smazoochie

The weekend

2012-02-26T14:26:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning, I met with several of my Guild members and we slashed our way through a mountain of donated fabric. We coordinated and cut up fabrics for kits for making simple quilts for The Star of Hope Mission. The quilts will be for kids, from infants to teens; we will also be making pillow cases. It was so much fun & we got so much done! We'll have a sewing day early next month. (An interesting insight: an anonymous member of the church where we meet gave us 6! big bags of scraps. It was such a variety of fabrics -- everything from old calicos from the 70s or 80s to some very recent fat quarters. There were lots of 2 or 2.5 inch strips, which made us wonder if the former owner had tried making the water-color quilts that were so popular quite a few years ago. But we all commented on how much our fabric stash says about us: how long we've been quilting, our tastes, who we sew for, etc. We also wondered about the person who gave up all that fabric -- does she just no longer quilt or did she pass away? I hope the former.)

Shug was out of town, so I was on my own Saturday evening. I set up a satellite sewing station downstairs in front of the tv -- my Featherweight on a little folding table, my adorable baby Bohin iron & a little cutting matt/ironing surface. (Not that Shug would mind me sewing downstairs, I just had blocks all over the floor, making it a bit difficult to walk around!) While I watched a movie (one I had seen before, cuz these blocks took a bit of concentration) I set together the Shirts and Slacks blocks. I rummaged through my fabrics and have found a suitable back -- in honor of the make-do mentality of my family, I want to buy as little as possible for this quilt. I probably even have enough batting to use.

Where is the time going?

2012-02-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

I suppose it has happened gradually, but I seem to have completely lost control of my time. There hasn't been a big change recently, but I feel that my wheels spin all of the time & I don't get very much accomplished. I am trying to keep on track with finishing existing projects before beginning new ones, but I'm not having much success with that. I began & have nearly finished a project that I hope to enter to be hung in a Modern Quilt Guild show at this year's Quilt Festival -- but I'm not feeling the love. I will hold off judgement until I wash & crinkle it in the dryer. The postage stamp quilt is getting its river system quilted onto it -- again, not loving it. The next thing to quilt will be my HMQG row robin quilt; I'll do it very simply so it should go quickly. I have the Shirts & Slacks blocks spread out on the floor to assemble -- I am looking forward to seeing them all together. And there are one or two new ideas that are trying to nudge their way to the front of the line. But mostly I am feeling kind of dis-satisfied with what I've done & what I am doing. {sigh}
I am keeping close to my heart a recent post from the awesome completely cauchy: Life is not a competition.

My birthday was earlier this month. I was taken to lunch with work friends, I was taken to dinner by Shug, I got some funny & sweet cards & I got these lovely gifts:

The vase came from my boss, the bag came from the adorable wrongturnrojas & the hot pad & fat quarter came the talented Safieh. Love the givers! Love the gifts!

I think I can, I think I can

2012-02-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

HMQG did a scrap swap last month. We have 2 months to complete a project for our partner using the little bits they provided plus any extra we need to add to make something that we think they will like. As I have mentioned before, I have never participated in any of the blog & flickr based swaps & bees -- I don't know why really, fear of disappointing, fear of biting off more than I can get done. Anyway, the only swaps I have done have been our HMQG row robin that we did last year & now the scrap swap.

And I love the experience! It is so much fun & such a learning experience trying to make something that you hope someone else will like. Somehow it is different than making a quilt as a gift for someone, often the quilt is for a non-quilter & for a loved one, so you know that they will love it. But the bar seems to be higher when you are making something for another quilter.

I was lucky, my scrap swap partner was pretty clear about what she wanted. She wanted a pillow to go with a pillow that she had made. Easy, right? I knew pretty early on how I wanted to use her scraps -- I wanted to experiment with Victoria's 15 minutes play, making fabric with the scraps & cutting it up for a block. I love how it turned out, but won't show it to you yet. Then came the scarey part -- DA DA DAA -- the zipper on the back of the pillow! Queue screeching sounds. I haven't put in a zipper in eons & was really afraid. But after quite a few emails back & forth with pillow-expert Safieh, I bundled up my courage & plowed ahead. And of course, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I put it in more like a dress zipper, I think the style now is for more of the zipper tape to show. But it is in! I'm so proud!

The rest of the weekend was spent working on a project that I hope to enter for the Modern Quilt Guild's show at the Quilt Festival this year. I'll give you a little peak --

The Swoooooooon Train

2012-01-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, I jumped aboard.
What an awesome block! I have yet to see one that I don't like. Because of their size (24 inches square) they make a real statement. Here's mine:

Quilt me a river.

2012-01-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

From very early on, this postage stamp quilt reminded of the township and range plating system so much in evidence in Kansas. When I was in college, I spent one summer working for the Kansas Geological Survey measuring gravity across the state. (If you stay in one place all day and measure the gravity, you will see 'tides'; when the measurements are plotted on a graph, there will be two high points and two low points each day -- solid earth tides, just like ocean tides, caused by the pull of the moon. The data we collected helped reveal the Kansas sub-surface.) We drove the country roads of rural Kansas and they mostly follow the grid of the one mile squares of the township and range. This may be the source of my love of the geometric and rectilinear! Anyway, I love the tidy order of these crisp postage stamp squares, but they seemed to want some.... geography.

So I am quilting a river system on them! Well, sort of. There will be a diagonal line with two 'tributary' lines coming in from either side. Then, I will just sort of echo-quilt the rest of the space.

We'll see how this works out....

Looking back, looking forward

2012-01-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

As have many of us quilty bloggers, I have been looking back on the old year and looking with anticipation and hope at the new year.

I didn't have many completions last year -- only 6. I am pretty pleased with all of them, but, well -- six.

I hope to up the ante this year. My HMQG amigas Amy, Liz and Safieh have started the "12 in '12" Challenge. At first I thought "NO WAY!" But then I thought this just might be do-able. I already had my first finish: I put the last tie into my corduroy quilt and while it isn't strictly *my* quilt (OK, it isn't at all my quilt, I just finished a completed top), I *am* counting it. It took a while because all of the cats LOVE it and one of them is nearly always sleeping on it. I ran it through the washer and dryer and it seems to not be as jewel-bright as it was and the ties have lost the "crows flying over paddocks" (thanks Rachael Daisy!) look that they had -- now they look more like night crawlers -- it is still a wonderfully cuddle-y quilt.

I've got FIVE quilts ready to be quilted or tied. One is already 'under the needle'. And once I free up some of my safety pins, the others are ready to be sandwiched.

I have partially assembled parts for FIVE more quilts. I may have all of pieces cut for the Shirts and Slacks quilt (made with my Mom's shirts) and I have been working away on it recently. It still makes me a little melancholy working with them, but I really want to see them turned into a quilt. Also here are those hexagons from the beginning of 2011, a more-than-half completed lemon-y zigzag top, the indigo stars that I began last summer and a new project, just begun, inspired by a painting by Sol Lewitt.

And I have stacks of fabric that have been tugging at my sleeve, saying they are tired of being just yard goods, all wanting to be quilts. There are SEVEN incipient quilts here -- a few I even have ideas for how I want to use them! Those goofy, really old-school calicos that I just can't bring myself to get rid of, I am thinking of using them with Jenny's Quick Curve Ruler (or maybe some of the Japanese prints that I have stowed away -- or maybe BOTH). My quilter's eye has been taken by i'm a ginger monkey's Swoon-Along. Perhaps the Marcia Derse prints would work for that. And elegantitus is doing a Gentleman's Fancy man-quilt -- I am thinking about those browns that I got at the beginning of last year for that. I want to make one of those jelly roll race quilts, the Just Wing It roll would be perfect. The Modern Quilt Guild will be having a juried show at this year's Quilt Festival -- I have an idea for those Stonehenge prints that I hope will be awesome. The charm squares and text-y prints came together just recently, maybe something inspired by Rex Ray? And there are the gorgeous Echinos that my Mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.....

So with the things that are more than a pile of fabric: 1 finish, 5 to quilt, 5 pile of parts -- that is 11 quilts right there. Then the 7 more that are just fabric and glints in my eye -- that's 16. And the many more that I'm sure will grab my attention this year, shoot, I could probably finish 20 -- or MORE!

Easy peasey, right?

Pimp my blog

2011-12-31T10:50:00.000-08:00

My blog-iversary came and went in early December. I was away from my computer at the time and by the time I came back, holiday preparations were in full swing. So it went un-remarked.

But I've been wanting to change my look for the second year. A while back, my awesome e-friend elegantitus gave me a very sweet surprise gift of my blog name with my Habitat challenge quilt as the background and I've been wanting to use it. So please stay tuned and please be patient as I work out the bugs and get the blog looking the way I want it.

Everyone have a fun and safe New Year's celebration and I wish for you a Happy, Healthy and Blessed 2012!
Talk to you next year!

Not a smitch of stitching.*

2011-12-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

I know I am not alone: things have been so busy & hectic that unless we've been burning the midnight oil to finish gift projects (not me, thankfully -- this year I recognized my limits) we've hardly made it into our sewing areas at all.

I've been finding it hard to get into the spirit of the Holidays. I've been tired, sad and grumpy. But I finally sat myself down and said "Get a grip!!!" So I am counting my blessings and trying to see the glass as half full. Then I started thinking about this picture --

I think this was the Christmas that I was 5. My Mom got me a Shirley Temple doll a few months before Christmas, then spent lots of time sewing her a wardrobe. Now before you start thinking that I am *much* older than I really am let me point out that Shirley Temple is a contemporary of my Mom's. The dolls were re-issued when I was little and, probably as much for herself as for me, she bought one. I don't really remember this Christmas morning, but I have always loved this photo. There is Shirley down there under the tree. And look at the tree! All the little outfits hanging on hangers!! This is what Christmas is about!

So I dug out old Shirley and her clothes. I washed and pressed them, dressed up Shirley and hung the rest on the tree. (Which we only put up yesterday.) Since Shug and I will be home this holiday, we can do a little decorating. And while we will miss being with the families, I am heaving a big sigh of relief to not be traveling. I got out a few more things and it is really beginning to look and feel much more like Christmas.

Season's Greetings to Everyone and a Happy, Healthy and Blessed 2012!
love, Beth aka Smazoochie

* My thanks -- and apologies -- to Zuzu Bailey.

Old dogs, new tricks

2011-12-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Recently, several of us HMQG-ers met at Safieh's house for an afternoon of sewing and chatting.

Fi brought her blocks to assemble this quilt. She laid out the blocks on Saf's design wall then asked for advice on how to sew them together. I said that I always assemble my quilt tops either row by row or column by column. Saf said that she sews hers together in sections -- fourths, sixths, whatever is easiest and most logical for the project. Then there is only one seam that is the length or width of the whole quilt.

Wait! What!?!

Now I have been quilting for about as long as Saf has been alive and I have ALWAYS assembled tops either row by row or column by column. And ALL those long seams ALWAYS make me cranky! It is one of my least favorite parts of quilt making -- even though the product is the finished top!

Sections?!? That is GENIUS!!! This is one of the things I love about our group: our mix of ages, of skills, of knowledge.

So with Saf's method in mind, I began putting together some of the blocks made with my Mom's shirts. I still need quite a few more blocks. I think this will be fairly big, maybe 6 or 7 by 8 or 9 blocks -- so 48 to 63 blocks. And I have 20. Ouch, I have quite a way to go. But it is satisfying to see a bit of it with "my" new construction method!

Silent but not idle

2011-11-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

It has been a while, hasn't it?

But I haven't (entirely) been goofing off.

I got the binding stitched down on the corduroy quilt, but it has been too hot to work on tying it. Somehow it just seems wrong to turn the air conditioning colder just so I can work on a quilt.

I found my wayward triangular ruler that I used to work on my hexagons. Do you remember this project, from waaay back in January?

It had gotten to the bottom of my project pile, then when I wanted to work on it, I couldn't find the ruler. Well, now I am going to cut some strips of Kona snow for the background and start sewing strips. If you have so much ~~crap~~ ~~junk~~ stuff that you can't find what you want when you want it, maybe you have too much stuff!

I also set together my rows from the HMQG robin. Isn't it fun!?! I pulled my row -- with all the terrific rows made my Guild members, it looked a little weak. I cut it up and used it as filler -- at the sides of one row that was a bit short and down one side. I am looking forward to quilting this for our brief Gulf Coast winter -- warmed by friendship and quilts!

I put together this little quilt as a donation quilt. It is made of things I had on hand. The Hello Kitty fabric is really cute, but I can't tell you why I bought it. I love the chalky pastels with it though. My "to be quilted" pile is getting higher and higher!

And I have been spending quite a bit of time with my personal challenge fabrics, making these pillars and half-ish square triangles. I have a vision of how this will look, I just hope I am able to pull it off. Wish me luck!

And in the Information I Did NOT Need To Know category:

Recently, I cut from the newspaper (yes, we still get a *paper* newspaper delivered daily -- I told you I was old!) a recipe for "Neiman Marcus Cake". I've never been to Neiman Marcus, much less had their cake, but the recipe looked easy and I thought it might be good.
Well.
It is ridiculously easy, ridiculously good and ridiculously indulgent!
A white cake mix mixed with a stick of melted butter (!), press this mixture into an oblong pan and top with -- all mixed together -- a package of cream cheese (I used low fat, that counts for something, doesn't it?), a box of powdered sugar (!), teaspoon of vanilla, two eggs and pecans then bake.
WOW!

11-11-11

2011-11-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

Honoring our Veterans and loving our corduroy!

I did not make my corduroy quilt. My Mom and I bought the top at a Goodwill or Salvation Army store more than 25 years ago. I have been carrying this top around with me ever since -- and would probably be carrying it around for years to come if LeeAnn at niftyquilts not alerted us to Corduroy Appreciation Day. Thanks LeeAnn! I love this cuddly little quilt and I doubt I would have gotten around to finishing it had it not been for you.

It is still not completely finished. I have about a third of the quilt left to tie and half of the binding to stitch down, but it was presentable enough to debut today. I got the chance to study it as I tied: there are about 24 different corduroys in the quilt, mostly narrow wale, a few medium wale. The wales are mostly parallel to the long side of the rectangle, but a few are perpendicular. The naps do not all go the same direction (which sometimes made it confusing when trying to count the colors). I decided to "over-tie" it and like the extra dimension the black ties add. (Rachael said they look like birds flying over colorful fields. Tonya said they reminded her of bats.) I am happy to say that I did not have to buy anything to finish this quilt -- cowboy flannel, butterscotch binding and black pearl cotton were all on hand.

Too much of a good thing?

2011-11-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

Well, the Houston International Quilt Festival is nearly over. It was over for me at about 4:00, Friday afternoon. I had gone to the MQG Market Meet-up the Saturday evening before Festival began and was at the Festival all day Wednesday (in class until 5:00, then went to the preview until about 8 or 9 o'clock), Thursday and Friday. And I am BEAT! Talk about sensory overload!

Quilts, quilts and more quilts!
Fabric, fabric and more fabric!
People, people and more people! (These photos were made before the hall opened. Wouldn't we all love to walk aisles that empty!)

I had told myself that I wasn't going to buy ANYTHING, but of course I did.

These lovely, new (to me) colors of South African "indigos" -- there were more colors besides the usual indigo blue and browns, I just went for the pinks and purples.

I couldn't decide which colorway I liked best of these Kaffe prints -- so I got three of them! I think strips of these will give a quilt lots of movement.

These Japanese ombre prints were just too gorgeous to pass by.

And I have admired the fabric lines from Marcia Derse for a long time, but had never seen them in person. She had a booth with big bundles and a LOT if them came home with me. I see, perhaps, a re-interpretation of an Amish quilt.

MQG Market Meet-up

2011-10-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

All I can say is, "WOW!"

What a crowd! What a lot of famous faces! What a lot of prizes! What a lot of FUN!

I am ashamed to say that even though I had my camera, I did not get even one photo of the event -- I guess I was just kind of over-whelmed and star-struck. The sponsors of the event provided SO MANY prizes that nearly everyone won something! I won a charm pack of Lizzy House's new line Outfoxed by Andover Fabrics. (Now I want *acres* of those three color-ways of the pearl bracelets -- so pretty!)

I try to limit my use of the word "awesome" but in this case no other word adequately describes the evening: AWESOME!

And we have another meet-up yet to come:
Saturday, 5 November
The Hyatt Lobby Bar
8:00 pm

These are our lovely sponsors:

Travel & Retail Therapy

2011-10-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

I am a week home from my last trip to MoKan. That 14 hour drive home is tough and it takes me a while to get back into my usual routine.

On this drive though, I still had the warm glow from a trip to Lawrence, Kansas and to Sarah's Fabrics. My Mother-in-law learned I hadn't been to Lawrence, much less Sarah's in years, so she thought a short car trip was in order.
Shug wasn't born in Lawrence but he grew up there and got his bachelor's degree at the University of Kansas -- that's were we met! My Mother-in-law probably lived there nearly 30 years and it still feels like home to her. But the point of the trip, besides a little tripping down memory lane, was to go Sarah's. Sarah's was there when I was in school back in the early 1980s. I was already dabbling at quilting & sewing and Sarah's was a favorite place to go. I am pretty sure that I got my Folkwear prairie dress pattern there along with the calico I used to make it. It was always a fun store, though a bit outside my college girl budget.

Well.
Now it is twice the size. They have not only quilting cottons, but linens, woolens, rayons -- LOTS and LOTS of fabric! I was a bit over-whelmed.

Let's all say "polka dots" the way Homer Simpson says "dough nuts".
polka dots....drool drool drool

All I managed to focus on was a big bunch of fat quarters -- I think a spider web string quilt may be in order -- and half yards of a couple of Echino prints -- a bag maybe?

Wordless Wednesday *

2011-10-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

What do you think?

* Well, almost wordless.

Two-fers

2011-10-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

In the past, my least favorite part of the quilt-making process was the cutting. I don't mind it so much anymore, but am still in the habit of cutting way more than I need and getting more than one quilt from one cutting session.
Recently the secondary quilt was finished long before the primary quilt was. The primary quilt was SNAFU, as some of you know, the reason it took so long was that I hand-quilted it. It was made of a jelly roll and khaki-colored Kona and, of course, I saved all the left-over bits. Sometimes when I am spinning my wheels, not knowing what to work on, I will get out my box of cut pieces -- lots of triangles and squares and rectangles of various sizes and just start laying out and stitching. I arranged the 2.5 inch squares together with no particular end in mind. Then I learned that one of Shug's colleagues was expecting his first grandchild, so I added a border, machine quilted it and gave it to the expecting grandparents.

For one of my next projects, I am giving myself a challenge.
I want to see if I can make something modern from this definitely not-modern stack of fabrics. It will probably be a donation quilt (or maybe a grandbaby quilt). I want to see if I can come up with something edgy with calicos and plaids!

The Humility Block

2011-10-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

If you have read much about antique and vintage quilts, you have probably come across reference to the "humility block". According to the story, quilters would include in their quilt an intentional mistake -- because "only God is perfect". I, like probably you, always thought this was a bit arrogant -- I am quite able to make mistakes without making them on purpose, thank you very much.

After completing my Sunday School Stars polyester double knit top, I did an internet search of the "humility block". I found this good article and learned that there is really no such thing. Quilt historians have found the myth to be a mid-20th century invention, perhaps by quilt dealers making the mistake in the quilt into a charming quirk. The humility block was often attributed to the Amish, who, when asked about it, thought the same as I did: it isn't humble to think that the only way you will make a mistake is to do so intentionally. Well, in a waaaay, mine is a humility block. I saw the mistake in time to fix it, I just chose not to. I had already done some ripping & resewing on this goofy quilt top and it wasn't easy picking stitches out of the double knit -- so I left it!

And in our meteorological news: IT RAINED!!!! It rained quite a bit today; so far we've had 3.5 inches (about 9 cm) and it is still RAINING!!!!! There is still way to go to make up our nearly 20 inch (51 cm) deficit, but this really helps.

You're Invited

2011-10-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh! The Quilt Festival is less than one month away!

This year, after trying for the last three years, I finally got into Hollis Chatelain's class, "Quilt Line as a Third Design Aspect". I am very excited, and perhaps a bit apprehensive, about it. (I had a dream/nightmare that I was very late and didn't have any of the right materials for the class.)

I can't believe that this will be my 20th Festival! In 1991, I flew down to Houston for the very first time. This was when I bought my Bernina; I guess she has an anniversary too! While in town, I called up an old friend from college who I knew had recently moved here for a job. Fourteen months later, Shug and I got married and I became a permanent Houstonian! It is not quite as special going to the Festival as a "townie" -- no plane trip, just a drive into town; no hotels or restaurants, dinner and chores await when I get home -- but it is a lot cheaper. My discretionary spending can all be on fabric, books and bright shiny things!

In case you don't know, there will be a couple of meet-ups of all the branches of the Modern Quilt Guild and the Houston Modern Quilt Guild is hosting them. One is during Market and one is during Festival. (Check the link for locations and times.) I'm looking forward to putting faces to the funny blog and flickr names that I know so well and for internet friends to become IRL friends!

And to my blog friends who are not in the Modern Quilt Guild and are planning to go to the Festival, please let me know! I would dearly love to make plans to meet you and put a face to the kind comments I receive on my blog.

Pressing Matters

2011-10-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

A good many years ago, I made a square-in-a-square quilt top; it was pretty ordinary -- calicoes and plaids in browns and blues. But there was something about the top that I really liked and for a while I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Because of all the seams that would be coming together at the middle of the blocks, I decided to press the seams open.

My first sewing was clothing and with clothing, one always presses the seams open. My foray into quilt-making was pretty much self-taught and my very first project was finishing up a stack of hand-stitched, 4-patch blocks that my Mom had made with her Grandmother back when she was quite young (my Mom, not my Great Grandma). The seams in those 4-patches were finger-pressed to one side. So, everafter, I always pressed my patchwork seams to one side.

But when I really stopped to think about it, if I was machine-piecing, not hand-piecing my blocks there didn't seem like there was any real reason to press the seams to the side -- just like in clothing construction. The first time I had done this was with that square-in-a-square quilt top. And that was what I liked so much about that top -- how flat it was. I loved the look of the newly created piece of whole cloth -- cloth made up of smaller pieces of cloth. So now I don't press my patchwork, I iron it -- I really IRON it.

But ironing isn't working with these doubleknit stars. With one of these blocks, I spent quite some time trying to get the seams to lie flat, but, well, can you tell which one it is? I can't.

So I'm just going with cardboard-like nature of this fabric. This little quilt is kind of a nostalgic, whimsical oddity anyway. I doubt it will make it among the Fresh, Modern Quilts on flickr, it just is what it is. And I am rather enjoying the journey I am taking with it.

Great Expectations

2011-09-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

That is what I had for the weekend -- Great Expectations.

Most of Saturday was spent doing chores and errands. Sunday was free though and I got up to my room to begin working on the long list of things I wanted to accomplish: baste the postage stamp top, cut some fabric for donation quilts for victims of the Texas wildfires, make more double knit stars, pull and combine some fabrics for my next projects. But first on the list was to re-sash the square plates. Well. That took most of the day, what with ripping and re-sewing and ripping and re-sewing and time-outs to regain my temper (worst of times!). I had a Dickens of a time getting those sashes to line up!

It is finally together now and I really like the way it looks (best of times!) Those coral and yellow rays chase away the Bleak House Blues! I think I will add some more of that green as a border. As for quilting, last year at the Quilt Festival I took a class from Mary Mashuta on walking foot quilting and I think this quilt is the perfect candidate for experimenting with those skills.

Turn turn turn

2011-09-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Shug has been turning wood for just a little more than 2 months now -- and look at what he has spun out!

There are 14 pieces there, of varying quality, though the quality is getting better and better. There are 2 bowls upstairs on my sewing table (one with spools, one with patchwork parts) and there are a few -- though just a few -- failed attempts. Pretty impressive I think!

He is getting much more done than I am. These days, I can't seem to do anything more complicated than browse blogs, flickr, pinterest & tumblr and play find-it games on my I-Pad. It isn't that I don't have PLENTY of needle-ready projects. Here are just some of them, along with my lame excuses:

The squared plates have been disassembled, squared & are ready to re-assemble, but, well, the design wall is full. The blue postage stamp top is ready to sandwich, but the table where I do this is covered with wooden bowls. The quilting threads in snafu need to be restitched & anchored, but I am still to irritated to work with this one.

I think the shirts & slacks quilt will be about 5 or 6 blocks by 6 or 7, so I still need many more of them, but I can only work on them for a short time because they make me sad. (I think this one is a real excuse.)

I just need to make more pieces for the indigo & white stars -- just haven't made the time. The yellow zig-zag is built diagonally so I need lots of space to spread it out; it is about 3/4 done & is pretty big. I am working on the Sunday School Stars -- the one thing I am getting done!

I want to add more borders to my Habitat challenge but need to get some more Habitat fabric. Come on! That means a trip to the fabric store! Surely I can 'motivate' myself to do that! The hexagons came to a screeching halt back in January or February, I don't even remember why, but I am sure it was a good reason. And I just dug out the purple & gray squares in squares. They were going to be a gift for someone, but I came up with something I liked better. The parts are all cut for this, it would be an excellent donation quilt, I just need, well you know, MOTIVATION!

I am always encouraging people to be easy on themselves, but I am the last one to take my own advice. Like the song in this post's title, there is a time for everything. I had several pretty good finishes this summer, so maybe I can take some time to rest & recharge. (Though Ecclesiastes doesn't mention anything about the internet or computer games.)

And check this out! HMQG's Habitat Challenge projects! AWESOME!!!

Dress your family in polyester, corduroy & flannel *

2011-09-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have been having fun with some pretty odd fabrics these days.

The polyester doubleknit friendship stars that I found at my Mom's house is about 3/7 done. The Easter egg pastels were either un-used yardage or left-over scraps from dress making by my Mom & both of my grandmothers. (Though one was from my prom dress -- NO laughing!) They were all good church women, so I am thinking of calling the finished comforter something like Sunday School Stars or Full Immersion Stars or Church Lady Stars. (Please feel free to voice your opinion.) Sewing doubleknit is a bit like sewing corrugated cardboard; it is hard to imagine wearing a dress made of this stuff -- it must have been like a suit of armor! And it makes this weird, sludge-like lint in my machine. I've been digging deep into my old stash and found some flannel with pastel cats that will be good for the back.

From nifty quilts I learned about National Corduroy Appreciation Day -- 11 November 2011, 11-11-11, of course! I used to save corduroy for quilt making, but jettisoned all of it several moves ago. But I do still have a top that my Mom and I found thrifting probably 25 years ago. I pulled it out and found *another* huge chunk of flannel (cowboys!) for the back. Now it is ready to prep for tying.

* My apologies to David Sedaris, though I think his sister, Amy, would approve.

Remembering

2011-09-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago today, on the first anniversary of 11 September, I did not want to spend the day sitting in front of the television, reliving That Day. I wanted to remember in my own way, by doing something thoughtful, constructive and creative. I got out some batiks and the last of my Cherrywood fabrics and cut and sewed and got most of a quilt top done. Then Life interfered & it slowly moved lower and lower in my to-do pile. A while back, I found another batik that I liked for the border. So, this morning, I thought it appropriate to stitch on the border. This is my salute to the lives lost and the lives changed That Day.

I love these quilts -- special edition

2011-09-05T15:24:00.000-07:00

From the time I was very small, I was a frequenter of thrift stores. My Mom, while not a quilter, was a good seamstress; at the thrift stores, she would buy for herself and for me clothing to wear and clothing to alter into other things. My Halloween costume when I was 5 or 6 years old was made from a quilted, leopard-printed circle skirt -- she made a pair of pants, shirt, tail and little tie-on cap with cat ears -- all that was left to do was draw whiskers on my face with an eyebrow pencil. So I have always looked at used clothing as a possible source for fabric.

I am not alone in doing this. There are many quilters who use the good cloth in old clothing for their quilt projects and have many reasons for doing so -- economy, philosophy, memory, to name a few.

Men's office shirts are a great fabric source. The many shades of blues, the many varieties of stripes, plaids and checks make for lovely quilts. Here is one by meliBismakingthings.

This awesome one, called Office Stripes, was made by Binita.

Some quilters have more of a philosophy to use thrifted clothing and textiles in their quilts. LeilaBadBlood is one. She has made many beautiful quilts from recycled cottons and linens and has been commissioned to make quilts using family textiles. One of my favorites is M's Quilt.

Another and special category of quilt from clothing is the remaking of a loved ones things into a memory quilt. As quilters, we can take a stack beloved dresses or shirts or pants and create for ourselves something that will always bring to mind our loved ones. sewandtellquilts did that with her Grandmother's dresses and her Grandfather's shirts.

Even without knowing these people, I can look at these quilts and peak inside the lives of the people who wore these clothes -- Grandma loved her flowered dresses, Grandpa was more traditional with his plaid shirts.

I will always be grateful to completely cauchy not only for this blog post, but for bringing to my attention the wonderful This I Believe essay by Priya Chandrasekan. "I believe that to love, and to bare the boundless depth of our love, we must have the courage to reshape what we inherit."

Sometimes we quilters can give a wonderful gift to friends mourning a loss. Look at this lovely post by nifty quilts -- Sacred Work indeed. J R Webb was also able to provide a beautiful memory for someone. He made this amazing quilt and even a necklace with the buttons from the shirts.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Sherri Lynn Wood and her Passage Quilts. Sherri teaches, consults and does commissions of the making of these beautiful and touching quilts that commemorate lives. A lovely example is her quilt made from her Grandmother's clothing, a gift to her Father.

"Old clothes carry something with them. You can feel the presence of the person who used to wear them. It has a spirit in them. Even if I don't know the person, I know someone wore these pants, and it feels lovely and warm to me."
Mary Lee Bendolph
Gee's Bend, Alabama

My thanks to everyone who allowed me to use their quilt here. You can find these and other "I LOVE these quilts!" in my flickr gallery.

This old quilt.

2011-09-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

If it weren't for bad luck, this quilt would have no luck at all.

I finished the binding on this one today. I think I will call it "SNAFU".

It began well enough. I bought a jelly roll (it has been so long ago that I no longer remember the designer or the line) and made the top in pretty short order. Then I decided to hand quilt it; I pin-basted it and began stitching away. Now, with Houston weather, you do not often want a lap-full of quilt, but I was making pretty good progress in the evenings while watching television. That was maybe 2.5 years ago. Then in August of 2009, the kitten Louis came into our home. His first weekend I closely watched him to make sure he knew where the litter boxes were. From time to time I would put him in a box but he would promptly jump out. This quilt was neatly folded on the seat of 'my' chair. The adorable kitten Louis jumped on the chair & I thought "oh how cute, he is going to nap on my quilt" but, no, he was not going to nap on my quilt, he was going to pee on my quilt. And since he had not relieved himself for about 24 to 36 hours, he really had to GO. So in spite of quickly snatching him up, he pretty well soaked the quilt -- the pin-basted quilt. I had to drape it outside so it could dry, then I hastily (and not very carefully (it smelled of cat pee)) machine-basted it, removed the safety pins (checking for rust spots -- that is one problem the quilt dodged) and put it in the washing machine. So for 2 years I have been quilting on this ragged-looking quilt and finally put the last stitch in about a month ago.

I stitched on the binding, *trimmed the seam*, and began stitching the binding down. Then I kept seeing these really short, loose quilting threads -- about 0.5 inches, sometimes even less. Yikes! I was blaming this on Louis as well; I thought it happened when I was pulling out the basting stitches. I was in the final stretch with the binding when I thought "I TRIMMED the seam!"! I CUT OFF my anchoring knots -- that is why the quilting stitches are coming out!

Now I would love to continue to blame this on Louis, he won't know, he's just a cat. But I am afraid I am going to have to own this one -- along with the other bone-headed mistakes I have been making recently.
To quote one of my blog friends, "MEH!"

In other news, I'm very close to finishing my Habitat challenge top -- it is a bright one!

A challenge, something unexpected & my mind is blown (again)

2011-08-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

I had a pleasant Sunday.

I spent the morning cutting and sewing HSTs for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge using Jay McCarroll's Habitat fabric line. I am thinking of doing something kind of old-school with this edgy, urban fabric. I'll show you more of my progress later, but until then, here is a tease.

In the afternoon, I did something I very rarely do: I got a book, stretched out in bed & "read". It felt indulgent and a little nurturing to nap in the daytime, but I think I needed to do it.

In the evening, while I was stitching on a quilt binding, I re-watched NOVA's Fractals: A Sense of Scale. It is a great program, watch it if you have a chance. There is something they say that gets me every time: a line defining a closed space -- think a circle or a square -- is, when fractal-ized (my word), mathematically Infinitely Long! Wait!?! WHAT?!? No Way!!! KA BOOOMMM!!!!
My mind is BLOWN!!!

Welcome to my nightmare

2011-08-26T05:28:00.000-07:00

Don't worry. I'm just tired and whine-y.

I am recently home from a very stressful trip up to the midlands to see my Mom. She wasn't doing so well, was, in fact, the worst I've ever seen her. (Have I mentioned that Alzheimer's sucks.) We are at a place with her house when we really have to start making it not look like our family home -- closets & cabinets & drawers & the basement are pretty well cleaned out, next comes taking down things from the walls, dealing with furniture, etc, etc, etc.
I made the road trip up & back alone -- 13 hours up, 14 hours home. I brought home yet another load of miscellaneous stuff that I think I want and have to try to assimilate into our home. Everything from my family home smells of ancient, stale cigarette smoke & mildew and that smell permeates into everything -- I always have loads of laundry to do when I return, even re-washing clean clothes. So a looong day of driving, a day of laundry, then back to work. pooh

But I found this awesome blog post. And I found this awesome video. Both reminded me that simple pleasures are the best and they still are all around me, I just have to open my eyes to them.

*My trip was bracketed with brief but pleasant stays at my Mother-in-law's house.
*Even though my Mom makes less and less sense, she still knows me and still loves me.
*While I was away, Shug got us a case of Hatch, NM green chiles.
*I drove 1600 miles without incident. I got safely home to find Shug eagerly waiting for me with a gin and tonic in hand and the makings for a breakfast burrito (with green chiles!) on the stove.

So, I'm feeling better now. I am still tired and sad but can see there is still joy out there to be enjoyed.

I LOVE these quilts!

2011-08-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun with my last 'I LOVE this quilt' post when I looked at 3 quilts (I felt like a real curator!) that I thought I would do it again.

Today I'm looking at 3 quilts inspired by painters. (I am reluctant to say "artists" because I think that we who make quilts are artists.)

The first quilt was made by Maritza at m_soto and was inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly. Kelly is a hard-edged, minimalist painter whose work lends itself to patchwork interpretation. The randomly-placed, colored squares dissolving into the white edges are similar to several canvases by Kelly but not a re-creation of any one. The movement of the colors and the restful white spaces keep my eye busy. I am eager to see how her quilting takes this quilt beyond the painting.

The second quilt is called "Homage to Mondrian" and was made by Noga at noga quilts. This quilt was a personal challenge & Noga well-met the challenge. It is not a literal interpretation of any particular Mondrian painting, but is true to the spirit of his work. The black edging with the occasional, un-edged primary color blocks is very like the artist. She has added a bit of herself with the quilting -- the perpendicular & diagonal lines are an added 'something' that Mondrian could not achieve with paint. She has kept the edges simple with a pillow-case finish.

The third quilt was made by Fabienne at chabronico and is called "a la maniere de Vasarely". This quilt is a beautiful salute to this abstract painter. The shape-within-a-shape theme is one often seen in Vasarely's work. Fabienne has made this piece her own with the rich and varied palette of southern France. The piece is not finished in this image but she later added spiraling quilting within the ovals and a white binding. She has continued to expand this pattern with other colors and with prints -- all beautiful and all unique.
(As an aside, reading in a foreign language about a subject you know well is an excellent way to learn. "La toile thermo-collante double face" -- fusible webbing, of course!)

Inspirations for quilts are, quite literally, everywhere. Painters and architects and graphic designers are especially good. An internet image search of a painting style or a name will produce a delicious pageful of ideas waiting to happen!

Compare & contrast

2011-08-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

I made a hasty post last Sunday showing the finished "Little Opal". Some kind people asked where this quilt had come from, so I thought I would talk about its origins.

At the Quilt Festival in 2006, I purchased a charmingly packaged stack of about 110 2.5 inch squares, hand-dyed by Wendy Richardson. It was kind of a non-standard purchase for me &, I think, my very first purchase of pre-cut fabric. The colors were so pretty that I fell in love. Well, not far from her booth, I came across a booth that was selling Oakshott fabrics. They make absolutely beautiful cross-woven solids, plaids and woven stripes; they are silky, the colors are gorgeous and being a company based in the UK, they are a little hard to find in the US. Their colors coordinated so nicely with my new little hand-dyed squares that I bought a bundle of subtle woven stripes. I lovingly stroked and gazed at my purchases until that Christmas, when my Mother-in-law asked for a package of Thimbleberries charm squares. The colors were perfect for my nascent project, so I bought a pack for her and a pack for me. Fairly quickly, Opalescent was pieced together.

"Little Opal" happened because I now always visit Wendy Richardson's booth at Quilt Festival. I think I got my second pack of 2.5 inch squares in 2008; I also got a stack of larger squares. The booth selling the Oakshott fabrics was there again, so I got some solids this time. (No, I had not (and have not) used up the previous purchase -- I just wanted more, OK?). At the Art Gallery Fabrics booth I got several colorways of a kind of Asian, dahlia-like print. Later, I found a cheap woven stripe from a chain store. This quilt was slightly more of a challenge -- for one thing, I had to keep it 'different' from its big sister. But it was pieced pretty quickly, though I struggled with the quilting.

I like charm pack and jelly rolls, it is a fun challenge to come up with something unique with the very strict limitations of the fabric size. I really like these two little quilts -- no, I *love* these two little quilts. But they are really very similar and I think it is time to move away from the muted-color charm packs!

Mending

2011-08-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

I have this tea towel -- I am pretty sure it belonged to my Grandma, my Mother's Mother -- that touches my heart.
It is a humble object, made of humble material -- probably a feed sack. There are several tears down one side of the towel, you know the kind, when you catch on something and end up with an L-shaped hole. Well, someone (Grandma? Great Grandma?) found some of the left-over sacking fabric, carefully matched the stripes, stitched down a patch and turned under the frayed edges of the tear. Not just once, but several times. Now, I will sew up ripped seams in my clothing, replace missing buttons, sometimes darn moth holes; I've patched (in a very crude way) Shug's pants when the knees or seat were worn through. But I don't know that I would mend a tea towel! And in such careful and caring way. I just find it sweet. It speaks to me of a time when things were not so disposable, not so easily replaceable as they are now.

The weekend

2011-08-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

I finished this

and got more work done on this.

Dazzling...

2011-08-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

...my stupidity, that is.

I mentioned yesterday how I began sashing my squared plates *without* measuring them first. It isn't cute enough to call 'liberated' or 'improvisational' -- it just looks bad. So I will be removing the sashing, trimming the plates, then *re-sashing* them before I can move this one into the to-be-quilted pile.

Then today, I began to piece the shirts and slacks blocks. Well, some of you may have already noticed that I had problems ahead -- I didn't until I pressed my first seams. I had Shug cut me a cunning little template for the Crooked Path squares; I made a drawing for him and he cut it as instructed. But, as you know, you CANNOT take a square, cut that square into two pieces, sew the pieces together and expect to still have a square!!! That is Quilting 101!!!!

Well, I had to take a time out. The damage is not irreversible, in fact, there is no real damage. My blocks will just be smaller (and more labor-intensive) than I had planned. But, GRRRR.

Quilt therapy

2011-07-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

Talking to my Mom can be surreal.
I phoned her recently. She knows that I will be coming to visit in a few weeks and will be there on her birthday. She asked when is her birthday. I told her and she asked, "Isn't that the same?" "The same as what?", I replied. "The same as my birthday."
Well, yes, yes it is.
When dealing with a loved one with dementia, you have to keep your sense of humor, it helps to keep your heart from breaking.

I have been really missing my Mom lately, so I wanted to start on a project using the shirts that I showed you a while ago. Before I started on them I got the binding on the little opal quilt; I hope to have it done by next weekend. I started to sash the square plates but ran into a problem because my plates aren't the same size (grrr). So I see some seam ripping in my future. Thanks to everyone for your help with the sashing problem. I look forward to showing you the dark, solid olive-y green that I am using; I think it was the perfect choice.

I had been thinking that my next project would be with a stack of fabrics from my stash, making something like this quilt I love from the Scott Heffley collection. (If you don't have Bold Improvisation, I highly recommend it.) But I wanted to start cutting on the shirts. I have been *anguishing* about what to do with them. I thought it should be simple, maybe Rail Fence, maybe Roman Road. A cross block, a string block? So I finally had to get a bit stern with myself -- THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE NOR IS IT BRAIN SURGERY! IT IS JUST A QUILT! MAKE IT!!!

So I went with one of the designs I had sketched early on -- sort of a crooked Roman Road. I pulled some solids to go with the shirts; they make me think of the multi-colored pants that my Mom used to get to go with her colorful shirts. It is a bit emotional working with these fabrics but I think I am going to love this.

I also have a stack of her dresses (have I mentioned that my parents never got rid of ANYTHING?) that look as though they were always meant to be together. With these, I am thinking of doing something with squares, rectangles and quarter- and half-square triangles that will (I hope) give the look of houses.

To sash or not to sash....

2011-07-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

that is the question.

What do you think?

I LOVE these quilts!

2011-07-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't done an I LOVE this quilt! post for a long time, so I thought I would look at 3 quilts today.

These 3 belong to 3 different flickr friends, all have flickr names that honor their dogs, past and present. I will look at their quilts alphabetically -- by the dogs' names!

The first one was made by Rosie at the boris daily. It doesn't have a name yet, in fact it isn't actually a finished quilt yet. But I have loved this from when it was just parts! The pattern is Gypsy Kisses by Material Obsession. But Rosie has taken their bright, cheery quilt and interpreted it with Denyse Schmidt's Greenfield Hill and turned it both Gothic and whimsical -- if film director Tim Burton ever decided to make a quilt, this is the quilt he would make! It is mostly a single fabric line quilt, but there are touches of other fabrics that add sparkle. I am eager to see how she quilts this beauty.

The second quilt was made by Gretchen at bigredoscardog. She has made chunky, improvisational log cabins using three colorways of a single print plus solids. Most of the solids are obvious choices, coordinating with the prints, but there are some surprises here -- like, where did those oranges come from!? But I am so glad they are there! I like how she sometimes seems to start to build a log cabin, then it sort of disappears into the background. And the background -- love that peanut-buttery brown. It is quilted simply and looks like a quilt I would like wrapped around me on a chilly winter night.

Lastly, let me share with you John's Birthday Quilt, made by Lisa at Shiner's view. This is another improv log cabin quilt. These cabins are drawn with a finer brush and done in olives, aquas, blues and just a spot of yellow. Primarily stripes and solids, the crisply pieced blocks make for a tailored-look. This is another quilt where the blocks sometimes blend into the background, in fact sometimes there is *just* background. But this quilter isn't afraid of all that white space, she is a master at meander quilting.

Three different quilts, I LOVE them all!

Ta Done!

2011-07-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

Constellation Wonkulae!

So many things about this quilt were outside of my comfort zone: all that white, the liberated piecing, the quilting. But I LOVE how everything came together. Let me be quiet, step back and let you decide what you think. Be honest, I need constructive criticism.

One thing I want to point out is the binding. A while back, my Mother-in-law asked me what size strips I used for binding. I've used 2.5 inch strips *forever*. She told me she had learned from one of her quilt shops that the trend was to smaller bindings. So I have been experimenting with 2.25 inch strips for large quilts and 2 inch strips for small, doll-size quilts. I love the look of these narrower bindings! Well, for this quilt, I wanted have a few bands of color in the binding and wanted to use some of the left over sashing strips. They were 2 inches. So, 2 inch binding it was. I like the piping-like look of it.

And on a separate note, it POURED today!!!
In Houston, we are used to rain--lots and lots of rain. Rain so hard and heavy that you can watch the rain gauge rise. But not this year. The official, normal rainfall is over 26 inches; we've had less than 10 inches. Yesterday, there was a light, all-day drizzle. You could practically hear the grass and plants slurping it in. I had to take a photo of this downpour, it was lovely to see.

So much FUN

2011-07-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

I saw the directions for making faux tie-dye using Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol on Susie Can Stitch. They were so pretty and looked like fun to make that I gathered my supplies and gave it a go. (I think I might use them with log cabin blocks or as wonky star centers.) My Sharpie supply was not the best, but still I managed to fill a morning with making these little squares.

I had to stop because my inner six-year-old girl and my inner aging hippie were beginning to fuss over whose turn it was ("it's my turn" "nuh-uh, you went last"). Or maybe it was the fumes from the Sharpies and the alcohol.

Be careful what you look for

2011-07-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

It isn't as bad as it was, but the closet in my sewing room has certain Pandora's box-like properties.

Recently, I was looking for something, I don't remember what (nor do I remember if I found it), when I unearthed several long-forgotten UFOs. Ancient UFOs.

This first one dates back to when I first was getting interested in quilting -- more than twenty years ago! I was always fond of vintage and ethnic clothing, so when I first started quilting I was intrigued by Seminole patchwork. I loved the tiny, intricate motifs that were achieved through fairly simple methods. My first attempts at Seminole patchwork were done with scissors not a rotary cutter (!). This is when I bought my first really good sewing tool: my Gingher shears. But soon I learned of the rotary cutter and cutting mat and off I went on an experiment with tiny strip piecing. I planned to make a skirt, I have yards of pink, white & black baby rickrack to go with it. But as I am now too old and too fat to wear a skirt like this, I think I will make a long, narrow wall hanging with it. It really reminds of my roots and how I came to patchwork and quilting -- too valuable to not finish.

Another piece I found is not quite as old, but only by about 5 or so years. I began this one back in the days when I was working at a quilt shop. This was when Mary Engelbreit was really popular, though the design was not hers but taken from a vintage embroidery that has hung on my walls for decades. It is stiff with the fusible webbing I used (I hope the newer versions are not so stiff) and stalled out when it got to border and details that required hand work. I planned another border with a scrolling vine with leaves and lots of yo-yos and buttons as details around the house. I still think it is cute and that it has possibilities.

The last piece is not so old -- only about 5 or 6 years. I don't remember what prompted this one, other than using the vintage fabric that is the vase that holds the flowers. While patchwork and piecing are my natural home, I sometimes venture into applique and was experimenting with a folk art style. With this one, rather than a fusible web, I used a fusible interfacing on the applique pieces, then loosely zig-zagged them onto the background. I always thought this would fit nicely on the guest room door. Perhaps I should try to finish it.

The Story of Wonk

2011-07-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

When I made my very first wonky stars, I went to the source: Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking. For the liberated/wonky star points, her directions say to cut squares larger than your base, then cut the squares diagonally and stitch onto the base fabric. But I planned to use plaids for the star points and being the anal, control-freak that I am, I didn't want the plaids to be going every which way. So rather than cut squares, I cut strips and sewed the star points diagonally onto the base fabric along the outside edge of the strip so that the plaid was parallel to the seam.

I kind of liked this method because it let me go really crazy with the points -- some are slender, some are big & chunky, some are more triangular. So when I began my own project with wonky stars this was the way I built them.

I am now quilting my Constellation Wonkulae. I am trying to be more free with my machine quilting, trying something I haven't done before (thanks Bobbidink!). I had to hold my breath and close my eyes as I started quilting through(!) my pieced blocks but I have to tell you that I am loving how it is turning out! I am almost half-way done. I'll show you the back, but save the front for a big reveal!

P.S. There is glitter EVERYWHERE.

Off topic

2011-07-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

I know this blog is supposed to be about quilts and quilting, but I have to share this.

Shug has seriously been doing woodworking for a long time now. There is not a room in our house without some custom & hand-crafted thing: clocks, boxes, bookcases, tables, stools, shelves. He is very handy to have around!
He has been talking about turning wood for a year or more and last May found a great deal on a used lathe -- which has sat in the garage ever since because he didn't have the proper voltage or wattage or whatever to plug it in. Well, this week he had the electrician out and was finally able to plug in the lathe. There were 2 rather crude first tries, but his third attempt was pretty darn good.

Yay Shug!

Happy Fourth! (4 days late)

2011-07-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Shug and I had a really nice & busy Fourth of July weekend. His Mom and niece came to visit and we had a great time showing them a great time.
My Mother-in-law is terrific. She has been a great help to me this past year as I deal with my Mom's dementia. Best of all, we share a passion for quilting -- though our styles are very different. So I always enjoy seeing her. Our niece is 9 years old & this was her first visit to see us. We swam and played games and made pizza and watched movies. The Sunday of their visit was Crafterday. With Uncle Shug, Miss E. did some woodworking and built a box. With Aunt Smazoochie, she did some sewing and made a pillow case (with Brownie fabric!) The 4th is a big day at our sail club: the kids built little sailboats out of dowels and tongue depressors; there was an egg toss (Miss E. and I were out pretty quickly because I have such bad aim); there was a watermelon race where about 12 watermelons were put out in the Bay and everyone had to sail out to find them and bring them back to shore (we saw 2, but we weren't able to get them onto the boat (it is harder than you might think)); there was a cookout -- hamburgers and hot dogs of course; and finally, FIREWORKS!
If you ever have the chance to see fireworks on the water, go see them! They are beautiful!!

I can't get rid of it!!!

2011-07-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am nearly ready to sandwich my wonky stars and begin experimenting with a new way of quilting.
Because there is so much white in this quilt, I didn't do as I often do and just go through my stash and use any old thing that I have enough of for the back. I was afraid that any--even the least amount--of print would show through to the front. So I went out and bought something. Because of the stellar-ness of the top, I chose a solid white with an overall, silvery, glittery shimmer. Very pretty.
Today I pre-washed the yardage, tossing it in the light-colored, gentle wash load.
And there was glitter all over EVERYTHING!
It made me think of the one-liner from comedian, Demetri Martin: Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.

Stitching again.

2011-06-26T15:24:00.000-07:00

We've been home for a week from our trip north. It takes a while to get chores caught up and back in the swing of home life. So I had not yet gotten my sewing machine out to do any piecing or quilting. Truthfully, I did not feel like sewing; I am always pretty tired after those trips and just a little blue. This time, with the stuff we brought home--the old sewing machine, various collections of my Mom's, the clothing that I plan to use for future projects--I was a bit more so than usual. So I was dragging my feet to get to sewing.
Which is completely silly! I always feel better after I finally get motivated and start pushing fabric bits under the presser foot. So after a morning of pinning and cutting for several of my old projects that are next to move to completion, I got the Bernina out.
First I made a couple of happy scrappy houses for a fellow HMQGer. She is planning a king-sized, double-sided quilt made with these cute little houses! (She needs 400 houses! She may be crazy!) I admit that they are pretty darn adorable and pretty fun to make. I may have to make a few for myself.

I am ready to assemble the last quarter of the postage stamps; the wonky stars are nearly a top; the centers are pinned in place for the Dresden plates. More on these later when there is real progress to report.
I also did some thinking about what I may do with my Mom's and Dad's shirts. I got cut the shirts cut up ready to do something with. For some reason, cutting the buttons off these shirts kind of bothered me. But it is a process, isn't it?
I like a few of these ideas and am eager to start working on them.

Home again

2011-06-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

Shug and I are back at home after our car trip to the midlands to see our Moms. We are getting back to the normal routine and getting a little rested.

I haven't driven through Kansas in years. Now before any of you say anything, let me just say that I Love Kansas! My soul lives in Kansas. Many think that Kansas is flat and boring. Yes, it is pretty flat, but it is not at all boring. The winter wheat was ripening and being combined. (The furrowed fields gave me ideas for my next quilting project.) I looked and looked at those miles and miles of wheat and tried to describe the color; it is kind of a reddish amber, sort of the color of a deer's coat. Then we drove through the Flint Hills. Earlier in the year and earlier in the day would have shown the rolling prairie off to better advantage, but it was still just beautiful.

We brought home quite a bit of stuff from my Mom's house. Her old Kenmore sewing machine, for one. I learned to sew on this machine; it was my first machine as a young bird just out of the nest. I haven't yet tried to see if will sew--it looks like it needs quite a bit of attention (I hope that rusty place will clean up.) But I am glad to have it here. I also got some bobbins and buttons and old irons.

And I brought home a stack each of my Dad's shirts and my Mom's shirts. Dad's shirts are mostly polyester and I don't look forward to sewing with them, but I saw a project on flickr that used linen with polyester fabrics. I am hoping that the addition of a some rich linens will give some stability and depth to his old shirts. There is quite a bit of polyester in Mom's stack as well, though hers are slightly more "cotton rich". The prints are pretty loud. I may add some solids, but then again, maybe not. It will be a real heart-tug to work with them but I am looking forward to quite a few projects from these shirts.

Pictureless Tuesday

2011-06-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

I am visiting my Mom, so away from the home computer & unable (read, don't know how) to upload images from my iPad--so no pictures today.

I am uncomfortable when conversations linger too long on me. I am not good at receiving compliments. So I am VERY ill-at-ease with the attention I am getting for Skirting the Circle. I am completely humbled & staggered by the very, very nice things people are saying about it. Thank you all so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am not resting on my laurels though. I am thinking about my next finishes. When I got to the quilting of the last quilt, I posted requests for help and suggestions. I got some excellent advice and support.

But one suggestion kind of stung.
Bobbidink suggested that I take some classes, add to my tool box. In my reply to her, with my pouty lower lip implied, I said I've been quilting for years, taken free-motion classes, walking foot classes. I know HOW to quilt, I just didn't know WHAT to quilt. But the more I thought about her kindly meant comment, the more I wondered if I have a tool in my toolbox that I don't use, can I really say I "have" that tool? Perhaps not.

I have three finished tops, four more near completion. With these nascent quilts I am going to experiment--free-motion, walking foot, hand quilting. I am going to do something new! (Well, new to me.)

Thank you Bobbidink for your valuable comment. It hit home and, I hope, will make me a better quilt maker.

Addendum: I don't want anyone to misunderstand. I was a little hurt by Bobbidink's constructive criticism--at first. But she said to me exactly what I needed to hear! I did a lot of self-examination and saw that I was being a bit lazy, doing the same things over & over again. I am nervous, but I am now ready to push my boundaries. There may be some dismal failures but I know I will grow as a quilt-maker.
Again, my sincere thanks Bobbidink!

On to the next thing!

2011-06-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

It is done!!!
I have to admit that I am pretty pleased with this quilt. I want to thank EVERYONE who has supported me along the (long) way from blocks to completion of this quilt. If I had not gotten such good feedback, I might have let this languish as a WIP for much longer. But now it is done and here it is--

For those who don't know its story, this quilt began with a circle skirt of my Mom's from the 1950s. Back in my young and slender days, I used to wear this skirt (with a blue T top, I think) and I always got lots of comments when wearing it. I have carried it around with me long since I was able to wear it, for what reason, I don't know. A couple of years ago, I was going through my sewing room stuff and was *this* close to passing this skirt along to another person who loved vintage clothing when I stopped and decided to cut it up. The angular print seemed to ask to be 'calmed' with a circular pattern. A recent binge of solid fabric purchases provided the mustard and blue; a root through my stash brought out the solid (the back of a polished cotton) and the plaid-ish greys. The blocks were quickly pieced. And they remained a stack of blocks until I first put them on flickr. I got LOTS of support and urgings to finish it, so the blocks were moved from the back burner. I set the blocks together, added the line-segment extensions and quilted and quilted and quilted.
Again, my very sincere thanks to all who have held my hand along the way. I am so grateful.

I've decided to call this quilt "Skirting the Circle".

Shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone.

2011-06-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Why do I always have to exaggerate?!?

But this has been, is still, a big job. A while back, I blogged this diatribe-ish screed about not liking when people calculate the hours spent to make their quilt. Well, in true do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do fashion, I have calculated approximately how long the quilting will take: at X minutes per block times 42 blocks, that's Y minutes!, divided by 60, that's Z hours!!! But, I will keep the totals to myself. (Manda, you are sworn to secrecy!)

Anyway, I am 6/7th done. I hope to have an image of a finished quilt by the end of the weekend.

For fun, Shug and I saw Stitched this week. It is a locally made, independent documentary about quilting, quilters, quilt shows, competitive quilting and I highly recommend it. Specifically, it follows Caryl Bryer Fallert, Hollis Chatelain and Randall Cook. We see a bit of how they began making quilts and the creative process that goes into their quilts. The film is made at the International Quilt Festival here in Houston and at the American Quilter's Society show in Paducah, Kentucky. There is quite a bit about traditional quilting versus art quilting, apparently something of a controversy--who knew! I particularly liked seeing all three of the featured quilters and their quilting process, since that is something I am struggling with right now.
If it is showing near you, see it. Or you can buy a dvd from their web site. Or do both!

Being prepared.

2011-06-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today is the first of June, the first day of Hurricane Season. Six months of Hurricane Season.

It is time for we coastal residents to take stock of our stores of batteries, flashlights, radios, water, non-perishable food; time to get all the photos and important papers all together; time to evaluate what is essential and what is non-essential. Basically, what is essential is what I've listed above: what you need to survive, photos and documents, and your loved ones. Everything else can be replaced. Once I left my house believing that it would not be there when I got back and while it was a wrenching experience, it was also freeing. I am not so attached to my 'stuff' anymore. Don't get me wrong, I would be devastated if my beloved quilting room, my machines, my fabric (my FABRIC!), my quilts were all lost, but I would survive.
So now we are beginning to go through our stuff--we are low on D cells, need some more canned tuna and refried beans, some more water isn't a bad idea, need to keep the liquor cabinet well stocked. I'd like a battery powered fan and I would like to see about getting hurricane shutters for the second floor windows; I don't like Shug being on a ladder, nailing plywood over them. A can of gas for the generator, plenty of brickets for the grill. And a simple quilting project for my hand-crank Singer, that should help pass the hours when the wind is howling around the house and the days after the storm when the power is out.
I think we are pretty well set.

This is going to take a while.

2011-05-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Weakest Link

2011-05-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

For me, it is my quilting.
I have utmost confidence--even a little vanity--about my ability to choose fabrics and colors and to assemble them together in a pleasing way (well, pleasing to me). But things bog down after I sandwich together top, batting and backing. I would have to say that my quilting is merely utilitarian and mostly pretty boring. With practice and a willingness to experiment (though just a bit!), I would say it has gotten a *little* better, but I have much room for improvement.
My opalescent quilt that I made in 2007 was the first time that I combined machine with hand quilting. As you see, my stitches are pretty big. This was also the first time that I used variegated thread and I really liked the results.

So that led to a second quilt with machine quilting in the ditch combined with hand quilting. As you see, a formula is developing!

Then I went a little nuts and decided to do a whole quilt by hand. This quilt has been 'under construction' for about 2 to 3 years now--though I am getting very close to being finished! (My history has always been that things come to a screeching crawl or stop when I get to the hand work.) Again with the variegated thread.

The little quilt I made for the HMQG Project Park challenge was quilted by machine. Nothing innovative here, just overall quilting following the pattern of the patchwork. But look, no ditch stitching!

I made a little sister to the opalescent quilt. I was going to follow The Recipe, but some of the hand-dyed fabrics are done with sheeting and hand stitching through them was like sewing through stainless steel, so I opted to do it all by machine. But again--in the ditch with element outlining. I am starting to even bore myself!

The galaxy quilt that I just finished is all outline quilting. The "edge-y" thing with this one--I did TWO outlines! WOW! And the trouble with doing outline quilting with the machine is that there is lots of twisting and turning of the quilt, lots of stuffing the whole quilt through the little arm of the machine, and aching shoulders when you are done.

Now my current project: the mustard, blue and grey circle skirt circle quilt. And what am I doing? Well, machine quilting in the ditch, of course! I think I want to add something more, but I am not sure what. Outline the box-y elements and black lines? Add some areas of 'grid' like the background of the main fabric? Or just let the fabrics speak for themselves? I am open for suggestions. Please.

Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

2011-05-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

As I quilted this, the Star Wars scene where Luke Skywalker is being taught by Obi-Wan Kenobi to 'trust the force' by having him sword fight a bobbing orb--blind-folded!--kept coming to my mind.

Black machine quilting on black fabric--I felt blind-folded and had also to 'trust the force'! It was pretty grueling! And not something to just work on for a while, until I came to a good stopping place, and take a break. There were no stopping places! It is One Long, Continual Line! Well, except for a shorter bit in the middle, but the outer quilting line is all one. The only breaks were when I ran out of bobbin thread.

I am being dramatic; it really wasn't *that* bad. But I do feel I earned this one.

It seemed like a good idea at the time....

2011-05-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

black machine quilting on a largely black quilt. Well, I *think* it will be a dramatic quilt, that is if I don't loose my eye-sight in the process. The good news is that because it is SO VERY HARD TO SEE, it is very forgiving and the quilting mistakes are hard to see as well.

(Please ignore the cat hair.)

Spinning wheels.

2011-04-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

And I don't mean my Dresden plates!

I am at an in-between place with all five of my on-going projects. After getting several quilts quilted and bound, I was in the mood to do some more quilting, but the 2 projects closest to being ready to quilt--the black and brights geese and the circle skirt circle quilt--both need something special before I move ahead with them. For the geese, I need black batting (will order it from Connecting Threads) and the circles need a border of either charcoal or pepper. I hope where you live you have a LQS that carries lots of Konas and Bellas, but none of mine do. The best place for me to get solids is from the chain stores, but they just carry the basic crayon box colors, nothing as 'subtle' as dark grey! So again I will have to order. The Dresden plates have been on hold cause I was stumped as to what to use for centers, but I was very pleased to have solved that problem with nothing more than a root in my fabric stash. These smudge-y tan dots seem to make all the plates happy--and me too!

I got my row done for HMQG. This month I brought home Sabrina's batik spools. I haven't done anything with my batiks for a long time, so it was fun digging through what I had on hand and putting together some pretty pairs. I had forgotten how nice it is to sew with batiks--and I love the way they smell when they are ironed--so waxy! Sabrina, this will be a wild and luscious quilt!

Then I started organizing my sewing room--storing and stowing and putting things away and I came across these buttons. Early in our days of getting to know each other, I asked Bryanna to look at her Walmarts for some buttons I couldn't find at mine and if they had any would she get one of each for me. Well, she showed up with $40 worth of buttons--which I have yet to do anything with! She said anyone who spent $40 on buttons was a kindred spirit. Occasionally, I get them out and just play with them. They are so pretty, prettier than gold coins, and more valuable--to me--because they represent the beginning of a friendship!

Believe it or not it's just me.

2011-04-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good and I hope yours was too.

Saturday morning, I did one of my exercise dvds--for the first time in a long time. And while my abs and shoulders ache now, it felt good to get my body parts and blood moving again. In the afternoon I went to the HMQG meeting. FUN! After the business-y part we had show and tell: several members brought swaps they had recently received--doll quilts, make mine modern, home goods. All were amazing! There were some robins, Bry got hers from me and has now taken it out of rotation as it is HUGE. I got Sabrina's batik spools to work on this month. A surprise was presented: Safieh's wedding quilt! And I think we really surprised her! She and Charles will be married this week--Best Wishes to you both! Then we showed off the things we made for Project Park. They were are beautiful and all so different. Yay us!

On Sunday, Shug and I went out on our bicycles. The weekend weather was lovely, cool and low humidity (well, for Houston). We had a nice little tour.

Then I spent much of the afternoon in my sewing room. I have 5 projects going right now: there are the 2 black thread projects (brights and black geese and the circle skirt quilt), 2 white thread projects (indigo floating stars and purple wonky stars) and a grey thread project (peachy plates). Now I usually tend to hop around--a LOT--between projects, but not wanting to change thread all the time made me focus. I had the black thread on the machine, so I finished the geese top and am nearly done adding the lines to the circle skirt top. And I am LOVING how these are turning out; actually I am loving how all of these projects are turning out. Do you ever work on something and it is going along so well and looks so awesome that you can't believe that YOU are making it? Well, that is how I am feeling right now. I am looking at these things and I can't believe they are MINE!

Now I know I have a Process Pledge button over there on the side and I have let you in on the progress--up till now. I want to keep these under wraps until they are done for a big reveal. ;-)

What is better than an ATTAGIRL?

2011-04-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

An ATTAGIRL from a friend!
Bry at A Blond Quilts is an amazing quilter and blogger and my IRL friend and she recently passed along to me the the Stylish Blogger Award! {internet hug} Bry--until I can give you a real hug!

With the receipt of this award you are asked to do several things:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 6 newly discovered bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers to let them know they have been nominated as Stylish Bloggers.

So, 7 things about myself? Let's see...Audrey, Pippa and Louis are the 8th, 9th and 10th cats I've had in my life; I have a lovely collection of vintage wedding cake brides and grooms that I have not been able to display for several years now because Pippa began taking them down from the shelf. Fear of breakage caused me to put them away; Shug and I sail a Hobie Wave, a little 13 foot catamaran. It is lots of fun. And I think I might want a kayak this summer; I am becoming far too interested in vintage and antique sewing machines--but come on, we don't want all the old machines to end up as window dressing for AllSaints stores!; I've never dyed my hair (I like my grey!); just over a year ago, my Mom went in to a nursing home for what they delicately call "memory care". She still knows her immediate family but is increasingly confused. I really miss her; and lastly, Shug and I are married because of quilting: in 1991 (OMG! 20 years ago this fall!) I came to Houston to my first Quilt Festival. While in town, I phoned an old friend from college days who I knew had recently joined the faculty at a local university. Well, 14 months later, we were married and I was a Houstonian!

Now the 6 blogs I am awarding as Stylish Bloggers:

RachaelDaisy at Blue Mountain Daisy--Rachael is an amazingly talented quilter! Her career as a floral designer shows though in her brilliant (in every sense of the word) patchwork.

Ara Jane at you know what I love?--I just discovered this blog about quilting, knitting, baking, reading and gardening. Ara Jane's tone is so sweet and intimate she makes me love what she loves.

Sherri Lynn at daintytime--Sherri Lynn is famous for her Passage Quilts; they are as beautiful as they are touching and meaningful. She talks about life, creativity and shares her quilting skills with tutorials. I really want to try making my own Mod Mood Quilt.

Dan at Made by a Man: Sew What--Dan is a master of both precise (check out his Lone Star made with 1 inch strips!) and improvisational piecing and he takes his readers along through the process in a helpful and personable way.

Jenny at Sew Kind of Wonderful--Jenny's blog (one of two--the other is about long-arm quilting) is about quilting and life in general. She is developing a ruler that I am very eager to see--the quilts she has made with it are amazing!

And nifty quilts--I love the joyous quilts I see here. There isn't a lot of writing but lots and lots of beautiful quilts!

Enough with the Reptiles!

2011-04-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

Gemology and Quiltroversy

2011-04-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

I have a BS in geology (*please* don't ask me when I graduated!) and while I was in school I once was a teaching assistant in a class called Gem Stones (aka "Rocks for Jocks"). It was then that I saw all the color varieties of garnet with their bizarre names; they range from olive to bright green (uvarovite and tsavorite), from orange to brown (hessonite and spessartite), from deep red to purple (pyrope and rhodolite). When I saw what my fellow members of HMQG were doing with Bryanna's row for our robin, it was these garnets that came to mind. She requested wonky log cabins in plums, greys and navies with an accent color that would pop. Well, amazing rows have been made! I was afraid that I would not get the chance to add to it, but Bry let me add one more row. (I am probably the last person who will get to work on it--it is HUGE now.)

It is now ready to go home with its owner. Bry, I think you need to make an appointment with Jacquie for some time on her long arm.

Then I just want to say this about some things on the blogs lately:

I really dislike labels. They are often used only to exclude people: I am {fill in the blank}, but you are not. We are all quilters. I don’t care if your stars are wonky by choice or by accident, if your fabrics are bright and contemporary or muted and country, if style is traditional, modern, art, or whatever. I also don’t care if you are working on your first quilt or your one hundredth. We are all quilters! Not everyone’s work is going to appeal to all. But we can be kind when we express our dislike or disagreement. I truly believe that unkind words lead to unkind behavior.

It is hard for me to imagine an activity that seems less likely to attract harsh words and hurt feelings than quilting. But there have been quite a bit of both on the quilting blogs and flickr images lately. There have been several topics going around, thoughtful replies have been made but there have also been some rather stinging comments. I have carefully considered adding my opinions to some of these, but in the end have chosen not to. When someone asks me what I think, then I will tell her or him; until then, I am sure no one cares. It would only be for vanity’s sake that I would add to the long strings of comments, so I am just going to keep quiet. In my early days on internet, I did sometimes comment on some pretty innocent stuff and was often misunderstood. Somehow misunderstandings seem easier with the written word than with the spoken word.

Some may think me weak or naïve or Pollyannaish for not wanting to jump into the debates. But I feel like there is enough arguing and finger pointing in the world today without doing it about a pastime I am passionate about.

You can call me Finishy McFinisher!

2011-04-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

After finishing my Project Park for HMQG, I was kind of on a roll--finishing-wise.

With the walking foot on the machine, I quilted two small quilts, then got the binding on them. And now they are done! It really feels good to have 2 UFOs off my to-do list!
This one will just be added to the growing collection of small quilts at our house. It is made with leftovers from my brother and sister-in-law's quilt. Since I rarely follow patterns I often cut more than I need when I make a quilt and can get 2--and sometimes more--quilts from one cutting session. A sort of 'cut one-get one'.

I just finished this one

with leftover HSTs from this one.

The second quilt is for our neighbor's new baby, due to come home this week. Yay! This is another little quilt made from leftovers. In this case, the original was made for my cousin's first son. He will be 12 this October, so these parts have been laying around for quite a while.

Here is a snapshot of the earlier quilt with dachshunds marching around the border.

Next on my quilting program is Bry's row for HMQG. (How is it that the 3rd Saturday seems to be coming so early in the month?! We meet next week, so I have to get this done!) Now, I did cheat a bit and 'robin ahead' with her row--I already have 2 squares done. Her colors are so rich and beautiful that this one is a real pleasure to work on. Pippa has made some suggestions with coordinating snakes!

And an interesting, non-quilty side note. I've been trying to get back in the habit of exercising, so yesterday between laundry and cleaning and binding, I got in a walk on our neighborhood green belt. There is a bar bell-shaped oval, about 2+ miles long with a 'water feature' in the middle (I call it a drainage ditch, others call it a bayou.) In wetter times, it flows, but we are in the midst of a drought and it now is more standing than flowing. But it usually has quite a bit of life around it: turtles, herons, egrets, I even saw a roseate spoonbill there once. Yesterday I saw a small alligator! It was about 2 feet long, but would have been longer if it had all of its tail--it looked like a sawed-off alligator. In spite of being small, its mouth was probably the size of my hand! CHOMP!

I LOVE this quilt!

2011-04-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

This quilt is called "Two Brothers" and was made by helen richards quilts.

It breaks the mold of the row-by-row, block-by-block quilt. The large, rectangular pieces let the interesting fabrics and the rich, vineyard-like palette come to the front, but the fabrics and colors are not working by themselves here. It took a good eye and a deft hand to assemble them in a way that is both calming and exciting. The rich, dark solids are enlivened by the sparkling prints and the piecing is at once improvisational and controlled.
The construction seems to have been done in 3 wide and 2 slender bands, going the width of the quilt, using both wide and narrow strips--a perfect way to really showcase the beautiful Japanese fabrics. The coral and olive and purple and turquoise of the prints really sing next to the forest and navy, plum and grey solids. The overall impression is that of peaking through a window at a beautiful scene outside.
It is hard to get a feel of how this quilt is quilted. Because of its size, it may have been done simply--though this quilter is known for her excellent free-motion quilting designed to uniquely enhance each of her quilts. In the case of "Two Brothers" perhaps the best quilting was just 'in the ditch' letting the amazing patchwork and beautiful fabrics shine!

My challenge from this quilt is to experiment with large fabric pieces in a non-block format. This style of quilt would be perfect for those fabrics I am reluctant to cut. I would also like to play with this rich palette--I don't think I have ever used as many dark colors as are in this quilt!

Please find this quilt in my flickr gallery I LOVE these quilts!.

Whose room is it anyway?

2011-04-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Many of us share our homes and our creative spaces with someone else--room-mates, partners, spouses, children, pets. Mostly for better, sometimes for worse.
Many of us, too, have had those moments when we return to a project that was left out in an unfinished state only to find it altered by our beloved. With luck, we will do a Marge Simpson growl, grab the camera to document it, then precede to right the wrong.

Then there the other times.

I've had a few of those over the years. There was the vest I was making back in the day of vests. It was nearly completed and hanging on a hangar on the doorknob when Shug, who had been eating chips, walked by and picked it up to examine and leave behind greasy fingerprints. There is the triangular tear in my 'opalescent quilt' that I am pretty sure Pippa made. The quilt was hanging on the wall and she is the cat who tends to think that the laws of gravity shouldn't apply to her. There was Louis' first weekend in our house. He had yet to use the litter box, not used to the flushable litter we get. I was watching him closely when I saw him get into the chair where I had left the pin-basted quilt I was hand-quilting. At first I thought how cute, he is going to curl up on the quilt. Then I realized he wasn't going to sleep on the quilt, he was going to pee on it. I had to let it dry so that I could hastily machine baste it, get the pins out and get it into the washing machine.

This weekend something that has happened before--so I really should have known better--happened. I had left laying out the parts and partially assembled pieces for Lily's Quilts Dresden plate QAL. At 7:30 in the morning they were fine, but when I went back into the room at 9:30 I discovered that one of the cats had ralphed all over them. Now those of you have cats know that they puke--they puke quite a lot. And like I said, this has happened before--having to wash out quilt pieces in the sink, scrub down the table. But my cats tend to let a long time pass in between 'events' so that I let my guard down.

No fooling...

2011-04-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

I finished something!!!
I finished the HMQG Kate Spain's Central Park charm pack challenge!!!!

Happy April Fool's Day!

Meet the Machines

2011-03-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

My workhorse is my Bernina 1230. I bought her in 1991 at my first Quilt Festival. I can't believe that she will be 20 years old this autumn! That was the most considered purchase I've ever made--I test sewed everything! At that time, computerized sewing machines were new and I wanted something I could grow into. The thing that really sold me on this machine was the presser foot knee lift--no one else had that at the time. It was a big purchase, but I've never regretted it. My recommendations for anyone buying a new sewing machine would be to shop, shop, shop then buy the best machine you can afford. I look forward to many more years with this machine.

And she was my only machine until 2007. That year, mon amie Odile, came from France to stay with us during the Quilt Festival. She had become quite a collector of machines a coudre. We were emailing in advance of her trip and I said how I always look at the Singer Featherweights but never get one because I didn't feel that I knew enough to be a smart shopper. She said she had just bought one (her second one) in the UK and would bring it to me as a gift. Well, I just cried! It was and remains one of the most generous gifts I've ever received. Encore, merci beaucoup, Odile! This past summer this little machine was my only machine while the Bernina was in the shop for 4 weeks. The little Featherweight is another workhorse and I love her as much as my Bernina.

Then in 2008, we had Hurricane Ike. At our house, we were only without electricity for 4 days and during those 4 days, I really didn't have the leisure to sew. But I swore that I would get a non-electric machine so that I could sew through the next (and we will have another) hurricane. So in spring of 2009, I got my Singer 99K hand-crank. She was made in Scotland in 1901 (I think) and is such a beautiful machine. You don't want to do complicated sewing with her as you are guiding your fabric with one hand while the other powers the machine! I have a simple zigzag top nearly completed with her help.

And now the newest member of my sewing machine fleet: my Singer 66 Lotus! Oh my goodness, what a BEAUTY! She is another hand-crank. Born in 1918, I'm not sure where (I just brought her home this evening--I need to do more research). What happened to the aesthetic that produced such lovely tools?!? Even as late as the 1960s, sewing machines would have some sort of pretty, scrolling decals. But early machines had beautiful, painted floral motifs, sometimes even inlaid shell! I guess now you can get 'clings' to 'pimp' your machine, but somehow it just isn't the same. Anyway, I think this machine is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous! I may not do much sewing with her, but so what! As I said before, she is BEAUTIFUL!!!

The ADD quilter

2011-03-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

It has occurred to me that I have yet to complete a single project this year. It is now March!!!
Now each month I have a row or a round to complete for HMQG--not a big deal; I usually finish those in no more than a day. We also now have the Kate Spain Central Park charm challenge. And believe or not, that is done all but the binding! (p.s. I LOVE what I made!) I also just learned that expecting neighbors had their son 6 weeks prematurely (I think his prognosis is good) so a baby quilt has sneaked its way onto my program. Fortunately, I have on hand an unfinished top perfect for a baby boy--just needs to be quilted.

But then I have my lengthening list of projects:
1. the blue bonnet and plaids New Wave: top is complete, needs to be sandwiched and quilted
2. 2 inch strip hexagons remain nothing more than a stack of twirly hexagon halves
3. circle skirt quilt top is assembled, awaits experimentation with eighth inch ribbons
4. I am 3 purple wonky stars shy of a constellation
5. the black and bright flying geese is perhaps 3/4 done--it was just a stack of parts this time last week
6. the floating Japanese indigo stars is under way--I don't know how far along it is because I don't know how big it will be
7. the postage quilt is half pieced, the rest is 3/4 cut out
8. I had to jump in on Lily's Quilts QAL; I have had some vintage fabrics I thought the Dresden plates would be perfect for, so...
9. there is the quilt I have been hand quilting at HMQG meetings for a year now--still not finished, but getting close!
10. two other smallish quilts that need to be quilted: one nearly done (machine quilted), one hardly begun (not sure whether to hand or machine quilt it)

Geesh! When I lay them all out like that, I am a little embarrassed.

Friday Funday

2011-03-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

It is fun, but it can be dangerous, when two quilting friends go fabric shopping. Yesterday, Bry and I hit a couple of the shops participating in the Houston Shop Hop. Here are examples of some of our conversations:

B1*: "This looks like you."
B2*: "Oh, I didn't see that. I love it!"

B1: "Won't this go with your (fill the blank) project?"
B2: "Yea, I think you're right."

B1: "I don't need this. I think I'll put it back."
B2: "Get it. It is so pretty. You'll find a use for it."

B1: "Boy, I did some damage today."
B2: "Yea, me too."

* We are interchangeable in these examples.

Who, moi?

2011-03-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

It always annoys me when I see a beautiful quilt hanging at a quilt show and all the artist has to say about it is how many hours it took to make it and how many spools of thread went into it. I'm sorry, but if you are counting how much time and materials went into your work of art, then you aren't having fun!
I get lost when I am at my sewing machine, surprised that so much time has passed.

And yet, and yet...I am always pleased when I empty one of these guys. 1200 yards of thread! I bet you could go from here to the moon--well, maybe from here to Galveston, ok, from here to the grocery store. Still, it is an accomplishment of sorts.

Does that make me a hypocrite? Why yes, yes it does.

Black & white and pastel all over

2011-03-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I indulged my inner tantrum-throwing child and let myself cut out some new projects.

Both of them were inspired by rows from our HMGQ robins. The top bits with the white and Japanese indigo were inspired by Liz's rows. I didn't get 'the big picture' when I first saw her row. But I get it now--and I want one of my own! The bottom, un-assembled bits were inspired by what I added to Sean's rows: flying geese done in brights with black. (I'll be setting mine together differently than I did his.) Both were VERY fun to work on; both were very simple; and both make big statements in their simplicity.
I am excited about both!

But before I allowed myself to start cutting and sewing those, I had to first work on the latest HMGQ project: the Kate Spain Central Park charm pack challenge. I started--and finished--my little top (a charm pack and ONLY a half yard of extra fabric doesn't take long to use up). But no peaking yet! I'll show you what I have left over. Looks like enough to do some sort of plate or fan....hmmm...maybe on the back, maybe around the border....hmmm.

First Day of Spring

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

Happy first day of Spring!

It is already starting to feel like summer down here on the Gulf coast. The azaleas are just ready to bust out; many of our trees are already fully green; it is time to head to the plant store to replace our shade garden that was killed by the freeze this winter. We are in that "tweener" weather when it is not quite hot enough for the AC. Outside it is pretty pleasant, but my little quilting aerie gets kind of hot--that pretty leaded-glass window doesn't open, the heat in the house rises up and the the sun beating on the roof and my south-facing window all make it pretty warm in there. In spite of that and with several fans running, I spent quite a few hours in there today.

I'll give a full report of what I did later. I just wanted to say hello and send my greetings!

OMG!

2011-03-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

In the midst of my trip to visit my Mom, I realized that after my return home, I would have less than one week to complete the round robin I got at last month's HMQG meeting.
I had finally gotten Fi's round to work on. I had been eager to work on hers since I first saw it. Her bright colors were going to be fun to work with. At a show-and-tell, Fi shared with us a vintage quilt that her great grandmother had made from Hawaiian prints. (See the quilt here.) So from the beginning, I had planned to use tropical prints. The day after I got it, I pulled fabric and began cutting blocks and even assembled a few...but then it stopped.
Now had I chosen simple squares or triangles, there would have been no problem. But I was making small quarter circles. And the thing about round robins versus row robins, if you get the round after several people have worked on it, they start getting really BIG.
But the quarter circles actually go pretty fast, the slowest thing is pinning the curved seams before sewing. I got maybe a fourth of what I needed put together yesterday. And today, in a marathon of sewing, I got it all finished! Yay me!

I'm back.

2011-03-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the storm that was work and the marathon that was life have both slowed a bit and are letting me catch my breath.

(Here's a photo of me with my Mom I took while I was visiting her.)

My projects are all where I last left them--the postage stamp is half done, the purple wonky stars are nearly all made but not assembled, the circle skirt circle quilt top is assembled but I haven't had time to try out stitching down the narrow satin ribbons. At the top of my to-do list is the round robin I got last month, but have only just begun. If I work hard tomorrow (luckily, I'm not working) I may be able to get it done. (The next meeting is Saturday! :-o)

But I really want to start something new! What is that about?!?
There are two ideas I've gotten from the HMQG robins that I want to make; there is the dark Kona roll-up that goes beautifully with an Alexander Henry print that is more than 20 years old; there is the box I recently found full of strips and scraps left over from old projects that I would like to 'bust'; etc; etc; etc.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe St. Patrick's Day!

Wither inspiration?

2011-03-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

From where might my next quilt come? Not that I need to add to my Play Load, but I always keep my eyes open for new ideas.

There is the wall at a public restroom,

a garage door,

a silver and brown tree trunk,

the fence around a playground,

leaded windows in a church,

or irrigated fields in West Texas.

Then I heard a mockingbird singing his spring song--how might that be interpreted in fabric!?!

I LOVE this quilt!

2011-03-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

Ombre fabrics--fabrics that change color or pattern from selvedge to selvedge--have been around for a long time and I have always steered clear of them because I didn't know how to use them.
Well, friends THIS is how you use them!

This quilt, called simply Circle Quilt by MariQuilts, almost seems to breathe because of the masterful use of the ombre-d fabrics. The multi-colored stripe serves as a springboard for the colors brought in and they are pretty much all represented! Light and dark, warm and cool--the balance is perfect. And the black and white counter-stripe adds a counter-point to all the color.
This is a classic example of simple patchwork letting the fabric do the work. What could be simpler than large blocks of framed, bisected circles? But I am never bored looking at this quilt. It almost seems to radiate. And to further the feeling of radiation, the quilting outside the circles is done with variegated thread in a sun's rays pattern. Within the circles spirals are quilted and in the framing bands is a loopy, brick-like pattern.
The maker shows the quilt hanging above a grandchild's crib. The lucky baby would not even need to covered by this quilt to be warmed from it!

This quilt challenges me to break out those ombre fabrics. Large, simple shapes will put the fabric to its best use. And stripes, stripes, stripes.

Please find this quilt in my flickr gallery I LOVE these quilts!

I've been Leibstered!

2011-03-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

I am pleased and proud to announce that Marianne at The Quilting Edge has passed the Leibster Award to me!!!

I had admired her work on flickr for a while before I started following her blog. I am in awe of her quilts and was so flattered when she started offering supportive comments for some of mine. So it is especially meaningful for me to be awarded by her.

Like being crowned Miss America--well, almost like--the Leibster Award comes with certain obligations.
The award-ee must post who nominated her/him and a link to their blog. The award-ee must 'pay it forward' by awarding 3-5 other blogs--blogs with less than 300 followers--with the Leibster and putting links to those blogs in the post. And inform those bloggers with a link back to your blog.

Now, in my roll as Award-er, here are my choices:

Noga at nogaquilts.blogspot. She is a brand new blogger--3 posts so far! While there isn't much there yet, I enjoyed what I read--following her creative process and the 'nuts and bolts' of implementing her idea. I look forward to more from her.

Diana at sticksandbubbles.blogspot. This young Romanian mother is just the cutest thing! She makes charming quilts and other crafty stuff and in addition to following her through her creative process is the hurdle of getting the materials she wants and needs through Customs!

Dan at piece and press. This is another blog that takes the reader along for the whole process--from sketch, through ripping out things that don't work, to completed quilt. The quilts have vision and the blogging style is warm and comfortable.

I would like to give an Honorable Mention to two quilters who don't blog but whose work leaves me weak in the knees. I eagerly watch for new flickr uploads from them.

Helen at helen richards quilts.
Binita at silaibunai.

The quilts of both of these quilters leave me stunned and amazed. Everyone should know about them!

I constantly marvel at the community of quilters and other creative people that the internet brings together. The six bloggers/quilters I've mentioned here are from around the world! I wish they lived next door, but with the internet, the kind of do!

The Great Wall of Fabric

2011-02-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

So, I am a little self-conscious about my fabric. I am third generation pack rat--at least when it comes to fabric. I have been seriously sewing and quilting--and buying fabric--since the mid-1980s; I have not only my fabric, but also my Mother's fabric and my Grandmother's fabric. Fabric brings me pleasure. I can go into my sewing room, pull something, maybe something 10 or more years old, and combine it with something new and watch sparks fly between the two. When I see those sparks, ideas start flying in my head and quilts happen. So I am trying to get over my embarrassment about it and just enjoy it!

I am very lucky to have a room dedicated to me and my quilting. I am also lucky to have pretty good storage. Most of the fabric is in two bookcases from Ikea--they are not perfect, the shelves are a little shallow. But the thing that they have that is so very important to me is doors. They have glass doors and the glass is covered with UV light filtering film. In our first apartment, I had my fabric on open shelves in a bright room. The fabric never had direct sunlight on it, but the ambient light really did some bad things to quite a bit of my fabric.

I've seen some lovely sewing and quilting rooms on flickr with lovely fabric storage, but when the fabric is out in the open and exposed to light I want to tell the proud owner of the space to cover her fabric. I try not to get too strident and bossy, but I just want to caution everyone to be aware of the amount of light your fabric is exposed to. Fading is a slow process and you probably won't notice it--like I didn't notice it--until it is too late.

It is so nice to have stacks of fabric out in the open, to decorate the room and inspire the artist in the room. But we have quite a bit of money invested in those stacks and I hate to see them ruined by the sun.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

The Conundrum

2011-02-26T09:39:00.000-08:00

I know we have all been in this place: work and life intrude themselves so much that you either don't have the time or the energy to get to your sewing machine. For the past few weeks and for the next few weeks, that is where I am.
I go into my sewing room and just putter about; tidying, maybe sewing a seam or two, but without the mental concentration to really DO anything. As I head out the door for another long day at work, I think, "All I want to do is SEW!" And thoughts of fabric and pattern and quilts keep me going through the day. But I always wonder if I really would be happy if all I had to do is sew. Is part of my peace and pleasure at my sewing machine that those moments are rare? I won't say my time in my room is "stolen", I don't steal the the time, I "make" the time! If I don't make the time to cut and piece and iron and--well, quilt!--I get unhappy and frustrated. But I would like to *try* having nothing to do but quilting--at least for a week or two!

Until that happens, let me share some images of my Heaven on Earth.

I highly recommend NOT having your machine facing the wall. I am lucky to have a window next to me, but even if it weren't, I am not looking directly at the wall whenever I look up from my sewing.

My little 'alter' of gifts from friends and loved ones.

This my rotating 'gallery' that I spoke of in the last post (plus monkeys!).

My custom-built bookcases--Thanks, Shug! I tidied quite a bit before I took this image.

More Vintage

2011-02-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

I am not often moved to buy a vintage or antique quilt. I have inherited a few--tops mostly--but I don't have much interest in owning old quilts. I love books about old quilts and find it much easier to store the books than to store old quilts.
But a few quilts have spoken so loudly to me that I had to bring them home.
I found this funny denim throw at an antique mall in Missouri. At the time I had never seen anything like it. Since it became mine, I saw one in my buddy, Bob Shaw's book Quilts: A Living Tradition. (I highly recommend this and all of his quilt books!) It is just the single layer of denim or twill--no batting or backing, so strictly speaking, not a quilt. The squares are crocheted together, mostly with variegated perle cotton. Then there is the wonderful variety of designs and motifs on the blocks. There aren't a lot of fabrics there but what is there is put to excellent use! The maker got good mileage from the apple print; some squares just have rick rack patterns; one block has a tiny crocheted doily; there are quite a few tulips and butterflies; and the maker's initials are even there.
I think it is just charming!

The other quilt I want to show today is this child's-size throw--again, no batting; this one is made like a pillow case. I got this at the International Quilt Festival. The HSTs are about 2.25 inches square--and the points are crisp! And the fabrics! I would like to know the provenance of this one--perhaps it came from Hawaii? The fabrics are all cotton and look like those used in shirts and muu-muus from the early 1960s. They are mostly large scale prints, so it is difficult to know how many different ones were used. It just glows!

I have a short dowel hanger on the wall that I look at when I am at my sewing machine. This is my rotating gallery for my small collection. And I encourage EVERYONE who has quilts hanging in their home to change them from time to time. Even ambient light can fade fabrics!

Happy Birthday HMQG!

2011-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

I didn't get much in the way of sewing done this weekend.
But the weekend was not a loss...because Saturday was our monthly meeting of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild! And it was our first anniversary! Now, I am sad to say that I was not one of the founding members, I joined in April or May, but I think am not going too far in saying that I am part of the core group. The big news is that we are growing so that it is now uncomfortable to meet in member's homes! I will be a little sad to loose the cozy, bee-feeling of our small group, but it is exciting that we are gathering more and more members.
I especially enjoyed this meeting because....I got birthday presents! Last month it was decided that the way we would deal with birthdays would be that the person's whose birthday it was last would give a gift--something handmade, a bit of fabric and a bit of chocolate--to the person whose birthday is next. I thought this was a very clever idea--and not just because I would be the first to benefit! My gift-giver was Safieh. Saf has done and continues to do lots of swaps and I am always amazed by her creativity and sewing ability. She gave me a couple of fat quarters, this very cute pouch (even though it says "pens & pencils" I will use it for sewing things), and some real French chocolate! I also got a bonus gift from Amy--a second pouch with her famous tiny hexagons!

The round and row robins continue, though many of them probably will soon be pulled as they are now big enough to be quilts. This time I brought home Fi's round. I've been looking forward to working on hers and have had fabric set aside for it for some time.

Our next group project is a charm square challenge. We are using Moda's Central Park by Kate Spain. Today (Sunday) I began pulling fabric--only half a yard!!!-- to use with it.

Many of us brought along our red, white and blue wonky stars for Jen. I mentioned before that she has made many, many Quilts of Valor but, because of shoulder surgery was going to have trouble meeting her promised quota---HMQG to the rescue! See our work here.

I also pushed the dust mop around and though I didn't get to the vacuuming, I don't feel that the weekend was a loss!

I LOVE this quilt!

2011-02-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today I am looking at a Very Merry Merry-Go-Round by RachaelDaisy.

I'm not sure where to start with this one. There is SO MUCH there. The block is the challenging and old-school Queen of May. But there is nothing old fashioned about the way it was interpreted here. I think every color in the spectrum is represented and while the palette is wildly exuberant, it is a controlled exuberance: the brights and the pales, the darks and the lights, the patterned and the plain--it all balances out. The skillfully pieced blocks on their fields of bright polka dots are further balanced by the sashing of intuitively string-pieced bands.
There aren't many solids in this quilt. And the prints are a little bit of everything; there are cupcakes and sugar skulls, puppies and paisleys, fruits and flowers and flamingos, and lots and lots of dots! The lucky person who got this quilt (the caption makes it sound like it was a gift) would never get bored looking at it!
This image doesn't show the quilting, but other images in RachaelDaisy's flickr stream do. The detail we see shows hand quilting using a heavier thread (it looks blue). On this quilty version of a bear-hug, the addition of hand quilting is like a gentle kiss on the forehead.
The challenge I take from this quilt is to try a block that I don't think I can make--I have always admired these wheeled blocks but have never ventured to try to make one. I would also like to try beginning a quilt that had neither theme nor color range. This quilt makes me want to just jump in and sew!

You can find this quilt in my flickr gallery "I LOVE these quilts!".

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T05:57:00.000-08:00

I hope your day is purr-fectly sweet!

Caution! Construction Ahead!

2011-02-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

Let's see, I did a little bit on....five different projects! Needless to say, none are proceeding very quickly. I hope I am not only one to spread herself thin like this.

I pieced together several more hexagons. This project is really on the back burner, but I love the colors and the fabrics so much that I like assembling the pieces. I am a bit fearful that my skills will not be equal the overall construction and that my centers won't match up. But until then, I like these twirly parts.

The circle skirt top is nearly assembled. I put together 4 more blocks and laid out a design I liked. My big, temporary design wall is in the dining room. So I set up a satellite sewing station down there with my Featherweight and my little Bohin iron (a little awkward to use but it is just so darn cute!) and got the rows all sewn together. I am eager to start experimenting with those narrow satin ribbons!

One third of six more stars are ready to be added to the wonky star quilt.

I spent *a little* bit of time working on the Modern Quilt Guild monochromatic challenge. If my past is any key to the future, I will not get this done in time to be considered in the competition but I am doing something I have thought about doing for a long time, the contest just spurred me into action.

And then this thing came out of nowhere! Last week it was not even a twinkle in my eye!
I've been loving what was being made in the postage stamp quilt along flickr pool. Not much appeals to me more than a big field of checkerboard patchwork; but I had not actually joined in with the group. After my fabric binge of last week, I was looking through my stash, seeing if there was anything that I would not mind getting rid of so as to make room for my new purchases. I pulled out about 3 yards of this stuff that--heaven help me--I think I bought to make a blouse with. I was ready to put it in the Goodwill bag, when I paused, squinted my eyes, got out some Kona white and started cutting strips. Next thing I know, this thing I hadn't planned was 1/4 done!

Fabric spree or fabric bender?

2011-02-11T10:27:00.000-08:00

With great enjoyment and just a piquant pinch of embarrassment, let me show you what I got this week.

The grand total:

In my defense, my birthday was this week.

A Public Service Announcement

2011-02-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

Have you cleaned and oiled your sewing machine recently?

Pretty good weekend

2011-02-06T15:58:00.000-08:00

In spite of this sign of End Times--right at the foot of the bed!!!--I got up and got through the day unharmed.

After a week of frigid temperatures (I know we on the Third Coast are wimps about the cold, but it was in the upper 20s F (-0 C) this week! That is COLD by anyone's measurement!) it was in the 50s on Saturday and the 60s today, so I took advantage of the balmy weather and got a good walk in on both days. I did some cooking for the week: lentil soup on Saturday and beef stew today. And I even got to spend some time in my sewing room.

I added to Constellation Wonkulae and like how it is coming along.

I put the circle skirt circle quilt back on the design wall and am VERY excited about the elements I am thinking about. What do you think?

And I got this little throw quilt out to finish machine quilting. There isn't much left to do on it, so it shouldn't take too long.

Now, the stew is simmering, I have a bourbon and lemon soda in hand and I feel satisfied with the weekend's accomplishments.

I LOVE this quilt!

2011-02-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

I want to start a recurring feature that I am calling "I LOVE this quilt."
In it, I will choose an especial favorite from my flickr favorites and analyze why I like it so much. These will never be quilts of my own making; I will always identify the maker's flickr name and name they have given their quilt. I hope the makers might be flattered that I have chosen their quilt to write about or at least not mind that I do so. If I include your quilt here and you do not wish it to be, please just let me know and I will remove it. I also hope that others will enjoy reading about these quilts and my exploration of what about them pleases me. But I have to admit that my main reason for doing this is selfish: I hope by really thinking about these quilts that I look at again and again and trying to understand why I love them, it might make me a better quilter.

First in this series is "Wonky Squares" by SilaiBunai.

I think this quilt is like a haiku! It says so much with an economy of color and piecing.
There are only five fabrics and they have all been re-purposed from other household uses. I would love to be able to examine it closely to see the fabrics that were clothing in their previous lives: Lungi and Salwar-Kameez! The calming palette of shades of brown and cadet blue make for a serene quilt while the wonkiness of the squares give it just a bit of an edge. This quilter has a good eye for combining colors and real ability for improvisation piecing. I like the broad bands of color around the chocolate-y brown print (I tend towards thinner, fussier bands). It looks to have been machine-quilted with an over-all meandering stitch that just brings the whole thing together.
(The setting for the photo perfectly suits the quilt too!)
The challenge I take away from SilaiBunai's quilt is to do more with less and to experiment with intuitive piecing and to use wider strips. The quilt shows that one does not need the latest line from the top designers to make something amazing. All she needs is vision!

Find this and future "I LOVE this quilt!" quilts in my flickr gallery.

Better than a postcard

2011-01-31T09:32:00.000-08:00

I have been a serious quilter and fabric collector since the late 1980s (yes Dear Readers, the bloom of youth is definitely off of this quilter). I am very lucky to have loved ones who have clicked on to this and when they travel, if they can, they bring me back fabric!

My brother brought me back this awesome stuff from Hawaii. It is screen printed by Hawaiian artist, Sig Zane. I have never been sure what to do with it, but I enjoy getting it out to look at. Lately I have been thinking about using it in more of a whole cloth fashion. In the meantime, it makes me happy to just to look at.

My husband has traveled to some pretty exotic locations. Sometimes I have been lucky enough to go with him, but when I can't he has been good to search out yard goods for me.

This first group is a mix of Nepali and Greek fabrics. The dark blue came from Greece; it is a twill and is a little heavier than most quilting fabrics. The print makes me think of cells under a microscope. Perhaps it would do well with a white fabric in a simple patchwork design? Perhaps something like the postage stamp quilts that are happening right now.
The other three came from Nepal. He thinks that he got these in a small village in the countryside where they were amused by a man buying fabric. The stripes are a heavy, coarse weave. I've made a skirt from the blue and still have lots left over. The red and pink print is thin and gauzy (I have used it as a back of a small quilt).

Of this pair, the red with the small print is from Kathmandu, Nepal. I really love this fabric and have kind of hoarded it waiting for just the right thing for it. I think it combines well with the shell-y fabric. It was not a gift from anyone; I bought it at the estate sale of a dear friend who traveled the world collecting and studying shells. I like to think of it as a gift from her. I don't know where it came from but would guess somewhere in the south Pacific.

These last three came from Curacao. They are imitation wax batiks in a nice weight for patchwork. They are just waiting for the right project.

Sunday sewing

2011-01-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

It was a dreary day today, but things hummed along in my sewing room.

I got my first--I am sure I will be making more of these--New Wave top finished. Yesterday, I got some flannel to either back it with or to be the filling (instead of batting) if I can find a better backing. I also got some blue and yellow thread to quilt it with. I think it will be pretty in the guest room.

I also worked on several secret projects--all coming along nicely.

And I made 3 of my very own wonky stars! They are so much FUN.

I'm kind of pooped, but really feel like I accomplished something today.

Vintage doll quilts

2011-01-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

I don't have many quilts--both of my own making or purchased or inherited. But I do have a few vintage pieces--tops mostly--that have come down through my Mother's side of the family. Here are a couple of doll quilts that belonged to my Mom. They probably were made in the early 1930s. I think they were made for her by an Aunt--sadly, I don't that information is retrievable anymore.
The flower garden is about 18 x 24 inches and the trip round the world is about 17 x 24 inches.

Fluid Dynamics

2011-01-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

I know we have all seen this. Whenever we sew a long strip of something, anything--a pant leg, a curtain panel, any kind of strip piecing--the fabric falls from the sewing machine in these accordion folds. I am never not delighted by them! Perhaps there is a physicist or a materials engineer or a fluid dynamisist out there who can explain it to me.

Robins in Winter

2011-01-23T16:15:00.000-08:00

I spent much of my sewing weekend working on Houston Modern Quilt Guild projects.

First, I made my very first wonky stars!!
These stars are for fellow member greeneyedsilversmith. She has made many many Quilts of Valor and has signed up to make many more this year, but has recently had shoulder surgery. (See her flickr stream for some photos that just make you want to make her a cup of tea and bring her a snuggle-y quilt.) So, several of us said we would help her out by making stars. Now, I have never made wonky stars--they were on my New Year's list of things-to-do--so I was eager but nervous about taking this on. I am happy to report that I now know what the big, dang deal is about wonky stars: they are really easy to make, they are really fun to make and they are awesome!

Here is my first attempt:

So now, like the dog in "Up" ("New Project!") I am distracted from my on-going projects and looking for wonky star fabrics!

Next, I started and finished the row I have this month for the Row and Round Robins our group is doing.

The robin has been going on for about 5 or 6 months now. We have two round-ists and ten row-ists. I have watched with interest and trepidation the various bees and swaps that happen on the interwebs, but have never participated. So this is a first for me and I am having so much fun. It is such a learning experience to work with someone else's palette and someone else's instructions. The group has discussed who had to buy what for who's rows or rounds; I hadn't enough of the pale aquas and soft reds for Saf's row (shopping trip!), I will need the cream-cicle oranges for scruffycat's rows. But the one thing I had to buy for several rows, which I had NEVER BOUGHT before was solid white! (I! Know!) I've used acres of white-on-white over the years, lots of white-on-muslin and lots more plain muslin, but never solid white.
But now I am a convert!
And a major project this year will feature lots of solid white!

True Confessions

2011-01-18T17:36:00.000-08:00

Hello, my name is smazoochie and I have UFOs.

I saw a button on the blog of fellow HMQG member scruffycat for UFO Domination 2011 and thought that it might be a fun way to get some of my lingering projects done.

At first I thought I didn't really have too many un-done projects. There are the Butternut and Blue blocks of the month that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas one year. They are one third the usual KC Star BOM (mine are 8 inches, they are usually 12 inches) and for some reason, I decided to hand-piece them. I think I will only do 2 more and just make a small wall hanging from them--some of them have far too many pieces for me to do by hand.

There is also the star quilt that began with the purchase of a vintage tea towel, gosh, maybe ten years ago. At first I planned to make a vest--vests were the thing back then--then I realized that the tall stack of collected fabrics was much more than a vest. The stars came together fairly quickly; then it took me a while to find the right border fabric; then came the geese. It is all done except for about one quarter of the binding! I think it stalled out because, even though I love it and can't help but smile when I look at it, it doesn't go with anything in our house. So there it sits.

And finally, my shame: The 'wedding quilt' I made for my brother and sister-in-law--they married in September of.......2003!!!!!! It is an appliqued wedding ring--the arcs are appliqued onto a square of fabric. I used some sort of cotton-y batting because I always have trouble with tucks on the back when I machine quilt with my sewing machine; which means the thing weighs a ton. Because I am not sure of the stability of the arcs I have been free-motion quilting them, following the patterns in the fabrics. I'm not real sure how much more work I have to do, but, UFO Domination 2011 members and the rest of the blog-o-sphere as my witness, MY BROTHER AND SISTER-IN-LAW WILL NOT CELEBRATE THEIR 8TH ANNIVERSARY WITHOUT POSSESSION OF THEIR QUILT!

Apples!

2011-01-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

I spent the day making these five (plus one for me!) apples. They are from a Heather Bailey pattern and have Texas Hill Country lavender in them. They are (late) Christmas presents for some of my co-workers.

With these six apples I have *nearly* used up a 10 pound box of fiber fill that I bought about 20 years ago!!! (Whenever I think about that fiber fill, I always think of that kids' puzzle: Which is heavier, a ton of lead or a ton of feathers?)

There are many ways to skin a cat.

2011-01-10T11:59:00.000-08:00

No, I don't mean these two, though there are times I would like to.

Not long ago (I've only been blogging for a bit more than a month now!) I put an image of this quilt top out there on the internets.

I got a very nice comment from jeninemd saying that she loved my colors and the drunkard's path pattern. I was *this* close to responding, thanking for her kind remarks but, (please insert slightly condescending tone here) it isn't a drunkard's path. It is 4-patch circles appliqued onto a...solid.....background...... Wait a minute! It is a drunkard's path! I thought I was being so clever, pushing beyond the pattern, coming up with something new. All I did was reinvent the drunkard's path!!!

It goes to show that there really isn't much out there that is really NEW. When something really NEW comes along, it is like a breath of fresh air. I have a lot of fun with my quilting, but I don't think that I will be lifting anyone's kites!

Here is the second top I got from the same layer cake. Not new, but bright and pretty and very different from the first one.

Oops, I'm doing it again.

2011-01-09T14:33:00.000-08:00

It may be just me, but I have found that I am much more productive when I spend less time on the internet. ;-)

I got quite a bit done this weekend, *most* of it towards my New Year's to-do list. And I got things done in spite of my feline assistants.

Here, Louis helps with piecing and laying out my first bluebonnet and plaids New Wave row:

And here Pippa does her part to pin-baste a quilt:

I also cut out all of the strips that I had pieced for the hexagon quilt. (I got some useful suggestions from the awesome Cauchy about backgrounds.) And I did some cogitating on the quarter-circle, mustard and blue quilt; I want the rows and columns to be odd numbers (to inhibit the the urge to pair up the blocks) so I may already have enough blocks to go ahead with them.

But then...

My last two trips to Joann's have resulted in this stack of brown fabrics:

I had no plans for a brown quilt; no one I know wants or needs a brown quilt (including me!); but these fabrics seem to want to be a quilt! But that isn't on The List!

Also, The Modern Quilt Guild has announced their latest challenge/contest. There has been a monochromatic quilt I have been thinking about for years, but it has never made it onto any to-do list. I am kind of thinking that now might the time to dust off this project.

But, but, but The List!!!!!

So we are early into the second week of the New Year, and already my "List" seems to be going the way of so many lists of the past.
(And I am enjoying every minute of it!)

A new year

2011-01-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a merry and happy holiday and that all of your handmade gifts were well received!

I've been looking back at the old year and making plans for the new one--quilt-wise that is. I usually make a list of quilts that I think I would like to make in the coming year. My list for 2010 was a short one, only five quilts, but just two on the list were even touched on. One is a top (see "emily" in on my flickr page) and the other is just a stack of blocks. In my defense, the rapid decline in my Mom's physical and mental health kind of trumped *everything*. And I did get several other quilts started and even finished some.

I want to get these quilt tops finished, especially the yellow one:

I want to get these tops quilted and finished:

I want to make these fabrics into New Wave quilts:

And I am very excited about this. I spent much of New Year's Day cutting strips for it.

And the usual--lose weight and get healthy!
Best wishes and good luck to everyone!

Meow-y Christmas, y'all.

2010-12-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

Butterscotch 4-Patch Circle Quilt

2010-12-13T17:28:00.000-08:00

I didn't love this pattern when I first saw it. It is a Jaybird Quilts design and appeared in Quilts and More. Then I saw my friend Bry's version of it and quite liked it. (She hasn't posted hers yet.) I said to her, what if the patterned fabrics were 4-patches? and went home to look through my stash. I found a layer cake that was a perfect candidate. I also had on hand the butterscotch Kona solid that went perfectly with *some* of the line, so I pulled the patterns that 'went', cut them into fourths, sewed them back together, cut out the circles and placed them on the solids. I'm not a fan of the frayed look so I loosely zigzagged the circles into place.

I also have a second, slightly smaller version made with the rest of the layer cake--though I didn't do the 4-patch thing with it.

Here is a photo of when I was trying to find a lay out I liked.

Oh My Goodness

2010-12-07T18:22:00.000-08:00

This has gone much faster than I thought it would. I'm not quite done, but only have a small corner left to do and, perhaps you can tell, I even have begun to put the binding on.
If I had until Christmas, this would have been no problem, but I leave for the Heartland next Wednesday. Now, I think I can put the unbound quilt in my luggage and finish the binding in the evenings after I have spent the day with my Mother.
I'm pleased because I had told her I wasn't going to be able to get it done for my next visit. She doesn't remember much but she keeps asking about her quilt!

Why is finishing a project so much work and starting a project is so much fun!

This is what I am itching to start on. I have wanted to make one of Elizabeth Hartman's New Wave quilts for a long time now. I have anguished over fabric choices. I think I have *finally* come to a decision with these.

First Blog Post

2010-12-03T16:27:00.001-08:00

mom's quilt
Originally uploaded by smazoochie

I spent several hours today machine quilting this quilt.
It would have been simpler had I decided to do some simple, over-all lines. Instead, I (foolishly) chose to outline all of the shapes in the quilt: the stars, the squares, the parallelograms. It is going faster than I thought it would but I am only about half way done and my shoulders ache (lots of twisting and stuffing the whole quilt (fortunately is is fairly small) through the arm of my machine).

The quilt is for my Mom. It should look pretty in her room at the nursing home. I just hope that she'll use it and not hide it so that it won't be 'stolen'.

It must be cocktail time somewhere. Wait, it's cocktail time here!