Grace Quilts

2015 in review

Grace — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 05:02:14 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,200 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

3 Down, 9 To Go

Grace — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 08:34:10 +0000

This evening was spent plodding along picking fabrics, cutting pieces to fit the templates, sewing them up, ripping some out, slowly sewing along and pressing blocks. and getting stabbed with pins on every block LOL You’d think I’d develop callouses or be turned into a human pin cushion at this point.

I was hoping to get a full set done, but three will do – they are done right and almost everything lines up and the smidge it doesn’t, I can live with After all in the great scheme of things, the bits that are off will not be seen when it’s all put together. And I’m not displaying or exhibiting it – but putting it on my bed.

This quilt has been a true stash buster I’ve not counted up all the individual fabrics I’ve used – I know I’ve only used yellow, orange, purple and red for the blocks and green for the background, but I’ve used a bunch of FQs, bits left over from other projects, some of my hand dyes, my own hand dyed batiks – I maybe actually count up the fabrics – if I get brave enough – that’ll just say how much I really had in my stash and every quilter manages to keep that a secret LOL

I’m happy with my progress and the way that everything is shaping up – the colours are working – even though there wasn’t to much planning behind each block other than to have the colours work well together and compliment each other. It’s really turning out well – I think I’m almost in a state of shock regarding this LOL I wasn’t sure how it would all work out, but watching it grow and fill out is very exciting.

Here’s what my wall currently looks like. I’ll need to move a few blocks around to get them all on the wall LOL Nine more and then the jig saw puzzle begins LOL

Another set done!

Grace — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 23:03:40 +0000

It was devilishly hard to cut into the fabric I dyed yesterday LOL I must’ve stood there for a good 20 minutes if not longer with my rotary cutter in hand willing myself to make the cut. I don’t know what it is about us fabric freaks / lovers / hoarders, but we do not like to cut into fabric we love LOL. But cut into I did and I really do like the way it turned out. And my favourite is still the leaves one on the right. I will have enough to finish the last 12 blocks Yeah!!! I am thinking about using random blank blocks as fillers through this help emphasis motion with the curves – least that’s what I’m seeing in my mind – I just hope that I can translate that from my mind to my quilt. Maybe a bit of random applique that also shows motion – butterflies, dragonflies, birds, twining leaves?? I see it, but it’s not definite yet. I’ve put so much time and effort into this quilt, I want it to be the best it can be and with minimal mistakes

I did confirm to myself that the wax designs that I used are a wee bit to large for blocks this size, I’m glad I’m scattering the blocks all over the quilt so they wont stand out so much. I am pleased! These blocks turned out well. I only have 12 more blocks to do and to be honest, I’m rather glad its getting to the end. While I love this quilt so far, I think I need something else to do – but am compelled to finish this as my mind is only thinking of this LOL Even with my reds from yesterday the idea of doing a convergence quilt with them isn’t taking hold LOL

I did notice AFTER I got the block together that I had the first yellow on the block on the right the wrong way – I just did not have it in me to rip the whole block apart. I’m still feeling like crap and it took me all day to do these four blocks – and that was the last one I worked on Nope was not frogging it . it can stay – for now … until it bothers me to much and I do frog it .. it could happen – or not

I’ve already started to think borders I will be using blocks in the borders – smaller maybe?? – we’ll have to see. I have no idea what colours I’ll be using – Maybe more green??? browns??? reds?? eeepp!!! Decisions, decisions!

Waxing and Dyes

Grace — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 06:43:22 +0000

Between the hacking and coughing today I had a blast playing with my dyes, fabric paints, wax and glue. Although the glue version had to be nixed LOL First thing I did was the textile paint on the yellow with leaves and sunset greeny with paw prints and then I ran out of paint PFFT!!!! I wasn’t too worried as I did (operative word .. DID) have green dye.. The package I had of Dylon would do about 2 – 2 ¹/₂ yards of fabric, so I started to hunt around for fabric to add to this. I did do ³/₄ yard of white muslin that I had here for just that purpose I scrunched it up to tight and / or didn’t mix it up good enough at the beginning so it’s more white than I wanted it to be, but I can always do another batik with green when I buy more. I did a bit of that on the yellow leaves and the paw prints – i really like the effect it gave me and want to play with that more. I’ve always loved hand dyeing and this is just the icing on the cake for me.

I actually did the glue first then went to the green paint – while I was painting, the glue spread out to much and it was just a hideous blob on the fabric – totally covered the piece – so to the kitchen I went to wash it out before it totally dried. I was rather disappointed as I wanted to play with glue technique a bit, but lesson learned. Glue Gel next time, not just plain white glue. So left the leaves and paw prints to dry and went and washed the glue off.

Got back upstairs and started to play with the wax. It was a lot of fun!! My favourite are the two on the right in the green row. The kid loves the red / black ones. on the right They weren’t meant to be red ooops! Those were actually a previous dye I did to create orange and it just didn’t turn out right and were more red than orange. It was more red than I wanted it to be so it was perfect for this experiment. I figured that no matter how it turned out, they wouldn’t be to red anymore LOL and it definitely isn’t super in your face red anymore LOL

Lesson learned – use a thinner brush for my next go at this and I will do this again – I can totally personalize my fabric to ME. I’m hoping I have enough greens to finish this now – but I might not – I’ll just have to make more if that’s the case or pick up some FQs. I learned that I can layer the dyes / paints between waxings; I did a quick boil to remove the wax, but think it would just be easier to use hot water in the sink to work the wax out. I’ll have to research more for colour combinations and the effects that dyes will have. It’ll be a lot of practice to nail this just right – I’m sure I got luckier than I should’ve and my guardian angels were working overtime LOL Cept for the glue pieces fiasco – and no I didn’t take pictures of that mess LOL

Oh I have to share this, I am definitely a clever Scots woman!!! For the wax I used tea lights from the dollar store and my coffee cup warmer – no separate melting pot or boiling water required. Kept the wax at a steady temperature and no mussing with anything. Grab the tea light, put it on the warmer and just have to wait bout 10 minutes and im good to go. I also picked up puppy training pads from the dollar store for my work surface. The plastic backing is perfect for protecting my table and the other side is great for absorbing excess paint oh and my brushes were from the dollar store too. I LOVE saving money and it gives me more money for fabric

I just might start the next bock sets tonight – printing out the foundations on my new quilter’s paper and using my new batiks – at the very least I can set it up so it’s ready for me to start tomorrow.

Happydance

Dyeing to Play

Grace — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 10:24:33 +0000

The beginning of my weekend is starting out as planned – ish! I hope it stays this way!! I feel a bug coming on and I’m doing my best to ignore it and hope that it stays to a dull roar so I can enjoy the next three days and not be sick … I swear there is nothing worse than being sick on your days off and that’s usually the way it happens. Well I don’t miss work that way

I’ve combined a few different methods of resist painting / dyeing. First ones you see here I painted with my fabric paint and am letting them dry. I used different methods of folding for these to create different ‘textures’, ,although it was likely a waste of time as I’m dyeing over this and the textures won’t be so prevalent. I’m also not sure how the previous paint will react after it’s dry. I’ll heat set it and see how it goes from there. But it was fun, I’ve not done this in a long time and I enjoyed experimenting with various brushes, sponges and using water or not. Tomorrow I’ll be using green on top of this after I use wax to make different shapes to have these colours peek on through. I’m hoping these colours will help tie in all the bright colours I’m using in this quilt.

Painting wax on fabric is different than i expected I used material from my previous resist dyeing that I had an matched, and also some of my own hand dyed. I had to use more wax than I expected but I got the hang of it quick enough. Dharma Trading has a really great how to section and found this for batik dyeing The pieces are small enough so that it did go quickly – I just hope that these aren’t to big and some of the detail will show through I’m thinking it was to big I’ll use smaller designs on the pieces that are drying now. I’ll have more than enough background – least I hope so LOL If not, I’ll do more and love doing it!

I thought spirals, paw prints and leaves would be pretty cool to use, I’m thinking that dots and stripes or maybe an abstract butterfly will look interesting on the other pieces. I just need to get it small enough so that I don’t have blobs instead of designs. I’m thinking of doing glue resist on the other three pieces tomorrow – I would like to try that method. Or even a marbling technique.

This was a great way to unwind after a trying week at work and I’m glad that I was running low on my greens! I am debating on whether to dye up the 2 yards of muslin I have green or just do fabric paint for these. I’m still not sure what I’ll use for the borders, but pretty sure it won’t be green or not a lot of it. Everything evolves – I’m sure this will change again and again and again