Random Stripes

Extended post title: Random Stripes -or- Something I Actually Finished (Or At Least Finished The Top Of)

I have been calling this project "Random Stripes" because it is an improv variation of the traditional Roman Stripes pattern.  It is inspired by an antique quilt I saw in a book (stay tuned for me to figure out which book it was and give it credit here) and wanted to create my own "version" of.

I first declared this top to be "done" many years ago when it was just the center part with the blue border.  Then, before I got around to finishing it, I decided it needed something more and at someone's suggestion decided to add more pieced borders to it.

Then I put it in a pile where it sat for several more years.

I took it out again recently a decided it was finally time to do something with it.  After experimenting with a few possibilities I decided to try adding a row of blocks on top and bottom.  Once that was done, although there are a million other things I suppose I could do with it, I think it actually feels "done" to me.



Maybe I should say "done for now" given the history, but I have a feeling I'll stick with this.

It's pretty "random" as the name suggests, but I think it will make a fun toddler quilt for a little one to play on and with.  Or even possibly a nice lap quilt for a suitably "random" adult.  I'm not sure where it's going to end up yet, so we shall see!  It is 44ish x 62ish inches.



In other news, I have a three day weekend!  And I have to tell you I'm feeling quite extremely favorable towards three day weekends just at the moment!   I have to be grateful for work since I would never be able to enjoy time off so much if it weren't for work.  Right?  Right?

Hope you're all doing well out there in blogland :)

Getting Ready

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"