Artquiltmaker Blog – Page 251 – Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity

Stocking Work

I finished writing all the cards on my list last night. That means I get to work on embellishing the stockings. It is kind of a reward.

As I explained previously, these are simple felt stockings. Every year I try to embellish them a little more so they are more interesting and more special.

Tonight I worked on DH’s stocking, the Noel stocking. I thought about adding joyeux, but I don’t think there is enough space. I am not going to change anything major, because I want to focus on the embellishing.

I went around the Noel in a blanket stitch, but I did it wrong. Still, I think it looks more interesting now than before.

I had already done the blanket stitch on the bottom, but added some to the top, which was a little tricky.

I am not sure what to add next, so I may move on to another stocking.

Beading, maybe?

Gift Post #2-2013: Pillowcases

I had some time and thought I would make some pillowcases for the littlest nephews. The ‘littlest’ nephews are now 2d and 4th graders so ‘little’ is relative.

Still, I thought it might be a fun to give them a pillowcase they could especially use during the holiday season. I won’t have much of a chance to do that as all the niece-phews are getting quite old.

They came out well, but I really had trouble with the directions this time. Once again, I used the Twiddletails tutorial, which has been great in the past, though it isn’t as straightforward as it could be — or it is not written in the way I think. I have decided that what I need to do is measure a pillow case of my own, figure out the dimensions of each piece, take what is good from the Twiddletails tutorial and create my own tutorial. I haven’t posted a tutorial in awhile and it is about time.

Christmas Pillowcases - open 2013 — Christmas Pillowcases – open 2013

I think the problem is the selvedge. I always get confused when I am reading the directions about the selvedge. I don’t know if it matters where the selvedge ends up. I have made notes on my printout and have determined that they are muddying the situation. It could be that I need to just print out a new version of the directions and make other notes. We will see once I measure my own pillowcase.

* This is the second version of this post. The first version disappeared in the move of my blog.

Sewing Machine Frustration

Sigh.

My iron died earlier in the week. I did find a spare, but it smells funny when I press. Fortunately, Amazon has the iron that I wanted, the Panasonic Sarah recommended in her DVD/online class, and it arrived yesterday. I haven’t tried it yet, but do not anticipate any problems. Of course, one has to sew things together in order to have need of an iron to press them.

Yesterday my machine refused to continue stitching the decorative stitch I was using to finish a bag that will, with any luck, be a part of a Christmas gift. I had done half the top stitching and then the machine switched to straight stitch.

This is really unfair. I have two weeks ahead of me (minus the holidays) to stitch and my machine acts up? It couldn’t wait until January 5th?

As luck would have it I got a brochure from my ‘local’ dealer for new machines at Holiday prices. I don’t want to buy a new machine now for a number of reasons:

Money doesn’t grow on trees
I like my machine and want it to just work
I don’t want to buy a machine in a rush; I’d like time to do some research
I don’t want to learn to use a new machine right at this moment
I’d rather buy my dream machine when the Young Man is out of college and we have some spare funds.
If I buy an interim machine now, I will feel like I have to wait longer to buy a dream machine….unless I win the lottery, of course.
A new machine would have to fit in my table, because I certainly don’t want to buy a new table and the machines with the larger harp space don’t fit.
I would have to get a new insert for my table

The machine that caught my eye in the brochure is the Janome 6600P. It seems like it would be a good interim machine. It has similar features to the machine I have without the embroidery module. In looking at the web page, I can’t tell what kind of decorative stitches it has.

Well, hopefully, I can get the last bit of decorative stitching done and then switch to the Jem for regular piecing.

What a pain.

Creative Prompt #237: Flare

solar flare

flare gun

road flare

flare up

Sigma Beauty eye shadow palette

flared jeans

Hyder flares

The GorillaTorch Flare hands-free flashlight features flexible legs and magnetic feet that allow you to attach it to anything.

flare gun

offshore combustion flares

celestial flare

CloudFlare offers free and commercial, cloud-based services to help secure and accelerate websites. Includes features, pricing and testimonials.

Original Flares™ by Zaggora, the classic ankle-length running leggings designed to get you hot and burn more calories.

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.

temper flares

Canda’s fashion magazine

Definition: “A flare, also sometimes called a fusee, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion. Flares are used for signalling, illumination, or defensive countermeasures in civilian and military applications. Flares may be ground pyrotechnics, projectile pyrotechnics, or parachute-suspended to provide maximum illumination time over a large area. Projectile pyrotechnics may be dropped from aircraft, fired from rocket or artillery, or deployed by flare guns or handheld percussive tubes.” Wikipedia

emergency flare

maritime distress signal

app that can effortlessly add effects and textures to your photos with Flare, a fast, easy, and beautiful darkroom for your Mac

WordPress app

spell on World of Warcraft (aside: WoW shows up quite a bit in this series of posts for a person who doesn’t play)

The Flare is Kilgore College’s award-winning weekly campus newspaper.

Flare programming language page for next-generation xml-based programming language.

Fibre Flare safety lights!

FLARE is the premier organization for first year liberal arts majors at Texas A&M University.

iridium flares

lens flare

fender flares

FLARE stands for Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education. It is the name of the interdisciplinary program at The University of Iowa that sponsors he PhD in Second Language Acquisition. In other words, FLARE is not the name of the degree that students achieve; rather, it is the program within which students study to obtain the PhD in Second Language Acquisition.

Inspired by the retro-future scifi of the 1950’s, Flare is a mad experiment in social presence re-engineering.

Inspiration Holiday

This was part of the holiday setting at a party I attended at the beginning of the month. I thought it was pretty and unusual.

BAMQG Meeting Report

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the BAMQG meeting was on Saturday. I can’t tell you how happy I was to attend the meeting. It was a surprise, because I thought the meeting was on the 8th. Angela told me that it was on the 14th and when I checked, I realized I could attend! I declined the invitations of several Christmas parties this year, because, as a friend aptly described, mustering merriment just wasn’t in me. I didn’t feel like I had to muster merriment to attend the quilt party. There were quilts! What more did a person need?

One of the show and tells was Cheryl’s quilt (above). She won the blocks and added the aqua/greeny-blue. I love the way this quilt looks. It isn’t stark like all-black and white quilts can be. The gold isn’t depressing. There is a lot of movement, which made my eyes move around the quilt and every time I looked at it, I saw something interesting. This is a fabulous quilt and one that makes me think, again, about the ratio of black to white in a black and white print.

See the full quilt on Flickr in the BAMQG pool.

One of the small groups that the president created this year were meeting with their round robin quilts.

This is a great shot – I wasn’t being diligent about taking photos.

Trust me when I say that their round robins LOOK fabulous. The one that really caught my attention has the pinky-red and green. the contrast of the two colors is wonderful.

This group has done a great job. Their centers started out interesting and a strong start clearly set them all off to do their best work.

Cheryl also finished a quilt for her nephew who will receive it as a Christmas gift. I took a close-up, because I missed my chance to take a full photo. Fortunately, there is a full photo on Flickr (say that 3 times really fast!).

She did a great job using mostly the same darks, but interspersing a few others in to add interest. I also liked the background.

BFSI Question #3 Review

As I mentioned on Sunday, a few weeks ago a group of us had a Black Friday Sew-in, mostly on Twitter (you can read the old tweets by searching for the #BFSI hashtag). I asked you a bunch of questions in order to give you the opportunity to win a bunch of books compliments of Lark Crafts. I thought it would be fun to recap your comments and you, dear readers, reacted well to the first review (posted on Sunday). You can find the original post that coincides with this review on Friday November 29. You can also find more about the Black Friday Sew-in on the introduction post.

In Question #3, I asked you about guilds and groups. These answers were a lot harder to distill down to one line answers. Reasons for belonging and not belong are complicated and I share some of the thoughts and feelings that you wrote.

Tell me about the guild or guilds to which you belong. Why do you belong? What do you like? What would you change?

“My “main squeeze” guild is wonderful. Smallish–we have something like probably 60 people on the rolls but about 40 show up regularly, and about 25-30 of us go to a lot of the retreats. I love it. We’re very loosey-goosey, rules-lite. We’ve never really elected our officers–once in awhile they ask, “Hey, anyone else want to do this?” We all say, “No, you’re doing great,” and we move on. Anyone who wants to lead something pretty much can. When someone has an idea, they stand up and ask, “Would anyone like to…” and if people do, that person organizes it. If no one does, we move on. We’re good at basically moving on. No drama. Love it. Lots of laughing and goofing around during meetings, and everyone’s show n’ tell is appreciated. I do technically belong to two other guilds but never make meetings. But I do my best not to miss meetings of my main guild!” (SandyH)
“I’m a member of two guilds – the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild (name soon to be changed) and the East Cobb Quilters Guild. AMQG has <50 members, and I consider it my “main” guild since I know everyone in it. The ECQG has over 300 members, and I go there mainly to show off stuff and get access to national teachers.” (Pam)
“I belong to a local guild of about 140 ladies. I was a member years ago, and returned to the guild in May. Twenty years ago, I was part of a large young(ish) group of members, we had young children and still were able to be active in the guild. We held offices and chaired committees. The older members from before are, well even older, as are we ‘youngsters’. There is no young group now. The meetings are marked with strident, almost desperate requests for volunteers. The obit emails come more than once a month.The guild needs new members, and I don’t know how to help. I rejoined to find a community, and am unsure if I will continue.” (Carole)

I think Carole describes the problem that a lot of guilds end up with:

guild starts

lots of enthusiasm

Enthusiasm turns into projects

Lots of people work on projects

More people needed as projects become more successful

Guild becomes about the projects and not the people

People drop out, because of demands

Guild falters

Pleas for assistance

Nobody is willing to cut programs and focus on the people.

I don’t think this is limited to quilt guilds. I really think that successful guilds look at each project every year and compare it to their membership and make sure every projects contributes something to the guild. I don’t think guilds can be successful if there isn’t enough time for socializing. For a lot of people, visiting a quilt guild meeting is one of the few times they can get out without husbands/wives and children. Such meetings needs to be worth their while.

“SCVQA is my guild. It’s the first guild that I gave belonged to and I think it’s great. The quilters are friendly, helpful, and informative. It’s well organized. There are classes and guest artist, as well as small group meetings throughout the month. Each meeting has fabric and books for sale. Plus there are other fun activities and community outreach opportunities. I will always stay a member.” (Polly)
“I belong to an online guild that I have belonged to for over 20 years. I can always make the meetings but it wish it was a touch more active.”(Cathy)
“I belong to the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild, and consider myself an active member. It was the first quilt guild I’ve ever joined, even though I’d been quilting for a few years before moving here. Pretty sure the reason I joined was to meet other quilters and hopefully make friends. (Done, and Done! lol)
Likes: the other members,;being inspired by other members’ work; this year we did small groups, and it was kind of nice getting to know a few members at a time; I’m participating in an intermediate/advanced round robin project which is *amazing*; and I’m looking forward to more national speakers/workshops in the future.

I also belong to the SCVQG, the local Art Quilters Guild, and the South Bay Area MQG (sadly, I’m not terribly active in any of those, sorry!)

Being very active in one means sacrificing the others. I have enjoyed the meetings I’ve attended at the other guilds, just haven’t been able to get to them as regularly as the BAM meetings.”(Kelly)
- “I belong to the Wenonah quilters and I like to talk Quilty with like people. I also like when we have guest who talk about how they quilt. I would have a committee to make each meeting more interesting to all of the members. And more fabric exchanges.”(Ethel)
- “I do belong to guild, however, I am not able to make the workdays or the monthly meetings since the group meets during the day. What I do take advantage of though is the fabulous library that the guild has. The books can be signed out for several months at a time.” (Janet)
Janet brings up an excellent point about guilds. Many of them still have libraries of books. This can be a huge benefit if the Library continually gets new books, especially if you do not have the space or money to buy books of your own.
“I belong to a guild of about 150 members. I have made lots of great friends who understand why we like fabric and quilting and know that it is OK to have a stash and not to finish a project every week. They provide inspiration and support. We enjoy and learn from each other and from the programs presented.” (Beth B)
“In 1999 I visited my local guild. DS had just moved out, and I was empty nesting again. Yes, one can do that twice. The guild is large, 225 or so strong. What drew me in were Show and Share, friendly people, the whole comment interest business. I like those aspects, speakers and the lovely inexpensive workshops. What I don’t like: not as interesting speakers or workshops. The powers that be work very hard, but don’t seem to want input without full on participation, for example board office or committee chairmanship.” (Diane Rincon)
“I belong to the Johnston County Quilters, which is sponsored by the County Extension Homemakers. I go to the night meetings (since I work days), which has a small attendance. We do show and tell, learn a new technique, and talk about quilting. We have a small quilt show once a year in the fall. We’ve been making lap quilts for the meals-on-wheels participants & we’re looking for a project with kids.” (Joyce)

It looks like Joyce’s guild has a small, but manageable group of activities that benefits the members. I wonder if there is a database of quilt guilds with descriptions of their activities?

“I belong to a small traditional guild in the mountain community where we have a vacation home. I joined for 2 reasons – 1) to get to know more ladies in the community, and 2) because the guild at “home” is large and at some point I got the feeling it was stuffy and unfriendly. The ladies in the mountains are very nice and welcoming.I would love to have a little group of stay at home mommies near me to get together with on a regular basis and sew with, but everyone seems too busy or they don’t sew!” (Jen)

If you do not belong to a guild or quilt group, why not?
The major factors for not belonging to a guild seem to be the timing of the meetings, shyness, getting to the meetings, feeling unwelcome or awkward when new at a meeting or not being able to get to the meeting, because of physical or age related reasons.

For the first time since I became a quilter, I do not belong to a quilt guild. I plan to join the local guild in January.

Sophie, who wrote the above, did not say why she didn’t belong to a guild at the moment, but it is nice to hear she will be trying one out. I find belonging to a guild something that I value. I do have to moderate my tendency to jump in and do everything asked of me, but I do that by picking something I can manage and doing that.

“I’m not currently a guild member even though I have several available. This is mostly due to the day or time of the meetings not being convenient and my own forgetfulness. One guild does meet at a time that is perfect for me. Unfortunately, when I visited that guild the members were not at all friendly or welcoming.” (Jane)

One of the guilds I visit is very clique-ish. I have tried to join a couple of times, but never got anything out of it, so I usually don’t renew when renewal time comes around.

“The one guild in my area meets once a month at night a fairly good drive away and I have trouble driving at night . Plus I work early in the morning. I know I should be able to make it work and some of it is laziness on my part. I do miss and need friends that like the same things I do.” (Carol)

I think getting to meetings will become more of a problem and wish there was some kind of video conferencing that would be effective as we age.

“I do not belong to a guild. The reason why not is I’ve been to a guild meeting sort of a try out and was totally disappointed. My imagination of a guild was people get together to sew so I took my grandmother’s flower garden with me to work on. I was the oddball in the room as no-one else brought anything with them.”(Kati R)I don’t belong to a guild yet. It’s something I’m planning to look into in the coming year because I’d really like to connect with local quilters. I haven’t yet mainly because I tend to be very shy with new people, so it takes me a while to work myself around to doing a thing like going to a group meeting where I don’t know anyone for the first time. But I know once I go and break the ice, I’ll most likely wonder why it took me so long! There are I think at least groups that meet close enough for me to have an easy drive to (including one that meets at my LQS less than 3 miles away) which amazed me when I started searching.”(DaisyW)
“I do not belong to a quilt guild. The one closest to me meets during the day, when I am at work.
I have a small group of sewing friends that meet informally, and this, along with online interaction and classes, is enough for me.” (June in AZ)
“Currently I don’t belong to a guild because of my environmental/chemical allergies. I do attend sewing club once a month as its a small group in a large room on a Saturday morning and I have the rest of the day to crash if I need to. It is not just quilting related but lots of ideas. no fuss, just a group that meets for fun. We also have a mini retreat in the afternoon where we take turns showing each other different projects.” (Jackie)

Jackie has a unique issue that is probably more common than we think. I eat a special diet and there are snacks at every meeting. Unless I can see the package to read the ingredients, I don’t eat anything. I do contribute some items that fit with my diet. Jackie’s issue is a reminder to go easy on the perfume when you attend events and meetings.

“I don’t belong to a guild anymore. I got tired of the long drive only to have to deal with silly political games. I wasn’t having fun anymore, so I stopped going. I do belong to a bee, though, and have a great time at our monthly meetings. There are about a dozen of us that have been together for about 15 years and have retreats twice a year.” (Sandi)

“I don’t currently belong to a guild (and never have) I have only lived in my area for a few years and am a little shy when it comes to meeting new people. I am intimidated by the thought of a guild, especially given some of the horror stories that I have heard. I feel much more comfortable hiding in my house doing my thing,,,but have started to wonder lately if it is time to branch out…” (Julia P)

Julia brings up a point that I have thought about. What is a good way to reach out to people who may want to come and are shy. Katie, of Katie’s Quilting Corner, talks about the open house her local shop has to advertise new classes. What if a guild was there to encourage new members?

I did notice that a lot of people have bees to which they belong that take the place of guilds. That is a good way to solve the problem if, for whatever reason, you can’t attend a meeting.

In case you are wondering, I belong to three guilds:

Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Artists, a local art quilt guild. I haven’t been making many art quilts lately or working at all on showing my quilts in galleries and such, but they let me stay anyway.
Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild, a local ‘modern’ guild where I can find a lot of women my age, energy and fun activities.
QuiltNet, an online guild of which I have been a member since the early 1990s.

There are a number of other guilds in the area and I visit them sometimes, if they have an interesting speaker and I have the time. The thing I would like to have is a group of ladies who meet regularly to stitch and talk.

BAMQG Gift

Yesterday was the BAMQG Holiday Party and Meeting. The meeting part was relatively short, then we had the gift exchange and Show & Tell.

I mentioned that I had made a gift for my Secret Santa and showed it a week early, which led to the realization that I was able to make the meeting. The recipient, Laura was really pleased with the tote bag and needle case I made. I really should have put pins and needles in it as I think she was a little confused about what should go where. I showed her and I think it ended up okay.

Jen was my Secret Santa and she made me this Iron Caddy. Didn’t she do a great job?

Iron Caddy - half open — Iron Caddy – half open

Jen said used a free pattern she found somewhere on Ning. She said she made two of them alongside each other so she could test the pattern. I thought that was really sweet; it made me feel like she really cared about the gift to me

The pattern she used didn’t sound like the same one Julie told me about that so frustrated her.

Jen did say that there was one measurement off — the 7″ measurement in the middle should be 6-1/2″. I haven’t tried it so, pay attention if you make this pattern.

I still have not yet made the Iron Caddy pattern I bought at Quiltin’ Cousins, so perhaps I am off the hook?

Thanks to Jen!

BFSI Question #6 Review

A few weeks ago a group of us had a Black Friday Sew-in, mostly on Twitter ( you can read the old tweets by searching for the #BFSI hashtag). I asked you a bunch of questions in order to give you the opportunity to win a bunch of books compliments of Lark Crafts. I thought it would be fun to recap your comments and think about them further. You can find the original post that coincides with this review on Friday November 29. You can also find more about the Black Friday Sew-in on the introduction post.

Question #6 was a two part question:

If you had to teach someone how to do one quiltmaking technique, what would that be?

Here are the answers:

accurate cutting technique
quarter inch sewing/art of the scant quarter inch (this was mentioned a couple of times)
pressing (this also got a couple of mentions)
fabric selection as to type (cotton or blends) and quality, and grain lines.
foundation paper piecing (a couple of people mentioned this)
how to join your binding ends when they meet
how to thread a needle
liberated quilting techniques
how to buy fabric

I think it is so interesting that very basic techniques were mentioned most of all. The answers make me wonder if the way we, as a quiltmaking community, are being taught how to piece is not adequate? I realize that many people teach themselves, which is great, but it is hard to know what to learn when you have nobody showing you the little things. Perhaps there is an opportunity for a self-paced module based program that people could follow along themselves.

I have long been a proponent of learning using the making of a sampler quilt. I like that method, because if you go through the basic sampler blocks (see my quilt class tutorials for more information), you will learn almost all the techniques you need to to know to make almost any block in the future.

I know the problem in learning using sampler blocks -is that they take a long time to make into a quilt. The class I took was 18 weeks long, one block a week, plus an introduction, a couple weeks for quilting, binding, etc. I know it is good to harness the enthusiasm of someone who wants to learn, get them in front of the machine making a project as soon as possible so that they see success quickly and continue to sew.

Perhaps there is a happy medium?

What are the best tutorials for beginning techniques that you have found?

If you are a beginner, what would you want someone to teach you?

how to free motion quilt
machine applique
how to do nice mitered borders
learn to hand-stitch binding in person

Daisy W mentioned that learning to hand stitch a binding was hard to learn watching a video on YouTube. I haven’t watched any videos on binding, but I can imagine. I finally got binding down (making to stitching) one year when I finished 10 or so quilts. I did all the bindings and doing that made the details of the techniques stick in my head.

One part of the process with which I still struggle is the matching up of the ends. This is not something I learned in my beginning quilting class. I, actually, never knew it was possible until I saw a Fons & Porter Love of Quilting tool in a demo at BAMQG. Now I do that all the time as it makes the ends of the binding look so nice. There are no more giant lumps at the ends. I really struggle with getting it right. The directions are difficult and confusing.

Other skills people mentioned want to learn are:

how to join your binding ends when they meet

Jen wrote in a comment “I would really like to learn “quilting for show”, not necessarily because I want to enter shows, but because I’m always hearing how the binding has to be just so, and knots need to be buried, and judges get out their magnifying glasses and rulers, etc. What they are actually looking for exactly is beyond me and I would like to know.” I talked about this in the podcast with Pam (Episode #148). Why is it a secret what judge’s want in binding. I always get called out on my binding – miters aren’t up to snuff and my binding isn’t filled! ERGH! It makes me crazy, because I just don’t know what they want and I really do try and do my best.

continuous line free motion quilting

There are a lot of people who want to learn FMQ and I think there are a lot of tutorials, books and classes out there. I have heard good things about a Craftsy class on negative space quilting from various podcasters. I know my problem with FMQ is that I don’t practice. I think practice makes perfect.

For me, practice is hampered by my machine, my space, to a certain extent, but those are not excuses for not practicing.

Someone also mentioned not being interested in taking classes. I enjoy taking classes, because sometimes they are fantastic and send me spiraling off into a new direction, or solve a problem for me. Other times, I learn one new thing or learn I don’t want to do whatever they are teaching. Regardless, classes expand my horizons and I think they are valuable.

Fabric from Reno

Fabric keeps appearing on my doorstep.

I think I have a fairy quilt mother.

Actually, I know who it is. Mrs. K is on a mission to find some more Happy Go Lucky light grey. In the process she is sending me some lovely greys. I now know what the background of the next few quilts will be. 😉

Creative Prompt #237: Wood

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

St Francis Wood – a San Francisco neighborhood

Definition: “Wood is a hard, fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It has been used for thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers (which are strong in tension) embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees,^[1] or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in tree roots or in other plants such as shrubs.^{[citation needed]} In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also mediates the transfer of water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber.

The Earth contains about one trillion tonnes of wood, which grows at a rate of 10 billion tonnes per year. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy. In 1991, approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction.^[2]” (Wikipedia)

Muir Woods

scrap wood

lumber

Natalie Wood

Ed Wood (1994 movie)

American Wood Council

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

maple

Tiger Woods

birch

Wood County, Ohio

cherry

hardwood floors

alder

Travis Wood

oak

pine

Norwegian Wood

woodworking

wood thrush

World of Wood Journal

wood stove

Wood County, Wisconsin

International Wood Collectors Society – “Founded in 1947, the International Wood Collectors Society is a non-profit Society devoted to distributing information on collecting wood, correctly identifying and naming wood specimens, and using wood in creative crafts.”

wood blinds

wood stork

Redwood Forest

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

Green-Wood – National Historic Landmark cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Scrapitude Complex Triangles

I spent the weekend trying to get back into my sewing habit in between the Christmas Concert that is the Y.M.’s midterm exam, buying and decorating a Christmas plus the house and the general chores such as laundry, cooking.

For us it is pretty cold (house has been 52 degrees F/11 degrees C and a struggle to keep there). I now many of you would revel in 52, but remember that is IN the house. outside is 40, which is perfect weather for sewing.

I think I have done most of the cutting for Scrapitude. I tried to be organized and go back and cut everything I didn’t yet cut. If I didn’t cut everything, I got enough cut to be able to make some triangles.

I had started these complex triangles another time, but ripped out the ones I made because I had used the wrong size of square or triangle. This time the process went much better. First I made the foreground triangles.

I am still trying to make them very scrappy, but I did use squares cut in half this time for the triangles.

Also, I know this unit is NOT called a complex triangle, but I have to look up what it is called and haven’t done it yet. Stay tuned for the resolution of that cliff hanger. 😉

There were very few of the foreground complex triangles, so I was done with those pretty quickly.

I mentioned the cat beds and since I had a bit of extra fabric from the gusset, I used a small piece of that fabric for one of the complex triangle units.

It is not really my kind of fabric, but one piece won’t kill me and it is the right colors.

I also made a lot of the complex triangle units with a background square and two foreground triangles.

The red kind of dominates, but it is ok. I could have used more green as well, but I am sure it will all work out.

I am pleased with the way they came out. I think I must have had a good cutting day because they all went together really well.

Now, on to making some blocks.

Scrapitude Posts

Green & Pink Cat Beds

I hopped back on the Doing Good bandwagon this past weekend and I feel great about that.

I had some Cat Bed kits from the last BAMQG meeting I attended and I decided that sewing them would be a great way to get back on the sewing bandwagon.

These cat beds were using the same fabric Amanda used in the last round of Cat Beds – regular quilting cotton. I thought they were a lot easier to sew, but wondered about durability? I will sew whatever she gives me. It was just a thought.

I only had two and really had to force myself to sew at all and I worked very slowly. It took me much longer to pin these than it has in the past and I think my mind just kept wandering off somewhere.

This color scheme reminds me of the green and pink donation quilt I made last year. It is a fun combination that I don’t think gets used as often as it should.

It was also fun to see that green speckle fabric again. I had some of that at one point, but thought it was long since out of print. I wonder if it has been reprinted?

Both of the cat beds used a fun French cat fabric for the gusset. Again, this a fabric that I wouldn’t normally use, but this is a perfect application for it and it was fun to look at while I worked. As an added bonus, I forgot how much I liked the word “parapluie”.

Amanda did a good job choosing the fabrics as the greens she chose go together very well.

The cats are engaged in a number of different activities, which I found amusing. I hope the cats will as well, though I suppose they won’t care.

I was able to stuff both with a small amount of scraps, but Amanda will be able to use up more of the scraps she has as I didn’t have anywhere near enough. I haven’t been sewing and that is the outcome.

I have to say that doing these wasn’t enough, so I cut up some grey and black squares and have started to work on another donation quilt. I know it sounds a little depressing for a donation quilt, but my grey/black scrap drawer is overflowing. There will be little sparks of color that I will scatter throughout the quilt as some of the prints are mostly black, or have a black background, then have a colorful motif on top. Perhaps I will make it large enough for a teenaged boy. All teenaged boys like black and grey, right?

I don’t have many more scraps that will make a whole quilt from 2.5″ squares, so I may need to go down to 2″ to clear out more. I’ll finish this one and then we’ll see.

The Rag Man

In various books I have read, especially set in Edwardian England, a Rag Man has been mentioned. This person, presumably not always a man, came around and collected scraps of cloth, clothes to worn to use any more, bits of fabric too small for quilts, etc. That is all I know and I have to say that I have longed for a way to get rid of fabric (not quilt fabric!), items made of fabric that are no good for the various charities that take clothes and linens. I just hate tossing them and thinking of this perfectly good fabric, once cleaned and shredded and reused for …what? Something no doubt — ending up in a landfill. Sadly, no such person is forthcoming.

I was thinking of my mythical Rag Man last Friday when I tried to cram some recently washed socks into an overflowing sock drawer. I thought of him again two minutes later when I tried to do the same with some undergarments. That was it. I took everything out of the drawers, both sock and undergarments, one at a time, and sorted the good from the bad, then reorganized the drawers.

In the process, I found some handkerchiefs with the brown spots that come from fabric touching wood. I decided that I would line the couple of drawers I was cleaning out.

As an aside, I like a clean and tidy house, but I am much happier when someone else lines the drawers and cupboards. As I moved to this house when the Young Man was six months old, and I was more concerned about keeping the tiny being alive than lining the drawers, the drawers of my dresser were never lined.

My mind raced around the house for Contac paper or some other type of drawer liner. Nothing came to mind until my mind’s eye rested on the ironing board where I had pressed but not yet cut up a half yard of one of the Mod Century background prints. When I thought of fabric I thought “yes, something warm, but fresh and light.”

Pretty soon, I was cutting a rectangle of the fabric for my underwear drawer and glue sticking it directly to the wood of the drawer. Probably not the ‘right’ way to do it, but since the interior designer had the day off, I went ahead. The sock drawer was next and a giant pile of singles and knee socks went out. I put some more of the Mod Century print down to line the drawer, put the revitalized socks back in an order that surely only makes sense to me and felt very pleased with myself.

We have a lot of house projects to do. There is a long out of date list somewhere that is overwhelming to me every time I come across it. I have decided that one drawer is good. One shelf makes progress. Getting rid of three blouses that have not been worn since 2004 creates space and lightness and that is all good. I don’t have to clean out the entire closet at a go. Incremental or iterative progress is good.

The funny thing is that with this mini-success, I am eying the closet hungrily and can feel the clothes in there quivering in fear. I am also looking at fabric in a new way. 😉