Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

Tag Archives: Valerie Root


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Sunday Stash Report: Progress!

Finally used some fabric!  Well, I’m always using fabric, but I wait until a project is finished to count it.  The Blue and Gold Cabins quilt was all from stash, which tells you something about my stash.  More importantly, it used two rather difficult pieces of fabric.  I loved those wild blue and gold prints when I bought them, but they were on the verge of becoming large (2 yard pieces) stash dogs.  In this quilt, they are not just “okay”, they are perfect for this recipient.  Now they’re happy and I’m happy, and I feel like counting them double, but I won’t.

Recently, Judy was saying that she uses the yardage calculations from her EQ7 designs to calculate stash usage.  Somehow, this hadn’t occurred to me!  I guess I always assumed the estimate would be too high.  I took a look at it this time, compared it with my guesstimate on yardage for the top, and found it to be pretty close (with the large, straight pieces and limited fabrics in this quilt, it was fairly easy to figure).  What about you?  Do you find EQ estimates to be close?  How do you measure your fabric usage?

This week:  0 yds. in, 9.5 yds. used

YTD:  + 102 yds, -185.5 yds.

Net used in 2012:  -82.5 yds.

See more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times.


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A Finish!

Seems like a while since I’ve finished a quilt, and longer than I thought with this one, but Blue and Gold Cabins is done.  I did remove and reverse the fabric on the borders, and I like the result.

It was awkward and cumbersome to rip off the borders and reattach them at that stage, and added a few more hours.  While I worked I could only see that it looked like the back of a fabric, faded and not as smooth as the front, but it looks fine washed up.  Like a lighter colorway in the same fabric line.

One thing that did happen is that I must have brought thousands of batting pills over to the front (I guess because of the spray baste).  I’ve washed it, shaken it outside, and now will lint roll it thoroughly before I box it up to send today.

It’s going to a relative in the hospital who survived a medical crisis and now has a long recovery ahead.  This is nothing if not a cheery quilt!

Here is the view out my studio window, where I look into the top of a dogwood tree.  What you can’t see are all the birds hopping around, eating the orange berries.  Right now I see a wren, but often there are titmice, chickadees, cardinals, flickers, and others.  Lots of company and extra interest for the cats.

I hope you all have a beautiful fall (or spring!).

I’ll be linking to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.


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Rainy Tuesday

International Audience

I feel like I’m off to a good start with this blog.  I’m still trying to learn the technical parts, so I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface, but my stats show that so many people are looking at it from all over the world, and that’s very exciting.  Thank you, viewers, and especially commentors.  As much as I like showing my work, be assured that that’s not all that I’ll be doing.  I hope to review tools and to tutorials and share lots of interesting things.

One thing that will be different soon is that I will be away from home for three weeks, traveling through Texas.  I plan to keep blogging, but obviously there will be no actual sewing to share.  I don’t want to do a travelog, but I wouldn’t rule out a few pictures of beautiful places.  What I hope to do is show patterns or designs I happen across in nature or architecture.  There could also be quilts or quilt shops, but hopefully not much buying.  We shall see.

WIP

I am going to show another personal quilt photo here.  The intensity of this quilt has been bothering me.  It is for a young man, an artist, who I know likes bright color and pattern, but I still feel it is too much.  Adding the blue inner border helped, and I like the way it is quilted, but it is still pretty hard on the eyes.  I joined the Flickr group, “Stash Pact II, Electric Bugaloo”, and Gab-Fab suggested using the back side of fabrics.  As I was working today I glimpsed the reverse side of the blue and gold border fabric and I really like it.  In the picture, I’ve placed some scraps on top of the actual border.  I think it provides the calm I was looking for, for floating the bright log cabins.  Problem:  the borders are on and partially quilted.  Do I rip the quilting out and the borders off, reattach, and requilt?  Keep in mind that I’m leaving on a trip Monday.  I think I probably will, because I really prefer the effect.  Hmmm.  Thoughts?

Inspiring Me Today

These tea towels  by Mae Engelgeer on Design*Sponge would make great quilts, don’t you think?  I love them.  And speaking of great quilts, I wish I had made this quilt, but it’s by Rita, of Red Pepper Quilts.  Her work amazes me.

Have a productive week!

I’m linking up with WIP at Freshly Pieced.


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Sunday Stash Report

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I thought I would finish this quilt this week and be able to count all this fabric I’ve been cutting and sewing, but it didn’t happen. DS was home from college for the weekend, and we also went out with friends, so very little sewing was done. I have quilted stabilizing lines between all the blocks in one direction, but that is all. This week: + 1 yd (more gray), -0 yds. YTD: +102 yds., -176 yds. Net used during 2012: 73 yds. See more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times I’m trying out WordPress on my tablet, in preparation for a long vacation next month. Let’s see how it works.