The Done Manifesto–FSF

March 16, 2012March 15, 2012 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Since, during summer, Friday is my FSF–Finishing School Friday, I thought I’d mention this idea of the Done Manifesto, created when “Bre Pettis, an inventor, and collaborator Kio Stark gave themselves exactly 20 minutes to create a manifesto encapsulating everything they knew about bring a creative vision to life.” (from Infographic of the Day: 13 Rules)

I read about this some time ago, but parts of their manifesto haunt me, as I read your blogs and hear you talk about the struggle to craft a balance between your time blogging/interneting and quilting. Here’s the full list; focus in on number 12:

Some of my “done” quilting is ghostly, existing on pinboards, and websites and floating around on the internet, and on this blog. You have to take my word for it–my quilts exist in real time, with the soft hand of cloth, quilting, and batting, sewn together with the whir of a finely tuned machine. I love reading your comments, interacting and forming online friendships with you (one of the good things about blogs!), but look at Number Nine.

This one notes that to dig in and get the work done is what’s right about things (“People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.”) All of these can be applied to quilting. One of my friends completed a quilt top, hated the borders, unpicked, resewed. Another friend had begun quilting her son’s wedding quilt, hated it, unpicked, resewed. Both of these quilters embodied Number Eleven.

Number Seven? Throw it away is sometimes good. And so is to give it away–to a charity, a quiltless friend. Some quilts are made to go out into the world and not hang around in your closet. And Number Six? Will I ever finish the list of quilts I’ve dreamed of? We all know the answer to that one. But that brilliant Number Thirteen nails down the reason why doing the *real* quilting and sewing and creating is so much more satisfying: “Done is the engine of more.”

I loved all last summer when I could easily post something “done” every Friday. It’s a different satisfaction that I get from quilting than from most anything else I do in my life. My quilting stays done. I can touch it, be warm underneath it, point to it when I hang it up on a wall. It defines me. It’s my favorite work, for when I enter my quilting zone, time just flies.

This week’s finish: Doll Quilts. I heard from Kim, my daughter-in-law and they have arrived!

Be My Valentine

February 24, 2012February 12, 2017 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Okay, I know I’m late. Late for Valentine’s Day. But better late than never, right? Another entry into Friday Finishing School. In fact, today I have two!

I finished sewing down the binding on my LOVE mini quilt–here it is! Okay, on to the red and white.

Be My Valentine, Quilt #94

I threw a color catcher into the washer to catch the red dye–obviously I needed two, judging by the fact that the little ladies now have a light pink background instead of a white background. It’s interesting how some of the whites were tinted pink and others were not. Go figure.

The back.

I wanted something fun for the label, so I cut out a piece of fabric from the front, and printed onto that. It really is squared up. Ignore the photo.

Beauty shot of the quilting on the front. I used a thicker thread–King Tut, because I wanted those circles to stand out. I have to say I really like quilting with Superior Thread’s King Tut. And I buy my thread from them, just like everyone else does. No, they are not a sponsor. Yes, we are having a giveaway but only because I like their product. I also use the Guterman that I get on a 50% off coupon at the big box fabric store, but I’ve only really been happy with that for piecing, not for quilting the top. (And no, I don’t buy into that myth about polyester thread “cutting” the cloth.) I have also used Sulky on occasion, but sometimes I don’t like the shiny look of the polyester, and head back to the cottons. Some quilts call for one kind of thread, other quilts call for other threads.

And on the back I used Superior’s Bottom Line thread in white. How did I ever start using this? It was when I was sewing my Empty Nest, Full Life quilt, and I just couldn’t get the threads to balance properly with their locking of the stitch in between the front and the back. I think I had purchased a spool of Bottom Line at the last quilt show I’d gone to and in desperation, wound it onto the bobbin to try. It’s a lighter weight thread, and I think Heather (Mother Superior, as she is known on the website) told me that a lot of show quilters used it because they could more densely quilt their quilts. That fact didn’t sway me at all (you know how much I hate densely quilted quilts), but the fact that I didn’t have loopy loops or pulled threads to the front did convince me it was something to have around. I loosen the tension on the top a little, sometimes a lot. Then I write that on a post-it note and keep it near the machine for when I have to come back to it. Generally, with a thicker thread on top, I lower it by one full point–from a 4.0 to a 3.0.

So I tend to use it always in the bobbin. I’ve always wanted to try it in hand piecing, as it is as fine as silk. Some day. There you go–two Friday Finishes!

Finishing School Friday

FSF–Autumn Quilt

November 11, 2011November 11, 2011 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

I just finished sewing this together, and smoothed back up on the wall to do the next step: audition borders. Those blocks have been orphaned on my wall for nearly a month now, so it’s nice to have them all sewn together (so I won’t worry about them falling off and never getting them back in the arrangement I’d decided on).

I went up to Bluebird Fabrics, which stocks a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabrics, thinking that his florals might do the trick. But I decided it was mixing two different time epochs–not where I want to go with this quilt. So I dug back into the stash, looked through some books and think I’m heading toward a pieced border, with that stripe as a divider to let those edges glow. It’s interesting how “of a certain date” these fabrics are, as well as a certain look. I’m trying for a mellow quilt top here, like the golds and reds and browns of autumn mellow into a beautiful display every year.

But Mother Nature always has a leg up on us, as she paints her fall palate. I noticed when we were in Canada last month, how much better the Halloweeny/Fall colors looked against a gray sky and the softer contrasts found in the northern autumn light. All those pumpkins look out of place here in Southern California, with our bright light and the continuous greens of plants and trees. So it’s no accident that we don’t have “fall” here, at least not until January, when the liquid ambers blaze into brilliant reds, then quickly turn brown and fall off the tree. So, as I work, I try to keep in mind the atmosphere of Montreal and Quebec City and the small island north of that old city as I work on this quilt. Luckily it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, which will help me stay focused.

Finishing School Friday

FSF–Halloween House

November 8, 2011 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

At long last. After the holiday. In time for next year:

Binding on and stitched down. Label is coming. . . later. . .as are most things in my life right now. We’re in crunch time at school and if you think witches in doorways and skeletons all dressed up going to a party are scary, you haven’t seen midterms and research papers for some time now. Yesterday the students all dragged in after having taken the fiction exam last week. They looked, in a word, bedraggled and like that scene in Roger Rabbit where the character is run over by a steamroller. Only these young adults hadn’t popped back up yet, cartoony-like. I opened with a few jokes, but really folks, we had more work to do. My wry comments were followed quickly by a more thorough reading of the Research Paper packet and ideas for drafting. There’s no way to avoid it–it’s work work work until the end of the semester.

We shifted gears and discussed the play that was assigned to them, as well as the difference between fiction and drama. I gave them a pop quiz and wrote a condensed version of our final few classes in a modified calendar up on the board. A few squares, like the quilt above, filled with goblins (essays), research papers (witches), exams and presentations (other scary things). Finally, one young man spoke up, his voice weary: “It’s nice to know we have a light at the end of this tunnel.” The ice was broken, everyone laughed, and their spirits rose a bit in order to finish the group projects, get their exams returned (they had all studied hard and did well) and move on out into the crisp California afternoon.

Halloween’s over. The work continues. Reading and writing for them, grading for me. And maybe an hour or few stolen for another quilt project. Just to keep the goblins at bay.