Back to Quilting

Lately, most of my blogposts seem to be about vintage patterns or garment sewing. But I'm primarily a quilter even though I haven't been writing about it lately. To prove it, here is a picture of my current project.

I'm not really thrilled about the fabrics, but I didn't choose them. They're from a kit put together by my former quilt guild. They were sponsoring a quiltathon during which members would spend the entire day together sewing quilts for charity. I couldn't attend, but I took one of the kits home intending to work on it in my free time. But alas! As often happens, I had less free time than I expected. This was back in 2005 when I was a caregiver for my husband who had cancer.

In 2007, when I was packing to move to another city, I discovered the still unused kit. Guiltily, I contacted the guild. They told me not to bother returning it, merely asking that whenever I did get around to sewing it that I donate the quilt to some deserving charity.

Fast forward four years.

In my new town I have frequently been invited to attend a women's group which gathers every month to do crafts, chat, pray, and listen to an inspiring talk on CD. I almost never attend because I'm usually working on the date they meet. But the time before last I was able to make it and wondered what sort of project to bring. Most of the other ladies were making items for the annual fund-raising boutique held by a nearby Carmelite convent. So I decided to sew this long overdue charity quilt as my donation.

And here is the machine I am sewing it on: my sweet little Featherweight, whom I've christened Fiona.

She doesn't get much use because I seldom sew away from home. And normally, I'd rather use my Bernina.

Yes, I know that quilters are supposed to have a mystical love for the Singer 221, but the Bernina and I are so closely bonded that it functions as an extension of my brain much the way my keyboard does. (Here imagine an android voice droning, "We are one . . . we are one . . .") In fact, it had been so long since I'd last used poor Fiona that it took an embarrassing amount of time and concentration before we could manage an accurate 1/4 inch seam.

If I'm to finish this project in time for the November boutique, I'm going to have to work on it outside of the regular meetings. Since I like to use the same sewing machine, from start to finish, when I make a quilt I guess Fiona and I will be getting much better acquainted.

Grandmother's Eternal Flower Garden

Ideally, I would have prepared some handwork for my convalescence. But I was too rushed to do the machine work for the binding of my baby quilt in progress. Otherwise hand stitching the back side of that binding would have been the perfect project for my recovery period. And finishing the redwork for the other baby quilt in progress would have been a good choice too. But my sewing room is such a mess right now that I just couldn't find it!

Fortunately, I also have some long term hand sewing projects that I've been working on forever. Like Jane Austen, they never let me down because they are always at hand and ready to go when I need to take something with me to keep my hands busy.

The first is my Grandmother's Flower Garden. I started it early in my quilting career. I was at the Glendale quilt show when I fell in love with an antique GFG in a vendor's booth. It was beautifully pieced and quilted, and I instantly fell in love with '30s prints and Nile Green. Alas, the price was more than I could afford even had I been willing to fling caution to the wind. But then I said to myself, "I may not be able to buy this quilt, but I am a quilter -- albeit a new one. I ought to be able to make this quilt."

Being an omnivorous reader, I already knew that English paper piecing was the easiest way to make a GFG, and that the only skill required was the ability to sew a fine whip stitch, something I'd been able to do since childhood. As yet, I had no '30s reproduction prints in my stash, a lack I immediately set out to remedy.*

Having a specific project in mind is a wonderful justification for indulging the hunter-gatherer instincts inherited from our ancient foremothers. (I think that's why we women enjoy shopping so much!) And in the course of digging through fat quarters in quilt shops and vendors' booths, I discovered that I could also buy my hexagons ready made -- and die-cut from card stock for accuracy. And I learned that by basting through only the fabric layers at the corners, it was possible to pop out the hexagons to reuse them -- not to mention quicker and easier on the hands. I also committed myself to buying '30s repros for several years. After all, I wouldn't be able to get the proper degree of scrappiness merely by buying what was on the shelves that season!

My first flowers consisted of just a single ring of pieces around a central white hexagon. I used two contrasting modern fabrics for each unit. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with them, but every now and then I get them out and flip them over so that I can admire what tiny whipstitches I used to be able to make when my eyes were less -- ahem -- mature than they are now. Fortunately, I'm a quilter who is in love with the process rather than focussed on finishing the project.

The picture at the top shows some of the twenty-one Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks which I someday intend to set with white background hexagons and a Nile green "path." My mother keeps asking me who it's for and when it will be finished. (She's a "project" person.) Well, this quilt is for me, and it will be finished when it's finished.

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*I wonder if I've spent more on '30s style fabrics than it would have cost to sew the original antique quilt? No matter! I'll have the left over fabric which can go into countless other quilts.

Scrappy Neutrals

Not much to report on the quilting front. I'm doggedly making black and "white" four-patches for my Bricks & Stepping Stones, but as you can see, I have a pretty elastic definition of which neutrals qualify as white. (Click on the picture for a closer view.) I love the one with the chickens and their little red and white eggs. I'm hoping that prints like these will add some sparkle to the quilt since most of my whites are actually pretty sedate.

How I Spent President's Day

I usually feel very grumpy about Monday holidays. I object on principle to moving holidays to the nearest Monday just so people can have a three weekend. It seems a tawdry manipulation of the calendar. Monday is also one of my regular work days, so nearly every holiday I miss out on a day's pay. I only work three days a week, so that's one third of my weekly paycheck.

But this year I didn't mind staying home on President's Day because I've had a dreadful cold the last few days and felt too sick to go to work anyway. So of course I sat in front of my sewing machine and completed four more Chunky Churn Dash blocks. These are really cute, finishing at six inches. They will be set with hour glass blocks as shown on Bonnie Hunter's website. I'm not sure yet how large a quilt I'll make out of these.

Here's a close up of the block on the upper left. I was able to fussy cut a fabric scrap with a rubber stamped image of myself peering out of the screen of our first Macintosh computer. I drew the picture and had the rubber stamp made ages ago when I was a member of an online quilting guild on Podigy. We were exchanging small stamped squares, one of the many swaps that made the group such fun to belong to.

Working on Chunky Churn Dash was a nice break from Bricks and Stepping Stones. Earlier this week I finished about half of the units needed for that quilt. I need to cut some more black and white strips for that one, as well as 35 more bricks. It really does go together quickly! I wonder if I can really complete it in time for Fillius's birthday. I'm sure I can get the top done. But can I quilt and bind it?

My Tension Is a Source Of Tension

I've been having so much fun this week working simultaneously on three different quilts. But suddenly I'm having a tension problem with my machine. At least, I think it's a tension problem. For all of these quilts I am sewing strips together, and I've noticed that after I've ironed them open, one edge curves a bit. And I can't accurately subcut the two patch units if both sides of the joined strips aren't parallel.

The reason I think that it may be a tension problem is that I've also noticed tiny bumps or loops on the underside of my stitching. (I don't think it's an ironing problem because I'm always very careful to use a dry iron and to press up and down rather than from side to side.

I guess I need to pull out my sewing machine manual to figure out what sort of adjustment I need to make. It's so unusual for my Bernina to have any sort of tension problem that I can't remember whether bumps on the bottom indicate a problem with the thread tension or the bobbin tension.

(And yes, I changed the needle.)

Quilts Are Like Potato Chips

"Betcha can't eat just one!"

That was what they used to say about potato chips when I was a kid. Now that I'm an adult, my quilts are like potato chips. I love quilting, and I can never work on just one project at a time.

As I wrote previously, earlier this month I started Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, Carolina Christmas. And I decided that I would really focus on it. I would be disciplined. I would get it done!

So there I was, merrily cutting out 2.5 inch strips from one of my neutral fat quarters. But when I got near the end of that piece of fabric, it was too narrow for another strip, yet too wide to be tossed into the string box. Then I remembered that Bonnie's Bricks and Stepping Stones uses 2 inch neutral strips. It's supposed to be a very quick to make quilt. And Fillius needs a quilt, poor thing. So I cut a 2 incher. And after that it just made sense to cut a few 2 inch strips from every neutral I was using for Carolina Christmas.

But sometimes that last bit of a fabric would be a bit too narrow even for a 2 inch strip. So I'd cut a 1.5 inch strip and set it aside. But what to do with them? Ah! Bonnie's Chunky Churn Dash pattern calls for 1.5 inch neutral strips. It also uses 2.5 inch neutrals squares which I'm already cutting for Carolina Christmas. My goodness! This quilt would practically cut itself out without my noticing.

Before I knew it, I was pulling colored scraps out of my bins for the strips and squares and bricks I needed for these two other quilts. The chunky Churn Dash blocks finish at 6 inches, so you really can use up rather small scraps for them. And the bricks in Bricks and Stepping Stones finish at 3 inches by 6 inches, making them perfect for large prints which I often find difficult to use because they don't "read" as any one color.

So that's how I've come to be cutting (and sewing) three quilts at once. I love working this way because I'm process (rather than project) oriented. That is, I love the process of quilt making so much that it almost doesn't matter whether I actually finish the project. I also like the variety of working on more than one quilt at a time. Whether I feel like cutting, piecing, quilting, or binding, there's always a step at hand to suit my mood. (And as soon as I choose a pattern for my dino quilt, I'll have four going at once.)

Christmas Quilting With TJR and Others

There's nothing I love more during Advent than working on Christmas projects. (Not for me the mere prudence and foresight of piecing Christmas stockings in July so they'll be ready to display in December.) That's why I'm so excited that Bonnie Hunter is sponsoring a new mystery quilt right now. It's called, "Carolina Christmas," and it's a scrappy quilt made in reds, greens, golds, with neutrals ranging from cream to tan as the background.

I made a last minute decision to join the online quilting frenzy, and I'm really looking forward to stitching cozily while listening to Christmas music. Every year I try to get a new Christmas CD, and this year's is The TJR Christmas Card featuring my brother TJR who plays and sings neo-classic rock. I'm a Medieval/Renaissance girl myself, but I confess to being impressed by the virtuoso fingering my brother displays in these instrumental interpretations of eight traditional Christmas carols. And I was particularly charmed by his original song, "Christmas in California." It's Southern California's reply to "White Christmas," and hearing it will stir feelings of nostalgia in any Californian transplanted to the frigid Midwest or East Coast. The CD is packaged in a cardboard case which doubles as a Christmas card. And if you buy five or more of them from his website they're only $5.00 apiece, making them a reasonably priced and easily mailed gift. Single copies of the disk will soon be available from CD Baby. For now you can download the complete album or individual songs. (By the way, that little snowman at the beginning of my post was done by my son Filius for the cover of the CD.)

Just to show that my musical taste is not formed solely by nepotism, I thought I'd list some of the other CDs I'll be listening to during this project. Sir Christmas: Songs of the Season is by Broceliande, a Celtic and Early Music ensemble which I first heard at Mythcon 38 where they were playing songs related to JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This CD is the first of four volumes celebrating the seasons of the year. The songs, sung in French, Latin, English, Medieval Spanish and Middle English, are not your run of the mill Christmas carols. In origin they range from the 13th century to the 20th. Their rendition of Guadete is possibly my favorite. Click to hear samples. (Scroll down a bit to find Sir Christmas.)

Sing We Noel is a collection of Christmas music from England and early America. It includes the 15th century carol, "Nova, nova: Aue fitt ex Eva," which is the story of the Annunciation in Middle English with a Latin chorus. That's been a family favorite since our children were small. (Yes, we started brain washing them early!) "The Midnight Cry" from 19th century America recounts the story of the wise and foolish virgins, a seemingly odd choice for a Christmas CD, but a pretty good one for the season of Advent which emphasizes both the coming of Christ at Christmas and His seconding coming at the end of time. Other favorites on this disk are "Mervele Nought, Josep" and "Syng We to This Mery Cumpane." Brief samples can be heard here if you scroll down a bit.

Last year I couldn't find my copy of Diciembre en México by Donna Peña. But it turned up during the summer, and I'm looking forward to playing it again this year. It has lovely songs in Spanish celebrating both Christmas and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe which falls on December 12th. Mmmmm, I could go for some pan dulce and some Mexican hot chocolate!

And finally, just to prove that I am not without links to popular culture, I've always been fond of Perry Como Sings Merry Christmas Music which I heard over and over again when I was a child. (It was one of three Christmas records which my parents owned.) It's a mixture of traditional carols, such as "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and more modern songs such as "White Christmas."

The copy which Amazon sells has a different cover, so I dug up the picture at left from elsewhere on the Web. That's the copy my parents had, one of only three Christmas records which they owned. We kids heard it over and over and over again. Every little intonation of Perry's voice is engraved on my memory. That's why this album triggers "Christmas!" in my brain, and that's why, when I found a CD copy at the super market many years ago, I had to buy it. But it doesn't sound quite right. My parents' record had a scratch which caused the phonograph needle bounce and skip, repeating one phrase in "Christmas Song" over and over again. ("And every mother's child -- and every mother's child -- and every . . . ") Amazon has sound samples here. Just scroll down a bit.

What Christmas music do you like to listen to while sewing a Christmas quilt?

Quilting Weather

This morning I awoke to the sound of pounding rain. Thank goodness the library is closed for President's Day! Mondays are my scheduled day to empty the book drop which is a real pain when it rains. We have a drive-through book drop in the parking lot which was not well designed for bad weather. (Not normally an issue in Southern California!)

Fortunately, I don't have to go to work today. This seems like lovely quilting weather, so I plan to continue with my string-pieced stars. Here's a picture of the first completely assembled one. I love the red ring which I plan to repeat in each of them.

I did not love picking out the bits of foundation paper, though my bad arm may have been a factor in how difficult I found it. I do have to admit that the paper I'm using for this project is better than some I'm tried. It's the left-over scraps of pattern tissue paper which I used to trace the different sizes I needed for the Wild Girls' Christmas Dresses. Bonnie Hunter suggests that a size 14 (90) needle helps, so that's what I'm going to try today.

Quilting Frustration and a New Rotary Cutter

My quilting buddy recently returned after a six month stay in Montana, and we resumed our weekly sewing sessions. But I wasn't sure what I could work on with my bad arm. Even scissors are pretty much beyond me right now. Then I remembered my string pieced stars. I had already traced the diamonds onto paper and I have a drawer full of strips and strings. Perfect! No fabric cutting required! I'll just have to delay trimming the diamonds until I'm completely healed.

Which reminds me, the other purchase I made at Road to California was the Martelli ergonomic rotary cutter. I saw the vendor demo its use, cutting through twenty layers of fabric. I took a couple of tentative cuts, but couldn't really get a feel for it since I didn't dare put much pressure on my hand. However, this cutter was recommended by a couple of people on Quiltvillechat, so I decided to risk $20.00 on it. Of course, I won't really know if it will be compatible with my own particular problems and style of working until my tennis elbow has healed enough for me to try it out. When it does, I'll give a complete review.

Road to California!

It's that time again!

I'll be attending Road to California on Thursday and Sunday. Last year some of us who were making Bonnie's first mystery quilt, Carolina Crossroads, wore 9-patch blocks with a contrast corner to identify ourselves to each other, and I actually met a few fellow mystery quilters. This year I'm not actually making the quilt yet because of my injury. Otherwise I'd probably suggest wearing a that Square Within a Square block (with contrast corner) which is a major component of the current mystery, Double Delight.

I was thinking of shopping for Double Delight fabric at the show; among all those vendors I'm bound to find some Civil War prints. But now I'm not sure. I should probably be trying to make this quilt from stash.

So Sad!

Bonnie Hunter is posting a new mystery quilt, Double Delight. What's sad is that I cannot play along; I had to call in sick today because the area around my elbow hurt so much. Luckily, I got a same day appointment at my doctor's office. Unluckily, I found out that I have tennis elbow -- which means no rotary cutting for me and no sewing either. Grumble, grumble, grumble! And I have such a good collection of shirting prints that would be perfect for this quilt! Well, you won't have to listen to me grumble for long because I'm not supposed to type much either. Sigh!

Summer Dresses in October

Done, done, finally done! The sleeveless summer dresses which I'd hoped to send to the granddaughters a month or two ago are now finished and in the mail. Of course, it's no longer summer. . . Well, I suppose they can wear them with sweaters.

Actually, it's still quite summer-like here in Southern California. Perhaps it's also warm in Texas. The pattern was Simplicity 0540 which I had previously made in a long sleeved version with a contrast band at the bottom of the skirt. This sleeveless variation just has a simple machine stitched hem. Sewing three of them ought to have been quick and easy since I cut out all three at once and sewed them assembly-line fashion. But, as it so often does, real life got in the way. I just hope the girls haven't yet outgrown them. Below is a picture of one of the finished dresses.

Now I really must get back to my quilting! I continue to work on California Crossroads. I'm planning to make a small Streak of Sunshine from Christmas fabrics. And I'd really like to make a lap quilt as a surprise Christmas gift for a particular relative who really needs a quilt. And I should also get back to those string pieced, eight-pointed stars. And, and . . .

Quilters are never bored, are they?

Oh, Dear!

I was planning to make the Streak of Sunshine quilt from Bonnie Hunter's website as a donation for a church fundraiser to be held in November. It's really quick to put together, and I thought I could use up my small collection of Christmas fabrics.

Alas! Almost all of my Christmas fabric is fat quarters, and you need to be able to cut strips that are WOF (width of fabric) for this speedy technique.

Any other suggestions for a quick and easy (but nice looking) quilt?

Interlude: String Pieced Stars

After the concentrated effort of making my daughter a dress for the Regency Ball, I felt like relaxing with Something Completely Different. I've had a hankering for string-pieced stars ever since seeing Bonnie Hunter's Out On a String! , so today I pulled out my drawer of strips, strings, and crumbs, and had a go at it.

It had occurred to me that having a diamond shaped template might speed up the process of preparing the foundation papers, so the last time I was at the quilt store I bought Set E of Marti Mitchell's Perfect Patchwork templates. I traced the large diamond onto the scraps of pattern tracing paper left over from making the dress. Using the flip and sew method, I string-pieced the diamonds and then trimmed them down, using the template and a rotary cutter.

I like the fact that her templates have tiny holes to mark where the stitching lines end, but I found that cutting around the diamond template with the rotary cutter was more difficult than I expected. . I had trouble holding it motionless, and I think that if I had done more than the eight diamonds needed for a single block, my fingers would have become cramped and sore. I think it's actually easier on my hands to cut an accurate diamond using my ordinary Omnigrid ruler. But then I wouldn't have those nice little corner holes which will probably make the actual piecing much easier.

I can't imagine how people use the rotary cutter for some of her smaller template pieces such as the tiny diamond for the 6 inch 8-Pointed Star block.

I'll finish this block tomorrow, and then get back to work on the summer dresses for my granddaughters and my Carolina Crossroads quilt. By the way, here are the bits left over after trimming the diamonds. Finally -- scraps small enough to throw away! (Or are there one or two worth saving?)

Update

Well, my quilting friend and I spent 5 hours on Wednesday working on our quilt projects! Yay!

The next day I spent at my class's sewing lab working on one of my assigned projects -- cutting out a dress pattern and learning how to match checked fabric. I'm not sure how good a job I did. We'll see how well things go together on Saturday.

Eeeeek!

Patti at Quilting is My Passion has done something rash, something many of us would find unthinkable.

. . . what is this terrible thing I've done? I've thrown out my crumbs. Totally thrown them out. They are in the garbage can by the curb waiting for tomorrow's pick-up.

Read about it here.

For those of you who aren't scrap fanatics, "crumbs" are little tiny bits of fabric which any sane quilter would consider too small to use. But some of us aren't quite sane. While going through some of my UFOs (or Works in Progress, as I prefer to call them), I came across these foundation pieced log cabin blocks which are only 2 inches square. They are foundation pieced on muslin using a rubber stamp which I bought from Sharon Doyle's company, Thoroughly Modern Minis, back in the early '90s. (I "met" her through an online quilter's guild hosted on Genie way back in the Pleistocene.) For blocks like these almost no fabric scrap is too small.

Interestingly, the remarks in Patti's comment box unanimously support trashing crumbs. Perhaps we crumb hoarders are too embarrassed to speak up. Or perhaps we've all been sequestered in padded sewing rooms without Internet access. (Perhaps I should go piece some of these mini-blocks before someone comes to lock me up.)

Selvage Quilts?

I'm a big fan of string quilting because I hate to throw away even the smallest scraps. One of my ongoing projects is Bonnie Hunter's Basket-Weave Strings quilt. But I never imagined that you could do much of anything with the woven selvage edges that we cut off fabric before we start cutting out our quilt pieces. Though they are technically strings, usually they're too narrow to use because a quarter inch seam on each side eats them up entirely.

Well, Karen Giska has figured out a technique that makes selvages usuable. Check it out here.

Visiting an Old Quilt

I've been out of town for about a week visiting my eldest son and his family. The week before I left, I was busy making purses for their two oldest girls to match the dresses I made them for Christmas. I wish I'd been able to take a camera with me so that I could show you pictures of both the purses and the dresses. I would also liked to have taken a picture of the quilt I slept under while I was there. It was the quilt I made for my son when he went away to college.

It's a restless pattern of triangles in dark lavender, white, and a print in shades of blue and purple that has always reminded me of outer space.

It's gotten a lot of use over the years and has now achieved an antique sort of look. Because it has a cotton batting, it's crinkled from the slight shrinkage that takes place with washing. The colors have softened. The edges of the binding have begun to show some wear. It looks well loved, and I am so pleased.

Ironing Board Fantasies.

The other day I decided I needed a greater variety of blues for my Carolina Crossroads quilt. I was using so many dark blues that I was afraid they were beginning to run together. So I rummaged through my stash and came up with some that were bright but not light. They've been sitting on my ironing board waiting for me to press and cut them.

I was in Costco recently and saw a fancy new ironing board. The brand name was Polder. It had a holder at the end for your iron, and it was very wide -- an advantage for a quilter!

My own ironing board is practically an antique. I bought it soon after I got married, taking the bus to a shopping center in the next town. I bought it at JC Pennys and had them hold it until my husband could pick it up on his way home from work. After all these years it's got a slight dip in the center and it's getting a little wobbly. That's why I've never considered the Big Board as an addition to it -- I'm afraid it would topple over. While at the quilt show last month I saw a really nice ironing set up, a Big Board set on a couple of drawer units which gives you storage and ironing in the same footprint. Except I don't really have the room here for that kind of thing.

And I don't have money for either of these options, so I guess my fantasies will remain just that.

RTC, Day 3

Darn! I missed out on using my 50% off coupons at JoAnn's. They expired on Saturday. (I'd thought they were good through Sunday.)

I was actually planning to pop over to JoAnn's on Saturday, but then I decided to visit the quilt show first and ended up staying until 6:00 p.m. By that time it was dark, and I decided I'd better go straight home. I spent most of my time at the show browsing through the vendors' booths again and even bought a couple of things. In one booth I saw a very interesting demo on how to sew a circle of fabric into a round cut-out using only four pins. The demonstrator used a pair of tweezers to move the edge of the upper fabric into place as she sewed. One of those things that is hard to explain but once you see it you wonder why you never thought of it before.

And I spent more time drooling over the Tin Lizzie 18 (a long arm machine) and the Juki TL-98Q. Sigh!

As I left the show and headed across the street to the parking lot, I realized that it was very dark and that the parking lot was going to be pretty deserted. Suddenly, I remembered that when I entered the lot I'd had the window on the passenger side rolled down. Had I remembered to roll it back up when I parked? If not, would my car still be there? Would my still unrepaired Bernina, which I'd picked up from the shop that morning, still be in the back seat? Would someone be crouched inside my car? I endeavored to walk confidently.

Well, the window was down, but the car was still there. So was the Bernina. And no one was crouched inside my car. My husband used to say that God looks out for dogs and fools -- to which list I think I'd also add absent-minded, middle-aged women.

When I got home I felt fired up to work some more on Carolina Crossroads, but I needed to cut more strips and my feet were just too tired for it. Today was taken up with family stuff, but tomorrow will be a quilting day!

Quilt Show Damage:

1 set Wheel of Mystery acrylic templates
1 pocket curve template (for garment sewing)
applique stilleto
1 pair Machingers (gloves for machine quilting)
1 spool thread
1 pk. Ultimate Applique Template Paper
1 DVD "Applique Techniques With Pearl P. Peretra"
1 stencil brush
1 pair tiny scissors
1 Identi-pen
1 pk. applique needles
1 pk. needle threaders
1 chalk marking pencil
1 bottle Arlene's OK To Wash glue
1 Aunt Becky's Finger Protector

That should do me for the year. I feel very inspired by all the gorgeous quilts, and I'm looking forward to busting a lot of stash in the months to come.