Dying fabric

Our quilt guild hosted a fabric dying class recently and I was thrilled to get into the class and learn a little more about fabric dying.  One guild member hosted the workshop in her yard and the other guild member prepared all of the fabric dye and material for the class.  PLUS, she brought all the containers and squirt bottles, measuring cups and spoons, and fabric soap.  It was so amazing that both of these women went to so much work ahead of the class for all of our benefit.  Bravo!

The first gradation that we dyed was of one color, with 8 steps.  I used blue.  Here are they dye cups from the class, and the first gradation:

The next set was a rainbow gradation of 12 colors, using 3 primary colors of dye.  Here's my set:

The last set that we dyed was a gradation of 9, using 2 primary color dyes.  Here is my set:

It was a wonderful day and I ended up with some really cool fabric.

And P.S. They had donuts, cookies, and coffee in the morning, and chocolate in the afternoon.  What's better than that!

Pale Green Charity Quilt

I saw this pattern on Pinterest and decided to use the pale green scraps that were donated to me by Bonnie Keller.  I don't know if Sweetwater is the name of the designer's company or the name of the pattern, but isn't cute?

I added some of the pale green, darker green, and brown fabric from my stash.  Without any preconceived size, I just pieced 60 degree triangles together in vertical rows until I had at least 12 or 13 triangles.  This ended up at about 65 inches in length.  I added 5" strips between the double rows of triangles and at each side.  It was finished off with 5" borders on the top and bottom.  

Here's the finished quilt top.  It measures 64" x 75".

I think the original is much sweeter, but when you have scraps, you do the best you can.  I hope you like it.

Zig Zag Scrap Quilt #2 in 2021

I finished a really cute and modern zig zag scrap quilt.  It was the same pattern I used on a previous quilt with turquoise and blue fabrics.  This one turned out a lot better because I used the same solid white for all of the background pieces.  The purple fabric was donated to me by Bonnie Keller from her stash.  I've lost count (again) on how many quilt tops I've made for our charity quilt group this year.  I'm definitely on a roll!

This quilt is 65" x 70", and was made with 5" finished squares.

I hope you like it!

Charity Quilt - 2021 - Alternating Stars

This quilt top, made for the Clark County charity group, utilizes a focus fabric and dark and light fabrics that coordinate with the focus fabric.  Most of this fabric was donated to me by Bonnie Keller, and some was donated from the stash by the charity group.

It is 72" x 72", and uses 10-1/2" squares from the focus fabric, 25 squares of the light fabric that were 5-1/2", and 80 half square triangles made from the light and dark fabrics.

I hope you like it!

Shisha mirror embroidery part two

This is the second post about embroidering the shisha mirrors onto an art quilt.

The advice that I was given was to quilt the background first and then do all the embroidery.  And to start with the embroidery in the center of the quilt and work towards the edges.  This was supposed to make it easier to handle with the mirrors already attached.  I decided that I needed to applique colored fabric background pieces for all of the flowers.  After I did that, I quilted the background and around the flowers.  And to make it really soft, I went ahead and washed the piece after serging the edges.

This is a closeup of the shisha mirror embroidery and some of the beading.  

After I added these mirrors, I realized that I should try to finish the rest of the embroidery before attaching more mirrors.  So, here are some stem stitches, as well as some random long and cross stitches to fill in the background space.

I hope you like it so far and stay tuned for the completed quilt.

Ideas for a reflection quilt using Shisha mirrors

I had a few shisha mirrors on hand that were left over from a previous project.  When the 'Reflection' theme was announced as our quilt show theme for 2021, I thought that this might be a good time to drag them out and USE them.  Don't you find that you have an urge to USE STUFF or PURGE STUFF since we've all been locked in for a year; staring at our stuff?  Anyway, here are sketches of some ideas:

The sketch with the extra large artistic flower among a field of smaller flowers appealed to me the most, so that's the one I ran with.  I pulled out a really cool background fabric that I had in my stash and played around with freezer paper shapes to get a better idea of the scale and amount of flowers that I would use.

This piece needed a lot of embroidery.  When I got ready to pull out my embroidery floss, I remembered that I had loaned it to one of my granddaughters and told her she could use whatever she wanted.  Well...  I texted her Mom and said that I needed to pick up the supplies that were left and she said, "Oh no.  I think she's literally used it all!"  You know what, that made me happy!  I like the idea that my granddaughter(s) are interested in my stuff and can figure out a way to do things with their hands.  And, this kind of gave me an excuse to buy some hand dyed variegated threads.   

I asked one of my long time friends, Kathy, to meet me at a local embroidery shop and help me figure out what I needed and how to do the embroidery.  She was immensely helpful, as was another lady in the shop, and here is what I ended up with:

There are hand dyed silk from Dinky Dyes.  So beautiful!

Here are the fabrics that I pulled out of my stash to use for the flowers.

I can't wait to start the handwork on this piece! 

Charity quilts 2021 - Stripes and red white and blue - Two quilts

I've lost count again on how many charity quilts I've made in 2021.  I turned in a bunch of finished tops and picked up more fabric.  I was especially looking for striped fabric that would go with some of the material that had already been donated to me.  I found this great red, white and blue stripe with a hint of green.  And there was enough to use it all throughout two quilts.

Both of these quilts use just plain old 6" squares.  I cut the striped fabric on the bias and then played around on my design wall with the layout.  There are 11 rows of 13 squares, or a total of 143 squares.  Both quilt tops ended up being 60.5" x 71.5".

I hope you like them!