Sewing

Slow Saturday

August 13, 2011 Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

I felt like I’d spent the week inside a front-loading washer, going round and round, getting soggier and more wrung out by the minute. And this was a pretty okay week, really. Good visits by family, good chats with friends, but I just seemed to be not getting anywhere fast–and I know what that does to creativity. “Too many irons in the fire puts out the fire,” an old saying goes.

And I missed FSF–Finishing School Friday–a goal I’d set for myself to publish weekly in order to stop and take stock. If I had published something it might have included how many loads of laundry I was doing, how many trips to the grocery store to re-stock the cupboards after being on vacation so long. That kind of [boring] stuff.

But here’s what I decided to tackle: making shopping bags.

I’m using the Practical Bag pattern from Grand Revival–an all-purpose slouchy terrific bag.

I’ve used the pattern so much, I had to copy it off onto some new paper. Here I’ve shortened it to fit this Japanese canvas. Even though I ordered a fat quarter, after washing it shrunk a little, so I folded the bag pattern in the middle to “tuck out” about 3 inches.

Here’s a stack of them lined up ready to be stitched together. But I stopped mid-seam because my husband offered to take me out for sushi. And a trip to Target. Such a deal I couldn’t pass up. Happy Saturday.

WIP–Details, Details

August 10, 2011 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced for hosting this forum.

Coming home from vacation is such an interesting feeling. I read your blogs and your comments on Facebook and you seem to slide from one zone to another, effortlessly. I, however, have had quite a “re-entry” from my time away. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t children around anymore to pull and push me into activity. I did spend close to 10 hours on the computer the first day home getting things to the print center where I teach, then a haircut, laundry, College Orientation on the second day home, which brings me here to WIP Wednesday, and that freshly laundered handkerchief on the ironing board. So the details of today are laundering and pressing the handkerchief and vintage fabrics (hoping that musty smell leaves soon—any tips?)

More details include making a label for summer’s last quilt.

A little more hand-stitching tonight as I watch one more Harry Potter movie–I’m on Number 4. A friend dropped by her collection so I could watch them all at once before going out to see the latest.

And I’m listening to Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen, while I work. Riveting fiction–I highly recommend it.

My husband and I have been retracing our steps of many years ago. Yesterday I said to him, “And today was the day we packed all my four children into our new mini-van and drove to Utah. Did I drop you off at your parents’ house before I went up to Ogden to stay at my parents’?”

“Yes. I slept on their old sofa, as my childhood bedroom was full of my sister’s kids.”

Many years ago today was the last day my beloved sweetheart had his bachelor status, and tonight we’ll talk about the “rehearsal dinner” in a park with all his nieces and nephews and my children and his sisters and brothers and my sisters and brothers and our parents coming in together in a great picnic. That night he and I worried about different things: I worried that my children wouldn’t fit in, that the blending of the family would be too much for the both of us. He worried about finances and how we were going to make it through all the college years, even though the oldest was only 14 at the time. But what we didn’t worry about was our love and commitment to each other. Yes, many years ago the small details seemed to be detritus, like little bugs buzzing around the grand event of our marriage. But this week we enjoy them, think about them, recall them and relish the bits and pieces and patchwork of our wedding day.

Creating · Sewing

Squiggles, AKA, Stipples

August 9, 2011 Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

It all started with this video, which I saw on Boing Boing:

It reminded me of quilting. Of our famous all-over squiggle quilting, AKA, “The Stipple.” But the gal in the video goes on to create some really interesting things.

When I walked through the Springville Art Museum’s Quilt Show, I, too, focused on the quilting, and on the different iterations of it, although not to the Hilbert Curve level. And since I’m always collecting interesting photos of quilting patterns, I thought you might be doing the same. Enjoy the show.

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Textiles & Fabric

Summer To-Do List

August 8, 2011August 8, 2011 Elizabeth E.1 Comment

Make Quilts–check

My parents, Dave and I, our children and our grandchildren

My parents and most of their posterity

Family Reunion–check

Yellowstone National Park–check

More family days–check

Quilt Show–check

Now I need to work on getting my syllabus ready for the first day of school, but here’s some interesting things I found at Yellowstone:

Yep. They’ve figured out us quilters. A whole display of little fabric patches to use in quilting and projects. At the top of this, they had a quilted tote for display. So, of course, I figured out which patch set I wanted and bought that.

I also bought a tea towel in the Grand Teton National Park, which has an embroidered flower; I figure I’ll use it for the inside of my tote. The name of this park has some controversy about its origins–hilarious.

And on the second shift of visiting family (the OTHER side of the family from the blue shirts), I slipped over to the next door neighbor’s estate sale, where I scored on some vintage fabrics . . .