Long Time

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 Waiting...

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.

London Step

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.

The Fabric Makes the Quilt

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.

Scraps

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.

Tracking Compliance

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

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

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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...
   
6. 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 ;-)

Linen Closet

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 Museum!!

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.

Show Me Your Uglies!!

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??

Fabric Comes and Goes

So when I moved last August, I vowed not to buy anymore fabric unless I ABSOLUTELY needed it. Someday when I have a settled home I will be allowed to buy more, but since I'm young and rather transitory, moving sweater box after sweater box of fabric every year or two just gets old.

Starting NOW I am really not going to buy anymore fabric. But since last August I can't really say I'm stuck to my resolution. Here's all the fabric I've bought in the last few months, which just keeps piling up on this chair since I have nowhere else to put it...



Ummm...oops.

Well a crafty friend of mine had a birthday last week, and I suspect that she is getting into quilting (or maybe I just WANT her to get into quilting, heh heh...) so I decided to make her a gift package of fabric culled from my stash. It seems like a good way to thin the ranks in my stash as well as spread the quilty love - now I just hope she likes it! Here's what she's getting:



I'm also including "Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift" since it has really good instructions and lots of great basic patterns, and is beautiful.

In the meantime, since I'm still not allowed to start anything new, this UFO crawled out of the closet:



I cut all the pieces in 2005 (or even longer ago??) made three blocks, and then put it away to marinate. The center squares are from Block Party Studios - they are all cut off center. Yet another one of those times when you get out a project that's been sitting for awhile and find yourself wondering, "What on earth was I thinking?!?"