 but I still got a couple of things done. About every 12 - 18 months Chris is plagued by an attack of vertigo. It's awful and I really feel for him while he's going through it. He has medicine that works now so at least I don't have to take him to the ER anymore. It always happens in the middle of the night and that's the surprise he woke with at 4:44 yesterday morning. After that we were both up until the worst of it passed around 9 am. He's absolutely fine now but it threw the day off for both of us. I feel for all of you who deal with vertigo issues. What a nightmare. I'd much rather be the person cleaning up from the consequences of the nausea than the person with it. Between about 8 and 10 am, while he was resting, I got all of the rest of the blue blocks cut out for my bow tie quilt. I wanted to get that done to clear the cutting mat for the Paula quilt that I'll start tomorrow. Now the bow tie quilt is ready to sew on whenever I have a few minutes. Once Chris was recovered, relaxed and sleeping, I left to have lunch with Mom and my cousin.  After I got home I got this quilt loaded and basted. This is a quilt made by our quilt club. It will be donated to our local food pantry to use as a raffle quilt fundraiser. I've had it entirely too long and it's time to get it done!
Today is dyeing day but I hope to have an hour or so to maybe start doing some of the stabilizing stitching on this. I expect that the quilting motifs will be things like cross hatching and feathers. I'll try not to get too carried away because the quilting isn't going to show on the floral fabrics.
5 Comments
This weekend was mostly a weekend of starting new projects. The Paula nadelstern fabrics arrived and I got them all washed. I plan to spend this evening figuring out exactly what I'm going to make. I want to get it done before we leave for a trip October 7. One thing for sure is that the design will be simple!  Friday afternoon Mom and I finished the very last task in her sewing room by getting the design wall together. It took a full roll of the extra duty Gorilla Tape so I think it's secure and will last another 5 years or more.  Her sewing room is all set up. It's smaller than her previous sewing room but we were able to arrange it to fit in everything she needed. She actually built that cutting table herself over 10 years ago and it's been very sturdy. Her fabric is stored in a cabinet in her living room, otherwise, everything fits in here nicely.  Back at home I got more fabric dyed for the blue bow tie quilt. I mostly needed lights and the fabrics were end cuts and odd sized pieces.  I was cleaning up the cutting table to get a backing ready to load on the longarm and I found the leftover squares from this quilt that Laura pieced on vacation. This is the very last of a set of fabrics that I bought years ago and I tried to talk myself into just tossing them. I couldn't do it so I pieced them into 4 placemats. These will get quilted later but, at least, I can move them to another location for the time being. I have a bigger quilt that needs to go on the longarm this week.'  I watched a lot of football this weekend and that gave me the opportunity to start 2 new crochet projects. One is another of the big blankets that I have been making for the men in my life. This one will go to a good friend of Chris'. The other is a second baby blanket for my soon-to-be Great Niece. This one is going to come together a lot faster than the one with the squares.  We are also spending a lot of time looking out the windows. We have lived here over 20 years and have never had turkeys hanging around. But since we returned from Maine we are seeing this one flock of 8 hanging around a lot. It's fun having them around.
 Yesterday was kind of a chore day. First I had to deal with the weeds on the driveway. It needs treatment at least 3 times a year. Then I decided to sort through a big donation to our quilt club. If you belong to a quilt group I'm sure you are experiencing the same situation where you re the recipient of multiple donations a year from retired quilters. Sadly, it's getting quite frequent for us. Conveniently, we have an annual trash-to-treasure fundraiser in October so this donation was timely. I won't be at that meeting so I wanted to get all the stuff sorted and tagged for the auction. This woman had so many packs of hand sewing needles! She, like me, had lots of stuff. There's a separate pile for the thrift store.  I also got the blocks I sewed on vacation cut and finger pressed. They are ready to start sewing into blocks. I don't know how quickly I'll make progress on that because the Paula fabrics arrive tomorrow and making the sample quilt for her has to be my quilting priority.  This weekend, during football games, I will start 2 new crochet projects. One will be another baby quilt for my new Great Niece and the other will be another of teh big "dude" blankets. This one will be for Chris' best friend.
This afternoon I head to Mom's to help put up her design wall. She will be ready to start sewing again! Yesterday was such a great day. It was the first day since we got home that I didn't leave the house for anything and it was the first day of football! The move went great but by Saturday evening we were both exhausted. The move was Thursday but we had a few days of finishing packing, setting up internet and other prep tasks. We got all of the boxes unpacked by Friday evening and started organizing the sewing room Saturday. Tomorrow we will hang her art and then she can start the Easter Egg phase of figuring out where we stuffed everything. We think a couple of things were stolen off the back of the truck at her old apartment building which is the perfect sign that it was the right time to move. All-in-all it was a big success.  The only thing I've done in the sewing room is unpack the blue quilt. I won't be making much progress on this because I have to start working on this year's Paula Nadelstern sample quilt. I sent in my fabric order last night and might have the fabrics by the end of the week.  The only thing I've had the energy for is some crochet and I've been working on the baby blanket. It might get done tonight during Monday Night Football.
This weekend became a busy weekend for me and Mom and it had nothing to do with quilting. We had to search for a new apartment for her. She moved to Richmond five and a half years ago and she's been happy in her city apartment for seniors. It's a very old building but the property was lovely and the building was well maintained. That is until the property was sold to out of state investors and it's now being turned into a dump that will be used to take advantage of Medicare largess without any care for the residents comfort and safety. It's really sad because, while old, it was a nice place to live and she has friends there. Although many of those friends are moving out. They are pushing residents to sign new leases and commit to another year. She decided that it was time to go so we started apartment hunting. We found a place she likes and, Saturday (on her birthday) she submitted the application and will, hopefully, sign a lease later this week. If all goes to plan, in September she will be in a nicer neighborhood and also closer to me and my cousin. I'm pretty excited and so is Chris and all of my brothers. All that to say that I didn't get any sewing or quilting done this weekend.  What I intended to do this weekend was get one of these quilts loaded and quilted. I also wanted to get labels and hanging rods for the quilts that will be in the September exhibit. I can work on all of these things Tuesday and Wednesday. There's no huge hurry. If the quilts don't get quilted until September it's no problem. At some point I also have to start packing for vacation but I have that process down to a science. Usually one day for clothes and gear and one day for food and I'm ready.
Today we are off to do more apartment business so my creative expectations for the day are low. Tomorrow offer some hope!  Yesterday was quite busy running around with Mom. We visited my brother and SIL where my brother and I agreed on a sandblasting cabinet that will stay at his house but be available for me to use. Then we went to Lowes where I ended up purchasing the string trimmer I wanted on line because it wasn't in stock and finally to Costco. So there wasn't any sewing or much of anything else accomplished. I got the free decorator fabrics cut and ready to make pet beds. Here's my current inventory that will make about 50 beds. The new pieces are on the bottom because I follow the FIFO inventory system. I hope that the next time I'm presented with free decorator fabric that I will remember that I can't fit one more piece on this stack.  I also started ironing the fabric for my vacation project. I know they will need touch up ironing when I start cutting out, but some of these were very wrinkled and needed serious steam. I'll be able to get to the cutting and sewing part faster by doing this much ironing now.  Last night I worked a little on the baby blanket while watching some TV. So far, I like this brand of yarn. I washed and dried my swatch once and it got even softer. I'm going to put it through more washes for the next couple of months to see how it holds up to long term use before I commit to buying more. This is the acrylic worsted from Knitpicks. They have it on deep discount a couple of times a year and there are tons of colors. It could become my go-to acrylic for blankets.  I feel like I've been driving all over town all week and I'm happy that I only have one thing I need to leave the house for this weekend. Friends is hosting a "tax document burning" cookout Saturday and I don't want to miss that. They are going to be shocked at how much stuff I have because we not only have 5 years of tax documents, we also have Chris' Dad's estate documents that need to go. 40 years ago I would not have considered this a fun event but, right now, I'm really looking forward to it!
The rest of the weekend is all about the Goldfinch. I hope it's not going to take as much time as I have spent dreading it!  Yesterday was quite busy, and since it was Wednesday, it was primarily dyeing day. I also got in some quality laundry time and then Mom and I got to meet my cousin's new grandson, Oliver. Oliver is the recipient of the Heirloom Bear. His parents were very sweet with their gratitude for the bear and for the quilt that Mom made for them. Oliver was even using the quilt on this trip.  The mini sewing retreat with Kim was over but she remembered some orphan blocks that she had and last night I mocked up a couple of ideas with her to make then into a veterans quilt. She's lost interest in the bed quilt that was the original plan. I think she's happy with this layout. Veterans quilts are such a great way to use orphan blocks or to repurpose blocks and fabrics from projects that are no longer loved. I've resolved a lot of UFO projects this way. We do take donated tops if you have some that you want to donate. We provide batting and backing and binding services. Contact me if you are interested and I can give you details.  The other night when I finished the latest batch of pet beds for donation I was wondering if we might get more decorator fabric donated to the quilt club sometime in the next year. Sure enough at the meeting Tuesday someone brought a table full of such fabrics! I never miss an opportunity to get pet bed fabrics for free and brought home this stack. I'll get them cut to size this week and add them to my supply stack. I probably have a 2 year supply but it's hard to turn down "free"!  We also checked on the bluebirds Tuesday and they seem to be doing well. This is probably the last time I'll see them. I hope I'll see them flying around the yard soon!
Today Mom and I are going to visit my brother so no sewing will get done again. But I should be able to make some crochet progress tonight and have that to share tomorrow.  With a couple of projects finished, it's time to move on to some other projects. This weekend is sewing weekend with my quilt club and that means starting a new veterans quilt. This one is going to be a string quilt made with symmetry fabric scraps.  Next up on the Innova is the Goldfinch quilt. I've done a lot of research on how other people quilted these types of quilts and, honestly, I don't really love any of the options. I want this quilt to look like a tapestry and I think that the quilting basically shouldn't show. I think I've decided to quilt it with a washed denim "batting" for it to hang very flat. I'll load and start quilting this next week.  Chris is leaving for a big fishing trip Sunday for a week and a friend is coming to sew with me for 3 days. While she's working on her quilt, I'm going to work on the Goldfinch and make something with this bin of stitched and clamped shibori.  I think I forgot to share this phot last week. These are some new sleeveless shirts that I dyed for myself. The opens I dyed several years ago are really showing their age with stretched necklines and some fading. These shirts came from Lands End and they dyed beautifully.  There's been a lot of nature happenings around here this Spring and Summer but a big surprise is this late clutch of bluebirds! Get a look at that cute little bird foot at the top of the clutch.  While we were walking out to see the bluebirds we saw the fat and sassy Skunk crossing the yard. The photo is horrible because I had to zoom in so much. It has a beautiful coat and we think it's so healthy because it's a master of finding turtle nests and eating all the eggs. We are not upset about that, we have plenty of turtles! I'm happy for this little critter to provide population management.
Was mostly an away day. I had my crochet/knit group meeting in the afternoon and visited with 2 friends after that.  Wednesday night and Thursday morning I made good progress on the next Goldfinch block. I expect to make a lot of progress on it this weekend because I have nowhere to be.  At crochet/knit group I finished the body of the baby blanket. I'm ready to add the border next. This one should be done soon!
This weekend is planned to be mostly about the Goldfinch.  Yesterday was dyeing day (the last until after vacation) so I didn't get a lot of other things done. But I was really pleased with myself for getting the firefighter quilt loaded and basted.....until I took this photo and realized that I loaded it UPSIDE DOWN! If you look at the takeup bar you can see that the backing is a gradient and I want the top of the quilt to be at the yellow end. I didn't have the energy to take it out and re-do it. That will be on today's agenda.  But the first order of business is to spread the last load of mulch! This is either #8 or #9. I've lost count. Once it's done I will probably be done with mulching for about 18 months, maybe 2 years. I do enjoy doing it so don't be surprised if I do a touch up next year.
After this is done, I'll get into the basement and fix the firefighter quilt. |
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
September 2023
|
RSS Feed