Quilts

Sew Together Bag, et al.

September 17, 2014 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

I present to you: THE SEW-TOGETHER BAG!! If you are from my quilt guild and are looking for the link to buy the pattern, it is *here.* Yes, you have to sign into Craftsy and make up a name and a pin number. But there are a lot of great things on Craftsy. Then open up your computer and link to The Quilt Barn Sew-A-Long for the pattern. They go together.

I have seen about eight million of these online and on Instagram and get putting it off because, my-gosh-oh-golly, it has four zippers. And binding!

And all those pockets! Okay, I’m here to tell you that you will survive to sew another day. And that Michelle, of Sew Demented, has figured out easy ways to construct pockets.

The binding was No Big Deal–easy if you’ve done quilt binding, and if you follow The Quilt Barn’s directions.

So, jump in! The water’s fine.

And now I have to talk about the weather. We’ve been having a heat wave. This is after the crazy rain storm that took out lots of trees in my neighborhood, and ruined concrete drainage ditches in my park.

Tuesday, coming home, I saw these beautiful clouds, a rarity in our area. Then it got all dark and my phone had this screen:

The power went out…no sewing. So I did non-electrical quilting things. And when the power came back on, all the little machines in our house started beeping and whirring and clicking, like they were all talking to each other.

And because this heat wave has broken records, we are glad that they carry my father’s favorite gelato in our local grocery store. I can vouch for the deliciousness of Tahitian Vanilla Bean, and the jars are very cool for storing stuff once they are emptied.

Then I tried out the pattern for Circles Block #5. Fail. Total fail. Not the pattern, just what I had chosen. Back to the cutting table.

And then some of my favorite books arrived: the BLOCK magazine from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Simple and easy and not complicated reading.

Almost finished with this post of trivia, hang in there with me. I chose a few colors to go with my incoming stack of Couture Cottons, which is part of a QuiltCon challenge. I hope this heat wave lifts soon, as it’s killing my productivity.

But Lisa has been productive, finishing up her French fabrics quilt for her daughter who has been on a church mission for 18 months and comes home in November. Lisa will tell you this with a giant smile on her face. Here the quilt is being shown at the Raincross Quilt Guild last night–a great event. We both had fun!

And last. . .

Yes, this is a tractor at sunset. Actually it’s parked in my front yard, and yes, the demolition on our front yard is going nicely.

Keep quilting: I wish you many happy sunsets too.

Quilts

Busy Quilty Weekend

September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

This past Friday night was our little quilt group’s Quilt Night. We hold it the first Friday night of just about every month, taking off some here and there. Lisa (on the left) and I founded The Good Heart Quilters when she was pregnant with her daughter, who is will soon be 18. Hard to think we’ve been going that long! On the right is Charlotte, one of our newer members, and Lisa’s running/marathon buddy. Why are they smiling? I cleaned out my fabric stash this past month and brought all the leftovers for them to claim.

Speaking of pregnant ladies, Tiffiny, on the left, is waaaay pregnant and due this week. (So far, no news.) She is our bonafide Newest Member, but I’m guessing with a new baby, we won’t be seeing her for a while. She’s helping Lisa hem and sew buttons on band uniforms (Lisa is a parent volunteer). See? We don’t always do quilts. We want Tiffiny to come any time she wants to as she brought us all a yummy key lime pie. Treats are always a good thing at Quilt Night.

And still speaking of pregnant ladies, Caitlin (on the left) is due in January. Simone (on the right) and I rounded out the group and we are definitely NOT pregnant. A small gathering, but fun. And with great treats that everyone brought.

I kicked them all out 10 p.m. because the next day I had to leave at 7 a.m. to head to San Diego to the San Diego Quilt Show, where I was taking a Free Motion Quilting Class with Sue Rasmussen. She was great. The class started out with a comprehensive overview of needles and threads, but soon we launched into hands on FMQ. I had taken a class with another instructor about twelve years ago and a lot of what I know now I’ve gleaned through books, internet and Instagram. So I thought it was time to do something classroom-y again.

We learned about hand position, speed, foot control and the all important wild card of what to do when our brain kicks in with questions like “Should this be a feather?” or “You really messed up there.” She also taught us three methods for starting and stopping, and kept the class moving with good demos and good advice. I’m now totally intimidated on submitting anything to a show as she clued us in to some things she looks for in a show quilt (she’s often a judge). Thankfully she didn’t say “sparkles.”

I had an hour for lunch, see the show, and visit the vendors’ booths. I raced through it, so didn’t have time to grab names or titles of quilts (sorry) but here’s a few photos that I grabbed as we zipped by.

This French landscape is Sue Rasmussen’s. You can bet I looked closely at the quilting. (It was perfect.)

She actually had three of these trees, all in different color ways and different fabrics. It was fascinating to see how different they all were.

I loved this fun quilt, but it didn’t win the Modern Quilt category prize. (Inconceivable!)

Great quilting, eh?

This one won first prize in the Modern Quilt category. Hmmmm. I see “improv piecing” which seems to be a criteria (or at least according to Road to California’s blurb when I took a look at it this morning). That’s it? Improv piecing as the only qualifier for Modern? Oh, that and “significant negative space,” or something like that. I hate these seemingly artificial qualifiers and divisions. Like Leanne of She Can Quilt says, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Back to class for another few hours. Here are some of Sue’s samples. I really enjoyed her class and was glad I made the effort.

On the long drive home, there is this elegant bridge spanning the wide freeway. When I see this, I know I’m halfway home. It was a good weekend, with good friends and experiences, but heading home is what I like to do most.

Quilts

Sol LeWitt’s Patchwork Primer

September 8, 2014September 10, 2014 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Sol LeWitt’s Patchwork Primer
Quilt #135 of 200 Quilts
47″ square

It started with a catalogue my father had of Sol LeWitt’s work, and I read it cover to cover, bookmarking different pages and ideas of his, impressed with his breadth and depth and interesting ideas. I selected this image, “Fifteen Etchings,” thinking it looked sort of like a “how-to” or primer of sorts, for dividing squares into quilt patchwork. You can read more about my process and sample some of LeWitt’s notes on getting to work in *this post,* including the 6900 variations of the arrangement of quilt fabrics into squares (maybe I’m exaggerating a bit). The fabric I chose to use was Mirror Ball Dots. After a long hiatus (I started this in March of this year), I finally got it out, pinned it and got the quilting going:

I started in the middle, quilting in between the lines of dots. In the neighboring color, I sewed the other direction, and so on, around the quilt. I changed out thread on each color, but used my go-to thread in the bobbin: Bottom Line, by Superior Threads. I lowered my upper tension to keep the thread balanced in between the layers so no white popped up to the top and no colors popped through to the back.

White binding (what else) goes on next.

I think with the combination of the dots on the fabric and the quilting, it reminds me of what I envision a 1960s quilted jacket might have looked like. I’m sure my sisters had them.

The backing is a Marimekko fabric of large grey blossoms over an acidy-yellow background.

I included the picture that inspired me on my label.

I love the “stained glass” look of quilts, shot from the front when they are illuminated from the back.

It’s nice to have a finish!

Now here’s your quote on creativity for today:

“The creative act is not an act of creation in the sense of the Old Testament. It does not create something out nothing: it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, skills. ~~Arthur Koestler, in the 1960s

Quilts

Goals for Fall 2014

August 27, 2014November 25, 2014 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

I used to belong to the FAL thing–“Finish A Long” and loved loved it. But because of my personal lifetime karma of Never Winning a Prize, I decided that while it was still beneficial to make up goals, I just didn’t have to link into an enterprise to announce them. It’s enough for me to use some colored pencils and write it out. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Finish quilting and bind the Sol Lewitt Patchwork Primer Quilt. I started quilting this at our retreat in July, but it has sat for nearly a month now, partly because of LIFE and partly because I wasn’t sure I liked what I was doing. If I had to rip it out, I only wanted to rip out a little bit. Time to get it out, evaluate and finish it up.

2. Quilt and bind and for-heaven’s-sake decide on a name for this. It’s gone by Rainbow Blossom, Colorwheet Blossom, Colorwheel Petals, that iPhone Logo quilt and too many other names to mention. I bought the thread at Superior Thread the last time we went through St. George so there should really be nothing holding me back (except: how do I quilt this thing?).

3. Create and cut out (at the very least!) my Mexican Day of the Dead quilt. It would be a near miracle if this were actually DONE by the Dia de los Muertos, which is November 1st, but at least it made it onto the list again.

4. Oh, yeah. This. It’s was a cool swap I did with KristaStitched and the top is supposed to be done by September something-or-other (better go and look it up). The other quilters in the group are going to be done, and I’ll still be lagging behind.

5. Redo the front and side yard landscaping of our house. Here is the *before.* Stay tuned for the after, when they will probably have to wrap me up and take me off to some quiet location, and feed me all forms of chocolate and Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls 24/7 until I recover. (I’ve had Cinnabon on the brain lately. Good thing they are far away.) And yes, we’ve already made about 45 changes to the above plans, but it’s a good start.

I’ve added back in some of the usual need-to-be-finished culprits: 3 skirts, the Good Luck Quilt (which I can hardly remember what it is, but I do know where the fabric is), the QuiltCon Pastels challenge (which should be landing on my doorstep anyway). And you know I’m just like you that I could probably rustle up about ten more projects to throw on this list, but I won’t.

(from *here*)

I’m hosting the Good Heart Quilters in a week for Quilt Night at my house on September 5th, Friday. If you’re in the area, come and join us! (And Good Heart Quilters? Can you RSVP and let me know how many are coming so I can set up enough tables? Thanks.)

And I’ll leave you with this: my five completed selvage blocks. I’m not in a rush on this project. (Good thing.) It’s nice to have something to pick up for those days my brain can’t handle one crisis.

Finally, some thoughts on finishing from here and there:

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. ~~Marie Curie

I really enjoy the finishing part of the painting process. It’s like performing the Beethoven Sonata when all the hard slog has been done to make it a possibility. ~~Leoni Duff

Ovid gets the last word: Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it.