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.
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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. I was just having too much fun working on the houses and I just had to finish them. I don't have any idea who will be the eventual owner of this quilt but I absolutely love it and had so much fun making it. The purple gradient background looks exactly the way I wanted. You know how I am about scraps.... I was really good and I diligently put all of the scraps in the trash but now I keep looking at that pretty pile and I don't think I have leave them there. I think there might be some new postcards in my future. I certainly don't need to start another quilt right now so postcards might be a good project. During my dyeing last week I also dyed this shirt as a special request from Chris. He has a shirt like this and wears it to his fraternity reunions. One of his friends has been coveting it for years so Chris asked me to dye one for him. It pains my Hokie heart to dye anything in UVA colors but I'll do it for Chris.
As I'm writing this, I realize that I forgot to get a photo of the big blue quilt off the frame. I did finish quilting it so I'll have a photo Wednesday and maybe I will have started quilting it. I could have finished this yesterday but I'm holding myself to limited time quilting so I will finish it today. I haven't picked a binding yet so I might have to wait until I dye something for the binding. I'll be happy to load some veterans quilts again soon! I am so glad that I started this quilt. It's really re-energized me for making quilts. I've been a little lost since the blue quilt was finished. I just love making these houses and I got another street done yesterday. The two longest streets are now done. I think in this photo you can now see the gradient effect in the background. I have 8 shades of this purple and I decided to use the lightest 6. I didn't want a very dark corner. I'll use the dark for the binding whenever it gets to that stage.
I expect that on Monday you will only see these 2 projects again. I'm visiting my SIL Sunday for a special project so I'll only have Friday and Saturday for sewing and ironing fabric for the shop. Yesterday was "dyeing day" so I really didn't get much else accomplished. Most of this dyeing was for custom orders, including a UVA shirt for Chris to give to a friend of his. I did get a couple more rows quilted on the big blue quilt. The end is in sight and I think it will be done this weekend. I should have it ready to deliver it to my SIL at family beach week. I haven't done a ton of crochet since the end of football season but I work on this blanket a little each week and I'm almost ready to add the border.
Today I have some bloodwork, a errands trip to Walmart and acupuncture. Then I can get another 2 rows on the blue quilt and, maybe, make some more house blocks. Yesterday I had lunch with Mom and my cousin and then I went to the repair shop to make the appointment to get my car fixed. May 6 is the date to drop it off. The weather has also been beautiful and I've tried to spend time outside every day. Yesterday it was for a long walk in the neighborhood. On the way out the driveway I checked on the baby bluebirds. We have 4 in this clutch and them are at least a week old now. It's also been nice to be back to quilting. I've gotten a couple of rows quilted on the big blue quilt every day and it's about half done now. I love the cloud look on the back. I also got another row of houses built. It's coming together fast because the pieces are big and it's a lap size quilt. I am loving it!
Today is dyeing day so I might not get much sewing done but I might get in 2 more rows on the blue quilt. I didn't intend to stay away all week last week but I just didn't have anything creative to post. I helped my friend move Tuesday and Wednesday and that all went really well. I then spent Thursday just resting my back and Friday was errand day. On Saturday I had a chiropractor and acupuncture appointment and that helped a lot. By yesterday I was ready to spend some time in the sewing room and I decided to start another project. I don't have any specific project that I want to work on but I've had this pattern hanging around for several months and this seemed like a good time to make it. I went back and forth on what I wanted to do with the background. I knew I didn't want gray and I was leaning towards blue. But then I found this set of fabrics in a grayed purple. I thought that might make an interesting background bu grading the background from light to dark. I always knew that I wanted to use my "waste" fabrics for the houses. Here are the first two rows of houses and I love them! I think you might be able to see that the purple HSTs under the bottom row of houses is slightly darker than the first row. I think this is going to come together pretty quickly and it's a really fun pattern.
I don't know who will eventually own this quilt but I think it will make a nice gift at the right moment. I got the news last night that the mosaic patio is all grouted and finished.I hope to go see it in the next 2 weeks and get lots of photos. Today I'm helping my friend move so I thought I'd share the rest of my weekend events. It was sewing weekend for my quilt club. I always look forward to our 2 days of sewing together. On Friday we had 16 people, one of our largest groups ever. During the 2 days I got all of these blocks made and I sewed the top together Saturday night. I now have 3 of my own veterans quilt tops that need to be quilted along with about 7 more....once the big blue quilt is done. On Friday afternoon I went into Short Pump (yes, that's a town name because "back in the day" there was a short pump where people could get water for their horses) and met up with Chris. Chris is a super nice lady who work with that Lutheran Relief organization that I mentioned last week. She takes all kinds of fabric and craft donations from people. What they can't use she passes on to various organizations around town. She gets a lot of linens in the donations and she now passes those on to me for dyeing. She had 2 bags for me this time! Saturday evening I sorted through it all and have piles of things. Some are complete sets, some is fabric that I might be able to dye and some I can't use and will pass on elsewhere. Most of it, though can be used and some will be used for a specific patchwork project that I have planned. While I was at sewing Saturday this happened. There's a park area there and the parking lot gets a lot of traffic. So now I'm working on dealing with this through the insurance company. It will be an annoyance but much worse things have happened.
It's been a couple of days. I didn't post yesterday because I dyed fabric Wednesday and that's all I accomplished. Yesterday was a little more productive. How's the pollen where you are? Yesterday I hosed off my car at 11:00 and it was green again by 1:00! I normally wouldn't look forward to rain but we will all appreciate a couple of showers this weekend. I started the day yesterday by getting my second acupuncture treatment and it seems to especially be helping my right foot issues. I'll keep it up for a few weeks and see how it goes. After I got home I decided to put some borders on this quilt. The blocks are from a block collection that we did in quilt club. Carolyn put the 12 blocks together and returned it to the club meeting Tuesday. It wasn't big enough for a veterans quilt so I brought it home, and after auditioning several fabrics, I decided in lime and navy borders. I think it calmed the blocks down quite well. I cut more lime for the binding and after it's quilted someone in the club will bind it. It will be a true group effort quilt. Next I decided to start quilting the big blue quilt. I tried to come up with an idea I liked that I could quilt from the front but I really, really wanted a pantograph. I wanted Happy Times. Even though my shoulder isn't totally healed, I'm doing it anyway. I'll quilt one pass at a time and a max of 2 passes a day with a long break between the 2. I like how it's looking so far. The last thing I worked on was this card. We got word yesterday that one of Chris' friends had emergency heart surgery yesterday morning. He was supposed to join Chris and a bunch of other guys next week for their annual Myrtle Beach golf trip. He even asked his doctor right after surgery if he could still go if he didn't golf! Doc said he didn't recommend it.
Dudes will be dudes..... I decided to make him a quick card with the golf ball just missing the hole. John just missed the golf trip but he also missed dying and we are all grateful. This card is the reason that we keep stashes of things that look like garbage. I the message with some cheap letter stamps. The background a fabric that I printed probably 8 or 10 years ago! The other elements came out of my box of pre-fused scraps. The hole is from a 1/2 inch strip that I would have normally tossed. The whole card took about an hour and I think John will like it. Today and tomorrow are sewing days with Country School quilters. We have 2 months left to meet in our current location. The club has been meeting there for 35 years! It's a little sad to leave but we have a wonderful space right next door and it cleaner and brighter and the center really wants us there. We are quite excited. For now, I'm looking forward to working on one of my new quilt kits. Our friends returned home Monday and we are slowly getting back to our normal life. I decided that I'd get the big blue quilt loaded so that I'll quilt it before the veterans quilt tops that I picked up last night at the club meeting. I think I know how I'm going to quilt this with some simple continuous curve motifs. I didn't have anything ready to start sewing so I decided to tackle this bin of fabric scraps. These are the quilt back leftovers from veterans quilts that I've quilted. This pile was much higher before I started putting together veterans quilt kits but I couldn't use all of it in the quilt kits and had this big pile left over. I keep adding to it every month. Last week I found out about another group of local sewists who make quilts for Lutheran World Relief. The quilts they make are very utilitarian and they use 11" cut blocks. The woman who is our contact gives me occasional bags of napkins to dye. People give her orphaned fabrics and sometimes it includes things like napkins and other unusable items. She works really hard to find homes for everything. Anyway, I found out about the 11" squares and thought I could turn that mess of backing scraps into something they could use. I cut and sewed and sewed and cut and in no time I had almost 100 squares to donate to their charity. I hope these work for them because it would be nice to have a destination for the leftover backing fabrics. Then I found a stack of 3.5" strips leftover from another project. I spent about an hour sewing them together and produced another 15 blocks for them. I got the pile down to this. I kept the gray and dyed blue fabrics because I do use those in my own veterans quilts. I feel like I really accomplished something!
I'll be getting on with quilting the big blue quilt today or tomorrow. First I have to do dyeing today. |
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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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