A Few Photos

Tan spinning - fiber from a charity auction, wool. This was my largest spinning project to date, 3 skeins of triple-ply finishing about sport or DK weight. Fluffed up nicely when washed.





























Purple baskets quilt, stash fabrics which limited layout options. About 50" x 50".





















Mystery quilt - red/cream version. Both fabrics are a snowflake print, and the backing is a Christmas toile of red on cream, all from stash. 70 x 55", one Christmas present almost done!

Kitties

My latest quilt idea is to take the kitty designs on two Japanese fabrics and make appliqué kitties. I've thought about this idea for a while, and finally started the process. First I scanned the fabric, enlarged the images and traced the kitties. Then I re-scanned the tracings and enlarged them. It took a fair amount of editing to clean up the edges and alignment of the individual pieces to be able to make appliqué shapes from them.

I pulled one of the images in EQ6, and traced it as a rough appliqué to start playing with quilt layouts. There are several on the worktable, and so far my favorite has a simple windmill block called Twin Sister as an alternate block, which can be colored so the appliqué block appears to interweave with the alternate blocks.

I had all kinds of ideas about using fabrics from my stash for the appliqués. However, once I started pulling fabrics out, it was obvious that it would be too busy, since the kitties already have collars, bells, face details etc., so I started looking for plain fabrics or those with subtle prints. There is enough of the dark navy kitty print to use for sashing or borders, and those kitties are cream or white, with bright accents. The background for the blocks will probably be a chambray blue, with white and cream kitties. The kitty details won't get lost on these plainer fabrics.

The purple baskets quilt is quilted - just needs some thread clean-up, trimming and binding. It was a useful exercise, the resulting quilt is cute. If I decide to use the rest of the foundations and make the large quilt version that puts four basket blocks together to make large "flowers", I'll make the handles with bias strips turned under, rather than fabric tubes that feel too lumpy.

Large knitting finish - the Storm Water Shawl for my sister. Though I had read rave reviews of Seasilk yarn, it did not charm me. It does not have much stretch, the white lint balls all over it were not appealing, and there isn't much shine for the amount of silk. It really feels more like cotton string. The pattern does show up nicely. We celebrated her birthday yesterday, and she loved the shawl and the shawl pin that was a useful complement.

Two small knitting finishes - two charity hats from yarn leftovers, and a third is already on the needles. It's the easiest pattern, great for TV watching, and my sticky Swallow Casein dpns work great as the yarn doesn't slip off them. The pattern is the Simple Rolled Brim Cap from www.chemocaps.com.

New sweater started - Radiate Inside Out, my version of the Knitty.com cardigan with stockinette and purl lines (indented) rather than the reverse stockinette and raised knitted lines. I'm knitting it with my acrylic KnitPicks circular tips with Reynold's Gypsy cotton yarn--these tips are about as sticky as my dpns, but a slightly sharper tip. It is a bit odd to be able to see through your needles though, and as the yarn is a very loose twist I have to make sure it's not being split. The yarn is denim blue, and I'm hoping it lasts to give me at least 3/4 sleeves.

Garden Sewing

Warmer weather has been drawing me outside to the garden. I did a bit of sewing for the garden - two smaller pieces of crop cover cloth to wrap around the base of the bean trellis (to keep cats and birds out). It didn't look very interesting when photographed, so here's a project from several years ago: a screen for the rain barrel.

Packcloth fabric scraps, screen door mesh, and a bit of string to draw the circular shape. Velcro flaps hold the packcloth around the overflow pipes. The birds scavenge through the bits of

debris.

Blog crawling has brought me a new handwork obsession in the form of 6-pointed star pincushions. There weren't any instructions or links to a source pattern, but eventually I recognized that it was just diamonds. I found an acrylic template the size needed, and very quickly had little stacks of precious fabrics to make half a dozen. One set was cut out to act as a test, and the results made me very happy. I pieced the top and bottom stars by machine, and did the sides by hand.

Pincushion #2 is going to have two or three fabrics on the top star. I'm going to untwist some of my first spinning attempts and use wool roving to stuff it. This will be a fun way to use small scraps.

A Push In The Right Direction

I finally had a free weekend at the same time as a local day sewing retreat, and finally took advantage of it. It's not as much work to pack when you're only going for one day, and are close enough to home to retrieve forgotten items. But what to bring? The first idea was to bring several new projects to cut out, but decided to work on something already in progress instead. I tracked down my project list, crossed off a few finished things, and pulled out the box with the Ocean Waves swap blocks from a couple of years back.

No notes in the box on the status...hmm....pulled out and counted the finished blocks - 21. The quilt as designed is supposed to have 36 main blocks and 52 border blocks. Measured the backing fabric, and realized that the top could be larger if there is enough background fabric for the blocks. The background fabric for the original 36 blocks plus the border blocks had been cut out long ago, and the extra was still in the box. There were only enough Thangles foundations for four more blocks (each block has 10 half-square triangles), and realized that is probably why I had stopped.

At the retreat I cut out all the dark fabrics for the remaining blocks, and completed 4 Ocean Wave blocks and 4 partial blocks, using all the foundations. I also stitched up the remaining border blocks, which didn't need foundations. Then I made a list of what pieces and how many of each would be needed to add another row - 6 ocean wave blocks and 4 more 5" border blocks. After measuring carefully, there was enough fabric, so I cut the background pieces for another row of blocks. I ran out of time before cutting the necessary dark pieces for the blocks.

I really miss having a fabric/quilt store close by, as sadly the six in my area have closed. The closest store is 20-30 minutes away, depending on construction detours and trains. The Thangles site has a list of stores that carry them, and a quilt store about 40 minutes south caught my eye, as we were heading that direction to search for outdoor furniture, so we stopped by, and I was ready to roll again. I finished the partially finished blocks at home that afternoon, and cut the remaining dark pieces for the blocks and border .

I'm so glad that I revisited this project. It was a good project for a retreat, as the sub-pieces of each block needed pressing, so I had to walk frequently to the ironing board, and didn't get tense from sitting too long. The foundations give me precise half-square triangles, and are fun to sew. Now that all the pieces are ready to sew, I can keep my momentum going by doing a block or two in a short amount of time.

Retreat Report

My American Sewing Guild retreat was three weeks ago: three days of sewing, with someone else doing the cooking, no housework and no dogs to walk. A bit overwhelming when trying to decide what to pack. At past retreats, I've been productive, but didn't feel at all creative. I also need to pace myself and not do the same motions for too long, so I either kept projects small or worked on them in segments.

There were a variety of projects:

Assembly of the purple baskets quilt. The pieced blocks were sewn to the setting blocks, but my printout of the border blocks template didn't include the finished size (and they are an odd size), so their trimming and assembly still needs to be done. This is the only project worked on and still unfinished since the retreat.

Slow, boring careful piecing on the two mystery quilts. I'm making two versions of the same quilt, and got through most of the piecing and ironing. The last pieces were done at home. Here they are waiting to be pressed and clipped apart - always remind me of flags at this stage.

A shoebox of fabrics for a charity quilt. At some point I had cut out squares to make a Disappearing 9-Patch quilt, but when assembling them at the retreat, I was short two pieces. 11 blocks were completed at the retreat, and the final block, top assembly and border added the following weekend.

Fabrics & pattern for little knot bags for knitting projects - two knot bags were finished, and one given away at the retreat.

A reversible shopping tote - one finished, with modifications including inside pockets cut from the fabric left between the handles, and boxed bottom corners.

The roosters wallhanging that has been a PIM (project in mind) for over a year. The piecing and appliqué were done at the retreat, and the quilting and binding the following weekend.

The two apron projects stayed in their bags, but I am pleased with what did get accomplished. I felt both productive and creative, and had fun too.

Perspective

Fabric can look so cute when shown in a small swatch on a monitor, especially when on sale, and described with a favorite color (purple) for the print. No mention was made of the yellow uneven blotches in the background. It looks pre-stained.

Sometimes when working on a quilt project, especially a “use only stash” project, my focus gets fuzzy. The end result needs to be more than just using up fabric in the stash, but creating a pleasing result by meeting the challenge of using only stash fabric in a creative way. The purple baskets quilt in progress needed some light to medium fabrics for setting the on-point blocks, and I was trying to convince myself that the blotchy bargain fabric would work well. It was actually too busy for the scrappy pieced baskets, and after considering it for over two weeks, I brought some of the blocks with the fabric in questions, along with a soft solid lavender alternate, to my quilt group for feedback.

The original pattern shows the crib-sized quilt with strong, dark colors for the setting triangles, which looked jarring against the light background of the featured blocks, and I brought the pattern along to explain my dilemma. It was fun to hear the responses - 7 opinions for the soft solid, one vote for the blotchy print. Everyone agreed that the blotchy print would be fine for the backing.

I knew that the soft lavender solid looked better, but didn't listen to or didn't trust my inner artist voice. It was a relief to hear most of the input from other quilters agreed with my instinct. Some projects just go together without any pauses, and this one needed a push. I'll hopefully post the finished top by the end of the weekend.

Pattern by Request

This little quilt was a UFO for way too long. It was quilted, trimmed, and sat waiting for binding. It was photographed in various stages by several customers who saw it and liked the pattern. The fabric was purchased online, and it was not a brand-name fabric. The quality is OK, not as nice as Moda for example.

It’s a super easy pattern – it was made from pre-cut strips that were cut 2 ½” wide (sorry I don’t remember how many strips.) You can make this with any size strips – they don’t have to be the same width, but the effect will be a bit different if they vary. Stay tuned for future stash-busting versions!

• Sew strips of one each light and dark together (or light and medium, or medium and dark).
• Press towards the darkest fabric.
• Use a triangle ruler and cut triangles – mark the size with masking tape at the base so they are a consistent size, making sure the triangle is level at the bottom edge. If you like you can move the ruler up so the ¼” tip is cut off—I just put my point at the top of the strip set. You will alternate cutting one with a dark base, light top and the next light base, dark top.
• Use two dark base and two light base triangles for each square. The seams will end up going alternate directions where the strip sets come together.

My blocks finished at just over 7”, and the quilt is about 64 x 56”. If you used three strips per block, you’d get larger blocks. I had very little fabric leftover, though a couple of the blocks are different color combinations.