Quilt Bee · Sewing

Snapshots!

Elizabeth E.7 Comments

A couple of things on this post.  First–a gallery of ginghams from our Project Gingham.  I liked how Sherri did this on her blog and I guess I just wanted a record of all the projects spawned from that long line of garage sale boxes (and by the way, my quilter said she inherited about 20 of those boxes, and will look to see if there’s more gingham in there).

Stacked Coins from Krista of KristaStitched

My Granny Loves Gingham, from Cindy of Live a Colorful Life

Gingham Geese, by Rachel of The Life of Riley

Hucklebuck from Suz of PatchworknPlay

Kris from Duke Says Sew What has two projects: the wall hanging (above) and the yet unfinished gingham curtains (below)

and the last one:

Despite the Memo re: Gingham Day, Sue Does Her Own Thing

from Becky of SarcasticQuilter

Each of these quilters has told about their creative journey in using up the gingham they were sent, so if you’re curious, pay their blogs a visit.

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You know how when your 9th grade teacher assigned you summer reading, of say, Beowulf, an epic ancient poem, and you ended up frittering away your days reading comic books and teen magazines?  I’m about there right now.  The Beowulf is equivalent to my Lollypop Trees, and the comic books?  Polaroids!

These are untrimmed, of course, because I’m participating in the *Picture-Perfect Polaroid Swap* of these little cuties over on Flickr, and they specify UNTRIMMED blocks.  Last night when it was a about a bazillion degrees outside and the day was expended, all I wanted to do was some mindless sewing while I listened to This American Life podcasts.  This was a perfect project.

This photo is from Karen of capitolaQuilter and she has a great tutorial on her blog if you want to whip some up.

Rachel of Stitched in Color (above) has a bunch of these little gems made up into a quilt.  And maybe Amy of Little Miss Shabby started the whole craze, with her invention for her Ringo Pie Bee?

At any rate, they are addicting. Here’s my first line of snaps, about 16 to a WOF (Width of Fabric) cut.

I cut out the 2 1/2″ squares for a while, then pieced them.  This is only half of the squares I cut.

After you sew on the top (or bottom) strip (refer to capitolaQuilter’s instruction) there’s a few pieces jutting out, so I laid down my ruler and cut them off.

I guess we could also call these things baseball cards, after the look of these 1910 rareties, inspired by that story about the grandson who found a treasure cache of early baseball cards in his grandfather’s attic.

Beowulf, aka Lollypop Trees, will have to wait because another piece of summer fun is a gathering of our little quilt group: Good Heart Quilters, started at least a decade ago by Lisa and a few others.  We seem to be too busy lately for our regular First Friday meet-up, so we planned an Open House of quilting tomorrow, with a potluck lunch.  I’ve already got my bag packed and ready to go.

And yesterday, this arrived, all the way from Australia!

I held the first two blocks of the Far Flung Bee Swap.

I pulled them right from their package, so forgive the wrinkles.  I was too excited.  Many thanks, Erika!

Quilts · Something to Think About · WIP

Milestone–100 Completed Quilts

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!

100 Quilts · Quilts

Project Gingham!!

Elizabeth E.16 Comments

A long time ago, in a galaxy garage sale faraway, Elizabeth found a whole lotta’ gingham.  She shared with Krista, who really likes vintage fabrics.  Then we hatched the idea to share with a few others. And today’s the day everyone is sharing with us, but first–my reveal!

I’ve titled this quilt: Gingham Quilt.  Really original, but certainly it has to get points for being descriptive, doesn’t it?  I auditioned a lot of different block ideas, and then decided that just about anything would work with these prints, especially a lot of white.  I know some of the checks get in the way of the bow-tie, but I wanted this to be a fun, summery quilt, without freaking out about anything.  So there you go—some things you just live with and love.

I had seen in a Roberta Horton book that she had used a different fabric for the outside blocks in order to create a border, and I wanted to try that too.  I picked up the cool lavender almost randomly, wanting it so it wouldn’t intrude on the crisp white in the middle of the quilt.  A slight shift, only, in that border, and I tried to use many of the darker ginghams to highlight that shift.

Detail of the quilting, which is a spool of thread and a needle.  My quilter Cathy always has a great design for me.

Two glamour shots of the quilt.  I wanted to show one of my favorite ginghams–one not likely ever seen again in today’s mass market.  It’s that true lavender in the middle of the quilt.

I left this picture bigger so you could click on it for detail.  This is made with (deep memory, here, from my CloTex degree) a dobby loom.  The word comes from the early days of fabric manufacture, when a little boy would sit on top of the loom and pull up individual warp (or lengthwise) yarns so the weft (crosswise or selvage-to-selvage) shuttle could glide across and make a design.  Dobby is short for “draw boy,” or so the rumor goes.

If you look closely on the back, you can see white yarns (threads) that are carried across the back, and create the design on the front.  The floating yarns are the tip-off to which side you are looking at. A lappet is another type of machine but it’s my understanding that the lappet can only do one direction of thread, whereas in this design both the warp and the weft are involved.  Like I said, we aren’t likely to see this fabric ever again.

Label.

I chose a Jane Sassaman print for the back, and not only because I got a bunch of it for a deal when I went up to Michael Levine’s in Los Angeles, in the garment district, but more because it seemed to be in the mood of the front.

I think of this as the quilt for a picnic, for throwing down on a meadow somewhere and pulling out a wicker basket, kitted out perfectly with gourmet feastiness.  Right.  Not my life.  In reality, I think of the time I went up and took my then 4th-grade daughter out to lunch. . . on the front lawn of the school.  We got a lot of crazy looks from the gardeners and the kindergarteners as we enjoyed our sauteed pepper-and-onion sandwiches, just the two of us, with moms picking up kids in the school’s driveway just three feet away.  It’s a great memory; it’s that kind of a picnic quilt.

Now hop on over to the other blogs and see their Project Gingham reveals!

Krista, of KristaStitched

Cindy, of Live A Colorful Life

Rachel of The Life of Riley

Suz, of PatchworknPlay

Kris, of Duke Says Sew What

Becky, the Sarcastic Quilter