Charm Square Quilts

Kay brought me these three cute Charm Square quilts and said I could do whatever I wanted on them.  

The first one is going to be used as a table topper and has a folded pink border so I custom quilted the borders then use Feather Curl for the center.

On the second quilt I used Garden Frills and a light green thread.

For the third quilt, which had no borders, I tried a new pantograph called Heraldry.

Heraldry is a very symmetrical and unforgiving panto so you have to be careful what quilts you choose to you use it on. Simply pieced quilt and busy fabrics are a great choose for this panto as it hides any "free spirited stitches" as l like to call them.  :)

Spring Nine Patch

With all the snow around it is nice to work on a quilt that reminds me of spring.
The sight of leaves and flowers in the yard is still along way away so this was a treat to work on.

This is Cheryl's Nine Patch quilt and her colors have a soft spring feel to them.  She pick the panto called Fascination and I used a very light green thread.

  

I have been dyeing some more and this time playing with white Tone on Tone fabrics.

I had a white snowflake fabric in my stash that I dyed with Royal Blue and I love how the snowflake print resists the dye and stays white.

Then I cut fat quarter size pieces of white fabrics, one that had dragonfly print and the other flowers, and dyed them in soft pastel colors. The contrast in the print is more subtle but very pretty.

Tablecloth Quilt

Sandra made this amazing 'Fruit and Veggie 'quilt for her daughter Heather and it will be used as a tablecloth.  I know Sandra was collecting fruit and veggie fat quarters for awhile and it is so neat to see this one come together as she was working on it at the last guild retreat.  I have never thought about making a tablecloth out of a quilt but now that I have seen Heathers on my table I can see making one in the future!

 I used 'lettuce green' thread for the top and 'lemon yellow' thread for the back since the backing is all lemons.   The panto is called Splash and seemed very appropriate for the theme of the quilt.

More Snow.... More Snow Dyeing!

We had a lot of snow fall this week so I thought I would look at the bright side and not grumble about shoveling and play with more snow dyeing.  I did two 1 metre pieces with the screens and was very happy with the one pictured above.  It was made with 1 tsp Fuchsia in 1 C water, 1 tsp Navy in 1 C water and 1/2 tsp Grey in 1/2 C water. Each poured on separately.  Here is a close up.

The second piece has beautiful color but also has what I call 'muddy' patches where the texture is lost and it is more solid.   I used 1 tsp Burgundy in 1 C water, 1 tsp Cerulean Blue in 1 C water and 1/2 tsp Grey in 1/2 C water.  I love the color combination but wonder why some areas lost the snow dye texture.

Found a great use for my boys hockey net!

On Thursday Heather's new fabric shop in town called  Bliss Fabrics and Gifts opened and I just had to stop in to make my first purchase and congratulate Heather on her opening day.  While I was there the Premier of our province was in town and stopped in with our local MLA to wish Heather the best with her new business.   He didn't buy anything though...but that's okay I made up for it :)

Here is the gorgeous fabric collection I splurged on.  I bought 1 metre of all 8 fabrics in the collections and the great thing is ... if I need more I can just go back and get it!  No more depending on online orders for everything.

Teddy Bear Quilt

This is Helen's Teddy Bear quilt which is so adorable.  She appliqued the bears with batting underneath and used minky and chenilled fabrics to give them great texture. This does provide a challenge for longarm quilting as the appliques were very thick so rolling the quilt was a bit tricky.  I decided to quilt free hand loops and hearts across the quilt to continue with the folky feel of the applique.

I also finished Valery's beautiful brown lap quilt this week and used the panto Plush.

Dyemondz

Dyemondz are a girl's best friend...or should I say a quilter's best friend!  Lori came up with the name, she is so clever!  So we decided to try our hand at selling our hand dyed fabrics at the new local fabric shop.  Yes we are finally getting a fabric shop in town again and I am soooo excited.  It will be opening this coming Thursday so there will be a lot of happy quilters in our area again. 

We have been busy making fat quarter bundles and charm packs for the store and will also take custom orders upon request.   Wish us luck!

Quilted Bed Runner

I have never quilted a bed runner before or even seen a pattern for one so this was a first for me. Nathalie sent me this top and said I could quilt whatever I wanted on it.  So I picked a new pantograph called Feathered Curls and used a light beige So Fine thread.

I also quilted Marg's Sampler quilt this week too.

She picked the Whirlygig panto and a green So Fine thread.

Tumbler Quilt

The last time I showed this fabric was when I received my Accuquilt Go cutter at xmas and this was the first die I used, the Tumbler block.  I pieced the top awhile ago but have been waiting for the backing fabric that I ordered.   Finally received it in the mail yesterday so quilted it this morning...I'm just slightly OCD.

Using the Go cutter made sewing these blocks together so simple as the edges lined up beautifully with the corners precut.

The asian fabrics all had gold metallic in the prints so I used Superior Threads Highlights thread which has a nice sparkly shine to it.    I also used the pantograph called Clematis by Willow Leaf Studios which matched the flowers in the fabrics.

Shibori Shirts

I had a little fun with some Shibori dyeing this week.   Shibori is a Japanese term for dyeing cloth with a pattern by binding, stitching, folding, or twisting.  I was introduced to this method in these video.  Instead of just dyeing fabric I bought a few white T-shirts to try.

The video demostrates this method with rope but I didn't have any on hand so used PVC pipe for my first try.  First I washed my shirt in T.N.A. soap and then soaked my shirt in a Soda Ash solution to prepare it for the dye.  Next I layed out a garbage bag and layed out the damp shirt and rolled it on the PVC pipe.

I then used elastics to hold the shirt to the pipe and then scrunched the fabric together.

  

I mixed three colors of dye using a very small amount of dye, 1/32 tsp per color in 1 cup of water.

I poured the colors on the shirt one at a time from the top of the shirt down, overlaping the dyes to blend the colors.  I liked the pipe as I was able to keep the shirt out of the extra dye by resting it on the sides of the container.

 I rinsed the shirt in T.N.A. soap and then in Raycafix to set the dye.  Then a trip to the washing machine and dryer.

The wasn't happy with the fact the elastics left white lines on the shirt and I thought I would look for a smaller diameter pipe as well.  But overall I was very pleased with the results.

So for my second attempt I found a wooden dowel and covered it with foam pipe wrap to create a smaller diameter to roll the shirt on.   I also used string instead of elastic to tie the shirts on the poles.

There were no lines from the strings this time, yah!  I think I will try the rope next time to see if I get more texture and use a bit more dye to brighten up the colors.  Looks like I have something to wear next time I feel like dyeing :)