Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Tag Archives: Valerie Root


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Finish It Up Friday: Nicey Jane!

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Yes, Nicey Jane is all finished and bound and ready for our bed as soon as warm weather truly arrives and we can put away the down comforter. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. The colors are certainly perfect in our bedroom.

 

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Yes, I have a light green bed and raspberry night stands. Doesn’t everyone?  I’d say it was the quilter color thing, but actually my DH picked out the nightstand color and painted them and a vintage dresser.  The walls are light green, too.  I rubbed glaze into existing tropical leaf wallpaper.

 

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The wool batting.  Hmmm.  It did shrink some, which is all right.  The quilting isn’t as poofy as I was hoping, but it’s fine.  Bearding!  Wow.  All over, both sides, really a lot.  If you see any in the photos, it’s after I spent quite a while with the lint brush.  I guess it will resolve over time?  I’m very glad I used white batting with fairly light colored fabric.  It would be a disaster on a dark quilt.

 

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In the end this wasn’t nearly as much work as I built it up to be and put off finishing. It was unwieldy, especially the last day when I had joined the two halves and had to drag the whole thing around. It fit under my machine harp okay, but every rearrangement was cumbersome and hard on my shoulders. The binding seemed to go on forever. I am glad that I had enough of the bright pink to bind it. It’s perfect.

 

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I’m linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.


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WIP Wednesday: Joining together

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Well, my Work in Progress isn’t nearly as important as this lady’s.  She’s taken up residence in the dogwood outside my studio window.  Guess there aren’t eggs yet, because she comes and goes a lot.  Opening the window for a photo didn’t bother her.  Pulling down the window shades did!

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I’m finished with all the quilting I can do on both halves of the queen Nicey Jane quilt.  Now it’s time for the big join.  I’ve done this different ways, depending on the fabric or pattern of the front and back.  This time I opened up the edges and sewed the two halves of the top together first.

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After pressing that seam open, I cut through both layers of batting to make a good tight join.  I used this fusible product designed for joining batting.  The package is gone, so I have no idea of the brand, but it works well.  It’s a little pricey, so I only use it for this application, where it’s really convenient.

Next, I’ll whip stitch the backing together with water-soluble thread (guess I could use regular thread if I wanted to slow down and be carefull…), and it will be ready to go back on the machine to finish quilting the center, over the join.  I’ve had lots of comments on the pretty colors, and they have made this a joy to work on.  Can’t wait to see it on my bed!

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Meanwhile, on my design wall, I’m playing around with some batiks (tag says only: “Aruba/Barbados”) to use in my contribution to the Project Hope Online Quilt Show.  This is being sponsored by Sandi (Quilt Cabana) and Sandy (Quilting for the Rest of Us), as we work through our feelings about Boston, et al.  Go to their blogs for details, and I hope there’s lots of participation.

WIP Wed

I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.


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Sunday Stash Report: 4/21/13

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Well, it was all buy this week and no use.  I was feeling a distinct lack of solids and neutrals, and my DH and I found the perfect day to make a trip to The Fabric Shack.  I know that those of you around the world who buy from them because of their low-cost shipping are jealous that I am close enough (forty-five minutes) to visit there.  It is a great store to visit.  The stuff just goes on and on.  However, they have more in their online store than they can fit in the brick and mortar place.  Kona solids, for instance, are never completely represented when I go there.  Their warehouse is in town, and if they’re not busy (ha!), and you can wait long enough, they might bring over the bolt you need, but sometimes it is just easier to order.  Still, we had a very pleasant spring trip, and I found the floral on a good sale.

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I’ve been sewing all week (when I wasn’t fabric shopping), but I only succeeded in quilting half of my queen sized Nicey Jane quilt, so nothing to count as used.  Maybe next week?

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If you like numbers, notice that I’ve used exactly twice as much as I’ve purchased this year.  So if I buy another hundred yards… No, I guess not.  As you can see, my stash is already out of hand.

 

This week:  +12.75 yards,  -0 yards

YTD:  +50.5 yards, -101 yards

Net stash used in 2013:  50.5 yards

 

How are you doing on your destashing?

 

I’m linking up with Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times.


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WIP Wednesday: Nicey Jane

WIP Wed

 

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Monday I sandwiched both halves of my queen bed quilt made from the Nicey Jane jelly roll.

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I used the wool batting.  It’s lovely, soft, puffy, and feels “tender”.  I’m sure it would be easy to hand quilt.  It’s making me a little nervous, because it doesn’t have the firmness and stability I’m used to with the cotton batting.  Still, it hasn’t given me any trouble, just feels odd.  I have done the stitch in the ditch stabilizing between all the blocks with the walking foot.  All seems well.  I think it’s lighter weight than the cotton to rest on my shoulder, etc.

Nicey stencils

Now I’m trying out some stencils on the 12″ blocks.  I have a large feather wreath that I like, and a tulip stencil that goes well with the florals on so many of the fabrics.  I’m looking at some leaf/vine designs for the sashing and borders.

 

What are you working on?  Something fun, I hope.

 

I’m linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.


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Design Wall Monday: Phillip Jacobs Roses!

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There is really nothing on my design wall, because I have a queen sized backing I need to make today…  But if there were, it would be this.  I totally love this rose fabric, and have been hoarding saving it for something special.  Now I’m thinking about using it for a baby quilt for the impending (August) great niece.  I just happen to also have these fabrics in stash:  Kona cream, Basic Grey Grunge, and something called Krystal from Michael Miller.

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Here are a couple of options I’m playing around with (if I were spending time on this).  The plain sashing mimics Elephant a little more, but I really like the print sashing (which would not look purply like this, much more pink).  I’m thinking.  What do you think?

What’s on your design wall today?

I’m linking up with Design Wall Monday on Patchwork Times.


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Design Wall Monday: Daughter of Sultry

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I’m using the Sultry fabric scraps to make this baby quilt.  It could go to my future niece ( just learned the twins babies coming will be a girl and a boy, great niece and great nephew!), but probably just for my Etsy shop.

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The neutrals are Kona Snow and Basic Grey Grunge.  The green has nothing on the selvage, from JoAnn, I guess.

What are you working on?

 

I’m linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.


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WIP Wednesday: Spring Hangings, take II

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Monday I cut, sewed (not really pieced), and sandwiched two 12″ x 24″ spring wall hangings for my Etsy shop.  Yesterday I quilted them, trying to make the designs I’d drawn on the spring prints pop by surrounding them with dense quilting.  This so did not work.  I practiced some new filler stitches, so it wasn’t a complete waste of thread and time, but one is a wadder for sure.  (Do quilters use the term “wadder”, as in wad it up and throw it away?  I think I picked that up from Carolyn at Diary of a Sewing Fanatic.  She sew garments, but you haven’t seen stash till you’ve seen her stash!)  I know, we so seldom throw anything away, reusing blocks and pieces, but this is a heavily quilted little thing.  I might save a little of the border fabric, but then it’s going out.

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The other one I worked on with a green permanent marker (Bic Markit in key lime-  anyone have any experience with these?).  I may finish it.   We’ll see.

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So, yesterday I fused and appliqued shapes to new backgrounds and am starting the process over again, in a different direction.  Wish me luck.  The Wonder Under already fought with me yesterday.  I am not in a very springy mood!

 

I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  Maybe I’ll feel better after I see what everyone else is working on!


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Design Wall Monday: My Bed Quilt Top

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Last spring I gathered a jelly roll of “Nicey Jane”, a few stash fabrics, and lots of Kona “Bluebell” to make a queen sized quilt for our bedroom.

Nicey-Jane Quilt Design

I designed it on EQ7.  Since I hate to quilt huge quilts, I  planned it to be made in two pieces and put together when nearly finished.  I got the first half of it together, then ran out of Bluebell.  While waiting for more to arrive, I guess summer intervened and this went to the back burner.  Way back.  I put it on my March “Getting it Done” list, so I dug it out to finish.

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So hard to figure out what you were doing on a stone cold quilt!  I had to remake a couple of blocks, but they’re all together now, so I just have to add the borders.  I am not completely happy about the borders.  They are all cut, and they will look nice with my green bed.  Probably they will be fine.

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Here’s the view from my studio this morning.  It’s very beautiful, but it’s time for spring.  Birds keep stopping by my dogwood tree.  I think they are looking for nesting sites.  It would be nice to sew with a family outside my window.

I’m linking up with Design Wall Monday on Patchwork Times.


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Finish It Up Friday: Pink and Gray Donation Quilt

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With the 4 x 4 pink, gray, and white blocks completed, this quilt went together quickly, and the solid gray offered a good place for some fun quilting.

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It’s all from stash, and a lot of 2 1/2″ scraps from many previous projects that were fun to revisit.  I made the blocks back in December or January when I was unfocused and needed some mindless piecing to keep me moving forward.

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I knew the fuscia hand dyed fabric was the right design choice for the binding, but I was pretty nervous about it bleeding, even though it had been prewashed.  I used three Color Catchers when I washed it, but didn’t have a bit of bleeding, so that was a relief.   (Reused those C C s later to prewash newly arrived fabric, and they picked up some dye there.)  It’s actually two different pieces of hand dye, but we won’t tell, will we?  This binding was a lot easier to photograph than the one on my last quilt, so I took photos as I did it for the machine binding tutorial.

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This quilt has no current destination.  I wanted, for once, to have a quilt ready made for the next quilt drive or disaster, so now I do.

I’m linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  (Check this out, I’ve met a lot of fun people over there!)


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WIP Wednesday: Pink and Gray Donation Quilt

WIP Wed

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This quilt was started in January, I think, inspired by Jaye’s donation blocks at Artquiltmaker.  It is on my March Getting It Done list, so I dug the blocks out this week and set them together.  The solid blocks are Kona Ash and a gray batik.

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Quilting all the diagonal lines through the 2 1/2″ squares was a bit tedious, but the free motion flowers and leaves went quickly and were lots of fun.  The thread is Sulky variegated pink rayon, 943.

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Now for labeling and binding!

What are you working on?

I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.