Summer Fun and a Tote Bag

July 31, 2012July 31, 2012 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Many thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics for hosting this WIP Wednesday. Click to return to her blog and see others who are staying out of the pool on occasion, and getting some Stuff Done.

Besides going to Long Beach, yesterday my son drove up with his three boys, joining my daughter and her family of three children (who had come from Arizona for the week) and we all went swimming in a friend’s pool. I love it when they come!

That morning, my daughter and I had made two batches of cookies and a double batch of dinner rolls, and the evening was pleasant enough to set tables outside for our meal, where we served two kinds of barbeque chicken, salad, roasted potatoes and strawberries for dessert.

And cookies. Snickerdoodles, if you must know, as we were saving the peanut butter cookies for her family’s day trips while they are here.

Still winding my way through the Lollypop Tree forest, I started on the border blocks. My goal is to get everything cut out, shaped and pinned before I start back to school in two (dreaded) weeks. This is a Giant Work In Progress, for sure. What’s interesting to me is that for several years I collected the Kaffe Fabrics for this project, and you know how long it’s taken me to work on it. But now as I’m coming to a close on the cutting part of it (just the billion squares for the interior borders left to do), it’s like I’ve released a whole stack of fabrics back into my stash for use. I used some of it to line the zipper pocket of the tote (below) and I can see it sliding into other projects, now that I don’t have to “save” it. As a result, although I was tempted this weekend in Long Beach by many Kaffe fabrics, I didn’t buy any.

And you know how sometimes you just have to SEW SOMETHING? This was my project–a tote bag. I followed a lot of the tutorial designed by Lindsay Conner (found *here*), but deviated where I wanted to. [Her blog is also fun to read as she has a lot of tutorials.] I’ve probably made a gazillion tote bags in my life, and after you wade through a few, you figure out it’s not rocket science–just a bunch of squares and rectangles. I had originally thought I’d make this to take to Long Beach, but got bogged down in the center section, as I wanted a divided tote bag. The day before I left I just couldn’t wrap my head around how to do it, so took a different tote with me. (Besides, they gave us a decorative plastic shopping bag tote for our “souvenier bag.” Can I just say how much I miss the cloth canvas bags? This kind is so. . . plastic.)

I wanted to use up the last of this Spoonflower fabric (thanks, Betty!) and wanted it quilted to make it a sturdier pocket. This is about where I gave up that night, as the quilting. . . well. . . don’t look at it too closely.

So when I came home, I figured out the divider, plus the pocket/placket/zipper assemblage in time to finish it for church the next morning.

Here’s the birdie fabric side of the interior.

And here’s the zipper side of the interior.

My daughter and family will be here until Friday, then I really have to do something about my class. Really, I do.

Sigh. Summer sometimes ends too soon.

WIP

Back into the Lollypop Forest

July 18, 2012July 18, 2012 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Yep, the mess is back in my sewing studio. This is block number six. After this one, I’m halfway. Putting down the big petals and leaves is fun and goes quickly, and then it’s the small circles which take up the time. I’m currently debating the ones dangling from the tips of the magenta leaves: do they work? Should I go to a different fabric? What WILL work there? I’m getting quite a collection of “no, not quite right” pieces in a ziploc bag. Sometimes I think it’s best to just lay it down and move on, as these trees will be seen in a collection — a riot of colors and shapes and no one item will stand out. I hope.

Finished my comittment to the Polaroid Blocks and sent them off, but just cut out a bunch more centers (you can see them in the Lolly photo, on the windowsill). At our group’s quilt day, Lisa had brought out an old project I’d abandoned (anyone remember “I Spy” quilts?) and she let me sneak back a few of those centers. It was like strolling through a historical section of the quilting timeline, to see some of those fabrics. So I cut a few more Polaroid centers.

I received an Amazon gift card. You know what I need to do with these. READ THEM.

I worked on these when the quilters met, and at the end of the day, took a good look at a couple of the blocks. Like the blue/green one above. See the problem (the correct layout is the yellow/lavender block)? I did unpick the blue/green block, found its companion of green/blue, and swapped out the corner pieces.

Here they are, all arrayed and correct. This is another Work in Progress.

To see more, head back over to Lee’s Freshly Pieced Blog, where Taryn of from Pixels to Patchwork is the guest host, for another WIP Wednesday.

Quilts · Something to Think About · WIP

Milestone–100 Completed Quilts

July 10, 2012July 23, 2012 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

I want to make a hold-in-the-hand book–full of clippings and writings and photos–about my quilts, following the example of my friend Lisa, and my father’s art journals (which we children all covet) and in keeping with my desire to leave some sort of legacy behind for whoever cares to know what I do, or create. I haven’t made much progress on the journaling part, but today–since I was moving at about sludge pace–I decided to update the list. At least I could do that.

So I was surprised to notice that I have reached a milestone of sorts.

I have made 100 quilts.

It’s a loose compilation with these caveats: include very few tops (only two large quilt tops are included and a few minis, class samples for when I taught Amish quilts in Texas–the first time we all fell in love with solids), and no sewing projects. So the era when I was sewing up a storm for my children, dressing them in clothes of my making, yielded very few quilts of any kind. Those were mostly the ones to go on a bed, rather than express my creativity.

That did change, right about the Amish quilt craze time, when I made Sunshine and Shadow, a classic quilt comprised of one-inch squares, which I had laid out in the corner of my bedroom. When my then-husband pitched his shoes off into that same corner that night as he went to relax, something in me snapped a little bit. That was my art, my creativity. Something I had done, which stayed done. That slight shift canted me towards a greater appreciation and reverence for the act of creating, of making quilts. I had found my medium in which to work. (And by the way, that husband is long gone.)

The one-hundredth quilt technically isn’t completed yet. It’s Scrappy Stars, which you all know, but I did drop it at the quilter’s and it is a WIP for sure, but I’m counting it.

Near the end of our trip to New York, we wandered over to Grand Central Station via the elaborate subway system/tunnels. We emerged into a new tunnel that had a banner embedded in the mosaic on the wall that said: “Dripping water hollows out a stone.” I guess I feel a little bit like that today. That my hours and days at the machine were like that, and all of sudden I look up and the decades of working with cloth and thread has yielded this body of work, a lovely surprise.

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Of course, any good quilter still has a few quilts they are working on. I’m reveling in the COMPLETED quilts today; next week I’ll detail some others that still need finishing. Many thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced and her guest, Kati of the Blue Chair, for hosting us today on WIP Wednesday.

And many thanks to those who played along in Project Gingham. Next post I’ll round up everyone’s project, plus give you a look at my first received Far Flung Bee blocks!

WIP

Grandchildren Visit!

June 26, 2012 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

My grandchildren are visiting and I’m graced with renditions by lovely Keagan, my nine-year old grandchild. She saw my Lollypop Tree and made her own version.

We went to the beach and collected shells, which we had to wash when we arrived back home.

And we made a French Berry Tart, all hands working to get the berries in place.

But lots of the real work has taken place in the making of curtains for my daughter’s home: Riley’s room got a Roman shade and a bedskirt, Keagan and Maddy’s room has colorful panels to drape on the side of their blinds, and Barbara’s master bedroom will receive new blue draperies. We’re also working on kitchen and family room curtains, which necessitated several runs to JoAnn’s fabrics for bits and pieces of the same. That’s today’s production.

Barbara’s here because her husband is studying for his dental boards, and she needed curtains. So we’re sewing, daily sewing, but not on quilts.