Snapshots!

A couple of things on this post.  First–a gallery of ginghams from our Project Gingham.  I liked how Sherri did this on her blog and I guess I just wanted a record of all the projects spawned from that long line of garage sale boxes (and by the way, my quilter said she inherited about 20 of those boxes, and will look to see if there’s more gingham in there).

Stacked Coins from Krista of KristaStitched

My Granny Loves Gingham, from Cindy of Live a Colorful Life

Gingham Geese, by Rachel of The Life of Riley

Hucklebuck from Suz of PatchworknPlay

Kris from Duke Says Sew What has two projects: the wall hanging (above) and the yet unfinished gingham curtains (below)

and the last one:

Despite the Memo re: Gingham Day, Sue Does Her Own Thing

from Becky of SarcasticQuilter

Each of these quilters has told about their creative journey in using up the gingham they were sent, so if you’re curious, pay their blogs a visit.

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You know how when your 9th grade teacher assigned you summer reading, of say, Beowulf, an epic ancient poem, and you ended up frittering away your days reading comic books and teen magazines?  I’m about there right now.  The Beowulf is equivalent to my Lollypop Trees, and the comic books?  Polaroids!

These are untrimmed, of course, because I’m participating in the *Picture-Perfect Polaroid Swap* of these little cuties over on Flickr, and they specify UNTRIMMED blocks.  Last night when it was a about a bazillion degrees outside and the day was expended, all I wanted to do was some mindless sewing while I listened to This American Life podcasts.  This was a perfect project.

This photo is from Karen of capitolaQuilter and she has a great tutorial on her blog if you want to whip some up.

Rachel of Stitched in Color (above) has a bunch of these little gems made up into a quilt.  And maybe Amy of Little Miss Shabby started the whole craze, with her invention for her Ringo Pie Bee?

At any rate, they are addicting. Here’s my first line of snaps, about 16 to a WOF (Width of Fabric) cut.

I cut out the 2 1/2″ squares for a while, then pieced them.  This is only half of the squares I cut.

After you sew on the top (or bottom) strip (refer to capitolaQuilter’s instruction) there’s a few pieces jutting out, so I laid down my ruler and cut them off.

I guess we could also call these things baseball cards, after the look of these 1910 rareties, inspired by that story about the grandson who found a treasure cache of early baseball cards in his grandfather’s attic.

Beowulf, aka Lollypop Trees, will have to wait because another piece of summer fun is a gathering of our little quilt group: Good Heart Quilters, started at least a decade ago by Lisa and a few others.  We seem to be too busy lately for our regular First Friday meet-up, so we planned an Open House of quilting tomorrow, with a potluck lunch.  I’ve already got my bag packed and ready to go.

And yesterday, this arrived, all the way from Australia!

I held the first two blocks of the Far Flung Bee Swap.

I pulled them right from their package, so forgive the wrinkles.  I was too excited.  Many thanks, Erika!

Project Gingham!!

A long time ago, in a galaxy garage sale faraway, Elizabeth found a whole lotta’ gingham.  She shared with Krista, who really likes vintage fabrics.  Then we hatched the idea to share with a few others. And today’s the day everyone is sharing with us, but first–my reveal!

I’ve titled this quilt: Gingham Quilt.  Really original, but certainly it has to get points for being descriptive, doesn’t it?  I auditioned a lot of different block ideas, and then decided that just about anything would work with these prints, especially a lot of white.  I know some of the checks get in the way of the bow-tie, but I wanted this to be a fun, summery quilt, without freaking out about anything.  So there you go—some things you just live with and love.

I had seen in a Roberta Horton book that she had used a different fabric for the outside blocks in order to create a border, and I wanted to try that too.  I picked up the cool lavender almost randomly, wanting it so it wouldn’t intrude on the crisp white in the middle of the quilt.  A slight shift, only, in that border, and I tried to use many of the darker ginghams to highlight that shift.

Detail of the quilting, which is a spool of thread and a needle.  My quilter Cathy always has a great design for me.

Two glamour shots of the quilt.  I wanted to show one of my favorite ginghams–one not likely ever seen again in today’s mass market.  It’s that true lavender in the middle of the quilt.

I left this picture bigger so you could click on it for detail.  This is made with (deep memory, here, from my CloTex degree) a dobby loom.  The word comes from the early days of fabric manufacture, when a little boy would sit on top of the loom and pull up individual warp (or lengthwise) yarns so the weft (crosswise or selvage-to-selvage) shuttle could glide across and make a design.  Dobby is short for “draw boy,” or so the rumor goes.

If you look closely on the back, you can see white yarns (threads) that are carried across the back, and create the design on the front.  The floating yarns are the tip-off to which side you are looking at. A lappet is another type of machine but it’s my understanding that the lappet can only do one direction of thread, whereas in this design both the warp and the weft are involved.  Like I said, we aren’t likely to see this fabric ever again.

Label.

I chose a Jane Sassaman print for the back, and not only because I got a bunch of it for a deal when I went up to Michael Levine’s in Los Angeles, in the garment district, but more because it seemed to be in the mood of the front.

I think of this as the quilt for a picnic, for throwing down on a meadow somewhere and pulling out a wicker basket, kitted out perfectly with gourmet feastiness.  Right.  Not my life.  In reality, I think of the time I went up and took my then 4th-grade daughter out to lunch. . . on the front lawn of the school.  We got a lot of crazy looks from the gardeners and the kindergarteners as we enjoyed our sauteed pepper-and-onion sandwiches, just the two of us, with moms picking up kids in the school’s driveway just three feet away.  It’s a great memory; it’s that kind of a picnic quilt.

Now hop on over to the other blogs and see their Project Gingham reveals!

Krista, of KristaStitched

Cindy, of Live A Colorful Life

Rachel of The Life of Riley

Suz, of PatchworknPlay

Kris, of Duke Says Sew What

Becky, the Sarcastic Quilter

Project Gingham Underway

I had a whole list of winners.  You all shared such lovely memories with me, and I enjoyed going back in time to your childhood summers, popping popcorn to sell, learning to sew at the hand of your grandmother, going to Disneyland.

Congratulations to Rachel of The Life of Riley for joining me on Project Gingham.  The next day to watch for gingham in our quilts will be July 4th, Independence Day for those of us in the States.  That’s kind of the peak of summer for us in the Northern Hemisphere, celebrated with pie, homemade ice cream, lots of overeating (in a good way), and hanging out waiting for the sun to go down to cool us all off and so we can see the fireworks.  And a perfect day to see all these gingham projects!

I’ll post a list of all six of our blogs on here, and if you’ve taken the steps to dig some of the gingham out of your stash and have made  (or plan to make) a gingham quilt project (or ordered some online or even found some in local shops), send me your blog name and address and I’ll list you as well.  Deadline for me to write the blog post and get it listed is June 27th (after all, I’ve got some serious summer fun to attend to!).  What qualifies: a block, or four, or a mini-quilt, or a big quilt.  Check back (pun) and see the gallery of gingham!

While you may think all I do is gingham, I’ve had a couple of other projects going as well.  The above is all the squares, cut out, for my Summer Treat Quilt.

Here’s four sewn together and arranged up on the pinwall.  I like how the borders make a crown-type block.  I always like putting new blocks together to see the new patterns they make when they share borders.  While this does look productive, it’s really an avoidance of my other Grand Summer Project. . .

. . . getting the Lollypop Trees back on the radar.  I’ve pulled all the Kaffe Fasset/related fabrics out from the closet, and traced off the remaining blocks onto freezer paper (the scrolls).

I number all the pieces so I can tell which block they belong to.  Some have over 50 pieces.  And I have nine to go.  Now I’m thinking I’m a bit nuts and maybe I’ll just do nine blocks TOTAL, instead of 12.  Or the sixteen the original quilt called for.

Krista, of KristaStitched, invited me to join her and her friends in their Far-Flung Bee, so named because the members live all over the world.  I’ve never been in a bee.  That’s sort of admitting you’ve never eaten raspberries or gone skinny-dipping, or something.  But they’ve drawn up a schedule and some guidelines and I’m giving it a go.  I’ve gotten two blocks done, and am ready to start another person’s blocks.

Several months ago I put my name on the waiting list to take a class from Becky Goldsmith.  Today my lucky number came up!  The class is quickly approaching–next Tuesday–so tomorrow I’ve got to go out and try to find class supplies, then sew my background for her class on Applique Outside the Lines.  I’m soooo jazzed!

Gingham Giveaway!!

Today’s the day for our Gingham Giveaway.  Krista, of KristaStitched, and Cindy, of Live A Colorful Life, will also be doing a giveaway on their blogs, too.

We’ve put together three packs of gingham fun: three different fat quarters of gingham, plus a full half-yard of Kona white.  Here’s the deal: if you win, we want you to play gingham with us, so make a block or four or a mini-quilt, or add some more gingham and make a big quilt.  Then on July 4th, post your completed project on your blog, with links back to us.

You can enter on all three blogs with one winner per blog (and Cindy and Krista and I will put our heads together to make sure that no one wins twice).  We’ll mail anywhere but planet Venus (but then she’s gone around the sun now–all done transiting for another hundred+ years).

To enter, leave me a comment with your favorite summer memory from your childhood. I’ll close out the giveaway sometime in the early morning of June 6th/7th and post the winner on my blog, after conferring with my buds.

I was the youngest of four girls and was always put to bed earlier than them, which of course, made me nuts because I knew they were doing amazing things while I lay awake, listening to the crickets and their laughter.  But in summer our bedtimes often merged somehow. And one lovely summer’s eve in Boston, Massachusetts, a bunch of children (friends? for we lived in Sudbury–considered the “country” then) gathered together on the big wide lawn, the fireflies blinking and we played Red Rover for what seemed like hours.  Those kind of memories are always snatches and impressions, but I’ll never forget all the adults in the house, lit by golden lights, while we children played on past sundown.

Now leave me your favorite childhood memory of summer in a comment.  And good luck!

 

~~~Comments are now closed. I’ll announce the winner tomorrow on the blog, but will be in email contact before then.~~

Laying out the Week/Transit of Venus

One of the advantages of summer is a sense that there is All Possibility.  Because the children are sprung from their desks for their summer break, there’s an exhalation of free-dom! We look forward to the Fourth of July, travel plans, a summer to-do list, laying around, getting bored, as well as getting those things done that had put off until there was more time.  Of course, there never is more time–it’s just our perception.

One challenge of this unstructured time–much like when the husband shows up at the breakfast table on his first day of retirement and you think, now what?–is figuring out how to lay out the week.  I remember reading an article about presidents, and one thing that a new president asked a former president was that very question–how to arrange a daily/weekly schedule of events?

Mondays always seem to have a bit more of that quality–that What Do I Do Today sort of feeling, although on Fridays we start laying on the tasks for the next Monday, thinking–I’ll do it later. Friday, I had cut 500 squares for my daughter’s church charity project (making folded flowers for headbands for pediatric chemo patients) and my arm was sore.  After taking the packet to the post office, I knocked off and did other things.  So here I am, cleaning up those loose ends.

Like getting the binding on my mini Gingham Quilt.  Giveaway in two days!  Check back here on Wednesday.

I used that folded-triangle method for hanging it up; I’ll cut a dowel to the length and suspend it over a push pin on my wall.

Still cleaning out the corners, I refolded all my solids.  That pack from Purl Soho is too pretty to undo, just now, so I placed it up on a shelf to enjoy.  Most of these solids are from when we quilters did solids the first time around–in the 1980s.  Roberta Horton had launched it with her Amish quilt books, and we were all mad for Amish quilts where I lived in Texas.  I taught a class on making Amish mini-quilts in the local quilt shop, and you’ll notice that there are very few yellows and oranges in that bin of solids, for the Amish didn’t use those types of colors.  I started organizing them so I can finish up my Summer Treat quilt.

Which led me to an expression of Pained Horror! on my face when I realized that the first cutting diagram I’d put up had two numbers inverted. Gee Whiz, how embarrassing.  This morning I quickly made a new, correct version, which is shown above. . . and is on the post with the tutorial.  Chalk it up to that novel I was listening to last week when I did this; The Shadow of the Wind, with all of its convoluted plot and character lines scrambled my brain. My deepest apologies if you already started cutting.

Sigh. I hate being fallible.

While you’re laying out your week, don’t forget to watch the Transit of Venus tomorrow.  The picture above it NOT of a naval orange (our home town is famous for them), but of the planet Venus moving across the face of the sun.  It’s a Big Deal, astronomically speaking, and the next one will occur after we’re all dead and gone and our grandchildren are enjoying our quilts.  Here in Southern California, it begins at 3:00 p.m-ish and continues until the sun sets.

Don’t look at the sun directly!  There are special glasses available to look through and some astronomy clubs will set up sun-filtered telescopes.  According to one website I checked, ” ‘looking directly at the sun can cause severe eye damage, and explained that a simple projector can be made by poking a hole in a paper plate, and shining the image on a flat surface such as a wall.’  Venus will appear as a small black dot gliding across the disk of the sun.”  Some say that if you cut out a square from that paper plate, tape a square of tin foil over the hole, then pierce it with a toothpick, it will give a much cleaner hole.

Here’s much more info:

More info (from Hub City Stargazers):

Unlike eclipses, Venus transits are truly rare. They come in pairs, separated by more than 100 years. The last one occurred in 2004 and next pair in 2117 and 2125.  Since the German astronomer Johannes Kepler first predicted it in the 17th century, only six have been observed. The upcoming one will be the seventh.

Only two people were said to have seen the transit of 1639. The 1882 transit was a bigger deal — people jammed the sidewalks of New York City and paid 10 cents to peek through a telescope. John Philip Sousa even composed a score called “Transit of Venus March.”  The one in 2004 was viewed by millions — in person and online.

Space.com has put up a Transit of Venus FAQ, including about how to see it online.  They include a world map that shows where it can be seen.

Gingham Quilt Top All Done!

I sewed steadily while listening to The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafron, a worldwide bestseller when it was released in 2001, and finished my gingham quilt top.  At an especially gripping part of the novel, I sewed in a border block backwards.

I discovered this AFTER I’d dropped it off at the quilter, so had to run back there this morning and retrieve the quilt top to fix it.  She’ll have it to me in time for our Gingham Reveal Date, which is July 4th.  And no, I’m not going to show you the quilt before that.  Okay, maybe a little.

All I’ve got to say is I’m converted to gingham!

On the sewing part: some of the gingham was that lighter weight fabric that is found in JoAnn’s and some of it was cotton.  I really had no trouble at all sewing them together.  I used Kona white as the accent, and the blend fabrics worked fine with the cotton.  My thread was the polyester Guterman from JoAnn’s, and the only difference is how it smells when you press it–you’ll see.  But don’t hesitate to grab some large check ginghams and mix them with the cottons you can buy.  It all worked just fine.

Krista, of KristaStitched, and I dreamed up this gingham thing because I’d come into a load of ginghams.  I researched where to buy more (see this post) and bought a few more.  The finished quilt is so amazingly fun.  There’s just something about gingham that says summer and high spirits and picnics and lazy days.  I’m so glad we decided to do this, and I hope you’ll all play along!

This coming Wednesday, June 6th, we’re hosting a giveaway on three different blogs (ours, plus Cindy’s blog: Live A Colorful Life), for a chance to win one of these fat quarter bundles, which also includes in each bundle is a full half-yard of Kona white.  If you win the Gingham Giveaway, you agree to make a quilt or a block or a mini-quilt or something and post it on your blog  and link back to our blogs as well. For my blog, I want your entry to include a favorite summertime memory from your childhood, whether it be a childhood game or event or taste or activity, so start those memory engines.

And judging from the following photos, snapped in secret in Macy’s, gingham is going great guns in ready-to-wear also.

and this one from my Dad, who writes:
I’m expressing my pain on being photographed. It’s like shooting yourself.

Ah, Dad.  Now you know why I like to be on THIS side of the camera lens.  But in answer to your question–yes, that’s a gingham shirt too!

WIP-Gingham Quilt

I spent the better part of the evening last night researching potential blocks for my gingham quilt–got to get that done so I can move on to other summer projects.  Here’s a slideshow of my Work In Progress: Gingham.  I’m going to make up some samples today to entice you to comment on the Gingham Giveaway Day.  It’s a week away!

WIP–Freshly Pieced

Imagine Lee’s Logo here from Freshly Pieced Fabrics. Because of the vagaries of WordPress slide shows, if I put that image in here it will show up as one of the slides–so, please forgive that it’s not here, yet hop over to her blog to see other great Works in Progress!

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As you have probably figured out by now, gingham is a strong graphic print that has its Own Thing To Say in a quilt.  So after working with these prints and blocks (digitally, using my QuiltPro program) I think lots of white makes gingham really shine.  I also like minimal seams, for as Roberta Horton noted in her seminal book on working with plaids, Plaids & Stripes, the more seaming done with a check, plaid, or gingham, the busier the design will be.

I think any modern-type design could be used successfully, as many of them are based on simple shapes (think: squares, rectangles) with minimal piecing.  One example of this is Lee’s of Freshly Pieced Modern Meadow quilt here or Mod Times here.  Ashley’s quilts (of Film in the Fridge) trend towards this variety and some examples that would work well are here and here.  And who can’t find a quilt to love over at Red Pepper?  Her latest quilt here would look really beautiful with a pop of gingham in those centers, as would her version of flying geese here.  So I think ginghams, although indicative of an earlier, more nostalgic time, could adapt to the modern life easily.

Hope I’ve given you some ideas for a quilt block or two, or even a quilt.  And check back next week for the Gingham Giveaway: three different sets of fat quarters (that also include a full half-yard of Kona white)!

Gingham Dresses

A few years ago, my granddaughter wore this Dorothy blue-gingham dress for trick-or-treating, a gift from her grandmother on the other side of the family (and a hand-me-down from her older sister).  A classic.

A couple of years later, her younger sister wore it on her trick-or-treating forays, and the youngest granddaughter from that family will probably wear it also in a couple of years.

What is it about this blue gingham dress?  What is it about gingham?  Since I’ve been on an gingham jag, several have left comments that indicate there’s a certain nostalgia for this fabric.  It seems to be associated with childhood, easier times, a dress that had lots of gathers, a dress with a big bow in the back.  Gingham always looks crisp, clean and fresh.  Gingham just has that certain something that reminds of us when we were children, of when staying out until after dark was a delicious treat as we played Hide and Seek, or Red Rover-Red Rover.

Gingham was for dress-up occasions, like Easter Sunday.  There’s an old home movie of three of us sisters all decked out in gingham dresses, with white rickrack along the neckline and armholes.  Mine was pink, Susan’s was blue, Cynthia had a large gingham on in a blue color and Christine, my eldest sister, was apparently too old for gingham as she wore a simple shift.  The quality of the movie was spotty, as home movie cameras were a new thing, the focus flitting as from person to person.  (My parents were just trying to learn this new technology, only they didn’t call it that–it was a great new invention!)  But gingham is ageless, and like Simone, in the earlier posts, when we throw on some gingham it carries with it not only its history (back to England) but also our particular group of memories and associations.

For me, it will always be that pink gingham dress, flounced and tied with a big fat bow at the back, worn on hot summer days.  Or the backing for my second son’s baby quilt–the large blue check a counterpoint to the colorful sashed nine-patches.  Or the flip side of my daughter’s baby quilt, those pink gingham checks making her soft skin glow in those few baby pictures I have of her.

Or perhaps, after this, it will be this summer, with its events and hot days, as I cut and sew new memories with new friends.  Come and sew some gingham with us!

Gingham!

It all started when. . .

I went to a gigantor garage sale and found boxes of fabric, and tons of gingham.  Gingham?  I hadn’t used or sewn with gingham for years.  I sent some to Krista, of KristaStitched and she suggested we do something fun this summer with our gingham.  One thing led to another and last week a box showed up at my house with some more gingham, woven this year:

Gingham is an interesting fabric because it’s not printed, it’s woven.

Here’s some printed fabrics–we call them checks because there’s only two colors.  In gingham, there’s three.

Check on the bottom, gingham (blue and chocolate brown) on the top.

I call them yarn-dyed, because the color is not applied, like it is in printed cottons, but the yarns are dyed the color present in the gingham, in this case some aqua and some chocolate brown yarns were woven to give us that “checked” appearance so typical of this fabric. The blue yarns overlapping the blues give the solid blue color and ditto for the browns.  But when the blues and the browns intersect, you get that half-toned looking square with both colors in it.  This also means that there is no right or wrong side to ginghams, which when I started to make my paper pieced block (in the Gingham Giveaway logo) I didn’t have to worry about that at all.  And that was one complicated little paper-pieced block.  You can find it here.

The new cottons are 100% cotton, made for traditional and modern sewers.  Okay, so when that box arrived, I thought . . . what was I thinking?  Way too much to use all myself, so Krista and I thought we’d have a Gingham Giveaway.

But it’s not just any giveaway–we want you to play along, and make something gingham-y for yourself and for all of us to see.

So I put together some packets of 3 fat quarters of gingham and a full half-yard of Kona White cotton.  If you are selected in the giveaway, you agree to make a quilt–or a quilt block–or four quilt blocks–or a mini-quilt–or something along those lines with your ginghams.  We’d ask that you then post it up on your blog linking back to both Krista and my blogs.  That’s all!

Dates: The Gingham Giveaway will be held early in June.  We’ll let you know when to leave a comment on our blogs, but we’d like you to be thinking about it.  We’ll announce those who want to play along with us, and because gingham is so picnic-Americana-looking, we ask that you blog about your block(s) or your quilt top on Wednesday July 4th.

Because this is a summer fun project, we don’t need your quilt to be quilted, or your blocks to be finished.  We just want you to have some fun with some ginghams and play, play, play!

Check back. . . or should I say. . . gingham back!

Gingham on my Mind

Well, I have gingham on my mind, but other things too.

Like these three grandsons of mine who showed up for the weekend.

Like this stack of papers who arrived on Wednesday and are Still Here.  (Definitely a work in progress.)  (Right now I’m taking a break.)

But this one is somewhere in between there and here, in terms of Works In Progress.  Here I’m sewing the borders on, but I finished (yay!) and it’s at the quilter’s right now, getting all stitched up.

Here’s some gingham things I’ve found while trolling the net. . . a book.  Is it me, or does that person they identify as “Jakie Kennedy” NOT look like Jacquie Kennedy?

I think the heel has some sparklies that move around.  Talk about elevating gingham beyond where it should go.

This is what I look like when I grade papers.  Ewwww!
However, her shirt is cute, don’t you think?  Love the covered buttons.

Now head over to Freshly Pieced to see what Lee’s got on her mind, at WIP Wednesday.