I had the pleasure of being involved in a very sweet gesture recently.
You may know that the History Quilter lost her dad earlier this year. I am fortunate enough to still have my parents, so I can’t imagine her pain. Being a public figure like History Quilter generates a lot of empathy. That empathy generated a quilt for her from Melissa of Sew Bittersweet Designs, Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts and Jenna of Sew Happy Geek. Susan met all of these wonderful women via Twitter and her podcast.
Lower Left CornerUpper RightNavy Star VariationLower Right
In the strange quirks of the Internet world meeting the Real World, I met Melissa at a BAMQG meeting. She had the quilt and I offered to send it to Susan for her. Susan received it and loved it. How could she not?
It is such a sweet gesture and I am pleased to be a part of it.
I finished the borders for this Original Bullseye over last weekend (12/1). I thought for sure I would be able to finish the back as well, but the headache hangover kept me sewing at a snail’s pace. Also, I had to clear off the cutting table before I could sew.
For some reason, finishing this particular top makes me really feel like I have made true progress on the 26 Projects list.
This top has been hanging around so long (12 years!) that I know I am acting like I finished the whole quilt. I wonder how I will feel then!
Original Bullseye back
I got a bug in my ear to clear out some projects on Friday and made the back for this piece. I am pleased with it and think it matches. It isn’t really very special, but is interesting. As an added bonus my white on black bin has some space in it!
I have to say that I am resolved not to let projects languish for years. In the recent past, I think I have been plowing through projects once they get past the hunting and gathering stage and I hope to continue that practice.
Fortunately, I have friends with better memories than me. Julie wrote a nice overview of our Bullseye project and reminded me that I started this quilt in 2001. Last post on this subject.
TFQ and I decided we wanted to work on a project together. We will each do our own quilts, but we will do the same pattern.
We thought about Bonnie Hunter’s mystery challenge Easy Street, but decided to do our own project. We will be working on a star sampler along the lines of Oh My Stars. The whole idea is to be able to chat about some project together.
One fun thing we found is that boards on Pinterest can be shared! Who knew? That was fun. I probably could have done that forever, but TFQ moved me along.
Star Sampler Fabrics -first batch
At the moment, we are both gathering fabrics. I think TFQ is farther ahead than I am on that front, but I am excited about the fabrics I have picked so far.
Of course, I have a Philip Jacobs fabric. This fabric pulled my color scheme together, sort of. I saw the non-PJ fabrics laying on top of the PJ fabrics and thought they would work together. The solids are from the Chicopee line and the dots are just….dots.
I need more fabrics; I want the piece to be scrappy, but a controlled kind of scrappy. I just haven’t taken the time to look yet. I think I need another purple or violet as well. I know I want a lot more fabrics.
One big problem, for me, is the background. We need about 4.5 yards for the background and I don’t have that much of any fabric. I am not sure what look I want for the background. I thought about one of the dots that I have with a white background. Some of the fabrics I have may be a possibility, but I have to look–I have to make visual decisions visually.
I am hiding upstairs for a minute to breathe. I am Miss Popularity down in the dining room (she who brings food is popular) at the moment.
The Black Friday Sew in is on Friday (thus the name). Sandy organized all the things she wants to work on and I realized halfway through the main course that I had not thought about what I am going to work on tomorrow. Yes, I have to sort silver and put the china away, but I am talking about PROJECTS! Sewing projects!
Yikes!
The Spiderweb top is done and I am still ripping out paper, so I will start the back, etc after I finish the ripping. I don’t want to work on that, because I want to be at the machine and ripping out foundation paper is a good TV project. I have to put the borders the A-B-C Challenge, so I will definitely do that. BUT what else? I don’t know. I do hope something occurs to me before I waste a whole day staring at the machine.
T-shirt quilt, I think.
Patchwork Wheel blocks
Perhaps those two projects will keep me busy and I will get a lot of them done.
I climbed up the ladder into the fabric closet to pull down the Spiderweb blocks. I had hoped no ladder would be required, but no such luck. Here in Northern California everything is stored vertically. I was in the process of squishing my hand getting Spiderweb blocks out of a plastic tub when I saw my mixed media box. Idly, I wondered if anything was in it.
Yes, after lamenting and wailing for so long, I have finally found the Original Bullseye. It was in the mixed media box I made back in 2007. Really, nothing fabric should be in that box and I have no idea what possessed me to store this quilt top there. Desperation and lack of enough storage space (or too much crap), I suspect.
I was sure that the last time I wrote about this quilt was about a thousand years ago, but happily, it was only last winter.
Original Bullseye – detail
The quilt is much smaller than I remembered, but, then, again, the quilts I have made lately are much bigger than what they should be.
Now that it is found, I can put a border on it and finish it. I see my eye wandering to the size and wonder if I should make more blocks to beef it up a bit.
Regardless, I can certainly finish this quilt now. Yay!
Frances and I are back in action with the Sampler class. I am excited, but nervous because I haven’t done this in awhile. The next class is about fusible machine applique’.
Flower Wreath
Supply List:
Notebook for notes
Pen to take notes 😉
Mechanical Pencil
Fabric (at least 4 different, preferably more greens to create variety in the leaves; scraps work well)
Fabric Scissors
Paper scissors
Small ruler
Glue stick
Template plastic
Dinner plate or compass
Fusible web, such as Misty Fuse or Steam-a-Seam 2 or Steam-a-Seam Lite
Applique’ pressing sheet
Tear away stabilizer (the size of your background)
Iron
Ironing surface
3″x5″ piece of fabric backed with 2 layers of tearaway stabilizer
Cut a piece of fabric for the background .5″ to 1″ bigger than the finished size of the block. If you have a regular background fabric, use that, if not use a coordinating fabric. I took a look at my current blocks to help me decide what background I wanted to choose. This is a coordinated scrappy quilt, but I also wanted to find a background that would work well with the applique pieces that I was planning to put on top of it.
After cutting out a background, you need to put it aside for the time being. You will need it after you make the templates and the ring.
Rough cut pattern out for templates
Cut out all the templates from the paper. Leave a little of the paper around the edges. Feel free to adjust the design of the flowers or leaves, if you want the shapes to be a little different.
All patterns rough cut
In the photo above, you can see all of them templates rough cut out, except the circles. The circles print from EQ7 on two sheets of paper. You will need to rough cut the two pieces for each circle and then tape them together. In order to tape the pieces together, hold each piece for one circle in a hand up to the light and match them up you. Before you hold them up, have the tape ready just to tack the pieces together. You can use a light box for this procedure also.
Fold circles in quarters
Fold circles in quarters to make a line down the centers. This will help you line them up to make the ring for the wreath.
I never did this before and had to figure it out, but it works pretty well.
Layer Circles
Using the folds, layer the circles together so you can see the black line of the upper circle. Draw a line around the smaller circle using the smaller circle as a template. You will be drawing on the larger circle. Use a soft implement (pencil or roller ball pen) that doesn’t skip to draw the circle. Once you have drawn the circle, you can put the smaller circle away with your other templates. I use a zipper bag for all of the pieces and parts.
Check width
Fold up the larger circle. Check the width of the ring of the wreath using a small ruler to make sure it is even. Once you are happy with the line. Cut along the line without opening the circle.
Complete Ring Pattern
Once you have cut out the ring, open up the ring.
Now you are ready to make the templates. Grab all of your patterns, your template plastic and your glue stick.
Glue the paper templates to the template plastic.
No template plastic on folds
The only tricky part is for the ring. I avoid the folds in the pattern and only put the template plastic on the parts of the ring where the fold isn’t. Why? Because I want to be able to fold this piece and put it in a zipper bag. Also, by adding the template plastic in quarters you save template plastic and you can use smaller pieces. Finally, you don’t end up with a circle of leftover template plastic.
Trim the templates to the line on the pattern.
Front & back of templates
Depending on the kind of template plastic you have, your templates will look something like the photo above.
Part 2 will talk about choosing fabrics etc.
You can find more detail about machine appliqueing directional motifs, such as letters in a separate tutorial.
Sandy from Quilting… for the Rest of Us announced the Black Friday Sew-in on Big Tent yesterday. Here is her message:
” Do you, like me, want to avoid the Black Friday shopping rush like the plague? Join me for our second annual Black Friday Sew-In! I’ll have a giveaway on my blog that day–instructions will be there for how to enter. I’ll also be opening up a linky for any bloggers or podcasters who want to do their own giveaways for BFSI. Plus, if you’re on Twitter, follow the fun using #BFSI (Same hashtag as last year but that’s okay–you’ll be able to review last year’s fun if you just keep scrolling down.)
Event Details
What: Black Friday Sew-In
Who: Quilting…for the Rest of Us Quiltcast Supergroup
When: Fri Nov 23, 2012, 12 am – noon EDT “
Pam at Hip to Be a Square has been mentioning on her last few podcasts. Hope you will be able to join in. If you are not on Twitter, you can watch along via Tweetchat by typing in the hashtag #bfsi and watching the scroll of tweets fly by.
Julie posted about her Windmills/our joint Windmill project and it occurred to me that I hadn’t post anything about this potential quilt.
I am still very much in the Hunting and Gathering stage at this point and I don’t know how large it will be, what the background color will be or anything about it yet. It is not yet up on my radar, which it why it never occurred to me to post about it.
Julie and I went to lunch last week and she gave a bunch of windmills she had cut for me. The photo shows some of them. Lots of lovely and luscious batiks!
We are cutting windmills for each other and we are using a Come Quilt With Me rotary cutting template/ruler. It is a piece of Lucite thick enough to use with a rotary cutter. It was very slick, so I put True Grips on the bottom to keep it still while I cut. True Grips are expensive, so I use the background as well as the dots. I think they work better than the sheet of plastic that can be adhered to rulers. True Grips are easier to put on as well.
I cut Windmills whenever I am cutting into a new piece of fabric or pull out a piece of fabric from the fabric closet, so there is quite a variety. Lots of dots, pinks and turquoises. 😉
For the moment, I am just going to continue cutting. I have other projects on my plate that are higher up on the list.
Recently we went to Disneyland for a vacation. It was a special birthday for DH so he got to pick the trip. I had a great time, because I love Disneyland, but it was very tiring. I don’t think a pair of shoes exist that would make walking on concrete for 14 hours a day 3 days in a row comfortable.
History Quilter Image
One of the highlights of the trip was meeting Susan of the History Quilter website and podcast. I have had some GREAT experiences meeting Internet people IRL and some experiences where the people should have just stayed in my computer. Meeting Susan was a great experience. I left the park in order to meet Susan. The boys rode all the rollercoasters, Tower of Terror and other stomach lurching rides while I was busy. We met at my hotel and then walked over and had smoothies at a cafe nearby.
Our boys are similar in age and have similar interests, so we had stuff to talk about on that subject. I was thrilled to hear about her new machine and that she lived in my area early in her life. Great visit!
PP Fabric from Pam
Pam of Hip to Be a Square podcast recently had a major fabric giveaway (closed now, sorry). She was kind enough to send me the Pointillist Palette fabric. If you don’t know, Pointillist Palette fabric was designed by Debra Lunn and Michael Mrowka back in the dark ages of quiltmaking. This fabric cemented my friendship with TFQ, got me stashing fabric and started my Pointillist Palette series. It was one of the first lines I noticed that was so vibrant and bright. Some day I’ll write about one of my first meetings with TFQ.
Anyway. I still have PP fabric waiting to be made into the last 3 quilts of the PP series, but getting some more is never a bad idea. Thanks, Pam!
I clicked on a link to some new fabric by Daisy Janie and saw that she has something called the Lancaster Diamond Quiltalong. The design looks just like my Renewed Jelly Roll Race. There are some small differences, but essentially the designs are the same. As I often say: there is almost nothing new in quiltmaking.
Tutorials
Adrianne, Little Bluebell reminded me of another way to make half square triangles (triangle squares). If I think about it right, some of the edges are on the bias, but I know that won’t daunt you intrepid piecers!
Do you get inspiration from the Quilt Index? Here is a tutorial on how to use it to your best advantage.
Around the Web
I receive the Cloth Paper Scissors Daily newsletter, which provides their daily blog post in my email. I don’t always have time to read it, but I saved one called “Start a Letter Writing Campaign.” I put off reading it for a few days, because the title made me think of petitions and political campaigns and I want to stay as far away from that stuff as possible. Boy was I wrong. This was a homage to actual letter writing with pen and paper. I loved it. Perhaps you will, too.
I am embarrassed to say that I missed this homage to the quilts the Bay Area Modern quiltmakers entered in the county fair on Adrianne’s site.
Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner does some interesting things. Over the weekend, she was tweeting about putting a zipper in using her embroidery machine. I could not visualize it and neither could landscape lady. Katie is great at posting videos and so we asked her to do so. She did! Check out this blog post including the video that shows a zipper being put into a little project.
Lazy Girl Blog has a round up of interfacing. I think there is never too much information about interfacing. This appears to be a new line of interfacing by Lazy Girl Quilting. I am not endorsing these products, as I haven’t tried them. Just letting you know what’s out there.
Ruth of Pippin Sequim (remember her from here?) was featured on the QuiltCon blog for her block for the QuiltCon challenge. She really shines in the blocks she made.
Mobile Quiltmaking
I am an inveterate journal writer. I write almost every morning and draw and doodle in my journals. They are not beautiful and are very text heavy. I have illusions of people studying them in awe after I am dead.
Now that you have stopped laughing, gotten up off the floor and are back to reading <insert stern look here>, I will continue. 😉
I have dabble in OneNote, Penultimate, SpringPad, MobileNoter and Evernote. My friend swears by Evernote and I miss the tactile feeling of the pen on the paper. The stylus on Penultimate just doesn’t work for me. So, when a friend sent me an article where Evernote has teamed up with Moleskine, I was very interested. The fact that I can put drawings into Evernote may make me move, at least partially, to online journaling. I’ll update my app and see what I think. The update may only be good for the pay per view version in which case I will only come back and tell you nothing happened. I am not buying a $50 app just to try out a mobile journal. Sorry kids.
Other
Tomspoolery Sad Day
I got a notice from Tomspoolery that they are closing.
I have an account, but I didn’t use them that much. I tend to go towards SeamedUp for this kind of thing, but this blog is really my go to place for organizing my projects. I also have a file for each of my quilts and stuff gets stuck in those files as I work on a quilt.
Still, I am sorry to see them go as I think they made SeamedUp a better place.
I also liked their color scheme – very cheerful.
Then…I was going to continue…
If you haven’t been over to SeamedUp lately, go check it out. They did a major overhaul recently and the site is looking really good. I don’t think it has reached Ravelry proportions yet, but it will.
BUT, then this…
SeamedUp died this week. I really liked the new color scheme and recent changes. I thought things were looking up for them. First Tomspoolery, now SeamedUp. Sad. Many people are moving over to ThreadBias. I reserve my preferred login and I uploaded one project, but I don’t want to spend more time on another site that doesn’t have longevity.
This is another gorgeous ‘500’ title from Lark Books. More eye candy and inspiration for all kinds of creative people.
This book starts off with an introduction by author Ray Hemachandra. The introduction is interesting, because Ray mentions that beading is one of the oldest forms of creative expression and then moves on to mention changes to the art form’s professionalism in the last 20 years, among them social media, Etsy, copyright considerations and online connections. While this is not the first time I have read something about online communities and social media in a print publication I notice that the conversation is becoming more prominent.
Mr. Hemachandra gives an excellent description of the book, which I could not write more eloquently. He says “The book includes so many beaders with wonderful personal stories to share and that I’d like to share…but this isn’t that book. That’s another book to come soon, I hope. This book instead tells its stories through its photographs of jewelry….”. This book, as I said, is a feast for the eyes and will provide so much inspiration you will go to bed at night with your head spinning. You will have to make up your own stories about the artists and artworks, however.
The majority of the photos depict necklaces and bracelets. And in this department extreme beading is not an overstatement. I thought Kissy Fish was pretty extreme beading, and, perhaps, it is on a quilt, but I scattered a few beads across the surface in comparison to some of the amazing works in this book.
Neutrals such as bronze, grey, black, gold, pearl and silver dominate the colors, as jewelry tends to be made predominantly with those colors. There are a few glimmers of color on each page. Susan Blessinger’s Impending Bloom necklace looks very neutral in color in the full photo, but the detail shot shows dragonfly-esque pearlescent colors that are not visible in the full photo. Jamie Cloud Eakin’s Bling, pg.76, sparkles with prisms and crytals reflecting magenta and purples, evne on the book page. Of course, the pieces with pure beads and no metallic parts have more color.
There is a pretty, but serious necklace (You & Eye by Rachel Nelson-Smith, pg.116) with very realistic looking eyes. The necklace is more of a collar done in pure white with the eyes embedded in the surface beading. I am not a big fan of fake eyes, because they often look freaky, but the eyes in this piece look very real. I kept looking at the photo and waiting for one to blink.
One piece I noticed that was not a necklace or bracelet was a kind of long sleeved shrug (for those of you who knit), pg.118. It is called Dragon Lady and is a garment. I never thought of using beads to make a wearable accessory.
One of my favorite pieces is Jennifer Cameron’s Carnival (pg.75), because of the lovely combination of blues, greens and purples.
Look at the shapes, materials and colors and be inspired.
Thanks to Lark Books for sending this book to me to review!
Quick post, because my sister asked me to share this with all of you: http://fly-tribe.blogspot.com/2012/08/givingflight.html. The basics are:
The Fly Tribe came together as a bunch of individuals looking to learn a bit about what it meant to run a creative business. We came together to take Kelly Rae Robert’s Flying Lessons. Along the way, we made some friends, we supported one another’s dreams, we lifted one another up when difficulties (in business and life) threatened to get the better of us. We didn’t just learn to “Take Flight” (as Kelly Rae’s course suggests). We learned to Give Flight to one another.
Now with one year of soaring under our wings, we want to share the love.
Welcome to the Summer of 2011 Flying Lessons Alumni’s
Giving Flight Blog Hop and Flying Lessons Give-Away.
It’s our Anniversary Celebration.
This is a HUGE celebration that is broken up into two parts….
Go to http://fly-tribe.blogspot.com/2012/08/givingflight.html to read the rest and take advantage. Why not?
My SIL kindly sent me some photos of the layouts she tested before putting her Infinity blocks together. It is interesting to see the use of color to create the layout. This type of layout did not even occur to me. I was thinking more about the wreath effect of the piecing.
CLW’s Infinity Layout #2
I am really glad my SIL sent me these photos so I could be reminded of the other ways to layout blocks.
I received a bunch of scraps from Pat Bravo at Art Gallery Fabrics. She offers them periodically and ‘scraps’ is a total misnomer.
The most bright and cheerful fabric was a scrap, but everything else was half yards or slightly smaller. Compared to what I consider unusable, these ‘scraps’ were a trip to the fabric store.
All the fabrics I got were in the yellow family. Some of them were gold. Some more on the brown side. There were two fabrics with words on them, which I liked, but refrained from looking up on Quiltshops.com.
My intent was to make an entire quilt with the foreground from this package of fabrics. I am not sure that is possible. The quilt might be a bit too boring. I have a few yellow fabric squares that I have been cutting, so I’ll see about adding those in.
AGF Fabric Scraps
I washed the fabric, as is my habit and got to work.
I took the opportunity to cut a few pieces for myself, but really, I cut them into 8″ squares to cut on the Accuquilt, which I did.
I think it is so interesting that Pat and her crew color coordinate the scraps. This is a fabric combination that I would never put together myself, but it is one, which is somewhat appealing and I am looking forward to the challenge of trying to make it work. I need to finish the Pink Donation top before I can start this one and I need to cut some background fabrics.
There should be a reality show called Vendors Behaving Badly. It couldn’t be any worse than the reality TV shows on channels today. When copious amounts of caffeine and chocolate didn’t work, I took myself off to the John Berggruen Gallery to look at the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit they have on display.
I love Wayne Thiebaud’s work.
I love the way his brushstrokes look. I love the way he paints regular things. The cakes and pies and other desserts are kind of special, but they are also normal. I strive to be a bit influenced by his work in my own drawings for the Creative Prompt Project.
Letter Tray
One of the things I like about his painting of the out tray or letter tray (don’t know the real title) is the writing. The way he painted the writing really makes it look real, if a bit blurred. I am interested in his technique, because of my recent attempts at including writing in my Creative Prompt Responses, e.g. #141.
I tried to notice things about his work and not do just a “drive by” viewing. This was an interesting selection of his works. I had seen similar paintings, but I am not sure if I have seen these exacts images.
I prefer his cakes and desserts to his landscapes, so I made myself really look at the landscapes this time. I think of Mr. Thiebaud as using very thick paint. I didn’t see that as much in this exhibit in general, but also didn’t see it in the landscapes. I wonder if he uses a flatter painting technique with his landscapes? I was able to still see the brush strokes when I looked at the paintings at an angle. I couldn’t see 3 dimensionality, however, looking at the painting straight on. The strokes on the backgrounds were very vertical, which I think added to the sense of extreme hills.
The landscapes were almost a caricature of the City. He used subtle colors and different colors that one would expect for a landscape – blues in the trees, turquoise and yellow. The colors add interest and are effective.
There were a few paintings from the 1960s and some from 2004, 2007, etc. It was very interesting to see the evolution in his work, not only in technique, but also in the changes to his series.
Hats and Shoes
One thing I noticed in the Hats and Shoes painting was the pink ceiling was a slightly lighter pink than the wall. Very effective.
I am pleased that I went. I would love to have the space as a studio!
The CQFA Retreat was over the weekend. It was a relatively quiet retreat. Several people had to cancel at the last moment, which was a shame. Still, we had a good time and people made good progress on their various progress.
My spot with Julie
We were in the same location as last year, which has a separate building in which we are able to sew.
Other sewing space
This was my view as I sewed. Reva does wonderful work and it was wonderful to watch her, Sue and Robin’s work evolve.
Reva’s Black & White Piece
The black and white piece is made from the fat quarter bundle Reva won from the prizes we got from Fabricworm.
Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch
Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch was made from Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I liked looking at it. I like the pink.
Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch 2
Robin added some 4 patches on the ends to make the piece a bit longer.
Sue’s Scrap Quilt
Sue half square triangle scrap quilt is the kind of project I like to do on the Retreat. Sue had the blocks done and thought to do the rest at home. We encouraged her to use Robin’s design wall to finish the piece. She did so and made good progress. She wanted to use up as many scraps as she could and I think that she did well. Sue is making this quilt for her bed.
Maureen’s work
I think the pink fabric in the middle left looks like the leaves a tree with the trunk being the piece right below. I mentioned it and Maureen said that we all see what we want to see.
Julie made a lot of progress on various pieces. She started some and made progress on others. I was very impressed with her progress.
The Baggo piece is from a challenge where each person receives a bag of supplies from another and makes something out of it. I was particularly taken with the Baggo piece’s eye stamps. I was even more impressed when Julie told me she carved them herself. I really like the images and encouraged her to make more and sell them. I would be first in line for a set although I don’t do much stamping.
She quilted and bound this piece. She was irritated at the binding, which tinkled every time she worked on it, because of the bells she had added. I told her to stop and do something else in between. By the end of the weekend, the binding was done and Julie was not gnashing her teeth.
Julie
We went out to dinner on Saturday night together, which was fun. We had the most wonderful waiter who was kind, didn’t complain about any special requests and gave us each individual bills.
