Cleaning off the sewing cabinet.......

Yesterday I started cleaning off the sewing machine cabinet to prepare for machine quilting and this piece was on there.  Since the raw edge strips were just pressed on the fusible batting and were starting to come loose I decided I needed to stitch it now.  Laying on the table with it is a page of photos from the last time I made something like this.  Go here to see it better.

A close up of the stitching and raw edges.

All of the strips are sewn securely in place so I can put it aside until inspiration hits.  I have no ideas right now.  The top of the cabinet is clean and I can start quilting today.

Nothing much

I have sent my things off to the gallery in southern IL and can't seem to get started on a project yet. I was going through a bunch of pictures and found these 3 from about 8 years ago. I was working with the yarn dyed woven fabrics in both brushed and plain on these. They have pieced backgrounds and raw edge applique. I gave a workshop on it and then sold all of my samples. If anyone is interested in the screen prints I showed last week, they are up on my blog-shop. Also I will be removing some of the wallhangings for sale next Saturday so if there is anything you are interested in, look now.

The sun is shining and it is supposed to be all the way up in the 40's today. There was frost on the ground this morning. The weathermen are promising spring next week. Do we dare believe them?

finish #5

I said at the beginning of last week that I wanted to finish 5 small pieces. I finished this one, #5 last night. In real life the border doesn't seem to jump out like it does in a photograph. I am not totally happy with it, but that is the way I feel about the biggest majority of my pieces when they are first done. It will take me awhile appreciate some of them and accept them as "OK". this one is 19" x 23.5". Here is a detail of my swirly spirals
and here are all 5 of the finishes together.
And here is what is really calling me, some bright pretty fabrics that haven't been cut into yet.
I really appreciate all of the comments from yesterday's post. There were some heart warming stories about quilts and a scarf laid on caskets. I think I will look more into the tradition in the past of casket coverings.

Coffin cover

I bought a new refrigerator in June, 2005. This replaced a 23 year old one that my son has in his shop and it is still running fine. The new one however has problems. Yesterday I noticed the milk was warm, but I was leaving for the afternoon and didn't think too much about it. When I got home it was still warmer than usual so I decided to call the repair man this morning. The first question is: "Did you buy the extended warantee?". To me that question says "You know nothing lasts anymore, of course it will break down". Well, anyway, I'm waiting for the repairman.

Now on to the coffin cover. In 2003 a friend of mine was diagnosed with 5 brain tumors. She had radiation and the chemo pill and seemed to be doing well, and then she started having seizures. They told her the tumors were back and growing and there was nothing more they could do for her. She passed away 6 weeks later.

While she was ill I was working on this piece. I had no idea what I was making, no plan. When I sewed it together it was this long narrow shape and I said it looked like a coffin cover. I have never shaken the idea that it is the right shape to be draped over a coffin. It is kind of eerie, like why did that pop into my head? I have mixed feelings about finishing it. It is 43" x 72".
All of the fabrics are batiks except the setting triangle fabric.
Yippee, the repairman is here and says it is a bad fan in the freezer which is what blows the air up into the refrigerator. He has one with him and he is repairing as I type. I see spell check still isn't working so I will come back later and check it myself.

Small quilt finish #3

The inspiration for this quilt is a quilt in the "Everything Flowers" book by Jean Wells. The top has been done for many years, and at first I kept looking for another border, thinking that the bright green was a first border. After awhile I decided it didn't need another border but I couldn't figure out how I wanted to quilt it so it stayed in the UFO box. This one is 21" x 27". Late last year I decided to start looking for a binding for it, hoping I would finish it then
I found this stripey Nancy Crow fabric and liked it. For quilting I stitched in the ditch in the crazy pieced roses and did diamond shaped leaves in the green areas.
I had a name for this one singing in my head while I was making it. The name comes from the song "In the Garden". When I was in third and fourth grade in a little one room school house the teacher would play the piano and all 12 of us would sing the songs she taught us. One of our favorites that we would request was "In the Garden". It is a Christian song by C. Austin Miles, copyrighted in 1912.

It starts out "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses". So the name of this one is "The dew is still on the roses". I am trying to decide whether to be literal and add beads for dew on some of the roses, or just leave it alone.

Finishing week

I decided that I need to finish 5 small pieces this week. Yesterday I posted the first one. This is the second one. I first posted about this one on Oct. 31. If you click on tutorials in my LABELS list on the right side of the screen, it is the last one. I decided to put a facing on this one instead of binding. This is only the second quilt I have done that on. I did mostly straight line random quilting with matching thread and then added gold thread to quilt the crazy pieced square. After I finished the CP square I went back and added a few gold thread lines in the background too. This one is 12-13" wide and 16.5" tall. I was diving into the "Needs to be finished box" again and found this oldie. This is one of those things that I want out of my house, cannot figure out if anyone would buy it, don't know where to get rid of it pieces.
The store where it hung for display sold out of all of the fabrics because so many people liked it. It is a Hidden Wells quilt made with Mary Ellen Hopkins instructions in her pamphlet. This had to be 1989 or 1990 that this one was made.
It would make a great tablecloth (60" square) but I am tired of looking at it.
My house is filled with lots of things like this. I wish it would disappear but I don't want it to go to a landfill or be used as a rag to clean the garage floor. I want it to go to someone who could love it.

What's new?

What's new around here? Another 3" of wet snow from a thunderstorm last night. And...they are predicting another storm Tues. night.

The only thing new about the quilt below is that it is DONE! Since it is only about 18" square I just ditch quilted with the teal/green thread around everything.
Detail of binding. I chose a binding fabric with the same colors that was halfway between the dotted teal and the black/teal in value. That way it became part of the design rather than a plain black that simply said binding.
The one below is nothing special. It was made to show how to use 2 little paper pieced orphan blocks and it never got quilted. It has been on the shelf for at least 10 years so I finally decided to quilt it and use it as the placemat it is supposed to be.

Workshop, day 2

On the second day of the David Walker workshop I started another piece. This was done in the same way with 4 layered fabrics. This shows some of the trimmed seams and the braid, slubby yarn, and sparkly thread that were couched over the stitching lines. I didn't have enough of the silver and black braid in the picture above to put around the center motif so I twisted 2 sparkly threads, black and silver, together and sewed a double row of them in place. From a distance it isn't too noticable that they aren't all the same.

Making small quilts

One of the ideas I presented to my art quilters was making a series of small quilts, about 9" x 12", or in the journal quilt size. I alerted them to be thinking about a theme ahead of time. One of my suggestions was the 4 seasons. I pulled three fabrics that I thought would work, and just gave them a brief demonstration. I haven't done any more to it; it is just fabric laying on a base piece. I know I will add a moon. The word Winter was stamped with tiny rubber stamps but the ink wasn't very dark so I may need to re ink the pad. I'm not sure how many of these I will make but I like making small pieces. Instant gratification.

The project I will tackle today is quilting a quilt I started 13 months ago. It is basted and ready......

Another blog you need to visit is Elsie's. She did a quilt she calls her Insanity Quilt.

And another link, to Candy's where she posted a yo-yo quilt that she found.

OK, third post today~indecision strikes

To continue I MUST make a decision. This one is all quilted and bound and now do I or don't I want to add the bead trim. First here it is without And here the trim is just laying on top of it to help make the decision. This one is 19" x 20".
This is a closeup of the trim. I like it both ways.
And then on to this one. I finished sewing blocks 2 nights ago and just plopped them up on a design wall. Right now it would measure 50" x 63" if I don't make any more blocks. I guess the decision here is do I want a small quilt or make it into a bigger one. I don't think it would be a good wallhanging. I think it is more of a couch throw or bed quilt style.
Any votes on either one?

One more batch

I decided to one more batch of spritz cookies, this time no coloring added, and now I will put away the cookie press. After my raw edge flowers on colorwash wallhangings became popular, I created a class where I simplified the stitching so that everyone would feel success. I did several pieces in country plaids and this one in batik.
Just some cheery flowers for a cold and dreary winter day. I'm ready for sunshine again.

Leaf Art

I finally finished an art piece. I made this background 2 years ago and decided I didn't like it and it went into the pile of pieces and parts. Then I printed the leaves that I had scanned and fused some Wonder Under to them and cut them out. Again I thought, maybe, but I put it aside again. Then last week I decided I really did like it (the old saying, it will grow on you) and I finished it last night. This one measures 17.5" x 13.5" I wanted to so some minimal stitching on the leaves to give them a little bend rather than having them flat.
This one taken with the close up setting on the camera is a little grainy but you can see how realistic the printed leaves are.
Next, my little entertainers weren't supposed to find this little suet basket on the forsythia bush outside my kitchen window. Then I realized a branch from the red bud tree comes over to the forsythia so the mystery is solved.
And his grand escape as he watches me through the window.

Bigger picture

This one will be bigger than the last post when you click on it.

One block wallhanging

I offered a workshop one time about taking a traditional quilt block, blow it up to a 24" square and then take each pattern piece and subdivide it if you wanted to, use interesting fabrics and assemble the block. This piece is the traditional Hole in the Barn Door block. The center square is made from an African fabric and the zebra is fused in place. I sold this piece in the last year or two and I can't find any close up pictures of it.

To finish or not to finish

In 1992 I took my second Nancy Crow workshop. It was at the Museum of the American Quilters Society (MAQS) in Paducah, KY. We were to bring our favorite block pieced in black and white in 2 sizes. I took Lady of the Lake which is only 2 triangles for pattern pieces. When we got there we were supposed to design a block with those pieces, which we could subdivide into other pieces. I worked and worked and worked trying to get a neat original block (exercise 1). Finally Nancy said she wasn't happy with what I had (and neither was I) but I needed to use it and go on to the second exercise. With this second exercise we were to take all neutrals, black, gray, beige, and white and create other values within the same design as the first one which was only black and white.
From there we progressed to color using exactly the same values as in exercise 2 and colors we wanted.
I pull these pieces out every once in a while and look at them and try to decide whether to finish them into something. And then sometimes I think they should go on the back of a quilt, and some days I wonder if I should do anything at all with them.

Design a block

One of the last programs and workshops I designed for guilds was how to make an original design quilt by designing a block first, choosing a colorway and piecing blocks and then trying it in several layouts. Somewhere in my archives I have photos of all of the layouts I tried with this block. I know this is the old fashioned way, not designing in an EQ program or something similar. However if I designed a quilt totally on the computer, I wouldn't need to make it because I have already seen it. For me, the magic is what happens while playing. I don't have a clue what it will look like or sometimes I don't even know what I am making for sure. Occasionally I need a no brainer, follow the directions quilt, but more often a quilt is born while playing. Here is a close up of the fabrics and the quilting.
The hand dyed fabric is from Melody Johnson and the stripe is a P&B fabric.

Another "I just had to try it" project

I had a bunch of cut away strips, a piece of fusible batting and an idea. What if I just lined the pieces up on the batting, pressed them in place with a backing in place also.
Then I could just have a lot of fun stitching any number of rows I wanted on each of the strips.

I usually used matching rayon embroidery thread.
Then I had a pile of little squares fall on the floor from my table and I thought, hey I think these might work on this project.
And then I want to do some free motion flowers first with black embroidery thread, and then from the reverse side I will put some glittery serger thread in my extra bobbin case and reinforce the idea.
I think I like it so far.
Then I was ready for the edge finish. First a couple rows of zigzag with regular thread and then once more from the reverse side with the glittery heavy serger thread.

I think I will leave the tails on there.
Oh, no, I just realized I trimmed off the edge of the flower on the right when I was straightening it up. Now it looks unbalanced.
Why didn't I see that when I was trimming????
Well I can fix that with a partial flower on the left.
All done!