Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

What are you doing this weekend?

I will be binding! 

My Mom is coming for the weekend to play with Willie (my APQS Millennium) so I rushed to get the 2 Grinch quilts quilted this week so that Willie would be free. These are TV snuggle quilts so they got very quick treatments. I did one in an overall fern print and the other in a ribbon meander. I got both done in about 4 total hours.

Last night I participated in an adult spelling bee to benefit the READ Center. The READ Center offers adult literacy classes and tutoring in the Richmond, VA area. It's a great organization that operates on a shoestring budget. My team did not win (as we expected) but we all now know how to spell "labyrinth". :)

It's not a color post

I should have a color post for you today but that will have to wait until Sunday. Today I was quilting with the Country School Quilters peeps. We have Sewing Saturday once a month and once every 3 months we have a little one day retreat on the Friday before Sewing Saturday. I look forward to both of these events and am using them to work on my community service projects.

Today I spent a few hours doing some hand sewing repairs on another quilt and then spent the rest of the day putting the center section of this quilt together. It will be a quilt for the local veteran's hospital. Tonight I will cut the 2 borders and have then ready to sew on tomorrow.

Next up are these blocks; yet another UFO. This is the last set of the crumb blocks that I made YEARS ago. I had a plan for these but it would create another giant quilt that I don't need. I even bought all of the fabrics for the quilt and they been sitting together for a very long time.

Instead of one big quilt I am going to make them into 2 quilts, a veteran's quilt and a QOV. These are very simple designs because I want them to go together quickly. As soon as this posts I'm off to my sewing room to do some cutting and prepare for tomorrow's adventure.

Crossing the South Anna

I remember the first time I hears someone talking about a quilt "talking to them". I laughed and thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. Of course since then lots of my quilts have talked to me but none louder than this one.

Crossing the South Anna

80 x 90

This quilt is about the colors. I live on a small river in Western Hanover County, VA called the South Anna.  Almost everywhere I go I have to cross that river.  The road near the river is lined with very tall trees. Sometimes the light is just right and it sparkles through the trees showing off hundreds of greens against the blue sky and the black shadows of the tree branches. I had been wanting to make a quilt with those colors for a long time.

Then Judy Laquidara came out with her Note to Self pattern and that seemed the right pattern to make this quilt. Instead of doing a variety of scrappy colors for the blocks I could use every colors of hand dyed green that I had in my stash. I named it Crossing the South Anna even before I started cutting the fabric. I was very excited, now I was making a quilt for me! 

Except that from the moment I finished the blocks I just kept thinking that my college roommate would rally like this quilt. Cheryl is very proud of her Irish heritage and loves green. She even had us wear green bridesmaid dresses for her wedding. I tried several times to talk this quilt into being mine but it was Cheryl's from the start. Crossing the South Anna is the perfect name for it too since she lives on the same river, about 8 miles away except that she lives on the other side of the river. 

So now Cheryl's quilt is done and I'll just have to make another for myself. I'll deliver it to her this week.

This textured border fabric is one of my all time favorite fabrics. It was in my shop when I started the quilt but I quickly "bought" ir for myself to use in the quilt.

For the quilting I did an all over leaf motif using Superior Rainbows thread. One type of quilting that I am not very good at is doing all over filler type designs. I get myself stuck with motifs all going in the same direction and I wind up with large missed areas. I don't know how but I got it right with this one. My brain finally snapped in place and I  figured it out with this one. The quilting went really quickly and I like the effect.

Can I get one more quilt finished in May? This hour a day thing is really working!

What I did on my mini vacation

It's good to have internet access back. Hopefully the issue is finally resolved. At least I can get here to post something for the day. I'm sorry I've been MIA most of the week. You would think that without internet that I would be more productive. That doesn't seem to be the case as I sit here on Friday afternoon and looking back on the week. 

I did dye 40 yards of fabric and that's taking a big chunk of time to iron, photograph and list. I've also taken up some vegetable gardening so has some planting to do this week. But I've taken hardly a stitch. But I made up for it with my productivity last weekend.

It was the first weekend at the river for the season and I needed it. I wasn't even sure how much sewing I would be doing but by Saturday at noon I was ready to go. Last year I bought a lot of Dr. Seuss fabric to make 2 Christmas quilts. I decided to take that bin with me and then I could leave it there to be my river project for a couple of weekends.

I didn't even have a plan. The Dr. Seuss fabric has a panel. ugh. If I ever buy another panel would someone please shoot me? I hate them. They are always odd sized and are never printed square.

I started measuring the panels and decided in a very simple layout using 10 x 13" blocks in a 5 x 5 layout. First I framed the panels out to the block size and then I started creating whatever I could from the rest of the blocks.

I finished this one

and I had time left so I made this second one. I used every scrap of fabric. I am happy to say that there is nothing else that I can make from this fabric. 

I still had a little time

So I pulled out the 12 yards of flannel that I bought for the backing and I got the backs pieced and 2 pillowcases made!

The funny thing is that after I made them I wasn't all that interested in keeping one of them but once Chris saw them he loved them so one of the quilts will stay at my house. So I have 2 more quilts ready to quilt and

look, there's an empty space on the shelf! I can get one more thing off the floor.

Awesome.

 

Snail's Trail QOV

Snail's Trail QOV

63 x 76

Another UFO bites the dust! I started this quilt a few years ago. It's one of 3 Snail's Trail quilts I made to figure out the largest block that I could make from a fat quarter. I eventually created a baby quilt version that produced 2 smaller blocks from each fat quarter. The top has been languishing for a while just waiting for a border. I had planned a hideously complex border but apparently that wasn't going to happen.

When I decided to dedicate an hour a day to quilting I went through all of my tops a considered what to do with them. This one is so manly that I thought it would be good for a QOV quilt and now it's finally going to a good home and will no longer languish unloved in my sewing room.

Now this quilt is nothing to write home about (except for the fact that it's DONE and we all know how rare that is) but I do want to talk about the quilting a bit. This is for any of you who are new to longarm quilting or to using rulers in your quilting.

I wanted to do something quilk on this quilt like I did on the veteran's quilt but I also wanted to play off the dots in the fabrics of this quilt. So I did some contour quilting with circles. I will admit that after the first hour I looked at what I did and I almost ripped it out. Thank goodness for laziness. But the next day I was able to convince myself that it was OK and would look fine after the quilt was washed.

After it was done I realized that this would be a great technique for beginner quilters to practice ruler work. I quilted it in free motion lines and periodically added a circle like in this diagram.

Like this. I know, it's a hideous mess from a design perspective bit it looks OK done. I used 4 different sizes of circles (because that's what I had). THe best part about this for a newbie is that you don't have to fix your mistakes. Just keep going and try to do control your template better on the next one.

Anyway, for what it's worth, it's an idea.