First Finish for 2014

So, I thought that this one was going to squeak by just under the wire – finished in the last few hours of 2013…..Nope, didn’t quite make it… Really, it was almost done, but I could not, in all good conscience say that it was completed in 2013.  I actually finished it at a staff retreat on January 6th (just a little late posting the news, ya think?)…sewing the final edge of the hanging sleeve by hand while I listened to some pretty interesting presentations…(I was on the planning committee for that retreat – full disclosure there – but they really were interesting…)

Wanna see?

Mirror, Mirror – 2014

This was third in a series – Pleiades being the first and Storytime the second.  All made from 6″ crumb blocks.  These sorts of blocks are pieced improvisationally from all of the very smallest scraps of fabric.  I keep a little bin above my sewing machine for these pieces – anything less than 2.5″ on any given side goes in there, 2.5″ squares being the smallest pieces I measure and cut.  If I need something smaller than that, this bin is where I’ll look first.

Mirror, Mirror (Detail – Upper Left)

It’s kind of fitting, now that I think on it, I started sewing these blocks just after last New Year.  As I recall, I was tired of quilting and the holiday slam and just wanted something mindless to do.  These were remarkably relaxing to make – quick, easy, no thought really…just playing with little bits and pieces…like working a jigsaw puzzle (I used to love to do those with my grandmother…).  No rhyme or reason to how they were put together.  Some were totally haphazard, some began with an idea.  I wanted to see what was possible – to experiment – simply to play with color and shape…and see what came out of it.  Before I knew it, I had…well, lots….let’s see… 7+25+36=68…

By the time I had so many, I was tired of fooling with them and there weren’t enough scraps left in that bin to work with.  Then, I sat down and played with the squares…sorting them in different ways – by color group, by theme, by patterns – separating some out and then mixing them back in again.  I sewed a solid concrete-colored grey fabric in an uneven border around each block, cutting them so that the little pieced blocks were not exactly centered and played with them some more.  I ran out of that concrete grey and finished off the last few with a darker grey leaf print.  Eventually, I had two groups with a few left over…one group of 25 that had sort of a child’s theme, with more than a few I-Spy blocks – Piglet and kittens and the like; a second group of 36 that were…well, a bit on the personal side  – memories, if you will, of one sort or another.  The seven that were left over fascinated me – I devised the setting for them and sewed the top together almost on the spot.  It was the first of the three…called Pleiades because of the number and arrangement…and because I happened to be listening to the audiobook of Earth by David Brin just then.  (Such is quite ……. hmmmmm……..inspirational…..reading, indeed!)  I also finished it quickly because I ended up teaching a class for improvisational piecing at TAUNY right around then and wanted it for a sample.  (Hmmm…that would have to have been about March and April..).  The top sat for awhile after I pieced it while I thought about how I wanted to quilt it.  I ended up sort of echo quilting around the squares: using irregularly-spaced mostly-parallel lines, with some overlap from square to square, in addition to the grid formed by the block seams.  This one, I also stopped and started quilting a few times – while I considered what I had done and what else I could do, and puttered about with other stuff in the meantime…That is relatively unusual (and how I managed to remember to take some WIP pictures)…. I almost always quilt straight through from start to finish…Because I’ve got the right thread in the machine; because by the time they get to this stage, I want them done and out of the way of the next projects…(I can see that I’ll have to do a whole post on this subject at some point – i.e. the philosophy of quilting…. I do have some very definite opinions one way and another, so I might as well just get them all out at once – put ’em all in one place where I can hark back to them occasionally…)  Erm….Moving on……

Pleiades WIP
(Almost finished quilting)

The collection of 25 was completed fairly quickly, too – some months later. I called that one Story Time because almost every square had some little feature fabric worthy of a story. (I’ll add a picture of that in here as soon as I take one…)

The last batch – the ones that I most closely identified with – became Mirror, Mirror.  I didn’t have quite enough of the medium grey to sash ALL the blocks, but I made sure that the blocks that used a different fabric would be in this quilt.  I quite liked the effect of the very few darker-sashed blocks — especially after I added the border…  The whole thing reminded me of something that was still sort of “under construction” – as if blocks were forming and clustering in an ever-ongoing process….

The name, btw, also occurred because I happened to be listening to Earth just then….In the book, a young girl sends a message of warning to her father:  “Mirror, mirror, Daddy – don’t take any funny-looking apples.”  This is a contextual code, of course, and a reference to Snow White – doesn’t make any sense if you haven’t read the book, but – it’s a very valid warning all the same.  The quote might not have struck the way it did, except that one of the blocks in particular reminded me of one of those old pier glass mirrors…although there is no apparent reflection in it.  You can see that square in the picture below – the one with the lavender diamond shape…. And, it also occurred that something about each block was a very personal reflection of me – something in an image, the colours, the fabrics…

This quilt is mine…

Mirror, Mirror (Detail – Upper Right)

Oh, and this quilt will be on exhibit in Clifton Park the first weekend of April at the Empire QuiltFest….along with 2 others (I know, I’ve said it before….one at a time….)

P.S. I didn’t show the back, did I?

Mirror, Mirror (Back)

Doesn’t look like much from so far away, but those are morning glories on the left and a giant folk art floral motif on the right…with touches of a bit more here and there….’Cause what’s the point of having a boring back, right?

This quilt was so big that we had to hang it off the deck in order to get a picture without it scraping the snowy frozen ground…it measures approximately 80″ x 80″.  Oh, and I quilted it with variegated thread (pastels) in sort of an irregular grid in the grey and spiraling outward from the center of each small pieced block.

Results

So, I recently drove down to Old Forge to pick up the quilts that were on display there for the Quilts Unlimited exhibition.  It was a lovely drive – three hours there and three coming back – the temperature was in the high 40s and it was rainy.  Sounds like I’m being facetious, but the recent temperatures had been hovering below the zero mark with a good deal of snow and ice.  The warmer temperatures lent a misty unreal sort of quality to the mountains and the lakes – there was very little traffic.  Odd rock formations, slumbering trees draped in all the detritus of Fall seemed to contain elemental figures…pausing briefly to watch as I went by.  As usual, the ice had built in layers on the sides of the mountains – catching run-off and snow-melt – until it looked like a multitude of frozen waterfalls or an ancient ziggurat.*  Islands rose out of the lakes – pine trees and rocky promontories surrounded by uneven sheets of ice…all wet and glistening now.  As always, there was music to keep me company…

The Anarchist – 2013

Kosmos – 73″ x 86″ – 2012

When I got to Old Forge, the gallery was pretty much deserted.  The Quilts Unlimited exhibit had come down and the next one, Winter Air, was just being hung.  I was able to wander through the space for that, as the woman from the visitor’s desk guided me back to where I had to leave the one I was dropping off.  (More about that one later – one thing at a time…)  All of the artwork was leaning against the walls, drop cloths were draped and hanging about…lovely stuff….Those rooms – painted stark white – were filled with colour and absolutely silent.  It was the combination that struck me – not then, but looking back on it, that’s what it was…the stillness – as if the moment before the exhibit was hung was frozen in time…a snapshot of possibilities and potential just waiting…Like Winter itself…when it seems like everything is just waiting…… Oh, erm…sorry…where was I?

Back to my point, when I returned to the front desk, I spied the paperwork on top.  I had completely forgotten that the exhibition was a juried one.  I remembered that fact the moment I saw those two sheets of paper, one for each quilt.  Have I mentioned that I had never submitted anything to be judged before? Twenty-some years of making stuff like this, exhibiting it and selling it and…..I was almost afraid to look…

I stood there and read them, one at a time….and then, again….OYGALF, I can hardly describe the feeling…I know my stuff is good, I’m happy with what I do or I wouldn’t put it on display in the first place…but, that’s not the same thing at all as knowing that these pieces were examined inch by inch, front and back, and…judged.  Particularly these two…. Oh, yes…the results?  See for yourself:

Results – Kosmos

Results – The Anarchist

I thanked the lady at the desk who had been so helpful and I managed to make it out of the  building without causing any consternation with my behavior; and all the melting ice covering the parking lot made my steps across careful and slow…But, boy oh boy, by the time I reached the truck and got back on the road headed north, the music was cranked and I was all but dancing in my seat…(and yes, I shall make sure in future to be a little more meticulous in clipping those threads…)

Pretty good day, huh?

*(My daughter calls these the barfing mountains – at least according to my middle son – I snickered about that more than once as I caught sight of several that looked EXACTLY like that.)  

Music:  Tales From the Dark Side

Mini-Exhibit

TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) invited me to hang some of my work in the TAUNY Center for a couple of weeks as a sort of fill-in between larger exhibits.  This is a wonderful opportunity for my work to be seen and, more importantly, to demonstrate more of what I can do.  The quilts we chose for this exhibit range from early in my career to one of my most recent finished projects (more on that later), they showcase both piecing and applique, as well as other techniques such as beading and hand-embroidery, and one of them, the Maple Leaf Log Cabin, is an example of a vintage project that I finished for someone else.

TAUNY Show – November 2013

The center one above, Odyssey, is the earliest of all of these and dates from the very early 1990s.  Next to it, Little Boxes, is the newest – finished this Summer.  On the left, is the Maple Leaf Log Cabin.  The blocks for that quilt were made by Margaret Woodall (more on that one later, too!).

Luna – TAUNY Show – November 2013

On the other side of the space are these three wall-hangings, all of which date from the early-to-mid 1990s.  These are parts of two separate series that I started based upon mask designs cut from folded paper.  Luna is the latest of these three, dating from approximately 1994-1995.

Sorrow – TAUNY Show – November 2013

Luna was part of a series that also included Dawn and Night.  Somewhere, I have pictures of Dawn – I shall have to find those (or get more – I know where it is)…

Rage – TAUNY Show – November 2013

Sorrow and Rage are also part of a series intended specifically to portray emotions.  There are others in this series, some closer to being finished than others:  Fear is one and Dreaming is another.  These were the first ones made and there is actually a great deal of handwork to be seen in the beading and the embroidery (tho’ not in these photos – I have some better ones in the Gallery for those who care to look…As a matter of fact, there are better pictures of ALL of these pieces there.)

In any case, I am proud beyond measure that TAUNY chose these pieces to display for this mini-exhibit and I am so thrilled to see them hanging where people can see them.  Thank you TAUNY for all that you do – and not just for me.  To find out more about TAUNY’s mission go to http://tauny.org/ and enjoy!

St. Lawrence County Arts Council Artists’ Studio Tour

TAUNY has invited me to use some of their space as a surrogate studio so that I can participate in the SLC Arts Council Artists’ Studio Tour (’cause, you know, my actual studio has a bed, cats, a dog and children running through it, as well as towering piles of fabric and projects in various states of completion – from “Barely Considered” to “Back Burner” to “Half-Constructed” to “Almost Finished” and various places in between.)

Here is more info about SLC Arts!

Not sure yet what all I’ll be bringing to work on while I’m there, except that I know I shall have some examples of the quilts I have been privileged to complete from vintage unfinished sewing projects…. Maybe some hand-piecing or hand-cutting or, oh, something that requires the use of the large tables they have on premises….  I’ll have to give it a think…

Anyway, my thanks to TAUNY for this wonderful invitation, as well as to the SLC Arts Council for a wonderful annual event, and I look very much forward to spending that afternoon (Saturday, November 9, 2013 from 1-4 pm) curled up in such a lovely space sewing and visiting – honestly, could there be a better way to spend an afternoon?

(Oh, and yes, I SWEAR to post updates very, very soon….)

Secret Gardens

This was another finish for the Fair, which (I have to say) provided a really good impetus to actually finish such projects that had been lingering for a while – in this case for almost a year.

Secret Gardens – Throw – Cotton, Linen, Rayon 50″ x 60″ (Approx), 2013

I participated in a virtual quilt bee about a year ago that included a large pieced block for someone who wanted to make a picnic quilt.  The fabrics she sent were decorator-weight cottons.  She graciously allowed us to keep any leftover scraps and I used mine to piece a free-form block from strips (upper left corner) for no other reasons than that I liked the way the fabrics looked together and they were a small collection that I didn’t want to mix in with my regular scraps.  I made it as big as I could and, when I went to square it up, it came out to 6.5″ cut.

I actually had a collection of decorator-weight cotton/linen scraps – bits left from over 20 years ago when I worked in a decorating workroom, as well as bits acquired since mixed in with other scraps.  Mostly, I use them to piece potholders since the heavier weight makes them that much more insulating.  That one improv square was too small to use as a potholder as it was.  But, it was such fun to make!  I decided to make more such blocks and figure out later exactly what to do with them.

After all was said and done, I was able to manage 36 blocks.  I took them with me on a trip to Albany in the hopes of finding something to use to set them into a quilt in a fabric store there.   I found a teal solid linen/rayon blend while I was there that I thought set off the mostly-warmish colors in the blocks and I got about 3 yards of it.  One of the relatively few times I purchased fabric specifically for a project, but I wanted something very specific and didn’t have anything that satisfied in my stash (that, too, is rare!).

Edited/Updated 2/9/2014 –

I saw this setting in a picture somewhere on flickr and decided to try it…so, I added a 3″ teal sashing on 2 adjacent sides of each block.  Then, I played with the layout…took it to work finally and laid it out on the conference room floor.  Sewed it together and added a 4″ outer border.  Found the fabrics for the back and pieced them, even started quilting it fairly quickly – with variegated thread, of course, ranging from a very pale mint to a darker teal.  I got all the main seams done – ditch quilting the block seams and the seam around each pieced square.  Then…I just couldn’t decide….it needed more something in the pieced blocks…But, I didn’t want to do each individual pieced seam – some of them were very small and they went every which way…it was a fairly large quilt and heavy to be shoving around under the arm of my machine.  I had already chosen a binding, so I went ahead and did that whilst trying to figure out how to finish quilting it.  I set aside for the better part of a year…until just before the Fair, when I was looking for something quick to finish.

I had finished quite a few other projects by then and, when I finally pulled it out and really looked at it, I knew what I wanted to do.  I quilted following one seam in the approximate center of each pieced block, vertical or horizontal – whichever way it was pieced.  The placement of horizontal to vertical was utterly random and there was more of one than the other.  There were also some unpieced squares – don’t think I mentioned that…(why should I cut pieces that were already 6.5″ square into smaller pieces?)  I had used just about every scrap I owned of those fabrics – from smallest to largest…

It worked – met all of my parameters admirably:  filled in the too-large unquilted spaces, did not involve a horrendous amount of pushing and shoving about, and didn’t detract from the piecing or add yet another set of busy, busy lines.

I called it Secret Gardens because of the Burnett book – these were mine (full of flora and fauna, pattern and texture and colour) throughout a very long winter…

(Just realized I do not have detail photos of this piece or a photo of the back – as soon as I can take some, I shall add to this post…)

Example of a STF Quilt

As sort of a continuation of the previous post, remember that pink-and-grey pile of HSTs I mentioned?  This is what it became…

Pink & Grey Pinwheel – Throw/Crib 40″ x 48″ (Approx), 2013

The pile of pink and grey HSTs was fairly sizable when I first sorted it out last Fall.  I liked the combination so much that I added to that pile whenever I ran across pieces that would suit.  When I rifled through the box looking for 16-Patch sets to make into pillows for the Fair, I noticed that the pile was noticeably larger and stopped to count.  Some quick math, a few additions from some other piles, and there were enough for a small quilt.

Pink & Grey Pinwheel – Detail, Upper Center
(See the bird?

After playing around with the pieces for a little while, I decided to do a traditional pinwheel design and separated all the squares into 20 piles of 4.  I laid each block out next to the machine, tweaked a few squares back and forth, traded a few between piles, and sewed them together.  When they were done, because it was a relatively small project, I was able to lay the blocks out on the bed to see how well it all worked.  After moving the blocks around for a bit, it looked like I wanted it to and I sewed the blocks together.

While I was sewing, I thought about a border.  I thought a fairly narrow grey plain-ish border would frame it nicely and allow me to make the grey the more dominant color, thus toning down the pink a bit. (Note:  Good grey prints are kinda hard to find, and have been so for a few years, though that could be on the upswing now.  Grey is one of my favorite neutrals and I keep my eye out for them.) I knew I had a couple of grey-ish floral prints down in my stash and actually remembered to look for them the next time I went to the basement to rummage.

(Note:  Most of my stash is in various-sized boxes and plastic bins in a heated basement – I have at least a dozen of them.  I tend to go down there with a laundry basket every few days to put back what I’ve finished with and shop for what I need at the moment.  Along the way, I always find something I forgot I had, something that sparks an idea that I have to work into the queue, and several pieces that might be just what I need to proceed with some other project(s) simmering on a back burner somewhere.  Some of the bins get a bit of rearrangement and resorting, and some of the newfound loot goes in the basket to go upstairs with me.  This is how my stash revolves.  The bins and the criteria for sorting are rather amorphous and individual fabrics may travel between bins several times as whatever I’m working on changes.  Some sorting criteria stay fairly static – I have bins/boxes for holiday fabrics, tonal prints, flannels, homespun and plaids, linens, pieces large enough for backings, etc.  Others are more fluid, such as the ones for regular cotton prints – sometimes they are sorted by color/color family, or type of print, etc. – it varies.)

Whoops, sorry for such a long digression…

Anyway, I found several pink and/or grey prints that I thought would work for border and back, folded them into narrow strips and held them up to the top.  I left them draped over a clothes hanger (how I usually hang tops and basted quilts) for a while and settled on the one I wanted.  The background is a beige-y grey and the pink is a light rose.  The print is of roses and other flora with bees hovering around.  The bees are hard to notice at first – I had never realized they were there until this project, but they definitely added to the appeal.  I decided on that for the border and a solid light rose pink for the back.  I didn’t have quite enough of the pink flannel, so added some of the border fabric in a stripe to make it larger.  I had intended to do that anyway, just so the back would have some pattern to it.  (Have I mentioned before that I think solids in general, as well as whole-cloth backs are kinda boring?)

Sometimes an idea presents itself, relatively simple and using pieces already to hand.  Rather than put everything related to it in a separate project bag/box, it is often just easier or quicker to put some or all of the pieces together and move it right into a place in the WIP queue.  Otherwise, I have to jot notes and measurements down to remember later when I get around to picking it up again, and/or waste time trying to get my thoughts back to it when they’ve ranged on to something else, etc, etc.

I sewed the top and a back together right then and stuck it in the “to be basted” part of the queue and went on about my business with the pillow covers that were supposed to be on the agenda (before I had gotten distracted).  Classic example of that rare beast (for me at least) a Start-to-Finish quilt or STF.  Most of my projects take a while to simmer at various stages in the process.  This is why I always have so many projects going at once. 😉

However, after the expected labels went missing, and I was down to my last 3, trying to decide what WIPs I had that could be finished in time for the Fair, this little quilt top was right there.  I enjoy quilting HSTs and I snapped it up – got it and Random Thoughts quilted and bound that day.  (I think it was the Thursday before the Fair.)  As it turns out, I am extremely happy with both. 🙂

I just realized that these catch-up posts are great, but they won’t catch me up at all unless I also mention what I’m working on now, as well.  So, my original goal yesterday was to cut out a boy quilt with a space/aliens/rockets sort of theme.  I figured I only had enough of those fabrics for one quilt, but I now have 1 sewn top that needs borders, 1 cut and blocks pieced, and an additional quilt cut out and blocks pieced that I hadn’t planned at all – a Superman/Batman one.  More working on those today, probably more cutting and planning on other new project ideas, such as cutting another linen quilt, designing another bird quilt, etc…

Playing Catch-Up

Well, in the days leading up to the Antique and Artisan Fair, I managed to finish quite a few WIPs, as well have a few unexpected start-to-finishes. (I clearly need a handy nickname for those – STFs, perhaps?  They so often crop up and are rarely weedy… 😉 I’ve been busy uploading and labeling pix for the last week or so, as well as a few other things that deserve their own posts.

So, first WIP is this wall hanging – “Random Thoughts,” so named because I think it is a fairly accurate representation of the mix of stuff going on in the back of my mind at any given time.

Random Thoughts 36″ x 56″ Wall Hanging/Throw, 2013

Patterns forming and juxtaposing in the shapes, colors and contrasts.

Random Thoughts – Detail, Lower Center

Motorcycles, birds, flowers, flashes of bright; dark patches, quiet, grayed colors and soothing repetitive (hypnotic?) curves.

A tessellated pattern of sorts, all 4″ HSTs (half square triangles), perfectly traditional except, perhaps, for the seeming lack of disciplined organization to the setting.  This is one of a series of recent experiments with HSTs, started last Fall as I began making the quilt I gave to my mate for Christmas.

One of my boxes of stock squares contains 5″ squares and the HSTs I often make.  A bunch of 5″-ish squares trimmed from whatever scraps I’m reducing/managing currently, pair, cut in half from corner to corner, sew on diagonal, press and trim to 4.5″ squares.   The possibilities are endless and I had quite a few of those HSTs made.

The quilt I intended to make wanted Autumn colors, so (as I usually begin!), I started separating all the HST’s by color family. first into warm and cool, and, as I moved through, the ‘discard pile’ evolved into more piles such as pastels, jewel tones, brights. etc.  This happens often when I sort stock shapes, and the little collections of color spark all kinds of ideas.

When I was done, I had two piles of blues, purples and greens – it’s hard to define exactly how they were different, except that one pile was a bit more vivid, a tad more saturated, a little lighter.  The other similar pile were all the ones that were less so, that didn’t quite fit in that other pile.  There were quite a few ‘other’ piles, too – a lot of pink-and-grey, pastel/Spring-y, some ‘real brights,’ black/white/grey/reds, blue-and-white, etc.

I looked at all the little collections of HSTs, thinking of all those possibilities, and I decided to start with sewing 16-Patch squares of HSTs in no random order or pattern.  I started with the “more” pile of blues, and starting with the number of blocks I could make from that pile, divided that pile into smaller piles, one for each, trying to make sure that there were no or few fabric repeats among the HSTs in each block pile.

Once divided, I laid out one block in no particular order or pattern, tweaked the arrangement a bit, then sewed it together.  I liked the way it looked, so I made more blocks.   I went back and forth with the “other” blue pile several times, switching out squares, until I had 9.  I liked it so much that I started sewing that “other” pile into squares the same way.  That yielded 15, and they looked ok mixed all in together, but I didn’t have enough for one more block, and I wanted to do something with them now,… In the end, I settled on a throw/wall hanging with the 6 and a bigger throw/wall hanging with the 9.  That larger one is still a WIP called Wildflowers Don’t Care Where They Grow awaiting quilting, but the smaller one became Random Thoughts.  The more I looked at it, the more fascinated I became noting how the pattern of shapes and color flowed (or didn’t), picking up the common themes of some prints and how they sometimes appeared in clusters or just as individual islands among others.

While I was waiting for my tags to come, so I could finish a bunch of little stuff for the fair, I looked for something I could finish that wouldn’t require more than the 3 tags I had left.  Random Thoughts was in the quilting queue and I grabbed it.  Quilting HSTs is usually pretty fun and I got it done and labeled in time to take it with me.

Several of those other piles of HSTs became pillows, both last Fall and more recently.  Altogether, I think I made over a dozen, although I used the more traditional Flock of Birds arrangement for them.

St Lawrence Co. Historical Association Antiques & Artisan Fair

So, last weekend was the first show I’ve had a booth at in 20 years or so.  Had a great time.

Booth – From the Front

I enjoyed meeting the other artisans and the antique/collectible dealers and seeing all the stuff they brought.  Talking to them was very helpful, particularly for information regarding other shows that might be good venues for me.

Booth – Front Left Close-up

It was very gratifying to hear the lovely comments from other vendors and the public regarding my work.  Online sales and gallery sales don’t present the same opportunity for feedback that having a bunch of my stuff gathered for public viewing in my presence gives.  My booth was in the center area surrounded by walkways, meaning that all four sides of it were available for display.  I had The Anarchist hung behind my chair facing away.  It was kind of neat to hear patrons talking to each other about it while sitting unseen behind it.

Booth – From the Right Side

I had people ask me about my work on vintage textiles and take my card.  For the next show, I hope to have some examples of quilts made from vintage blocks.  I currently have two that I am working on – one of pink-red star blocks and one of log cabin and maple leaf blocks.

Booth – From the Back

In the madness of preparation and last minute details, I did manage to finish a few more items for sale and display than I expected to.  In addition to everything else I had (bibs, mug rugs, etc.), I made 15 pillows and 2 dozen or so dish towels.  (I ran out of labels and had not yet received the new batch. I hated to sell them without labels, but when the new ones come, I’ll be able to add them to the ones I have left.)  I did have three labels left, so rather than pick amongst that lot for which to label, I used them on three more quilts – two HST and one vintage cheater cloth.  I hope to get better pictures of the two HST ones this weekend.  You can see both (barely) in the shot of the booth from the front, left.  One is a pink and grey pinwheel crib quilt, the other is a wall hanging in blues-greens (mostly) called Random Thoughts.  So, more on those later.

The next shows I hope to participate in are the Ogdensburg Zonta Antique and Artisan Fair on July 21 2013 and the Adirondack Museum Fibre Arts Festival in Blue Mountain Lake on October 5, 2013.  Fingers crossed….

Mother Goose

I had been saving some scraps of a Mother Goose print for years so I could do something with them.  The fabric was a cotton polyester blend, so I didn’t want to use it with regular cottons.  As bits and pieces of other such blend fabrics were found or came into my possession, I stuck them away with the Mother Goose print.  After weeding through three trash bags of gifted fabric scraps and pieces, I discovered that I might have enough blend fabrics to make a quilt.  Not a lot of different pieces of fabric, but some were fairly sizeable.

I cut out each Mother Goose picture and bordered each cut square with the same printed flower print so as to make them a uniform size – 8″ x 12″.  Then, I cut all the remaining fabrics into 4.5″ squares and laid them out.  Sure enough, I had exactly the correct amount of squares.  I arranged them into a pattern reminiscent of The Anarchist, although a bit less random, and sewed them together.

A much larger piece of blended fabric from the same trash bags was large enough for the back.  I sewed the back to the front from the reverse with a layer of batting added, turned right side out and topstitched/quilted each seam and the edge. No binding on this one.

Other blended fabrics in those trash bags that were not suitable for this quilt were used to make baby bibs and burp cloths, as well as a few baby blankets – both pieced and un-pieced.

While I don’t often use blended fabrics, I do use them for this sort of baby item.  The fabrics do not wear as well as all cotton fabrics, but they are more stain resistant and dry much faster.  This makes them quite suitable for things that you know are going to be spit up on, have food smeared into, etc.

Altogether, I have 4 blankets, 2 quilts, 4 burp cloths and 18 bibs finished now in preparation for the County Artisan Fair coming up on April 27th in Canton, NY.  That is in addition to the usual cotton quilts and wallhangings I have finished.   Now, I have 15 pillows that I need to finish for that Fair, as well as finish making some display racks.

Oh, and I got this lovely girl working:

She was quite a find at one of my favorite local used-stuff stores – cost $20.00.  A Kenmore machine ca. 1967 that does both straight and plain zigzig stitching.  The bobbin wouldn’t stay in and the original travel case is damaged.  This machine is extremely heavy.  It is older than my usual machine by about 15 years, and simpler.  After fiddling with the bobbin case and other bobbin apparatus on and off for a day or two, everything suddenly clicked into place and she now sews beautifully!  (Did you actually expect a technical explanation from me regarding how I fixed it, including proper part names?  All I can tell you is my technique – I consider, fiddle with, tweak and tinker when “fixing” anything – whether it’s a quilt, a meal, a machine, or a pattern).

Now, back to those pillows!

The Raid

I actually finished the work on this piece last November/December, although I didn’t sign it, or make the hanging rod, until last month.  And, I didn’t get a decent picture of it until a day or two ago.

Sunsight – Wallhanging 25.25″ x 26″ – 2012

This came about after a raid on my favorite quilt shop, Quilting Adventures, in Richmond, Virginia.  I say raid because I left there with the bulk of their scrap bin contents and more that they hadn’t put out yet.  (They have a bin of shop scraps that they sell by the bag – fill your own.)  My sister took me there whilst I was visiting my mother last summer.  She knitted in a corner of the store while I rummaged through that bin.  I was trying to hurry so she wouldn’t have to wait any longer than I could help.  When I had about 5 bags worth, I went looking for a larger bag and found one of their sales people pulling more scraps from under the counter to refill the bin since I had decimated its contents.  She kindly let me paw through all of those scraps, too.  I left with approximately two shopping bags full of scraps.  🙂  NOTE:  Few shops that I have had access to sell their shop scraps that way, assuming they sell them at all.  If they do, the bags are usually pre-packaged.

Anyway, I snagged all sorts of stuff – batik bits, novelty fabrics, solids, wools, flannels, bright colors, pastels, tonal prints and some really cool square pieces that had bird shapes cut out of them (presumably to be appliqued on something?).  I’m still contemplating what to do with those, but, since I can’t remember where I put them at the moment, that idea can simmer for a while longer.

A few weeks later, after I returned home to NY, I sorted through my haul in my usual fashion (i.e. collections of like-sized scraps, bits big enough for a 2.5″ cut square, pieces large enough for bigger squares, strips narrower than 2.5″, solids, bits that needed to go immediately to current projects, etc.).  I was pleased to find a nice collection of narrow batik strips and some solid black pieces and strips.  I laid those out after I put the rest away and arranged them in various ways while I thought about what I could do with them.  I liked the sort of spectrum look and the black really set the colors off.  Some of the black pieces were in strips so I thought about attaching black to the ends of the batik strips to make them all the same length.  I laid that out and looked at it for a while and then stuffed the whole lot into a ziplock bag to keep them together while things simmered.

By this time, it was early Fall and I was savoring the last few sunrises as best I could before it got too cold to enjoy them.  While standing out on the back deck early one morning, I admired the sunrise and the way the trees and the horizon of ridges and mountains and trees looked sillouetted against the intense color of the rising sun and I thought again of that bag of batik and black strips.  It occurred to me that I could replicate some of what I was seeing by using the batik strips as background and the black to create shape and pattern.  All thoughts of those scraps previously had been the other way around – using the bright colors to create a pattern and design against the black.  It was one of those Eureka! moments.

Some of the strips were cut at an angle and some were cut bluntly and I left them that way.  I paired colored strips with black, piecing some of the colors together to get long enough strips. I laid them out and pulled them this way and that until I was happy with them.  I added a wider very dark grey tonal print to the bottom with narrow black bits on either end to represent the tree trunks and bordered the whole with more black.

After sewing the top together, I went looking in my stash for backing and binding.  I first went to my hoard of larger batik pieces because I thought I remembered something that might do.  Sure enough, I found it and it worked wonderfully – blues from light to navy with a design of pine trees, looking very like the view from my deck across a series of ridges to the Adirondacks.

Sunsight – Back

While looking for the batiks, I found a smallish piece of fabric that had tiny stars in white and blue on a black background – perfect for the binding.  On one of my quarterly or so trips to town, I hit JoAnn’s for some lovely Sulky variegated rayon thread in yellows, peaches and orangy-reds.  I quilted it first in black 3-4 times along the vertical seam lines following the line of the trees, not the line of the seam, rounding corners slightly and being careful to cross and parallel the lines instead of sewing over and over on the same line,  as I went to soften and feather the edges a bit.  I had ironed the seams toward the black to bring it more into the foreground and some of those lines of black quilting were actually on the colored batik to recess it more along the edges.

After that was done, I quilted lines radiating outward using the variegated thread, and then did one line of quilting just outside the border seams using a King Tut variegated cotton thread in shades of blue, green and purple.

All while I was actually constructing this project, I knew I wanted it to represent a sunrise and I played with names for it along those lines but nothing I came up with seemed quite right.  Language, its use for communication, etymology, etc., has always fascinated me and I enjoy finding just the right words to communicate precisely and concisely what I want to convey.  Then, I chanced to read an article about Buckminster Fuller while looking into his theory of “ephemeralization” (doing more with less) and other sustainability theories, and there it was, the perfect word:  Sunsight.  Fuller reputedly thought the words “sunrise” and “sunset” were old-fashioned, geocentric and inaccurate because the sun does not move, rather it is the Earth that moves.  He preferred to use the words “sunsight” and “sunclipse” to describe the sun’s appearance and disappearance.  Ooohh, right on!  Just my kind of thinking… So, Sunsight it had to be.  🙂

From start to finish, I worked on this piece for about 4 months, in between other stuff, and then let it sit until now for pictures, signing and hanging rod.  Most of my projects are like that, and I really don’t worry about having too many WIPs around at any given time.  They are all in different stages of progress, ready to be picked up and worked as each idea develops and I know exactly what I want to do with it next.  Maybe that’s why I don’t really get tired of working on most projects before they are finished?  Once in a while, I zoom through one project with no real delays, but those are rare.  If anything, this project went together quicker than most once the idea gelled fully.

In other news, I”m busily trying to come up with ideas to display quilts at the upcoming Antique and Artisan Show.  I haven’t had any luck finding wooden ladders, but did turn up the remains of an old wooden crib.  I’ve started cleaning up an old wooden rocking chair and I need to hunt up the remains of a broken wooden drying rack that I saved hoping to find a use for it at some point.  We’ll see if it has any life in it yet.  It is possible to think about such things now that I can navigate the path to the basement without wading through snow or mud.  At least, such activity gives me a reason to be outside in the sunshine even if I can’t begin the garden just yet.

Chasin’ the Blues Away

Again, it’s been awhile… With the Easter holiday and Spring Break, my time at the computer has been limited.  This is the latest finish:

Chasin’ the Blues Away – 2013, 47″ x 54″

The working title for this one was the Russian Doll Quilt.  I had gotten bits of the Russian doll print in a bag of other scraps, probably from Etsy.  Not having any other particular plan in mind, they went into a box to be cut into stock squares.  (I routinely cut scraps into whatever sizes of squares they’ll accommodate.  I always have these squares on hand to use when needed.)  Last Spring, I was rummaging through the 4.5″ stock squares box trying to put together a baby girl quilt for a custom order shower gift.  I separated out the pinks and reds for the girl quilt, and started weeding through the blues, thinking I’d set some aside for a boy quilt or two as long as I had the box open anyway.

Chasin’ the Blues Away – Detail

Among the blue squares, I found two focus fabrics that would work for boy quilts, denimy blues, one with yellow and the other with red and black.  (These became the two Denim Baby Animals quilts.)  I also found 5 squares of the doll fabric, but decided that the colors would not mix well with the two previously-chosen focus fabrics.  So, I set the doll print aside.  I quickly sorted through the remaining prints and discovered that most of the prints that did not fit with the two denimy quilts were ones that went remarkably well with the doll print – the purples, purply blues and browns, olive greens and teals, beiges, etc,  In fact, I quite liked the effect of all those colors and prints together, although it was a color combination I probably wouldn’t have considered absent that doll print.

Chasin’ the Blues Away – Detail

I was a bit concerned that 5 squares would be a bit few to consider a focus fabric, but, they seemed to hold their own in the mix as I rifled through them.  So, I decided “why not?  I counted squares and, with the addition of a few others here and there, I had enough for a 10 x 12 rectangle – with a border, it would be a decent-sized throw or crib quilt.

Over the next few months, the squares were sewn together, a border with 4 matching squares for the corners was added.  I found a piece of flannel for the back – a lovely lavender tonal print with birds and butterflies.  (The same print, different colorway as the back of The Anarchist.)  This piece wasn’t quite wide enough, so I used strips of two differnt purple non-flannel cotton prints down either side – one is lavender with a touch of pink (the same fabric as the 4 corner border squares), the other is purple on white.  Standing back, both prints blended well with the flannel, so I went ahead and basted it.

Chasin’ the Blues Away – Detail of Back, Variegated Thread

Once basted, it moved pretty quickly up the queue for quilting.  (I do not have much room to house basted quilts, so, unless I hit a real snag with the quilting plan, this is not a place where WIPs linger for long.)  I debated briefly over thread and finally settled on a King Tut variegated thread of blue, purple and teal (the other choice was a Gutterman variegated in purples).  A binding fabric I had used on another quilt (The Tropics) called to me, so I used it on this one, too.   Made the binding, sewed it on by machine, moved it to the hand-sewing pile for finishing and there it sat.

This was one of my portable hand-sewing projects for approximately 4 months.   That’s not usual –  by this time, I’m usually more than ready to get stuff finished.  But, there were custom orders that took priority and other little hand-sewing projects that got snuck in.  Plus, I started finishing more bindings by machine.  (Finishing all the bindings by hand was creating a logjam and, for some things, a machine-finished binding really is more suitable.)  I finally finished it this weekend on our trip to Albany for the holiday.

Oh, and the title change?  As I was finishing the last of the binding, my sister, my mother, my niece and I were watching Easter Parade.  It had been awhile since I had seen it and I had forgotten about one of Ann Miller’s dance numbers in it, an Irving Berlin tune called Chasin’ the Blues Away.  That song has been running through my head to the point that I’ve been breaking out humming and jiving (Ann Miller style, of course) at odd times while fixing dinner and sewing for the last four days.  When it came time to sign this quilt and write it up, the title change seemed to be a natural fit… 🙂

As for the rest of the past week or two, sewing-wise?  This is what 3 dozen mug rugs look like:

Now, on to the dozen plus bibs and baby blankets I need to finish for the upcoming St. Lawrence County Historical Association Antique and Artisan Fair on April 27th. After that, I need to work on pillows.

Reversible Ironing Board Cover

Not much sewing going on the last couple of days due to errands, etc.  However, I did finally get to work on the new ironing board cover which I desperately needed and had been considering make for quite a while.  After all, why buy something when I could make it and, since I don’t like the coated ironing board fabric anyway (it peels), I wanted all cotton – inside and out.  The original cover was definitely worn out -torn so that the foam rubber padding was exposed and stretched so it no longer stayed attached to the board itself.  All in all, it was a pain to use as it was.  The board is an over-the-door model that I purchased at Target in Albany about 2-3 years ago (ergo, smaller than a freestanding one).  I never used it as such because I didn’t realize until I got home that there was no outlet handy to the only door available to hang it on (Doh!).

First, I used it on the backs of two kitchen chairs.  This was problematic as space limitations meant that it had to cross the doorway to the living room.  For the last 6 months or so, I’ve used it propped on top of bins and piles stacked on the chest at the foot of the bed.  (Adjustable height, depending on how high the stacks and bins of fabric are – Wow, a legitimate reason for those stacks to be a certain height!)  This arrangement has actually worked fairly well since the excess part of large tops can rest on the bed instead of dragging on the sometimes dubiously clean floor (2 cats, a dog, 2 kids and himself tracking in mud, snow and pet hair – I’d really rather not have to sweep and vacuum every time I need to iron!).  Anyway, a friend had given me a length of fabric I had been saving for exactly this purpose so, enough being enough, I finally made a new cover and I am extremely pleased with it! It is reversible, machine washable and used stuff I already had on hand.  A few notes here on how I made it, because I’m fairly sure I may have to make another one in a few years, although hopefully this one will last longer than the original.  (NOTE:  Read all instructions first.)

Materials used:  2 pieces of scrap batting the length and width of the board, a length of pre-washed fabric (doubled so the cover would be reversible) as long as the board itself, and something to use as a drawstring – long enough to go around the perimeter of the board.  (I used a selvage cut from a quilt back, ’cause you know I cut them as small as I can get away with according to print and weave, tie them together and wind them into a big ball for whenever I need a piece of string.)

Lay the batting pieces out individually across a bed, table, floor, etc.  Strip old cover off and put the board down on top (upside down) and draw around it with a black Sharpie.  (Make sure to pick the batting fuzz off the end of the marker before you put it away.) No need to draw around the base (square end) if you can use an edge of the batting.  However, make sure the total length is about 2″ longer at the base.  Lay out the fabric folded down the length, right sides together.  Position one of the batting pieces as a pattern, leaving approximately 2.5″ all the way around.  (OK to leave less on the base end.) Cut out at that margin.  Stitch around the l+ong side from one corner to the other corner, backstitching at each end.   Turn right side out and finger press (since your ironing board is not usable at the moment).  Layer the two batting pieces aligned together as closely as possible and insert into new cover, leaving an approximate 2″ margin between the stitched edge of the cover and the curved long side of the double batting.  (This will be the casing that will tighten the cover over the board.)  At the base end, you should also have 1-2″ of margin.  Smooth out any ripples in all four layers and lay the new cover with batting inside on top of the board to check placement and double-check size.  Make sure the edges of the batting (as felt through the cover) align with the edges of the board.  Peel back raw ends of cover and trim length of batting at base, if necessary. It should be square to the  edge of the board and extend about 1″ or so.  (This will be absorbed by the quilting.)  Fold cut edges of cover to the inside, keeping the batting tucked under one of the sides.  Finger press this folded edge thoroughly.  Pin all the way around  the edges of the batting at least every 6″ or so through all layers.  For each corner, open, lie flat and topstitch from approximately 2″ above to 2″ below the seam – total 4″.  This hems the casing openings.  Then, pin the corners of the batting and at least once between.    Stitch about 1/8 -1/4″ inside the edge of the batting from corner to corner, checking to make sure that there is approximately 2″ of fabric to the right of your stitching line for the casing.   At the second corner, turn and topstitch along the base edge of the cover back to the point of beginning.  This leaves an opening on either side of the batting for the drawstring.  Lastly, quilt the cover between the stitching lines along the edges of the batting as desired.  (Quilt enough to secure batting during repeated washings, but not so much that it absorbs too much fabric thus ending up too short.)  I quilted lines across the shortest width of the board at approximate 2″ intervals using a faint stripe printed on the fabric as a guide.  Lay out again on the board to double-check size.  Thread your drawstring of choice through the casing and tighten around the board.  Anchor the ends around the frame at the square end of the board.   Admire your work and congratulate yourself.

Notes:  Theoretically, this should work with any size and type of ironing board,  If the board is freestanding, I would probably leave enough margin in the fabric  for a casing along the base end.  In that case, I think that I would seam around the entire edge of the cover, leaving an opening of about 4″ along one side for turning.  Rather than close this edge after turning, open flat from the right side and topstitch so you have a hemmed opening to tie the drawstring tight when it’s on the board.   A thought about pinning:  It occurred to me after the fact that it might have been easier to pin the batting to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces before stitching that first seam.  However, aside from the fact that I would have inevitably snagged myself on the pins while sewing the seam and then turning it, I would have to remember to pin the batting from the right side of the fabric, so that I would not have to reach inside the cover to remove said pins after turning.   As it happened, it was easy enough to do it the way I did and insert the batting – the two pieces stuck to each other sufficiently so that they stayed aligned with each other, as well as sticking to the fabric enough to stay where I wanted it yet still be easily adjusted in order to place it just so.

Now that I have a new ironing board cover, it’s time to iron and sew the bindings for 30+ mug rugs and get them out of my way.  🙂 Oh, I almost forgot, pix below:

Old Ironing Board Cover – note the scraps of batting I lazily inserted to cover the exposed foam rubber

New Ironing Board Cover

The Anarchist

Oops – been almost two weeks since I posted.  I must make myself post more often than that or I shall never keep current.  In fairness, I haven’t done as much sewing as I might have – due in part to uploading months’ worth of photos to my computer, to flickr and here, and everything that goes with that, as well as a bit of spring cleaning.

So, about that wallhanging I mentioned. Background first.  I got a a bag of scraps in the mail (from Etsy, I think) that had a few scraps of a lovely print of birds, trees and birdcages in greeny yellows, brown, purple and turquoise.  It fascinated me – the somewhat odd colors, the birdcages hanging in the trees, the birds themselves in cages and out.  I kept looking at it and finally started putting other scraps with it as I ran across them – mostly ones that seemed to fit the colors – blue greens, greens, purples and browns.  Every once in a while, I’d take that baggie out, empty it on the bed and paw through everything, adding or subtracting more bits and pieces of fabric, and wondering what to do with them. I wanted something simple, but not just squares. For one thing, those lovely scraps were fairly small pieces, mostly rectangular, and I hated to cut them to one particular size and lose any of the overall design. I also wanted to set that fabric apart from the rest somehow.

After several months of playing with them, I decided to use solid fabrics to frame variously-sized pieces into blocks of a regular size that I could then use in a yet-to-be decided way.  I found some solids that worked in my stash, blue greens, browns, and a purple/red or two.  I decided to go with rectangular blocks since most of the scraps were rectangles and there was no reason they had to be actual squares. I often use 4.5″ cut squares so I decided to make rectangles that finished 8″ x 12″, just in case.  As it happened, I didn’t have enough of some of the solid fabrics to frame as many blocks as I wanted (12 seemed a nice round number – all for one project or enough for 2 smaller ones if I couldn’t decide on just one…), so I ended up piecing some of the strips.

Since most of the solid scraps I was using were triangles, many of those seams were at an angle.  When I was done, I thought that those seams suggested tree branches and, well, that was just fine with me.  The blocks sat around for a bit while I gathered some more scraps from various places (I have scraps sorted and stashed in all sorts of bags and boxes, by type or project, etc.), including borrowing from other projects. Eventually, I bit the bullet and decided to go with setting the blocks randomly against a background of 4″ finished squares.  I worked out a layout and figured out how many I would need.  I pulled some squares from my stash of already cut scraps and then cut more – lots more.  Some scraps were only big enough for one or two squares, some for several. I kept coming back to one other scrap piece that I had squirreled away as a focus for another project.  The colors worked and it had birds and branches in it, too, but, well, it was supposed to be for something else and I didn’t want to use too much of it.

Finally, I cut two squares from it for this project, including one little bird.  I laid it out and sewed it together, all the while thinking about what to call it.  (I like to have names for projects.)  I had been referring to it as the birdcage quilt and all sorts of variations on that had occurred to me, but none seemed to fit.  I had decided that the quilt would probably be a wallhanging, mostly because I decided early on to have a right side up (I don’t always) and that meant (to me anyway) that it really should have a proper name.  I decided on a backing for it, a green tonal print flannel of birds and butterflies and foliage.

A serendipitous purchase of a fabric printed with green and brown leaves during a recent trip to Albany turned out to be the perfect border fabric and I also used it to piece the back.  I basted it and it waited its turn for quilting while I thought about how I wanted to quilt it.  Well, my birthday came along and I treated myself to some new music (I mostly listen to music while I sew), including Rush’s new album “Clockwork Angels.”  (Awesome album, btw.) One particular song caught my attention. Not because of the subject matter, per se, but the title.  After double-checking the definition, I decided it was a close-to-perfect reflection of my whole thought process on making this quilt, including all the little random decisions along the way.

I decided to go with my usual triple lines of quilting for all of the squares, but still wasn’t sure how I wanted to quilt the blocks themselves. I had outlined the printed fabric centers of that birdcage print, but some quilting needed to be done in the solid frames, both for aesthetic reasons and because I don’t like to have too many largish areas with no quilting.  But, I didn’t want the frames to recede into the background the way they would if I added too much quilting.  I was going to fall back on extending the triple lines from the squares along each outer seam on the frames, but, in the end,  decided to add a line along the outer seam  of only the two widest strips of each frame. (Did I mention that the centers were offset in each block? No, oops.)  That worked beautifully and I finished the quilting and bound it in a purple, green and white striped fabric with touches of orange, just for kicks.  (I do love striped bindings!)  So, Ladies and Gentlemen, here is THE ANARCHIST:

The Anarchist – 2013 – 63″ x 71.5″

(Sorry this photo doesn’t show quite the whole thing – windy day and complaining teenager are my excuses.)

The Anarchist – 2013 – 63″ x 71.5″ (quilting detail)

And, who actually is THE ANARCHIST?

The Anarchist – 2013 – 63″ x 71.5″ (himself)

Why, it’s this little dude! Quietly rebelling, not in a cage, not in a frame, blending into the very diverse background for safety but not hiding, out in the world with perils lurking and happy to be so (there are some squares with purple cats on them that I could not resist adding into the mix), exhibiting his individualism and, dare I say, left-wing tendencies? (There was absolutely no reason to avoid that pun!)  On the whole, I can see much of Wikipedia’s definition of anarchism in this little bird, and in myself on occasion.

In any case, I am very pleased  with this wallhanging.  However, I have lots more stuff to work on, including that other wallhanging I mentioned last time and a previously-forgotten cache of scraps I discovered under my bed. So, tata for now.

Almost Done...

Soon to be a largish wall-hanging or quilted throw.  Just the handwork left after finishing the quilting yesterday.  Started quilting another wall-hanging today.  As usual, still refining details on that one.