Once There Was A Snowman

March 7, 2013March 31, 2013 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

I’ve had my first finish for March with Once There Was a Snowman. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m thinking that I’m several months early with this Christmas quilt, rather than 3 months late. It’s all about context, in my life. This was my attempt at being wonky. Not a favorite thing to do, I must admit. I’ve made quilt blocks that are wonky sewing as well, and really, I just can’t find the attraction in all of this sewing random strips together, trimming at weird angles, sewing some more. I wasn’t attracted to it in the first place, but you really can’t judge a process until you’ve done it. So I did it, and can now safely say: not my favorite, as Johnny Depp said in the movie Chocolate, as he instead preferred other kinds of chocolate. Just like I prefer other kinds of assembling a quilt.

But it will be fun to set it out for Christmas and have the house all festive. I used a Kate Spain snowflake-on-red fabric for the backing, piecing it carefully to match the design and so no seam would be apparent.

My quilter zipped out this very cute ornament design for me. I used Superior’s variegated blue King Tut thread for the quilting. In hindsight, maybe white would have been better on top, but that’s the game in quilting, I think. Always learning, always learning.

I have to admit that being a part of the great Finish-A-Long, hosted by Leanne of She Can Quilt really helped motivate me. Now on to the next one!

Update: Original Finish-A-Long post is *here.*

200 Quilts

Sunshine and Shadow

February 8, 2013 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

Thanks be to you for all your sweet and touching comments about my brother-in-law’s passing away this week. I read all of them to my husband (it’s his sister’s husband who died) and will mention them to her a bit later, when the family has all gone home.

The drive up the state was snowy, yet in between being worried about the roads and driving and those semis, the snow would stop for a few minutes and I would see winter scenes like the one above. I stitched the binding on as we drove (the first picture is a shot of the quilt on my lap). We stopped in a snowstorm to buy a ribbon for the quilt, then I needed a place to photograph it before sending it on its journey. But where? There were lots of beautiful old farmhouses, but we were in the middle of huge snowstorm.

Then I thought of the Springville Art Museum, where I’d seen a quilt show the summer before. It was perfect. I explained my story to the docent at the front desk and she was enthusiastic. ( This may be the closest I ever come to having my quilt in a museum.)

Draped up their curving staircase.

And over the top of the grand piano in the Grand Salon.

I loved this painting of a woman looking mysteriously out from underneath her hat. Title: Lady in Black. So I titled this picture, Lady in Black with Yellow and Blue Quilt.

By now we thought that Janice was back from picking up the last in-coming daughter from the airport so we drove over to her house to drop off the quilt. There were tears as we talked, visited with her family, discussed the plans for the funeral and burial tomorrow. More tears, and she apologized for crying. We hugged. I told her the quilting was hearts and hands–hands to give her a quilty hug when I wasn’t there, and hearts so she’d know that she was loved.

The title of this quilt is Sunshine and Shadow, taken as much from the colors in the quilt and gradation in colors on the backing as from what life hands out to us on a regular basis; you know what I mean. As I sit here tonight typing this, my husband is writing his talk for the services, my other sister-in-law has started the laundry for her mother who took a fall and can’t live by herself anymore, and up on the wall behind me is a sampler declaring “Tis a gift to be simple,” made for them by a young married daughter who has rheumatoid arthritis and can’t stitch anymore.

Those shadowy times are in all our lives. But we look to the sun, and go forward.

200 Quilts · FAL · Finishing School Friday · Quilts

Into the Woods!

January 18, 2013March 31, 2013 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Into the Woods is finished–my first finish in the FAL hosted by Leanne. I blogged about how bogged down I was in my entry FAL, so it’s nice to be able to go out to the front porch, have my husband hold it up and declare it done. And yes, I know it’s January and we still have pumpkins out there. Okey-dokey, moving right along. . .

Here’s a closeup of the quilting, and the blocks.

And the requisite beauty shot, draping not-so-artfully by the pumpkins.

Back of the quilt. I had purchased this fabric about eight years ago, when I was shop-hopping up in the Pittsburg area with a good friend. Our husbands are both scientists and we’d see each other almost annually at conferences. This particular time I had a rental car, so we left the boys to their science and took off in search of ours. I love that certain fabrics have memories attached; whenever I see this I will think of Beth.

I had originally named this a different name, mocked up the label but just couldn’t make the name stick. Then one night, it came to me. Seeing this quilt was like walking into the woods, surrounded by golds, greens, crimsons and browns, and so that became the title, just like the Broadway play Into the Woods by Steven Sondheim. That play has always had special significance for me, as its allegory of going into the woods –the difficult trials of life — and making your way back out of the woods — into a different life than the one imagined — became a sort of map for me during a painful shape-shifting time of life. I still love that play, and as I worked on the label (with a scrap of lyric pulled from the title song), I played it on the computer and sang along. Nothing like a Broadway show tune to make the quilting go a little quicker.

My quilter, Cathy, did a lovely job on the quilting of pumpkins and vines (and if you know the play Into the Woods, there is a section of Jack and the Beanstock, which correlates nicely). So there it is–my first finish, and finally, a Friday Finish for myself.

Update: Original post for the Finish-A-Long is *here.*

200 Quilts · Creating · Four-in-Art

English Elizabeth’s Technical Side

November 4, 2012October 26, 2017 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

See the previous posts for the reveal of English Elizabeth (above), part of the Four-in-Art quilt group.

One of the Twelve-by-Twelve artists (after who we are patterning our group) said she likes commercial fabrics and always uses that as a starting point for her creations. And even though I suggested this adventure of an art quilt, I was frankly a bit terrified of the whole idea, so starting with a commercial fabric seemed really appealing.

The commercial fabric I’d chosen for the background was from the Madrona Road line of fabrics by Violet Craft (from Michael Miller) and it had Queen Anne’s lace in a blue and an orange colorway. I had a scrap of blue leftover from my Harvesting the Wind quilt, but it was only about 15″ square. That was it.

I decided to be open to anything and while I was picking up some fusing supplies in our Jumbo Fabric Store, these black snaps jumped into my basket. Okay then, great-grandma and I are doing something with black snaps. I printed out a picture of English Elizabeth, put white papers around the edge to give a sense of the size of this thing, and arranged some black snaps marching up the sides.

Nyet.

Most of the Twelves used an art journal of some kind, so I dragged out a blank one and started writing–always my fall-back mode. Then I used my (very) rudimentary art skills and sketched out some possibilities.

Things were starting to click in the old brain. I have an EPSON inkjet printer with DuraBright inks, and I’d had good success with printing onto fabric for all my quilt labels, so I thought I would try printing English Elizabeth onto some lighter-colored fabrics. I did some research on the DuraBright inks and apparently they are water-resistant. I knew that I’d probably never wash this quilt, but I had, in the past, done a test sample and the ink stayed on through a run through the washer. (However, if you really want permanence, Spoonflower for fabric design or Micron pens for labels might be the best way.)

Auditioning fabrics. I initially thought I wanted to pick up that light mustardy hue in the fabric, but instead I was intrigued by the thought of printing Elizabeth onto some creamy floral fabric–making her into her own garden of flowers.

I auditioned several sizes, like the one that was 5″ across. I ironed freezer paper onto a square of two creamy floral fabrics and ran them through the printer, fingers crossed. (I put tape on three sides of the stabilized fabric, leaving the bottom edge free.) It was working well! There was some trepidation every time I tried a new idea. Would the artsy part of it work? Would the technical side of it work? It was lovely having my great-grandmother look at me all afternoon.

I chose the fabric sample with larger flowers, but when I laid English Elizabeth down, the blue showed through. Before I cut around her head and shoulders, I ironed some featherweight fusible interfacing onto the back of the fabric, placing the printed side against a piece of white paper, just in case the printing would transfer. It didn’t.

I wanted to print this phrase I’d come up with onto my fabric, but my printer isn’t wide enough. I had a stamp set of alphabet letters, so it was back out to the Jumbo Fabric Store to buy some fabric/textile paint. That is a whole other story (did you know how many kinds of puffy paint there is??) but let’s just say I finally selected a “fabric stamp pad” by the brand name of Scribbles, and had enough time to go by the embroidery floss aisle to pick up some variegated pearl cotton for attaching those snaps. Somehow.

Worried about the “heft” of the fabric, I ironed a piece of featherweight interfacing to the back of the blue, and then started stitching.

Auditioning colors. I did do a couple of blossoms in the aqua-blue pearl cotton, but ended up cutting them off and going with the yellow-peach pearl cotton instead. I wasn’t crazy about the spacing in the word LOVED–that “L” seemed to hang off the edge of the word, so I converted the O to a snap-flower to even out the spaces. I trend to the pristine in my quilting. You know: all those points sharp and crisp, those seams perfectly joined, so to let the messy and random into the quilting was interesting. I might even say, beneficial.

Ready to go to quilting.

Usually all embellishment comes AFTER quilting, but I wanted those snap-flowers to be a part of the piece and to be able to quilt around them. I quilted with light gray thread in both top and bobbin.

English Elizabeth, detail. I went in with gray and cream-colored thread to outline the contours of her face and to delineate her jacket. My mother still has those beads of her grandmother’s and yes, she does wear them. I wonder when this photo was taken. It was obviously posed, and she had pulled back her hair into a tight bun. But that allowed her large eyes to dominate, along with that Mona-Lisa-like smile.

English Elizabeth, detail.

The snap flowers. There are only four holes, but five petals on the individual flower of the Queen Anne’s lace stalk. So I put two petals into one hole. Sometimes they looked really funky.

I bound it with a narrow straight binding, using another piece of fabric from that line, the cross-hatches suggesting a fence to me.

Back of the piece, showing the quilting. I used the folded corners method to hang this quilt: a dowel, cut to the length of the back of the quilt minus 1/4″ will slip into those corners, and hang on a push pin.

Was making this all roses and fairy dust? No. I procrastinated beginning on this piece because the whole idea was so different. It’s like driving to the frozen yogurt shop, in a way. If you go there often enough, like my husband and I did during this long hot summer, the way there is easy, smooth and oh-so-familiar. But when we wanted to try a new shop, on a different side of the city, we had to figure out a way to get there.

I did finally arrive at a satisfying place, and although the road was different and strange, sometimes frustrating and scary, I have the sweet smile of my great-grandmother looking down on me as I work, confirming that, for me, that the new path was good.