What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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 I thought I had all of the pieces on the wall, that this was maybe my final layout and then I counted rows.  I never put the last row on the right side edge.  Back to the drawing board.........

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Another busy day yesterday,  I mailed some packages to my students and then watched my sister-in-law's graveside service on Zoom (her son was buried just last weekend, neither death was Covid related), and then the painting continued outside and storm windows were put on.  They worked all the way to 6 p.m. and have just about another half day of work to do.  They discovered a possible place where the mice came in last year and they will be back to fix that.  I have never had as many mice in my house as I had last year ...

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 I'm still working on the second batch of African colorwash kits for my Colorwash 360 students so I have nothing new to show.  I'm so happy to have a large class and am having fun doing critiques on their progress.  

Today is the 4th live broadcast so I'm prepping for that and answering any questions my painter has while he is painting the house trim.  The second window A/C unit came out yesterday and it will reside in the garage until next summer.  This will be the first winter in a long time that I will ...

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 Even the Milkweed plants turned color this year.  I think they were more of a brown the last few years when they died.

I don't know why I didn't notice my south neighbor's tree and bush before.  His Burning Bush is a different variety than mine and wasn't affected by whatever killed most of my bush a couple years ago.

This photo was taken as it was starting to get dark and the color was just brilliant.

The painter is going to come today or tomorrow to start painting my window trim and doors.  I was ...

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All seams are sewn and pressing done.  It is 26" x 33.5".

I pulled some of the animal print fabrics to see if I want to add a border to this wallhanging.  The one on the left could be interpreted as tiger or zebra.  I called the other ones cheetah but maybe they are ocelot.  I'm not up on my wild animal info.

I'm still cutting squares from my African fabrics and have about another 30 fabrics to press and cut.  I was totally out of some of them on my trays of squares and down to ...

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 Yesterday I alternated between sewing the African colorwash together and cutting more 2.5" squares for future African colorwashes.  I have 4 seams to go.  I will probably try an animal print as a border for this one like the cheetah border on the last one.  I have tiger, giraffe, cheetah (in many colors) and zebra to try.

I didn't know if Asters are good flowers for bouquets but decided to try them.  So far they are staying nice.

I covered my tomato plants last night since we are supposed to have frost early this morning.  I have so ...

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I finally sorted all of my African fabrics by color and then checked to see which ones I needed to cut.  I spent the whole day cutting 2.5" squares and then I looked through my regular fabrics for some that look like African prints.  I found the 4 on the left bottom corner on my first pass through the fabrics.  I also looked through some batiks for some that looked compatible.

This is my final layout for the African fabric colorwash.  I will take the pieces off the design wall today so I can start another one.

Today is ...

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 Since I didn't have an African fabric colorwash at my house any more I needed to be working on one for my students working with African fabrics to see. I had it about half designed for the live broadcast yesterday and I continued working on it afterwards.  I have changed a few pieces since I took this photo though.  I have cut some more fabrics and thought about adding to it but then I decided I maybe need to just sew this one together and make another with the new fabrics added.  I will probably tweak it for a ...

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 A few years ago I decided to do a colorwheel stash assessment as part of my monthly sampler classes. I knew we all had plenty of stash and I had been intrigued by some colorwash quilts I saw others making, most notably Wanda at Exuberant Color. I started going through my fabrics and cutting 2.5" squares. I colorized them in groups, and started taking them to the monthly classes. I encouraged the students to cut their stash into 2.5" squares. They were cutting through their stash by color, and keeping the colors separated. They would then bring them ...

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 Inside I am gathering and preparing for my first live session for my Colorwash 360 class.  This is my backdrop for the first broadcast.

This is the photo I posted last year that shows my computer and mic set up with my camera mounted on top of my computer.  We needed a higher quality camera than the one included in the laptop.  This is sitting on my sewing cabinet and I usually leave it here during the weeks of all 6 live sessions so my sewing during that time is usually on smaller items unless I sew on one of ...

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When I first started making colorwash quilts I used only floral fabrics because that is what Deirdre Amsden from the UK used.  She was the first person I saw doing colorwash in 1987.  She used Liberty Lawn fabrics.

I only made one with Liberty Lawn fabrics.  A friend gave me some of the squares and also hand quilted it for me.

We are in the enrollment period for my Colorwash 360 class until Friday night.  Here is a link to the sales page if you want to learn this technique too.

I know this photo isn't very clear because ...

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Continuing on from my blog posts the last 2 days, here are some more quilts where I used smooth blend/gradation.  Four of them are made from strata (strips sewn together).  They are using the blending techniques I teach in my Colorwash 360 online class.  

For anyone interested in the class click here to enroll.

Last night I pulled out my mini collage pieces, one finished and 2 ready to quilt.

We added the mini class for this project into the Colorwash 360 class for students not wanting to make a large colorwash piece but who wanted to work with ...

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As I get ready to teach my online Colorwash 360 class again I start thinking about all of the ways I use smooth blend/gradation in my other quilts.  One of them is Trip Around the World which is made from strata (set of strips sewn together).

Another is the strata for Strips 'n Curves.  They both depend on a smooth blend/gradation for the resulting glow in the finished piece. Lessons learned in my class lead to stunning quilts in the future for my students.

I have been working on the 4 kinds of colorwash kits that will be ...

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Yesterday I remembered that I had some trays of 1.5" squares that I used for colorwash.  I pulled them out to see how many I could pull out for my postage stamp blocks.



This is the group I pulled, enough for 2 2/3 blocks.  Last night I got 4 blocks sewn in one direction.  I'll press them and sew the other direction today and hopefully sew a couple more too.



A couple people asked about the recipes for the cookies that I bake for my art quilters group.  Their favorite is the peanut butter cookies.  This is ...

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The weather was nice yesterday although it was only 36 degrees.  I had errands that were put on hold with the snow last week.  I had an 8' fluorescent bulb burn out in the basement and had another fixture that hasn't had bulbs for almost a year so I bought 4 new bulbs 2 to a package.  The rest of the day was spent on choosing items for the pop-up shop this week, doing the photography and writeups, figuring out prices and the next thing I knew it was time for bed.  The fabric pieces above were on my ...

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The last and smallest of the colorwash wallhangings is finished.  This one is 28" square.











The back is a purple batik so the binding is a dark purple batik on this one.












The first white cactus bloom is fully open.  I have a couple other colors that should be open today.








My granddaughter gave me a blueberry scone mix for my birthday so I baked them last night in my ceramic scone dish.

I'm working on a quick pop-up shop this week.

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Thanks everyone for the warm birthday wishes yestereday.  It was a very relaxing day.  I played with fabric most of the day but didn't get around to anything serious until last night when I was trying to find a binding for this colorwash.  I'm auditioning dark greens this time.  The one on the left is black with green sprays of leaves and at night looked the most promising.  I wanted to wait for daylight today though to check them out before I make a decision.

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This was my design wall yesterday, my backdrop for the last live broadcast for this session of my Colorwash 360 class.  I haven't decided which way is up yet for the 2 on the right.  The one on the bottom right is just basted in this photo.
I took the basted one off the wall last night and quilted it while I watched my 3 hours of TV.  After I trim it I have to find bindings for both of the small colorwashes.

Yesterday was a record breaking temperature day.  It was the earliest date we had 7 degrees ...

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This is the last colorwash that I basted.  It is the one made from the kit we sold to this session of my Colorwash 360 online class.  I used the same pieces of blue tape to hold down the backings of all 4 of the colorwashes.  I threw the tape away now because I'm not going to be basting anything else for a couple weeks and it wouldn't be good that long.

This is the batik I chose for the back of this one.








My indoor garden is starting to bloom.  This is the palest pink, almost white ...

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