Top is done.

I was finally able to finish the top to the challenge quilt tonight.  I needed to put together a strip of pieces that run horizontally - to join the top and bottom sections together.  I should have sewn individual squares on the bottom of the strips before I put the top and bottom together, I am not totally happy with how this looks, however, I think it will look okay once it is quilted.  Had to pull and scrunch a bit to get the seams lined up.

Overall, I think it looks good.  Will have to finish a quilt I have on my long-arm before I can get this one on it.  But that will give me time to think about what quilting pattern I will want to do on it.  I am open for suggestions. 

On schedule!

Well, I am on schedule with this challenge quilt. I have the top half pieced and pressed.  Little bit of a scare with a black mark on one of the lighter squares, however, it came off with a bit of water.

If you look close you can see that all my corners line up, I have been really trying to improve my sewing and being more meticulous with my scant 1/4 inch seam allowance.  I have stopped using my 1/4 inch foot as I can only get my needle to move over to the far right position and get an exact 1/4 inch seam.  I have taped a metal ruler to my sewing machine at the 1/4 inch mark and it has been acting as a fabric guide as well and made doing piecing much easier.  Will continue to use this method as it has made this quilt go together quite quickly.

I have the all the fabric dyed for the bottom half, 22 grey fabrics in total.  I have enough fabric to make do two quilts, but will see, maybe make a pillow or something.

First quarter of the grey challenge quilt

I spent the evening cutting strips and sewing them together into two tubes and have cut them into the required widths for the top half of the challenge quilt.  Here is the layout for the upper left quarter of the quilt.

I am very much loving how this is turning out, there are a few prices that I might change around, if you look at the 9the column from the left rectangles 7 and 8 look like they should be swapped around.  I have the rest of the fabric soaking and should be ready to cut by Wednesday.   This top should be done by the weekend.  Then, to get the back dyed so I can get it quilted by the end of the month.  On that, I picked up 3 spools of thread, one solid grey and two variegated grey (one medium and one light), now just need to come up with a pattern to quilt.  I might just do a meander but will see. 

Spent the night dyeing.

I got home tonight and my husband made me a very delicious meal roast beef on a flat bread with roasted red peppers, caramelized onion, brie cheese, and tomatoes.  While he cooked, I sat down and planned my dyeing for the evening.

I decided to mix my own grey again, but this time I added a bit of the nickel dye to see if I can bring it to a match to what I have done.  I found that the charcoal that I did earlier was too cool for the warm grey that the nickel becomes.  I did 11 more gradients: 12%, 9%, 6%, 4.5%, 3%, 2.25%, 1.5%, 1.15%, 0.75%, 0.38%, 0.19%.  Once these are rinsed and ironed I will post the range.

My goal this weekend is to get the top half of the quilt pieced and if these match the greys, next week I will get the bottom half of the quilt pieced. Next weekend I will dye the backing fabric and the binding fabric.

11 shades of grey and one purple

Well, I am very happy with this set of greys.  I am going to do some more on Friday.  I need to have 25 shades - while I think there are more than 25 shades within this set.  Not sure how specific they are going to get in the counting of them. I am thinking of mixing the Charcoal and the Nickel and produce 11 more shades.  That will give me 22 dyed shades (with variations).  I will then use at least 3 shades of thread to give me 25 shades.

These grey will be the top half of the quilt and the 11 more done tomorrow will be the lower half. I am thinking of using the first or second darkest greys as the backing and the binding.

first run

I love the purple on the left, I however might not use all the greys. But will see once I get the rest rinsed and dryed. 

Challenge Quilt

We here goes.  This will probably be a boring place for most people.  I plan on using this place to explore my foray into fabric dyeing.  I have started blogs in the past, however they have not been focused.

I am currently working on the 25th anniversary challenge for my local quilt guild.  I wanted to try doing a bargello quilt.  So I fired up EQ7 and made a plan.  I have dyed 25 different shades of grey (nickel and charcoal) and a grape.  The quilt will be about 43 inches by 63 inches.

My plan for the 25th Anniversary Challenge Quilt

I will post some pictures of the fabric I have dyed - it is currently in the washer after being soaked to remove excess dye.  I hope to get the top done this weekend and I will have to dye fabric for the back and print a label.

My thoughts right now are to quilt the quilt using invisible thread as to not take away from the pattern, but will put more thought into that once I have the top done.  

I am very excited about this quilt - it will probably be the jumping off point for a series of quilts that will use a monochromatic background with an accent colour.  

Yes, I am Canadian - I use an extra u in colour and I like an "e" in grey.