Remembering

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

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.

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)

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

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!

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

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

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

I finished this



and got more work done on this.

Dazzling...

...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

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....

that is the question.

What do you think?

I LOVE these quilts!

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!

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

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

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

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

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)

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!!!

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.