Challenge Teaser

Here’s a test piece which  I made to experiment with curved piecing to be able to do sharper curves.

This reminds me of an aerial photo of a landscape and can turn into a nice small piece.  It’s all in aid of the Wild, Wild West challenge for our Guild retreat in June although it’s different enough from the design I’m working on for that to not be revealing any big secrets.  All will be revealed in mid-June.

Learned a lot from this and will probably have to do another one to see if I can get a curve going more in a U shape.  This time the blue fabric I used for the second curve wasn’t big enough to be able to do that.  But no worries there’s more of both these fabrics so I can make a third block that continues the river meandering along.

Lessons learned:

1. don’t go so near the edge of the block with the curved piecing
2. mark the seam allowance on the back of the “river” and align the blocks with pins
3. square off the finished blocks

Note to self:

Make sure the next block is wider than the existing pieces so I don’t have to trim any more off the side of the existing block!

It’s amazing that the blue fabric was on sale at a very low price because it has much potential!

Disappearing 9-Patch, work in progress!

This is a process shot of a disappearing nine patch quilt while it was on my design wall.  Other bits and pieces are peeking out from the sides, this was just right on top of everything.

It’s now assembled and in the process of being quilted.

The Missouri Quilter YouTube video I watched was great as it clearly explained what to expect and how to decide what fabric goes where.  That was how I picked the light blue feathery print for the four pieces in the middle of each outside, so they would become sashing.  I put my focus fabrics in the four corners and the centre fabric was consistently either dark blue or the rust fossil fern print.

There’s many ways to put disappearing nine patch together but for this first attempt I decided to follow the advice given and ensure that I wasn’t trying to match a whole lot of inside seams.  Just matching the seams on the blocks was quite enough of a challenge, thank you.  The design wall was a blessing as the blocks stayed up for over a week while I rearranged them to not have any matched focus fabrics touching each other.  Doing that probably took longer than it took to do the actual sewing of the top.  You can tell this was still in design because there a several places where focus fabs were touching.

Point of Pride:  Everything came from my stash, no shopping was involved!

Just Magic!

Just Magic! is the name of this wall hanging, which I pieced yesterday and today.  The centre medallion is Spoonflower fabric I had made up from this sketch.

Readers will know I’m not one to avoid a challenge and that I oftentimes bite off more than I can chew.

I’ve decided to go for the WordPress Post A Week 2011 challenge, both here and at my new homeschooling blog, One Size Fits None.  This is very new and still very much a work in progress.

For 2011 the virtue I will aim to practice is Wisdom. Click here for more about the Virtues Project, which emphasizes shared human values and how much we have in common across cultures.

And I picked two slogans:

Just Magic!

and Use What You Have!

Just Magic! is more inspiring and less cliched than Just do it!  It reminds me that there are miracles everywhere and that there is magic in getting things done.

Use what you have is self-explanatory.  I’m using it to refer to knowledge and techniques — to use all the techniques at my disposal as well as the fabrics in my stash.

Now this is not going to be taken to ridiculous lengths.  In the Flickr group when it started (you commit for a month at a time), there were people saying their red pen had run out and they would make do without, a lady who agonized about needles for her sewing machine, and one person who was running a craft business and was still trying not to buy anything.  Not me!

I plan to use stuff up and curb full price impulse buys.  That still leaves garage sales, thrift stores, baraka, trading with friends, and sales at quilt stores, which deserve our support because we need them to be there once the stash is used up, right?

Related to all this, I plan to jot down a list of creative things I did each day.  This would actually make for a very boring blog because it would be all cryptic squiggles and stopping to illustrate each day would not happen.  I started this habit in mid-December and I can see that over time it will constitute a very useful record.

Activities I’m looking forward to:

Elizabeth Barton’s class at Quilt University. Every time it’s been offered, it filled up super fast and I kept missing out.  This class starts on Friday and I do in fact need to do a little shopping ~non fusible gridded interfacing.  Hopefully I’ll have the time to devote to getting the most out of this class and the work at home on my own machine format will be less stressful than the last design class I took, which was not a great fit for me.

Cindy Scraba is coming to our guild in March for a one-day workshop, midweek, which I signed up for.

and at Satin Moon next Saturday Arly Haner is doing a trunk show of scrap quilts, which I’ll be able to attend.

You’d never know this has anything to do with Lutradur!

but it does.

 

Lutradur is a non woven synthetic material that can be warped or distressed with heat, painted, almost anything goes.

At this point I’m most interested in exploring the translucency of Lutradur.  Laine Canivet whom I know through FAD, is teaching a Lutradur class for the Quilt Guild at the retreat next summer and asked volunteers to make inspirational projects.  My first was a bowl, which Laine now has.  Then my thoughts went in another direction and my current project is to make a tote bag from Lutradur.

 

Although I’ve had the Total Tote Bag Book (Joyce Aiken and Jean Ray Laury, published in 1977) for ages, I have to confess this is the first time I’ve actually set out to make a tote bag from it.  I measured the Lutradur I have on hand.  Use what you have is becoming my new mantra, as you can see.  Based on the supply of Lutradur I did the math and decided it would be a good idea to make a “muslin” out of fabric to be sure the directions made sense and the measurements added up.  I found a practical piece of fabric from my stash of suitable size, then decided to use some of the assembled fabric I’ve been making in odd moments using up scraps and smaller pieces from my stash.  The intent is to make a bed quilt but if I keep on cannibalizing it it may be like Penelope’s weaving in the Odyssey!

Feeling that with all the seams it would be a good idea to line this, I used the fabric I’d chosen from my stash to make that.  Then I thought since I’m doing this, it would be good practice to make handles (although the plan for the Lutradur tote will have different handles).  Back to the stash, and more math because I figured 18 inch handles were too long for a boxy, undersized tote.

 

So now I’m at the point of assembly, some hand sewing is required.  One reason not to make a tote bag is the proliferation of totes we’ve acquired from various conferences, events, grocery stores, etc.  But this one now has a purpose in life, it’s destined to hold wooden blocks.

 

And here’s an inspiring photo of pomegranates!  The colour is so beautiful but when I tried using the arils with salt and vinegar to dye cotton I got a feeble mushroomy pink-brown colour.

Blues Singing

Rules were made to be broken and I’m hereby breaking the rule I made for myself about not posting fabric before it’s been made into something.

The fabric on the left is a Sherrill Kahn design which a retired quilter who was downsizing gave to a family member who was helping her move.  I received two meters and I don’t even know this lady!  The diamonds on the right are from a fellow editor who has also been an avid crafter and seamstress, who just gave me a bag full of fabric goodies.  As soon as I saw this I knew these two fabrics will be together in something really cool!  Also in the bag was a light purple that exactly matches one of the stripes in some fabric I got at the Guild garage sale, and two different animal skin prints.  Woo-hoo!

Things that come with a story and not just from a store are so much more meaningful and fun, although of course smart store owners do their best to create stories of one kind or another.  I can go through my stash and recall all kinds of stories, where I was, or which garment I cut up, or that something was being clearanced because other customers just didn’t appreciate it.   Perhaps I’ll start an occasional series of quilts with stories, what do you think, and what’s your best stash story?

 

Dragonfly

How much stash do we quilters have that is just too precious to slice into?  It sits there for year after year, maybe when you bought it you had a project in mind but then it was just too beautiful to cut and if you use it all up there won’t be any left, and of course the older the fabric is the more true that is, because designs get retired faster and faster these days.

By the way, off on a tangent, I really appreciate the manufacturers who have the guts to put the year the fabric was issued into the selvedge!   Why doesn’t everyone do that?  To me it just makes so much sense.  I always look at the publication date of any book I’m reading (yes, even cookery books, I know, I’m a nerd!)

Back on topic again, Cathy Miller aka the Singing Quilter teaches a reverse applique mola class that’s intended to use up the fabric that’s too beautiful to cut, and she doesn’t make you cut it!   This little dragonfly is my first attempt at this technique, complete with my own little wrinkle that sidesteps binding and showcases the fabulous fabric on the back of the piece as well as in the image.

Cathy just released another CD and I went to the launch party at Satin Moon recently where she not only performed the songs but told us the stories behind them, which was fascinating.

Sidestepping binding is a hot topic with me right now because I’ve had a busy week with one thing and another, but I need to get the binding hand sewn onto the Shattered Angles quilt.  I get sidetracked so easily between taking stretch breaks, tending to family needs, work deadlines.  But I did make good progress today so I’m confident that tomorrow I’ll get it finished so it can go to the Post Office on Sunday (ours is open, since it’s in the back of the drugstore, what a blessing!)  I have a scrap of bright orange and turquoise batik pinned where I stopped yesterday, so that encourages me to keep going.

Also because I have another longer term project on the go at the moment, workwise, I have started scheduling in a set amount of time per day to work on each of these projects.  I just have to remind myself that you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Does anyone else struggle with this, elusive balance in life (well, probably everyone does!)  And what do you do to keep yourself on track?

Idea Tree

This is a scan of my completed small beaded piece, Idea Tree.  It was fun to do and I learned new techniques, beading and doing a back to front finish instead of sewing on binding or doing a pillowslip finish.

The fabric started out as plain muslin that I worked on in the first workshop I took with Melly Testa, and layers were monoprinted onto it using soy wax resist and green and yellow thickened dyes.  I used a lot of this yardage in a very large bold piece called Commotion.

This offcut almost went into the scrap quilt I’m slowly making using up smaller surface designed, hand-dyed, and mottled fabrics.  This is a back burner project because there is no block design.

Then thinking about another larger piece of sunprinted fabric I would like to hand quilt and make into a wall hanging I decided I should practice the back to front finish on a small test piece first.  The wall hanging cannot be started until the beading on Geode is finished.

What Was I Thinking!

… and a Stupiphany

at long last the baby challenge quilt has been birthed and now that I can see it as a single piece as opposed to blocks laid out next to each other, I’m liking it better and feeling that hopefully the family that ultimately receives it will like it to, or at least not totally hate it.

Photos of the finished quilt will appear sometime next week.  In the meantime (1) I have to play by the Quilt Guild rules and (2) it still has to be quilted and stitched closed.

So for now, the photo above shows what it does NOT look like!  I realized in time that the black and white pebbly fabric is not a good background.  There’s enough blocks with it in to make a doll’s quilt, which is probably what I’ll do with it, AFTER finishing the projects I committed to finish.

My slogan for this year was “Create and Complete,” and I need to keep it for 2010 too at this rate!

Decided that posting pix of stash is probably counter productive because in reveling in stash and my plans for it I fool my mind into believing I actually accomplished something.  Something other than shopping, that is.

The stupiphany of the day hit me like a ton of bricks.  A thought that came out of nowhere as I was taking a short walk enjoying fresh air and sunshine this morning.

I finally realized that it’s a good thing that I can’t sing.

Never in my whole life was I ever allowed to be in a choir or a chorus.  In high school I was told to mouth the words for the Christmas concert so as not to ruin the performance of the other 599 girls!  When my son was two he was already telling me not to sing.  Apparently even my humming is off key, although it sounds perfect to me.

Today I realized that if I could sing this would be one more distraction in my life.  I have enough trouble with the things I am blessed to be able to do.  If I was always rushing off to  practice with the Sweet Adelines I probably wouldn’t be as good at writing, art, or quilting.  And given that Islamic worship takes a different (and to me less distracting) form, I might miss choral music.

Parting is such sweet sorrow …

… especially when it comes to one’s fabric stash!

Our guild is having its annual garage sale next week so I bravely went through my bins and pulled out fabric I could sell to fellow addicts quilters.  No prizes for guessing what I’ll do with all that money.

After bagging and pricing my pile, these are the ones that upon mature consideration I decided I just am not yet ready to part with.  Actually there’s even a few more because just yesterday I bought Susan Teece’s Roses and Windows pattern and decided to keep some pink and burgundy fabric until I’ve made the roses.  After all it is an annual sale.  Susan did a workshop on this in May but with traveling to Phoenix it wasn’t possible for me to attend.

There’s a rationale of sorts behind my other keep choices in the photo.  The red is what I used to screen print the animal faces and with matching fabric the possibilities of making a jacket are that much easier.

The black and white bears and the green turtles are in honour of my preliterate assistant and partner in creativity.  The green bandana on the right is a Lily Pulitzer Race for the Cure design, and it occurred to me that this might be useful for a workshop Susan Purney Mark is developing for spring.  And the other fabrics suddenly presented more possibilities than I had seen as I pulled them from their bins.

Does anyone else go through these gyrations?  It boggles my mind that I supposedly cleaned out my stash before moving here, sold some to Fabric Traders, and STILL have a pile to go!

 

 

Trading Fabric

Yesterday we went to Sidney and I took the opportunity to unload more of my ancient stash at Fabric Traders — the website is http://www.fabrictraders.ca

You get store credit in exchange for what you bring in, good for up to a year. Of course that is like those packets of chocolate cookies that say “Best before July 27, 2012 at 7:54 p.m.” Does anyone ever put it to the test?

I used my whole credit yesterday and these are two of the fabrics I picked. The one on the right has a thin line of gold in the black, which doesn’t show up too well on the scan. BUT if you click for an enlarged image it does show up. I also found a heavy cotton with rattan print, one with a tiny pattern like a parquet floor in soft yellow, blue, and red, and a fat quarter with teddy bears on it.

The bears will be going into a flapbook I’m working on for my grandson. Everything else has a geometric/woven/baskety look to it. This was a huge look in the late 70′s and I think it’s coming back.

And it’s satisfying to think that some of the old, old stuff is gone. Some was conversation prints of the “What was I thinking?” sort, others were calico prints and paisleys. I like paisley but I think I’ve looked at those particular fabrics for too long, and it’s not really in line with what I’m doing now.