Work in Progress

It has not been a good week for creativity, for reasons I won't go into. Here's the progress on the baby quilt. Actually this took two hours Tuesday, so obviously it has been a VERY slow week. The border is of course still not done, but if I actually can get going on it, it won't take long either. Funny thing though--I have had the fabric on my table for several weeks and finally cut into it Tuesday afternoon. That night my nephew's wife went into labor, a week overdue. Don't you think she owes me one?

Today I drove to Shipshewana, Indiana, in the heart of northern Indiana's Amish country. Shipshewana is just a small town, but like many other Amish areas, it has become a bit touristy full of shops selling made-in-China tschotskes (sp?) But its main attraction for me and other quilters are the wonderful quilt shops. The first is Yoder's Department Store. It really is a department store, selling all sorts of clothes, hardwarde, and other products geared to a rural and largely Amish and Mennonite customer base, but it has a wonderful selection of quilt fabrics. As you can see it was a busy morning there.




Some fabrics:


Then I went on to Lolly's in the Davis Mercentile Building. This building was completely destroyed by fire about a year and a half ago, but is better than ever. Lolly's has even more fabric than Yoder's and a large selection of finished quilts. They are locally made, and handquilted by the Amish women in the area. Lolly's looks a bit "matchy-matchy" for my taste, but the array of colors in wonderful, and as you can see, not everyone has fallen for the large pieces type of quilt.




This quilt is of course the kind you would expect to see. It's being raffled to aid a local organization.


This hand dyed over-dyed wool is something I haven't seen before. The colors are luscious.

And a final word from Amish country:

Work in Progress Wednesday--sort of

Pretty pathetic ammount of work in progress here. First there's the Quilt of Valor that Deb Geyer quilted. The quilt itself is not pathetic; it's just that it has been "in progress" for a long time. One more side of the binding to do. The stack of fabric represents fabric chosen to make a very quick baby quilt for my nephew's baby. Since this will be the third I've made a quilt for and I have never received a thank you note, it's hard to get too enthusiastic. However, I am TOLD by my sister that they like the quilts, and I have seen pictures of them in use, so I believe it. My kids aren't that great about thank you's either.

What else have I done today? I vaccumed because my book group is coming tomorrow, I had my hair done, and I helped my son revise his resume. Now I think I'll spend the rest of the day reading Bob Woodward's book. A sweep--no sewing!

The new Hoffman Challenge fabric is posted on their web site in case anyone wants a peek before it goes on the market. It seems to be a large scale print, unlike the usual all-over pattern, and although it's very pretty, that seems to me more difficult to work with. I find it harder to think outside the box when something is so clearly representational, but I'm sure some people will do interesting things with it. They did with the cherries a few years ago, and I thought that one was hopeless!

Yesterday I received the Quilt of Valor that I made and Deb Geyer quilted. As you can see, she did a terrific job. The variegated thread looks wonderful on that red check fabric.

The three other stars are for a special Quilt of Valor that Debra Spincic is putting together for display in the Houston Quilt Show. Yesterday I pieced three 8-pointed stars. Practice does make perfect I think, since the blue and purple one, my third attempt, has a neater center, and doesn't have the strange pucker in the fabric that the red one does. When you read not to use steam to block a block, believe it!

So yesterday was a big day for my Quilts of Valor projects. Today I plan to spend time putting away some of the fabric I have pulled out in the last few days! A photo of my "studio" would be good for a laugh. Sorry I didn't think of it earlier.

A Hoffman Challenge Saga

As I posted back in July, I entered two quilts in this year's Hoffman Challenge, not feeling terribly pleased with either. I liked the design of one, but felt I'd messed up the workmanship, and the other one (the purple thing) just didn't jell at all. So I was amazed to see on the web site that Twilight (purple) was in traveling group A. Many jokes were made about this in my family ("They had a purple quota"), and my mother and sisters mourned the parrot quilt, which they had liked. Today I received a box from Hoffman Challenge, and when I opened it expecting to see pink parrots, I found the purple thing instead, along with a rejection letter for Parrots in Paradise. I immediately emailed Kelly Gallagher-Abbott, and she called back within a few minutes. Yes, the parrots are traveling, they mixed up the names, and I should get an acceptance letter (for Twilight?) soon. Should be interesting..."Congratulations, your quilt has been accepted," but then there would be all the negative comments. It's sort of like twins separated at birth--positively Shakespearean. But all's well than ends well. Apparently Kelly has had a nightmarish time with her move and organizing the challenge, so I certainly can understand how this happened. And I am pleased to know that people aren't looking at the purple quilt saying, "Hmmm."

Here it is: officially traveling quilt.

A hand for the Show of Hands project. This was fun: it gave me a chance to use up very small scraps of my kimono fabric, some ribbon flowers, and take advantage of those decorative stitches which I never use. I made both sides of the hand separately by putting the scraps on fusible fleece interfacing, zigzagging with invisible thread first, and then with colored thread and decorative stitches. I embellished them, glued the two sides together, trimmed them, and zigzagged the edges, then added the pearl hanging loop and the big ribbon embellishment. The hand wanted to cup a little bit, so I blocked it over my tailor's ham to accentuate that, making it quite hand shaped. I really enjoyed this, and I like the way it turned out, although as I was making it, I didn't. Sometimes you have to have faith! And you see, I can embellish--thanks to you crazy quilters for the inspiration.

Fun Idea

Here's another fun projectfor the Houston Show. Make a whimsical fabric hand for the "Show of Hands" exhibit. Lots of scope for creativity, without the pressure of making something worth $30!

The Worm Turns

OK, there is now an ultrasuede worm with a bead eye beside the flower. Cute, isn't he? Probably not what Allison and Debra had in mind, but I just can't do the heavy embellishment thing. Puritan upbringing or something, I guess.

Fiber Art for a Cause

Here's are two postcards I made for the ACS fundraiser at Houston. This is my first use of the fabric I painted with Seta Color. I used a leaf to make a not-very-clear leaf print, outlined it, and then quilted heavily in the background. I have a second one on which I outlined the leaf with heavy metallic thread used in the bobbin. I don't like it as well, actually, although the leaf shows up more. The funky flower is an ultra suede embellishment that I made for a hat when I was making and selling those, and I stumbled across it by accident and found it went perfectly with another piece of painted fabric. The leaves are also ultrasuede scraps. I fused the binding on these cards, and then stitched over the fusing. I like this look, and it's a bit easier than the usual binding. Compared to the examples on the web site, and other people's work I've seen, these may be too simple, not $30 pieces. What do you think? I'll keep going, I think, but I'd appreciate some feedback.

First Quilt

I had to get in on the "first quilt" discussion started at Quilt Studio. I made some blocks when I was about 12, but they were never finished and mercifully lost. So this must be the first. It was made in 1972 (I was so proud I signed and dated it!) while we were waiting to adopt our older son. I guess I found the pictures in coloring books, except for that cat face in the center, which I drew myself--always artistic. It represents the dearly beloved cat we had when we were childless. The beautiful hand quilting was done by my dear, dear mother-in-law and her church group in Waterloo, Illinois, who did hand quilting as a fund-raiser. It's WAY beyond the deserts of this quilt. The quilt was used, but not particularly loved, so although the fabric is faded and worn, there are no actual holes.

Blogger Beta

I'm back w/o many pictures. Will post what I have soon, but first I have to do a mini-rant. When I came home last night, I eagerly checked up on the blogs I had missed while away, and of course was unable to comment on the beta ones until I found Debra's suggestion to use "anonymous". But isn't this whole thing beyond annoying! What are they thinking! The whole ease of communication is going away. As for eventually "fixing" the lack of interface between Blogger and Blogger Beta, isn't it more likely that the old Blogger will just go away entirely, phased out as obsolete? Well, I will have to get a new Beta account, or at least a Google account that would allow me to post on Beta blocker. But apparently there are some risks here, and you can lose the ability to access the original blog. Does anyone have any additional information?

I'm leaving tomorrow to spend a week with my mother. She's 92, and still lives alone, although she shouldn't, so I try to visit often. My sister in the same town goes by at least once a day, but having someone else gives her a break, and helps get some big chores done. Mom needs some outings also, since she feels rather isolated sometimes. She used to make many quilts, most of which she still has (that's a story in itself). On this trip I think I'll try to photograph some of them, just to have a record, and they might be interesting to post.

A Small Show

Three photos from a guild exhibit held this weekend at the public library. It's not a big show with vendors, etc., just quilts hung around the central atrium and in halls. This works well, since we get quilters who come to see the show, as well as regular library patrons who are pleasantly surprised to see the quilt display. There is voting for viewers choice, which the voters seem to think more seriously about than who should be president! The first photo is my big scrap quilt, and the other two are two versions of the same English paper pieced pattern. Helen made the first as a graduation gift for her niece, who requested purple and black. This is as good as purple gets! Kay F. was inspired by Helen to dig out a 15-year-old UFO. It's a charm quilt with well over 1,000 different fabrics. The two make a great study in what role value plays in a quilt. Also, I find it interesting that, although Kay's has many more fabrics than Helen's, it doesn't look that way because so many of them are similar. I wonder if that's because at the time she made it fewer fabrics were available.

I finally have shaken myself into a bit of activity, and sewed together these circle blocks from my Australian fabrics. I cut and pieced these in April and then appliqued the circles while we were in Paris, but hadn't got around to the next step. One advantage of being so lethargic was that by having them on the design wall for a week I did improve the layout a bit, I think. I like this piece so far. It has a certain weirdness about it that seems to fit with the feeling of Australian Aboriginal designs.
The next step will be working out a border design. This will take a lot of auditioning, but I can go slow. In this case, probably a good idea.

The Blahs

Do I have the blahs! I have a binding to do, a label to sew on, the Australian blocks to sew together, new quilts that I could plan, and no interest in any of them. I painted four pieces of fabric (ugly), made a post card (equally ugly, and stupid too), baked a pie, (good!) so I'm not totally unproductive, just bored. I realized a while ago that this is the first day of school and in the old days I would not be sitting in the yard petting my cat, and I was very happy. Could I be subconsciously wishing to be back in the classroom. Nah-don't think so.

Thank goodness for blogs; although seeing what great stuff others are doing makes me feel even less productive. Still, it's a window on the world, and lighting MAY strike tomorrow and I'll develop some energy.

Does anyone else love these sweet potato vines that you see in ornamental plantings everywhere? Mine is on its third summer (I put it in my sunroom in winter) and is still going strong. That fluorescent green just gets better and better, especially when combined with the blue red flowers. I also love the purple foliage plant that is often combined with it. What a great color plan!

Here's the finished top for the Quilts of Valor project. I'm pleased with the way it turned out, except that there is one block turned the wrong way. Can you find it? I could fix it, but am feeling lazy; also, I think it's the kind of thing that doesn't show when something is in use, only when you see it displayed on a wall. The star points in the border are the same size as the ones in the sashes, but don't look it. Interesing optical illusion, isn't it?

On Quilt Studio the topic of what people are doing came up. Here I am, taking a break from anything original and doing straight, fairly brainless piecing. First a Christmas quilt for my sister. It's from Alex Anderson's book, Fabric Shopping with Alex Anderson. The blocks are finished, and then it will have a couple of narrow inner borders and a red pieced outer border. Then, I am working on a quilt for Quilts of Valor. My guild had a blue and white block exchange, and it ocurred to me that if I put them together with red I'd have a red, white, and blue quilt. Here they are framed with blue (hideous isn't it?), and auditioned with the red and white garden maze setting I'm going to use. I'm hoping this will work out in cloth as well as it did on my Quilt-Pro plan. This set is from one of Sharyn Craig's books, and the framing strips work so well, giving a perfectly straight even edge to put together, as well as jazzing up the look of the whole thing.

Thanks for everyone's comments about quilting magazines! It was good to hear other suggestions, like Belle Armoire and the virtual Crazy Quilting magazine. The range of opinion was interesting, but Quilting Arts and Quilter's Newsletter seem to come out on top, although sometimes just for reference, not serious reading and subscribing. I was particularly interested by the people who say they browse and don't buy. So this morning when I had a few minutes between errands, I browsed the magazines at the library and saw these that I thought were worth looking at. Maybe people already know them. Fiber Arts seems to be just what the title suggests, but more information than how-to; American Craft isn't just fabric of course, although there was an article about a fabric dyer; Art News has beautiful work, inspiring just for the colors, and then Bead and Button for all that beautiful work I never would or could do myself.