Quilts

Prints Charming and QuiltCon

March 17, 2015March 21, 2015 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

I admit it–I was in two fabric stores today: Michael Levine’s in Los Angeles (where they had 10% off all quilt fabric) and Sew Modern (always a treat to visit). I went to Los Angeles as part of my week-long This-Will-Matter-Spring-Break experience, which also means I’m trying to avoid cleaning out the garage, or other household chores, but I did love Lily van der Stoker’s take on housework, seen at the Hammer Museum at UCLA: I’d gone to see Charles Gaines’ work, as he’s all about the grid, but the pieces I really wanted to see were in an area of the gallery that was roped off because of maintenance (which made me a bit crazy). Above is a schematic of fallen leaves off a tree (you can see the branches in the background), but it’s something you just have to see–I can’t explain it. And then I topped that all off with four hours of LA traffic (Motto: You Aren’t in a Hurry, Are You?) and a fun night at my local quilt guild. And all around was pattern. The stack of fabrics I bought were prints. The art I saw in the gallery was based on the grid and time and three-dimensions and it was all this idea of marks on paper, on photographs. . . no blank space unless it was part of the idea of his work. But the filled–in little squares defined those blank spaces. Now look at this. This is predominantly what I saw at Quiltcon: solids. Yes, chopped up, sliced, diced and pickled, but all solids (kidding about the pickled part). Over and over. And straight lines. Over and over. Don’t get me wrong–I really enjoyed the show, only tiring of the square-in-a-square or rectangle-in-a-rectangle when I saw it too often (time to move on now, peoples). Where were the prints? There’s been a healthy discussion going on on Instagram (just click on the button on the right to be taken to my feed, where you’ll also find the names of the makers of the following quilts) about what happened to the prints? I was a total fan-girl for Alison Glass and her prints. And here is Heather Ross, she of print fabrics fame, agreeing to a selfie with me (yes, I’m a fangirl there, too). But I did find some prints, and I thought I’d show you them. Notice also how many straight lines there are. Yes, there seems to be a bias against curved seams, with a few notable exceptions (Leanne Chahley’s fine work comes to mind), but here’s a few quilts that had print fabrics: This was a small quilt–maybe 24″? Lee Heinrich also does excellent work with prints, making them modern by her treatment of them through repetition and color-shifting. When there were prints, they were more like this one, where the print “read” as a solid, disappearing. Caught in the QuiltCon wild: a quilt with prints AND curves. And another, with detail shown below. The prints aren’t try to disappear, they are there in all their patterned glory. Here’s another great use of prints, by the talented duo of Lora Douglas (piecing) and my friend Linda Hungerford (quilting). Again, click on Instagram and scroll through the photos, then click to see the captions, where I identify all these quilts and their makers (offending several in my family with my quilt-heavy feed–cue eyeroll). Final print-prominent quilt of QuiltCon for this grouping. Like I said, the majority of quilts were solids, pieced and quilted in straight lines. Glorious, but there is obviously a bias. Now take a look at what WE, the QuiltCon attendees were wearing: A mix of solids and prints. Charlie Harper on a backpack. Her scarf? Print. His body? Print. I wish I’d had the guts to ask Storybook Lass for a photo showing the front of this dress. And here was a quilt by Windham Fabrics, a manufacturer: And the lovely young woman who sat manning the Sit and Sew Booth, with a lot of fun PRINT fabrics (her creation after sitting there for four days). Malka Dubrawsky, who has wonderful bold prints (yes, I was shameless in asking for selfless), as well as Vanessa Christensen (below) of V and Co. with lots of fabulous prints in her line of fabrics (although she is showing a solids quilt example for our class). In talking with the saleslady at Sew Modern today, she saw some of the same thing (as she cut my yardage of. . . what else. . . prints), but here’s hoping that the Modern Quilt movement will start to branch out as the skill level grows of these quilters, finding ways to incorporate print into their modern version. Next show is in a year, in Pasadena. Stay tuned. I was totally impressed with all the things you readers have been doing, from cleaning out cupboards, to fixing computers to making blankets and quilts. Since today is March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, I chose the 17th commenter for one prize, then did a double-algorhymic interpolation to pick the second winner. Just kidding, I picked the first person who wrote, because Vanessa Christensen was the giving away tons of cool stuff in her class, but I was number 1 and NEVER got picked. Ever. So I thought that our Number One should win something. Congratulations–I’ll send you an email to get your mailing addresses.

Quilts

Sampler Quilt Top & Rosette #1 Finished

March 13, 2015June 26, 2018 Elizabeth E.28 Comments

I’m slowly making my way through the New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt-Along, and have finally finished Rosette #1. Because of the deep colors, it’s a bit harder to photograph than I’d thought, but here it’s tacked up on my fence, in the daylight. I’ve got the template ready for the next partial rosette, but will get to it a bit later, as there are some projects in the line-up ahead of it. This was the beginning of my Mid-Century Modern Bee Sampler, with all the blocks from my bee mates, plus a a couple I’d sewn together. Not Working was what I called it over the last few days. Definitely Not Working at all. I kept in all the bits and pieces of extras they’d given me, then I’d take them out. I’d move them around some more; this quilt was more challenging than I’d thought! The last post talked about the basket block, but I pulled out a vintage quilt block book I’d purchased at a garage sale, to find another. Four blocks of Road to California it is, as all my mates had to send blocks to California. Finally it came together and I declared the top done. I sewed all the pieces together while I listened to the next book in my Inspector Gamache series: Today I used the bits and pieces my bee mates had sent on the back and got it ready to go to the quilter’s. It’s the first one headed over there since October of 2014. How had it been so long? Teaching had taken a lot out of me, and I left room for church service, teaching Sunday School, going to QuiltCon, and my family: PeterMeganMove2015 My son, Peter and his wife, Megan moved back to California from Betheseda, MD. They did the cross country trip in 3 1/2 days. You can tell they are young. Clearing Garden SPR 15 And I left some time to clear the garden, with a few cabbages, Swiss Chard and Brussels sprouts left. We planted seven different kinds of tomatoes, but are waiting for the weather to stop being so hot and dry before continuing. My lettuce isn’t going to be happy this weekend that California has skipped winter, skipped spring and gone right to summer. But this cute tote and fabulous card arrived today as if to celebrate with me that I’d finally finished up. Rachel, of The Life of Riley, sent them over as a little gift. Her timing is impeccable! And so, to continue the celebration, I have a little giveaway. I actually have two: The first is this little book of Quilting Techniques. I’ve actually enjoyed looking through it, as I picked it up at a recent quilt show. And since California thinks it’s summer, it must be time to spruce up those toes with a weensy cute pedicure set in a flip-flop case, a Passive-Agressive notepad (in honor of our freeways) and a wee pair of Itty Bitty Scissors, for those summer trips you are planning. I’ll pick two winners. Just leave me a note telling me your latest success and somehow I’ll randomly draw a name and send off these gifts. International is okay, but I’ll just send one overseas (the other one is domestic). I’ll let you know the winner in the next post. Giveaway will close Tuesday evening, SoCal time.

Giveaway closed. Thank you all for entering.

Quilts

Patchwork Blocks and Ennui

March 8, 2015 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

In a recent email exchange with my father, he mentioned the idea of ennui. It’s not quite boredom, nor fatigue. It is more of a lack of interest in what lays before you, a dis-interest, if you will. The dictionary goes one step further: “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest.” We quilters often describe it as “lack of sewjo,” playing off that phrase of “lost my mojo,” which after reading about in Wikipedia, all I can say is I had no idea.

Of course, having a stack of grading doesn’t help the ennui, but with the students dropping like flies (long story) I had fewer to grade and they actually performed really well, so it went quickly. (Bad essays take longer to grade.)

And this lovely distraction also came for a couple of days while the family was moving between houses.

But as Susan of PatchworknPlay and I chatted on Instagram, I noted that sometimes just sewing a block or two can help beat the ennui. Here’s a new one from the ever-talented Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company, from her latest magazine BLOCK.

I get these every couple of months as I signed up for the subscription and I always enjoy reading them. At QuiltCon they gave us all a copy of MODBLOCK in our swag bags.

Here’s how you cut it. She has the measurements in her magazine. But when I posted it on IG, Krista of Poppyprint mentioned that at their guild sew day, lots of quilters were making the same thing into a star block. I found that tutorial online *here.*

Bird blocks which can be maddening, but also fun, once you get the hang of it. I’m using a tutorial for “free-form” birds from my friend Rhonda, which she gave out to her class. There’s also a tutorial online, which is much more orderly, and if you are into the cookie-cutter precision of paper-piecing, there’s also one of those.

The last block I made last night, while listening to my latest Inspector Gamache mystery, was this basket block, also shown at the top of the post. It was late and I was tired, knowing that I’d lose an extra hour of sleep due to the dreaded Daylight Savings Time switch (I need to live in Arizona where they never switch). I found *this tutorial* and modified it the measurements I needed, plus used extra leaves from the Pineapple Blocks quilt border (yes, still working on that) to fill the basket. I needed the block to measure 9″ finished. One detail is those lower snowball corner on the basket: they were 2″ squares that I snowballed on. The rest was done by cutting as I went, loosely following the tutorial.

This is why I’m making blocks to beat ennui. My Mid-Century Modern beemates sent me a whole wall of blocks in January, and I’ve been adding to them, having no plan, but only relaxing fun. I added the Disappearing Hourglass, the Dresden Plate, the basket, the birds and a couple of fillers. I’m still playing, still arranging. Happily, the ennui is slipping away.

Quilts

Traveling Threads Bee

March 5, 2015March 2, 2015 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Megan (MegsinCali on IG) recently got together a new group to try a traveling bee. I’ve passed on these before, not trusting the universe — and other quilt makers — to execute my vision for my quilts. This time, however, I was finally ready to lark about and see what others will do with my initial idea.

And that was it: my only idea was to use Alison Glass’ line of prints, mixed with other prints. I knew I wanted a big block (above, taken from a vintage quilt book) to lead everything off, but then I had no idea past that. I needed other quilters to help this quilt along, so I jumped in, and am now so excited about the whole process.

Some talked about having a little book to go along with the quilt, so I put one together, complete with scraps of the cloth I was sending along, and the admonition of NO GRAY. Well, no medium gray. I hate what it does to quilts (washes it out, makes it blah), but I can handle light gray or charcoal. But that’s another subject for another time.

And then I laughed when I realized that two of the fabrics in Glass’ line are a dark charcoal. Oh well, let’s see what happens. I mixed in some more prints from other places, just for ideas or a resource.

And here it is–all packed up and ready to go (and sent!). I have a Pinterest site where I’ve gathered some ideas from here and there, but Traveling Quilt Bees are pretty rare, I’ve discovered. Round Robins, where a medallion quilt is created, are more popular, but I already have a medallion quilt or two, so I want that well-traveled look in this quilt top: an addition here, a block or four there, some flying geese strips — or not.

Our little group seems to gravitate towards Instagram with DM-ing each other, using the hashtag #travelingthreadsbee as the preferred way of communication. So look for us there!