Sew Sunshine

For some reason I found a few pics of this hand dyed quilt I made last year and realized I never posted about it.  I had a stack of hand dyed fabrics from various dye classes and decided to match them up with some lighter turmeric dyed fabric I made. All HST's made in groups of 4. This was super fun and fast to make.  Lots of trimming! I was inspired by this little arty thing I drew. The mix of colors worked pretty well. In person some of the dyes looked more muddy and I was glad this shows the contrast and how they did all work together. Leftover square sets went on the back. I decided hand quilting was best. It is big stitch. When I entered this in the county fair last year I heard the judge called it a toenail catcher. I don't get that....? I'm going to have to dig it out of storage to get the size but it was big enough to have to use my quilt hanger.  Well I know I still have some hand dyes to work with so maybe another scrappy type quilt this year.  I have to go...

"Delectable X 3" 60" x 69" hand quilted big stitch white cotton 30wt thread I finally finished this UFO recently. Several years ago already, I got together with my friend and fellow quilter Jen and we did a batch of indigo and other dyes. I had picked up a thrift old sheet. This sheet was super tightly woven and soft. I tore it in pieces and did some dye folds then didn't know what to do with the different ones. I decided as a background for this easy Delectable Mountain block 3 prong version it would be great. I played around with the traditional 4 prong but liked this bolder 3 version better. I made an easy tutorial  HERE . The sheet has a border of flowers in blue and green so I decided to just use it in this quilt and it is my favorite part! Today my friend and I went down  to the sunken gardens and to the rose garden and took some pics.  I did some big stitch hand quilting in white for this piece. The sheet was a little tight for the bigger thread I used bu...

                                                     "Wherever the Wind Blows"  a study of positive and negative space 42.5" x 32.5"  Back at the beginning of the year my lqg had a modern block flip meeting. We brought blocks that were traditional and we flipped them to be more modern.  I brought different blocks and in the end only played with a few of them with other guild members.  I had in mind a few blocks I started in a BOM a few years ago.  These blocks were 12.5" and simple traditional shapes made as BOM for Blossom Heart Quilts HST Modern Sampler. (2016) My fabric choices were not great. I wanted to use the hand dyes I had made and I found this gray triangle fabric in a large enough quantity to go with the dyed fabrics. However, the fabrics all looked muddy and the values were too close. Also ...

"You are my Sunshine"  27" x 34" most of the sun rays are made from hand dyed either I did or purchased, background fabric is mixed pattern is from  Scrappy and Happy Quilts by Kate Henderson Sun was just starting to coming up when I took this pic.  It was super windy this morning so it was hard to go to far from shelter.  I kind of like the sun starting down on the bottom corner. :)  My local quilt guild held this challenge and just said do what gives you Joy. We had a lot of variety in quilts and a lot of fun stories.  I can't put a fine point on what gives me "joy" but some of the things that came to mind while I was making this: I love to use fabrics from my stash. I used a few experimental dyed fabrics I made. The bottom left sun points were made by just pouring undiluted dye over another dyed color. It has dark and light spots that almost look like it burned the color into it. Love that. * note- probably not washabl...