KatyQuilts

I spent most of the day Friday quilting the tree quilt for my sister.

 I found a great tutorial for topography quilting over at Tia Curtis Quilts. It was really fun and fairly quick to do. The tree part was not quick to do. Here is a sneak peek:

 But it is done and my slow stitching for today is to finish this binding.

 I won’t show any more of this until it is finished. I will be taking it to my sister the end of this month when I go home to help my mom after her knee replacement.

Happy stitching!

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday

In only 9 weeks, Little E’s brother will arrive. It’s time for this Nana to get busy! Daughter #1 bought these prints on Etsy to set the theme for the baby room. You can view the listing here.

She bought a plain white crib skirt and asked me to dye it to match these prints. I will also make a baby quilt with hand dyed fabrics.

So yesterday, I hauled out my dyeing supplies and rolled up my sleeves. I haven’t done any of this in the last couple years but it really is fun. I should have done this before the weather cooled off. Anyway, I stirred up my eyes and soda ash solutions and mixed my potions. 

 I use Procion dyes from Dharma Trading Company. They are fiber reactive dyes so you have to use soda ash as well.  Sometimes, I add soda ash solution to the dye bath but this time, I soaked the fabric in the soda ash solution first. The colors I used were Mink Brown, Deep Orange, and Oxblood Red. I mix these colors until it looks about right to me. Then dump the dye on the wet fabric and knead it a bit. I was in a hurry and really spent as little time as possible on this batch. I let it sit until I got home from work before I started rinsing and washing.  Normally, I buy Kona PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric to do this. I really only needed to dye the crib skirt. But I had that whole bolt of Ditta on hand from Ikea so I thought I’d try a yard to see how it took the dye. Most fabrics have a permanent press finish that prevents the dye from adhering. Normally when I dye, I do at least 15 yards to make it worth the mess.

Here is how the crib skirt and fabric turned out: 

 I am pretty happy with how the Ikea fabric took the dye. Since I have nearly a whole bolt of it, I may just do some more. These bits could put me in the mood for a little fall project….. But I think I need some more greens…. This next one is my least favorite, I kind of dumped all my leftover dyes on this one!      

I think I have hand dyed fabrics in all the other colors I will need for the quilt. I have purchased some designs for my embroidery machine  to appliqué some dinosaurs on that. This will be a first for me. I am a total rookie with machine embroidery.

Happy Saturday! I hope your day is colorful!

I have so enjoyed working on my little Country Roads quilt from the HumbleQuilts  QAL. I really appreciate the time and effort Lori puts in to these. Here is my finished top. 

I didn’t have enough of the yellow that I wanted to use so I used something similar in color for the border triangles. I briefly considered adding borders but my eagerness to get to the quilting won out.  

I won a lovely box of Aurifil thread a couple years ago. I love it for hand sewing but my Featherweight isn’t a fan. I decided to try it out in my long arm and it worked great!  

Yep, back to my stand by grid quilting. I did the lines freehand and I didn’t try very hard to hit the borders of the blocks. It is a humble quilt, after all. After doing the lines one way, I took the quilt off the frame and reloaded it to quilt the lines in the other direction. 

The colors are not true in the picture above but the quilting shows up. Now time to decide on a binding. 

I really love this block. I’m thinking I might like to make this in a bigger size.

I also finished the last comfort quilt. 

I have lots to do before work today so I best get on with it. I hope you enjoy this last day of September!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Freshly Pieced

Well, I got my laundry done yesterday! But I doubt you stopped by to hear about that. So on to the project progress. I finished quilting the second Comfort Quilt. I have no idea who pieced this top. 

I have the last Comfort Quilt on the frame now. Again, I have no idea who the piecer is. 

I also took the time to raise my frame yesterday. I’m trying to find that perfect height to make it easiest on my neck and shoulders. I asked around and watched a Jamie Whalen video on YouTube about it. It is a bit of a job to do, not something that can be easily changed. It seems really high right now but I am going to live with it for a while.

I finished the tree top last night!  

 I would really like to get this quilted this week, but we shall see. First, I have to get that last Comfort Quilt done!

Have a great day, everyone!

Linking up with Free Motion by the River

Good morning! Hubby is finally home from China safe and sound. And soundly sleeping at the moment. I finished quilting a top for my guild’s Comfort Quilts group this weekend. These ho to the local women’s shelter.  

    
 
Believe it or not, that backing is lavender! Cameras are funny things, especially when you are taking pictures of a solid color. It wants to make it white. 

I forgot to show one more quilt from the show that I loved. These heroes were about a half inch. 

    
 
And here is my slow stitching pike for today. 

 
I’m going to try to mend that white sweater on top. I washed it once and this happened. 

 
Grrrrr! After that, and only after, I will sew some hexies for Brinton Hall. My progress has been pitifully slow since getting back from our trip. I just don’t watch TV when hubby is gone. 

Time to get ready for church. Have a great day!

A coworker told me about a nearby quilt show this week. So I headed down to check it out after work yesterday. It had nearly as many vendors as quilts in the show! This was, hands down, my favorite quilt there. 

 
I wish they would have had it displayed so you could see the whole thing but they hung it folded in half. Such a shame, especially since there were so few quilts to begin with.

 
The cool thing about this quilt was the machine quilting done on a chain stitch machine! 

 
This rebel quilter was stippling long before most of us were born! And she must have quilted it upside down so the chain showed on top. Here is a peek at the back. 

 And no, I didn’t touch it to take the picture. LOL  ! This next quilt was done by the same lady. I couldn’t see the back to see if she quilted this one with a chain stitch as well. 

 Here is another oldie that I loved. 

    
 
This Dear Jane was stunning. 

   
The flower was apparently the ribbon but there was no indication of category. I found that frustrating. 

It was a fun afternoon, but not a must see show. Given the space they had, it could have been really great. I think they need to work on getting the word out so more quilts are entered next time.

Happy quilting!