 The Summer Sunset quilt is officially done! It's bound, washed, labeled and ready to use. It's too heave for a summer quilt but it will be a great quilt for September and October. In fact, this might be the quilt that we take to Maine in August. I do bring all of my own bedding because of my allergies. In the end I'm happy with the finished quilt. I was disappointed by the pattern but I worked around the pattern issues by quilting it with a pantograph instead of doing any custom quilting. If you want to see more photos check it out here.  The back is ice dyed cotton sateen.
 There's a reasonable chance that this quilt is going to be a February finish! I finished the quilting last night and it's ready for trimming and binding, maybe Saturday. I thought I'd share how I handled the bulky seams in the center.  I could tell that the hopping foot wasn't going to go over the thick seams in the middle so I positioned the foot but the center and checked where it was in the panto pattern.  Of course it was right on a stitching line!  I used a whiteboard marker to draw adjusted stitching lines and did a dry run to make sure I had it right.  It worked perfect! There were a couple of other areas where a bulky seam bumped me off the patter a little but none of those areas are noticeable.
Today we're off to the quilt show!  Yesterday was dyeing day and I never accomplish much after a day of dyeing. I usually finish up just before dinner so there's only a little crochet time on those evenings. Yesterday was no different. What I should have done was get my laptop and catch up on a week's worth of blog reading. I'll try to do that today. I'm way behind.  My big goal for today is more quilting on Summer Sunset. I'm almost at the halfway point and I would have finished it for sure but then remembered that we have an appointment this afternoon. But I'll get a few rows done and it will be done this weekend for sure.  After sleeping under the postage stamp quilt (heavy quilting) and the vulture quilt (light quilting) I have finally accepted that bed quilts must be quilted lightly. It's fun to so all sorts of special and dense quilting but it doesn't make for a cuddly quilt. This quilt is intended for my bed so I'm using a panto that's very open and hopefully it will be a very comfy quilt.
Tomorrow Mom and I are heading to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. I'm so happy to be going back again. I may or may not post tomorrow. If not, I hope you have a great weekend.  My main accomplishment for yesterday was getting Summer Sunset loaded and one row quilted. It took a long time because it's huge and because I wanted it centered in the ice dyed back. After much wrangling, I did it! I'll quilt on it a lot this weekend after I go to sewing days with my quilt club. I'll be working on veterans quilt tops there.
I hope you have a great weekend!  Summer Sunset Tree Skirt I am very happy to have my first quilt project of 2022 done! I'm so glad I decided to turn that wall hanging into a tree skirt. I think it's going to look great under my Christmas tree with my collection of blown glass ornaments. It finished to 40.5" in diameter. I sliced the quilt through a star point so that the center front of the skirt will be a star point. I am not going to mention the pattern because, frankly, I'm not happy with it. There's so much bulk in the seams that it's really difficult to quilt. But, in the end, it worked out great.  I used 2 buttons for a closure.  The backing is a piece of the Summer Sunset gradient that was the source of the palette for this quilt (and the matching large bed quilt that's next up to be quilted.)  The star part is quilted stitch-in-the-ditch around the color sections (not ever single piece). The background sections are quilted with pebbles and solar flare effects. I used Superior Highlights and Bottom Line for the quilting.  I love Renee's Amazing Rays for drawing giant circles.  Next up is the queen size Star. This one will be for my bed. The foundation fabric is intended to be left in but since the quilt is already so bulky I've decided to remove the papers. That will take a week or so but meanwhile I have the back ready.  I ice dyed this last week for the backing of the quilt. It's cotton sateen so it has a beautiful sheen to it. I intend for this quilt to be reversible.
 I did my best to make this a complicated and long project but successfully talked myself off that ledge every time. The quilting is done so it's time to cut it into a tree skirt. The binding fabric is being dyed as I write this so I might get this finished next week.  My first going-to-far ledge was a plan to stitch in the ditch EVERY seam in the pieced blocks. If I did that I'd still be quilting this at Christmas. I talked myself into just quilting around each color group and that, frankly, was just right. It would be nice if this think kept some amount of drape to it and stitching ever seam would make it stiff as a board. You can see where I stitched for the opening. I'm cutting it open in the middle of a star point because I want a star point as the center front of the tree skirt.  I practiced a bunch of feather motifs for the background until I realized that feathers don't go with this quilt at all. Simple (and fast) sunburst effects was the ticket to get this one wrapped up in an afternoon.
Next I'll prepare a back for the test flip and sew placemats and I'll get started on those. Yes, it was a very productive weekend here. On top of the sewing projects I got done I also got the first 2 truckloads of mulch spread. usually I start in late February and go through March. I was delayed first by a ton of rain and then I hurt my foot. Now it's going to be really warm for the next 6 - 8 truckloads. I guess I'm going to have to try to get up early and get my work done before the day heats up too much. It's a ton of work but it's great exercise and it really does look so much better when it's all done.  But, let's get back to sewing. First, I got the gradient border on Summer Sunset. Now the quilt will finish about 96" square, exactly the way I wanted. You can see how huge the star is and that you lose some of the effect on the bed. Oh well, It will still look great in my dark orange bedroom. But for now, it's going to relax on the guest bed until I'm ready to quilt it. I'm expecting an order of cotton sateen wide backing in a month or so and I think I'll ice dye some of that for the back and see if I can make this a reversible quilt.  While I was finishing up, I pieced the back, cut the binding AND made the hanging sleeve for the small version. I want to get this one on the quilt frame soon and have it finished by the end of May.  I kept going and cut the binding for the big quilt and put all the leftover fabrics away and I have an empty bin!  Remember the animal print quilt I started earlier this month? The wide cuddle minky backing fabric arrived Friday so I decided to get it loaded and quilted. It only took a couple of hours and I think this Ebb and Flow panto is perfect. I'll have this one bound and finished to share by Wednesday! Now I can officially start something new!  That something new is going to be adding a border to my vulture quilt that my best friend made for my birthday last year. I LOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEE this quilt and want it on my bed this summer but I also want it a little bigger so I'm going to add a piano key border in the colors of the vulture block frames. We found more of the same fabric that she used for the backing so this should be a really straight forward project to do.  I've even got the fabrics dyed and ready to go. These are all from the Color Wheel collection of fabrics.  But first I'm going to take a little diversion and do some serger projects. There will be some donation things, some pillowcases for gifts and some doll clothes for Ella. It's going to be very nice to do some quick projects this week. I'm starting with the mastectomy drain bags that I cut out a couple of weeks ago.
I'm trying to stay away from crochet for the week. My hands are bothering me a bit because I've been overdoing it. I've got a little road trip to Connecticut (with a pit stop in Lancaster, PA) coming up this weekend and I want to be able to take my crochet to do in the car and hotel. To do that I've got to get the tendonitis calmed down some. Maybe playing on the serger instead will help. I could also take the vulture quilt with me and work on removing the binding. The plan for yesterday was to do a lot of cutting because the piles on the cutting table are out of control.  I started by cutting 2 more veterans kits from my patriotic batiks. I have 6 kits cut now and am waiting on some more beige batik to cut one or 2 more. After that I'll just have a small bin of scraps to use up when these quilts are done.  Then I decided to tackle the corners of the Summer Sunset quilts. I was able to tape 3 rulers together to get the length I needed for the diagonal cut. I don't know why I've never thought of taping rulers together before. It works great!  So here's the big star!  Next I will add a 5" gradient border to get it to the size I need. We decided that we prefer it with the yellow end on the corners and the purple in the middle. I will get this done by the weekend for sure because I really want to move on to something (anything) else!  Here's the little one done. I want to get this one quilted soon although I know it's going to be a huge challenge where so many points meet. There's SO MUCH BULK in this quilt. The quilting is going to be much simpler than I originally planned.  But before I do any quilting I will remove all the paper from both quilts. This paper was supposed to save a ton of time because it's "leave in" paper. If yo are familiar with the applique papers that you leave in, this is basically the same thing. It works great for applique because the paper isn't caught in layers and layers of seams. I may not have to remove ever single piece but I will remove it where there are seams.
I will never use this paper for foundation piecing again. It seemed like such a great idea but I think this needs to in the applique toolbox. Thank goodness I still used the tiny stitch length that I usually use with foundation piecing! I hope everyone had as nice a weekend as I had. I got to hang out with some friends Friday night and have a scotch tasting evening with another friend Saturday. In between I did some quilting things.  This is a baby quilt that Mom made and I got it quilted for her.  It's a baby quilt so it got a simple Happy Times pantograph and lime green thread.  The backing is yummy minky. Minky doesn't want to be over quilted so this panto was just right.  But here's the big news for the weekend. The Summer Sunset star is together! I still need to add corners and the border and remove the paper from the back. That's another story for another day. I can't wait to get this quilt finished and on my bed.  Speaking of "on the bed", this is how huge this quilt is! It's actually going to lose some effect once it's on the bed but I don't care. These are my colors and it's going to make me happy to see it every day.....once it's done.  I also got caught up on my Bethanne Nemesch class and started another veterans quilt for practicing. I'm getting really comfortable with feathered wreath centers now. This quilt has 20 blocks and I've got 16 more to go. But I'm really getting faster with more confidence and that's cool.
This week I want to get both Summer Sunset tops completely together, quilt 2 veterans quilts with feathered wreaths and finish cutting out a bunch of veterans quilt kits. Chris left for his golf trip this morning and I got busy on my home alone weekend.  Look! Thanks to a little prodding from Mom, I've got the star points sewn into pairs now. She always knows best. Tomorrow I'll get the rest of the seams together. It's getting really unwieldy at this point. I meant to load and quilt a baby quilt for Mom today but I was more in the mood for cutting. So I cut.  I started tackling my bin of patriotic batiks. I just want to get them all cut out and ready for sewing on vacation this summer. First up I cut fabric for 2 rail fence quilts. I even cut the binding. That's 6 yards down! 17 yards to go.  Next up was this quilt. I cutout tropical versions of this one when I was at the beach in February. I've got the red and blue parts cut out for 2 quilts. I still need to cut the background but I have to get more of the background fabric for that step. I'll pick out a couple more patterns this weekend to use up more of the fabric.   Meanwhile THIS arrived in the mail today! There's a story to go with it.
Do you remember this quilt that I made a few years ago? It's one of the samples that I make for Paula Nadelstern to show off her new fabrics each year. This one was made with the line called "Where In The World". Ironically I named this one "Where In The World Is My Cat?" Well, Paula and I have been asking that question of Benartex for several months. The quilt is gone. I believe that a cat lover saw the quilt and decided to take it home. I received a very kind note from the President of Benartex apologizing for losing the quilt. Paula had told him about the work my quilt club does and he offered to send fabric for our veterans quilts. Their generous contribution to our veteran's quilt project arrived today and I've already started cutting fabric for members to pick up. I can't wait to see how many different quilt designs that they all come up with. My weekend plan is to quilt Mom's baby quilt, start quilting 2 more veterans quilts, finish that darned star and cut out some more kits from my patriotic batik fabrics. |
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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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