washing, ironing, photographing and listing fabric. I've been able to catch up on a lot of house-related things and I have a lot more creative time.  Yesterday I got to work on a few things. First I got two more veterans quilts loaded and ready to quilt. These are both my quilts and I should have them quilted by Sunday. I have 3 more sets to do before the July meeting and that should be a problem either.  Then I made another set of string blocks for the batik quilt. I think I'll try to get a set done each day and that means this will be together in 6 days.  I finished the day by cutting out the chicken blocks for the farm quilt. I have pigs, sheep, strawberries and bees left to do and then this will be ready to pack up for Maine.
Today.....more of the same! Yesterday there wasn't a ton of sewing. Instead there was a lot of vacation planning. You may remember that we went to Tucson this past winter and we enjoyed it so much that we immediately made plans to go back in 2025. All was great until late May. In the middle of Chris' medical crisis at the beach I got notice that our Tucson reservation had been canceled because the condo was sold. Finding places to stay is a little difficult for me because I always have to ask about fragrance used in washing the linens. I can't stay in places where they use detergents like Tide and Gain. Those fragrances are permanent and I'm highly allergic to them. So I've spent hours on various websites trying to find a condo to rent in one specific neighborhood. Finally, yesterday, I found it! Unless I also plan a girls beach trip in the fall, I'm all done with vacation planning until 2026.  After all the computer work I was in need of some sewing time and I made 4 more blocks for the batik string quilt. These blocks are so much fun to sew. For those who are interested, here's the tutorial that I wrote for my quilt club.  I also got the farm quilt back out and started cutting out the chickens.
Last night we had quilt club and I brought home 11 more finished veterans quilts ready for delivery, and 11 more quilt tops ready for quilting! Today I may try to load 2 of my veterans quilts for quilting, sew a few more string blocks and cut out the rest of the pieces for the chicken blocks. I love making these rectangle block string quilts for veterans quilts. The veterans quilts are 48" x 60" and if I make blocks that are 8" x 10" then the setting is 6 blocks by 6 blocks and it makes a wonderful symmetrical pattern. We have our quilt club meeting in our new meeting space tonight and I volunteered to do the program. Since I just finished one of these quilts I decided that I'd do the program on how I make them. To prepare for that I started 3 more of them!
I already had kits made for these 2 quilts so I sewed together 4 blocks of each to show how they would look. Both are hand dyed fabrics but they look really different.  Then I acquired a great collection of batik strings and decided to start another. This one doesn't have a center strip. Instead I and doing half the block in green and half in multi-color. I think I'm going to keep working on this one in my sewing room since I already have the fabrics spread all over my sewing table. I'm also making a few postcards with them and I'll have those finished to share tomorrow.
We had a friend visiting last night so I stayed out of the sewing room and was social for the evening.  I had a big trip to the post office yesterday and then we had an appointment but I got to do some quilting in the afternoon. I hope today to get the other quilt done and maybe get another loaded.  Since we got the downstairs AC fixed I could finally turn on the oven and bake some bread. I have to eat gluten free but this recipe is about as good as it gets. YOu aren't supposed to touch gluten free bread until it cools down but I couldn't help it and I was able to get a photo with the bread still steamy.
Today's plan is to get some sun and do some quilting and research our January vacation.  The weather here is just spectacular this week so I am making sure that I spend an hour or so outside every day. It won't be long before it's Hades hot and humid and I won't want to be outside more than 3 minutes. After a thunderstorm in the afternoon we opened the windows and enjoyed the fresh air inside. I think the open windows will last a couple of day. That's a good thing since we can't run the downstairs AC until the breaker is fixed next week. Yesterday afternoon, while we had some rain, I decided to dye up some veterans quilt backs. We buy the wide backing by the bolt. I get some printed and some white. I mostly dye the white fabric in various shades of blue with some gold and an occasional custom color. I cut up a whole bolt and this is enough backing for 15 quilts.  Just like the batting, they are all pre-cut and ready to use. Because we make our quilts the same size (48 x 60) I can pre-cut the backing and batting into 2 yard widths and that allows us to load and quilt 2 quilts at once. The whole process is quite efficient.  I also got Becky's quilt loaded and the first pass quilted. I'm using a gold thread and the quilting isn't really going to show at all on the front.  But it should show pretty nicely on the back. I should have this one done by the end of the weekend. Although I have to spend a good bit of time this weekend cleaning and restoring the guest house after we had some drywall repairs done. We have some guests coming next weekend. They were one of our first Airbnb guests and they came every year for a homeschool convention. We've gotten so close to them that I wanted them to keep coming to stay even after we stopped doing Airbnb. It's been fun to watch the kids grow up. Two are now graduated and one is married! The daughter who took her first steps at our house is now 11.  Last night, while Chris watched Fargo, I started cutting out the Elizabeth Hartman farm quilt. I'm glad I have 2 months to get it cut out. It's kind of daunting but it's the perfect project for a fastidious organizer. I have a big supply of plastic bags that will come in quite handy.
 Today was a day of knocking things off the list. We started the morning with the chimney sweeps getting the chimney cleaned and inspected. I got the Big Blue Quilt washed and the label sewn on. It's ready to deliver next week.  I delivered 20 veterans quilts and met a very cute puppy at the coordinator's house.
Finally, I got the borders on these 2 veterans quilt tops that I started this past weekend. It's kind of hard to see but I used different borders for the top/bottom and sides to enhance the woven effect. I hope to get these quilted and bound before our June meeting.
Today I'll start packing for the family beach vacation that starts Saturday! I normally do a giveaway week on the blog during vacation but I don't have the time to pull that together this time. Sorry about that! I'll try to do one later this summer.  The Big Blue Quilt This week is turning into a week fo finishes because I had so many projects that I just couldn't share yet. This one was held up until I could get good weather outside to take photos.
I started this quilt was started last August while we were in Maine. It was a project to use up some of my blue hand dyed scraps. This made a good dent and it was a fun quilt to make. It's big, at about 93" square. I wrote a longer page with more photos and details here. I have one more finished project to share tomorrow. |
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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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