A Year Ago...

It was just a year ago that we left for our trip to South Africa, and I have been looking through my pictures, and decided to post a few. First is one for fabric people: this is a booth in the Greenmarket Square in Capetown selling mud cloth. This isn't a South Africa cloth, but comes from other countries, including Uganda and the Congo. It's all natural dyes and the designs are appliqued on to the base. I bought only a small pillow cover from this because of the bulk. Then--since everyone posts pictures of their cats--here's a cat of another kind. We visited a cheetah breeding facility (cheetahs are endangered, which I didn't know), and for a fee you could pet a cheetah. Pretty hokey, and actually I was rather afraid to do this, but my husband talked me into it, so here I am, gingerly petting that cat! He was actually quite bored by the whole thing, a typical cat. I could even hear him purring.







This is Table Mountain, in the heart of Capetown, taken from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the inland side. The next picture is a view of Capetown taken from the boat returning from Robben Island, a former prison during the Apartheid period. It is now a museum, and tours are conducted by former prisoners, who describe their experiences. An incredible experience to take this tour and consider the almost miraculous changes that have happened so rapidly there. And to give a taste of the less scenic side of Capetown, here is one of the "informal settlements" put up by the people who are flooding into the city from the countryside, a growing problem for South Africa.

I tried to give some hint of the varied things we saw. We did see wild animals too, but my camera just wasn't able to do them justice.

I have been tearing my hair about the binding of the wall hanging I' m making, so I stopped and did the quilting on this charity quilt.

I have such a love-hate relationship with my Viking 545. It does beautiful stitching, but the controls and some of the feet are so badly designed. For instance, the quarter inch foot has no "play" so although it works great for stitching two layers of fabric together, it stalls when I piece a block. Does this make sense? What is this foot for, anyway? Isn't it for quilting? So why isn't it designed to piece blocks? Another gripe is the shape of the walking foot. It is hard to see the edge of the fabric, so when I am stitching on a binding the seam allowance is a little wide, and so the binding ends up narrow and needs to be forced over the edge. I know I could cut the binding wider, but I am just beginning to understand what is going on and why I have this trouble. I also cannot do a machine stitched binding because the open toes of the walking foot don't flatten the binding. I had no trouble making bindings with the old machine. In fact, I am going to use the old generic walking foot for bindings in the future. I did that on this charity quilt, and it worked so much better. And then the controls--little tiny buttons that have to be hit just exactly right or they don't work. So when you think you are backstitching, you aren't!

Anyone else have this machine? Do you have problems with it? Is it just me?

Reds and Pinks

The other day I discovered the color spectrum project. This project is mostly for knitters, but there are quilters trying it too. The colors for March are reds and pinks, my favorites. I'm not going to be doing a new red/pink project, so here is my red snail's trail quilt from several years ago. It was fun to collect fabrics for this, and I learned some things. I first used pinks for the light red, but couldn't stand so much pink,so I added red and white prints to cut the "sweetness". I also added some purples and lavenders to make the whole thing a little less warm, but it's still a red quilt.

And, since Lolly encouraged colors from nature or art, here's one more. There's no red in nature in northern Indiana in March, but here's a Chagall painting I saw last summer at the museum in Nice. I took the picture to remember the color combination. In reality, it's glorious. I just read that Chagall said his paintings had no meaning except light and color, and that is so true of the red ones in this series. Here there's a blur and bad color reproduction because I had to use such a slow shutter speed, but I hope the picture gives some idea. Doesn't that acid yellow just bring the whole thing to life?

Not a total dummy--

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 8/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Frustrations

Started quilting the parrot wall hanging I made a few weeks ago. I did a pattern of concentric circles with a walking foot, and although I was worried about how hard that might be, the stitching went very smoothly because the piece is so small. But I don't like the way it looks. I don't seem to be able to master all the quilting decisions: thread, batting, design. This isn't the first time I have had a top I like and then felt I spoiled it with quilting. What's really frustrating was that I used a batting I've used before and liked (Quilter's Dream Blend) and a pattern I used before on a quilt with the same design. But this time I don't like the result. Maybe when the marks are gone and it has been dried and fluffed I'll be happier. No picture of this thing, at least not yet!

Also spent a frustrating time preparing for my French class tomorrow. I am taking Intermediate Conversational French at a place called the Forever Learning Insitute. (If the name makes you picture a classroom full of "mature" students, you're right!) I am not the youngest in the class, but am definitely the slow one--these seventy- and even eighty-year-old ladies put me to shame. I have forgotten so much! Last week was particularly bad because I had been away the week before and didn't know what had been assigned. I'm ready for tomorrow, but may have to miss again because of my husband's doctor's appointment. (I'm designated driver.) Argh!! I hope to be able to get the assignment this time, at least, so next week I won't be totally humiliated.

The Wearing' of the Green

Here's the Chicago River dyed green for Saint Patrick's Day. I took these pictures from the Michigan Avenue bridge last year actually, but just about now the men from the plumber's union are in their boat, dispensing their secret-formula green dye to color the river. I had heard of the green river, but pictured something sort of sick and brownish, not this incredible emerald. I remembered the river this morning because we are going into Chicago later today to go to the opera and spend the weekend with my son and daughter-in-law in Evanston. We'll miss the St. Pat's festivities this year, but it's a great memory.

These are two postcards I made as work in my Quilt University class. Not bad, not great. I made the one on right first, decided the trees/lines were too stumpy, so I made the second version. On the second I used Angelina fibers to make snow. Or I should say I tried to, but when I fused the card to the innerfacing, the irridescence disappeared, and the Angelina fibers are basically invisible. Obviously a new technique is needed for that. Live and learn. I do like the shadow effect with thread painting though. I'm still working on improving binding on these little devils also. The second one is better because I cut the binding wider to cover the thickness of the innerfacing. I know some people overcast, but my machine won't do that well, so I'm stuck with binding.

Done!

The rows are finished, and this can go to be quilted. I like it--it's a very traditional looking kind of quilt, although the pattern is unusual. I don't know what it's called; it's a log cabin variation that I saw a partial picture of in a magazine, and figured out how to do it. I don't know how it got so big (I could say that about my sons, too!). I meant to make it double or queen size, but this is a real king. I guess I added border blocks to make the design look right without realizing what was happening to the size.

Rows and Rows

Nothing interesting to post today. I am sewing rows together in the scrap quilt I have been working on for two years. It is supposed to go to the quilter by end of week, so I am trying to stick to it (yes, writing this IS procrastination). Do other people hate this step of the process? There is so much pinning, so many little points, UGH. I have nothing but admiration for people who make beautiful, accurate bed size quilts. I have to fight the urge to say "enough, already" and rush this stage. And then there's the pressing--ugh again. But of course, the quilt does finally take real shape, which is a pleasure to see, or at least I hope so.

More Quilt Show Pictures

Here are three traditional quilts that I loved. The first one was made by Marie Karickhoff--I always like Storm at Sea, and to see it in red is unusual. (Red is always good!) The second was made by Gail Stepanek, and the photo doesn't do justice to those warm rich taupes. The combination of New York Beauty (another favorite block) and that curving applique is new to me and very successful. The third one is another terrible photo. The quilt is actually white (!) with feed sack prints and a traditional embroidery. This is a beautiful quilt that drew much more attention than that third place in category ribbon. I wouldn't be surprised if it won Viewer's Choice.

More

The woman in red was made by Jane Kennedy. I was interested in this because of the Erte fabric she used--I had seen that and loved it but didn't know what I would do with it, so resisted buying it. I also like the circle background quilting and the overall effect of the piece, which is simple, but makes you keep looking. The man leaning against the tree is by Marilyn Belford, and I thought the realism of the clothing was exceptional and the face is also memorable. The portrait of Pauline Salzman playing cards is by Julie Higgins. Usually portrait quilts don't convey much of the subject's personality, but this one does. I'll post some of the more traditional quilts that I liked next time, but I somehow didn't take as many pictures of those.

IHQS, continued

I don't understand how to make Blogger put photos where I want them, so I have given up and am doing a new post! From the sublime to the ridiculous, here's my quilt, which won an Honorable Mention in Amateur Wall Quilt. I was amazed, truly, but of course very pleased. My biggest reaction at first was to be upset that the sign and ribbon had been placed to hide the sun, which is important for the idea and the design. So Elaine and I searched for a white glove lady, and when we couldn't find one, we chose a time when no one was looking and moved the sign ourselves. A fun exercise in rule breaking, hard for us well brought up ladies.

Since I despair of getting photos where I want them, here is just a collection of other quilts I liked. The circus quilt was made by Denise Havian, and won excellence in machine quilting and best professional wall quilt. It is wonderful, using bright novelty fabrics as well as traditional ones, and so rich in detail that it takes careful studying to appreciate. That's one of the marks of an outstanding quilt, I'm beginning to believe. The other one is the winner in Amateur Wall Quilts. It's based on Northwest Indian designs, which I haven't seen in a quilt before. The red background is heavily quilted.

IHQS News

I came back from Bloomington last night after a very enjoyable time with my sister and brother-in-law and a day and a half at the show, one day in class, and another to look at quilts, and of course do a bit of shopping.

Here's the best of show quilt, made by Sandra Leichner, Albany Oregon. The picture doesn't do it justice, of course, particularly not for this quilt because it's such a beautiful, soft and rich palette. It's not the style I usually like, but I love the richness of the colors and the non-traditional touches, like the pieced background in the center medallion and the fabric paint accenting the trapunto. The workmanship is phenominal, naturally.

IHQS

I just wanted to make a quick plug for the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show that I'm attending this week. It's a relatively small show, but the teacher list is great, and because it's comparatively small, it's easier to get into a class than at some other shows. It's not a juried show, but in spite of that the quality of the quilts is very high, and it's fun to see less than professional work too. Bloomington, Indiana is a charming college town in a hilly scenic area with an attractive courthouse square, surrounded by interesting shops. The IU campus is beautiful and worth seeing also. The whole event is small, low key, but very good.

I'm really looking forward to going this year because my sister is joining me from Louisiana. She's taking Esterita Austin's class, and I'm taking Libby Lehmann's. Should be fun. I always stop at Quilt Quarters in Indianapolis on the way down, and that's a treat also.

Thanks for the welcome and encouraging words from other Quilters' Lounge members. I'm delighted to be one of this group.

I did the applique work for the "purple thing" and here it is, basting and stabilizer still in place. I am struck by how strange this piece is--the irregular diamonds create unexpected angles, which might make someone wonder "Did she make a mistake?" Who knows, maybe she did! I don't know what to do next, so will let it cool, at least till I get back from the show in Bloomington this week.

Yes, I did use the Hoffman Challenge fabric in this. I earlier did a bright pink one, and it struck me that the dark purple end of the colors in that fabric might be interesting. So now I have two, or will if/when they're finished. Don't count your chickens...

Success

I've done the frame for the Japanese puzzle quilt. I stabilized the thing by ironing it to freezer paper, and turning under the edges of the outside pieces. Then, after figuring out the length and width of the border, I carefully placed the quilt down on paper cut to size and marked the angle lines. Next I retraced the pattern and added seam allowances, cut the pieces out and stitched together.




It went together very smoothly, and sounds simple to tell, but figuring it out was the hard thing. I have learned a lot about putting odd angled pieces together, if nothing else! The next thing is the tedious, but straight-forward job of appliqueing the body of the quilt to the frame. Keeping it straight and flat will be the main problem. I hope lots of pins will do the trick.

Japanese Puzzle-next stage

I think I like this--now to figure out how to actually draft and sew that border! Yowee. I guess a paper pattern is the way to go, but measuring scares me, since I tend to be so inaccurate. Tomorrow or the next day I'll give it a shot.

A Real UFO!

Today I was cleaning out the guestroom closet, doing the flylady twenty-seven fling thing when I dug out a quilt that I was hand quilting at least twenty years ago. I have only looked at it a few times since, and had no memory of what it looked like. I don't know where the blocks came from. I think my mother must have given them to me from her bottomless pit of UFO's. They are hand pieced, some well, and some very badly, and made of all sorts of scraps, some old, some 70's. It's actually quite pretty I think, although not pieced well enough to be worth anyone's time to hand quilt, especially not mine, since that makes my carpal tunnel flare up. I was never a good hand quilter anyway, as the picture shows! Anyway, the best thing to do, I think, would be to take out the fairly small amount of quilting, relayer it with a cotton batting, and try my hand at machine quilting. I know some people would consider that a shame, but considering the overall quality of the piece, it seems like the best way to go.

Japanese Puzzle, continued

I finished sewing the blocks and pieces of the puzzle piece together. It is small, 20 by 33 inches, which is about what I was aiming for. This was interesting, and once I got into how the block worked I found it rather fun. Sewing the pieces together was not as hard as I expected, probably because I was so careful to keep track of each block as I took it down from the wall. The bias edges are tricky, and I have a bit of stretching, but I think this will "quilt out".

Next step is finishing it. My idea is to applique this to a background piece that has different colors carrying out the lines of the piece--the lavendar will broaden out into a v-shaped piece and the lower part on both sides will be green. Perhaps the top "border" should be wider than the bottom also. We'll see. I think my next creation will be something where I don't have to figure it out as I go!

Guests

The view from my dining room window this morning. So beautiful, but are they welcome? I had to drive them away because they were munching on my witch hazel bush (which was blooming before this Arctic blast came in), and with incredible grace they ran across the driveway, leaped the fence and a fallen tree, and disappeared into the neighbor's property. I hope they found something less precious to eat, and stayed out of the road.

More Favorite Quilt Books

Color Harmony for Quilts by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. These are unusual quilts, more traditional in technique than "art quilts" but very contemporary. Although some of the comments about palettes is over my head, their ideas about choosing colors and blocks to fit a "big idea" is one that I really liked. I made the quilt I call "Indiana Roadside" using their idea. I had wanted to do something based on the beautiful greens, golds, and whites of the "weeds" near our house for a long time, but didn't know what. ( Realistic applique and landscapes are not my thing. This quilt isn't quite what I was aiming for, but I like it.

Quilter's Complete Guide, by Fons and Porter. A great reference book. I check the size charts all the time.

Threadplay by Libby Lehman. Very practical advice for using decorative threads as well as instructions for her ribbon-like designs. Unfortunately I don't have this book, and when I looked it up on Amazon, I found that a used one costs $85! So I ordered one from interlibrary loan for reference in the class I'm taking from her at the Bloomington show.

Post Card

I said I would never make one of these--never say never. My sister's birthday is next week, and I thought of something I could put on a card. They have been waiting since October for the sheet rock to repair their house damaged in hurricane Rita, so that's the explanation for the picture. It was fun. Free cutting picture and letters, fusing, and freemotion stitching on something so small is very non-threatening. Only the binding is a bit of a pain. I think overcast stitching would look good and certainly be easier.

One comical thing happened--I decided to rip out some of my first quilting stitches because the thread showed up too much over the letters. Of course that left holes in the fabric, so to get rid of the holes I spritzed the thing with water and steamed it. The blue fabric of the letters apparently wasn't colorfast, and ran. So the letters have an appropriately hurricane-ravaged look.

Unintended Consequences

I'm getting ready to send my "global warming" quilt to the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington, and so want to post it. I'm proud of this quilt, although I know that it is odd, to say the least, and some people either won't get it, or will think it ridiculous. I didn't show it to my mother, the super conventional quilter, but the rest of my family was very supportive, although I know my sisters think global warming is a myth.

I got this idea about two years ago when I heard about California environmental activists putting bumper stickers with the slogan on people SUVs, and the design just fell into place. This summer was the first time I finally had time to get down to making it. It was a challenge, lot of math to make the Storm at Sea Borders fit, and I hate paper piecing. I also don't like messing with fusibles, so this was a challenge, but I improved and learned some things. The sun was fun. I want to do another New York Beauty someday. I loved the yellow "desert" strip pieced blocks on the side and the way the sky turned out with random piecing of light blue Ohio Star pieces. I also like the color scheme. The quilting is less than great, however. This is my biggest weakness still, and probably always will be. Another problem is the wheels. I thought it would be clever to put a silver button on top of a black button to make hubcaps, but I think it looks kindergartenish. I could have taken them off, but at that point, I'd had it.

Anyway, I don't think people will walk by without looking, and that is good enough for me.

Continuing

I'm really getting into the design now. I've placed several blocks and am at least partly pleased with the design that's developing. The little pieces of paper are marking the center of a block (otherwise I get confused), and the tissue paper is to show where the next block would be so that I can tell what color piece to try next. Working out some of these tricks has helped a lot. The hole in the right side should be green, but I'm short a piece at the moment.

Japanese Puzzle

The puzzle pattern is very intriquing--something simple made into something complex. The block is a large 60 degree diamond made out of four smaller diamonds. But the smaller diamond pieces don't divide the block evenly, so they are irregular and mirror images of each other. When the blocks are put together the different fabrics don't intersect evenly making a kind of jagged effect. There are obviously lots of possibilities for this, most of which I have no idea of now. I have so far just cut and placed enough pieces to make four blocks. That's enough so that I'm beginning to see how the different pieces work, and how the larger pattern of blocks MIGHT fit together, but there is still lots of room for trial and error. I'm not even sure about the color combination I'm playing with.

When Creativity Goes Bad

Two weeks ago I started reading The Artist's Way, and although I really haven't done many of the exercises except the morning pages, I feel as though I have creativity ADD. There are so many ideas firing out at random that I can't really seem to focus and accomplish anything. I have no idea if this is a good thing. Since yesterday I have: done enough strip pieced blocks from scraps to make another charity quilt like the one above, made changes to my "woodland creature" arty thing (this is after it was bound and supposedly finished!!!), and cut out some pieces of fabric to play with the Japanese puzzle project that was in American Quilter a few issues back.

I also tried unsuccessfully to figure out how to translate another one of my class sketches into fabric, and used Quilt Pro to work on the layout for the Australian fabrics. And then of course, playing around with posting for the blog is another creative (?) activity. I have NOT worked on sewing together scrap quilt strips or marked the parrot quilt for layering, two near finished UFO's . Just not creative enough, I guess.

Quilted my mini "art" quilt. It was fun, but I have no idea how I really feel about the design. I tried to give it a kind of foresty feel, and the head-like shape has a kind of mysterious quality, as though it is emerging from the shadows. I don't think the quilting/embellishment added much to that however. I'll definitely try something in this non-traditional style again though.

Is It Art?

Yesterday I took the plunge and made a fusible fabric sketch of one of my drawings for the Quilt University Lines and Shapes class. This was fun, much more "arty" than anything I've ever done before. I'm not totally happy with it, but I think I can make some changes (if I can figure out what they should be!) and then quilt and embelish. That should be fun too. Since it's so tiny, I can control it easily.

Scraps

I love scrap quilts! What I love about scrap quilts is the way everything blends into a colorful blur which is so much prettier than the individual blocks. There should be a moral there.

Today I laid out the blocks for the one I've been working on. Not room on the bed for all the pieces, so although it isn't a good idea I'll have to sew some rows together and then lay out the rest. I like the way it looks, even with all the bumps from the not too smooth bedspread.

Not having touched fabric yesterday, I started out today by making blocks for guild block exchange tomorrow night. How many ways can a person screw up? First in cutting--I cut the last strip of blue fabric two inches instead of two-and-a-half, leaving me with a nice 2 1/4 strip. A creative opportunity to use two blue fabrics, probably a good thing, although some guild members may not be pleased. Then I sewed the patches together wrong at least three times. Block on right is the correct one; it's called Grecian Cross. Block on left is wrong--a variation of Shoofly or Churn Dash or one of those more familiar ones. I like it better, which is good because I will keep it for myself and take the others to the exchange! The two blocks together create and interesting optical illusion, both the same size but appearing different.

I now have about thirty blocks from this exchange, all blue and white. Pretty boring actually, since they're mostly medium blue fabrics that read as solid. I'm looking forward to putting them together. It will be a good chance to try some of Sharyn Craig's ideas.

Busy today! I have been working on my lines for the Playing with Lines and Shapes class, and came up with some I liked. Since it's such a pain to get to my husband's scanner, I tried enlarging them at Copy Max with the idea of taking a picture and sending them that way. But then I realized that since the computer has Adobe Illustrator I can draw lines that way. So I bought a book, made more lines, and sent them in. Here are some more, not the ones I sent in, and not even the best ones, but just some samples I made playing with the brush tools. Tomorrow I will work on using layers so that I can make changes and compare them. I'm so excited about this program. I think I can use it for sketching quite a few things for quilt projects, if I can figure it out. It certainly does more than I will ever need to do, but anything new I learn is valuable at this point. Even the fact that I posted it on this blog! Senility is still not on the horizon.

My week of heavy quilting opportunity is over. I did finish the top of the parrots piece, and am getting ready to hand quilt! This is something I don't often do. I'm not terribly good, but adequate I think, and since I want to do a circular motif, hand quilting is the best way. I'll post the finished top soon.
I did not finish the other projects. Got very close on the scrap border but stopped because I really need to cut some more pieces which will increase the variety of fabrics. Most of what I have seems to be blue. Unfortunately, as I look at the other fabrics in my scrap bags and my stash they also are blue, green, red, brown. I have very few multicolors. There must be something somewhere.
Today I signed up for a course from Quilt University. I'm very excited about this. The class is Lines and Shapes, an introductory look at design, but with emphasis on different ways to look at lines and shapes to vary them, rather than the "principles of design" approach. I have begun lesson one, making many types of lines, only a few of which look very appealing to me. We'll see.

Picasso

Jenny on the Scraps blog posted some wonderful Franz Marc paintings for inspiration. With no pretensions that it's anything great, I am posting a baby quilt I made using color scheme based on Picasso's portrait of his mistress Dora Maar. Bought a postcard of it at the Musee Picasso this summer and a friend's new baby gave me the reason to make this cheerful quilt. I actually had all the fabric in my stash too, although the border took some strange cutting to make the fabric work. I was very happy with the way this turned out, and the new Mom was too.

Forgot to say that the pattern is from M'Liss Rae Hawley's latest fat quarter book. I don't usually use patterns, but this seemed perfect. Also she called the pattern Serendipity, and that seemed to fit my situation too! It was easy and went together fast.