Category: Creating

Creating · Quilts

Hide and Seek

Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

Right now I’m playing hide and seek with my brain.  Like, where is it?

That was triggered by a hide and seek game for the fabrics which I need so I can make binding for my Christmas Quilt.  It’s been a looooong week at school, so I thought I’d shove all the grading to the side and make the binding.

But where-oh-where is that fabric, so carefully put aside back in July?


Not here.

Not here.

Nor here.

I thought for sure, this closet.  Nope.

Okay, now I’m checking the drawers.  Maybe I already cut the strips and tucked them away in here.

It’s about this point I’m beginning to get that despairing feeling, like where in the heck is this?  I’ve been through everything twice.

Of course, it’s always the last place you look–in a clear plastic box on the shelf in here.

Anyone want a lovely yellow lamp with a hand-cut paper lampshade? And that iron is one I bought two years ago because I was sure mine was on its last legs and the irons were on sale at Target.  I spent last week helping my sister clean out her (new to her) house–the first wife’s things were everywhere and the children had not yet claimed the possessions yet.  After our experience together, she sent me a link to this blog, where the woman catalogues the things she’s getting rid of.  I vowed to do a little cleaning out myself, but later–after I get the quilt bound.  It’s always later, isn’t it?

Found it.  Now to get busy on cutting and sewing before the guilt over ungraded papers takes over. Or the guilt over cleaning out.

Creating · Quilts

Am I Crazy?

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

The Material Obsession Quilt Shop in Australia just announced they are putting together a new Block of the Month group for Lollipop Trees, a fabulous applique quilt by Kim McClean.  I sent this picture to a friend and asked her if I was crazy for thinking about making this.

Yes.  You are crazy, she said.

She’s right.  It would take me about ten years to get it done, but it still lingers in the back of my mind as Something I Want to Do.

I’d receive two blocks every month for 10 months.  I assume the borders are included somewhere in there (I’ll have to ask).  So, ten years sounds about right.  Why is it that my eyes are always bigger than my Energy Level?

Creating · Quilts

Binding, Finally

Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

I spent most of the day Thursday hitting the books, grading papers, logging in their grades online.  Friday, I taught, smelled a gas leak (called The Gas Company), taught, reported that our phone wasn’t working (again)(but now it is, no worries), came home, met the Gas Man (passed with flying colors-no leak), missed an appointment to see a friend, graded some more, wrote vocabulary lists, fixed dinner, ate, watched The Number One Ladies Detective Agency (two episodes) with my husband, crashed.  I also missed going to Quilt Night, a gathering of ladies that’s now going on about eight years.  I was just too tired.

I am ready for a break.

So, I cut strips of fabric–so good to feel them in my hands again, and got to binding those quilts I’d finished early in summer.  Hard to believe it’s taken me this long to get back to them.

The even-feed foot was on the machine, as this quilt came back from the quilter with mysterious gaps around the edges.  The quilt, overall, is quilted beautifully, but these gaps?  Turns out she didn’t want to go OVER the edge with her quilting, thinking she’d have to tie off every thread.  She’s always done traditional machine quilting and this new “modern” quilting–an overall simpler pattern–is new to her.  I do like my quilter because she’s willing to try something new, so I’ll just have to chat with her about heading to the edge and over.  So I quilted in the gaps (which is one reason why it sat for so long, unbound).

I machine sewed it all on, pinned the corners, and now it’s downstairs waiting for me to hand-stitch the back of the binding down while we watch more episodes of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency.  Can’t wait until tonight–bless Netflix.

More binding cut–but I ran out of the swirly greens, so had to use some other things.

This one’s going to go downstairs to the family room to join the other.

I also have some old movies that need watching.  So nice to rest my brain from school.  So nice to be touching the fabric again.  So nice to have a break to do some different kind of labor.

Happy Labor Day!

Creating · Quilts

Quilts with Attitude

Elizabeth E.Leave a comment

“Does Not Compute,” by Boo Davis

I was doing the mind-numbing thing of sitting at the computer, surfing along after another long week in the classroom.  I stumbled onto a slide show in the New York Times about Quilts with an Attitude.  It’s about Boo Davis, who has just put out a book (Dare to Be Square Quilting) about her quilts: part goth, part old-timey piecing.  As an old quilter, it’s fun when New Young Quilters come on the scene, although I must admit to some amusement when they “appear” to have discovered anew what I’ve been doing for years and years.  Like from when I was a New Young Quilter and discovering anew the art of patchwork and piecework.  Click *here* for the slide show, but here’s a notable quote:

Ms. Davis says she gets upset when she sees quilts and patchwork sold on the Web for “next to nothing….It’s an artistic labor of love that deserves respect.”

Ms. Davis says she gets upset when she sees quilts and patchwork sold on the Web for “next to nothing.” She believes that “It’s an artistic labor of love that deserves respect.”

Amen.