Quilty the Libster

Getting Ready

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

As it happens I had last week off of work. One of the things on my "to do" list was "getting organized" creatively, or at least starting to, and laying some groundwork that will allow me to make better use of what free time I do have available for creative pursuits. I feel like I've gotten a fair amount accomplished. I basted a quilt, cut most of another quilt, cleaned my fabric storage area, and just generally took stock of what I've got going and what I want to be working on. It feels good to be flexing those muscles again, so to speak.

The majority of my fabric is actually still being stored at my parent's house, and as long as I remain in this apartment and as long as my parents remain benevolent towards me it's probably going to stay that way. There just isn't room here, and that's apartment life with roommates for ya. Because I've had to be selective about what fabric I have here, I've tried to prioritize the things I most want to be working on. Or the things I want to force myself to work on.

I know I know you might be thinking, if you have to force yourself to work on it doesn't that indicate that you don't WANT to work on it? I see how you could draw that conclusion, but no, I don't think that's always the case. There is a difference much of the time between what I truly want to accomplish and what I end up working on because it comes easily. When a project still needs the initial planning or starting burst of energy or requires me to figure out how to do something new I might end up not working on it, even if objectively it is something I truly want to do.

Well, this year in art and life I am working on finishing what I start - both literally and mentally. A lot of good ideas (and not just in quilting but in all parts of my life) never make it out of my brain because I never get around to doing the work they require - or sometimes just because I never get over the hurdle of starting, which can be very hard work. I hope to break out of that pattern to, and hope I will be facing up to challenges and doing the work that needs to get done to make these projects finally happen. At least that's the plan.

And that of course in addition to finishing things that I have literally started, as in works in progress. That seems to be everyone's goal this year!!

Fabric of a New Nation

2012-01-24T22:25:00.000-06:00

One of the nice things about living in Chicago is getting to enjoy the exhibits from the Art Institute of Chicago's textile collection (and the Art Institute in general, of course). I think I have now seen four exhibits there, of varying interest to me, but I always am excited to see what's there and usually make it my first stop when I go.

The current exhibit is one some of you have probably heard about, entitled Fabric of a New Nation. Follow the link for a better description than I could give, but basically it addresses American textiles and textile traditions in the years immediately following the independence of the United States.

There are some quilts in the exhibit, such as this:

I found this star quilt fascinating, particularly because the stars are (from what I could see anyway) pieced from four 'V' shaped pieces of fabric rather than from eight diamonds - the pattern of the fabric is uninterrupted across the 'V', which is how I could tell:

The Star of Bethlehem was clearly a show stopper - still very very bright and vibrant and a fascinating sampler of period fabrics. Plus it is easily king sized.

Love the fabric!

I was also very struck by some of the embroidered pieces, both samplers and embroidered wool bed spreads.I have been toying with the idea of doing a sampler for some time, particularly because there is a certain quote I want to immortalize with needle and thread (you'll have to wait, possibly forever, to find out what quote). I have had a hard time figuring out how to plan and execute it, however, since the only samplers I've ever made were counted cross stitch and from a pattern. This exhibit gave me a lot of ideas, though, so maybe I can actually move on it.

This was my favorite sampler and the one closest to the way I envision what I want to do:

Probably my second favorite - I'm so smitten with the pond!

Detail of the pond!

One of the embroidered coverlets:

Close up of the embroidery - click in to flickr and choose all sizes if you want a closer view.

I have also played with the idea of doing something like this, too - at least if not in this style then a similar approach or technique. Another example:

There are more pictures of the exhibit, with many other examples and close ups, here. Overall I really enjoyed it and found it gave me a lot to think about...

Ring in the new...

2012-01-02T12:05:00.001-06:00

Well, clearly 2011 has been a fallow year for me in the quilting/sewing/fiber arts area of my life, among other things. And that's okay. I think that if that's where the flow of life takes you sometimes, that's where you have to go. Right now I feel like I'm coming back around to this part of my life, or at least wanting to. Things are stirring.

In honor of a new year, new perspective, new priorities, I decided to finish this piece:

It is small, 14"x18", and machine quilted in what I like to call wavy cross hatching (I'm sure this is not a new idea).

I'm going to hang it in my office at work to remind me of my creative self...

I know some of you may be wondering what happened to the baby quilt of the last two posts? Well, what happened was, the baby was born. And it was a boy. So, I ended up gifting a boy baby quilt that I already had completed and on hand. What will happen to the bit of the folk art angel quilt I had completed, I don't know yet. It's going in the incubator, I guess. But I liked the suggestions I got of adding borders, etc., so we'll see.

Just a few other creative things I'd like to share. Check out this necklace my little brother made me for Christmas!!

Fun, right? It's awesome to be from a family of makers.

Last but not least, after seeing this tutorial, I have spent many a happy moment making paper snow flakes. Here are some I cut from our junk mail like she did in the tutorial, but I have moved on to every and any variety of paper.

Ah yes. So anyway. We'll see where I go from here. I obviously never claim to know what's around the bend for me or where life is going to lead me. But this is where I am right now, at the start of another year.

All the best to you and yours :)

Hmmmm

2011-08-11T19:41:00.002-05:00

OK, turns out there is very little contrast and I am very much undecided about it.

A inner border probably would have helped, but I don't think I'm going to unpick it.

Although I like wide, I think I perhaps did stray into the territory of TOO wide on the border. I'm thinking it would probably be better if I trimmed it down a touch.

Any other suggestions?

In Progress

2011-08-05T21:53:00.006-05:00

Well, I may be in a "not so much on the sewing" phase of my life, but the good news is, as long as human beings keep procreating there will be something pulling me back to the sewing machine...

Case in point, another quick and messy baby quilt I am attempting to make. Let me preface this by saying that the baby is due, like, tomorrow or something. But whatever.

The baby, upon his or her birth, will belong to a co-worker from the shelter and his wife, who I have seen a couple time post-Texas and who are all around cool cats. I plan to keep the quilt gender neutral. My original inspiration: the southwest. They have both spent time in the southwest and have a lot of southwestern accents in their house, so it seemed appropriate.

Months ago I pulled a bunch of southwestern/folk art inspired prints, as well as some coordinating tonals. I could not, however, for the life of me come up with a vision of what I wanted to do. So, the fabric kind of sat there and nothing actually happened for a long time. This is probably part of the reason the "in progress" post is coming like a day before the baby is due.

Anyway, I toyed with the idea of just forgetting it and not making anything. Then after a while I remembered a pile of charm squares I had sitting around somewhere that have nothing to do with the southwest, but that I might be able to throw together into something interesting. So I got them out.

I had gotten about this far:

when I discovered that most of the rest of the squares were blue! Doesn't work so well for an allegedly gender neutral quilt. Unfortunately, that little bit is only 18x27, not quite enough.

Then, in a fortuitous moment, one of the fabrics in the southwest/folk art pile caught my eye:

Although "they" say you shouldn't make a border wider just to make a quilt bigger, I'm thinking I quite like the affect of a wide border here. Anyway, it's a big print, so a wide border is kind of needed to show it off. I think it works. (It probably won't be _quite_ that wide, as I think that's 10 or 12 inches in the picture.)

Or does it? Maybe it's a little too crazy. Maybe only a mother could love it. Not sure yet. But I'm going with it!

Sister's Choice Quilt Show

2011-07-04T11:19:00.006-05:00

Father's Day weekend my extended family gathered in West Michigan for the Sister's Choice Quilt Show, the sisters in question being my mother and my aunt. The venue was my uncle's barn. I arrived a day early to help hang the show, which was a really fun experience. The show featured quilts, primarily made by mom & Margo, that have been given as gifts, including baby quilts, graduation quilts, and hand print quilts, among others. It was great to see so many family treasures collected in one place, and to remember all that we have lived together.

The quilting matriarch, my grandmother, with one of her creations. She has only made a few quilts, but they are beautiful.

A selection of the baby quilts my mom has made for her niece's and nephews

On the left is the quilt Margo made for my mom's birthday and the right is the quilt they made for my grandparent's 50th anniversary.

Margo's Corn & Beans is one of my favorites (on the right) - just wish I had gotten a better picture.

Mom's Madras Stars is another favorite.

My mom made this for me for my high school graduation. Isn't it awesome?

You can see all my pictures here.

Sewing This Year

2011-03-06T18:07:00.003-06:00

I cannot seem to gain much momentum in sewing this year.

The sweater project stalled out because I need one more sweater and have not made it to the thrift store to get one, and hopefully pick up a flannel sheet for the back of it. So one day I'll get back to that...as with so many things.

I have been going through the other supplies that I have here, in part to remind myself what there is and in part to (hopefully) inspire myself. Of the things I have, what is most getting my attention is what I like to think of as my "bits and pieces" box. Left over blocks, projects from my mother, unincorporated pieced units, attempts at surface design, little experiments that didn't relate to a larger project. Perhaps it is time to start putting these little bits into a larger whole.

A bit at a time. The thing is, I really want to think about it, and ponder each addition before I sew it down. I see it as a memoir quilt, sort of, a retrospective on my fiber life up until now. And I really want it to be a thoughtful project.

But it's hard to gain momentum when you're working that way.

So, so far I have this little bit.

In A Past Life

2011-01-03T10:48:00.012-06:00

I have had a four day weekend this weekend for the New Year holiday and since I wasn't traveling I thought it would be nice to play around with a sewing project a bit. I do have sewing space set up in my room, but my supplies are not stored in a very accessible way. When I started trying to dig them out I found at the very top the felted sweaters that I cut apart last winter in preparation for the felted sweater quilt/blanket I have long been planning (I don't plan to have a batting layer for this project and therefore probably won't actually quilt it much).

I know there are a million uses for felted sweaters (in theory) but they also take up a lot of room so I told myself I needed to do something with them or stop storing them to use "someday". So what I was planning to be my next project last winter seemed as good a place as any to start up this winter.

My vague plan for the project was a patchwork center surrounded by larger solid squares. When cutting them apart I noticed how the sleeves could kind of fit together inversely, so for the center I decided to sew the sleeves together and trim them down to blocks, then use the fronts and backs for border squares. The placement of the sleeve blocks was pretty much dictated by size as I wanted to minimize further trimming.

The center

Not sure how much time I will have to work on this in coming days/weeks, but it's fun so far. I just love the look of felted sweaters and am enjoying this project. As I know the scraps won't really fit into the scrap box (not like I'm going to mix them in to other scrap projects) I'm thinking of using them to do a little bit of buttonhole stitch applique on this top - maybe stars? We'll see.

Preview of what it may look like with the border

Like all of you (no doubt) I have been noticing the "year in review" posts on various blogs and admiring what you all accomplished in 2010. I finished only three quilts in 2010 and posted on this blog a mere seven times. If it weren't for feed readers I would probably give it up as a lost cause, but the magic of bloglines and google reader allows at least a few dedicated readers to keep up with me without the annoyance of having to check back during the months-long breaks to see if I've done anything yet. Thanks to those who still click when you see "Quilty the Libster" highlighted in bold...

I know much better than to make predictions as to what 2011 will hold for me creatively. There is a project I want to try to finish for some friends by the summer - in fact, it's this project, the log cabin that I started in 2007. I would love to finish it queen sized as originally intended but we'll see if it becomes a throw-sized quilt (as so many supposed-to-be-bigger projects do) instead. Either way, I will be happy if it gets done.

(Interestingly, the log cabin was started for a different friend who I ended up giving this quilt to, which was also started for a different friend than the one who received it. Musical quilts? Do you ever find yourself working on something that you intended to give to someone and thinking as it comes together that maybe it isn't as good of a fit for that person as you originally thought? And then later decide in fact it's perfect for someone else? Apparently this happens to me a lot, but maybe it's just me.)

Beyond that, I have no other plans for 2011 except for a desire to sew more but a commitment, nevertheless, to going with the flow and seeing where the year takes me rather than making firm goals that I may not keep. I mean you never know with me (that is, I never know with me). I might be about to go off on a sewing spree or I might be just as dormant as I have been. Ya veremos. We shall see.

Happiest of new years to you and yours...hope it's off to a good start.

Deadlines

2010-12-11T13:54:00.000-06:00

So I "kind of" met my goal - the quilt was actually done by Thanksgiving but didn't make it in the mail until two days after. The few days before the holiday were just so crazy at work that I wasn't able to get to the post office while it was open. Although my friend's due date was next weekend, she had her baby the day after Thanksgiving (yes, the day before I got the quilt in the mail) so the timing is pretty good.

Baby's last initial

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. To me the borders really did a lot for this quilt - gave it a younger, more "baby" feel and lightened the whole thing up. The alphabet border fabric was just perfect, and I had enough to put on the back, too. The quilting is really simple, but, well...it got done in time so that's the important thing!

30"x40"

Preview

2010-10-26T18:08:00.004-05:00

Just a quick and messy preview of the baby quilt:

I could tell early on that this was going to be a quick and messy quilt. No time to spend agonizing over the design and no eye for it anyway - I just took the idea and went with it.

They don't want to know what they're having so I went with primaries/rainbow to be gender neutral. Gender neutral is hard for me. It's an alphabet quilt although it doesn't exactly "read" as such. I have an ABC focus print that I love and I cut up one panel to form the blocks. They have fun pictures as you can see the letters when you're a bit closer, but you kind of lose it from a distance. Oh well. Mom and baby can get close to it.

Here is a close up of one letter:

Next up: assemble, quilt, in the mail by Thanksgiving. Can she do it??

Out of the Living Room

2010-09-25T12:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, check out the photo installation of Chicago that my roommate put up:

Wait, what's that under those photos? Is it...? A? Quilt?

Why, funny you should ask...

So I don't know if I should call attention to this fact, but I just finished tacking down the binding on this quilt that I posted three months ago about hoping to have the binding tacked down in a few weeks. Good times! It had been sitting folded in my living room about 30% completed and with my roommates graciously ignoring it for three months until the last two weekends I finally sat down with a movie and worked on it. I'm so happy to have it done and out out of the living room, and I also really like how it turned out.

I, sadly, have been blogging so little that I think you can find the posts about the creation of this quilt top by clicking back one page of older posts. Finishing up reminded me how fun it was to make, and I absolutely got the effect I was going for. Throwing in a few fabrics that weren't quilting cottons turned out to be really easy and I like the texture that it adds to the quilt.

Thrifted sheet on the back. I had originally planned to do a pieced back but that was taking me too long and I decided I would rather get on with quilting it:

The quilting:

Ahh yes. So it feels good to have finished something, and hopefully it will inspire me to turn around and actually work on something else. Although I should have been made wise about posting statements like this, I have every intention of having a baby quilt done for my college roommate's Thanksgiving due date, so I need to get cracking on that. So...stay...tuned...?

As I believe I mentioned previously, I have been dabbling in making jewelry, which has been taking up some of the creative time I might otherwise spend quilting. I have a lot to learn, but I have enjoyed playing around with it. Anyway, here is a small selection of jewelry I have made:

Life in Chicago is otherwise quite good. My job keeps me busy and is really draining sometimes but I do really like it. Friends and fun times in the city keep me busy otherwise. To all who are reading I hope you are well!

The Latest

2010-06-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

So this is one of those times where I log in to post acknowledging my woeful lack of posting. This, as you would imagine, correlates to my lack of progress in the creative arena. I am sewing down the binding on a quilt, so I will be excited to share that soon, but as I've said, anything requiring hand work is a slow process for me these days. I really want to have it done by next weekend, so hopefully a couple of movies or baseball games will suffice to get it taken care of.

The rhythm of life in Chicago has just not led me much in the direction of sewing. I put in a little work here and there, but I tend to find myself swept up in other things a lot, and I think that's just life right now. I feel content knowing that I have sewing space and it's there when I need it. I also feel content taking advantage of the blessing of living near friends right now and living in The Big City where there are always a million and one things going on. Since I know I am highly unlikely to be in this situation forever, I think it's incumbent on my to enjoy it while I am. If you would like to follow my life outside of my creative activities you can always check out Rejoice Always, although posting has been a bit slow over there, as well.

I did finally bust out my new jewelry making supplies last weekend, and I found this to be highly satisfying. Although I have essentially no idea what I'm doing, both technically and when it comes to design, it's super fun to play around with and satisfying to be able to complete a project in a very short time. And since I have no idea what I'm doing, the minimal time commitment makes it easy to just cut apart a project and remake it if I end up deciding it's not quite right.

Pictures of my creations to follow. I always intended this to be a blog for ALL my creative endeavors, but quilting has obviously always predominated. I really don't think there's any chance of this becoming a jewelry blog, so I beg the indulgence of the hard core quilters in the audience.

My birthday was this past weekend, and I got a new camera! Quilt bloggers know how exciting this is. I am really interested in photography and have been doing my best at taking it seriously with my old point and shoot, but wanted something that was a bit of a step up. Part of my motivation was to be able to take better pics for the blogs, so maybe this will also motivate me to make things to take pictures of!

In the meantime I took pictures of the top of my mother's pie safe, where she keeps many things:

The Quilts of May

2010-05-02T21:42:00.002-05:00

Mark your calendars - May 2 and I finished my first quilt of the year:

I still don't know if I'm going to donate this or not (I did just find out a friend of mine is having a boy...) After getting organized I realize I have 6 baby quilt projects in some stage of completion (including this one). My plan is to choose one or two that I like the VERY MOST to keep for gifting, and try to finish the rest for donating. And honestly I think this might be one of my very favorite of the bunch. So we'll see...but getting some quilts donated is still a definite goal, and it will happen! I'm calling it project follow through...stay tuned...

Pink

2010-04-05T20:53:00.004-05:00

I had such a busy weekend of sewing that I actually have a little something to share!

I had this idea at the beginning of Lent that throughout the season I would work on some baby quilts to donate by Easter. Let me start off this story by telling you that nothing has been donated. The first thing I worked on as part of this project is the Chinese Coins quilt in the previous post. By the time I finished the quilting on that I just...didn't...feel I could donate it. I love it! Too much! I mean yes, there are a few too many pin tucks on the back, but I really like the quilting, and I have always really liked the top. I don't know how well it shows in photos (well, I'll post a better one when it's finished) but the colors and fabrics just really sing together. Of course there is no reason I shouldn't donate a quilt I love especially since even if I don't donate it I probably won't keep it. Somehow I can face gifting it, but donating it and never knowing what happens to it or if it's appreciated is, apparently, too hard for me.

So I started this pink baby quilt with the idea that I would have an easier time donating something if I planned it to be a donation from the start. But...now that the top is done...I'm sort of...

OK let's face it, I have problems letting go. I always have. But I'm working on it. I am not making up my mind yet what I'm going to do with either quilt. I still would like to donate some baby quilts some time even though I didn't meet my original goal. Now it will just be one of those nebulous undefined goals we all do so well with.

I don't know. I'll work on it.

Anyway, it has been nice to spend some time sewing, so my goal setting at least had that advantage. I'm trying to get focused on what I want to work on if I can keep up the habit of sewing. This quilt is all scraps and salvage fabric*, since that is pretty much all I have with me here, so I'm pondering which of my planned scrap and/or salvage projects I want to give my time to. Stay tuned?

Perhaps better photography can also be hoped for? Sorry, I was so excited to have something to share that I couldn't wait to have natural light and a block of time for a better photo shoot...

*Flannel sheet scraps, pillow case scraps, bits from three different stained or torn shirts, scraps from a blouse I made, and lots of good old fashioned quilting scraps.

Long Time

2010-03-07T14:11:00.004-06:00

Here it is at last, my sewing machine set up in a little corner of my Chicago apartment. In reality I never moved. I was having such a hard time finding something that I liked and that worked for me, and in the meantime got so settled in here with my friends that I eventually stopped trying to move and made my current situation "official." Space is the trade off of this arrangement, as in, I don't have a lot.

I was at my parents a few weeks ago gathering up some sewing stuff and came face to face, once again, (and sorry to be a broken record), with the over-the-top amount of fabric that I own. I mean I do not have room here for even half of it. Probably not even a quarter. So to start out with I grabbed my several tubs of salvage fabric to bring to Chicago, along with the scrap bin and whatever random yardage was sitting out not in a container. That includes most of the fabric I have been trying to convince myself to get rid of. Pretty much all of my "nice" fabric is still at my parents. I'm hoping that this will allow me to work through some of this fabric - use it or move on from it. I grabbed a few finished tops that need quilting, too, and a few in-progress projects.

All very much a step in the right direction. I still don't know how much time I will realistically spend sewing in the coming weeks, but hopefully it will at least be more than zero. My job continues to go well, but it is busy and sometimes mentally draining so that I don't do much when I get home besides veg. I need to make the transition to vegging with fabric.

I actually got the sewing machine to the apartment, but forgot a lot of notions including my presser feet. So when I was ready to start sewing last weekend I only had the walking foot. This might be good since it inspired me to get back into sewing by finishing something rather than starting something new, hence the quilting project in the above picture.

About that...I am having the worst time with tucks on the back. I mean, let's face it...I always have that problem. I don't know why. I want to know why, but I don't. I had high hopes for this one as I thought the combination of flannel backing and cotton batting would mean minimal movement...you know, because they would stick to each other. I pin basted using my fist to space, but had to completely unpick the first three lines of quilting b/c the tucks were so bad. Maybe I'm wrong about flannel - maybe the softness of it makes it really tuck prone. I have spent hours basting and re-basting this, eventually pinning like every one to two inches to try to keep it in place (and still getting little tucks, although little enough to leave in). Where have I gone wrong??

Oh well...it will be done soon. THEN I will start something new.

Sorry to have been a neglectful blog friend. I don't dare promise that will change, but hopefully it will little by little. I want to share this post from a while back from Debra. The horse top was one that I made as a way to challenge myself to use those horse panels in a creative way. The panels were 99 cents in the remnant bin at Hobby Lobby. It is a perfect example of a project that I make because my mind is captivated by the challenge, but I don't actually like it that much. I mean I don't dislike it, but it isn't really "me". So I finally realized I wasn't ever going to finish it and sent it to Debra for her amazing charity projects. I am SO grateful to see that she finished it for a good cause.

The Start of Something

2009-12-29T20:01:00.001-06:00

As the year comes to an end my mind predictably turns to resolutions. I just pulled up my "resolution" post from a year ago. I had six resolutions: four I did decently well at, the other two were complete non-starters. I stuck to my resolutions about buying fabric, starting and finishing projects, and did okay at trying new things. I did NOT even make an attempt at learning to free motion quilt, and I spent very little time on non-quilting crafts. I did finish my Texas scrapbook, but besides that I'm not sure if I can think of any other non-quilt crafting that I did. That might change this year since I got some jewelry making supplies for Christmas.

I guess I won't make resolutions this year. I'm still working through my transition and waiting for all the pieces of my life to "land", so it's hard to say what's going to be realistic or possible for me in the "creativity" and "creating" department.

I think if I was going to make a resolution for this area of my life right now it would be to validate my creative activities.

Anyway, while I was at my parents over this holiday I did NOT do any hand quilting (less time was spent watching TV than usually might be). I did however decide to pull out the scrap box and do some good-old-fashioned sewing together of scraps. This is a little "start of something" - probably will get some borders and be a crazy-ish baby quilt. It was fun.

The Waiting...

2009-11-29T09:13:00.002-06:00

I hope you have all been enjoying a long and grateful weekend. I've been back at my parents for the weekend. I had it in my mind that I would pick up some project from the top of my pile and sew on it for the four days I was here. It would have been nice. Instead I grabbed a project from the top of the pile and have spent a few odd moments trying to pick fabrics for the borders (haven't actually picked them yet). So. Oh well, probably wasn't a realistic goal. I just miss actually working on stuff...ya know?? On that note, no apartment yet, but I think I theoretically might have one soon! In theory!

I did go thrift shopping on Black Friday in search of an 80s prom dress for a party I'm going to next weekend. One of the shops was having an amazing sale where everything was at least 50% off, and given that enticement I couldn't be prevented from buying some nice scarves and sheets if I saw them. I suppose this technically counts as buying fabric. However. It was worth it. To pay $1.50 for a NEW double size flat sheet in an awesome print...well, surely no one would pass that up.

New! Never used!

Not new, but in good shape and cheap!

Oh yeah, here's another picture from my trip to the Fine Art of Fiber show way back when. In exploring the botanic garden we discovered these shrubs in the shape of a nine patch block in the English garden. Kind of a fitting setting for a quilt show.

Fine Art of Fiber 2009

2009-11-08T14:24:00.005-06:00

Here are a few of my favorites from the Fine Art of Fiber show at the Chicago Botanic Garden this past weekend. It is a guild show for a few Chicago area guilds...sadly I did not get all the info on which guilds. It was also a beautiful 70 degree day in November, and I was so glad to get to spend it at a huge garden/park and not in the middle of the city.

Not Mrs. Murphy's Pot Holder by Allison Blakely

Water Triptych by Roslyn DeBoer

Stripes for Sally by Diana Burrows

Hannah's I-spy by Georgia Cibul

I am not really currently sewing much, except for a bit of hand quilting here and there. I am on the hunt for an apartment, and ones with potential dedicated sewing space get high marks. I think it's going to be a little while yet before the apartment is rented and the sewing space set up. Little by little! Thanks again to everyone for the well wishes on my new job. Things are going well so far. I have tons to learn, but I am enjoying it.

Crumb Cake

2009-10-13T16:55:00.000-05:00

You may remember the pieces of this quilt from this post a while back. They have been dormant for quite some time whilst I went through a lot of different design options in my head. My original plan was to keep the units small and uneven and sash them with thin black sashing for sort of a mosaic look. I was having too much trouble visualizing that, however, and when I tried to lay it out I did not like how it was shaping up. So the pieces continued to sit while I processed it in some dark corner of my brain and worked on other things. Finally I just decided that the best solution really was to just sew them all together into one big scrap mash up, and this piece is the result. My original fear is that this would dilute the impact somewhat, especially since the quilt uses only three colors so there is not tons of contrast. However, in reality I think it works, and I'm glad to finally have a finished top, as this has been in progress for...forever.

This quilt is sister to this one, and I have one more I'm thinking of doing from the same set of scraps to complete the "quilt family." I guess some people might call it a series.

my favorite bit

I would LOVE to hand quilt this, but I am torn because there are so many small piece and therefore TONS of seams. Some pieces are all seam. And maybe it's because my fingers are sore from my current hand quilting project that wrestling with a million seams doesn't sound fun to me right now. We'll see. I am loving hand quilting (the look of it) more and more these days; it just seems like it adds so much to the finished textile. I have always enjoyed the process, too, of course, but since I know there's no way I can hand quilt everything, I have to be selective about what I choose to work on. I just wish I would hurry up and get better at machine quilting so that maybe I would feel the same way about it, rather than just seeing it as a fast but not very nice way to finish projects.

(Bleh...it seems hardly a post goes by that I'm not apologizing for the quality of the photos, and maybe I should just get over it! However, I hear good photos are not in season right now, and I could not wait any longer to share this! I probably just need to improve my photoshop skills.)

In other news, I know only a few posts ago I was blogging about my new job as a teacher's assistant in a preK. And that has been a fun gig, for sure, and I have enjoyed it. However, I got yet another new job! I will be working as a paralegal in a non-profit agency that assists immigrants and refugees. It is more in the vein of what my long term interests are and is a better opportunity in a lot of ways. So I am excited, even if I am also sad to say good-bye to the preK kids. I am gearing up to relocate to the big city (Chicago) in under a week!! I will be staying with friends when I first go up so it's sort of a "soft" move - I won't be officially moving all my stuff until I figure out a more permanent living arrangement. As a result of the move I would not be surprised if the blog goes quiet for a while. I'm not strictly saying it will, because I hope to still make an effort to post. However, we'll see how it goes!

In the meantime, back to cleaning and packing. This includes more internal wrestling about the amazing volume of fabric I have in my possession and what, if anything, I should do about it. A question that never goes away??

Setting for Swap Blocks

2009-09-21T20:16:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to develop a setting for the blocks I received through the craftster block swap I participated in at the beginning of the year. I've had a basic idea, but was not sure which of the many possible variations I wanted to do. Any of the versions would require more blocks so I started this past weekend by working on more blocks:

By the time I finished these blocks I had landed on a setting idea that I thought I was happiest with, so that's what I worked on the rest of this weekend. None of this is sewn together yet except those strip set borders:

To guide your viewing, let me just say that it is "upside down" in this picture, but I did not rotate it because then the angle looks funky. Also, I can already see that in the center section I will switch the top middle and the right middle blocks (according to where they are in this picture) to balance the colors more. Also, sorry it's dark - it was late evening by the time I got around to this. Keeping those things in mind...

Actually I'm finding I like it more today than I did yesterday, but I'm still going back and forth between liking it and fearing it might be too busy/funky/weird/? I mean it certainly is busy, and the borders and lack of sashing do nothing to calm it down. It does have a certain charm to it, though.

Now wait, I am anticipating that someone somewhere will want to know what it would look like with the strips sets flipped around so the white is on the outside, so I laid that out, too. Try to cleanse your palate before you look at it, though...

c

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e

a

n

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Ok, here it is (and the good news is, this picture is right side up and all the blocks have been moved around):

Hmm...personally I definitely like the first one better. I will continue to mull it over. I have one more block and lots of scraps that will go on the back.

Steps Completed

2009-09-13T19:25:00.001-05:00

Here is the finished London Steps top. While I realize it is not something that is everybody's taste, I am pretty happy with it. I enjoyed experimenting with more non-quilting fabrics and mixing lots of different kinds of fabrics, and it has the look I was going for. To finish this I think I am going to combine two quilt ideas into a two-sided quilt, so I will be soon be working on another "top" for the back of this.

I am now working as a teacher's assistant in a pre-K classroom at a public school. This is still not my long term final destination job, but as jobs go it's a definite step up from substitute teaching, and I'm enjoying it so far. It has put a limit on my sewing time, I think mainly because it's been taking me longer to think about and transition between projects. I've had other jobs where I actually thought about sewing projects at work and came home ready to work on them, but so far I find I don't have time to let my mind wander while corralling three and four-year-olds all day. I actually kind of like the fact that the job absorbs me while I'm doing it. It has made me realize, though, how much thinking I actually do about quilts before and while I work on them, and that thinking time is an essential part of the process.

As a bit of an aside, flipping through my Hancock's of Paducah catalog I notice they are selling Gee's Bend quilt kits with a pattern to make a Gee's Bend style quilt, and a fabric line called Gee's Bend solids. I admit my initial reaction to that is not a positive one, given that patterns, quilts, and fabric lines seem so far from the things I love about Gee's Bend. Am I being narrow minded? Maybe it's just a way to make the aesthetic more accessible to people who have trouble working in a liberated way? Maybe it's positive because it's ostensibly making money for Gee's Bend (says they "partnered with the Gee's Bend Quilter's Collective). What do you think?

London Step

2009-08-26T07:50:00.000-05:00

I am no longer trying to reduce my fabric accumulation by getting rid of fabric.* I will only reduce my stash by using what I have and not buying anything new. Here's why: I can't get rid of fabric. As soon as I get a pile of fabric together that I have convinced myself I can part with, I am inspired to make something with it. Yes, there is something about seeing all that unloved, rejected fabric together in the same place that inspires me. Contrary to popular believe, this is NOT because I'm trying to get rid of fabric that is beautiful, or that I love or even like, or that on its own inspires me. Each individual piece of fabric in the pile is ugly, weird, or minimally it's boring, and almost all of it is of questionable quality. Every individual piece I can look at and say, "Oh yeah, I can get rid of this!" That's how it got into the pile, after all. I guess it's the pile that gets me. Once I see it all together I say to myself, "you know what I could do with all this..." and the wheels start turning. And it's all over.

So maybe I should just try getting rid of my nice fabric??

This is the first project inspired by "the pile". It is based on a photo of a quilt in the book "Bold Improvisation." If you get a chance to look at that book, I highly recommend it. I got it for my mother for Christmas and have been enjoying it ever since! There are many quilts in there that give me ideas. One in a zig-zag/rail fence pattern called "London Step" kind of jumped off the page at me, and I am doing an interpretation of it.

Obviously it is a pretty free-style piece. I did no planning in terms of the fabric combinations and colors (do I even need to tell you that?). I didn't attempt to directly replicate the blocks/color combos in the inspiration quilt, but tried to get the same random "using up odds and ends" feel. I have used at least four fabrics so far that are not quilting cottons - some flannel from an old sheet, a stretch twill, a corduroy, and some pillow case fabric. This is the first time I have mixed so many fabrics, so we'll see how it goes. I think this is slightly more than half the number of blocks I will end up doing...

Well, the good news is that while I'm busy being inspired by my junk fabric, for the most part I have been realllllly good about not buying new fabric. Ever since I spent my Christmas gift certificate, I have only made a few small fabric purchases - a few yards of black and grey broadcloth, two or three 50% off remnants, and maybe two other pieces of yardage and one fat quarter. I mean we're talking about a time period of more than SIX MONTHS, so I definitely think I'm doing pretty well. And I've decided that if I continue to be good about not buying fabric for about another, you know, year or so, then I will buy myself some frivolous things as a treat. In the meantime I'm going to try to focus on USING WHAT I HAVE!! That means I need to get sewing....................

*Watch this space for posts in which I resolve to reduce my fabric accumulation by getting rid of fabric.

Historical Design

2009-08-19T21:12:00.003-05:00

While it's pretty blurry in this picture, under the framed mirror next to the window is Mary Todd Lincoln's sewing table at the Lincoln Home in Springfield Illinois where the Lincolns lived for about 17 years before they moved to the White House. On the tour they told us it was where she did all the family's sewing. I was the only visitor snapping pictures of the carpeting, but the designs were so great that I just had to share. Wish I'd gotten more of the wallpaper.

Gifted

2009-08-19T17:47:00.000-05:00

I have not had much to share the past few weeks partly because I was rushing to finish two quilts that were both gifted this weekend. I traveled out of town to a wedding and one quilt went to the bride & groom while the other went to some friends who hosted me along the way. I was in such a mad rush the day I left on the trip that I only had time to take a few quick pictures. They did not come out very well, but they're all I've got!

This first quilt is made with a set of charm squares from So You Sew Fun II line from RJR. I bought them half price from the Fat Quarter Shoppe. I'm sure many of us have done this because charm square packs are not very expensive in the first place, and then when they go on sale they seem like a very affordable price for a little piece of inspiration. Although I'm sure there are a million things you can do with them, I'm not sure if they really fit into my personal way of working. (Maybe I need to be more creative.) However, I think this quilt works no matter how simple the design may be, and it has a modern feel to it that I thought would be good for the college friends who hosted me the first night of my journey. They are good friends and the quilt was less of a hostess gift and more of a "good friends" gift.

The second gift was this improv log cabin quilt I posted about recently. This quilt went from beginning to end in a very short span of time! At least by my standards. It is hand quilted with black #8 pearl cotton in a baptist fan pattern. The quilting went so quickly! Those baptists knew what they were doing. Of course I did not mark the fans at all so they are pretty wonky in some places, but I think it works with the overall feel of the quilt. This went to the bride & groom, and I hope they will like it.

(This quilt actually quite possibly lays flatter than any quilt I've ever made, but the wind was blowing it in this picure).

Me at Sisters!

2009-07-29T08:35:00.003-05:00

This is too fun not to share - turns out I made a small tiny contribution to the Sisters quilt show! Dionne, one of the people I swapped quilt blocks with for this swap finished her blocks into a quilt and the quilt hung in the show! You can check it out here - it looks so great!

My block is on the far left side, third down from the top. Looks like this:

Thanks Dionne!

256 Square Inches

2009-07-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

252 one inch squares (1.5" unfinished) + about a week of on-and-off sewing = this piece:

All that work for a piece that is smaller than a fat quarter! That's my pin cushion on it for scale. I have so much additional respect for people who make full size quilts out of squares this small, like this one for example!

Of course a big part of the reason why it took me so long is that I planned the layout and every square had a specific place I wanted it to be. That meant I couldn't do too much chain piecing because I felt I would quickly get confused about what went where. I could imagine that working in a less planned way would go faster, but no matter what it would be time consuming!

The sad thing is I would like to conclude from that that I shouldn't bother saving scraps this small anymore, but I probably will. I actually kind of liked it, and I could see myself doing this again. Oh the horror.

This quilt is somewhat reminiscent of this one, except that those were five inch squares. I will probably end up doing one in every possible size. Why not.

If anyone thinks that this looks super fun, I have a bag of one inch squares I can send you. I don't know how many squares are in it, but enough to make a good start I think. I'll send it to the first person to express interest, if anyone does!

Another Quilted Garden

2009-07-15T12:32:00.000-05:00

I am back in Illinois after a very pleasant trip to Texas. Shortly after returning I finished this quilt that I've been hand quilting since February or so. It was almost completely done before my trip. I only had about half the binding left to sew down, so I got that done fairly quickly after getting back.

This quilt is really a collaboration between me and my Aunt. She did the hard part - she needle turn appliqued all of the gorgeous flower blocks and gave them to me as a gift. I assembled the top and did the quilting.

I think the quilt is 60 x 90ish. It is photographed on a queen size bed here. I think it would probably fit a twin bed pretty nicely.

As much as I love this quilt (and I do), after hand quilting two predominantly yellow quilts in a row I am feeling very ready to work with another color for a while!

I have been slow getting back into my old routines since returning from my trip - namely sewing, blogging, and reading blogs. In the last two weeks I found and started a summer job and signed up to do some volunteering, and those things have taken up most of my time. I think I will continue to ease back into things.

Rose Garden

2009-06-13T18:07:00.002-05:00

I am safely arrived in Texas, so it's safe to say that you may not hear lots from me in coming days/weeks. Before leaving Illinois I did manage to finish patching the blown out seams on the project I mentioned in my previous post.

This top was sewn many years ago, but has languished in the closet forever due to my lack of quilting skills. Because it is foundation pieced on muslin, I thought it would be too thick for hand quilting. At the time I made it I didn't yet machine quilt, and when I started machine quilting I didn't think I was good enough to work on this, since I'm particularly fond of it. Now my machine quilting skills are slightly better, but more importantly I decided I would rather have it finally finished so it can be enjoyed.

I'm fairly happy with the quilting, but the good news is that you can barely see most of it, anyway. There is a grid of wavy lines in the center section, and a vine in the border (no leaves).

Most of my photos did not turn out great, but the thing I love about this quilt is hard to capture in photos anyway - the texture created by using the stitch-and-flip method to create the field of green surrounding the flowers. I got the idea to make flowers this way when I was sewing my crazy quilt, which used the stitch-and-flip method. Revisiting this project made me want to think creatively about other ways to use the same method to create different effects.

If I come across anything interesting and fiber related down here I will post, otherwise I'll be back in a bit. I will try to find time to read blogs, too, but if you don't hear from me for a while, know that I promise to catch up later.

Strips

2009-06-04T13:11:00.004-05:00

Here are two simple baby quilt tops I did last week. When doing my scrap organizing project a while back I set aside any strips that were selvage to selvage. I had fun putting them together in different combinations, and these are the results. I thought about adding borders or other additional elements, but I think I've decided that I like them as is, simple though they may be.

In other news, school is just about out for the summer meaning no more work for a substitute. I've decided to head back to the shelter in Texas for part of the summer to visit and help out. I leave next Wednesday. I'm not sure how long I will be gone for, but things my be a little quiet around here in the meantime. Of course you never know! I do hope to have one or maybe two more things to post soon. I have one project that is quilted and even bound, but unfortunately I found not one, not two, but three blown out seams when I was doing the quilting! Some patching is going to have to happen before it is considered "finished". I'm trying to force myself to get that done so I can share it, because it's a project I'm really excited about. Maybe I will be able to get to that today. Stay tuned!

Hope you're all gearing up for a great summer!

Going With The Flow

2009-05-19T18:17:00.011-05:00

Remember this free-pieced project? And how I was trying to finish it or something? I decided I had "enough" units, I trimmed them to size, and then I started trying to come up with some kind of layout for them. Still working on that.

In the meantime I looked at the remaining scraps that I had set aside for that project and noticed that I had a lot of long strips of various widths left. A few seams later:

(This is actually before I sewed the blocks together, but it looks the same.)

I guess the best way to describe this block is improv log cabin. I tried to follow somewhat of a log cabin pattern, but obviously there's no real plan for the colors and the strips are all different widths. It's a little busy, but I really didn't want to sash the blocks. I think it works, though!

Scrap Pinwheels

2009-05-06T21:19:00.002-05:00

I have mostly lost all focus on whatever it was I was trying to accomplish and am now just messing around and experimenting. Exhibit A:

Perhaps there is a method to my madness. More to come...?

Still More Hearts!

2009-04-30T06:43:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite heart quilts. It is made by my mother, and since she had it sitting out I decided to snap a few pictures and share it with you all.

Obviously the few appliqued red hearts jump out at you the most, but the majority of the hearts are in the quilting. Every solid square has a heart quilted in it.

Hi Mom!

Spring Cleaning

2009-04-17T09:09:00.003-05:00

So I have been cleaning. I should say I have been trying to clean. I have been sorting through my huge overflowing piles of fabric and supplies, trying to turn a critical eye towards it all and decide what I MUST have and what I can get rid of. I've spent some time this year reflecting on the topic of stash and whether or not I need to reduce mine. While logically I can easily talk myself into keeping it all because it is all a part of the creative process, I finally realized that I WANT to reduce the amount of stuff I have. At the end of the day it feels out of control to me and feels like a burden. I think I will be happier if I reduce. In the same vein, my wardrobe is also on the chopping block. My book collection will very likely be next.

The problem is that I keep coming across certain supplies and thinking - I will just whip this up into a quick project in order to move it out of my stash. And the problem with THAT is that "whip this up into a quick project" is not really something I do.

Case in point: a set of five heart-themed blocks made by a friend of my mother's in the 80s. Mom was going to get rid of them, and since I am incapable of resisting a heart theme, I had to take them. So then I came across them while cleaning the other day and thought...that's right, "I'll just whip this up into a quick project." After all, in this case much of the work was already done for me.

Problem is, I wanted to try to modernize the blocks with the setting, but I was having a hard time thinking of a good way to do that, and that was impeding with the whole "quick" part of the process. In the end I decided to go with something simple - if it looks like it could be from the 80s, well so much the better, I say. Parts of it look a bit brown in this picture, but the colors are really mauve-y pinks. I was planning to put more borders on to make it more of a medallion style, but when I finished the first border it was a nice size for a baby quilt and honestly just looked finished to me. And it's well suited for a baby quilt, so I thought why not just go with it.

Here's a close up of this block that doesn't show up very well in the overall shot (even here it doesn't show that clearly - it so hard to photograph those subtle colors!):

Quilt Spectrum

2009-04-10T12:34:00.003-05:00

Here are a few pictures from the local guild quilt show that was last weekend. While I love the "big" quilt shows, I also enjoy guild shows that are focused on letting members show off, regardless of if they are doing flawless "show quality" work or not. Let's face it, most of us aren't, including me!

Lauren's Choice by Susan Carney. The maker had her five-year-old pick out the fabrics for this and I think she did a really great job.

Lincoln Museum Quilt by Connie Guhlstorf

Churn Dash by Barbara Miller and friends - the churn dash blocks were a 60th birthday present from many friends.

The Art of This Quilt by Kimberly Travers

No Polar Bears Allowed by Georgia Cluver Dawson. The upper section was part of the guild's progressive quilts program. The beluga whales are an original design.

My Oldest Work In Progress

2009-04-04T10:53:00.001-05:00

Remember the grunge phase that swept the nation in the early nineties? Smells like teen spirit? Long hair? Ripped jeans? That was the context (umm...sort of! not really!) for this quilt. As a junior high school student at the time I went through a few years where I wore flannel shirts and hiking boots almost exclusively. It was around that time that my mom got me going on this quilt, probably as a way to keep me entertained in the summer, probably when I was eleven or twelve. It helped that I was also a little horse crazy (this was not related to the grunge movement as far as I know). I did the buttonhole stitch applique and embellishment (ears, eyes, and tail) on all the blocks at that time and set them all together without the borders, but that's as far as I got. Then it got moved from box to box to closet for about fourteen years.

Years later when I began to get seriously interested in quilting I hunted around for this project intending to finish it. All it needed was the borders for the top to be completed, but somehow when you've been not working on a project for over ten years it is easy to continue to not work on it. However, I had it specifically in mind when I went through my beginning of the year assessment and goal setting this year, and I bought the border fabric the first week in January. Now at last the borders are on and I can put it in the queue to be quilted. I haven't decided if I want to do it by hand or machine.

It's a different look from most of what I'm doing these days, but I guess you can probably expect that from fourteen year old works in progress...

They Call It Madness

2009-03-27T16:36:00.000-05:00

Does this look like a basketball to you?

I have been working on a lot of different things (obviously), and jumping from project to project a lot. I started cutting drunkard's path pieces during my big scrap cutting marathon a while back. Last weekend I needed something to do with my hands while watching the first action packed weekend of the NCAA tournament, so I spent the time clipping and pinning drunkard's path units - because the clipping and pinning part takes for-ev-er. Sewing them once they are prepped is a pretty fast process, but the prepping...not so much.

I have only been planning on doing a small project - a baby quilt, I imagined - but since the largest units I can make with the templates I have are 4" unfinished, even a small project takes a lot of units. I decided to do 64, and got most of them done last weekend.

I was planning all along to do a traditional drunkard's path layout, but...come to find out that for that layout you're supposed to alternate the dark and light on the quarter circle and the arc. That is, half the units have a dark quarter circle and the other half have a light quarter circle. I did them all dark, with white arcs. Umm...duh? Sadly that never occurred to me - it wouldn't have been any problem to do 32 of each, but now that I have 64 of one kind of unit I do not think I'm going to make 64 more unless I can't find a nice layout for the ones I've got.

Soooo, I spent some time today trying out different layouts and snapping pics so that I could compare them and see if there's one I like. I actually have a book about drunkard's path quilts in hand, and I found a few traditional layouts that use only one kind of unit. These units need to be trimmed and steamed into submission, and I also didn't pay too much attention to color placement in these pics. You get the general idea, though.

This one is called "Baby Bunting"

"Anna Dancing"

"Around the World"

I like the first two the best. I did a couple others, too, but did not like them as much. Of course, I certainly haven't exhausted my layout options. Once you start playing around with this things the possibilities are pretty limitless. I will continue to contemplate this for a while. Still enjoying the tourney this weekend, but as of this evening my bracket is officially BUSTED.

A Successful Experiment

2009-03-22T09:15:00.000-05:00

My Color Block Quilt made from t-shirt scraps is quilted and bound. I love the way it turned out. I wish there was some way I could photograph the texture, or that you could reach through your screen and touch it. It is backed with a thick flannel sheet and the end product is super soft and cuddly. I think this would be a great gift quilt - perfect for going off to college or a first apartment. This particular version would be great for a guy, too.

See, cuddly:

When making more traditional t-shirt quilts, I back the designs I want to use with featherweight fusible interfacing to stabilize them during construction. For this experiment I heavily starched the fabric instead of using interfacing. I was hoping that this would make the fabric manageable to piece with but, since when it was all finished it would wash out, the fabric would retain all its t-shirt character (I guess rinse away interfacing would be an option, too).

I also used fusible batting (scraps) - in this case it was a particularly apt application of the product, because it further immobilized the knit fabric to keep it from pulling around during quilting. Once washed and dried it does have a great texture, the jersey fabric stayed soft, and the top is flat. The flannel on the back actually moved around more than the knit during quilting, since I paid less attention to it (unfortunately). (As so often happens when machine quilting, the back is my least favorite part of this quilt.)

It is 48"x60". A nice throw size. So long story short, I am pleased with the results of this experiment, and am already brainstorming the pattern for the remaining t-shirt scraps I have...still a lot. While you're waiting for that, you can hop over to see Michael's experiment with t-shirt fabric, and the other cool things he is doing with scraps.

The Fabric Makes the Quilt

2009-03-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

While I do have a few things I'm still trying to be focused on finishing, it looks like I am kind of shifting into "starting" mode again. As per my '09 resolutions, I am trying to prioritize what I start and think about which projects are really most important to me. One thing I am very determined to start is a memory quilt based on my trip to Namibia (a mere seven years ago). While I was there I bought these strips of folk art embroidery done by members of a women's cooperative.

The strips are about 40" long and 6" tall. I have a pile of fabrics for this quilt that I selected, I don't know, about five or six years ago. I was reading Roberta Horton's "The Fabric Makes the Quilt" at the time. I've been waiting for the fabric to make the quilt ever since. Maybe I was supposed to leave it out by the machine with a rotary cutter nearby?

But seriously folks. I like that book and found it inspirational like most of Roberta's books that I've read. Nevertheless I have yet to be able to tap into the quilt that the fabrics and these embroideries want to be. My original idea was to make a row quilt where I would leave these strips uncut and mix them in with rows of piecing. I still might do that. I'm worried that there might be too much white space. I could also cut the strips up, probably into a variety of sizes to keep designs intact.

I know you might be thinking...after seven years if she hasn't made this quilt, how much does she really care about it? I do, though. I really want it to happen, so I'm determined to make some kind of start on it. The reason I never have yet is, I think, due to that certain lack of vision. Quilters block. What have you. But I have lots of fabric, so I think I will just start cutting and sewing and see what I come up with. Hopefully in doing so I'll be able to strike upon some kind of plan.

On an unrelated note, look what I got from Dionne! A little taste of the tropics...I love it.

When Scraps Take Over

2009-03-11T06:57:00.001-05:00

You may have been worried when you read about me cutting all my scraps up that I wouldn't have anything left for free pieced projects (like this one). No need to worry, I had a whole set of other scraps set aside for this project. I started this a while ago and have been thinking of it as a long term project - there wasn't exactly a goal or end in sight, just piecing scraps together at random until they become something. When I started it I thought it would be a good project to have on hand to just work on now and then, when I had time, when I needed a mental break, etc. It takes no planning since it's all random, so it should be easy to pick up at anytime. It's also a good creative boost because it is so free and spur of the moment.

The reality has been that I haven't worked on it very much. The only part I've consistently worked on is adding blue, green, and purple scraps to the pile. Now I've gotten it all out and put it by the machine (actually it's basically eaten the machine and the surrounding area) and I'm feeling like I may just want to work on it till it's done. I'm beginning to think there may be more than one quilt here. I had originally imagined creating a lot of units of different sizes and shapes and setting them together with thin black sashing so they look somewhat like a mosaic. I may or may not do that, but I'm starting to have other ideas, too.

These pictures cover only a few of the units and blocks that I currently have. I don't know how many scraps I started with, but I definitely still have plenty.

Pillow Case Quilt

2009-03-07T11:42:00.000-06:00

This is another experiment in recycled fabrics. The top is made from six different pillowcases obtained from the linen closet clean out at the shelter. The back is an old flannel sheet retired from regular use. I used batting scraps and yardage from my stash for the binding.

The top section of the top is one pillowcase with a continuous design that I wanted to preserve. I kept the original seam in the middle. The colors are very subtle, so it was hard to photograph. It is a floral design that is solid across the bottom of the pillowcase and continues towards the top, but fades away. You can somewhat see the quilting in the top section, which I am pretty happy with because it is the first time I have done any machine quilting that wasn't just straight lines.

I learned a lot in making this, especially about working with poly/cotton blends. For example, you have to use a cooler iron. Yes, I am sure that's probably obvious to other people, but I did not quite catch on right away. Also, I don't know if it was the fiber content, the weight of the fabrics, the too hot iron, or...?, but it did not work terribly well with the fusible batting scraps I used. I normally like fusible batting and have used it almost exclusively, but I had to patch over stains from the fusible in a couple of places. (Having your iron the right temperature is crucial with fusible batting, and I think I needed to lower the temperature even more for these fabrics).

Not my usual colors, but it is a gift for a friend's 30th birthday next week. I think she will like it. About 50"x60".

Collaborations

2009-02-26T21:17:00.000-06:00

Here it is! I did go with the yellow, which was perhaps a slightly more popular option. It really took me forever to decide, though, even with everyone's advice. I'm happy with it. I am thinking about making another, and possibly a larger older child version. In the meantime this one will be getting in the mail to Debra.

(If you are fascinated there are a million pictures of this on flickr. Let's just say that I am fascinated, probably too much so.)

Also, I have received nine of the eleven blocks I will get from the lap quilt swap on craftster. I need to make one for myself for a total of twelve. Here's what I've got so far:

I think they have a lot of potential! I have a million ideas for possible settings, so it will take some thought and some trial and error to decide how to put them together. Of course I can't really make any decisions about that until I have them all in hand. If you would be interested in participating in a future round of this swap, I suggest you join craftster ASAP, because there is a requirement that you must have been a member for thirty days (and post a certain number of times) before you can participate in a swap. Not sure when the next round will start, but if you join now I think you will probably be in time.

Life got very busy the last two weeks, or at least very busy compared to what it had been immediately before. My interview went smoothly. I haven't heard back about it, but I also at this point feel like the job would not be a very good fit. I also took another trip to Chicago just to visit and hang out with friends, and continued and finished up my two weeks of subbing for the ESL teacher. This weekend my Grandma and Aunt will be in town, and next week I start an eight day sub job in the bilingual k/1st room. Today, at least, I can stay in my PJs for a while.

To Border or Not To Border

2009-02-15T15:25:00.000-06:00

This is the baby quilt top I'm working on for Debra's project to make quilts for pregnant teens. My original idea for this quilt ended up not looking very good, so I took the pieces I already had cut out and brainstormed a way to make them work together. After trying many things this is what I came up with. I do think that it seems finished as is. However it is 36" square, so maybe a little small for a baby quilt. I'm not completely opposed to a border, either. A four inch border would make it 44" square. The border could be one of these:

What do you think?? Border or no border? One of these borders or a different one? (I've auditioned some other border choices, but these were my two favorites so far.) I also thought about adding something on the top and bottom to make it longer but not wider, however I can't really visualize it.

Thanks to everyone who played along in my game of "What is this quilt?" It gave me a lot of food for thought. I was interested to find out that so many people thought the second one would make a good baby quilt, so I begin to see it that way again. On the other hand, I also like the idea of maybe adding more borders to make it into a larger piece. I guess I will continue to sit with it for a while.

I'm in the middle of two week sub job, and also have a job interview in Chicago on Tuesday, so I'm keeping a little busy at the moment.

Happy Heart Quilt

2009-02-11T20:21:00.000-06:00

Now I return you to the previous appliqued heart quilt, recently quilted and bound. I didn't specifically plan this to be a Valentine's quilt, but when I started hand quilting it in December I realized that I would probably finish it around this time. Now I realize that it probably is a Valentine's quilt - maybe that should have been obvious? Valentine's Day is perhaps a controversial holiday at times, but personally I love it. Maybe to me it is more of a celebration of the heart motif and the colors red and pink, all of which I love. If you doubt that statement, this quilt should be proof enough. I definitely love these things year round, but I'm perfectly satisfied to have a chance to celebrate them now and then.

This quilt will always remind me of my semester in Mexico when much of this handwork was done. My host mother really loved the project; I wish she could see it now.

I will probably not be able to get nice natural light pictures of this until Saturday, and I didn't want to wait that long to share it. These will have to do for now.

Want to Play?

2009-02-08T12:39:00.000-06:00

Anyone want to play "what is this quilt"?

I admit that I am one of those people that thinks a quilt should "be" something - a lap quilt, a wall hanging, a throw, a table cover...doesn't matter what it is but it needs to be something. That being said, I don't always make quilts with that in mind. Some quilts I make just to make, because it is something I want to try. And sometimes that leaves me asking...what is this quilt?

Are you ready to play? Okay, here we go...

What is this quilt?

It is 52" square. When I made this I was thinking baby quilt. Since then I have sort of moved away from the idea that any quilt that is baby quilt sized can be considered a baby quilt. I think there are probably some mothers with certain sensibilities who would like this as a baby quilt, but I'm not sure if I know those mothers. It just seems a little too sophisticated, maybe...? On the other hand, it's a little to small to be a good throw. It might work as a wall hanging/decor piece for someone, but again I don't think it's anyone I know. All the white makes me think it wouldn't look good on white walls, but in that case what color walls would it look good on? I actually really like this quilt, but I have no idea what to do with it.

Next up:

What is this quilt?

I've blogged this quilt top before in the early days of Quilty the Libster. It is about 40 odd inches square. At the time I thought it too would be a baby quilt, I guess because of the size, but similar to the previous quilt it no longer seems very "baby" to me. I cannot really envision the mother or the baby that I would give this too. In fact, this is a very quirky quilt, and although I do like it personally I also feel like...maybe it's a little funny looking? Maybe it's one of those quilts that only its maker can love. Anyway, I am thinking about finishing it, but part of me doesn't want to finish it until I have a better sense of what it's going to "be".

So what do you think? Do quilts have to "be" something? Can they just be? Any idea what these quilts are?

(This kind of reminds me of when one of my friends was graduating with a BA in English and her mom said everyone in their small town was asking her what N. was going to "be" when she graduated? Such as a teacher, doctor, lawyer etc. Her mom said that she will "be" educated...isn't that the point of going to school?)

Conversation Hearts

2009-02-02T12:05:00.000-06:00

Remember what I was saying about my love for appliqued heart quilts? Well here is the second one I have made, although it is only a top at this point. I put the border on it last night, after much deliberation about what it should be. I had planned to make a lot more of these hearts for a throw sized quilt, but I decided it would be much cuter as a baby quilt. I think I was right. I quite like it this size. It's about 35"x40".

I'm definitely not going to finish this right away. I think because of all the hand work it will have to wait for an extra special baby. I have been calling this project "Conversation Hearts" due to...the hearts being made out of conversational prints. I know, I know...how do I come up with these things??

A Flash From the Quilting Past

2009-01-29T11:32:00.000-06:00

I wrote this picture dense post for Rejoice Always in January of '07, and even though I completely finished it at the time I just saved it as a draft and never published it. I'm not sure why. I think it's time it saw the light of day...

January 14, 2007

I spent Monday putting together a small challenge quilt to be auctioned off for Relay for Life. The challenge was to make a quilt featuring the color pink no more than 100'' all the way around. I discovered why people like to make small quilts...I had no idea I could put a top together in a day. I thought it would be fun to do step-by-step documentation of the process. Looking back over the pics it seems like I took a picture every two seconds at first and then towards the middle and end kept forgetting to take them, so there are some gaps in the documentation.

I started by sorting through my scrap box for any and all usable scraps. Comments on this step in the process: 1) Yes, I need a better system for my scraps, but that's a project for another day off. 2) My scraps look so red and blue...which I guess is why I didn't find too too many usable scraps for this particular project.

OK, here are my usable scraps pressed and ready to go. Now I look at them and start sewing them together pretty randomly based on which ones look similar in size and look nice next to each other. I trim liberally.

By the time I completed this unit below, I had pretty much exhausted my scraps and it seemed like a good place to stop. I broke for a cup of tea.

I had pulled every pink, spring green, and grey fabric in my stash and after my tea break I went through them and made my final choices for what fabrics I would use for the rest of the quilt top, pictured here:

Then, in the longest most tedious step of the process I pressed each piece of fabric and cut one strip from it, at a random widths. Most were straight although I cut a few intentionally off grain.

Then I added strips to my scrappy unit:

Then, using the scraps from the strips I just added to the scrappy unit (are you with me here?) I did this part to add in:

The finished top:

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Edited to add this picture of the final quilt, hand quilted with baptist fans:

Art Video

2009-01-26T09:35:00.000-06:00

I realize that it would be smart to tackle the scraps a little bit at a time. That was, in fact, my plan. But now that I am so immersed in it, I find I have a single minded determination, and an unwillingness to do anything else. At all. (Except blog, apparently.) I have a cramp in my left hand, a blister on my right hand, and a pain in my back, but I feel I cannot rest until every last scrap is cut to size and sorted into its appropriate pile. And since I didn't get called to sub Thursday, Friday, or today, I have been a scrap cutting machine (possibly at the expense of some other things I probably *should* be doing, but why get into that???) I think I may have a problem.

Anyway, I'm taking a short break to share with you this video that I saw on this blog.

I've been thinking a lot lately about art and what it means to be an artist. And I really like this video. So yeah.

Scraps

2009-01-23T10:26:00.000-06:00

The great scrap organizing project of '09 continues.

A pile of 1.5" squares:

I have no ambitions to make a king size "postage stamp" quilt in which no two squares are alike. Nothing like that. But there seem to be a lot of people on craftster tackling these, so I thought I would package up some squares and small scraps to give away, and figured I might as well cut one set for me to play with...

Drunkard's Path pieces:

This is to be my experiment in curved piecing. I decided to start small; a girl baby quilt from scraps.

This morning or today I should finish up the scrap overflow box. Ahem. Yes, that means I haven't actually touched the so-full-it-barely-closes scrap box yet.

A Bright Moment

2009-01-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

If you are snowed in, iced in, freezing, sub-freezing, or even just cloudy, here is a little dose of bright for you.

This top has been waiting for borders for a long time, but I wasn't sure what fabric to use or how to do them. Since this is a charm pack I wanted to use some fabric from that line, but I can't remember the name of the line and couldn't find any of the fabrics anywhere I looked. (And I was afraid to look too hard, because once I start looking at fabric I will start buying fabric. This has been proven.) I found this Laurel Burch print with the right colors, and it works for me. With squares laid out in a square, a square quilt seemed fitting. Pretty simple.

About 60" square. I have a suspicion of who might have it on their couch someday, but time will tell.

Bleh - I usually don't name quilts, but then it is harder to talk about them. Anyone else have that problem?

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In other news, Dionne tagged me to share six interesting/quirky things about myself. Why is this so much harder than it seems like it would be??

1. I don't own a computer and haven't for five or six years. I have relied on computer labs, libraries, and generous friends and relatives. Plus at the shelter we had a couple of community computers. It seems a bit weird that I've never owned a computer in the whole time I've been blogging (nearly four years).

2. I like almost all animals, including pigeons, squirrels, mice, and other frequently maligned species.

3. I have travelled to five of the seven continents since high school, and hope to hit the other two (South America and Antarctica) before I die. I took 2.5 years off between high school and college and spent that time working full time and spending the $$ traveling (even though I sometimes told people I was saving for college).

4. I worked in restaurants as a cook for years during high school and college. I strongly considered going to culinary school and I still really miss being in the restaurant environment.

5. I think tree houses are really really cool, especially the ones that adult people actually live in (or stay in occasionally).

6. Many of you know this, but I just spent a year as a full time volunteer at a homeless shelter on the U.S./Mexico border.

Here in central IL we fall into the sub-freezing category. School was cancelled yesterday and today due to the extreme cold and wind chills. It's been a slow week for me.

Three More

2009-01-13T17:43:00.000-06:00

I have finished my last three blocks to send out for the craftster block swap:

Bachelor's Puzzle

Basket

Butterflies

I have six packets to pack up and put in the mail, then I can sit back and wait for my blocks to roll in. I technically still have one more block to make, for my own quilt, but I'm going to wait until I see more of the blocks I will be receiving so that I can makes something that "fits" or "balances" or whatever is needed.

I haven't done any embroidery for a long while, and doing the butterflies for that last block reminded me how much I enjoy it. Plus, it is so cute! It makes me want to start an embroidery centered project...we'll see what becomes of that :)

My mind is really whirring with ideas right now and I'm really not sure what I want to work on.

Tracking Compliance

2009-01-09T17:01:00.000-06:00

In which we track the affect of the resolutions on my life in the short time period before I inevitably forget about them.

I went to my LQS the other day, armed with a gift certificate I got for Christmas. My LQS is a crazy place. It is a tiny space absolutely CRAMMED sooooo full of fabric, books, fabric, notions, and fabric that two people can barely pass each other in the aisles. Half the merchandise is covered by other merchandise. I love it on a certain level, but it's pretty impractical. Often when I go in there I get seduced by the half price fabrics. The last time I went before this I spent way too much money on 1/2 price Jinny Beyer and Nancy Clark prints that are probably like 10-15 years old. The owner of this shop never gets rid of anything. But with my gift certificate I thought I should indulge in full price fabric, since all regular price fabric was 25% off anyway.

So anyway, shortly after I started looking around I remembered my resolution about buying fabric to fill in holes in my stash. That's a good goal, I just realized that I'm not entirely clear on what the holes REALLY are. I never really know what I need until I'm doing a project that calls for a certain thing and I don't have it. I thought about my list in my resolutions post. I mean yes, greys and oranges are areas of need that I identified a while ago, but I've been buying them for a while so I don't really feel that desperate for them anymore. Chocolate browns I really want and don't have, but the ones I looked at in the shop didn't really strike my fancy. Solids I could probably get a better deal on at a chain shop that sells Kona. And polka dots? Are polka dots really a need??

I hope so, cause that's what I bought. Polka dots, border fabric for one of the soon-to-be-finished tops that was only waiting on border fabric (got fabric for the other one later), and a couple of pieces that I just loved. After all, it was a gift certificate. I have the right to buy SOME stuff just for fun if it's a gift.

Dots. Why do I love them so?

Border fabric on the left, useless multi-color prints that I love*, and Beatrix Potter fabric.

*Not really useless, I suppose, but this is exactly the kind of thing that I am ALWAYS buying and don't need.

I've started cutting and sorting scraps for seven, count 'em seven, scrap quilts. I made a list of scrap projects I want to do, figuring that I could cut several at once. There were too many, so I pared it down to the most essential seven. I don't have my scraps organized in any way, because I enjoy the process of digging through the bin and cutting and sorting when I'm ready to do a project like this. Doing seven at once is going to take a while, but so far I'm enjoying it. I need to clear off the table in the bedroom so that I can leave the cutting project spread out there, rather than putting it all away at the end of every session. The table is intentionally covered in my Texas scrapbook project, because I want to force myself to finish it. It is not a "fancy" scrapbook in any way. There is nary a sticker or a bit of decorative paper to be found. I just want to put pictures and memorabilia into a book in the plainest fastest way, and it's taking me forever. But, wanting to use that table for something else is a pretty good motivator.

Resolutions and the State of the Stash

2008-12-31T11:29:00.000-06:00

So here're my quilting/crafting related resolutions, plus an assessment of where I stand on current projects and a reflection on my stash. In some ways this long post is really more for me than for my readers, so if you don't feel like reading all this, scroll down for a couple of pictures.

Resolutions

Buying fabric - I really do want to minimize the amount of fabric that I buy, but since I doubt that I will be able to stop completely, I want to focus on only buying things that fill in holes in my stash: browns, greys, oranges, bigger pieces, polka dots, solids. And some other stuff that I probably haven't thought of yet. More on stash below.
Finishing - this will just be the continuation of what has already been going on lately for me. I will continue to make finishing older projects a priority.
Prioritizing projects - when I start new things they need to be the projects I am most committed to, not necessarily the funnest sounding new thing I just thought of. I have at least one typed page of project ideas, and that is only the titles with maybe a couple word description. We're not talking paragraphs or anything. I will probably continue to have new ideas. As the speed of my ideas seems to outpace the speed of my production, I need to prioritize what I work on. (That said, some scrap projects will have to be a priority, as I am drowning in scraps.) I kind of have a sense of which long languishing ideas need to be a priority, but as they're probably only meaningful to me at this point, you all will just have to stay tuned.
Trying new things - I really want to push myself to try new techniques. Things like curved piecing, working with diamonds, set-in seams, applique with more than one shape, etc. I think it will be good for me to challenge myself. I have been planning a drunkard's path quilt to push myself into curved piecing territory, so that is going to be a priority, see above.
Learn to free motion quilt - I have saved batting scraps for practice, and I have at least one quilt top that I'm pretty indifferent to that I've been saving to be my first practice top. It's just a matter of actually getting going, not that anything in particular is stopping me...
Work on not-quilting crafts - I have a small list of other projects that I want to do. It's so much harder to get started on things I don't do regularly, and so easy to work on quilting because it's familiar. But I wanna work on some other stuff, too :)

(Ahem. As for personal resolutions, finding a job and moving are at the top, bottom, and middle of the list. If I do a good job on those it will undoubtedly interrupt creative progress for a while, but that's the price you've got to pay...!)

We interrupt this word-heavy post with a picture. Block 7 of 11 for the swap:

On Stash

I realize that having a well supplied fabric stash is really part of my process, since I usually work from my stash rather than buying fabric for a new project, and I often take lots of inspiration from my materials. I think this is also why it's sooo hard for me to get rid of fabric since everything seems to have potential to me. The only thing I really have a problem with is the size of my stash. Sure, normally I'd say...the bigger the better! The real problem I have is just that I am not really settled yet, and I don't really expect to be any time soon. So having a huge amount of fabric stash means having to move it and find a new place for it with alarming frequency - in the last five years I've moved four times, and will move again as soon as I get a permanent job. Just for context, here is a picture of my fabric as I found it crammed in some storage space when I returned from Texas:

Yes, if you're looking closely there's a shoe hanging off that basket. I don't know why; this is just exactly how I found it. Oh yeah, and there was one more sweater box I found in another closet later on. And my mom gave me two boxes of fabric she is getting rid of. Of course I don't HAVE to keep it, but I haven't gone through it yet. Plus all the stuff I brought home with me from Texas. So you get the idea. I wish I could reduce the size of this just to make it more portable. Maybe I will just sort it not with the idea of getting rid of stuff (because that is too hard for me!*), exactly, but rather separating the strictly necessary from the less necessary. Then at least when I move I can focus on my energy on moving the most important stuff and decide what to do with the rest later. Like get rid of it. Or reincorporate it. (The latter is way more likely.)

*As an experiment, and because the bin wouldn't close, I went through my blues to cull whatever I could live without and would be willing to get rid of. I pulled three pieces, a fat quarter and two smaller pieces. Didn't help much. Now I'll have to try it again to cull the "less necessary".

Block 8 of 11:

On Projects

I have been fretting about having so many projects going at the same time, but when I actually sat down and took a closer look it's not really so bad. I have eight works in progress. 2 of those just need borders, but I need to find the perfect fabric and buy it, so that is currently holding me back. Hopefully when I get fabric those will be quick finishes. 4 of the wips are long term projects - things that are not on any real time frame, that I have been working on forever and will continue to work on for a long time. I don't feel and rush to power through and finish those; that's just not the kind of projects that they are. On the other hand...it's okay if they take a long time, but I do have to work on them occasionally! I won't start another project of that kind until at least one of these hits the finished top stage. 1 of the works in progress is my swap quilt, which I obviously can't do much with at this point in time since I'm still waiting for people to send me the blocks. The last of those projects is a log cabin quilt that is basically the one thing on this list I need to focus on working on and finishing. So not really that bad, right?

The finished tops list (could also be called the to be quilted list) breaks down in a similar way. There are 10 items on the list. 3 are in line to be hand quilted, and since I can only really hand quilt one thing at a time, there's not much I can do with those for now. 2 I am saving for free motion quilting practice - see above for my resolution to learn free motion. 2 are boy baby quilts (probably) so I am probably going to wait to finish them until I have someone to finish them for (probably). 2 I am not sure how I'm going to quilt them. They are both good candidates for free motion quilting, but in that case they will have to wait until I am "good enough". Otherwise I could quilt them with the walking foot, but it would probably have to be time-consuming, fussy, stitch in the ditching. So waiting to decide on those two. And lastly there is one that I am ready to baste and machine quilt anytime now and will probably work on soon.

Sooo... There you have a long explanation of where I stand creatively entering 2009. Actually there might be more, but I'll save it for another post. 2008 was such a truly wonderful year for me. My time at the shelter taught me so much and I was so blessed by the relationships and experiences I had. Even if my current state of limbo makes me feel like it's not ending on the highest note, it was a great year. I have high hopes for the adventures to be had in '09, so with that in mind...

Happy New Year! Hope you all have some fun tonight...I'm planning on it ;-)

Theatre Ts

2008-12-28T15:04:00.000-06:00

This t-shirt quilt is my final finish of the year. This is actually the first t-shirt quilt top that I made, which I put together my freshmen year of college. At the time I didn't have any knowledge of machine quilting or the necessary tools to machine quilt with, so I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the quilt for a good while. Now in my charge to finish finish finish I have finally completed it.

These are my theatre t-shirts from junior high and high school. I have had lots of different creative pursuits at different times in my life, and theatre was a very important one to me during that time of my life, including both acting and working behind the scenes. I haven't been involved in any theatre related activities for a long time, but I knew I would never be able to get rid of the t-shirts, so now I never have to. I'm happy with how it came out.

I finished seven quilts in 2008, six in the final 2.5 months of the year. Not bad, all things considered!!

Little Bits of Progress

2008-12-21T14:17:00.000-06:00

Here are the three latest blocks that I have made for the block swap. I have done six now, which means I have five to go. There are three groups of twelve people participating in the swap and some people are in all three groups meaning that they will make 33 blocks and receive 33. One group is just the right commitment level for me. I feel like I can give each group of fabrics individualized attention and choose a block that is well suited to them, rather than doing a more assembly line process (which is totally fine if that works for you, but is not my preferred way to work). I have made the bears paw variation twice and will make it at least once more, because I'm finding it's a good block for a lot of fabrics (most people sent at least 5) and allows me to highlight certain prints.

As hoped, I did some pretty basic stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on the rail fence and got it bound, wrapped up, and in the mail by Friday. The postman assured me that there is at least a chance that it will get to the recipient by Christmas. I have to admit that, backed with super soft flannel and quilted enough but no more than enough, it was soft and cuddly enough to win me over. It just goes to show that sometimes it actually is worth it to un-sew a queen size quilt top...

Because of the minimal quilting this picture does not look much different than the finished top. I really like the finished texture of a quilt that is minimally quilted and therefore not too stiff, especially for a throw quilt that is meant to be cuddled under. I do always quilt at least to the specifications of the batting, although in all honesty I might fudge it a little sometimes. I realize that a less densely quilted quilt will not have as long of a life as one that is quilted 1" apart (that is what I took away from hearing Harriet Hargrave speak, that and also that if you don't quilt your own tops you are a topper and not a quilter) but for a quilt like this I'm fine with that. If my friend enjoys it for 5-10 years I will be happy.

More machine quilting in progress...

Crayon Quilt

2008-12-15T14:56:00.000-06:00

This is what I have been hand quilting on, and I took the last stitches on the binding last night:

It's pretty cute! The blocks are hand colored by yours truly (hey, if you don't have kids just do it yourself) using Pentel pastel dye sticks. I got a box of these right around the time I started quilting and was using them to decorate t-shirts, but I just had to try doing a quilt with them. I cut out a bunch of 6" muslin squares and went to town, drawing whatever I wanted.

The designs are a kind of playful, juvenile (i.e. badly drawn in some cases), but very fitting for a crayon quilt, I think. When I finished drawing I bordered half the blocks with blue and half with green and set them together in a regular straight set, alternating blue and green. That design was kind of boring and hard to look at - busy, I guess, but not and a good way. So I took them apart and reset them into this design, which I think is a lot more dynamic.

It is backed with three conversation prints. I like the variegated rainbow binding, but I kind of wish I had chosen something that would give it a more solid frame since it doesn't have a border. It works, though.

It's about 40"x40". A few more detail pics on flickr.

This was a pretty old UFO if I originally started the blocks right around the time I started quilting. I am still powering away at finishing things. With the exception of joining the block swap (and that's a big exception), I haven't started anything new since returning to Illinois. I really want to reduce the number of projects I'm working on at any given time, but that means I have to finish a lot of the backlog first. I kind of want to be the kind of person who works on projects beginning to end - not that I will ever be the kind of person who only works on one project at a time. But a few at a time seems more manageable to me, and would minimize the number of projects that get finished 7 years after they're started - like this one. I currently have eight tops-in-progress, and 13 projects that are at least to the finished top phase or beyond. Hmmm, what shall I reduce that to??

I also kind of want to reduce my stash but that's like this whole other can of worms... I just love fabric. Too much.

Hearts

2008-12-13T09:59:00.000-06:00

Look! It's my baby quilt! As in the one that was made for me when I was a baby. Mom started quilting the year before I was born. I think she didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl so she worked on two different quilts. I don't know what happened to the boy version.

I was looking at this the other day and thinking...maybe this explains my love for appliqued heart quilts. I adore them. I have files full of pictures of them and plans to make about a hundred of them.

My first needle turn hand applique project, naturally, was a heart quilt. The top has been done for I think a couple of years, and yesterday I basted it for hand quilting.

This was the handwork project that I took with me on my semester abroad in Mexico my senior year of college. My second needle turn applique project, still in progress, is...the exact same pattern in different colors and fabrics. True story.

Stay tuned for the finished version of my current hand quilting project that I hope will be finished tomorrow at the latest.

Very Purple Rail Fence

2008-12-05T21:13:00.000-06:00

This is the worksheet the kindergartners in "my" class were doing on my first day of substitute teaching.

I finished this top today. It was previously a finished top, but first of all it was too big, and secondly I didn't like it. I had the blocks in a non-traditional rail fence layout and it just didn't work for me. And a nearly queen size quilt is really too big for a quilt in this color scheme, especially for an adult, and especially since I didn't like it. If I might finish a smaller quilt that I don't entirely like, I'll never finish a big one that I don't like. Got it? So, I un-sewed an entire large quilt top and re-sewed part of it into this. And now I like it reasonably well. I don't think rail fence will ever be one of my favorite patterns. I chose it to highlight the blocks from another printed fat quarter from Block Party Studios, which happened to be the right size/shape for this. It's 56"x63", and will brighten up the couch of one of my best friends who loves purple (and I hope isn't reading). I actually hope to finish it soon. (For Christmas?)

LQS4 on craftster

2008-11-30T15:38:00.000-06:00

So here's what's been taking up a lot of my sewing time lately: I joined a block swap. I have this thing about group projects. They always look pretty fun whenever other people are doing them. Some don't inspire me, but others honestly make me want to get involved. However, there are always sooooo many reasons not to get involved. For me the biggest one is having so many of my own projects to work on - both those I have started and the zillion and one ideas that are so far just in my head. And time is always limited, so do I want to use that time for my own projects or a group project?

After much internal debate I finally decided to join the lap quilt swap on craftster. I made 11 packets of my fabrics and sent them out to the 11 other people in my group. They will make me a block with those fabrics and send it back to me. I can add one I make myself for a 12 block set to make a lap quilt (or whatever I decide to do with them). My part is that 11 people will send me little packets of fabric and I will make a block and send it back.

I convinced myself to join by considering that I could use one of those "collections of fabric that I am always setting off to the side because they are great together but that I don't necessarily know what to do with". I was excited to finally get something made out of one of those piles. This is what I chose to use, black, white, and grey with bits of color:

The commitment is really pretty minimal; making 11 blocks in three months is pretty doable even if I'm working on other stuff, too. Plus it's a good opportunity to meet some other people on craftster. I know not everyone is a craftster person, but personally I really enjoy it. The quilting board is an inspirational place. Although there are many quilts from more conventional quilters that are lovely and often very creative, there are also lots of quilts made by hobby sewists who have never quilted before, and/or random people who just thought it would be fun to make a quilt. The result is quilting with no filter, so to speak - quilts by people who don't know the "rules", haven't conceived of the quilt police, and haven't spent tons of time looking at what other people are doing. When I first discovered it I clicked around the board for hours.

The most trying part for me, as a person who usually has a complete unconcern for accuracy, is being meticulous in my cutting, sewing, and pressing in order to make sure the blocks are exactly 12.5". I spend twice as long on this blocks as I would on blocks for myself. It's probably good for me; it definitely makes me realize (or remember) why my accuracy is usually off - I don't make my 1/4 inches very (or consistently) scant, I don't measure and trim throughout the process, I just gooooo for it. So while I doubt I will ever be this careful when sewing for myself, it may help me develop better habits.

Here are the blocks I've made so far....

S l o w n e s s

2008-11-25T17:38:00.000-06:00

**EDIT** Fixed! It was some code from a defunct website that I forgot was even on here. Thanks to my SUPER tech savvy Dad. If any of you used to use tracksy, go in manually and delete the code from your blog (on mine it was near the bottom). Otherwise that tracksy code will probably slow you down, at least on blogger but I assuming anywhere.....

A quick additional note...Quilty the Libster loads really slowly on both of the computers I use. Today I tried stripping off all the gadgets and everything I could possibly strip off and it made no difference. I have another blog with the same template also on blogger that has no bells or whistles, but is equally photo dense (or nearly) and loads fine. I'm stumped.

If you're using a feed reader it doesn't affect you that much, unless you want to click over to comment. However, it drives ME crazy, and I would like to be comment and new user friendly.

SO...does it load slowly for you all? Any other blogger users had this problem?

Color Block Quilt

2008-11-25T16:49:00.000-06:00

This is my latest finished top. It is made from the backs of the t-shirts whose fronts became this quilt for my brother. It was/is an experiment - an experiment in quilting with knits. Hey, the Gee's Benders do it. If you've ever made a t-shirt quilt you know it produces a lot of waste. As I do plan to make more t-shirt quilts I will probably investigate other potential uses for the scraps. A rag rug, perhaps? Pot holders? But up until now this experiment has by no means turned me off on the idea of quilting with knits. I will probably try it again. I would just like to learn more about sewing with knits, rather than just treating them like quilters cottons and playing the "fake it till you make it" game.

I know you're thinking, why quilt with knits if you have no real need to. I mean sure...you COULD quilt with knits, but why?

Uhh...why not? Maybe?

I can't wait to see how this quilts up, so I'm moving it sort of close to the front of the machine quilting queue. Making it third in line. So I will have to wait quite a while anyway.

The Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition

2008-11-19T09:41:00.000-06:00

Virginia O'Donnell

I went to the Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition in Schaumburg over the weekend. The show features the "World Quilt Competition" and many smaller exhibits. Mom & I went to this show two years ago and enjoyed it a lot. The previous weekend was the big Fine Art of Fiber show put on by various Chicago area guilds, which I have never been to. We could only go to one of the two and ended up choosing the Exposition because it was a more convenient weekend and easier to drive to. Did anyone go to the Fine Art of Fiber?

Well anyway, it was a good show. I didn't feel quite as "wowed" by it as I did two years ago, but it's hard to say if that's a change in the show or me. But I still thought it was worth driving two hours for. (I've never really felt that way about the Chicago IQF, which I haven't been back to since the first year.) I also feel a little sad that I left the vendor section empty handed. Half the fun of big quilt shows is coming away with something amazing and unexpected or some unbelievable deal. Nothing spoke to me, however. Again, maybe it's me?

I didn't take tons of pictures because I was running out of space on my memory card, but here's a few of my favs, and you can see the rest in my flickr set.

"My English Garden" by Susan Jensen, from the Canada section:

"Little South African Picture quilt by Gina Niederhumer of South Africa:

"North to Alaska" by Anne Joule of New Zealand:

Oh, one notable thing I saw in this show - a hand quilted all over meander. True story.

A Trip Around The World...

2008-11-17T10:41:00.000-06:00

I have finally finished my queen size Trip Around The World. If you are a long time reader with a good memory, you may recall that I was hand quilting this the summer of 2007, and trying desperately to get it finished before I moved to Texas. I came incredibly close - all I had left to do was 1/4 of the border, just one side. A little over a year later I finally finished that tiny bit of quilting, bound it, and here we are.

I really enjoyed piecing the Trip Around The World. It goes together quickly and it's really fun to see how the fabrics interact with each other in the final design. Pulling the fabric was maybe the most fun part, and I'm tempted to pull fabric for another one even though I'm not likely to make it for a long time.

With this finish I have finished three quilts in the one month since leaving Texas. This one barely counts since most of the work was already done, but I guess a finish is a finish. It's sort of funny for me to think about how I've used my time during this month. Creative activity in any form has no doubt been good for me. On the other hand, I haven't touched the scrapbook I bought for my Texas mementos. I haven't done much (hardly any) of the writing I wanted to do about my experience at the shelter. I've done some sewing, a little bit of that "trying to be serious about life", and a lot of...nothing. And by nothing I mean a lot of mindless activities that leave me wondering where my time goes. Things like minesweeper. Flipping channels. You know.

Maybe this "black hole" time (as I think of it) is just what I needed. Nevertheless, I am trying to think seriously about what I want my priorities to be and think of ways to make sure those priorities actually take priority. This period of downtime in my life is a huge blessing. I realize how privileged I am to have it and how short it's likely to be...

Ducks in the Pond/Songs in my Head

2008-11-14T13:07:00.000-06:00

As I continue to try to get serious about life (i.e. start a temporary job, do serious job searching, etc. etc.) I find my productivity in the crafty area grows and grows. Fascinating correlation, no?

I'm happy to say that this is now a finished top. It feels good to finally have reached stage 1 completion on this since it has been such a long term project.

The block, according to my source (the book "Great Lakes Great Quilts"), is Ducks in the Pond. I can't find it by that name anywhere on the internet. I was mistakenly calling it Ducks Foot in the Mud for a while, but that's a completely other block.

The two-tone border is due to lack of available yardage on hand. The first thing I thought upon laying it out to take this pic was - should have mitered the corners. It honestly had never occurred to me. But I think it's fine as is and I'm not likely to change it. It turned out to be a very purple-y quilt. From the quilt's inception all those many years ago I was planning a blue-green border. And yet when I laid that out:

I didn't really like it and ended up deciding that purple was a better fit. If I was doing it over again I think there's a good chance that I'd think about border options longer, but I do like it as is.

This is about 45" x 55".

Pinwheels For Mari

2008-11-12T13:07:00.000-06:00

This little pinwheels top that I originally blogged here is now a full fledged quilt. Baby quilts are so satisfyingly quick to finish.

I machine quilted around the blocks (about 5.5" blocks, the whole this is about 30" square) and hand quilted hearts in the a few of the setting squares.

I think it is so sweet that I basically just want to eat it. Instead I hope to send it to a woman from the shelter who just had her baby girl about 2.5 months early. Pinwheels are so cheery - high up on the list of general crowd pleasers, I would say.

Odds 'N Ends

2008-11-11T21:40:00.000-06:00

This is what I was wearing one day. Not surprisingly I love color in my wardrobe, and I think clothes are a great way to try out color combinations that you only have to live with for one day. If you like them, however, you never know what they could be the start of...

This quilt was made for me by my grandmother. She is really more of a seamstress than a quilter, and that I know of has only made a few quilts, so I'm lucky to have one. This quilt used to have a doll that went with it. There are pockets in each block that allow you to put the doll into her cradle, bath, pram, or high chair. I was WAY into dolls as a kid, so I really loved this. Sadly I'm afraid that the doll has been lost to the ages... Then again, I have enough boxes in the attic here to make it possible that she has not.

Stay tuned for more quilts from my childhood! Hi mom!

Finished Medallion Quilt

2008-11-01T18:26:00.000-05:00

Here it is, the big finish:

It is such a bright, cheerful quilt.

It's 60"x60".

I love medallion style quilts - I suspect that this will only be the first of many.

Saludos Desde Corn Country

2008-10-30T11:06:00.000-05:00

It's long past time that I let you all know what I was doing. I safely set my feet on Illinois soil two weeks ago yesterday, and during these last two weeks have been enjoying my self proclaimed vacation time (which, however, ends today). The time has mostly been spent catching up with family and friends, staying in touch with people in Texas, taking walks to enjoy the foliage and fall weather, and a little bit of half hearted job searching.

Although I had wild visions of all the sewing I would do during that time, at first I was too disoriented (for lack of a better word) to do much of anything. I had pretty much all of season 5 of Project Runway to watch, so I got out a hand quilting project and did a lot of watching. I finished season 5 in three days - the quilting took slightly longer, but I'm in the process of the hand sewing on the binding. It should be done today, so...pictures soon?

Anyway, my mind is overflowing with projects I want to start, but when I finally decided to get down to some sewing I found that I felt compelled to finish some old projects before starting anything new. I HATE when that happens to me! So boring! The fact is I LOVE starting new projects. And whenever I do start them, I had better finish them right away or else they get boring! Not boring enough that I want to abandon them, because I still like the projects. They are, however, boring enough that I'd rather be starting something new.

So anyway, I've been working on this:

It is affectionately known as "the quilt that makes you have songs stuck in your head," click the picture for a bigger view if you want to know why. The center squares are from a fat quarter by Block Party Studios. I started this FOREVER ago. And it has spent most of its life marinating in a shoe box, but I'm determined to finish it. I actually only need to do four more blocks. I think part of the problem is that the block, while not terribly complex, is pretty time consuming to both cut and sew. I was rotary cutting for and hour and a half the other day and only cut four blocks. And the strips were already cut.

But I digress. I'm totally in the "powering through" phase on this. I hope to cut the last four blocks today. For as long as it's taken me I'm really pretty fond of it. I think it will make a cute lap quilt, and I will probably gift it, although I'm not sure who will be the lucky recipient. Who gets to have a song stuck in their head every time they look at it forever.

Donations

2008-10-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

One last post from Texas. Probably the last one anyway. I had a couple more pictures of donation quilts that I wanted to shared. That is to say, quilts that have been donated to the shelter, not ones that I have made to donate.

I think this crib quilt is darling. The little bears have faces that were inked on by a marker that hasn't been very permanent so they've faded quite a bit.

This is a two sided quilt made of clothing scraps - wool, double knits, seersucker, etc. I love this kind of quilt - free style, recycled, unconstrained.

The front (or back):

That print that says "No! No! No!" also says "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in glow-in-the-dark letters. Cute, huh?

The back (or front):

I'm having the hardest time trying to sort through my enormous salvage fabric stash to decide what to take home with me. Since I am flying there are major space/weight limitations. I will probably send myself a package, too, but even still I'm not going to be able to keep it all. Maybe there's no reason to keep any of it. I didn't pay for it, and I could easily to return it to the donations pile from whence it came. The problem is that I have project ideas for most of it, therefore it's already taken on a new life for me and I'm already sort of emotionally committed to it. Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure if it will find another good home if not with me, and I'd hate to see any of it go to waste.

Well, somehow or other I have to part with some of it. I hate to jettison the flannel sheets since I see them as being so extremely useful. I don't want to let go of the linen since I've got a great selection of it. I want to keep the felted sweaters because I've been wanting to do a felted sweater quilt for a longgg time. I've made tons of plans for the pillowcases. Well, you get the idea. The wool blankets have already been re-donated. Those, at least, I was ready to let go of. I've let go of a few flannel sheets that were pretty worn out. However, I still have a ways to go, and the sorting will continue. What would you keep??

The Southern New Mexico State Fair

2008-10-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

We got to go to the Southern New Mexico State Fair this last week. What a great time! I love fairs. There is a lot of great stuff to do at a fair, and I think fair food is only a small (if important) part of it. The fact that there will usually be quilts is a major bonus.

Apologies to the makers of these lovely creations - their information was not posted, so I have no way to give them credit.

These are my three favorites. If I had to choose one favorite, I guess it's this first one.

These tumblers were the favorite of several people in the group. It's hard not to appreciate a classic scrap quilt like this.

Not a quilt, but I enjoyed these displays of self portraits by school kids.

Let's Call It Good

2008-09-25T11:37:00.000-05:00

A (very) belated thank you to everyone who offered to send me fabric for my Grandmother's Flower Garden. I think I've finally decided not to do anymore flowers. I have finished 27 flowers and finished putting muslin around one side of each so that I can play around with layouts (this one is definitely NOT final). I have also decided that I will be leaving the shelter at the end of my year - in fact I'll be leaving in two and a half weeks! No mas! So, I decided I wanted to just leave the project with the flowers I was able to complete during my time here. It just seems nice and even to do it that way - then the project will always remind me of my time here (even though I'm sure I'll be working on it for years to come).

Things will no doubt continue to be quiet here at Quilty the Libster...until I get back to corn country, that is. Because so far the ONLY plan I have for life post-shelter is at least a couple weeks of uninterrupted creating. And I'm REALLY looking forward to it. Beyond that - well, I can't really see too far beyond that for now. I have lots of things I'm thinking about, but no idea what I'll finally end up doing. But that's okay with me. I'm beginning to have faith that it will all work out in the end - even if I have to keep nomading for a while.

Deceptively Charming

2008-08-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

This is the original layout that I had in mind for the charm square pack you see here (there would be white on the other two long sides of course - just imagine it). I don't remember the name of the line of fabric, although I want to figure it out so I can get some yardage for borders. I just remember seeing it on clearance for some unbeatable price (like two bucks or something) and thinking it would be fun.

After having the original idea and cutting all the white strips, but before doing any sewing, I went through about thirty other design ideas in my head. The original idea pictured above seemed too boring. One that I stayed with for a while was this one:

Some how, though, I went back to the original idea and sewed white onto two sides of every square so I could play around with layout. Then I laid it out and once again wasn't sure if I liked it. Although the last thing I want to do is unpick the white, even with the white there are other options. This one for example:

It is also a candidate for a "faux disappearing nine patch" layout, but I'm not a huge fan of the disappearing nine patch. Although I briefly was set on the above layout, I think I might be back to the original now?? Is that possible?

I'm so indecisive. It's just a reflection of my life right now. So many decisions to make and so little deciding going on.

I have a 2-day right now (two consecutive days off - I only get that once a month) and so have had a little sewing time. I was going to use it to finish the salvage baby quilt, but I found that now that I don't have a recipient in mind for it I wasn't so motivated to finish it. I was being utterly indecisive about what to work on instead, but finally made a little progress on this. All I have to do now is choose a lay out. I think I'll sit with it for a while...

I've been happy to be able to blog a little more lately. I'm six weeks from the end of my original commitment here at the shelter. If I decide not to stay past those six weeks than I may not be doing much (or any) sewing or blogging for a while as I'll be focused on other things for my last six weeks. But then I would be back in the land of my stash, sooooo....! It would be back home to the corn fields to process this experience and make a decision about what the next one's going to be. At 26 I feel a little old for that, but if I have the opportunity I might as well take advantage of it...right??

Oh, while I'm blogging I think I'll post some "found quilt" photos. I had the opportunity to visit a house that regularly hosts student groups and church groups who come to the border to learn about the situation here and/or do a service project. Their dormitories have beautiful wooden bunk beds with cushy looking mattresses, each covered with a gorgeous quilt. Very welcoming, don't you think?

My Garden Growing

2008-08-22T16:08:00.000-05:00

I thought it was about time for a Grandmother's Flower Garden Update. I'm happy to see that I have accomplished quite a bit in the last months - as it should be, since this is the only project I really work on consistently. I'm also happy to find that I like it pretty well - all along I've been worried that I would end up hating the color scheme since it's not my usual thing. According to "math" I have enough flowers done to make it twin size (about 60 x 80), although it didn't really look that big to me laid out. Regardless, I want it to be double size, so I can either make nine more flowers or do a border. I like the idea of doing more flowers, even though it's more time consuming, however I am out of suitable fabric - both in my stash and mom's stash (I'm pretty sure I exhausted the options on the last trip home).

So to do more flowers I could either purchase nine more fabrics ( a quarter or an eighth is really enough) or try to swap for them, which might be more satisfying, but also logistically more complicated. All the fabrics I've used so far are good quality quilting cottons. All the blessed hours of handwork that are going into this make me think of it as somewhat of an heirloom, and that makes me want to stick with quality fabrics. The other option is that I could forget 9 more flowers and just do a border. I feel like GFG quilts often (or "usually"?) don't have borders, and I also like the idea of an all over design. However a border would probably be easier than more flowers. I don't know; I'll be mulling it over for a while...

I've been meaning to blog about the four seasons tree quilt seen in this post. I was really struck by it, because it's soooo much like a quilt idea I've had in my idea book for at least the last 7 years. I scribbled a VERY similar tree on an order pad one night at work way back when I worked for Steak 'n Shake. I had the idea that I would do it as a four block "four seasons" quilt. I tucked the page from the order pad into my idea binder where it still is to this day. No one else ever saw it or knew about it. It just amazes me that two human brains could independently come up with the same thing like that, although there's absolutely no other explanation. (I know it's not the most complicated or unusual idea in the world, but still...) I suppose it's possible that we somehow both saw the same something that inspired us, although I don't even remember any particular inspiration. But maybe this kind of thing really happens all the time? Anyway, there's not much point to this except to say that I'm fascinated by it. Makes me wonder about the times when people get up in arms about having their idea "copied". I'm sure some people really do copy sometimes, and that sucks. But this proves to me that it is possible to independently have the same idea...

Thanks Cheri!

2008-08-13T21:22:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to Cheri for mentioning my salvage baby quilt in her excellent blog jovaliquilts. If by some chance you are reading this and you don't know Cheri, swing 'round and check it out. I especially love what she's doing with fungly.

I have to admit that I really love the fungly craze and can't wait to jump on the band wagon as soon as I'm anywhere near my stash. Another of my favorite fungly projects can be seen here.

In the meantime my work with salvage fabric continues. Today I was working on one of the pillow case quilts that was inspired by the great linen closest clean out. It's the first one I've attempted, and today I decided...that I dislike it enough to abandon the project. That's right, abandon it completely. That's saying a lot for a person who usually thrives on the challenge of "saving" wayward projects. But this one is just not inspiring me AT ALL, and my sewing time is WAY too limited to spend it on something I don't like. I was working on this particular project because I intended it for a friend here, but she recently made some comments about really preferring wild and crazy quilts and this one was super subdued yellows and tans. Now I think I can release myself from it and move on to other projects that I think I can actually get interested in...

In the meantime, I am once again trying to plot the course for the next phase of my life. First of all I'm trying to decide if I'll commit to staying here for six additional months or leave in October when my original commitment is up. Then I have to make some kind of decision about what I want the next step to be...probably more experimenting with different jobs/experiences till I hit on the right thing. But of all the possible options what will I choose to do next??? I told my mom I wanted to teach quilting to disadvantaged women...anyone know where I can get a full time job doing that? Speaking of Mom, she is taking a week long class with Carol Taylor on an island in Lake Superior this week...what a life!

Oh one last thing about the salvage baby quilt...the woman I was hoping to give it to had her baby two months early...and it was a boy! Oh well...

Vacation Show and Tell

2008-08-01T10:47:00.000-05:00

Wait, what's that??

Could it be...?

It is! A quilt!

I know it looks pretty much just like the pictures of the finished top...but the point is, it's not! It's actually a 100% finished quilt, ready to be put in a box and mailed to my newlywed friends. I'm really pleased with it. I basically completely hated the quilting when I was doing it; I felt it was very "beginner". Which makes sense, as I am still very much a beginner when it comes to this whole "machine quilting" thing. But once it was bound, washed, and fluffed up nicely I found it didn't really look bad at all. It just looks like a quilt. (The back, to be fair, still does not look great. But it's not really about the back...)

I feel so great to have it done - that's at least one finish for the year 2008, and at least one finish for my time spent in Texas. And it's done within one month of the wedding it's a gift for...my best finish time ever on a wedding gift. (I'm about to start quilting a quilt that I intended to be a wedding present for a wedding in 2005!!! I'm still going to give it to them, if it ever actually gets done.)

And amazingly that's not the only thing I've accomplished this week. (Well, I have been holed up in a house talking to no one...this is my vacation!) I also finished a baby quilt top out of all salvage fabrics. This used to be a sheet, three blouses, and a pair of pajama pants:

Design wise it's super simple, but it's sweet and soft and will make a nice blanket for a baby girl. (I have one expectant mother in mind...I'm convinced it will be a girl, but we don't actually know yet.) I'm finding it hard to photograph because the colors are pretty subtle...here's a close up:

It's about 30"x30". I hope I will finish it soon rather than letting it languish in the "top" stage. I'm a little bit torn about whether I should use salvage material as batting, thereby making it a 100% recycled quilt, or go ahead and use the fusible batting that I have tons of right now. I think I might as well use the fusible. The only reason I can think of to use salvage (besides doing it on principle) is that I would probably use a flannel sheet and that would make it more lightweight. And that might be good?? I'm not sure. Decisions, decisions.

Today is the last day of vacation, and although I have a lot to do today, I hope to do some rotary cutting so I can have some things "ready to sew" for the limited craft time that I do get back at the house. I think I will be more likely to work on something if a lot of the "thinking" is already done...

All my best to the blogosphere! I've had a great time catching up on quilt blogs and discovering new ones this week...although now it's back to fully neglecting them...

Charm Squares

2008-07-10T10:46:00.001-05:00

I did some sewing so I am checking back in here. It is the same project I was working on a couple posts ago, but I actually assembled the top finally and put a border on so it is ready to be basted and quilted.

A friend who I was close to in college got married over the weekend - actually the groom was a friend of mine, too, in college. I did not have the means to make it to Washington DC for the wedding, but I decided that I wanted to finish this quilt for them - ideally within the month. I ordered my favorite fusible bat to speed the process along, so hopefully when it gets here I'll be able to move forward with basting and quilting and get it in the mail soonish.

With the border it is 60"x70".

I have another week of vacation available to me whenever I decide to take it now, so I'm trying to figure out a plan that would allow me to get some sewing in. I've been thinking very quilty but not actually doing much - but at least I finally got my machine out!

Wrapped In Tradition

2008-05-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

Last week or two weeks ago or something I saw a really cool exhibit at the local art museum. The exhibit was American Indian Trade Blankets from the collection of Dale Chihuly and glass works of his inspired by the blankets. The glass was not that exciting to me, but the blankets were gorgeous. The color combinations and patterns were really unusual and fascinating and gave me more than a few ideas for potential quilts. Sadly photography was not permitted, but I found an online slide show of selected blankets from the collection that you can check out here.

Linen Closet

2008-05-11T13:04:00.000-05:00

I always have this feeling like I can't post here if I don't have any pictures to post. I know pictures are crucial to a quilt blog, but I guess that doesn't mean EVERY post has to have them, right??

I'm back in Texas and life is busy, but good. I do feel refreshed by my vacation and much cheerfuller about things in general. The difficulties and intensities of life here surely haven't gone away, so I know I will continue to struggle with that to a certain extent. Ultimately, however, life is good!

My sewing machine did come back from Illinois with me, but in the week since I've been back it hasn't made it out of the case yet! Things really have been busy, and this next week will actually be worse. But I'm glad to know that it's here whenever I do get around to it.

The day after I arrived back in Tejas we had what is affectionately known as a "gran limpieza" in the shelter - a.k.a. a day long festival of deep cleaning. I skillfully managed to get myself switched from the guest kitchen cucaracha den (blek!) to the linen closet. The linen closet was, seriously, way too fun. First of all, pillowcases. We had about 400 pillowcases (literally) for our shelter with capacity of 60. That's obviously not including the ones that are currently on people's pillows. We pared it down to about 100 to stay in the linen closet, the rest to be donated elsewhere. About a hundred of the funnest ones with cool vintage patterns etc. got set aside for a series of "pillow case quilts" that I instantly started planning. My co-worker was also fairly insistent that weed out all the flannel sheets as being inappropriate for our desert climate, so I naturally took all of those. I love flannel sheets as backing, and also as a lightweight batting. So I see that as a major score. Add to all that a few particularly interesting non-flannel sheets and a wool blanket or two, and I am suddenly the proud owner of a MASSIVE amount of salvage fabric. So I really hope I find the time to get sewing soon, b/c it is all taking up too much room in my tiny shoe box of a bedroom. I do, however, love it.

Ok, hope to be back kind of soonish, but in the meantime...happy quilting.

Quilt Family

2008-04-30T17:35:00.000-05:00

So my vacay (love that word) has almost come to an end - I head back to Tejas the day after tomorrow. I do have something to show for myself, however. Behold, Broken Dishes:

It's roughly 36" x 50". Don't mind all those lumps in the border - my parents floor is just buckled in a lot of places. Kidding! Kidding! That, friends, is just an example of a hastily and poorly applied border. I wanted to get the border on it just so I could say I completed a quilt top on my vacation, so I did a haphazard job of it. But, I'm not going to fix it until some far distant day when I'm actually going to quilt this top, so I decided to share the picture anyway. You still get the overall visual affect, just imagine it with a flat border. (I think normally I'd be too embarrassed to show it, but whatevs. We're all friends here.)

When I made this quilt:

I created a huge stack of leftover half square triangle units. When I made flying geese units for the star points I used the quick piecing method that involves starting with a rectangle and two squares and cutting of the corners eventually. At the time I went ahead and added an extra seam before cutting so that the part I cut off was a completely HST unit and not just two renegade triangles. I put all those extra HST units in a box, not trimmed or pressed, and saved them for someday.

My first day of vacation last Friday I began poking through my stash for a project to play with and came across said HSTs. Fun to play with? Not exactly, but I didn't realize that until I'd already put so much time into it that I wasn't going to back out. But yeah - I had to spend hours trimming and pressing before I could even start sewing. The more hours of chain piece, trim, press, repeat. No worries, though, because I really love the final product.

This is actually the second top I've completed from the scraps of the blue stars quilt. The first was this one:

Now I think of them as a quilt family. Cute, right?

Alternatives

2008-04-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

I have been reminded that sometimes there is nothing like your own whiny blog post to inspire you to have a better attitude. In more than three years of blogging (the majority of it over at Rejoice Always) this has happened to me at least a few times. Since writing my previous post I have decided to focus on the positive and make the best out of this situation that I can. My sewing machine most likely WILL be coming back with me from my vacation (which starts next week!!!!!). I may change my mind...ya never know...but I figure it's not doing anyone any good at home. This whole thing would be easier for me to conceptualize if I had any idea what I was going to do in October when my one year commitment here is up. I worry about the difficulty of having more stuff to move out than I can fit in two suitcases, etc. But in reality, I have no idea what's to come after this...so I might as well live in the moment. I'm 25 (almost 26) and I have no idea where my life is going...there, I said it! And really, it's fine...it just makes planning a little harder.

In addition to the Grandmother's Flower Garden, I've thought of a few other quilt-related activities to keep me occupied.

Stash building, for example! No, I haven't spent a cent on fabric in at least six months. But I finally got around to spending some time sorting through clothing donations with an eye toward usable fabric. Sorting clothing donations is not my official "job" here, but anyone can do it when they have a free minute or two. So far I've limited myself to 100% natural fibers - cotton, linen, or wool. I've tried to only grab things that are old enough, ugly enough, ripped enough, worn enough, dated enough, etc. that no one would really want them any more. Sometimes things are borderline, but I just really want them. We get more than enough clothes donated anyway, so I'm definitely not taking the shirt off anyone's back. At this point I'm not going to over think it.

Here are the cottons I've accumulated so far. There's a nice little red/pink/orange color scheme going...

There was an article in the Jan/Feb (I think) Quilter's Newsletter about quilting with linen. I was really inspired by it and am interested in trying it, so I'm also collecting those. (Did I mention that I got a QN subscription for Christmas.) I'm also grabbing every felted wool sweater that comes through. Yes, the vast majority are "pre-felted" so the work is done for me. I suppose smaller people could technically still use those, but I'm taking them anyway. I'm not sure it's ever cold enough here to warrant wool sweaters, but that's coming from a Midwesterner.

Another activity? Quilt books! I'm in a new place with a new library, which means a whole new selection of quilt books to peruse. Somehow that thought just occurred to me out of nowhere (not sure why it hadn't before) and I headed to the library and got my first selections. Fun.

I also discovered that we have some quilts in our linen closet. They are all hardcore utility quilts that were donated by someone at some point in the last thirty years. Our linens get REALLY hard use, and wear out quickly, so quilts aren't the most logical choice. However, seeing them here does brighten MY spirits. I've decided to do some photo documentation. Here's the first specimen: fleece scraps tied to some sort of woven backing. I can't identify the backing, but it's really gauzy. I think you can see a little in this picture how much wear this quilt has gotten.

Anyway...yeah, I'm having fun. And I think on the whole that things are going better around here, which obviously helps me to feel better about everything. The situation here is pretty complex for me right now - I'm turning it over in my brain a LOT. But at the end of the day it is what it is and I have no other recourse than to enjoy the ride...!

PS, about the Grandmother's Flower Garden - the more I work on it the more I realize how long it's going to take! Has anyone out there in the blogosphere actually finished one of these??? Oh well...I look forward to the day I finish the top and can say that I actually hand pieced an entire quilt. I expect that day to coincide roughly with the birth of my first grandchild, hence the name of the pattern.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

2008-03-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

'K so as promised (I think) here are a couple of progress pics of my Grandmother's Flower Garden. Here's a few flowers laid out with some of the background...

And here's the rest of the flowers. I don't have enough muslin hexagons basted yet to lay them all out. I can never bring myself to do the muslin ones because they're so comparatively boring, but I need to get cracking on that.

My color scheme is HUGELY inspired by the one I discovered a while back at Astrid Knits Her Way Out. This is the closest I have ever come to straight up copy-catting someone else's quilt but I love it that much...

Things are going fine down here in Tejas. Not great, not terrible. I'm hovering right around the six month mark and definitely feeling like I'm in a mid-year slump. Part of me deeply deeply loves what I'm doing here - I love being of service, even if in the most menial of ways. I love working with immigrants and refugees, and I love sharing their lives in such a deep way. But it's all also very intense - I live at the same shelter I work at, and as expected not being able to "go home" at the end of the day really ups the intensity level. I work around 50-60 hours a week (depending on the week) and it can all get pretty exhausting. Plus, at times I find myself dealing with some REALLY emotionally intense situations, including abusive parents, families divided by deportation, people struggling with mental illness, etc. etc.

So I spend a lot of time thinking about how I need to take care of myself to keep up with this kind of lifestyle. I spend a lot of time in prayer/meditation, and I write in my journal a lot. I try to keep up with family and friends and spend time chilling with new friends here. But I really do miss quilting as a form of self-care and really just wish I had a sewing machine to sit down and do mindless piecing at. I'm still questing for a sewing machine. One option is to get the one I have at the house fixed - but since its a $100 Singer, I'm not really sure it's worth investing in.

There's another option. Technically I have a week of vacation coming up in April. I could fly home with a big empty suitcase and pack my machine into it. I have wanted to avoid spending my vacation at home. Mainly because I spent my week off in January at home and it was a really mixed experience. As great as it was to see my family and friends, it was emotionally difficult, because leaving to go back to Texas again was almost as hard as leaving the first time had been. For lots of reasons...not because I don't love it here, but, well...for lots of reasons. But maybe it would be for the best, especially if getting my machine here meant improving my quality of life for the next six months.

This whole sewing machine quandary really highlights how bad I am at actually making stuff happen at times - thinking about it, wishing for it, sure. But making it happen? Not always my strong suit. Getting my hands on a functional sewing machine shouldn't be THAT hard, but I make it hard somehow...

Anyway, I knew this was going to be an issue going into this whole experience. I guess, though, that I wasn't sure HOW MUCH of an issue it would be. When I studied abroad in Mexico about three years ago I left quilting behind for five months. I missed it then, but not nearly this much. But I guess things are different now - either because quilting has become more important to me in the last three years or because the experience I'm having now is just of really different nature. Now don't get me wrong...I'm not sorry I made the decision to come here. Not at all. Even if I barely do any sewing for the next six months I'll still feel like coming here was the right decision. But it will for sure make me think long and hard about the next phase of my life and the need to make my stash a part of it ;)

ANYWAY, that was a lot of text and no worries if you didn't read it :o) I sound pretty whiny to myself, but it was good for me to get it out.

Many many thanks and greetings to those who are still stopping by!

Quilty Quilts Again

2008-02-22T09:34:00.000-06:00

Well well well. I'm tickled pink to finally have some content for this blog!! Not so much just for the sake of blogging, but because it means I actually did some sewing...yeah!!!

I've been on a quest for a sewing machine. I could have mine shipped down here, I guess, but I think it would be SUPER pricey, so I wanted to investigate all other options first. Come to find out that the organization I'm working for actually has FIVE sewing machines. That seemed like good news, until I actually tried them out and discovered that two don't work and the other three are missing the throat plate. (I think that's what it's called...the big flat surface around the needle? (Not the little shiny part but the bigger part where the project rests before sewing? Doesn't seem like you can do much without it...) So I've kind of been in limbo - not sure if it's worth paying to have one of those two machines repaired or if I would be better off buying an inexpensive/used machine or having mine shipped down here. I've also been kind of in limbo due to being broke (although thanks to my income tax refund as of today that is no longer the main issue.)

Well anyway, the other day I was pretty darn sick of waiting, so I went over to a woman's organization where a friend works and borrowed one of their machines. They were VERY gracious and let me sew away happily in their conference room all afternoon...

I had a set of charm squares cut from scraps that I brought from home - 120 squares, enough for a 20x30 layout. I had them in a little pile and had no idea how they were going to go together and no real way to lay them out, so I just started sewing them in to four-patches by color. Because I didn't have a plan while cutting them (surprise surprise) I didn't think I'd be able to get them to all work together as four-patches, but actually they pretty much did. I got all thirty four-patches sewn together in the one afternoon, then took them home to press and work on layout.

Here's my little make shift pressing station:

I was worried about layout because my scraps were really heavy on the blue (because my stash and previous quilts are all super heavy on blue, of course). But this is almost exactly how I laid it out at first go and I actually love it. I only switched two blocks from the original to get here:

So now I just have to find time to get back to the women's center to assemble, or else resolve the sewing machine issue. But no worries whatsoever...I'm so happy to have sewn!!

She's Alive!!

2007-11-18T12:44:00.000-06:00

Greetings from South Texas!

I've been here nearly six weeks and have completely neglected to post. Of course this is in part because I have absolutely no "quilty" content to share, but I thought I could at least let you all know that I'm alive!

Things are going well down here. It's been a HUGE adjustment, and the adjustment period is still ongoing, to be honest. Living and working at an emergency shelter for migrants provides no end of challenges - constant noise, living off of donated food, and constantly being on call, among other thigns. We work with our guests to help them figure out a plan to move on from our shelter - some do so successfully, others have to be asked to leave for one reason or another, others just don't show up at bed check one day. We listen to their stories and do our best to share their journeys with them and help them carry their burdens.

I'm learning a lot about myself and the world around me and constantly have more and more to think about! But that's exactly why I'm here - to truly examine my life and see where it's going to go from here. No one said it would be easy, and it's not, but there is a lot of joy in the work I'm doing, the people I'm serving, and just in the knowledge that I'm growing as a person.

Anyway, I'm sorry I neglected to mention this sooner, but if you care to you can follow the non-quilty aspects of my life here over on my personal blog, Rejoice Always. My readership there has traditionally been a handful of friends and family, and that's who I write for, but I'm happy to invite my fellow quilt bloggers along for the ride.

I have over 2,000 unread feeds on my bloglines!! My internet access is really limited and I only get to the computer every few days, usually. Even when I do get a chance to look at my favorite blogs, I am usually speeding through them and don't slow down long enough to comment :( But please know that I am reading as much as I can.

As for sewing - to be honest I miss my stash terribly! But even if I had it - so far I haven't found a space here that I could really use for sewing without having to completely pack it all away after every session. I haven't given up hope of finding, that, but I remind myself that I may have to change my ideas about what is "workable" sewing space. I keep reminding myself that I want to get back to my quilting "roots" and that our fore-mothers didn't have studios or stashes for the most part. But it's a challenge, I'm not going to lie! Sometimes I think I'm crazy for doing this, but at least I know that after this year I will never take these things for granted again! In the meantime, I'm working on a Grandmother's Flower Garden that I'll try to snap a picture of when I get a chance. Thank goodness for hand work!

Lastly, thanks to all who have expressed their good wishes and encouragement during my transition!! I'm afraid I haven't been able to respond to them all as I should, but they are very much appreciated. I hope to post again soon, at least sooner than six weeks from now. Many thanks to all who are even reading this - this online community means a lot to me!

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

2007-10-09T08:10:00.000-05:00

So I'm moving - today! The story of the move is really too long for me to give alllll the details now, yet I have been promising and promising details and have so far failed to deliver!! And since I should be packing and cleaning but instead want to enjoy one last quiet morning, I guess I'll write a quick post.

The news is very exciting for me - I've decided to do something that has been a dream of mine for a long time and be a full-time volunteer for a year! Crazy, yes, but not quite as crazy as it sounds. I will be working for an awesome organization in Southern Texas that runs shelters for immigrants and refugees. While I won't have a salary, they will provide close to everything I'll need - room, board, health insurance, and lots of little things like toiletries, stamps, bus tokens, etc. etc. etc. For my part, I will perfect my Spanish, meet tons of interesting people, and have some time to think and reflect about where I'm going from here.

Part of committing to this means committing to a simpler lifestyle. Among other things, this means that my stash is not going with me....! I'm taking a few hand projects for starters, although I have a feeling it may be a couple weeks before I think about sewing again. I've got lots of notions packed in my suit case and will have my machine and some other stuff shipped to me when I'm ready. The shelter I'll be at has a clothing bank, so I'm hoping to continue my experimentation with recycled fabrics and utility quilts. Letting go of my stash has been one of the hardest things about this, but it's only for a year, and I think it will be very good for me in the end...

Here's a couple pictures to share before I go. First, the t-shirt quilt! Yes, I know it looks identical - because I did not add a border. I hope no one will think I'm contrary for that, because after all the majority of comments I received said yes to the border! But weighing out all the factors I decided to go no border, and I'm happy with the result, not the least because I actually got it done!! Super quick finish for me. It's not very closely quilted, which made it go even faster, but it's awfully sturdy, so I think it will last. That's the brother in question holding the quilt, so you can see how it came out size-wise. Maybe he's shorter than I thought??

This is for all intents and purposes a gratuitous cat picture!! I came home one night and found my kitty getting up close and personal with my hand quilting project - guess he wanted to help. This is the trip around the world quilt. I got the border 3/4 of the way quilted but no more! I don't want to take it to Texas just to finish the last tiny bit and then have to store it there, so I'm storing it here and I'll finish it at Christmas. Or something.

My Day in Quilting

2007-09-26T16:20:00.001-05:00

Bleh.

1. Time to put binding on the t-shirt quilt. Final join, I've done this many times, right????? One line was drawn at the wrong angle or something so....

I call it fubinding.

2. Can't find the seam ripper. OK so the binding issue will have to wait...

3. I have three pieces of flannel that I'm seaming to be the back for a top that I'm going to finish into a simple coverlet. I do the seaming and lay it out on the floor to pin to the top - wouldn't you know that one of the seams is about as unflat as it could be because I bought the wrong amount of flannel (or cut it wrong...still trying to figure that one out.) OK I think I may have a l'il piece of another flannel I can use to make up for the lacking length but...

4. Still can't find the seam ripper. So that'll have to wait, too. I think I've done enough sewing for one day.

20 Cabins

2007-09-19T14:10:00.001-05:00

Here are the logs + 20 blocks. I had to lay it out in a different room then usual because it's already so big! When I finish the last 24 or so blocks I'm not even going to be able to lay it out... Anyway, the particular room in question does not have nearly as much light as the room where I usually take my pics, so the colors here are a bit off, but you get the idea. I hope to cut the rest of the blocks in another marathon 1 or 2 day rotary cutting session (woo-hoo!) and after that the sewing goes rather fast.

I know that things have been fairly quiet around here. The reason is that I haven't been getting much done!! I'm facing an impending move that will probably be "finally official" within the next couple of days (and no report here till it's final, remember!!) So I'm spending a lot of time getting organized and cleaning house - you know, literally. And in the quilt department I've been basting some things and hand quilting the Trip Around the World quilt that wouldn't die (or wouldn't get finished), but not doing anything terribly photogenic (except the 20 log cabin blocks, of course). Sad to say that, like most bloggers who move, moving will probably send me into a bit of blog hibernation (both reading and writing, sadly), so thanks in advance to those who stick with me!

Progress

2007-09-04T13:51:00.000-05:00

Well the t-shirt front top is done - at least I want it to be done. Do you think it really needs a border? Like REALLY needs one? I don't want to do a border because A) I want it to be done sooner rather than later and B) I don't like doing borders. Also I think it's fine as is. It is 50x64 at the moment, which is a fine size for a throw, I think. ON THE OTHER HAND, my brother is like 6'3" and given those proportions I guess it might be a little small. Anyway, do the majority of 22 year old bachelors use throw quilts?? Do they have that concept? I don't know. As much as I'd rather not do a border - better to take the time to do a border and have it be something he actually USES rather than leave it as is if he won't use it as is. Actually asking the brother in question was not at all helpful. Mweh.

More layout decisions - having sewn about 1/3 of the log cabin blocks, I decided it was time to actually put some effort into layout planning. So far I've just been choosing colors at random - time to make a plan before sewing the rest. I've been thinking all along that I would do a barn raising layout (think that's what it's called??) or maybe an off-center barn raising:

Hmmm...because the blocks are so graphic, the pattern of the layout becomes very subtle, or that's my take on it. I could probably mediate this a little by making each "row" (diamond?) of the overall pattern a different shade (i.e. light blue, dark blue, blue-green, dark green, light green). THat might be a little static though - I kind of like the mixing of the blues and greens. I guess I'm going to have to keep sewing and see where it gets me. The more I have to work with, the easier it will be to make these decisions (I theorize). Maybe a different overall layout will be better.

Quilter's Lasagna

2007-08-30T15:33:00.001-05:00

For my log cabin I wrote about in the post before last, I am making the blocks "four fabric" blocks - a dark and a light brown opposite a dark and a light green or blue. (I may do some blocks that are green and blue opposite each other with no brown - undecided. There is no plan for this quilt). Using the four fabrics creates more of an optical illusion in the coloring, or that's my hope. In order to balance the two sides I am choosing the fabrics for each block individually - so rather than cutting a whole mess of pieces, or speed piecing (goodness no!) I am choosing four fabrics for each block and then cutting each block individually to keep it all straight and organized. Since I sit down and cut a bunch of blocks at a time I need some way of storing each block's strips until sewing. My best solution so far is this - quilter's lasagna. THe longest strip (12.5") almost fits perfectly across the lasagna pan. I can get four blocks in one layer, then a piece of paper to separate the layers, then four more blocks.

Not at all sophisticated, but it works. However there will be no actual lasagna until the quilt top is finished. However that is no big loss since it is WAY too hot to turn on the oven.

I'm realizing something about my quilt making "process" - I don't like to plan. I guess I knew that. I always kind of figured that I just started sewing without a plan because I was too anxious to start sewing and didn't want to wait, but I realize now that "making it up as I go along" is an important part of the process to me. When I have very little or no plan there are always "challenge" moments - like the moment when I have all the blocks done and have to get them to go together somehow - and the challenge moments are important to me. Maybe this just has to do with me being SUCH an attention defecit quilter - like the same reason I only make scrap quilts because using the same fabric over and over bores me to tears. When I DO start with a complete plan/design (an incomplete plan would be something like - okay the blocks will be blue, let's start sewing) I occasionally stick to it, but more often end up completely reworking it, either because I get bored with the plan or because I discovered that the planned design was way too static and boring. Not infrequently I can think of ways that my finished quilts would have benefited from a more complete design plan but - working without a plan keeps me sewing and I guess that's the important thing.

Quilt Museum!!

2007-08-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

I visited the quilt museum in Paducah this weekend. It was my first time in Paducah for any reason. One of my best friends from study abroad lives in southern Illinois/southeastern Missouri (she basically lives in either or both, two towns right across the river from each other.) When she was growing up she and her friends went to Paducah on a Saturday for a change of scene (I think a lot of people had some close-by town like that in high school). She, however, had never been to the quilt museum, but was becoming aware that she was missing out on something big. So, since I was planning a visit anyway, we decided that the quilt museum was a must!

The museum was lovely. Of course I could not take pictures to share. I don't know how many pictures I really would have taken, though. Of course it goes without saying that the quilts were AMAZING, but I wouldn't have been taking many pics for the "inspiration" file as too few really had anything about them that I could ever DREAM of emulating. Truly master works - awesome to see, and yet pretty far removed from my quilting experience. Hmmm. But I'm sure I would have found plenty to photograph if given the opportunity - especially some really great uses of 80s fabric. I love 80s fabric.

I'm sure I could have spent plenty of time and money in Paducah but we decided to limit ourselves to just one other stop - Hancock's of Paducah, of course! Slightly funny since I recently got a big package from them - even saw a few of the fabrics on the "bolt ends table"! I am officially DONE buying fabric starting...now! But I spent less than thirty dollars so I congratulate myself on that. And it is only the fifth time that I spent less than thirty dollars on fabric in the last month...

Here are my treasures: lots for the log cabin, some for another new project, and couple "treats." I have not photographed all the fabric that has come in the mail...would probably get too depressing.

Me and the big muddy...nice.

Weekend Away

2007-08-20T13:13:00.000-05:00

My last day of work was this past Friday. Now I've got some down time. Things for the big "NEXT" are slowly working themselves out, I'm just going to opt not to share details until everything is finally final. But for those who are worried about my financial situation, my resume, or my mental health - fear not; all manner of thing shall be well.

I decided to escape town for the weekend. Seemed like a great way to "celebrate" the end of my job, as well as get some mental down time and physical/mental distance from the rest of my life. Fortunately I have two girlfriends who share a beautiful condo with a guest room in a town about an hour away. It was a blissful weekend with lots of staying up late, sleeping late, sewing, journaling, and a healthy dose of Jane Austen.

Saturday afternoon my best friend Bekki and I (one of the condo girls) went thrifting. I did very well in the clothes department, and also bought this for $8.50:

It's an unfinished top, small twin or large throw sized. I feel a bit off my rocker adding another my top to my already voluminous "tops to finish" pile, but I couldn't help myself. It is just too great. It's wool fabric, most likely made from recycled clothes. There were quite a lot of unfinished tops in this particular store and I got so caught up wondering where they came from - some quilter passed away with no quilty relatives to take on her/his work perhaps. I'm proud of myself for limiting to just ONE top.

Good friends who make their guest rooms available at the drop of a hat deserve quilts. Ergo I have started another project:

8 down, 56 to go - hope she likes it!

A Finish

2007-08-13T19:28:00.000-05:00

Yea, it's done!

I posted earlier about my "anything goes" attitude towards putting this quilt together. All along I have called this my "Gee's Bend Study". I have been so entranced and inspired by the quilts of Gee's Bend and I was trying to replicated that "free form" feeling. I can't say whether or not my techniques/methods/lack-thereof are very similar to the quilters of Gee's Bend and I can't say whether any of them would even LIKE this, but I tried to replicate the attitude of just "putting them together the way I like" that I've read about. I DO like it. I kind of love it. I made it bed sized and I'm not actually sure if I could handle that much of it, however. But it is very cuddly and will have a useful life.

Anyway, I should get a close up picture of the quilting and post it. It's pretty hilarious.

While I had a few willing quilt holders available, I dragged out the three other quilts I've finished this year but hadn't yet photographed. Yes, that means I have finished four quilts this year. I realize that to most people that is not an impressive number, however to me it is HUGE! I think I finished four quilts total in the previous 4-5 years of quilting. I am a short attention span quilter - I always have zillions of projects going and never finish much. I'm working on it.

Anyway, I really want to share this one, which I posted "bed shots" of earlier but not the whole thing:

If you want to see the rest you should be able to click either of the about photos and then click through my "Quilts!" photo set on flickr.

Show Me Your Uglies!!

2007-08-11T14:29:00.001-05:00

I posit that few things are more dangerous than the combination of a debit card and an online fabric store.

Anyway, in light of the impending arrival of yards upon yards of fabric, today I decided that it was time to sort through the "new fabric receiving pile". It has been growing at an alarming rate and hasn't been cleaned out in about six months.

First step: sort fabric into piles according to what box they need to go in...

Second step: drag out the boxes that fabric needs to go into and realize they are full.

Third step: wonder why I covered my bed in fabric BEFORE nap time:

Anyway, I got to thinking about weird/ugly/unusual fabric. I'm told I buy a lot of it. In fact I pretty much started thinking about it when I realized how funny my mother will look at me if/when I show her the fabric I just ordered. She has said, in paraphrase, "You buy the weirdest/strangest/ugliest fabrics that I would NEVER buy...but I like your quilts so I guess you have an eye for it." Thanks, I'll take the compliment and leave the rest!

For example. I bought the following on a shopping trip with Mom & Aunt M who talked for days afterwards about me buying the following fabric, which apparently they thought was extremely weird:

Apparently they haven't caught onto the fact that I will buy ANYTHING with hearts on it. In the grand scheme of things, this has been one of the LESS weird things that I have purchased. I can't quite get over this one, which has these great pink and gold stripes the run the length of the fabric. A quilter sees nothing but potential in that, right? RIGHT??

I also remember the day back when I first started quilting and I came home from fabric shopping thrilled to death to have found this for $0.60 a yard. Naturally I bought a half yard of it for thirty cents.

I mean I could go on and on:

A while ago there was an article in Quilters Newsletter about a woman who apparently has the same problem/gift. I was, of course, tickled that I owned one of the fabrics featured in the article. I don't however see what's so weird about it:

Actually there are a few fabrics that even I find ugly after I buy them, but I will spare you those pictures for now. Anyone else out there have similar "issues" when it comes to fabric buying??

The New Project

2007-08-03T07:03:00.000-05:00

So here's a hint about the project I started:

A Star Wars quilt? No, a t-shirt quilt for little brother - God willing it will be his Christmas present. (Technically I should have plenty of time to finish it, but I think we all know how many other things could happen.) My little brother is actually a bit of a clothes horse and had piles and piles of clothes in my parents basement. I'm told he would come over from time to time and look for something - just saw it as extended storage I guess! Finally Mom put it all in trash bags for the Goodwill, and told him to take out anything he wanted to keep. After he'd had his go at it, I went down to see if there was anything I might want - little brother's old clothes are an especially rich source of really great PJs. When I started going through I saw all these t-shirts that represented a lot of things from his past - that have "sentimental value" as a sister would put it. So I asked him if he would like to have them made into a quilt and he said yes.

That's right I volunteered!!

I have made one t-shirt quilt in the past. Actually, not surprisingly, it's still a not quilted top. But basically I knew when I volunteered that it's a tedious process - ironing interfacing onto the back of all those logos and cutting them to a usable size - bleh. It's slow going.

But I actually jumped at the chance to do it because I had an ulterior motive:

Yes that's right, I wanted to play with the scraps! I am making a "parallel" t-shirt quilt out of the non-logo parts of the t-shirts. I'm not using interfacing for this, so I've been experimenting with levels of starch. Heavily starched the jersey actually behaves quite well - although now I have to do some restarching of the bits I went too easy on. I mean you kind of have to be gentle with the jersey, but I'm not having much trouble sewing those nine patch blocks. (Oh yeah, I have no design plan for this. Basically I am cutting plain squares and sewing some nine patches and some sixteen patches. So far everything is 12" but I plan to through in some 16" bits. Then I will find some way to put it all together.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about doing a quilt like this for awhile, I think because I've been thinking a lot about "recycled" quilts and wanting to try to make some. Do not get me wrong, I love my stash, but I also love any opportunity to get back to my quilt making "roots". If you have ever made a t-shirt quilt you know that there is a LOT of waste. Last time I used those extra bits as rags in my old apartment, but it was still way more rags than I even needed. It seems like the quilty thing to do is stitch 'em together....

*Sigh* however I do not know how far I will get on this project. I really need to focus on getting my two big quilting projects quilted. Because if I move - well there is nothing worse than moving two big quilts in the process of being quilted, because WHO KNOWS how long it will be before they actually get finished then!!

The Diet is Over!

2007-07-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

So when I found some sewing time after the Harry Potter Mania, my first project was a set of throw pillow covers for an undisclosed recipient. I tried to make them coordinated without being matchy-matchy. But they really just look pretty random - maybe they can be in different rooms?? I hope the recipient likes them. I thought she said no pink or purple, now I'm realizing that she said no pink or orange!! And that one pillow prominently features orange - bleh. I really hope she doesn't hate it. Making things to other peoples tastes is so hard!

With throw pillows completed I finally put the border on my red work extravaganza. I auditioned tons of different borders and this one just "worked" somehow. The darker burgundy color does give the top kind of a different feel, but I feel like it quiets the top down, while making it "pop" at the same time. And it introduces a bit of an accent color. After making my mom look at a zillion different choices I got her to agree that this one works, so I went with it.

Sorry, I wish I had a different background to photograph it against since it kind of blends into this floor. Actually, here's a slightly better view, along with one of my flip flops and Pip the guinea pig:

Anyway, with the move of this project onto the "finished top" list, I am officially ending my "no new projects" diet. Woo-hoo! Since starting the diet I have finished at least six tops, so it has been fruitful. I think I'm going to start something new today (Christmas present for my little brother) but I'm not starting more than two new projects until something else either becomes a finished top or one of the things I'm quilting becomes a finished quilt!

One last thing - okay so I upload my pictures on a mac and they look TERRIBLE on my PC at work - but I do have a terribly ancient monitor at work. So question to you PC users out there - do you look at my blog and find yourself thinking, "Why does she post such low quality super dark photos?" Or do they look OK to you? I'm hoping the problem is just with the terribly old monitor, but if it's not then I'll have to make an adjustment somewhere.

Spoiler Free Zone

2007-07-24T07:04:00.000-05:00

Phew - finished Harry Potter about fifteen minutes past midnight last night.

Of course this blog, and anything else having to do with me, is most certainly a SPOILER FREE zone. As far as I am concerned, that should go without saying. No one should speak about the book publicly at all for at least a month. Don't even take the chance that you could ruin it for someone. Don't discuss it with anyone until after you point your wand (er....finger) at them and say demandingly, "WHAT PAGE ARE YOU ON???" Then you may carefully discuss anything that came before that page, or if they've finished you can speak freely, but make sure that no one is within earshot who might still be reading...

Distractions

2007-07-23T20:12:00.001-05:00

Ok so my official last day at work is in four weeks. I spent an action packed weekend in Chicago visiting my brother and some very good friends, and also trying to decide if I can see myself living there since there's a very good chance I'm headed in that direction. Combine that with the release of Harry Potter and this is just to stay that after these messages I'll be right back. I actually have a small list of sewing that I'm itching to do, but can't quite bring myself to put the book down long enough. Sad but true. And then there's this whole thing where they actually expect me to go to work for eight hours when there's Harry Potter to be read and sewing to be done. Imagine!

Anyway, this weekend in Chicago I dreamed about kayaking under State Street (next trip, maybe...)

I attended the World's Largest Block Party at Old St. Pats

And I met Mr. Freddy Noodles, the cat my brother is staying with. I took this picture to show my mother that cats the world over love her quilts:

Okay, page 590, I should be done any minute now...

More Stars

2007-07-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

Three recent receives in the Stars Around the World block exchange. This is partly to test different photo hosting sites as I'm trying to find one that looks just as good on PCs as on my mac. More to come soon......!

Comments

2007-07-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to say "hi" to everyone who has been stopping by and commenting! If you have an e-mail address attached to your comment I will always try to reply by e-mail. If you purposely choose not to use your e-mail I respect that. Just know that I read and appreciate your comments.

However - if you use blogger you may be like me and just didn't realize that you have to turn on your e-mail address in your account in order to allow other users to reply to your comments by e-mail. Just log in to blogger, go to the "edit profile" page and click the bit that says "show my e-mail address."

Transitions

2007-07-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. Whew still not much sewing going on in my world because my life is minor (very minor) turmoil and I can't seem to get myself to focus on anything much. I've pretty much decided to leave my job. I plan to give notice on Monday, although depending on how they react it will be open-ended notice and I'll probably be there for more than two more weeks. The catch of course is that I don't know where I go from here. I just know I need to be done with this, and I'm taking the prerogative of being 25 and more carefree than I will ever be again to just step out in faith and see what happens.

Anyway, for the most part my sewing time has been spent hand quilting the ginormous Trip Around the World or machine quilting this:

Yes, you read that right, machine quilting - my first attempt. I am using polar fleece as a combined backing/batting meaning that I don't have to worry about batting separating and could probably get away with really minimal quilting, but I want to do some for the sake of strengthening the top. And since my new-to-me (it's 17 years old) machine has a walking foot I decided to give it a go. Since I'm not too familiar with the whole walking foot thing, I'm just making it up as I go along. The stitch length is really erratic, but I think I might just be pulling the quilt to much.

The good news is, I don't care at all how the quilting LOOKS on this, and in fact poor quilting will fit in better with the rest of the quilt than good quilting would. The top was sewn almost entirely from untrimmed scraps pulled fairly randomly from the scrap box. The only bit I cut is the black. When some of the seams were close to pulling out because of fraying fabric I reinforced them by whip stitching in embroidery floss - very visible. When the top didn't lay flat - because it did not come CLOSE to laying flat, I took darts and used more embroidery floss. I basically broke every quilt rule in the book, but it's been super fun and makes me love it even more!

Family Reunion

2007-07-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

Not tons of sewing progress, but I did manage to get the border on this:

The gorgeous applique blocks are, alas, not my handy work. My fabulous quilting aunt gave them to me two or three at a time for various special occasions over several years, until I had them all. She did the hard part; the rest is up to me! I was stumped on the border for a long time, but I like what I ended up with. Now I just have to wait until I get around to quilting it one of these years...

We had our family reunion over the weekend, and the hands quilt we were working on at quilt camp is finished and was given to its owner:

I am really happy with the end product. Mom and Aunt M. did the vast majority of the applique and Aunt M. assembled and quilted - my contribution was a measly four applique blocks, and lots of strong design opinions! Since I "won" most of the design "discussions" maybe it's no wonder that I like the end product so much.

While the Computer was Gone...

2007-07-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

I pulled out this UFO - small assortment of random sized embroidered blocks with nature themes. Like so many things I was originally going to do so much more of these. And I like to embroider, so it could still theoretically happen that I would make more, but I just have this feeling that it's never going to and I would rather just do something with these.

But what to do with them?? The fact of the different sizes complicates things, as does the fact that there are really so few blocks.

Fast forward a week, and this is what I came up with:

I feel as though I really should have done one more block for the bottom right hand corner and it would be a lot more balanced, but it is what it is. It's roughly 38" square-ish. I like it. It was fun to mix the colors and see the effects, and four patches are such fun easy sewing.

Now - what to do for a border?? I could do no border, but I feel like it needs something. In fact, I feel like it needs to be calmed down a little. Any thoughts? I thought about a small red inner border with a checkerboard outer border. I thought about a plain red border or a plain write border. I thought a small inner border in a bright green with a red outer border. But I'm up for whatever - I just have to make up my mind.

While I'm thinking about that, I hopefully will get this borer sewn on:

And here's this, officially a finished top:

I'm glad to finally be making some progress on getting tops finished - I'm actually going to let myself start something soon-ish. Also, I've been playing around with my new machine, which has a walking foot if I can ever figure it out, so that might help me get some tops finished into quilts. But I'm still thinking I might need to send some out, which means finding someone to send them out to.

Someday I will not have as much time on my hands as I do now. But for now I do.