Picties and Verities • Quilt Finish

February 10, 2021February 8, 2021 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

*Picties and Verities,* quilt #243
71″ wide by 78″ tall

Finally!

This baby has a new name: Picties and Verities.

What, you ask? Well, that phrase was in a poem I read about a thousand years ago, and I liked it and wrote it down and of course I can’t find it now, because that’s my life, when even what we had for dinner last night is cause for wandering around in the corridors of memory.

Verities, defined: a true princple or belief, especially one of fundamental importance. Seems to me that striving to be happy, knowing that the sun shines on all of us, as well as the idea that it’s always good to go home — with or without your trailer — just have to be some verities.

Picties, defined: For this one, I went to my husband’s college Oxford Dictionary, a two-volume set complete with magnifying glass. Pict (rare, it says, from the 1400s) means to paint or depict or represent. I would say all those bits of appliqué up there qualify as little pictures. Of course the Picts were also the ancient name of people from North Scotland, and are associated with elves, brownies or fairies. And possibly old grey castles with dungeons (an allusion to its working title: Trapped in the Dungeon of Cute). And since my great-grandmother was from Scotland, I own that heritage with pride.

I sewed on buttons last Saturday, while listening to my Guild’s program, and added, as is my usual, “Made in the time of Covid-19” for anyone who receives this quilt after I’ve gone to the afterworld to frolic with Scottish fairies. You’ve seen photos of this, but here’s a last batch of fun.

And since you’ve read this far, I now treat you to one of my husband’s beautiful photographs, taken the last week of January:

We retraced his steps to take a look at it this past week, because in trying to identify what it was depended on what the plant’s leaves looked like: if they were cacti-looking, it was an aloe. If they were leafy, it was a kniphofia (aka Torch Lilly or Red Hot Poker). It’s an aloe, but it is a distant cousin to kniphofia, apparently. My husband Dave takes long walks everyday, bringing home pictures like this, reminding me of when my children used to bring me home bits and pieces of their days, spilling them out into the kitchen, a line or a thought floating backwards over their heads deep in the refridgerator.

It’s so nice to watch Dave gather his interests about him now, after having had his nose to the grindstone for years, bringing home the proverbial bacon to put in the fridge for those now-grown children. His process — of snapping pictures of whatever interests him and only later culling and choosing — reminds me of this quote from the artist Ann Hamilton:

“A life of making isn’t a series of shows, or projects, or productions, or things; it is an everyday practice. It is a practice of questions more than of answers, of waiting to find what you need more often than knowing what you need to do….Our culture has beheld with suspicion unproductive time, things not utilitarian, and daydreaming in general, but we live in a time when it is especially challenging to articulate the importance of experiences that don’t produce anything obvious, aren’t easily quantifiable, resist measurement, aren’t easily named, are categorically in-between.” (Ann Hamilton, artist)

Having had three finishes within a couple of weeks, and today teaching a workshop with the Surfside Quilters Guild, my next plan is to do some wandering myself, maybe some daydreaming and find those experiences that don’t produce anything obvious, yet are so critical.

And P.S. Blocks 4, 5 and 6 of Shine: The Circles Quilt are now back on the blog, free to all.

Other posts about Picties and Verities:

First Sighting of the Bee Happy Blocks
Making a Curve for the Dungeon of Cute
Bee Happy QAL Progress • June 2019
Be Happy in April 2020
Bee Happy Tutorial Sheets (tips written to go along with the pattern)

Software

Making a Curve for the Dungeon of Cute • Affinity Designer Tutorial

January 28, 2021January 28, 2021 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Yes, I’m going to talk about making curves, but it’s part of a path that began after I finished the Bee Happy Quilt. You know what comes next: either get it quilted by check, or if you are daft enough, quilt it yourself. (Above: measuring and cutting the batting). But the hardest part is coming up with ideas, so then I check Instagram. I found Rebecca Silbaugh of rubybluequilts and generally followed along to what she had quilted for customers’ quilts like mine. It wasn’t exact, but it gave me a roadmap.

I use a Sweet Sixteen mid-arm, or stationary quilting machine to stitch by quilts, so I have to find some workarounds, and one of them is good use of the disappearing marker. But I need a template to trace to get the design I wanted for the border, and didn’t want to take the quilt downstairs to try out a bunch of plates from the cupboard to find the shape I wanted, or go through all my rulers.

In the early days, when quilters wanted a repeated shape for their border, would often cut a piece of paper the length of the border, and then fold it into parts, using that to mark off the segments. But I had two border lengths to work with and neither were easy measurements, but I figure if I could get a 3 1/2″ petal-shaped something-or-other, I could trace that and make it work. I turned to my Affinity Designer software to get that perfect shape. The steps I took are listed at the bottom of this post, as I didn’t want to interrupt the post, but if you are someone who is learning this software, they may help.

I printed out my shape, but kept a connecter — punching a hole so I could mark through it. I traced one side at a time–using the shape at a perpendicular angle in the middle to fill up the space and arranging it around the corner.

Here’s a picture of the border pattern in soft afternoon light, so you can see the quilting. I used So Fine thread from Superior Thread, color #402 — an off-white — in both top and bobbin for the center of the quilt. Then I switched to a matching Magnifico Thread (also by Superior) to quilt the borders, keeping the bobbin the same.

The quilt — and I — are resting before I tackle the trimming, binding and sleeve. I’m also waiting for inspiration to strike for a name. I’ve called it the Dungeon of Cute all this time (I began the quilt in January of 2019), as I loved the first three or four blocks. Then it was like being chained to a wall, having to make cute blocks over and over and over. (But I don’t think I want to name it this.)

Something will come to me.

Affinity Designer Tutorial for making a petal-shape

I had taken a class at QuiltCon that talked about merging shapes and subtracting shapes, so I started with the left mess, trying to get that curve. Fail. Then I found *this video* and it opened my eyes to possibilities. Go and watch it now. I’ll wait. In figure 2, I drew a constrained square by holding down the shift key to make the sides all the same length (without the shift key, I’d get a rectangle). I put a thicker border on the square so I could see it.

Then I did what it says. I clicked on the border to highlight it, then converted it to curves. That lets each side and each corner move independently of the others.

Click on the corner tool (in the pink circle) and the nodes will change to little boxes. Right by them, not really visible in his illustration is a small red “handle” that you’ll grab. Move your cursor around to locate it for one corner, then drag toward the center of the square.

You can see the little red “handle” in this image; it looks like a small circle. The farther the radius of that larger red circle, the flatter the corner.

Figure 5 is getting a work out.

But I really want to make a petal-shape. I dragged the handle until the radius was the same as the square’s side: 3 1/2″ inches. I kept my eye on the measurements, shown in the pink oval.

But I wanted a thinner petal, so I went with a 4″ radius. Then I copied and pasted them together, using Command-G to merge the layers so I could move them as I wanted. I printed them out on cardstock and used that in the marking of my quilt (below).

Good news! All Affinity software is on major sale right now (50%), so if you need any design or photo or pattern-writing software, I can recommend it to you. No subscriptions. And they also have a 90-day free trial, as well. I don’t get any kickback for recommending them to you; click this link for more information.

Happy Quilting!

Quilts

Buzzing

June 7, 2020June 6, 2020 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Let me start with the easy stuff, the stuff that’s in my hands all the time: cloth, needle, thread, shapes, stitching.

While I’ve called this the #dungeonofcute on Instagram, I am happy that I finished it, and that it is really cute. I set up a place on my blog to corral all the handouts I made while working through this. I made a series of tip sheets that collect all the disparate information that Lori Holt presents on her blog, and hopefully will serve to help those who decide to jump in to Bee Happy. Borders are up next.

I started to wonder why this was so hard for me. There is the matter of all that stitching. By hand. It is also a quilt of medium tones and values, and while I do like those quilts, I tend to be more comfortable using stronger contrasts. And maybe I’m not as patient as I could be? And maybe because I felt like I was always buying her fabric, so everything could neatly “fit in together”? Sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and charming motifs and flowers and buzzing bees?

This week has provided us all with a way of looking at the side we don’t often see, the side that gets hidden behind a tidy facade. I’m a Pollyana from way back, and am always looking for the rainbows and the hearts and flowers. But there were more than a few things in the past few days to knock me around. It was that kind of week.

From this, the (mildest of) images, to the videos and pictures generated by another visitor to Lafayette Park, the news stories chronicling the fights and the hate and the soldiers and the protestors and the (unneeded) clashing.

This week, our Instagram feeds filled with these sorts of images:

Then a couple of days ago, I was surprised to see this statue from Alexandria, Virginia in my southern California newspaper. I’d walked past this statue often when I lived there, and thought it a rather simple memorial.

The art critic calls it a “racist civic sculpture celebrating white supremecy.” Its location in Alexandria is right where the main street through town gives way to a bigger highway, shuffling the traffic over to bridges and it faces south, away from the town. It was, when I was there, a mostly ignored statue. Is it okay to admit to liking this simple memorial in an area full of memorials, a soldier contemplating his fallen comrades? But this week, given our new vantage point, and out of necessity, it came down. And as my historian sister says, a lot of ink has been spilled on this topic recently.

So, this week I sewed.

This week I listened and watched.

I spent time in my garden, catching a glimpse of a late-blooming peony. I read through news stories of the protests, stunned at more instances of thoughtlessness. I would step away from the television and computer every night then lay awake in the dark, wondering what kind of senseless world I was living in, when people were singled out for how they look. I had no answers, just a lot of tired mornings, when I would repeat the cycle again. I wanted to make it all happy, turn the cloth under, hide the fraying and the raw edges, but I was being asked to see it from another view, a richer, more nuanced, and painful view.

I wish I could wrap up this post in a tidy little package, give a neat turn, but this is not that kind of week. This is the kind of week where you wonder. This is the kind of week where you decide what you want your country to be. This is the kind of week that you pay attention to what’s on the other side of things, knowing that they can make all the difference.

Quilt-A-Long · Quilts · Something to Think About

Bee Happy in April 2020

April 18, 2020June 7, 2020 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

While I titled this Bee Happy in April 2020, part of that is a statement: I’m working on my Bee Happy Quilt, started at least a year ago. But part of that is also a question: is it possible to be happy in April 2020? Let’s tackle the first, wander through the second and I promise I’ll leave you with something funny.

Like many of you I’ve been reading — no, gorging — on the news at this time, and one article about how nature is taking back the canals of Venice, the meadows of Yosemite and how we are seeing less pollution in our skies also commented on the amount of bird songs available now to us in our own backyards. So one mopey day, I pulled out my Lori Holt Bee Happy quilt (!) and started anew. I sat at the kitchen table, stitching, listening to the avian calls, and took a break from the chatter.

Hens stitched, blocks sewn and what I’ve finished is all smoothed out onto my design wall, a sort of vertical storage these days. Three of her rows are finished, ending with the clucking hen sisters. I numbered how many I have left: 13 blocks.

I’ve been making a little tip sheet to go along with all the weeks on Lori Holt’s blog, where she has all her photos and pictures. However, sometimes the info is not arranged as easily as I would like, and so I offer these as an adjunct to those working on the quilt who also need a bit more. Click to download the PDF files. They are found on a page up in the tab section, under 2020 Projects, if you need to find them again.

I laugh at those COVID-19 memes that list a full menu for dinner on the first three days then devolve down to cereal and soda by Day 20. I alternate between complete angst at dinner time and diving in to make a cool meal. Here are two of my successes: bibimbap (top) and African Peanut Stew (bottom, recipe on ElizabethCooks.com). My daughter, who lives too far away, has been baking these:

Baking and selling them. She’s really mastered this treat.

Like the rest of you, I spend far too much time scrolling on my phone, I’ve been happy to see the contests sponsored by major museums across the world to have those of us keeping quarantine to mimic famous works of art.

I also follow the hashtag #quarantineart to break up the quilty quality of my IG feed, where I found this image.

Other components of our COVID-19 lives: Zoom conferences (this time with my brothers and sisters and my two elderly parents highly quarantined in their senior living building), memes, walks around our neighborhood in the morning, and finally, peering into the homes of TV newscasters, where I spotted a quilt on the back of a sofa. Hey! A quilter lives there…or at least they appreciate a quilt.

So, can we be happy in April 2020? Possibly. Probably. Often. Sometimes. Always. Occasionally.

In January 2020, way back in another time and place, my local quilt shop asked us to nominate someone who could use a sewing machine in their lives, along with some sewing helps from Olfa and fabric from the store. I wrote about my friend Hayley, a young mom who is in my First Monday Sew-day group, who has really taken to quilting. She’s the wife a medical student, and has a sweet young daughter. I then waited…and waited…and finally heard this week that she had been chosen!

We all wore our masks, kept our social distance, and Janet, the shop owner read from a prepared paper, thanking all those responsible for giving this award. Then the curtains parted to reveal a sewing machine–Hayley started to cry, I started to cry, Janet started to get emotional. I was so happy that someone who is starting to love quilting could get her own machine. Here’s the video on Facebook.

Now a funny video about how to sew a mask.

Here’s hoping you’ll Bee Happy/be happy in April 2020!

Free Quilt Pattern · Quick Quilt · Quilts

Bee Happy QAL Progress • June 2019

June 13, 2019June 7, 2020 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

The wheeled devices in the So Very Cute Project I ~~lost my mind and~~ decided to do are completed. It’s nice to see it before it goes to a Time Out in my closet, so I can get some Real Quilting Work done.

But before I tell you about the basket of flowers in the back of the truck, you need this chart from Whip Stitch:

Head to her website to read all about it, or download it here. Trust me, you’ll want this, as the weensy little instructions with the Clover bias tape makers will drive you batty.

This is Lori Holt’s logo for this delightful project. Notice the dog in the back of the truck.

Notice how the people who live in my quilt realized that they needed the space in the back of the truck for hauling baskets of flowers.

Make 1/2″ mini-hexies for the flowers, fussy-cutting a couple. Cover some triangles, sized in relation to the flowers, then give each a pleat in the lower edge before sewing them on. I used three “leaves” and five flowers. I used the lower edge of piece D8 as a pattern for the basket, then turned it upside-down to get the wider edge at the top.

It is really dense in that section, with the layering of fabric. I’m one who cuts away from the back whatever I can to lighten it up for quilting:

BeeHappy_June_6 — one more wheel to cut out

The Guidesheet for this week can be found in the tab above, Bee Happy Tutorial Sheets, under Projects for 2020.
See you later, Bee Happy-Sew-Along-gator!

I’m still working on this quilt, which I call Ladybird, because it reminds me of a ladybird beetle (sometimes called a Ladybug).

I finished the first book (long, but good) and am now onto another:

And this happened. Yes, no more PT. Now I’m getting ready for my project for tomorrow, Flag Day, the day when we find our rolled up flags in the front hall closet, and hang them out front, a prelude to the month of July, when it’s all red-white-blue all the time.

Okay, my wannabe flag quilt morphed into this flag-like wall hanging. I say flag-like, because I read one Instagrammer say that she had to make another less flag-looking quilt because her family didn’t want to lay hers on the ground for picnics.

I opened up my QuiltPro program, guessed out the proportions and figured it out. There is no pattern in my worksheet, because I do assume that you’ll figure out how to make this, if you really want to. Again, if either of my arrangements bother you, make one that you like. I was inspired by a lot of what I saw on this post from Quilt Inspiration, where you can find lots of free flag and flag-like quilts for your patriotric needs.

Here’s my worksheet, with all the dimensions, in a downloadable PDF file:
Betsy’s Creation_OPQuilt I named it after the original creator of the flag: Betsy Ross.

Happy Flag Day!!

Quilts

Trapped in the Dungeon of Cute

June 9, 2019June 7, 2020 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

Working on this quilt makes me feel like I’m trapped in the Dungeon of Cute. I discussed this with my friend Laurel, who is also doing this, and she said wistfully said, “Yeah. But it’s so cute.” It is, so I keep working on it.

That first section, sun-bee-butterfly-jam-jars-long-flower-two-trees-churn-dash-pinwheels-flower, is all stitched together. I’m trying to get the second section finished before I leave it for awhile.

Obviously the different between the top photo and this one is that I’m trying to get that truck and camper block pinned up, but the other difference is that I re-did the star on the flag. Ms. Holt has us back every shape with interfacing, stitch all around it, clip and turn, press and appliquè. I did it with the star in the top verion; that’s why I had to re-do it. I say, there are multiple ways to appliquè, so do your favorite method. Mine is a combination of needle-turn (à la Becky Goldsmith) and also using freezer paper.

To say the directions are frustrating would be an understatement; they look complete, but are missing crucial information, like the truck piece is too long. I’ve worked out several weeks worth of instructions for Laurel and I, and have put them in PDF handouts. You are welcome to them: Bee Happy Tutorial Sheets. They are found up above under the tab “2020 Projects.”

I put in pictures belonging to Lori Holt, as they are an additional guide to this pattern. I acknowledge her at every turn, and don’t give away anything that’s not on her blog, but hopefully I make it clearer.

Believe it or not, but the Bee Happy block was the easier than the Jam Jars block or the Truck-Camper block. The missing dot on the exclamation point will be a small button.

Quilting this is my antidote to the Dungeon of Cute. A couple of hours every day.

In spite of our president’s tariffs, I ordered new 2″ cotton webbing from China off of ETSY, and it arrived so I could fix my tote bag. If I purchased a certain amount of precuts at Quilt Market, I was given the bag free (free=haha). This happened back in Salt Lake City, and the handle began to shred almost immediately. The New York Times had a great article recently called “What to Do With All Those Tote Bags.” What to do, indeed.

Wanted to play along with this QAL…

…and even purchased the red, white and blue fabric (there’s more in the stash). Sigh. Just like I finished my Christmas quilt in June, I’ll probably get this done in November.

The other night at a restaurant, since my husband and I couldn’t hear each other in conversation, I downloaded the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) app to figure out how loud the dining room was at California Pizza Kitchen. As a guideline, the average noise level in a home is around 40 decibels (dB) and noise becomes harmful at 85 dB. My husband and I pretty much gave up on conversation, ate our pizza in silence and went home.