Let the Stash Building Begin

I can now offically say I love dyeing my own fabric. Why?  Maybe it is the science geek in me that enjoys the measuring, mixing, and stirring while wearing gloves and a mask.  Or the excitement of discovery when you pull the fabric out of the dryer and run to the ironing board to view the colors and textures at there best... when freshly ironed.  Or is it the ever growing rainbows of fabric filling up my fabric bins :)  I would say all the above.

So here is what my 20 metres of white fabric looks like now.  Lori and I have been working together, she finished the rest of our 5th Rainbow last night so I don't have those samples yet.  If your wondering were Rainbow #4 is, it is a combination of rainbow 5, 3 and 2.  We plan on making 12 rainbows with 12 fabric with 7 dyes.  Organization and charts are the key to the planning since we are at the stage were you only need to make 4, 6 or 7 new fabrics to create a new rainbow.  Are you confused yet??  Don't worry we know what we are doing...*pauses and thinks*...yes we definately know what we are doing!

Quilt of Valour Number Two

Here we go, the guilds second Quilt of Valour is finished so we are good for the show.  It just needs the binding and I have a guild member that has volunteered to do that.  She is busy putting the binding on the blue Quilt of Valour right now so thank you Lorna!   

On Saturday I started judging the Baby Challenges and WOW they are all so good!   Think it will be down to really minute details to separate first, second and third.  I have the last 4 to judge today.  I must admit I am really enjoying writing the critiques and I hope everyone who participated will find this to be a positive experience.   One thing I enjoy about quilting is that you are constantly learning something new and I hope that the participants will come away from this experience with that feeling.

Blue Quilt of Valour

My order from Fabric Depot with the backing fabrics for the guilds two Quilts of Valour arrived and I was finally able to start working on them.  My goal after the guild meeting this week was to finish these two quilts so they can be displayed at the quilt show at is only three weeks away.   I have the second one on the machine right now and should have it done this weekend.  That leaves me next week to start judging our Baby Challenge quilts. 

Yesterday we woke up to about 8" of snow on the ground....so much for our spring weather!

Sunshine and Melting snow....ahhhhhh!

Spring doesn't officially arrive until Saturday but I sure am enjoying this usually warm weather.  Still lots of snow on the ground here but it is melting fast and perfect snowman weather.  That inspired me to finish one of my own projects in time for our quilt show next month.

I quilted this one on my Janome and to my surprise...I thought I forgot how to quilt!   Quilting on my longarm is so different from my domestic machine so it took me a few minutes to 'warm up' again!  But it all came back and I had fun quilting the background on this one.  Last week the Pieceful Kwilter had posted a picture of 'topo' style quilting and I just loved how it looked.  So here is my first effort.

 

Pinwheel Quilt

My client brought me this traditional pinwheel quilt and I used my Belladonna panto with white thread.   If I had girls I probably would have made quilts like this for them... but I have boys and I don't think they would appreciate it!  Guess I just might have to make one for myself.

King Size Mystery Quilt

Here is another Mystery quilt from our guild that my client made in the King size version.  I can imagine all the guild members looking at this one wondering why it looks different.  This is again another example of just how different this Mystery quilt can be put together.   I won't tell you this was because of a piecing error during the constructions of the block because it wasn't an error... it was just creative piecing!!  Look how great it turned out.

I also trying something new this time and that is panto the center and quilt a separate border.  I really like how it worked out and will recommend this more often now that I have tried it.  Don't know why I haven't tried this sooner.

You have to show you the backing on this quilt too, it is gorgeous and shows off the quilting nicely too.

Project Linus

This week I finished my first Project Linus quilt that I will take to the Manitoba Chapter so the quilt will stay in the province.   For those of you not familiar with Project Linus it is a group run by volunteers that makes quilt for various charities in your province.  They donate the quilts to hospitals, ambulances, social services, fire departments, womens shelters, and Police services (child abuse unit) to just name a few.  Our Manitoba chapter is located in Balmoral, MB so it will be easy to drop off quilts to them when heading to Winnipeg.

So this is how I'm going to stashbust this next year.  I seem to have some fabrics that really are quite bright for my taste but hope this quilt would put a smile on a little girls face.   These quilts will be well quilted to as I plan to use them to practice free hand designs.  This probably wasn't the best quilt to try free form style quilting that I learnt in my Quilt Whisperer class but it was fun to do.  The quilting gets lost in all the bright fabrics, it would look fantastic on a solid color quilt. 

Having Trouble Signing Into Blogger :(

I have been trying to post pictures of this quilt for a day now but blogger just wouldn't let me sign in!  I seem to have found a window and was able to sign in on my lap top but it still won't let me on the desktop.  From my searches this is a wide spread problem so I hope it gets resolved soon.

Here is my clients Bound to the Prairies quilt and I used the Ground Cover panto.  The batting I was given was a rolled package of Hobbs 80/20 and I have heard horror stories about how warped thess batts can be from the rolling process.  This one wasn't bad, I didn't like the feel of it but wow did it ever quilt nicely and has a nice loft.  Glad I didn't talk her out of using it, you just never know.

Okay now I can't add anymore photos.....that is failing!

So if I don't post for awhile you know why, hope this gets fixed soon.

To Dye For

Look what Lori and I accomplished today!!!!  We are using new fabric from the Wazoodle website and we are FINALLY getting the results we wanted, no more nasty white spots.  Yesterday I dyed two pieces of fabric that turned out soooo ugly that I just about gave up on this new adventure! But today really made up for all those failed experiments and we are working in the right directions now.  Just look at those vibrant colors, the texture is right and we don't have to redye any of it.  One of our main problems was the weave of the fabric we started with last week, that is what was causing the white patches as the dye just couldn't move throught the fabric.  When I poured the dye into the first jar with our new Wazoodle fabric I couldn't believe my eyes.....the fabric just suck up the dye water like a sponge....I could almost hear it slurping....okay maybe it was me making that noise but it was great to see :)   Here are some close ups to show you the texture we achieved.

I have been quilting too, I should have the next quilt off the frame in a day or two.

New Pantos

Big Leaf is the name of the new panto that I used on this colorful baby quilt for a client. I was looking for one with a jungle/zoo theme but realized that the quilting would not be seen easily on the front or back so then went with a simpler design.

This panto is called Delicious and since the fabric on my clients quilt was a farm theme I just had to quilt apples on it.  I knew it would not be easily seen on the front but it would be seen on the back so worth the time to quilt.

Look What I Won!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I won a contest on Pieceful Kwilters blog....well the prize arrived today!  It's so cute!   Go check out Shannons  blog as she posted a bunch of pictures of other bags she made like this one.