Be My Valentine

Okay, I know I’m late.  Late for Valentine’s Day.  But better late than never, right? Another entry into Friday Finishing School.  In fact, today I have two!

I finished sewing down the binding on my LOVE mini quilt–here it is!  Okay, on to the red and white.

Be My Valentine, front.

I threw a color catcher into the washer to catch the red dye–obviously I needed two, judging by the fact that the little ladies now have a light pink background instead of a white background.  It’s interesting how some of the whites were tinted pink and others were not.  Go figure.

The back.

I wanted something fun for the label, so I cut out a piece of fabric from the front, and printed onto that. It really is squared up.  Ignore the photo.

Beauty shot of the quilting on the front.  I used a thicker thread–King Tut, because I wanted those circles to stand out.  I have to say I really like quilting with Superior Thread’s King Tut.  And I buy my thread from them, just like everyone else does.  No, they are not a sponsor.  Yes, we are having a giveaway but only because I like their product.  I also use the Guterman that I get on a 50% off coupon at  the big box fabric store, but I’ve only really been happy with that for piecing, not for quilting the top.  (And no, I don’t buy into that myth about polyester thread “cutting” the cloth.)  I have also used Sulky on occasion, but sometimes I don’t like the shiny look of the polyester, and head back to the cottons.  Some quilts call for one kind of thread, other quilts call for other threads.

And on the back I used Superior’s Bottom Line thread in white. How did I ever start using this?  It was when I was sewing my Empty Next, Full Life quilt (up there in the masthead, if you want to take a look), and I just couldn’t get the threads to balance properly with their locking of the stitch in between the front and the back.  I think I had purchased a spool of Bottom Line at the last quilt show I’d gone to and in desperation, wound it onto the bobbin to try.  It’s a lighter weight thread, and I think Heather (Mother Superior, as she is known on the website) told me that a lot of show quilters used it because they could more densely quilt their quilts.  That fact didn’t sway me at all (you know how much I hate densely quilted quilts), but the fact that I didn’t have loopy loops or pulled threads to the front did convince me it was something to have around.  I loosen the tension on the top a little, sometimes a lot.  Then I write that on a post-it note and keep it near the machine for when I have to come back to it.  Generally, with a thicker thread on top, I lower it by one full point–from a 4.0 to a 3.0.

So I tend to use it always in the bobbin.  I’ve always wanted to try it in hand piecing, as it is as fine as silk.  Some day.  There you go–two Friday Finishes!

Scraps Into LOVE

This challenge of Rachel’s is looming in my mind, now that I’m past the red/white quilt, and feeling like life has resumed its rhythm.  She has a terrific Flickr group, and I spent some time there this morning, looking at various ideas.

I used to be a real scrap saver until one day I looked at what I had and realized it was mostly junk.  Making a quilt can be a bit like falling in love, with that rush of excitement, the novelty, the promise.  You work your way through the fabrics and patterns and ideas and a quilt evolves into something that becomes comfortable and comforting.  I don’t need the scraps because I have the real thing.  But every once in a while, I do get on a saving jag, but I have decided to confine my scraps to this large bin drawer in the bottom of my studio closet.

I printed out the paper piecing chart from Sew, Mama, Sew for this mini-quilt by Kelly of KelbySews, setting the printing to 50% as I wanted it tiny.  Quick.  Something to do this afternoon while I listened to my novel on the computer.  Something to keep my hands busy and into the scraps.  I don’t know why the corners are skewing like they are–I’ll have to figure out what’s going on before I stitch down the binding.

One way I’ve heard to hang a mini is to make folded triangles in the upper corners of the back.  So I did.

I found many other ideas while browsing.

This one, titled Veggie Star Quilt, by Dana who write the WaterPenny blog, is really wonderful with its wonky star blocks and twisty layout.

This is from the balu51 and her own Flikr pool, and I wish I know who that was, but she has a cute fluffy white dog and lives in a place with LOTS of snow.  She attributes her inspiration to Amy of Badskirt.  (Who wouldn’t find inspiration on that blog?)

And who wouldn’t want to make this variation?  I found this on Rachel’s Stitched in Color blog, but you can also find it on Ayumi’s blog.

I tried to balance the day with some looking, some sewing.  I sleep better at night knowing there’s something begun in a day, whether or not it is completed.  I’ve put all these links and pictures in here, not so much for you, but for me–to remember my wandering journey (a hallmark of the internet is this wandering quality).  Rachel has laid out her plans, with a culminating Festival of Scraps the last week of March.

And an reminder: the Leap Day Superior Thread Giveaway is in less than a week!  I’ll have two giveaways, and one of them has a wee packet of fabric to go with it–something to help you with your scrappy quilts?  See you on Leap Day!

English Paper Piecing, continued

I’m leading with the same photo I did yesterday, the very first English Paper Piecing Block (EPP) I’ve ever done.

But here’s the beginning of my work in progress: block two, all looking like a set of green and blue flower petals, waiting to be joined into a rosette-like flower.  It has  a different background border.

Block Three is in progress, as I cut my fabric full of swiss-cheese-like holes.

And it’s only as I begin to work on Block Four that I’m beginning to see that it’s really no use to get too much of a blender series of kite shapes there at the outer edges.  Otherwise you might as well cut a giant triangle and piece into place.  What makes this form of patchwork beguiling is the ability to incorporate different fabrics to get a mosaicky look to it, like it’s a kaleidoscope or tumbling pieces of glass.

I realize that some of it is the fabric I’ve chosen.  If I’d gone more the color route, drawing different colors form here and there and making them into a rose, I wouldn’t have had to worry so much about getting too much blending.  Typical of me to think of a hard way to do something easy and beautiful.  But I like this challenge, and how the project is teaching me as I work through it.   And in searching for different darker borders, I found two one-yard pieces of this fabric, but I don’t know how many more flowers I want to make.  The first took me about two weeks of TV and conversation time; it measures over 17″ from point to point.  Jumbo.  That small center hexagon on the desk is out there to remind me of Block Two as I work on 3 & 4, as Block Two is usually tucked away in the basket downstairs, waiting for conversation with my husband.

Or  a good show–like the Academy Awards, which is coming up this Sunday. (Go *here* to How About Orange to download the Oscar Bingo cards and Ballots. Her photo, above, is used with permission.)

What else on this WIP Wednesday?  Finishing up the label for the red/white quilt I’ve been working on.  Which is less than wonderful (more on that on Friday), but I love love the quilting.  So isn’t that how it goes?  Sometimes you love the whole of something, and other times you only love parts of it.  Just like toddlers.  Or teenagers.  Or teaching.  Or just like life.

Many thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics for hosting WIP Wednesday.

Head back over there to see other works in progress.

EPP: A Shared Gift

Because I am a complete quilt dork, loving nearly all things quilting, I love looking at my very first completed English Paper Piecing (EPP) block.  I love how I can use the fabric to make a secondary design.  I love how I can sit and watch Downton Abbey or a movie or talk to my husband, and at the end I have another something to show for the time. I love how I learned it from Krista, and how she shared with me how to put it together, and how I went to other blogs and quilters and friends, enjoying the fruits of sharing from this community of quilters.

I suppose my enjoyment is kind of all stitched together with the trip to the surgeon’s office today, and when he said, “Have a nice life.  You’re all done,” I thanked him, hopped off the table, got dressed and zipped out the door, with only a bandaid (instead of a bulky gauzy dressing) on the healing wound site.  I called my husband to tell him the news as I sat in the parking lot.  I know I’m an easy-to-cry person so I wasn’t too surprised by the tears that followed, streaming down my face as I sat there in the warm sunshine, thinking about my little journey of the last two-plus months, and getting that advice from the doctor.

So, I pass it on to you.  Have a nice life.  Finger some cloth.  Sit in the warm sunshine for a few minutes.  Enjoy those skills that you are developing, or have developed, in making something of yourself to leave behind if the have-a-nice-life line doesn’t materialize at the surgeon’s office, and you realize, like Sir Launfal, that all we ever have in this life is what we share.  So, just today, I share my first EPP block with you on this very normal, this very poignant day.

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Lines from James Russell Lowell’s poem: “The Vision of Sir Launfal:”

Not that which we give, but what we share,–
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,–
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.

(Presidents) Day in LA

My mother often says, “A change is as good as a rest,” meaning sometimes just getting out of the house and doing something different — a change — does a body good.  So we took off early to LA, and while I didn’t really expect to do anything “quilty” I did run into several design things that made me think about quilts.

These screens are from the Japanese Pavillion, the light coming through the windows in soft waves of grays and silver.  The whole pavillion is quiet and calm and filled with interesting angles and objects.

My husband and I also played hide and seek behind this giant stack of plates.  I was talking to a friend the other day and said about all they could write on my tombstone for accomplishments is washing 1.4 million dishes in my lifetime.  Some days don’t you feel invisible to the world?  I do.

Then we enetered the Pacific Standard Time exhibit, where they had this fabulous Airstream trailer.  Take It Easy, it says.  Yep.  I needed this day out.

Textiles were part of the modern design that was evolving mid-century.

Couldn’t you use this as a map for a quilt?  Half-square triangles, 30/60 triangles, curvilinear shapes balanced against grids.  Delicious.

This all-over textile is more interesting when you focus on the detail.

More half-square triangles.  And dots.

This bathing suit is called Swoon.  It was made during the war in 1942, as there was rationing on rubber.  Which means: no elastic.  So the designer used the laces to adjust the form to the wearer.

Here’s the exhibition tag.  Given that so many quilters are swooning over the recent Swoon quilt block design out on the market right now, I loved the parallel names, although they are very different.  Did you know that Catalina, another prominent swimsuit manufacturer was the original sponsor of the Miss America Pageant?  Maybe that’s why they always had swimsuit competitions.

More swimsuits.  Don’t you just love these?  (And guess what we had later for lunch?  Lobster rolls!!  They had a series of food trucks parked outside in affiliation with the exhibit, and we ate at the Lobsta Truck.)

That wooden bench in the background is so intriguing with all its cutout wood pieces all fit together like a . . . quilt.

Yep.  A hexagon barbeque pit.

Which leads me to this.  My husband drove out to LA (it’s about an hour from our house on a good day with no traffic) and I was able to stitch on my rose window block–hexagons!  Sometime I’ll have to get a good shot outside so you can see the colors.  I’ve only made one mistake in putting pieces together, which is okay with me.

So, I had a change.  Which is as good as a rest.  I’ve ignored the grading in the briefcase because it’s a holiday and I’ll have an extra day to get it done.  I’m off now to cut another rose window hexagon–I want to be sure and something to stitch on for Downton Abby tomorrow night!

Happy Presidents’ Day Weekend!

Bits & Pieces

WIP Wednesday–here we are again.  This is a good mid-weekly progress check every week, and many thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced for hosting us all.

Well, I met a goal.

For two months, goals have been something to hide from or add to a already-too-long list or wistfully stare out the window while contemplating goals.  But yesterday, Valentine’s Day, I met my goal of getting this quilt quilted.  And had I not had to stop to read 50 pages of the novel I’m teaching (Moon Over Manifest), I probably would have had the whole thing done.  But sometimes it’s okay to leave a project at the cusp of completion as it will draw you in for tomorrow.  So, I guess you could say, this is still in progress.  But in a good way, not a moaning way.

And under Krista’s enthusiastic encouragement, I tried my hand at English Paper Piecing.  You know I had an English great-grandmother, who I’m named for (Elizabeth).  So I called up my mother and asked her if my gr-grandmother ever did English paper piecing.  “No,” she said.  “She was a gardener.  She spent any free time she had in her garden.  It was my mother — your grandmother — who was the sewer in the family.”  So, in homage to them both, I’m making something with flowers.

I finished the middle, sewed some more together and attached them to the central flower.  Kind of a stuck space for knowing where to go from here in terms of sewing things together, but IF I can imagine myself as a young bride in the late 1800s far away from my mother and hometown of Bloxwich, England, and IF I were a quilter, carrying forward my mother’s traditions, I’d either have been doing this since I was a child, or I’d figure it out.

I’ll figure it out.

I hope you noticed the new notice on the side of the blog: On Leap Day, check back for multi-blog giveaway.

Now head over to Freshly Pieced and see some more fabulous Works In Progress.

EPP–Rose Window Block

It’s all Krista’s fault.  I’ve been seeing her English Paper Piecing for weeks now, and have really admired them.  But hey folks, is there anyone else out there with too many unfinished projects?  And should I even think about starting another one?

Here’s something else to blame: Downton Abbey.  I justified trying this block because I missed having something in my hands to work on while I watched.  And tonight is another episode, and so I jumped.  Besides I am doing ENGLISH paper piecing, and these ladies’ lovely accents will cheer me on while I get all Britishy and such.  Don’t you love their clothes?

First I followed Krista’s advice and went to Clare’s site, SelfSewn,  to read her tutorial.

Then I went to a site *incompetech* that will print out whatever size hexagon you want.  They tell you that whatever number you put in the size box, your hexagon will be twice that.  I wanted a jumbo, so I put in 2.5, again remembering Krista’s experience that she was wanted a big rose block. I subdivided it, according to Clare’s instructions, then cut the pieces apart with my template ruler.

And then, this wonderfully quiet Sunday afternoon, I pulled out a fat quarter pack from at least two seasons ago, figuring if I fussy-cut it to death, what would it matter?  I was at least getting it out of the cupboard and using it, and besides, I loved this collection from Dena.  Forgive the mediocre lighting and faulty Photoshop skills.

All lined up.  I cut them out, kind of free-handing it, and then realized that the pieces have to go on the BACKSIDE of the fabric.

Better.  I got over the terror of making my fabric into swiss cheese when I was working on my Lollypop Tree.  Which, by the way, I think about a lot and promise to get back to, but I have to completely destroy the studio, and when I’m in school, it’s too hard to clean it all up and get back to grading.  It will keep until summer.

My Rose Window block all laid out.  Now if I can just get this done in my lifetime.  Krista assures me that I can.  Now I’m all set for Downton Abbey!

And here’s my inspiration.  Thanks, Krista!

At the End of a Day

Sometimes at the end of a day, I like nothing to crawl in bed with a quilt book, and relax and think about different aspects of quilting.  One that I’m working through now is  Masters Art Quilts, Volume 2.  Here are some snapshots of what I have been interested by, followed by something grabbed from the web.  (And yes, that is still my red mess of a cutting table–sorry, I’ve been grading!)

I’m in love with quilts by Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade, with their combination of photo-realism with quilt symbols such as lines and the grid.  Here’s a picture I found on Google Images:

Another artist which I’d never heard of before, but who I find to be very interesting, is Jan Myers Newbury.  She dyes her own fabrics and uses the tonality of these to build her compositions, of which many elements are seen in some of the Modern Quilt Guild artists working today, with their dependence on blocks of color.

This one is titled Ode to Albers, and it led me to a search for that artist’s name.  Josef Albers liked to place colors against each other to watch how they behaved.  Again–do you recognize this motif of a block within a block? To me a good book makes you want to head to another book, to find out more.  To search.

Beatrice Lanter uses small pieces of colors, working both in harmonies and dissonances to shape her quilts.

Vergngt is the name of this piece, and it’s approximately 43 inches square.  That’s another thing that struck me about many of the quilts I read about in this book was their smaller size.  This isn’t even a lap quilt in size, yet you could get lost in the design.

So when my husband and I are out today on an errand for my grandson (long story) I see this billboard sign, all fractured and shredded by months of painted produce advertisements, ripped off around their staples.  Before I would have just slid past it and into the store, but now I stopped and studied, as it reminds me that inspiration can be anywhere.  Isn’t this a version of a modern mola quilt?  With the top layers cut to reveal the lower layers?  And here’s another shot of what we did today (but don’t tell the grandson–it’s a surprise).

Yes, these are giant dinosaurs.  And yes, PeeWee Herman visited these in his movie.  They’re about 35 minutes from my house.  How random is this, in a quilt blog?

So, I’ve already placed the first of the Masters quilt book in my Amazon cart, and will order that one in as well.  Sometimes my big wish is to really break away from what I’ve done all my life, from the traditional blocks and triangles and just cut, stitch, deconstruct, and find a new way to a quilt.  But do I have the energy?  The vision?  The courage?  I sometimes wonder if I stay on the same track not only because I love it (and I do), but also because I am used to it.

And changing to a new track takes more ardor and zeal that I think I currently have.  But what then, this quote from Leonardi Da Vinci:  “Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.”  And my father’s favorite quote, which became the title of his memoirs, written a few years ago (he’s 86 now):  The place that seems most dangerous is exactly where safety lies.

Quilts on the Bed

I started quilting my Valentine Quilt yesterday and it’s coming along.  Marking it with pencil makes life a whole lot easier.  But here’s two other quilts on the bed currently: the back of my patriotic quilt (the red and white toile), and a cousin to a quilt I made for Heather, a good friend.  It used Lakeside cherry prints and is lap sized.  I love the pillow, purchased on my first anniversary of being married to Dave, my heart-throb of a husband.

I didn’t find him first–but despite the presence of my ex-husband (who, by the way, is divorcing his fourth wife and is writing a book about relationships–just so you know), Dave raised my four children, giving me good support and encouragement.  When we were dating, there was always this realization that our marriage came out of loss, and that perhaps a future splintering might possibly occur.  When I saw this pillow (over 21 years ago), with its sentiment of Real Love Stories Never Have Endings, I had to buy it, because it described my love for Dave.

Okay, that’s the February/Valentine bed.  What’s on yours?

WIP–Valentine Quilt

Many thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics for hosting this Works In Progress posting frenzy, commonly known as WIP Wednesday.

So last week I was unpicking this quilt.  The thread was too skinny on top (although I like a thinner thread on the bottom–Bottom Line by Superior is my favorite), I was using PolyNeon on top.  I have sewn many quilts with this thread, but it just wasn’t cutting it for this Valentine Quilt.  I’d picked up a spool of tone-on-tone red that I had in my thread stash, and thought it might work because King Tut is a heavier thread.  I like that look.  [Wait.  What?  You don't have a thread stash?]

I overlaid some of my trusty-dusty wax paper on the quilt, sketched an idea–liked it.  Now how to get that design onto this quilt.

So I cut out a punch of petals and pinned them on, and while listening to This American Life proceeded to stitch around this little shapes, impaling myself on the pins.  This wasn’t going to work.

I mean–it worked because I liked the design with the thread, but it wasn’t going to work being pricked to death.

I realized that all the petal shapes were merely overlapping circles, so I cut out a circle, did some research on marking pencils.  I went to my pencil stash (don’t tell me you don’t have one of those, too) and grabbed Quilter’s Choice in silver.  I also pulled out a soapstone marker, for the deep reds, but ended up using the silver most of the way through.  Apparently it will wash out.  Stay tuned.

I finished teaching today, and fairly skipped to the parking lot.  It is one of those days that makes people in Wisconsin want to move to California–warm with a slight breeze, but not overly hot.  A lean-your-arm-out-the-window-while-you-drive sort of day.  I teach Mondays and Wednesdays and one of my friends and colleagues coined the term WedFrinesday for what we feel.  We generally work all week long, but it begins Thursday morning with our stacks of grading, continues through the weekend, and ends on WedFrinesday, when we yes, skip to the parking lot.

So, working on the red and white is going to be on this sunny day’s agenda–listening to a new book on the computer (my mother and I listen in tandem, although she’s always faster) and stitching away.  I keep calling this the Valentine’s Quilt.  I think I’d better get to it!

What else is on my list?  Too many things!  I received some Malka Dubrawsky’s fabric that needs to be washed up, ironed and caressed.  I have a stack of things from my purchases at Road.  I still haven’t spent my son’s Christmas Gift of a Fat Quarter Shop gift certificate, and that certainly needs to be taken care of.  Quickly.

That same son gave me the gift of my own web address, so if you want to reach this more quickly, type in opquilt.com. It refer back to here.

Thanks, Peter!