Tree Lot

The tree is probably my favorite part of Christmas. Well, after gathering & sharing with family & friends, then the Christmas tree. I have been known to leave the tree up until springtime -- an artificial one, we quit having real ones after we realized we both were sneezing the whole time it was in the house. But because we often travel at the holidays, I don't always get to have a tree. This year was the second in row without one at chez Shug & smazoochie. I hung a wreath on the door, our stockings on the mantle, my old Christmas tree quilt on the wall & called the house decorated. Easy to clear away when the holiday was over, but not very cheery.

I began thinking about a another tree quilt in mid November. I love my first one, am looking at it now while I type, but I wanted to make another. This time I wanted more freely pieced trees. I thought & thought, looked at books, on Pinterest, watched Craftsy lessons. Finally, I went to the source: Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking. I pulled a mix of greens, old & new, then began making liberated geese. The trees grew quickly. While I sewed, I remembered tree shopping when I was very young. A guy with a semi-trailer full of trees would set up business on a vacant lot in my town -- the Tree Lot -- this is where my family would go to choose ours. While Mom, my brother & I looked for The Perfect Tree, Dad's input was a tree with a straight trunk. I don't remember a tree ever falling over in our house, but the straight trunk seemed a very big deal. Perhaps none of these trees would have passed his standard, but it was such pleasure making them & remembering those old times.

This quilt may hang until Spring.

Office Geese

first finish & a short story made long

I put the final stitches in the binding of this one in the early days of 2016. Technically, it is not my finish, I merely turned a top into a quilt, but it is now a charming & cuddly quilt in our home.

I bought the top years ago. When both my parents were living & well, I would go up to visit twice a year. During these visits, Mom & I would usually take a day & go to the thrift stores & flea markets. On one of these trips, I found this bright, simple vintage quilt top. I always had plans to quilt it, had folded it away with fabric for backing & binding. For more than 10 years, it had been on my shelves until late last year I pulled it out & decided it was time to do this thing. I simply & quickly quilted it, was sewing on the binding -- rats! -- it lacked several inches of meeting up. Well, time to formulate & implement Plan B.

Under my sewing table, are 2 vintage suitcases & a decorative box, all are filled with fabric. I knew one held my gathering of 30s looking fabrics where I might find a binding-gap filler. I wiped off thick layers of dust & began exploring.

What's in the box? Oh! It's my collection of Day of the Dead, Virgin of Guadaloupe & bright florals. Eep, I had forgotten all about them.

What is in the black case? Well, flapjacks, more things I had forgotten I had. Woven stripe, ikats, batiks -- beautiful stuff, but, whhaaaat!?! I'm sure I had some lofty plan that did not materialize. But now what!?!

 The brown case was Mom's high school graduation present. She took it with her to college & several years later, it went with her on her honeymoon. Now it holds fabric. And here is what I was looking for, my 30s fabrics that I gathered together after I cut up Aunt Evelyn's embroidered tea towels & set them into blocks. I was thinking of something cheery & kitchen-y -- it still could happen, I suppose. And, look! There on top is the perfect substitute binding!

 Early in my quiltmaking history, I read or heard that, for cohesive quilts, we should keep like fabrics with like fabrics -- no vibrant Day of the Day prints with florals in chalky pastel with indigo hand-wovens. I pretty much kept that axiom close to my heart all these years. Now I am trying to let it go. You may soon see many of these coming together!

2015, 2016

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Ours was crazy busy! We drove North to see the family -- ALL the family. We were very tightly scheduled -- if this is Wednesday, these people must be Shug's family & like that. We saw everyone, even had some bonus visits. Besides seeing family, we also saw a really magical light display.

I have to say I am kind of glad to see the backside of 2015. It wasn't really a bad year, just one with quite a lot of expensive maintenance & repairs needed for our home, our vehicles, our pets & ourselves. Let me repeat, there was nothing really bad or serious, just a continual squeezing of our wallets.

Making-wise, it was a pretty good year. Shug turned some really amazing pieces. This one is my especial favorite.

It wasn't a big production year for me. I spent quite a lot of time piecing & quilting a scrappy Arkansas Crossroads quilt -- which is still not finished -- it needs something more, I'm just not sure what it needs -- quilting? tying? something in the 16-patch squares. I made & gave away 6 quilts -- that is always satisfying. And 2 finishes remain in house: my version of last year's plus quilts made with my parents' shirts & Laura's Lightning. Both were long-time WIPs that I was glad to finish & I am quite pleased with both.

What do I hope for 2016? Firstly, fewer trips to the repair shop. Then there will be 2 milestone birthdays this year, for both I want to make quilts for the birthday girls. There are always a heap of WIPs that I want to see become finished quilts. Also as usual, I want to make a serious dent in my over-accumulation of fabric -- to give, to donate, to keep. And there are quilt blocks I want to explore -- more flying geese, more pluses, maybe baskets, log cabins/house tops? I've only ever made one of those, & how about something very different from anything I've ever done, like a big appliqued princess feather!

Please stay tuned!

a finish & a greeting

I whipped up a little doll quilt for a super hero-loving grand niece who is expecting a special baby doll for Christmas. I have been enjoying watching Audrey's quilt along, wanting to join in, but haven't had much time with Holiday preparations. This quick little toe-test of the circle blocks have me wanting to make more -- next year.

Wishing all y'all a safe, warm, love-filled Holiday.
xxx, smazoochie

Misses & Hits

There is a Modern Quilter whose lectures & lessons I listen to online. It seems like with every quilt of hers she uses as an example, she will exclaim, "I LOVE this quilt!" I find it a little off-putting. Does she really LOVE every quilt she has made? Is there nothing about any of them that she would change, do differently in the future?

There are quilts I have made that I had great expectations for -- perfect colors, perfect fabrics, perfect pattern -- but when they were finished, they just didn't hit the mark I was aiming for. Some are just off a bit, others not even close. As blogging quilters, we show our efforts out here on the Internets & our readers, our friends, will applaud them. Even when we say 'I don't like this' or 'I wish I hadn't done that', our readers & friends often say, oh no, it is beautiful just as it is. I do this myself. And when I do see something about someone else's quilt that I don't like or wish had been done differently, I don't say so. We seem to go by the If-You-Can't-Say-Anything-Nice-Don't-Say-Anything-At-All rule. So on Big Reveal posts, the comments are full of praise. I find that sometimes it gets hard not to believe all the praise, hard not to think, 'yes, smazoochie, another awesome quilt'.  But I try to keep my feet of clay firmly planted in reality.

Anyway, all this is leading to this quilt. It isn't often that I am so unabashedly pleased with something I've made. This quilt is not perfect, but I really don't think I would change anything about it. I LOVE this quilt! I don't say that about many of my quilts, just a few -- one more now!

Proud, happy & thrilled

I began piecing this quilt more than 3 years ago; looking at my blog posts about it, I see I got the top put together in about a month. I basted it in the late Autumn of 2012, then began 3 years of quilting.

3 loooong years of quilting.

Not 3 constant years of quilting -- I would work diligently for a while, be overcome by the boring & tedious nature of the quilting I chose, then I would put it away for a month, a few months, a year. I finally got tired of the thing lying around & soldiered through. I put the last quilting stitch in a week ago today. After finishing, I would have Sworn an Oath that I would never quilt another quilt in that sort of dense, echoing way again.

But a week has passed & the memory of the boring tedium is fading.

Some time ago, after 2 failed attempts, I got to Hollis Chatelain's class at Quilt Festival, "Quilt Line as the Third Design Element." The only class supply we were to bring was an un-quilted top. Through the day of the class, the 25 or 30 of us would show our top, then with Hollis leading the discussion, we would talk about ideas of how to quilt it. I think after waiting years to get into this class, my expectations were pretty high. I suspect I was hoping for some sort of magic algorithm -- 

If This, Then This = Awesomely Quilted Quilt. 

Instead, through the day I heard Hollis ask the same set of questions to each of us. By early afternoon, I was sitting there like Peggy Lee wondering, Is That All There Is?

It has taken me this long to find the value in the questions Hollis asked each of us:

What is this quilt for?
What is your favorite thing about it?
What do you want to emphasize?
What do you want to achieve?

My Laura's Lightning is to be a utilitarian quilt; I really like the combination of fabrics, colors & I wanted to emphasize the zigzag streaks of lightning. I think I may have blundered onto the perfect quilting to achieve that. I am now hand-stitching the binding & am eager to pop it in the washer & dryer & get a good look at this quilt.

In other news, the chaos & mess in my sewing room has gotten SO BAD, trees are starting to grow!

Shame and Forgiveness

Before every Quilt Festival, I think about what I might be shopping for -- do I need anything? do I want anything? Quite literally, the whole world of quilting supplies will be coming to MY neighborhood! Of course, I know there will be impulse buys, the thing I Must Have! that I didn't even know existed, but I try to make a list. This year, I had thoughtfully decided to get very little fabric -- nothing I particularly wanted & certainly, nothing I needed.

After Festival was over, I awoke with a headache & was a bit disoriented. I was surrounded by teetering towers & enormous piles of cloth. I've read that when a person over-indulges in a behavior she intended not to do all, this can be a sign of addiction. I hardly knew how & when it happened -- but happen it did. I was truly embarrassed & a little ashamed.

Anyway, what did I get?

A fat quarter bundle of Lizzy House's mini pearl bracelets. I am such a sucker for bundles of all the color ways of a print -- put a bow on it & I am a goner. But don't I have an un-used bundle of her first pearl bracelets? Why, yes I do. Maybe they should come together, maybe using a Cherie House pattern!

10 pieces (!) of Anna Maria Horner's Loominous! They are so beautiful! The colors are like candy! They made me think of the Laura Ashley skirts & dresses I have cut up on my shelves.
 

Then, not one, not two, but THREE quilt kits!!! I mean -- SERIOUSLY!!! But there the quilts were, made up on the booth's wall, all pretty & everything. I crumpled. The coarse Daiwabo prints may become what they were packaged to become -- a simple medallion.

What if I skip the pattern & combine these others with things I already have?

Dots with Lonni Rossi?

Heavy Metal with a vintage print?

Quite a haul. After some introspection, I have decided to forgive myself. Simply put, I went on a bender. I'm not trying to excuse my behavior, rather to understand it. I think the reason for my spree may have been longs weeks of stressful work & no sewing. I have learned that when I can't sew -- I tend to shop. Now that I have some time & energy for sewing, the shopping should stop. :-}


Addendum: I had been working on this post for a while, but after the events of week's end, it seemed silly & frivolous. But I decided to go ahead with it. If every time something awful happened in the world, the latest display of how cruel people can be to each other, if every time this happened we stopped thinking about & doing things we enjoy & sharing with people who share our enjoyment, then there would be no pleasure in life at all.
Love one another.

That's better.

The weekend between my hectic work schedule & the arrival of our guests, I managed to make some time to spend in my sewing room. Boy, did it feel good to sit down in front of my sewing machine! You, my cohort, know how really necessary it is for us to stitch.

Because I was still a bit frayed from work & a bit preoccupied in anticipation of company; I wanted some simple sewing. So I pulled out two long-time standbys: the plus blocks made with my parents' shirts & the flying geese made with Goodwill men's dress shirts.

My plus blocks got set aside in the push to finish the quilts for my brother & nieces. After their quilts were done & my plus fatigue had worn off, I got out the parts for my blocks & have been using them as leaders & enders for about a year now. There weren't many left to finish, so it was an easy push to get this top done. Now I am waiting for a nice weekend day for some outdoor basting. Soon, I, too, will have a Reva + Lee quilt!

Then there are the geese. The 'problem' with them has been that I didn't know how big this quilt was going to be. In the past, when I was working one project or another, Shug would ask me how big it would be. I would answer, "As big as it gets, I guess." I wasn't trying to be difficult, it's just that sometimes a quilt's size has to reveal itself to me. This was the case with the geese. A small wall quilt or something big enough for a queen size bed? I had more than a dozen shirts, so large was very possible. And I so enjoyed making the geese & joining them together. At first, I was putting the geese up on my design door, but when it outgrew the door, I just began sewing & letting chance do the designing. Now it is a finished top, too.

We now return to my regularly scheduled life.

My weeks of frenzied activity at work were followed by a half-week of intense & long-overdue cleaning at home. Then came the arrival of friends from overseas & 2 days at the Quilt Festival, followed by sight-seeing with the friends. Quilt Festival was fun. The exhibit hall was a mess -- construction inside & out, but that didn't hurt the beauty of the quilts. Inspiring -- and exhausting. The pedometer on my phone said I walked more than 13 miles over the days I was there. I didn't just walk, I also bought an insane amount of fabric. Trainers, forget the medicine balls & free weights, do you know how heavy fabric is!?! I'll say I bought the fabric to increase the efficacy of my walking workout.
You're buying this, right?
No?
Well, I can't tell you why I bought so much fabric. 'Because it was there' is the best I can come up with. Alluring stacks & bundles of pretty colors, all now trying to find a place in my bursting stash.

I also got another quilt top -- very cute & cheap -- my main criteria for vintage quilts & tops. A bright, cheery wagon wheel made in the late 50s to early 60s. It is small & I am thinking of finishing it up with big-stitch hand quilting. Across the aisle from my cute, cheap top was a finished quilt that was beautiful & not exactly cheap. It was slightly older than my top, probably mid-50s, a log cabin all made in cotton sateen solids with a few sateen prints added in, hand-pieced & hand-quilted. With the seller's permission, I took some photos, hoping images of this beguiling quilt would be enough. But I kept finding myself in the neighborhood -- just visiting, you know, admiring it. Then I found myself asking the seller if she would take any less.

Now, a chance to catch my breath. And to enjoy my purchases.

Pinterest

I know you know about Pinterest. Maybe you have your own pin boards or maybe you do like I did, lurk & look at the boards of others. I was resistant to starting my own -- I knew what an enormous time-suck Pinterest can be. I could imagine sitting down with my morning coffee, checking in to see what was new; the next thing I would realize would be that my coffee was cold, my feet were asleep & the sun was setting. But I succumbed & drank the Pinterest kool aid (you can find the recipe on Pinterest!). At first, it was almost as bad as I had imagined -- I never actually wasted the *entire* day, but I certainly squandered quite a few hours. I had no idea about the social aspect of Pinterest -- a pinner can send pins to friends, chat, comment, etc. Then there is the curiosity of finding someone, a stranger, whose tastes are very similar to your own & wondering, "Would I like this person? Would this person like me?"

Anyway.

Work has been keeping me from what I love -- no cutting, no piecing, no quilting. I've hardly sewn a stitch in weeks. I get home physically spent. Evenings, I eat some dinner (thanks, Shug!), then sit in front of the television & scroll through Pinterest. Scrolling one evening, I saw a charming, scrappy plaid quilt & pinned it to my "I want to make that" board. A few days later, a Pin Pal commented on it, which caused me to look again & more closely at it. Yes, it really was glorious! The source of the pin was eBay, so I clicked through to see more details. There it was, a buy-it-now listing & a really good price. A few clicks more & about a week later, this glorious quilt was mine!

As always, I wish this quilt could talk. The fabrics are old but the quilt is brand new -- never used, never washed. At first, I wondered if it had been recently finished with true-to-the-era backing & binding. There are a few fabrics in the patchwork that make me scratch my head, like the larger-scale florals & a neon orange, but most are clearly from the early 20th century. It is pieced & quilted by hand; the quilting is simple straight lines in one direction -- except on two opposite sides, in a of row of blocks, there is perpendicular quilting. The backing is four plain feed sacks machine-stitched together & here are where the "problems" are: several dark, smeary stains. Blood? Did these stains spoil the quilt for the maker, leaving it unfinished, unused?

All I can do is wonder & fall passionately in love with this glorious quilt!