Quilt Words

A Little Catching Up

2011-08-26T16:18:00.000-05:00

It's been ages! Unfortunately, not a whole lot's been happening in my quilting world. The combination of not much time, and one project that's going to take hundreds of hours (I'll put that in the next post), keeps progress to a minimum. But, I decided I'd like to post when I have something to share, even if it's months in between.

First, here's the linen quilt that was in pieces back in October---finished! The lighting isn't the best, but it shows the texture of the quilting. The acid green looks almost the right color, but the hot pink looks orange. The size is somewhere around 45 x 50.

And some details, while it was still in the quilting frame ...

This next one shows the pinks, orange, and reds properly.

I wanted a relaxed quilting pattern, so this one was all freehand. Well, except for dragging a heavy pin tip on the fabric to roughly "draw" the chains and waves.

Quilting Details

2010-11-01T13:58:00.001-05:00

The finished quilt! This view is almost like looking out over a shoreline.

I really like the way the machine quilting turned out. I used a long, slightly wavy stitch in two different widths, so some lines are more wavy than others. This is one of my favorite stitches on my Viking. Each strip (about 3-1/2 inches wide) has three lines of wavy stitches and one line of straight stitches right next to the seam.

It feels so good to have a project done! Next, I'll start the hand quilting of the linen quilt. It's in the frame ... just have to carve out some time.

A Quilt for My Husband

2010-10-30T20:39:00.000-05:00

Yup. He asked for a quilt made especially for him. I was so delighted that I dropped everything else (except paying work) to plan it.

The catch is that he had requirements. Blue and beige (good! that describes most of the shirts in my stash), a simple patch layout (not a problem), and nothing chaotic or, um, weird (well, I couldn't promise anything except that I'd try).

The blue and beige kept reminding me of water and sand, waves and shore. So, I went with that.

Near one corner I included a little symbol of help and protection.

The top went together in no time, but it then languished for weeks, a victim of my heavy schedule.

Eventually, I layered it and pinned it ... with fine straight pins, because safety pins are way too thick. They literally tear the tightly woven shirt fabrics. Machine quilting was quite an adventure, but I drew surprisingly little blood. Quilting gloves and a long-sleeved fleece shirt provided fairly good protection. It also helped that the quilting was simple.

Soon, photos of the finished quilt!

Blue and Green, Finally

2010-08-31T15:53:00.000-05:00

This is one of the main things that's been eliminating my sewing time----the transformation of the master bath from this

to this

(Ignore the gray foreground--that's just shadow.)

It took three years, but we finally got the wallpaper off, and the paint on. I smile every time I see it!

There's more to come. The other bathroom is wallpapered, and there's a wallpaper border in the master bedroom. It all has to go!

Linen Strips

2010-08-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

My 7-year-old grandson saw these and said, "Whoa! That's different." Yup.

These aren't bad photos, but the colors are subdued a bit and the yellow and green are a bit washed out. In real life they really sizzle. I'm particularly fond of the hot pink and red-orange.

It's fun putting together unstraight edges. No rotary cutters used here! I chop away with large shears and, when possible, use the natural uneven edges of the scraps. I take some care to match up a concave curve with a convex curve, and also put wedges in so that the panels don't curve too much, but I try not to overthink things.

I can't believe how fast this top is going together. The plan is for roughly 45 to 50 inches high and wide, and I'm already at about 45 by 35.

A New Linen Quilt

2010-08-03T15:51:00.000-05:00

I'm excited about this new quilt! It's one I've been wanting to get to for more than a year, and a few months ago I decided I finally had enough linen collected for it. The main reason I'm starting it now is that a couple of weeks ago we finished painting the dinette/computer area, and the off-white walls (formerly wallpaper and then scarred drywall) are so blank!

The fabrics are 100% linen from yardage (maybe a quarter to a third of the total) and clothing. The weights and textures vary quite a bit. A couple are thinner than I'd like, but the colors are too good to give up.

The emphasis will be on the reds. At first, I wasn't going to include all the colors from the blues through the black, but paging through some quilt books helped me decide that more contrast and added colors will be good. We'll see how it goes, though.

Rug Done!

2010-07-29T10:31:00.001-05:00

I love this rug! Design-wise, I was really winging it, but I couldn't have planned a better result. It actually looks three-dimensional, and the colors flow so nicely.

(Here's my previous post, which records most of the early steps in making it.) I purposely chose mostly medium colors, so it won't show the dirt as much as the larger one. These are entry rugs, so they trap the grit, wet, and general dirt coming into the condo.

In case you're wondering, washing one of these is not exactly easy, but it's not a terrible experience either. After a good shaking, I put it in the bathtub, add a little detergent and warm water, and then gently shove it around to get the dirt out. After several changes of water, when the water is clear and there's no more sand in the tub, I place it carefully into the washer, spin it, and pop it into the dryer. (I have a water-saving top-loader, so I can place the rug carefully around the sides to keep the strain minimal while spinning, and a very high percentage of the water is removed safely. Not sure how it would survive a front-loader.) I use cotton thread for joining the plaited strips, so I'm careful not to put too much strain on these rugs, especially when they're wet. I also overcast the two cut edges at least twice, and put two rows of wide multistitch zig-zags a little way in from the ends.

By the way, if you make one, make the plaited strips almost a foot longer than the desired rug length. After the plaited strips are sewn together, mark a cutting line on each end, do a straight stitch just to the inside of this line, then zig-zag over it before cutting. After cutting, do another zig-zag over the cut edge. If the cut line differs much from the marked line, add another straight stitch row and zig-zag row over the edge. I think that in every case, I've had to resew/recut the finished edges to make them more square. It takes some effort to keep the cut edges from expanding and ruffling. Add the two lines of multistitch zig-zag after you know you have finished edges. At first, the rug will not lie completely flat. It relaxes over the course of a few days.

Plaited rugs are not quick (they also eat a lot of thread). This one took roughly 35 hours (not including the ripping and resewing of the plaited strips, because the first time I couldn't be bothered to pin them), and it's only 28 inches by 57 inches. But they're beautiful, thin and flat, don't bunch up, light enough to wash and dry, and don't shrink or transfer dye to the floor. Definitely worth the effort.

Wedding Quilt Photos

2010-07-27T21:47:00.000-05:00

I don't much like it, but I have to accept the fact that I disappear from the blogging world occasionally. When the workload gets heavy, and personal commitments multiply, blogging is simply one of the more expendable items. But things are more relaxed now, and I'm looking forward to catching up a bit.

Along with blogging, the wedding quilt got delayed, too. But, it turned out that personally giving it to the newlyweds a couple of weeks late was actually nicer than having it mixed in with all the other gifts. I had time to make a nice label. We got to chat about the fabrics and how I made the quilt. Having the more personal connection was very nice.

This quilt was a perfect fit for quilting each quarter separately and then sewing the quilted parts together. The method is a pain if you need to match the sections (actually, I've never been able to get such sections to match at all), but it's nice when matching isn't an option to begin with. I can't abide leaving overlapped batting in the finished quilt, so there's a lot of fussy trimming and hand sewing, but that's better than maneuvering an entire queen-size quilt sandwich, especially when using straight pins to hold the layers together. (Safety pins are too thick. They break the threads of the mostly tightly woven shirtings.)

I knew right away I'd do an all-over meander. I think it's a nice contrast to the hard, straight edges, not to mention that it's the one type of machine quilting I'm even somewhat competent at. I used leftover thread from my hand quilting of the linen quilt--variegated green and variegated yellow--plus a somewhat strange variegated pink-beige, gold, and green that worked surprisingly well.

This was a fun quilt to make, and I got pretty attached to it. It was hard to give it away!

The Rug Is Taking Shape

2010-04-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

No significant quilt content today---I've been too intent on the rug.

I really like the way it's turning out! Here's the first plait:

It's almost 4 inches wide and has 12 laces. But I need to back up....

To recap, I started with 12 pairs of pants and was able to cut enough 2-inch strips (actually, just a shade narrower, to allow better travel through the binder-making tool) for seven 7-foot laces from each pair (with only a few scraps left over). I folded the strips, pressed them, and stitched them into laces. The colors grouped into two sets of six---one with more grays, the other with more beiges.

I originally planned to plait 6 different-colored laces (graded from dark to light) into one plait. (The photo above and below show the laces sewn together at their tops, in these sets of six, ready for plaiting.) The resulting 14 plaits would then be sewn together to make a rug. Here's the beginning of one plait:

Nice, but the plait would be at most 2 inches wide. I wasn't liking the design possibilities. Besides, that's a lot of plaits to sew together. Time to rethink.

I had never worked with more than 9 laces at once, but I figured that I might be able to handle 12. What the heck. I tried it.

Much better!

I had put two laces of each color next to each other (six colors, and a total of 12 laces) and expected the pairs to stay next to each other throughout the plaiting, but they didn't. They would have if I had done what I normally do, which is simply put the leftmost lace over the one to the right and continue to weave it all the way across, diagonally. However, that leaves the upper right free of plaiting, and with 12 laces, that's a fair amount of wasted lace length. Instead, I started with the next-to-last lace from the right and put it over the rightmost lace, then worked with the fourth lace from the right, weaving it all the way to right, then the sixth lace from the right, and so on. This allowed the plaiting to go all the way up to the the upper edge.

Serendipity! The outermost pairs of laces did indeed move along together, but the interior pairs separated. So, instead of a clearly defined light-to-dark zig-zag, I got a more subtle but, I think, very nice gradation.

I'm mulling the idea of sewing the plaits together by hand instead of machine. The only workable way of doing this would be to slip a blunt needle through the outermost lacing edge and weave it back and forth between the two plaits. But my suspicion is that I'll run into problems because the outer "loops" won't always line up with each other.

In any case, I'd really like to get this project all wrapped up by the end of this coming week, primarily because I have to get back to the wedding quilt---the wedding is only 5 weeks away, and I have lots of non-quilt-related stuff to do during that time, too. I ordered batting, and it should be here in a few days.

Seduced by Cotton Twill

2010-04-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

The plan was to dig through three bins that might have suitable yardage for the wedding quilt backing. To get to them, however, I had to get past a bin overflowing with cotton twills ("khaki pants" in their previous life). In fact, I distinctly remember purposely overfilling that bin with the cut-up pants I'd chosen for my next plaited rug, specifically so that I'd notice and, hopefully, make the rug.

I know myself too well. Those almost velvety surfaces, the dense but not too firm hand, the subtle colors ... irresistible. All quilts have been temporarily supplanted. And we really do need another rug for the entry.

I never posted photos of my last rug project, so here they are.

I chose the lightest, most subtle colors and a complicated design with bilateral symmetry.

The individual strips have anywhere from three to nine laces.

I love it! It's perfect with our tile, too. Twenty-six pairs of pants contributed, with enough fabric left over to fashion a large coffee table runner (not plaited---just made from the 2-inch strips). Plus the inevitable scraps.

The new rug will be a range of somewhat darker colors, although it's hard to tell in this photo. The darkest fabrics haven't been cut up yet. At the far left are the remaining whole pieces, to the right are six bundles of finished laces (all of which will be plaited together). In the middle are two sets of strips ready to fold and sew into laces (plus one bundle of laces).

I'm deep into the project but, now, almost regret starting it. I'll be so busy with work (courtesy of a small avalanche of freelance projects) that I won't get to any quilts but the wedding quilt anytime soon. Ah well.

A Quilt for Snowflake the Stuffed Dog and Friends

2010-03-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to my 7-year-old step-grandson that we could make a quilt for his stuffed animals. He's been fascinated by my sewing machine for years (along with nearly every other machine and gadget he comes across), and I figured he's old enough to do some simple, well-supervised sewing. He was delighted and a little awed. ("I'm really old enough?")

I chose the nine-patch pattern, got his input on the overall size (we decided on 12" by 12"), and said he could pick anything from a sizable stack of my shirt fabrics. With impressive sureness, he made terrific choices. This kid really does have a talent for art.

Yesterday, I cut the patches, he sewed them (after a few practice pieces, and all the while showing a healthy concern for safety), in exactly the layout he wanted, and I did the rest. Snowflake likes red (and, incidentally, so does his owner), so the quilting thread is red and the backing is a tiny red-and-white check.

Snowflake and his buddies will be sleeping cozily and in style.

Four Quarters Done

2010-03-16T11:14:00.001-05:00

I've been happily picking fabrics, cutting strips, and sewing---and the four quarters of the wedding quilt are done!

I'm short on well-lighted floor space, but this photo gives the overall idea. Only a few fabrics were used more than once. Two (a very dark blue plaid, and the central orange) I used three times each. So, this top has more than 60 different fabrics.

Here are a few of my favorite fabric combinations. I love the peaches, tans/browns, and off-white next to the red.

I used mostly 2-1/2-inch strips, but sometimes I went with 3 inches, and sometimes on only one side (and the central squares are different sizes, too), so here, I added in the blue/yellow stripe fabric to make up some inches.

Great rusty and brown colors! The rust and white plaid was all small pieces, so that strip has lots of crazy seams and grain directions.

At first, I thought that the intense red/navy/yellow plaid, the wild multicolored stripe, and even the bright yellow/blue/white stripe would be too much for this quilt, and I set them aside. But by the fourth quarter, I was ready for them, and they look great!

Now, I need to decide on backing fabric. Time to dig through my stash and see what largish yardage I can find.

All except two of the quilt-top fabrics are clothing, and almost all are men's shirts, which means almost all the fabrics are very fine and tightly woven. Safety pins literally tear the fabric. So instead, I'm going to pin baste with large straight pins and be VERY careful while quilting. The plan is to layer each half of the quilt separately. I'm hoping that working on a 43-inch-wide sandwich, and free-motion quilting a simple, smallish meandering pattern will make the straight pins workable. Leather gauntlets would be nice, too.

One-Quarter of the Wedding Quilt

2010-03-07T11:22:00.000-06:00

My original plan was to focus only on value, to have alternating light and dark strips without much if any regard to color. But right from the beginning, I was organizing by color. I couldn't help it even when I firmly told myself not to.

After my first few fabric choices, which had color linkage despite my efforts, I could see that I just wasn't going to pay attention to the plan. I kept thinking, "That group of four greens looks so nice, and they segue so well into the beiges, which pick up the beige in the red-orange plaid, and the yellow/white/two-blue stripe looks great with the solid yellow," and on and on.

OK. New plan: groups of color-related fabrics, with the occasional sharp shift.

That's when it got fun. And I really like the way it's developing.

Tracking Down Similar Quilts

2010-03-03T10:22:00.000-06:00

I figured Deb Rowden's blog would be a good place to start looking for quilts similar to the wedding quilt I'm making. Sure enough! Here's one example, and here's another. I love these!

Beginning a Wedding Quilt

2010-03-03T09:58:00.000-06:00

My husband's nephew is getting married in mid-May, and that definitely calls for a quilt! At first, I thought I had the perfect already-pieced top just waiting to be quilted. But, no. Although that one is very nice (albeit a bit straight-laced), it's mostly white with pastel stars. The nephew and the top are just not a good fit.

I took a look at those 100 shirts sitting on my cutting table. So many possibilities! But too many of my ideas were too labor intensive. I mean really, how much time am I going to have over the next two months?

The challenge was to find a pattern that (1) the soon-to-be-wed couple have a good chance of liking (2) I like, (3) is good for relaxed piecing (minimal need for precision cutting and matching), (4) has good energy---something on the bold and graphic side, (5) has enough but not too much creative challenge, (6) uses fabrics I already have, and (7) is easy to piece, with not too many patches. Not an easy task.

After much paging though quilt books and photos stored on the computer, and several days of brainstorming, I decided. It's a big, bold log-cabin-ish pattern---all plaids and stripes (and maybe a few oxford-type solids), sometimes cut straight, sometimes not. I know I've seen a quilt very much like it somewhere, but I can't track it down.

Here's the center:

The center is four squares, each 9 to 10 inches, finished, and these squares are not sewn to each other until the end. Strips (2 to 3 inches wide, finished) will be added to the outer two sides of each square until each quarter of the top reaches close to 45 by 45. inches. Then I'll sew the quarters together. Actually, I think I'll make two halves, do most of the quilting, and then put the halves together. This is the perfect pattern for that approach.

I expect that 60 or more shirts will be donating to the project. The drabber blues will be underrepresented.

100 Shirts

2010-02-22T15:32:00.001-06:00

Yup, you're looking at about 100 cut up shirts. (There are a couple of skirts in there too.) Many of the light fabrics are already in the hand-pieced tumbling blocks quilt top I've been working on for several years.

The red/yellow color overload of the spiral project has made me want to look again at these mostly calmer colors. I've been cutting up the last of the whole shirts, while thinking what I might do with them. So many possibilities! As much as I like the spiral project, I also need a project that takes less mental effort, yet doesn't get boring---rather like the orange plaids quilt.

Very Red. Very Yellow.

2010-02-22T14:31:00.000-06:00

It's not much progress. But I'll take it. I also redid some of the yellow triangles section. I just wasn't happy with a couple of the fabrics. Also, I've been experimenting with the triangle-making methods in Liberated Quiltmaking II (photos of my efforts soon). This book came along at just the right time!

Frankly, the brightness of the colors can be a bit of a problem in a way I didn't expect. There are days when yellow and red are just too much for me---times when I'm stressed and need calming, not stimulation.

Quilting the Plaids

2010-02-05T11:03:00.001-06:00

With such a busy week, it's been good to have a relaxed, fun project to work on. Over the past weekend I pin basted and managed most of the machine quilting. Snatching some time one weekday evening, I finished it up.

The quilting really brings it to life and also softens the transitions a bit. Here's a close-up:

I had a few glitches here and there, but overall, this was the easiest and best-looking free-motion quilting I've done. With the spectacularly poor start to my machine-quilting efforts a few years ago, I've since tried to give myself every advantage. I can say that gloves with those little grippy dots, a teflon mat on the machine bed, a set-in table (giving a wide, very flat surface), and plenty of flat table space to the left and the back really help. Still, my Bernina and I were not working well together. I just couldn't get reasonably consistent stitch length. The cramped bed area was annoying. Never knowing when I'd run out of bobbin thread add more frustration. Every project was a high-stress affair, with aching back and genuinely bad quilting. I dreaded doing more. And frankly, that was one reason I started hand quilting.

It was also one of my motivations for getting a new machine, and this is my first free-motion quilting project using it. My Viking Sapphire 870 has five speeds, and speed 3 (a little faster than half) seems to mesh really well with how I move the quilt. It's such a relief to not have to pay attention to foot pressure on the pedal. I just press slowly (the machine has a very smooth start and acceleration) to do a neat start and then put my foot all the way down and concentrate on moving the quilt. Also, I like the spring-action foot. I set the foot lift to it's highest level and increase the tension well above (5.0) what the machine sets as the default (3.0). I love hearing the beeps to let me know I need to shorten my stitches before I run out of bobbin thread! The huge bed space really makes a difference. I actually enjoyed the machine quilting, and the lack of pain in my back was so nice.

It's a good thing this was a quilt without expectations, though. When I had an area just 6 inches by 9 inches to go, I ran out of thread. Completely out. My first reaction was "Oh no!" But then, I thought, "Oh well, what other thread do I have? How about the lavender?"

Works for me.

Next: I have the binding cut. Just need to find time to apply it.

Progress with the Plaids

2010-01-24T11:59:00.003-06:00

It's been a very busy week (and next week is looking about the same), but I made a point to carve out some quality time to get this quilt top done.

About two minutes after I published my last post, I realized I had actually proposed the possibility of redoing a hundred or more seams! No. Not happening. After mulling a little longer, and a good night's sleep, I decided on the following plan: (1) Reduce the size of the largest dark areas. (2) Find the muddiest of the transitions between fabrics and either add a thin dark strip, or delete the block.

Going through the blocks individually was a good exercise. I ended up deleting two blocks (so it's good I had three extras) and altering another five or six. I did almost no ripping. Mostly, I just sliced out the offending fabric or seam, sewed in a new piece, and retrimmed the block. Less than an hour, and I was done.

When sewing the blocks together, I put most of the larger blocks (those purposely cut more than 8-1/2 inches in one direction) into one strip, to "show them up," and I made sure I had opposing zig-zag columns. But that was the extent of the plan. Otherwise, I just picked up two blocks, and if I liked them next to each other, fine. If not, I picked up another. I really enjoyed putting the blocks together that way. Much more fun than planning out every placement and having to keep everything in order while sewing.

I like it! So does my 7-year-old grandson---at least I think so. He gave it two wows, but that was at least partly caused by shock. This quilt top does assault the eye.

I plan to quilt it with all-over meandering (the only free-motion machine quilting I do reasonably well). In any case, I'm sorry to say it's going to be a while before I'll have the time to baste and quilt.

This One Certainly Is Exhuberant

2010-01-14T16:28:00.003-06:00

The plaids have been cut up and sewn, with not too much left over. Here are 45 8-1/2-inch blocks (for 5 columns of 9), plus an extra 3 (which I accidentally made because I'm bad at counting), and a stack of 3-inch strips for sashing:

This will make a fairly small quilt, about 55" by 72".

Here's a sample layout.

Wow. Pretty intense. Good thing the sashing is calming. I like the orange and the opposing zig-zags. The rest, well......it breaks some rules. I can't help but be fond of it just on that account. Maybe it has both too much and not enough contrast. Or maybe the contrast could be better arranged?

Hmm. I'm considering adding a very narrow, very dark strip between all or most of the light strips (I have plenty of the two dark fabrics), and cutting down all or most of the big dark strips. It's at least worth some experimenting.

Another Experiment

2010-01-07T10:51:00.005-06:00

The spiral project is coming along nicely, although slowly, but I got distracted by this:

I've been collecting madras-type plaids--shirts, dresses, etc.--that I thought would go well with some similar yardage I've had for many years. All together, they've finally reached critical mass--enough to make a bed-sized quilt with a fair amount of variety.

The colors fall into two main groups--the citrus and the turquoise/pink--showing their respective vintages. Interestingly, they both include the same lavender and other purples.

My plan was to come up with an easy to stitch free-style design. Lately, I've been very taken with strip-pieced blocks made into strippy-type quilts. And I liked the idea of having the bright orange provide a focus for each block. So, I settled on 8-inch squares, pieced so that the orange diagonals make a bold zig-zag line. I'll use the subdued green/blue plaid for vertical sashing strips.

The pieced fabric looks pretty wild:

After trimming, the blocks look marginally more civilized:

Can hardly wait to see how it looks when it's done!

A Day of Piecing

2010-01-01T13:24:00.000-06:00

I was very lucky to be able to spend yesterday piecing the spiral quilt top and doing other fun, solitary things. The time was well spent working out some process stuff and making design decisions--the sorts of things you really need uninterrupted time for, plus a fresh eye and unburdened mind.

Originally, I planned the yellow part of the spiral to be strips, randomly pieced. I did a few samples and didn't like them. The red part is going to be nearly all squares--chunks of various checkerboard patterns--and I didn't want the yellow part to compete too strongly with that. But when the strips didn't work out, I kept thinking "triangles."

Triangles. My next thought was all that matching and points and dealing with bias. But, I said to myself, I'm not doing that kind of quilt. It's a freewheeling, boisterous, outside-the-lines kind of quilt. Can I make triangles in a way that doesn't drive me crazy and also makes them look good (to me, at least)? Worth a shot.

First, the heck with even thinking about matching points. (I did measure and rotary cut the strips, but I wasn't obsessive.) Then, I just layered two strips and eyeballed a 45-degree angle, with a little help from some tape on the machine bed. I kept going and then cut the strips apart into half-square triangles.

I ended up with lots of very regular patches, plus just enough with variations. I was having so much fun that I went ahead and pieced together a bunch of scraps, and all the words, too.

Here's the quilt center with the first part of the spiral attached. You can see how uneven the upper edge is. Oh well. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

The Yellow/Orange/Red Spiral Quilt

2009-12-30T20:22:00.002-06:00

That name is probably going to get shortened to "spiral."

I started working on it a few days ago. It's going to have words in it, and since I've never pieced letters before, I was eager to try a few. Here they all are (with scraps on the right). They're tiny little things. They'll finish at only 2 inches high.

To get a grounding in free-pieced letters, I took a good look at Tonya's (Lazy Gal) tutorials. Very helpful! Then, well, I just plunged in.

Because the final letters are so small, and the color differences so subtle, I wanted to make sure they were easily readable. So, most of the letter fabric is fairly accurately cut 1-inch strips, using a rotary cutter and ruler, rather than just completely winging it. The blocky letters with parallel lines came together nicely (T, H, etc.). Letters with angles that did not parallel the edges of the block were, um, shall we say, somewhat challenging. Many of these (like A and W) got forced into right-angled shapes, which they graciously accepted. K, V, and N took more thought. In the end, I didn't worry about where the seams fell and got very recognizable results.

Here is the eventual center of the spiral, plus the word "TAKE," which is the first word of "Take what you have and make what you want." This little saying will be incorporated into the yellow part of the spiral. It's a quote from Roberta Johnson, quoted in Accidentally on Purpose, and exactly describes the quilts I'm making these days.

Finally, the Photos

2009-12-27T11:21:00.002-06:00

Here it is, hanging in our dining room!

It still surprises me when I first catch sight of it. It definitely has the impact I was hoping for: graphic punch and then, at a closer look, the surprising stitching.

After it was up, I was straightening the left side and heard a pop. Argh! While hand-sewing the binding to the back, there was one spot where the thread tangled and broke as I was finishing it off. I hoped it would hold, but it didn't. Have to fix that.

A Puzzleball Diversion

2009-12-26T19:34:00.002-06:00

Christmas Eve day. I needed one last gift. A handmade one. A puzzle ball! (Patchwork Puzzle Balls, by Jinny Beyer.) I've made a few of these little (and not so little) gems, and each one has been entrancing. So, I dug through my stash and pulled out a bunch of fabrics that I'm highly unlikely to use in a quilt but that are perfect for fancy puzzle balls.

The puzzle ball I chose has pentagons separated by triangles (final size of ball: 4-3/4 inches in diameter). Contrast between the pentagons is not necessary. A good thing, since my fancy fabric stash is limited. Here are the pieces. Well.....not exactly, since--oops--I cut these triangles too small.

Sewing well went, though! Not too many set in pieces, so I was able to machine stitch most of the seams. Lots of stuffing later (I used poly, not cotton), I had this:

This next photo shows the final hand-sewn seam to close up the ball (right and lower right). That one is really hard to sew.
One small warning: Despite Jinny's breezy assurances about how easy puzzle balls are to make, they do need precise cutting and piecing, plus plenty of unhurried time for fabric choosing and construction. This one took between 5 and 6 hours.

What a Week!

2009-12-22T11:59:00.001-06:00

Whew! I've had a very busy week. I took on a freelance project that we all agreed would take about 10 hours, but it turned out to take 30. I got it done Sunday just before noon and have been catching up with the rest of my life since then. Yesterday, I finished the hand quilting on the stones quilt!

It's off the frame now. I just have to take care of a few loose threads dangling from the back, and then bind it and add a sleeve. When I get it hung up on the wall, I'll post a final photo.

In the mean time, I have a couple of detail pictures.

I learned a bunch of things from this quilt, and one of them is that heavy cotton twill (aka khaki pants) didn't mesh well with the kind of hand quilting I used for the wavy lines. The problem is that the stitches cause the fabric to bunch in a way that creates noticeable vertical texture. This would be fine if that's the look I wanted, but I really had in mind a smoother, more horizontal effect, with more visible quilting lines.

At a distance, the verticalness is even more visible and the quilting even less visible.

This next photo is of the back. Every stitch you see is stab stitch. Personally, I'm truly amazed that the stitches are so well aligned with the stitches on the top. I fully expected them to zig-zag all over. I didn't even take particular care to remember to keep the needle perpendicular to the fabric (which helps a lot to position the needle tip in the right spot). Stitch length varies quite a bit, but it varies almost as much on the top. I just didn't have the patience to be more careful.

Yikes! I still have lots to do this afternoon, and the snow keeps coming down. Better get to it.

Morning Views from My Kitchen

2009-12-11T08:26:00.007-06:00

It's sunny and a whopping 5 degrees out. These are views from my kitchen's three-season porch. I had to work quickly, because moisture was rapidly condensing on the windows.

We had very wet snow, which dragged down branches. Then the deep cold froze everything in place. The trees and shrubs are showing the damage.
I drove a little bit yesterday--enough to find out first hand how awful the streets and parking lots are. The initial slush froze, so there's treacherous ice everywhere. For the past 24 hours, semis have been jackknifing, cars have been sliding into ditches or each other, and lots of people have ended up in emergency rooms because of falls and snowblower accidents. Tomorrow it should warm up enough for road salt to work.

And yes, I moved to Madison on purpose. Twice. (--sigh--)

Once again, I'm very glad I can work from home today, and I have plenty of quilt projects! Got a little more stab stitching done last night, and am hoping to start the spiral quilt later today.

Yes, It's Winter

2009-12-10T14:03:00.003-06:00

We have 14.5 inches of snow (acquired in less than 24 hours). Yesterday, everything except the most essential services was shut down....and a very good thing, too. Now the cold sets in. It was -3 degrees when I got up this morning. The compensation is that it's too cold for clouds, so we have a brilliantly sunny, blue-sky day. Nice to look at, but I'm glad I can work from home.

Hanging around the house is certainly good for making progress on quilt-related tasks, although the stones quilt (not the most inspired name, but that's what I've been calling it) is not yet done. Only 12 more inches to go, but I've had to give my hands and wrists a four-day break from the hard work of pushing and pulling a needle through that tough fabric. Decision: No more hand quilting of khaki pants fabrics!

In the mean time, I'm planning a new project. Requirements:

1. Hand-quilt-able fabrics.

2. No purchases. Stash only.

3. Appropriate for a wall in the kitchen or living room.

4. Usable as a real quilt, too.

5. Cheerful and bright.

6. No templates, no exacting cutting, no matching of seams.

Here's what fits the bill:

I dug out all the reds, oranges, and yellows (the ones on the left are not quite as pale as they look here). I love these colors together! I drew the line at pink. (Frankly, it's a little worrisome to see how many pink fabrics I've acquired.) All are cottons. I don't have many linen fabrics in this color range, and I'd rather not mix the fabric types.

Two-thirds are purchased yardage---languishing in my stash for anywhere from 5 to 20 years. I remember buying several yards of red in 1989 for a planned red-and-white feathered star quilt. All the measuring and matching required to feather a star turned out to be more effort than I seem able to muster. Time to do something else with it. The rest (all the plaids and the stripe) are from thrifted clothing.

The current plan is to use log cabin construction to make a single, very large, square spiral. Each "log" will be pieced from (mostly) square and rectangular patches. Beyond this, I'm making it up as I go along. Which, if I ponder it too much, feels kind of scary.

A Few Spirals

2009-12-03T08:55:00.001-06:00

I've made some good progress the past few days. I wanted to take a photo of the central rectangle before I turn the poles again. All the visible stitches are stab stitched. The rectangle is 8 or 9 inches wide. (There's very little natural light this morning--the flurries are starting, and we should have a couple of inches by dinner time--and the lamps make these colors look darker than they really are.)

Here's a bit of detail (with the colors skewed the other way), showing one of my attempts at a little person.

The quilting is roughly three-quarters done. Yay! Around this time in a project, I get antsy and start calculating the number of hours of work left. Current estimate: 13 to 15. Total hours will be close to 60. The cutting and piecing probably took another 8 to 10, and I figure 3 or 4 for binding.

Once every few days, my husband wanders in, looks over my shoulder as I quilt, and says, baffled, some variation of "Where do you get the patience for that?" I have no idea.

Current Favorite Book

2009-11-30T12:30:00.002-06:00

Since progress on hand quilting is particularly boring to blog about, here's a bit about what else I've been doing---which is, mostly, reading about quilts and thinking about the next top to piece.

My current favorite quilt book, by far, is Accidentally on Purpose: The Aesthetic Management of Irregularities in African Textiles and African-American Quilts, by Eli Leon. It's full of wonderful quilts that I've seen nowhere else. (I really wish I'd known about this exhibition at the Figge Museum, in Davenport, Iowa, and seen these quilts in person.) But perhaps best is that this book has an analytical approach. I keep coming back to it, finding little nuggets of design wisdom and incisive explanations of process. I can learn a lot from these quilts just by looking, but I love having the author describe, for example, how a block is progressively altered and within what limits, or what the quiltmaker has decided to vary or not vary, how things like syncopation and deliberate departure from regularity are used in different ways---all sorts of things I wouldn't see so clearly on my own. The African textiles are beautiful, and the parallels with the quilts are striking. Love this book! Seriously, if you have any interest at all in this kind of quiltmaking, get yourself a copy while it's still in print!

Quilt Update

2009-11-23T10:58:00.016-06:00

Scratch that deadline.

After a serious push yesterday, I can see that even spending my maximum number of hours per day will not get this quilt done in less than another week and a half. The patterns are taking way more time than the straight stitching. Oh well.

But it definitely feels better this way. Pressure's off, and my hands and wrists can get a break from the tough, tightly woven twill.

The good news is that I really like how this quilt is shaping up! The camera isn't dealing well with the intense black, and I'm not savvy enough to fix it, but these photos give the range of the patterns I'm stitching. Some are inspired by a little book that's been sitting on my bookshelf for years but I've never really used: African Fabric Design, by Shirley Friedland and Leslie Pina.

Goals and Deadlines

2009-11-18T12:52:00.003-06:00

I like goals. Deadlines? Not so much.

But one of my goals (making the stones steps quilt and hanging it on the huge, blank dining room wall) has morphed into a self-imposed deadline. This is probably crazy-making, but I'd really really really like to have it done and hung by Thanksgiving morning.

Theoretically, this is doable. In practice? Hmm.

The Stab Stitch Experiment

2009-11-13T17:59:00.017-06:00

This quilt is my current active project. Wish I'd taken a photo before I put it on the frame. The sense of perspective is striking. (Credit for the idea for this quilt goes to Loretta Pettway for her quilt shown in The Quilts of Gees Bend, p. 77.)

The fabrics are very dark and very light cotton twill (men's and women's "khaki" pants in their previous life), plus clear pink and clear orange cotton twill (girls' pants in their previous life).

I cut all the orange and pink pieces with a rotary cutter. But all the darks and lights were cut with a pair of scissors and no marking, to purposely provide a little variation in width. I didn't want any of this quilt to be precise.

I'm really into hand quilting these days. I'm finding machine quilting to be too much drudgery, too stressful, too hard on my back and shoulders, too hard on the quilts (most of the fabrics I use are seriously damaged by safety pins), and just generally not how I want my quilting to look.

Fortunately, I'm also seriously into ignoring the Quilt Police and into applying Liberated principles (thank you Gwen Marston!!). Otherwise, I'd never, ever attempt hand quilting this quilt...and I probably wouldn't even have bothered making the top at all.

It's pretty darn thick with all that cotton twill, the flannel backing and the "select" weight Quilter's Dream batting (my local quilt shop no longer carries the "request" weight, and I didn't feel like waiting for shipping). Still, I can do a fairly decent rocking stitch until I get close to the seams. Then, well, it's stab stitch or nothing. I knew this going in and decided I was willing to live with the outcome, whatever it might be.

The zig-zaggy bits are purposely large stitches that shift direction, which is hard to do with the rocking stitch. None of the stitching lines are marked. I'm just winging it. In the beige areas (which I visualize as steps of stone), I wanted gently undulating lines, kind of like layers in sandstone but a little more curvy, that begin and end within each fabric strip. In the dark areas, I just make it up as I go along, keeping in mind ideas of ancient or alien symbols and patterns on African textiles.

To my surprise, the stab stitching looks really good (at least on top). In the photos, there's a mixture of stab and rocking, but I can't tell which is which. The stab stitch is easy to do, and it's just as fast and maybe even faster than the rocking stitch (especially because with the rocking stitch, I put two stitches on the needle, let go of the needle, pick up my jeweler's pliers, pull the needle through, drop the pliers, pick up the needle....). A bonus is that stab stitch can be done in any direction just as easily as any other, which is truly wonderful when your quilt is on a frame. All in all, it's.....liberating!

As John Lennon Once Said...

2009-11-11T10:41:00.006-06:00

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

Too true.

It's been almost a year and a half since my last post--a time so full of things that had to get done, that quite a few other things just had to go by the wayside, and I was very sorry to find that quiltmaking was one of them.

The good news is that pretty much everything I've been dealing with turned out well. A few highlights: My parents are in the memory care section of a nice assisted living center and doing pretty darn well. My sister and I cleared out their house (packed solid from basement to attic!) and got the stuff and the house sold. I lost my largest freelance client, but gained a wonderful job at the university. And, I'm back working on quilt projects!

To get things rolling on this blog again, here's some quilt content. This is the linen quilt I had just started hand quilting before I got overwhelmed. I finished it a few weeks ago.

And here's some detail, showing the combination of fans and diagonal lines.

This is my first hand-quilted quilt, so I learned a lot. My plans were to stitch all-over freehand fans, not get too focused on precision, and not mark before loading it into the frame. I scratched the lines with a pin, which worked really well, but I found that completely freehand fans were stressing me out. So after a couple of rows, I made a simple cardboard template for the outermost curve, and put the underneath curves in freehand. I felt much better.

Then, even though I liked the fans, I kept wondering what it would be like to quilt straight lines. So, I did sections of diagonal lines, scratched with a pin along the edge of a rotary-cutting ruler. After a while, the logistics of interlocking the chunks of diagonals got a little complicated, so I switched back to fans, and then braved another section of diagonals to finish off the top end.

I really liked hand quilting! I gave up on the left-handed stitching, though. I got pretty good at it, but right-handed was easier and faster. I also gave up on spoon quilting. It places one more layer between me and the quilt, which was annoying, and I really didn't see any net benefit. Yes, it kept my underneath fingers pristine, but holding the spoon was a strain. Turns out that without the spoon, I really don't prick my fingertips very much.

Wow. It's good to be back! More soon.

Linen Scraps!

2008-07-04T19:13:00.004-05:00

Just as the insanity and trouble of the past two weeks finally calmed, and as I started to think about sewing and quilts again, I found a delightful gift in my mailbox. Jude of Spirit Cloth very generously sent me a fat packet of linen scraps, tied with a purple ribbon!

I love them! What wonderful prints and stripes and plaids, and beautiful colors!

Oh my, this is going to be fun.

On the Road Back to Normal

2008-06-30T08:13:00.003-05:00

The rough patch I mentioned in my last post turned into a crisis. The past two weeks were filled with dealing with my parents (80 and 82, both with mild to moderate dementia, and no longer able to live on their own), finding and settling them into an assisted living facility near me (against their completely unrealistic wishes), and getting guardianship over both of them (because there simply was no other acceptable alternative). Trust me when I say I'm leaving out myriad details ranging from unpleasant to very painful.

If there is any lesson here, it's that everyone (including me!) should put together a will and durable power of attorney for finances and for health care. Do it now! And then discuss with your children or other relatives realistic alternatives for your living accommodations and care should you become incapacitated. It will save you and your loved ones from most of what we went through, and will save you money, too (guardianship proceedings in Wisconsin cost at least $2500 per person).

Anyway, now I'm working long hours to make up for lots of lost work time, and I haven't touched a needle for the last week and a half, or even read my favorite blogs. The good news is that the past few days, since the family stuff has begun to calm down, I've been thinking about quilts again---my red linen fabrics and my cotton twills, getting more hand quilting done, and wondering what everyone has been up to lately.

Quilt Therapy

2008-06-14T06:57:00.002-05:00

I've been going through a rough patch lately. There's the omnipresent work, of course, but also problems involving my elderly parents---lots of difficult situations and decisions, and a mountain of paperwork. My creativity is very low, but the need for soothing diversions high. I'm very glad I have the linen quilt in the frame. I seldom have much free time, but when I do, the contained and easily controlled world of a rocking needle and (semi)neat stitches is just what I need.

I've introduced a little variety by building fans from both sides. And yes, I'm still stitching lefthanded. In fact, I'm better at it now than I am at using my right hand, at least when I'm using the quilting spoon. It took a while to get the hang of the spoon, but it's working very well, and I really like the relaxed feeling of knowing I'll never get stabbed.

A Different Kind of Quilt

2008-05-23T08:47:00.009-05:00

It all started with this:

It's the hem of a linen skirt I found on one of my thrift store forays a couple of years ago, right around the time I started collecting linen---another piece of fabric that was calling out "Take me home!"

As they come in, the clothes get washed, then cut apart and put away, awaiting critical mass and enough time. The first linen quilt to come together was the one I'm currently hand quilting, and ideas for a second one are percolating around a set of reds that needs a few more members. A few weeks ago, I was playing with the linens again and another idea came together.

I've been wanting to try out the fancy stitches on my new machine, and the embroidered linen skirt was a starting point. Here are a few trials:

I decided to not get complicated, and stuck to straight lines of programmed stitches. Even that, though, has plenty of scope for variation. I had a lot of fun with the entredeux foot, too.

I also looked through my linens and put together a nice collection:

I have a couple of other colors in small scraps, too. Printed 100% linen is not all that common, and I'm lucky that the floral goes so well with the solids. (That print at the bottom is 50/50 linen/cotton, and while the colors are good, I'm not sure it will stay here.)

And what to do with this little treasure trove? This past winter, I discovered Spirit Cloth. Jude's work is amazing and mesmerizing, and I spent many happy hours with her blog and photo collections. (Do take a look, if you haven't visited there yet!) In particular, I was entranced by her Treehouse Quilt. Weaving fabric strips together was a whole new direction. And raw-edged fabric strips, too! I don't expect to ever come close to her artistry, but I've been very much wanting to try a woven fabric quilt project.

I decided to stay small, which is certainly not my usual inclination, but seemed the best approach with a new technique and limited time. The finished size will be a little more than 24 in by 24 in. The strips will be embellished with machine embroidery, then woven with each other and also into the border. (I'll cut little slits in the border to thread the strips though.) All the strips will have raw edges, with a few threads removed to form a narrow fringe.

Since this is my first attempt, I'm not sure how I'll handle the rest of the steps. I will probably build the woven layer on top of a thin muslin, then layer with batting and backing. I'll hand quilt. I haven't decided exactly how to finish the edges, but I'd like to avoid a separate binding.

Fortunately, even though I'm really busy with work right now, it's work that doesn't drain my brain as much as indexing does. Here's hoping I can keep making progress on this.

This and That

2008-05-17T12:13:00.008-05:00

I can't believe it's been two full weeks since my last post. Yes, I've been wrapped up in work again, but I've been getting in some needle-and-thread time, too.

Last weekend, I couldn't ignore it any longer. Warm weather had arrived, and I had to start hauling out my really summery clothes. Discovering the alarming number of worn out and stained items spurred me to unearth several lengths of fabric I've been carrying around for literally 20 years, and make a duplicate of a favorite but very worn dress.

Fortunately, it looks better on than in this photo. But in any case, it's primarily a trial run for some better, prettier fabric that I hope to get to soon.

I've been working away on the hand quilting, still with my left hand. It's looking better and going faster, although "fast" is a relative term here.

Here and there, I've found time to make progress on getting the two star quilt tops ready for machine quilting. I made two more large blocks, and I have to transplant one more row of the sashing pieces from the large top to the small one. After that, the small one will need a simple border.

I'm still mulling how to get these quilts basted. Safety pins, straight pins, and spray adhesive are out. I was going to hand baste with small stitches, but the time factor is just too daunting, and besides, the quilting frame is otherwise occupied (forget the floor or even a table). Having a long-armer baste it is a possibility. Thinking a little further outside the box, I figured, what the heck, I'll try using a Flynn frame and water-soluble thread to baste by machine. I don't expect to have particularly good control of the frame, but it's just basting. It's going to be an interesting experiment.

Last but not least, here are a few photos of white-flowered crabapple trees on our grounds. They're really spectacular this year. You'll notice that many of our other trees still don't have their leaves fully out. Spring is on the late side, even for southern Wisconsin.

Expensive Needle Threader Appreciation Day

2008-05-03T17:11:00.000-05:00

With an abundance of extremely inexpensive needle threaders available, I didn't see much point in one that cost more than $10 (sometimes available on sale for less). Now I do! I literally would not be hand quilting without this little gadget.

Yes, it's ugly. No form-follows-function elegance here. The designer couldn't even be bothered to pick a cheery color. But can this thing thread needles or what?! My eyes are not what they used to be, but I can still thread an ordinary needle. However, threading quilting needles goes beyond seeing what I'm doing. The eyes are so small that even with a perfect thread end, I can't get the darn things threaded.

One solution is using larger needles and getting the ones with the largest eyes. But I use lots of tightly woven fabrics and sometimes hand piece them and occasionally hand quilt them. Large eyes are not good. And even they are not quick to thread. Ordinary needle threaders still require substantial effort and time, break easily, and sometimes are too thick to work with my needles. Enter the Clover Desk Needle Threader! This baby just works. Drop in the needle, place the thread, push the lever down. Done. I even abused it unmercifully, trying to get it to thread John James size 11 applique needles. It took as many as six or seven tries for each threading, and I could hear the poor mechanism clunking against the needle end, the needle itself sometimes popping out of the needle port with the force of it. I was sure I had wounded it, maybe killed it. But no. It still works like a charm on my size 10s! (It may work on certain brands of 11s and 12s; it works on larger-eyed needles also, although not the huge ones.) I've had it for a couple of years now, and it's still working like new. To be on the safe side though, I bought a second one.

What special little gadgets do you all have that you simply couldn't live without?

New Thread, Happy Quilter

2008-05-02T07:31:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, I found a much better thread for this quilt. The greens are lighter, and there's more yellow. I got a second thread too, one with only yellows. The green/yellow one is in the left fan. Hard to see in the photo, which means it's somewhat more noticeable in real life but still muted. The partly done fan on the right has only the yellow thread. This is really subtle, and I plan to use it only here and there.

Still stitching with my left hand. I've included using a quilting spoon. It was awkward at first, and pretty discouraging to have to figure it out---it felt like a major regression---but it eliminates underneath-finger pricks, use of fingernails to move the needle, and sideways pressure on the fingers---all worthy things to avoid. I can tell that I'm relaxing more, knowing that my fingers are much less likely to get poked. Another benefit is that it actually works and works well! It certainly does a great job on the stitch length I'm aiming for, and I can see potential for standard short stitches, too. Heaven knows what it's doing to the tip of the needle, but so far there's no noticeable effect.

I see definite improvement in stitch quality and am hoping for a speed increase soon. Right now, I'm somewhere around the 4 or 5 hours per square foot rate.

This Thread Isn't Working

2008-05-01T08:30:00.004-05:00

The quilting thread I'm using is variegated in colors that go perfectly with the quilt top, and the thread itself is great. But the dark green in it is just too dark and too frequent for what I had in mind. I wanted the quilting to show up, but, well, not quite this much. The photo damps down the contrast a bit. It's more obvious in person.

The lighter parts of the thread are much better, though, so I'm going to look for yellows, golds, and light greens. And hey, the fabric colors in this photo are so close to real!--even though I took the photo under a fluorescent lamp.

By the way, I was going for a casual look, with large stitches, but the lines are definitely wobbly and the stitches uneven. This is because though I'm right-handed, I did all this stitching with my left hand. The hardest part was controlling the depth of the needle-travel. I didn't have much fine control. The next hardest task was getting the knack of tilting the needle enough but not too much, and bending the quilt sandwich to get the stitch length right. Meanwhile, I kept forgetting to pay attention to the direction of the needle. The whole process is very slow, too. It really shows how much right-hand skill I take for granted.

And why, you may ask, am I learning to quilt with my left hand? I make my living via the computer and spend significant personal time on it too. What with mousing and the keyboard layout, my right hand, arm, and shoulder get overused. Right now, I'm only a few steps away from developing significant problems. I have my ergonomic keyboard set up to give my left hand more to do, and I'm trying the same thing with hand quilting.

A Bit of Progress

2008-04-30T07:30:00.008-05:00

Another work deadline met! It was another long week of long days, but I was done by lunchtime yesterday and took the rest of the day off. I've decided today is a free day, too.

Yesterday afternoon, after a couple of hours of decompression (and laundry, etc.), I tackled the second half of loading the linen quilt into the frame. I'm very pleased with the final setup!

I was almost obsessive about arranging the layers. In fact, I laid it all out on the floor first, with the backing taped down, just as if I were going to pin baste. This showed up distortion in one end of the top, so I restitched one entire border. It was worth it---it's much better now. I also went nuts with registration marks all around the edges. I figure they can't hurt, and they give me a feeling of security (whether that's warranted is another issue).

The next two or three weeks are going to be very busy with three editing projects underway, but at least I have lots of hand quilting to turn to.

Observing My Life

2008-04-23T21:20:00.006-05:00

It's been a long week and a half since my last post. Yes, I've been buried in work. The good news is that the index got done on time, and the first batch of my new copyediting project was only one day late. In the book end of the publishing business, making a deadline is not all that usual, so I'm pretty satisfied.

Since my resolution to keep a better balance between work and the rest of my life, and to make quilting a much higher priority than it has been, I was very interested to observe exactly what happened the past few weeks. On and off, I made a conscious effort to note what I was doing and how I felt about it. Turns out that my work saps my brain power and will. I know this sounds weird, or at least like an overstatement, but it's about the best short description I can come up with.

After more than, say, six hours of tightly focused work (which is roughly equivalent to a good eight-hour work day at most businesses---who concentrates for a full eight hours of an eight-hour work day? ... I certainly never did), I'm still able to take an interest in the rest of my life. More hours than that, especially on consecutive days, turns me into a zombie. I had plenty of examples of this. A couple of times I tried piecing some scraps ... the colors didn't mesh, the patterns were jarring, and just pawing through the piles of scraps for a piece of suitable size was simply too annoying. I tried a little hand piecing ... all that attention to detail wore me out within a few inches. Trying to think about new projects or how to handle the next step of current ones always led to a sort of murky dead end somewhere in my brain. I couldn't even get interested in quilt blogs. Pathetic.

Areas that gained were the urge to chat on the phone with friends, and way too much interest in reading crummy novels. Disturbingly often I found myself sitting, staring at nothing, my thoughts a vague jumble. Walks were favorite. I was relieved to find a natural inclination for at least one healthy behavior.

And now that I've taken off about a day and a half? After 24 hours of no significant work, I spontaneously started to think about getting the linen quilt top into the quilting frame---and really taking an interest. Will it last? The next deadline is looming.

A Little Bit of Sewing

2008-04-13T10:28:00.011-05:00

I can't believe how fast this past week has gone. I've been working long hours indexing a book. Indexing takes a lot of mental energy, and I just haven't had much left over for anything else.

I did carve out several hours to do a couple of fun things. One is that I started looking for stone tile to put around the fireplace. We need so little that I can afford to look at even the expensive stuff. Made me feel giddy with the possibilities! Incidentally, I saw some bright red ceramic tiles that will be perfect for the walls above the kitchen counters and below the wall cabinets. Much better than paint. I love remodeling projects! Well, more accurately, I love the planning and the results.

The other fun thing I did was attend a free sewing class for my new machine. I admit I had pretty low expectations---I've been using the machine for over two months and haven't had any problems figuring it out. But I did learn a couple of things and made a cute little bag.

The most interesting thing about the bag is how the bottom corners were constructed. This method is probably far from new, but it was new to me, and I really like it. I'll be using it for the next grocery tote bags I'm planning to make.

The inside of the bag, after folding the bottom edge up and then sewing the side seam:

The outside lower corner of the finished bag:

Another Older Quilt

2008-04-05T10:24:00.015-05:00

I was playing around with the new camera again, seeing how well it does in low-light conditions. A perfect subject was one of my quilts that we hung last week. It's the last one I made from new fabrics specifically purchased for a project. It hangs in a hallway that gets a little diffused natural light, mainly early in the morning. This is the best, albeit not very good, distance shot, but it shows the wonderful secondary patterns.

It's a bit too yellow, but really, the colors are surprisingly good, given the low light. The areas that fade out are made from very pale colors. The following view shows the piecing and machine quilting, and more accurate colors.

It's a fascinating combination of squares, equilateral triangles, and hexagons. It always amazes me that squares and equilateral triangles can fit together to make a flat surface. The nine-patches are 3 inches, finished. Each hexagon is one piece. They are tricky to cut---it's easy to be just a little off, which makes a big difference in how the neighboring patches fit. I had to do some fudging while piecing.

One of the challenging aspects of a pattern like this is figuring out how many blocks to make. Math is not my strong suit, and I was woefully off in calculating the nine-patch requirements. So, I had a stack of extras that I only recently figured out what to do with. That top is on the back burner for a while.

This quilt is a near copy of one I saw in The Romance of Double Wedding Ring Quilts, by Robert Bishop. It's on p. 49, and the caption reads, "This quite astonishing piece was made by Susie (Mrs. Harry) Bontrager in Yoder, Kansas. Obviously, the artist had a special feeling for Nine Patch blocks, for she has used them in bright colors to make her rings in conjunction with triangle patches. The happy result is a wonderfully pleasing variation on the double Wedding Ring pattern. Kansas; c. 1935, 95 1/2" x 78 1/2"." I admit I was astonished, too, when I first saw it---and just had to make one!

The photo here was scanned from the book and went through several transformations, so the colors are a bit drabber than the original. You can see the fading and stains. This quilt got used!

Using triangles that are darker than the hexagons really brings out the the wide rings instead of the starlike patterns. I'd like to do another with that emphasis.

One and a Half Steps Closer

2008-04-01T08:48:00.004-05:00

Well, I called Hobbs Bonded Fibers directly, and they said they're not making organic cotton batting at all anymore. I'd rather buy organic, but obviously, it's time to move on.

I also prefer to avoid polyester, resins, and any finishes, while maintaining high quality and easy needling. These are tough requirements, and every choice has pros and cons. I decided on Hobbs wool, because of the easy needling, good quality, and no polyester, and that I happen to have some. The yellow color won't matter under the linen top. I was iffy about having that much loft, and it contains resin, but I decided to not overanalyze this.

The new leaders for the quilting frame have been a bit of a challenge. The original fabric I bought turned out to smell really bad, and if anything, even worse after washing. Yuck! So, I fell back on some muslin that I already had. It's on the thin side, but it'll work. I have the leaders temporarily taped in place, ready for the final taping. I really wish I could avoid tape. Adhesives have some really nasty chemicals. But this frame has metal poles, and the alternatives I've tried so far are not really workable. So, I'm using tape with a metal backing, which should at least help prevent some of the outgassing.

This week is going to be very busy, but I hope to have the quilt on the frame by the weekend!

Preparing to Quilt

2008-03-30T16:49:00.002-05:00

I'm a couple of steps closer to starting to hand quilt the yellow and green linen quilt top. The hand quilting frame is now set up. That sounds simple enough, but it involved most of a day's worth of schlepping furniture---once we got started, we just couldn't stop ... we went way beyond just getting the frame in place, rearranging stuff in five rooms! All to the good, however.

A few days ago, I found some great YLI variegated thread for the quilting. I'm planning large stitches, and I think I'll use two strands of this, since it's only 40 wt. Even with the new camera, the colors aren't quite right, but they're much closer than the what the old camera showed. I'm still getting the hang of focus and depth of field, too.

I have backing, but no batting yet. I had---finally, after much testing and mulling---decided to use Hobbs organic cotton without scrim, but now I can't seem to find it anywhere, not even anywhere online. Anyone know if it's being discontinued, or something else is going on?

A Few More Details

2008-03-25T09:45:00.005-05:00

The wool/silk quilt has generated several good questions, so I thought I'd post some details about its construction.

The finished blocks are a bit less than seven inches, and the finished size of the individual logs is about 5/8 inch. I cut the strips 1-1/4 inches wide and used a generous 1/4-inch seam allowance. The finished blocks were all different sizes, of course, so I just used the smallest ones as the new standard size and ignored the overhang of the larger ones while sewing the seams. I purposely didn't trim the larger ones down before sewing, because it was too hard to get an even, accurate edge.

Not only is the silk not fused, but the strips are not sewn to a foundation. I seriously considered a foundation, but I wanted the wools to lie flat, with their seam allowances under the silk logs, to lessen bulk and to give the silk some extra height. The wools helped to stabilize everything. I didn't plan it, but I think the lack of more structure, and the resulting variation, gives the quilt a sense of energy it wouldn't have otherwise.

I tried to use any one tie in only two "diamonds." A few got used three times because I didn't have other ties of the right color. So, a quick calculation says I must have used about 45 ties! There are many fewer different wools, and I had a hard time coming up with enough different colors in thinner fabrics.

If you have the urge to acquire a bin or two full of used ties, I just want to add a couple of cautionary notes. The biggest surprise of this quilt project (my first one involving ties) was how much time it takes to prepare the ties for cutting. Each one had to be deconstructed by opening it up (usually, this means picking out hand stitching along the length of the tie), pulling out the interfacing, and cutting out the lining. Then they had to be hand washed. I put only a few of similar colors into the water at a time, and checked for bleeding. Quite a few ties do not have colorfast dyes, especially the reds. Any that bled excessively were tossed. Also some ties reek when wet. Toss. At this point, I checked again for worn ties (toss) and those with excessive staining (toss). There's quite a bit of attrition. The wet ties were hung on plastic hangers and air dried. Then I ironed each one, taking care to put the fabric more or less on grain---these are all essentially long, narrow strips of bias fabric.

I started out buying ties for about $1 each (some as much as $2) at thrift stores, but although at first that may seem like a bargain, it's really rather expensive, considering the rate of attrition, and that you usually have no more than a sixteenth of a yard of usable fabric from each surviving tie---and it's a skinny, not a fat, sixteenth. Now I restrict myself to whatever I find in the bins at the Dig and Save (50 cents a pound), and the very occasional "gotta have it" tie at thrift stores.

Last but certainly not least, I want to give credit to Mary Ellen Hopkins and her book A Log Cabin Notebook. The quilt on the cover, and given in full on p. 4, is the inspiration for mine. This little book is old (1991) but still very worthwhile. She really delves into log cabin variations and design, and covers the ins and outs of sewing log cabins in general. I highly recommend it.

Using the New Camera

2008-03-24T15:12:00.013-05:00

What a difference! The new camera gives me real colors! Here are new pics of the courthouse steps wool suit/silk tie quilt:

The lightest colors are only a little washed out. (Oops. I forgot to edit out the feet of the step stool I was standing on.) Here's a closer look at one corner:

One of the things I like best about the fabric placement is that the wool and silk always alternate, which tones down the ties and gives all those muted, boring wools something useful to do.

And here is a close-up of one of my favorite ties---the Christmas tie with Santas and reindeer doing the can-can. You never know what you're going to find at thrift stores.

Next, I wondered if the new camera would render greens better ... and it does! Here are braided strips for the new rug I'm making, and the colors are pretty close to the real ones---missing just a touch of the yellow tones. This time, I'm using exactly the same color order in each strip, graded from dark to light.

I really like the subtle color variations. Olive drab and greenish gray/tan are not my usual palette---and frankly, I wondered if I'd ever use these pants to make anything---but I'm really liking the look.

This rug will be narrow and longish, to fit directly under the bench in the entry---a place to put street shoes and boots. We can't seem to keep outdoor shoes in the closet, so the next best thing is to keep them as close to the door as possible.

I'm pretty excited about this new camera. Not only does it render colors better, but it has better resolution and an optical zoom. More photos coming soon!

View from My Kitchen

2008-03-22T11:11:00.005-05:00

These are views from my kitchen. We don't have a window, exactly, but off the dinette, we have a 3-season porch that's three stories up. We got more than 7 inches of snow yesterday. Knowing that I don't have to shovel even one flake of it makes it a whole lot easier to appreciate the view. It was the perfect year to move to a condo!

A Favorite Quilt

2008-03-21T12:05:00.001-05:00

I've been very busy with work lately, so sewing of any sort has been minimal for the past several days. Since I don't have anything blog-worthy to show among my current projects, I thought I'd post one of my favorite older quilts. You can also see a tiny bit of this quilt in my blog header.

This was my first try at using exclusively thrifted fabrics for a quilt top. It's made of men's wool suits and silk ties, with cotton batting and a plain white cotton backing (both purchased new).

The silks are not fused, so some were pretty slithery. A few ties had to be tossed because they were too fragile. And of course I had to deal with huge differences in thickness, even though I stuck with the thinner wools. Seam allowances varied, blocks were slightly skewed, and my mantra throughout was "It's okay, it's okay." It HAD to be okay---there was really no other alternative. Going with the log cabin (courthouse steps) construction was a good choice---it really made the accuracy issue less important.

The color placement has three separate aspects: light (the "smaller" diamonds) and dark ("larger" diamonds), blue/gray stripes alternating with tan/brown stripes, and what I hoped was a pleasing balance of individual brights. The machine quilting is simply in the ditch.

You may notice that there's no binding visible on the front. I couldn't easily make a good-looking binding from the wools. I was tempted to do an envelope finish, but there was no way it would come out flat and neat. So, I did a facing of pieced wools, after the quilting was done. It's kind of bulky, and if I do this sort of thing again, I think I'll use backing fabric instead.

Well, I'm just about done with the second batch of the editing project I'm working on. When I finish, later this afternoon, I'm taking some time off! I'm very much looking forward to quality time with my fabrics. Like Kathie at Threadlines, I'm stocked up and all set to spend the weekend in my sewing room, ignoring the 8 or 10 (or possibly more) inches of snow currently piling up outside.

Project on a Whim

2008-03-18T10:39:00.000-05:00

I should have been spending my time on other things, i.e., getting my paying work done. But this idea popped into my head yesterday afternoon, and I couldn't wait to try it out. We need a place to put outgoing mail---I had in mind a little holder on the wall by the door---but I didn't want to spend a lot, or have to drill holes, or traipse all over town looking for something suitable, or, maybe the worst, wait until I finally found it.

I was out doing a couple of errands anyway, when the idea took shape. I picked up a couple of silvered plastic stick-on wall hooks. When I got home, I cut the cardboard backs off two small note pads, trimmed them down, and glued them together, for better stiffness. While that was drying, I experimented with holes to accommodate the hooks.

I copied the final hole pattern to the cardboard, placing two of them a few inches apart, and had at them with a little box-knife. I checked the holes against the hooks and trimmed and checked and trimmed some more.

I knew which fabric I wanted to use to cover the cardboard. This eighth-yard cut has been traveling with me since 1990 (which means seven different homes). You just never know when a particular bit of fabric will be exactly what you need. I trimmed up a piece and glued the top and bottom edges of the back of the cardboard to the fabric.

When that dried, I cut into the holes, brought the fabric to the wrong side, and glued the edges.

Then things were stable enough to fold in the rest of the outside edges and glue those. The last thing to be glued was the inside layer of fabric around the holes. This took some patience and a couple of toothpicks.

I stuck the hooks on the wall and added the fabric-covered cardboard. Done!

The cardboard tilts out just enough to hold a few envelopes, and it's stable enough to keep the mail from falling. This will not hold up to kids or pets, but it'll be fine for us.

Divided Attention

2008-03-17T07:48:00.002-05:00

It's been fun, and I have solid ideas and bare beginnings for some really interesting new projects, but chaos is taking over. Too many different projects, old and new, plus work and generally keeping up with the rest of life, have gotten me slivers of everything, but precious little in the way of visible progress.

I also have this, now:

That's the uncensored view of my cutting table area (along with the dismal view of lingering snow, bare trees, and no sun). Four separate projects are milling around there.

It's time to prioritize and focus.

Cute and Useful

2008-03-13T12:32:00.005-05:00

A few months ago, my husband decided it was time to give up his Mr. Coffee-type coffeemaker and replace it with a french press. One thing he wasn't happy with was letting the brewing (and brewed) coffee sit on the counter losing heat. This carafe needed a cozy!

You see the result above, made from several layers of cotton batting scraps, and fabrics from my stash in taupe, gray, and bright red (not the bluish colors my camera prefers to present). It was fun to cut without measuring and without thinking very much about color placement. Getting the batting layers to form an even circle and stay that way was a little tricky, while I sewed some quilting lines from top edge to bottom edge. And then, I had to ease/gather in the pieced covering (added after the quilting) when I put on the binding. Somewhat unorthodox construction, but it worked. Velcro holds the tab in place.

By the way, the over-the-top blue flowered and plaid wallpaper will be gone as soon as I can work that into my schedule, to be replaced by off-white walls and bright red under the cabinets.

Stash Assessment

2008-03-12T12:08:00.001-05:00

Yikes! Do I have cotton twill, or what!

Contemplating another braided rug, I decided to go through all my fabric bins and shelves and find all the cotton twill I've cut up from khaki pants, and also any not-yet-cut-up pants. I knew I had some of both, but expected I might well need a trip to the Dig and Save before starting another project.

In short, I hit the mother load. Looks like I have 12 in-tact pants, plus more than 50 (!!) already cut up (some partially used), plus another 8 or so piles of unusual colors, like purple, bright red, yellow, and lime green (from miniskirts, kids' shorts, etc.). You'd think I'd remember cutting up so many pairs of pants, but ... well, I don't. It's certainly a nice surprise, though.

Those brights are calling to me. I remember my plans for those.....

Two Quilts and a Rug

2008-03-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

Despite being out of town for a bit and working a lot, I've tried to do something quilt related every day, with pretty good success. Trying to keep a good work/life balance going.

A lot of what I've been doing hasn't lent itself to photos or been especially blog-worthy, though. I can't imagine that anyone wants to hear details about me dithering over online purchases of batting, or my quest for the right fabric for new quilting frame leaders.

But I do have some results to share. My first braided rug is done! It's about 2 feet by 4 feet, consumed nine pairs of khaki pants (with very few scraps), and should be sturdy enough to survive years of shoes, melting slush, salt, mud, and washer and dryer sessions.

For strength and speed, I chose to machine stitch the braided strips together. To avoid thickened ends, I just machine stitched several rows close to the cut ends, instead of binding them. We'll see how those cut ends hold up. I can always trim and finish them a different way later. My sewing machine complained a bit about having to pierce umpteen layers of tightly woven cotton twill (especially at those joins), and I broke one needle.

I'm planning to make more of these, experimenting with color placement. Although I like the chenille rug a lot, these are less taxing to make and also more rugged (pardon the pun).

Now, back to quilts. After some mulling, I decided to pare down the scrap star quilt top to a more manageable size. Now it will fit a queen-size bed, with modest overhang. I'm debating whether to try basting it on my hand quilting frame---something I've never done before. The advantages are saving space, much easier access, and an overall more pleasant and ergonomic basting experience. Hmm.

The 14 blocks (two rows) I took off are now, somewhat rearranged, the basis for a second scrap quilt. I dug out the scrap box that has the leftovers from the original top and found two extra star blocks! Both have stars made of fabric that I like but decided was too dark for this project. But I'm going ahead and including one in this second top, to make a 3- by 5-block center. (The block at the lower left.)

I plan to string piece the multitude of scraps into a border, adding whatever else is in my stash of cut-up shirts to make a decent-sized top.

A Quick Update

2008-03-10T10:11:00.000-05:00

I've been out of town for a bit and, with one thing and another, haven't had time to post. And today, I discover that Blogger is having issues with uploading photos, so I'll have to make do with just words for now.

One of the nonphotogenic things I've been doing lately is gearing up for free-motion machine quilting. My past experiences with this have been poor to mediocre, so I've been trying to honestly assess my problems and figure out ways to get through or around them.

1. Gloves with gripper dots. A few test runs have been very encouraging!

2. A "slider" mat for the needle area. No real trials yet, but I don't think it can hurt.

3. A table behind the machine to support the quilt better (added to a table to the left and the fact that the machine is set down into a table).

4. My new sewing machine (an admittedly expensive fix!), which provides a 10-inch bed, auto thread cutting, low-bobbin indicator, and a slightly different (and I think better) feel to how the stitching starts (hoping this helps with those huge-first-stitch problems).

5. Sticking with circular designs. No points or straight lines! And nothing that depends on accuracy.

I'm trying to give myself every advantage!

The Braiding Project

2008-03-02T15:23:00.000-06:00

The days have been flying by! I'm working hard to get the first batch of copyediting on this new book turned in Monday, on schedule, so there's been precious little time for sewing. And what time I can squeeze in is not what one would call quality time---I'm pretty brain dead. It's a perfect time for some easy, repetitive tasks.

A few weeks ago I started cutting strips from khaki pants for a first attempt at a braided rug. Yes, another rug project. We are in serious need here!

I will actually be plaiting, not braiding, which means that the worked strips will be very flat and wide. After some trial and error, I decided that using half-inch strips for plaiting would be manageable and look nice, and having each strip contain four layers of fabric would give enough body without being too heavy.

I start with pieces cut 1-7/8 inches wide, with the grain, and as long as possible. I put them through a Clover tapemaker (cutting a point on the end of the strip helps get the fabric into the tapemaker) and follow with the iron as I pull the tapemaker along. With the two raw edges nearly meeting and pressed flat, I fold the strip in half lengthwise and press again, so the raw edges are neatly encased, and the top and bottom surfaces are identical. I then open out the folds and piece lengths of strips together (a bias join, with the seam pressed open) to get a length a bit more than 6 feet. Then, I fold everything back up and sew near the edge.

I figure I'll need nine individual strips like the one on the right, above, to make a roughly 3-inch-wide plait. Here are the first strips, grouped by color and loosely knotted together, ready to be woven into 4-foot-long plaits! At the bottom of the photo are more strips ready to be folded and stitched.

This little rug project is going to eat up a lot of pants! I get at least five 6-foot-4-inch lengths from one pair. But that means nine pairs of pants will produce five finished 4-foot plaits. That's a rug only 15 inches wide and 4 feet long. Well, I've certainly got lots of these pants, and if I run out, there's always the Dig and Save.

Thinking about "What If?"

2008-02-28T10:11:00.000-06:00

I've gotten some very nice comments about the colors in my quilts (thanks everyone!), which got me to thinking about how I approach color choices, which in turn had me thinking about my "what if?" moments. I guess the bottom line is that I've wanted to see what would happen if I purposely put restrictions on my choices. This, somewhat paradoxically perhaps, seems to spark my creative thinking---apparently some variation on the "necessity is the mother of invention" paradigm.

On the day I said, "What if I don't buy any new fabric for quilt tops?" I had to come up with alternatives, which led me to the incredible bounty of inexpensive used clothing in this town. But very few clothes provide traditional quilting cottons. My fabric love drew me to glowing silk ties, wonderful wool suits, linen that I couldn't resist, mountains of cotton twill pants in umpteen shades of khaki and beyond, and more men's cotton shirts than I ever imagined.

There's a good reason most quilters use the fabrics they do. Most of the other fabrics are a pain in one way or another (and often several at the same time). But I'm completely hooked on the what-ifs and on the quiet thrill of ignoring the usual rules. I'm happily pairing silk ties with wool suits, and figuring out ways to use heavy cotton twills without too many piled up seam allowances. Some things I try don't work out, but most do, at least in my view, and they lead to even more what-ifs.

Figuring Some Things Out

2008-02-25T14:55:00.000-06:00

Well, all that blathering earlier today about my quilter's block regarding the scrap star top made me feel a little better, but what really helped me was a little trip to Lazy Gal Quilting. Looking at Tonya's hand quilting is always nice, and I browsed through her past posts to see some more examples.

Lo and behold, there was a photo incidentally showing some of her hand basting---with really short stitches. Why didn't I think of that myself?! Yes, it will take more time than the traditional long stitches I've always seen, but it will hold the layers better and the stitches won't be nearly as likely to get caught on things while machine quilting. This just might work! The other downside is, of course, picking out the threads from under the machine quilting, but I'm willing to deal with that, too. Thanks, Tonya!

I'm even getting excited about the prospect of marking some simple designs and trying to follow the lines. Hey, I have a new machine now, with a giant 10-inch bed, and my first attempts at some machine quilting on it were encouraging. I think the way the foot works keeps the quilt more stable than on the old machine.

Pushing Past Some Roadblocks

2008-02-25T09:18:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I made two more chenille pillows (containing the crab fabric as the base fabric, so the crabs are visible only if you push the chenille strips out of the way). I'm chenilled out! They're fine, but not wonderful. One problem is that I washed the pillow forms, and they shrank, leaving the covers a bit loose. Also, my pillow-design skills leave something to be desired, but I'm committed to posting not so good, as well as the good.

Next, I made a little curtain out of some of the linen quilt scraps. It needs a final ironing, and I still need a curtain rod. The strips stretched a bit while sewing, so there's some unevenness, but that's okay. This is for the knee hole below the master bathroom vanity, to cover up my Threads magazine collection and other quilt/sewing-related stuff that I'm storing there.

All this sewing left me with lots of time to think, and one of the main topics was my unfinished quilt projects. One quilt top in particular has run into roadblocks that I really want to clear. It's been done for well over a year now:

The thing is huge! Not any room left for borders, and I'm even thinking of taking off a row, but that's a minor distraction from the main problem, which is that most of the fabrics are from shirts made of very tightly woven cotton---especially the background, which is several varieties of very fine white pima.

Here's a closeup. Sorry about the quality. This picture was taken later, and photography conditions were deteriorating rapidly.

First, I asked myself, can this be hand quilted? In short, no. With cotton batting, it's next to impossible, unless I stab stitch, which is not only slower than the rocking stitch but will inevitably lead to a messy-looking back with large stitches that are vulnerable to breakage, and this is meant to be a working bed quilt. With wool batting, it's a little easier, but wool is yellow, and I don't want the show-through. Adding a layer of thin white fabric will take care of the show-through but just makes the quilting harder.

Moving along, I asked, what about machine quilting? I don't have a machine-quilting frame, so I need to baste the layers. First major problem: safety pins damage the tightly woven fabrics. (I looked with a magnifying glass, and yes, they literally break the threads.) I'm not willing to do that, and I can't find smaller good quality pins. I sometimes baste with straight pins, but only small projects. The pins tend to work themselves out, and the points are much too wicked!

There's thread basting. Done on the floor (not something I look forward to, but doable) or on a table (less accurate but easier), it leaves long, loose threads on the top. Past experience shows that these get caught on just about everything. Done on my hand-quilting frame, the long stitches could be on the back, which I'm not sure is better.

Or, I could get a machine frame. I can't afford a real set-up, and don't have room anyway, but experimenting with the Flynn frame might be interesting. But frames restrict the type of quilting, and mainly to the kinds I don't do well.

Which brings me to my machine-quilting skills, or, more to the point, the lack thereof. My straight lines done with a walking foot are okay, although I don't think this will complement the design well. As for free-motion quilting, yes, I've practiced---on two good-sized quilts and several small projects, using different feet and studying up on techniques and common problems. I'm not getting better. Meandering and small circles/loops are the only patterns that look decent, and I'm terrible at following drawn lines. Forget corners. I've come to believe that I just have to accept this profound lack of talent.

I could send it to a professional. The $300 or so is beginning to look like a reasonable trade for the time, aggravation, and less than desirable results of doing it myself.

Does anyone have any suggestions or comments? I'm open to it all!

The star top was stored underneath partially sewn tumbling blocks, so I took a picture of some of those, too:

These blocks are hand pieced. I enjoy it, and I purposely do blocks that would be harder to piece by machine. They also contain tightly woven shirt fabrics, but fewer, and the eventual size will be a lot smaller than the star top, so I'm seriously considering hand quilting with wool batting and allowing the yellowish show-through. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one done!

I'd better get back to doing some paid work now, and preparing for the next snow storm. Yes, yet another one.

Linen and, Uh, Crabs

2008-02-21T12:13:00.000-06:00

As Dave Barry would say, I Am Not Making This Up! A month ago, while scouring clearance tables for loosely woven natural-fiber fabrics for my chenille projects, I found a very nice 100% linen for $2 per yard. There was just one catch---it was embroidered with red crabs.

They were nicely done crabs.

But, come on. Who did this manufacturer think was going to pay full price for this stuff? Can you imagine some middle manager saying, "Our research shows that expensive natural fabrics embroidered with crustaceans will command significant marketshare this season"?

Even at $2/yd, I hesitated. I got some anyway, planning to bury it under several layers. I'll post the results soon.

It Grew

2008-02-18T08:29:00.000-06:00

This is the linen quilt top! Eventual finished size should be about 60" by 76", which is quite a bit larger than I planned, but I like it better. Also, I think it will fit the (huge) wall better, as well as being a very usable size. I had cut way too many little strips and couldn't bear to see them stored in the closet, so I kept sewing and had more than enough for four pieced sections instead of three.

There was some difficulty adding the sashing and borders without distorting the pieced sections (i.e., lots of ripping!), and the raw edges are showing the wear. Good thing I used 3/8-inch seam allowances. I'm handling it as little as possible now (hence, the unpressed look).

I've been playing with the camera's settings, and this photo is the best so far at showing the real colors. Well, it looks good before uploading, but not quite so good here. Ah, well.

I'm completely out of appropriate backing fabrics and all batting, so it will be a while before this top gets to the quilting stage. I'm going to hand quilt, and since the weave of most of the fabrics is rather coarse, larger stitches are in order. As for patterns, the current choices are down to either freehand fans, or freehand horizontal wavy lines. Fans have the edge.

Tomorrow, it's back to work for me---a new project is landing on my desk. I'm a freelance science editor, and the middle of winter is traditionally a slow time, so I've had the past few weeks off, thank goodness. I really needed it after about eight months of being seriously overbooked (plus fixing up the house to sell, and buying and fixing up the condo). When you work on your own, it's very hard to say no because there's always the worry that the next offer won't materialize soon enough. But one of my resolutions this year is to keep my work at a saner pace, and keep time for quilting and other things, including blogging!

A Rug and a Quilt

2008-02-14T15:44:00.001-06:00

The rug is done! With all the channels cut, the whole thing washed and dried (in a big laundromat machine), the obnoxious plaids have melted, and the lower levels of fabric have emerged. The frayed bias edges bloomed beautifully! The only glitch is that the binding (which is the same fabric as the backing) shrank a bit, causing the rug to not lie completely flat. Annoying.

Simple stretching didn't help much, but maybe it just needs more. Need to enlist help for that. If it won't improve, I'll consider cutting off the binding (not ripping!) and rebinding. That really wouldn't be much trouble (a couple of hours).

Here's a somewhat blurry closeup. Those black speckles are the frayed bias edges of a loosely woven black-and-white gingham-like rayon. I love it! There are four layers (left: black, white, the B&W rayon, beige 1; right: beige 2 instead of the black) plus the backing. The top beige fabric is a cotton-linen blend, and oh what a wonderful sheen the frayed edges have!

Here's another spot in closeup---not quite as blurry, but partly washed out from the flash (photo conditions are very trying today). The green is a fifth layer.

With all those layers, it weighs more than a quilt, but it's still easy to pick up and lighter than a lot of other rugs the same size.

Since finishing the rug, I've been happily sewing together linen strips. This is a nice change of pace from the alligator-wrestling with the rug. You'll just have to trust me that the colors are very much nicer than they look here, if you're seeing what I'm seeing. The yellow is soft yet rich, the light green is a slightly soft lime, the dark color is actually a lighter forest green, and all the other colors are not nearly as drab as they appear here.

The overall idea is to have three long rows of sewn-together strips (current width 11"), with long strips of yellow between and as a narrowish border (I'm shooting for roughly 45" by 70"). I think I'll put some of the lime into the sashing; I have some long strips left over (I cut them too narrow), and I like the color so much, I want to use as much of this fabric as possible.

Originally, I considered a completely random order for the colors and completely random widths (up to 3"), but that idea was too scary. I didn't want a complete surprise. So I imposed a few rules: (1) yellow, lime, light green, medium green are all 3 inches wide (to showcase these colors), (2) beige, tan, dark green, off-white are all less than 3 inches and most strips are close to 1.5 (wanted to downplay these, and had only a little bit of the forest green anyway), and (3) the wide strips alternate with the narrower strips most of the time. Color placement is by whim. I'm liking the effect.

This project is supposed to be for the living room wall, but linen is so wonderful to touch that I may want it as a working quilt instead. In any case, this top is coming together so fast that I'll soon have to decide how to quilt it. I'm considering freehand hand quilting, maybe in large stitches, which I've never done before. Never done much hand quilting at all, actually, and I'd like to do more.

I just noticed that it's snowing. Again. And the forecast is for below-zero temps. Again. If you've been reading Threadlines, just ditto that for me.

Bare Floors

2008-02-10T11:49:00.000-06:00

Right after the closing on our condo, the first thing we did was tear out the carpeting---about 1200 square feet in all. Next, we had tiled installed. Everywhere. 1500 square feet. It makes the place look light and airy, and it doesn't harbor dust and crud. We love it. But, it is a bit stark.

Since I knew perfectly well that it would highly unlikely that I would be able to buy rugs that (a) don't outgas too much, (b) are the colors I want, and (c) we have any hope of being able to afford, my brain started working on ways to make some. It's a challenge. Rugs are big. Rugs take lots of fabric.

My first idea was braided rugs. And I am indeed starting a very interesting braiding project involving fabric from khaki pants (I'll get to that in another post). My next idea was chenille, sort of. In my Net research, I ran into Nannette Holmgren's Faux Chenille site. Hmm. Looked like it could be used for rugs. Eventually, I dug out my copy of Twenty Easy Machine-Made Rugs by Jackie Dodson. Yup, it covered a couple of similar techniques, although at the time it was written, the nifty little chenille cutter hadn't been invented yet.

I decided to go for it. This is one of my weak points. I have a long history of starting very large projects using new-to-me techniques. Naturally, I run into all sorts of problems that could have been headed off by someone with some experience. So, this time, I actually started with some samples. A lot depends on the order of the layers, as well as the nature of each fabric.

Encouraged, I tried a couple of pillows. They're not spectacular, but they're certainly red, which was part of my goal.

On to making a living room rug! A search of my stash turned up a few loosely woven fabrics in white (that I'd been carting around for, oh, 20 years). I bought several wonderful clearance fabrics in various beiges, plus small amounts of two full-price ones that I couldn't resist.

After washing and shrinking, I taped the backing to the floor and carefully smoothed the layers on top, overlapping joins a little, keeping everything on grain. I added blocks of light green (which goes with the walls) on top. The fabrics were in different sizes and had some different thickesses, which I factored in as I tried to create a pleasing 3-D pattern. I used safety pins to secure (or so I thought) the layers (not easy, considering that the base layer is a tightly woven, heavy cotton). I drew sewing guidelines every six inches. It wasn't enough. After getting some of the channels sewn, I had to lay out the rug again and add more pins and markings.

Sewing the half-inch channels near the edge was fine. As I got further in, the layers shifted more (because I was constantly having to maneuver the whole thing), the marked lines became less accurate, and the bulk made guiding the fabric under the needle more error prone. And an accurate 45-degree angle and even channel widths are important for the finished look. Working from all the corners in toward the center seemed the only way to tame this beast, but that has it's hazards---you can see the puffiness forming, although most of that can be pretty easily eased in. It may yet, however, turn out to be a mistake.

The closer I get to the center (which is seeming further and further away), the more the maneuvering needed, and the more challenging it all is.

I'm buoyed by the fact that it looks like the end result will be good. I am also delighted that I have the new sewing machine because it will automatically cut the threads at the end of a line of stitching (and pull them to the back), and each line ends well in from the edge. That was difficult to deal with on the old machine.

In a few days, I hope to have the stitching done and be ready to slash and bind!

By the way, in the last photo, you can see several layers of snow on our window sill. We're only .7 inches from breaking the all-time snowfall record for the season.

A New Machine! And Old Ones

2008-02-05T09:26:00.000-06:00

I took the plunge! I bought a Viking Sapphire 870. This line is the one with the 10-inch bed and lots of other quilt-centered features--every one of which I expect to be thankful for. I loved my old Viking 1100, and I expect I'll love this one. In many ways, my Bernina 153 has been a very good machine, but finally, I couldn't see living with its limitations when I had such an attractive alternative.

If I allowed myself, I'm sure I could become a sewing machine collector. I'm not yet able to part with the Bernina, plus I have an old Bernette serger that I never use but am reluctant to sell or give away. And then, there's my 1953 Singer. Therein lies a story.

A couple of years ago, I was on my way home, driving through an old residential section, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw what registered as possibly a sewing machine. A quick double take confirmed it. So I went around the block for a closer look. It was garbage pickup day, and someone had dragged an old Singer in a decrepit sewing table out to the curb for collection. Yikes! It was in good shape! No rust, no dents, the wheel and the rest of the mechanism turned smoothly. And someone was sending it to the dump? Well, I certainly couldn't leave it there.

If you've ever had one of these machines, you know how heavy they are. Add the sewing table, and, well, I tried valiantly to leverage it into my trunk, but no go. Then, out of the blue (in a very quiet neighborhood with absolutely no other traffic) a thirty-ish guy drove up and asked if I needed some help. Yes! Thanks to him, a few minutes later I was home convincing my husband that this little machine was indeed a real find. We unattached it from the table, and I carted it off to my sewing machine repairer, who charged $200 to replace a couple of small parts and get it into sewing shape.

It took a lot of poking around on the Internet, but I finally tracked down that it was made in St. John's, Canada, in 1953. That's also the year I was born. I'm not a particular believer in fate, or even that things happen for a reason, but I can't help but feel that, somehow, the Universe conspired to bring us together.

Bare Walls

2008-02-03T08:54:00.000-06:00

We moved into our condo nearly six months ago, but what with my superheavy workload and our other commitments, our walls and floors (that's a whole other post) stayed bare. This place has been one giant echo chamber. A few weeks ago, my poor husband couldn't take it any more, so we carved out a couple of hours and hung four pictures and one quilt. Here's the quilt:

Despite the wavy edges and not-quite-squareness (exaggerated by the perspective of the photo), this is one of my favorite quilts. I feel like I'm looking at the sky through a lattice. It's made of strips from khaki pants, which is a great way to get loads of color variation. The only other way is to hand dye. Yes, it's cotton twill, which is heavy, and one of the reasons I chose the log cabin pattern. The only really lumpy seam allowances are at the joins of the blocks.

(And yes, we haven't finished the painting at the edge of the ceiling!)

This hasn't made much of a dent in the echos, but it's a start. We're planning to hang two more quilts today, and I have the perfect motivation for making more! Here's the fabric for the next one, waiting for cutting:

I'm into linen lately. The yellow is yardage that I got on sale for $3 a yard, but the rest of these fabrics are from pants and shirts I got at the St. Vincent de Paul Dig and Save on days when clothes are 50 cents a pound. This is the only way to afford linen quilts!

So begins the experiment

2008-01-31T21:37:00.000-06:00

Starting a blog is hard, or at least a certain amount of trouble, right? I guess not. Can't wait to see where this will lead.