My baby!

Aidan (on the right) and her bestest buddy Amanda after the Baccalaurate Mass Tuesday night. They're practicing their "I'm a high school graduate" smiles.

Aidan

(on the left) and Leslie, the recipient of the ballet shoes quilt.

The Dancer

This will be a graduation gift for a girl I've been sewing for ever since she's been old enough for her own costumes practically. She sings! She dances! She acts! And she's very good at all of them. She's off to college this fall to study drama and we'll see her name in lights on Broadway one day. She's also just a sweet kid, and very easy to work with. I've known her mother since high school, and her brother and my son are very close friends (hence the bajillion miles on the cars going from Hattiesburg to Memphis) and my son works for her dad during the summer. Her mom bought the batik Mardi Gras mask quilt for Leslie's birthday last year, but it's hanging on the wall at their house so I don't think she's going to take it off to school with her. This one is just for her, to be USED and it won't even have a sleeve! The background behind the shoes has small black musical notes and the middle border has sheet music and purple, blue and orange roses. The outside border has white, blue and purple on the pink. The narrow frames are blue and purple. The shoes and the outside border are both polished cotton. I'll get on the quilting tomorrow and get a close up shot after I finish it. And yes, those ARE mitered corners on the last border. I was sort of proud about them coming out right the very first time I sewed them together too. Didn't have to frog a single stitch!
Finished size will be about 52x68.

Progress of a sort

The top is done and half the quilting is completed. I should finish it up today and get it bound so it can go in the washer this afternoon and be delivered tomorrow. This one went VERY fast piecing it and quilting it. Funny how some just get in the groove and zip right along, while others are a struggle at every step. I bought the cross fabric a while back just because I knew it would be useful at some point. It's perfect for this project since it's a gift for the principal at the Catholic school my kids all graduated from (the youngest graduates next Wed.) and it just seemed appropriate for him, especially considering his favorite colors are blue and brown and the school colors are blue and gold. The shot of the quilted top is only the top half that I've finished quilting already. The whole thing is actually 60"x75" finished size. For the first time in a long time I had trouble deciding on the quilting thread and pattern. I tried several different threads and was happy with none of them. Sort of by default, I tried the invisible thread and was actually very pleased with the effect. After several stops and starts on the quilting pattern I reverted to the free motion meander too as the best choice for the look I was after. The meander is a bit bigger than I normally do, but I wanted the specific look of it after it comes out of the washer for this one. I was careful to only stitch around the crosses rather than through them, so they'll have a bit of puff to them after washing. I really like this piecing pattern and I'll have to remember to write down the dimensions for the pieces and how I put it together so I can use it again. There are several novelty theme fabrics in my stash I've accumulated for specific people and this would be a good pattern to use for those.

I'm back!

Whew, tons of stuff to catch up on (not the least of which is sleep!) but I'll eventually get to it all. My doc has me on a bunch of new meds and I happened to catch some sort of epikazootie about the time I started taking them and it took us a few days to realize it wasn't the meds making me sick. Several wasted prescriptions trying different stuff and different dosages before I got over whatever it was and back on the original meds. Good timing has never been one of my strong points.

My youngest daughter, my baby, graduates this month so it's been a whirl of things to do for and with her. She had her senior luncheon a couple of weeks ago and it went off really well. Most of the other girls seemed to opt for slumber parties and pizza this year but mine went straight for the high tea thing. She even specifically requested the girls wear dresses. She had her hand in every decision, from the invitations and place cards to a trip to the wholesale florist to pick out her flowers. I think she did a beautiful job too. The other girls really seemed to enjoy it and the weather was perfect for an outside tea party. It was held in my parent's backyard with the lake as a backdrop. I can't believe these are the same little girls that were in kindergarten with her yesterday!

I also can't believe how tall she is! Or how grown up and beautiful. She starts college this fall (on scholarship, to boot) and even though she's staying close she'll be living in the dorm. [This would normally be the place to insert a comment about how strange it's going to feel with her out of the house, but since she's never home anyway we probably won't notice any difference.] She's off to Myrtle Beach a few days after graduation for a week and a half, back home for a few days and then off to Maryland for 2 weeks. When she gets back from there she'll be looking for a job.

The week after her senior luncheon was the prom. They all looked so elegant and beautiful.

These are her two best friends and the reason she's going to Maryland. The red head is from there and all 3 girls are driving up for a visit.

WOOOO HOOOO!

My DH walked in last night with a bag of Krystals and 2 special treats for me, as if the Krystals weren't enough. He had 1 gig of memory for my computer, and a check for tuition to Sonji Hunt's http://sonjisays.blogspot.com/ week-long class at the Tougaloo Art Colony this July!! You wouldn't believe how excited I am about this. My oldest daughter has attended for 3 years but this is the first time I've had a chance to go myself. I've followed, and admired, Sonji's work for several years now and the opportunity to actually take a whole class from her is unbelievable. I have until the middle of July to get my machine tuned up and start gathering fabrics and supplies. There are a lot of quilt artists out there doing fabric painting and surface design, but none quite like Sonji. I love the additional texture she incorporates with the grommets and heavy stitching and her famous bundles. Visual texture and depth is good, but I really look forward to the physical texture lessons. It goes so far beyond my weak attempts with the Mardi Gras beads and embellishments and beading and just plain 'stuff' I tend to use. She also has that fantastic graphic color sense that I strive so hard for. Maybe a week with her will improve my ratio of "getting it right" on my own work.

And my computer is FLYING now with the added memory. Maybe I can actually get patterns to print out in less than 94 hours now.

Gettin' it in gear

"Quarter Note" is going to the art show with me Friday if I get it finished in time. I feel like I will once I can decide on a quilting pattern for it. It's anchored now in the ditch on the vertical seams but I need to do something else with it too. Not sure what, but at least I have this much of it done. That's progress at any rate.

"Good Wishes" is also going. I have no doubt it will be finished since there's very little left to do on it. The print at the top is the backing and I intentionally left it showing in the pic because the pins at the bottom right sort of show the placement of one of the groups of flowers on the back. My intention is to do some bobbin work with the gold thread to outline the cluster of flowers so they show on the front. The backing fabric won't actually be visible from the front unless I decide to use it for the binding though.

The round piece is a felt tree skirt I got at Dollar Tree back around Christmas and then forgot about. I added some foiling, painting, stenciling and thread work to the original felt in several different golds and stamped the small black symbols. I'll have to get better pictures of the details in a close-up shot and get them posted once I'm through with it. The gold mesh is quilted in flowing, wavy vertical lines with the gold thread. Not sure yet what sort of quilting I'll do inside the circle or on the black, but I'm sure I'll have some flash of inspiration soon enough.

Happy Easter!

This is my contribution to Easter food this year. Eggs dyed with silk ties. There were some really cool silk boxers I could have used, but it would have felt too much like that commercial about colon polyps where the guy eats the lima bean.

I've been thinking through the assembly on a new design and that's taken up all my time and energy for the last couple of days. I finally decided on the construction, although I'm SURE there's an easier way to do it. Or maybe not. It's a pieced background with a big applique over it, except that there are 'blank' spots in the applique that are only stitched lines across some of the background pieces. Hard to describe and even harder to figure out technically. I finally wound up basting the background pieces together, stitching the outline for the applique on the whole thing, then taking it apart so I can do the applique on the pieces that have it and the outline stitches on the pieces that have that. Then I'll sew all the background pieces back together. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the background pieces off-set at the seams so the outlines and applique don't line up. I just finished a very simple 4-patch for a friend so I think my Muse is punishing me.

So I lied

about getting pictures posted yesterday. These 6 hour days at the school working on costumes is more than I'm used to. The play opens day after tomorrow though, so today and tomorrow and then I'm done and I promise to get pictures up then. I may even break down and post an in-progress of an Egyptian thing I'm playing with.

progress of a sort

Finished off the quilting, such as it is, on the weird batik this morning. Finally decided on a simple bisecting line quilting pattern to leave as much of the raw edge free as possible. It's in the washer now with some jeans and then into the dryer for a couple of hours to fray the edges. It's only lap size but it was originally a test piece for using the small strips exposed between the piecing. So far so good, and pictures later today I think. I'll also get a picture up of the bird mobile. At least it's hanging now and not stuck in a bag somewhere. It's funny how sometimes the simplest thing is the one that gets the most response from people. Everyone who has seen the birds loves them, including my husband!

Life and kids and other stuff

My youngest daughter hit a milestone this week. Straight As on her report card and it got her on the Principal's Honor Roll! That's the first time any of my kids ever did that. First and Second honors multiple times, but NEVER Principal's honors! My son did the sweetest thing too. He called yesterday morning and asked if I'd call the school and get her dismissed so he could take her out to lunch if he drove up. Of course I'd do that. He drove up yesterday morning, took her for Mexican and then had to race back for a 5:00 class. We didn't tell her he was coming either, and when they called her down to the office and she saw him standing there her face split into the hugest grin. And she got a chance to show him off a little bit to her friends too. Life was good for her yesterday I think.

Quiltsquiltsquilts running through my head, but for right now that's where they have to stay. I'd REALLY like to get at least a couple of small embellished pieces done this week to submit to GSQA for the circuit teacher vetting, but I have to hurry and I'm not sure I have enough time anyway. But the designs are good and they'll wind up being quilts at some point.

I have to get into high gear to completely finish the pieces that are going to the art show the middle of April also. I have finished pieces I can use if I have to, but I also have some tops that I really want to take (and 2 to make!) but they have to be quilted and bound. Free-motion is my salvation. I love doing it, I'm good at it, and it goes extremely fast. I can quilt an entire full sized quilt in a single day with no problem. Well, no problem other than time and motivation. Once I sit down at the machine it goes quickly. It's the sitting down at the machine part I seem to have trouble with.

We are babysitting my "spare" son's dog this weekend and Rowdy is the cutest thing! Everyone who sees him says he's such a "Nick dog" too. He's shaped like a Corgi but has long curly fur like a Yorkie or something. And he's having the best time playing with my HUGE Labs too. Jake and dOg think they have their own self-propelled play toy. The cats aren't impressed much but they tolerate him. Maybe they know he's just visiting.

Off to the school at 7:00 this morning to work on the stage set. We're doing Anything Goes and this is my last year for working on the plays. Full-cast costume call Monday night. That should be interesting, for a lot of reasons I'm not going to get into. Let's just say I have my fingers crossed that the set/music/dancing/props/acting carry the play this time. ALL my fingers. And toes. And eyes.

Very interesting

Occasionally (when I remember) I look at the stats from my site meter. It gives all sorts of pretty useless information but it's a kick to see where people visit from and how they stumble accidentally (very few find it intentionally I think) on my blog. If you get a hit from a search it tells you what terms were being searched when the blog showed up. I think the most interesting ever came today from a visitor in Elgin, IL. They searched google for "surgical suture cutters quilt" and got me. I shit you not. That is a direct copy and paste of the search field. Now, why exactly someone would combine those particular words is beyond me, but there it is. They are either A) looking for a gift for a VERY specialized nurse, B) seeking a pattern for a damned weird quilt (did they look for "16 oz Estwing hammer quilt," too?) or C) ran across a reference to my post of months back referencing my use of suture scissors as a seam ripper. Pleasepleaseplease let it be C) and if you're in Elgin, IL looking for a surgical suture cutters quilt I'd love to hear the final answer, Regis.

Oh yeah. HI STEPHEN!!!

He's the other half of the award-winning (God, I get goose bumps just saying that. I think I might have actually murmered it out loud just a little that time.) Ebony & Ivory Blues. Not only did he draw the hands, but they are drawings of his actual hands. And just how cool is that?

Long time no see

Whew! Lots to catch up on. My youngest daughter got back from the Nicaragua mission trip last night. Can't wait to get the details from her today about the trip. Maybe she brought me something. My son should be back in Hattiesburg some time today from his Spring Break trip to Destin (at least I think it was Destin....someplace warm and sandy in FL at any rate) and my oldest daughter has been home all week. The St. Paddy's parade was yesterday and there were 50,000 people here for it. The krewe I belong to won $600 for the Show me the Money award and a picture of my brother made the front page of the on-line newspaper. The oldest had an absolute blast walking in the parade too. Her first year to actually participate.

My Ebony and Ivory Blues quilt (the one with the hands drawn by my friend) won a ribbon at the GSQA quilt show in Baton Rouge too, so that was a nice little piece of news this week. I also woke up with a full-blown idea in my head for a new fiber piece that will need some definite tweaking and playing with the mechanics of it, and it isn't even a quilted piece! Well, it might be if that's the only way I can stabilize it, but for right now, I'm leaning away from quilting it. I've made some progress on the Japanese shadow box quilt but my machine is acting horsey about free-motion so the progress is mostly hand work. What in the hell possessed me to think I needed to do needle turn applique on the thing? I'm liking the effect a lot but it's definitely not my cup of tea for any length of time. Fortunately, I picked something that only has leaves that have to be needle-turned and the rest of it is just handwork that's attached afterwards. I'm doing the bush clover from Fabled Fibers and so far, I'm happy with the effect. It's been YEARS since I've done any embroidery, too. Spent several days looking at various Sashiko patterns and nothing really jumps out at me so I may wind up just making my own with Sashiko stitching and leave it at that. I picked up Larkin Van Horn's book this week too and have some ideas in my head for beading that I'd like to work on. I need to get together some small samples of my embellishment stuff anyway to apply as a circuit teacher for the GSQA. I have most of the written material to submit I think, maybe with some minor refinements, but nothing really small enough to ship off for the jurying process involved. I may break down and do some postcards with the different techniques on them, and submit classes for both postcards AND embellishments. I reallyreallyreally love teaching and this is probably my best bet for getting into an organized method of doing it. As it stands now, I just go when someone hunts me down and calls me. No promotion or advertising myself, just doing the simple programs at the guilds and getting calls periodically from people who see me speak.

The True Gentleman

Here it is ready for the first coat of poly. Fingers crossed that I'll finish the poly by tomorrow and it will be ready to go down to Hattiesburg for him. I'm sort of proud of this.

It's hard to get a good picture since it's so big and there's nothing on the deck to stand on. I'll hang it up or something once it's finished and get a good picture. Maybe.

How to make a painted floor cloth.

Gather your materials. Or do like I do and start working before it dawns on you that half the stuff you need you don't have. I used a $5 cotton duck drop cloth from Big Lots. I originally made the trip up there looking for the cool little storage things that karoda posted about but they didn't have any so I had to settle for the 3-section picture hanger/nails/nuts and bolts containers. They're pretty cool because you can screw them all together in a stack as high as you want and only use one top for it. And it has a cute little handle. But that has nothing to do with painting the floor cloth, so we'll move on.

I washed and dried the drop cloth on hot with no fabric softener and sort of threatened it with the iron when it came out of the dryer. It draws up some from the paint anyway so ironing it isn't imperative. Ironing has never been imperative to anything in my life up to this point. Mark the center if you're transferring a pattern to it or just lay it out and start painting if you have any actual artistic talent (which I don't) and feel like winging it. Tanya, have the offspring walk around on it with paint-y feet! Start transferring the pattern in whatever way you do it. Overhead projector (which I had until my daughter the virgin bumped it while it was on and blew the bulb) or those monster print-outs that have to be taped together.

If you use a pencil to mark on it, they don't show when you paint over it. If you use a Sharpie the lines show through the paint. I'm going back and outlining the whole thing in a black paint pen when I'm done so the lines were necessary, hence the Sharpies. Paint. Any color, any method, any design. It's up to you. It's not even necessary to get a thick coat on it....you'll see some of those little white spots showing through and unless you're anal and have more time/patience/budget than I do, just keep going. Do try to get even coverage if possible but you don't have to be perfect. If you have a tiny area to paint or a narrow point or something, it's easier to do a light coat in that area, let it dry and come back to it a few minutes later. Pick the dog and cat hair out as you go. Or leave it in, paint over it and call it a design element. You can also do a base white flash coat on the whole rug before painting but that takes gobs of paint and forever to dry. It also gets all over your floor underneath it.

Once you've done all the painting and have gone back with the Sharpie or paint pen for the details (don't forget to sign it!) THEN you have to iron. It's probably not necessary, but I do heat-set the acrylic paints before finishing it. Once that's all done, just put at least 2 coats on the front and one coat on the back back with the poly to seal it and make it mop-able. You can use any kind of paint you want as far as I know, as long as it doesn't run or bleed when you put the poly on it, it's good. I've used house paint, craft acrylics, markers, fingernail polish and enamels. Several thin coats of poly are better than one big blob of it smeared around, but you all knew that anyway.

I use the paper plates as palettes so I can throw them away. The spray baste is to stick the netting on the pattern, then I trace the pattern, remove the netting and stick it to the cloth. Then you trace it again, peel the netting off and VOILA! you have a transferred pattern without using that carbon paper stuff. If you look closely, I think you can see the netting stuck back over the pattern on the left.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something so feel free to ask questions.

Progress

Yeah! All the detail work except the fleur de lis is done and I'm making great progress. Some more fairly large areas of gold and purple, but they're easy and go fast. Today or tomorrow I'll finish up and have a couple of days of really nice weather to get it out back on the deck and get several coats of polyurethane on it, front AND back. This is for a frat house after all.

Isn't it amazing.....

what lengths we'll go to for our kids when they ask nicely? This is a 6x9 canvas floorcloth for his room at the frat house. It has the SAE crest on it, and he was so sweet asking me about passing it along to the next frat brother who gets his room when he graduates in 2 years (we fervently hope.) Ummm....son, this is a $5 canvas drop cloth from Big Lots, with 2/$1 acrylic paints on it. Just how long do you think the thing is going to last? I do have to say he's one of the most generous kids I have ever had the pleasure of knowing so it didn't surprise me a bit that he asked though. If nothing else, it'll keep spilled stuff off the floor and I have greater faith in him sweeping a rug than I do him actually mopping the tile floor. I am having a lot of fun working on it though, at least until I get to the polyurethane part.


You can see the original image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SAE.jpg

Neither bamboo nor solid.

It took a while to decide, but I finally landed on an Oriental floral print (why, oh why, couldn't they have that great companion print for it in the right color?) and a brown mottled looking thing for the wide borders and a sweet little goldenrod geometric for the narrow frame part. They all have gold metallic detailing printed on them so I can use my gold paint pen for some additional embellishing in the blocks. Sashiko stitching in the brown border and some of those origami flowers from Fabled Flowers. I've pretty much decided on doing the bush clover at the top right since it hangs like wisteria does and I can make the stems go off the edge and not have to worry about anchoring them to anything. The sashiko will be across the top and at the bottom of the right side. Lots of gold metallic quilting in the body of the quilt and probably outline quilting in the floral border. After that, I get to drag out the beads and tassels and "stuff" for the decoration. Total size is 43x55.

I am more than open to any suggestions on how to transfer the sashiko design onto the border so I can stitch it. I use chalk a lot to mark lines on the face of a quilt but it comes off relatively easy and I don't want to have to keep re-marking the lines. Any ideas? Anybody used the tracing stuff? Is it easy to remove? The only other option that comes to mind is using the water soluble stuff and then rinsing it out, but that would require forethought to get the stuff off before I add non-washable stuff to the quilt.

No Title Yet

But here is the top, completed except for the border. I'm waffling between a bamboo-y sort of print and a plain border that I can do some detailing in. But it has to wait because I'm going curl up in the bed with my Japanese quilting books and eventually take a nap. I've accomplished a good bit this morning though so I won't feel guilty about it either. I had a very clear idea in my head about this one when I started it so it went pretty fast. Cutting the greens took the longest of anything, but I had the fabric rectangles all bordered last night and just got up this morning and assembled the top and then did the applique pieces. Every time I look at it I get a new idea for embellishing too, so I'm looking forward to that part of it. Total size right now is 33x45.

My sweet DH brought me some of the best avacados I've had in ages. Fresh guacomole with chips for lunch it is! And he has red beans and rice on for supper. Mmmmmmmm......

Azalea City Quilter's Guild

I did a program in Mobile the other day for the Azalea City Guild and had an absolute BLAST! Many, many thanks to Donna B. for hunting me down to invite me to teach and for putting me up in her home while I was there. If I lived in her house, I'd never go anywhere. Beautiful home in a beautiful setting. She's also a really good cook. I thoroughly enjoyed myself with both the visit and the class. I certainly hope it's true what they say about teaching gigs begetting more teaching gigs, because that's what I love to do. I was so busy and having so much fun I totally forgot to take any pictures of the class, although I did get some pictures from the show and tell. Unfortunately, I forgot to get either the women's names or their permission to post the photos of their work so you'll just have to trust me when I say they were beautiful.

Stop me before I piece again!

My friend Dorinda has corrupted me. She got me started on the One-Block-Wonder pieced quilts and I did a few of those, then she showed me the Northwind block and I came home with a copy of those instructions, and now I'm dreaming in pieced blocks! Arrrgggghhhhh......doesn't my brain know I don't piece!??!! And since NOTHING can ever be easy, or simple, or straightforward with me, I'm dreaming Y-SEAMS. Not just sewing stuff together but having to do little fiddly precise stuff! Oh well, once it gets in my head it will either make me crazy by not leaving enough room for anything else, or I have to just suck it up and make the damn thing. This one is sort of an attic window/shadow box thing (whichever one uses the contrast sashing) but of course I had to make the sizes of the boxes varied so I spent about 3 hours graphing the thing off so the blocks all fit together. And then I chose a scrap of fabric from my friend Vicki in Miami without giving any thought to how much I needed. I just cut it in half and over-dyed half of it for the contrast. Top that off with the fact that it frays VERY badly (give thanks to the god of fusible interfacing) and is slippery and was already cut in a weird shape since it was a scrap to begin with. Can you see where this is going yet? I got down to the last three 2.5"x2.5" pieces I needed and guess what? ALL I had left were the little ears I cut off making the mitered corner strips. Vicki almost got the panicked fabric emergency call about 5:00 this morning, but I rummaged around in my own scrap basket and found one last piece of it that had originally been the facing of the blouse she was originally going to use it for. I had to fussy cut the last 3 pieces, but I managed to eke out EXACTLY as much as I needed. This one will most likely have a bunch of embellishing on it to be used as a sample for the program I'm doing in June. Unless I sell it first. Um, yeah. Like that's gonna happen. I may even break down and do some sashiko quilting on it. Fancy threads count as embellishing don't they? OH GOD! Did I just mention hand quilting in the same breath as piecing? Good lord I must be regressing. Don't most people start with patterns and then move on to art quilts?

This is about 1/3 of the total quilt and no two fabrics in the boxes are the same. Still have no clue what I'll do for borders yet but there's time for that later. Probably something plain if I decide to do the sashiko.

And this month's Fast Friday challenge was fun. The theme was monochromatic, based on a color from a song. I used Sonny Landreth's South of I-10, which has the line "...grew up on Clifton and Cleveland and the Red Hot Louisiana Band" in it, so I did a dancer in red. It's all done with thread painting on cotton fabrics and I'm probably going to add a black border on the right side and at the bottom. But I was happy with the movement I got from the stitching and shape of the woman. I think this is only the second mono piece I've ever done, too. The other one was In the Ghetto, which I also liked, but I have to have color 99% of the time.

It's getting there

In between doing a whole bunch of other stuff, I've been working on this one. My machine is being horsey (it KNOWS I'm going out of town and have a ton of stuff to do.....it hates not being the center of attention) so any sewing I've been doing is taking twice as long. Even doing those thick satin stitch edges I'm usually rocking along at rabbit speed, but not this time. My Janome baby starts making this weird clattering noise when I run it wide open but it works perfectly if I slow down. I do NOT want to have to up-grade my machine simply because I sew too fast. I like what I have and it's always done exactly what I wanted it to. No idea why it's protesting so loudly now.

Anyway, I haven't settled on the final layout for the doubloons and there are no strings of beads on it yet. I'll probably add some more doubloons too. But for now, this is what progress I've made on it. I'll be back by Wed so maybe I can get it finished this week some time. I still need to replace the final border on the garden one-block-wonder quilt and get both of those quilted. Binding on the Japanese wall hanging. Some bits and pieces of other stuff to do/finish to make sure I have enough to show at the arts in action thing in April.

Long time, no see

It's been a while since I updated the blog, but I had good reason for my lapse. I've been working like a madwoman to get written material, samples, and supplies ready to go to Mobile next week. Most (some, a little bit) of it is done and I am SO excited about being asked to do the workshop. The woman who contacted me is a very nice woman and I'm looking forward to spending some time with her also. I'll be staying in her home Monday night so I'll be bright eyed and bushy tailed for Tuesday morning.

I've also been working on some new Link and Lap (thanks, mom!) quiltlet pieces. None of them are ready for their debut yet, but I do have one to the point I can show what I have. Of course, it will have many more pieces than the 2 shown, but I haven't finished them to the point of adding them yet. Look for a sax (Imagine that! Me using a saxophone in a quilt!) and probably some sequined dubloons. I have an idea for some music across the front too but I'm still wrestling with the mechanics of it. Based solely on the demands of the construction techniques some things that I'd add to a normal quilt with a background fabric can't be done on the Link and Laps because the physical balance (as opposed to the visual balance of the design itself) is so critical. Thank goodness my husband is so understanding of pin and tack holes in all the walls.

Right now the piece is about 30x18. The mask is white bridal satin and everything else is Dupioni silk. The mask itself is 14x18.

The birds for the mobile are on the work table ready for assembly too, so maybe in the next day or so I'll have a mobile to post.

Big In Japan

This one is ready for the quilting now too. The small hexagons in the border will have black silk tassels on them and probably the green for the binding.

Look closely for the faces.

And another one.....

This is from one yard of an Alexander Henry I had. It made 15 hexagons so I'm filling in with those totally cool hollow cube blocks. This one may get some small hexagons in the border with black tassels in the center of them.

And for my next trick.....

About half of the blocks from the black and red kanji fabric. I'll get the hexagon blocks done on this one and then set it aside until I pick up the pattern for the hollow cubes from Dorinda Tuesday and then finish it off after I get those made. Up next: a very bright, very busy wildflower floral. It's interesting the patterns in patterns you can make by assembling each individual hexagon as either a circle (around) or as spokes (out) and I'm wondering how it would change the look of the finished quilt to only use one or the other. I'm guessing you would get a more suble pattern using only spokes since there would be no hard visual "stop" between the blocks. They would tend to blend a little better from block to block.

Peppermint Twist

Are y'all tired of looking at this one yet? So the top is done. I'm out of batt or I'd at least have it sandwiched, if not some of the quilting done. This has been a quick, easy and fun piece to do, and the damn thing just kept GROWING! It's 52x64 finished size. I really like the very wide borders on it, but I would have made them different widths if I had a do-over on it. I'd have also made the inner border seams across instead of up, but habit took over when I put the top and bottom on first without thinking about it. Oh well, it's done now and nobody is going to die because my seams are in the wrong place. It's a beautility quilt anyway, and sort of a practice piece. Doesn't everyone make full-size practice pieces? I'd have also probably made the hexagons a little smaller to avoid the full flowers in the blocks, but my daughter likes them so I'm happy with it. Besides, I have plenty of other fabrics to play with different sizes on.

really REALLY retro

A narrow frame of hot pink chintz and a wide border of the original fabric and I'm done with this one.

really retro

in more ways than one. Retro fabric, and retro technique for me to go back to piecing after all these years of avoiding it, but I couldn't resist this pattern. I was out at my friend Dorinda's house the other day and we were playing with the placement of hers from this same pattern (done in gorgeous fall colors of orange and rust and green) and it just got stuck in my head. Now, the fact that I have no angle rulers, and really no idea what I'm doing, has no bearing on anything, so off I go to Hobby Lobby this morning to buy enough fabric for 4 (yes, I said FOUR) quilt tops using this pattern. Different size hexs of course, since I'm just printing the hex shape off the computer and then cutting it into 6 pieces, and different settings and colors and such. But the same basic pattern. I'm pretty sure she called it "one block wonder" but don't get me to lying since I'm not positive. Anyway, here is the fabric I'm using and the result of cutting it up and making the blocks.

The Garden Granny takes her bow

One more block under the flamingo and then the sashing with the kudzu and the Christmas light border. Those are little watermelons at Granny's feet by the way.

Song of the South

...sweet potato pie and shut my mouth.

I've finally gotten started on the Southern kitsch quilt, and it's turning out to be more Southern kitsch yard art than anything. As everyone who knows me can attest to, I have a long-standing love of pink plastic flamingos (Happy Birthday!) and junk in my yard. I aspire to an old bed frame with a raised flower garden in the middle of it. Get it? A flower bed? Hardeharhar. I searched for 3 years for an old rusty bicycle to stand on end and train my wisteria over, but the wisteria got too big before I found one so it's growing on a cast-off clothing rack from a store that went out of business. Not fancy, but functional. The 6 foot pink wrought iron flamingo and the concrete gargoyles provide the fancy. Fancy is as fancy does? Fancy is in the eye of the beholder? Anyway, I have the pink flamingo and the bottle tree sections done for the quilt. Still to come (I know you're all the edge of your seats wanting to know how else I can tacky this up) is the kudzu, pinwheels and Christmas lights. It will probably have a garden granny on it too. Oh come on, doesn't everyone know what garden grannies are? They are those wooden things that look like the ass end of a fat woman bending over. The panties always seem to be polka dot with lace and she has legs like telephone poles. But she'll fit nicely in that empty space. Kudzu leaf pattern cut out and the appropriate hideous green fabrics picked. The pattern for the strings of Christmas lights are ready too, although the size of those may change before all is said and done. A SEE ROCK CITY birdhouse is another possibility. Too bad I haven't come up with a way to incorporate the 3 crosses you see in the fields yet, but I'm not done either.

One thing I have learned about myself and my design process (mostly from blogging, actually, because it makes me think through what I want to describe) is that I am constitutionally incapable of designing an entire quilt and then just making the damn thing. I do much better and am much happier with the pieces that I start with an overall idea and get one element of it solidly in mind first. Do that part of it and then just sort of intuitively begin adding elements to it. I never realized I designed like that either. The only exceptions are the designs that just come to me full-blown in sleep or something.

Thank goodness this is a quilting blog and not a photography blog.

Random musings

Whew. The Draw Down quilt is finished and delivered and gathering accolades far and wide. Well at least as far as Madison County, where it's hanging in the hall at the school, and as wide as the fat mouth in the front office. Hey, I'll take what I can get and call it a compliment. I've had some terrific feedback on the two collaboration pieces also. I think this is something that both of us are willing to let take its course. If he keeps drawing, I'll keep sewing. (Heeheeee, don't tell him, but I have the easy part of that deal.) No crises with any of the kids this week (so far) so I feel sort of at loose ends. Not that I'm wishing them broken bones or anything, but hey, just how painful can a sprain be?

Speaking of strange conversations with your children (it's my blog, I can abruptly change the subject if I want to) this is one I had last night with my youngest daughter, who is 17.

Her: I'm a virgin.
Me: That's good. What brought that on?
Her: I'd probably be happier if I was having sex.
Me: Um, having sex doesn't make you happy.
Her: No, but if I was having sex it would mean that I was in love and THAT would make me happy. OMG Mother! Do you think I'm a total fool to even think about having sex if I wasn't in love. I'm not some sort of sleazy slut, you know. Give me a little credit.
Me: Do you want some garlic toast with that casserole?

No toast, but she wanted extra cheese. I guess I probably should have sounded a little more....ummmmmm......involved? in that conversation. It's not like we don't have those little heart to heart, mother/daughter stream of consciousness conversations regularly so it's hard for me to work up a lot of angst over that one.

My son called last night, at like 11 pm, to tell me this absolutely incredible story about how his girlfriend had never read The Aeneid (and hell yeah I had to go look up the spelling) and he wasn't accusing her of being stupid or anything, but how did somebody go all the way through school and never read it? Wasn't it on the required reading list for EVERYBODY? Um, no son, that's why we eat casseroles and garlic toast. Because we're broke from all the years of sending you to parochial school so they could make you read The Aeneid. And what are you doing up at 11:00 anyway? And talking on the cell while you're driving? And don't get drunk in New Orleans this weekend either. So, I guess I made up the daily quota of mothering that I missed with the whole virgin conversation earlier.

Interesting assortment of people in my house today. I posted about lebentyhundred things on the FreeCycle list and fielded calls and emails most of the day. But the closet in the boy's room is now clean. Onward ho to the rest of the room. Why does everyone feel it necessary to tell you who they want the stuff for and how they'll use it and why they need it? I honestly don't give a rat's ass as long as they haul it away from MY house and worry about where to store it at THEIR house. Honey, if you want to take ALL the shirts, knock yourself out. You have no need to "leave a few for the next person" to pick over. Take them. Here's a bag. I'll help carry them to your car. I'll hold your baby while you gather stuff up. I'll keep my house horses from sniffing your butt and licking your feet. I'll hunt up a box for you to pack your 'treasures' in. I'll stand in the drive and smile as wave as you haul off my useless crap, even. But DON'T make me listen to stories about why your husband won't wear plaid, or why your mother now has all your Tupperware. I don't care! I want you to come in and act like a burglar, not my best friend. Throw that stuff in a sack willy-nilly and get the hell out of my house. I didn't bother to fold it, why should you?

Anybody need 2 broken laundry baskets and a pair of hockey skates?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the quilt stuff. Little egg shapes drawn off on the WU for what (I hope) is going to be a fish mobile. Wait. Not fish. Birds. I'm getting my ovates mixed up. Birds with wings and beaks and tails and little dangly legs with big ugly beads on the ends. The fish mobile is something completely different. And some rudimentary patterns in mind for the pink flamingo/bottle tree/something/something/something quilt with a Christmas light border. Hey! I said it was rudimentary. I could get all quilt art speak-y and say it was "percolating in my creative subconscious", or that I was "auditioning fabrics" and waiting for them to "tell me what they want to be", but actually, my sewing area looks like the second coming of Katrina and I can't find what I need to actually get started on doing anything. Which brings us back to the the boy's room. WHITE WALLS! Big unbroken expanses of white walls. That I can reach! And no furniture in there now either. Yes, before you ask, both chests were broken beyond repair and the side table was dangerously wobbly, and that other thing in there with the magazines piled on it....well, I make it a habit to never keep a piece of furniture that I don't know what to call it. My big shelf unit with the nice heavy-duty tubs of fabric should fit nicely along that wall. And oh look! The perfect corner for one of my sewing machine cabinets. Exactly enough width next to the closet for the double stack drawer unit too! Isn't it amazing what a coincidence that is?

My husband will thank me for getting my stuff out of the dining room I'm sure. And the living room. And the kitchen. And the bedroom. The bathroom storage and the linen closet in the hall have long since been overtaken with my stuff so that isn't an issue. And he never truly believed that just this one room would be enough anyway. I call it my middle age spread.

KokoJazzMan DONE!

This is the finished KokoJazzMan piece. The acrylic paint reflects the flash but the man is solid black. I have had more fun working with Stephen (the artist who painted the picture) and stretched myself a bit with techniques. It will get packed up, along with some Textile Medium (hint, hint) and shipped off in the next day or so. This one will be hard to let of go of and I rarely ever feel that way about a quilt. Usually I'm happy when they're out the door and someone else has to worry about finding a place to put them.

Acrylic on muslin, cotton hand-dyes, commercial piping, commercial print. 28x30.

TA DAH!

Forms, photo and check going out tonight for the GSQA show in Baton Rouge, and this is one I'm proud to send.

Ebony and Ivory Blues
Commercial cottons, fiberglass window screen, 'liquid gold' poly fabric, computer printed cotton, beads.
38x32

Each element of the quilt is made and quilted separately then assembled. Satin stitch edging on each piece. Free-motion and detail quilting on felt batting.

and more progress......

This is the hand with the screen cut away to show the fabric. It looks SO totally cool in person too. And that's even before I got it cut from the felt and the edges finished.

The next pic is the elements of the whole thing (with the exception of one more blue triangle) sort of laid out in the final design. Some minor adjustments in placement to maintain the top edge so it can be hung and some structural stuff so it doesn't buckle in the middle. Maybe a little moving them around for the hands too, and the final decision on if I want the wrists to stop in the middle of the brown fabric or trim the whole bottom edge even with the wrists.

Progress!

I'm on the hands (Finally! Considering the forms and photos have to be received by Feb 1) and have made some progress, once I got through changing my mind about how I wanted to do them. It started out as simply printed on fabric, then went to some thread painting and now I've decided to use the fiberglass window screening. I started by re-sizing the drawing to life size, then printing it on the fabric. I then layered it with the screening on top and a piece of felt on the bottom. I have the outline stitched and then I'll stitch some of the details and cut away the screening. The whole little quiltlet will be hand-shaped once I cut it out around the outline, and the edges will be satin stitch finished and the entire thing will be added to the larger quilt.

A note about the hand drawings. My friend Stephen in Illinois drew these for me at my request specifically for this piece. He's also the one who painted the KokoJazzMan picture. Not only is he a great artist, he's also a musician and just an all-around nice guy.

Monday motivations

• Get the binding and sleeve on the KokoJazzMan and get it shipped.
• Finish the hands and add a sleeve to the abstract keyboard piece for submission to the GSQA show.
• Do the bird mobile quilt (quilt mobile?) to get them out of my head and into fabric.
• Off to my friend's house tomorrow for more visiting and critiquing.
• Double-check "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" for loose threads/beads before submitting it to GSQA.
• Two altered books for gifts to finish by Thursday.
• Labels for everything. Labels are my downfall and half the stuff that goes out of here doesn't have one.

Fast Friday January challenge

Justa Cuppa

The challenge this month was to do a "cropped still life" and use the element of form to give the piece dimension. I've been wanting to do a framed piece and when I saw the challenge and instantly had an idea of what to do, it seemed the perfect fit for the two ideas. I wanted to use a piece of batik-y looking stuff for the shadows and the coffee cup and saucer but it would have to be fussy cut to get the shadings like I envisioned them, so I was obviously limited in the overall size of it doing it that way. I was also determined to revisit the fabric collage technique, which I L*O*V*E and haven't done anything with in a while. The fates conspired to make all of that work out so I could do my challenge, use the fabric I wanted, play with a collage AND make a framed piece. I am very happy with the way it turned out. I've posted it to the challenge blog so we'll see what the REAL artists have to say about it soon enough. Or even worse, it might not get any comments.

The quilt itself is 5.5x8 and the green backing (not part of the quilt) and the frame are 8.5x11. Fabric collage using 25+ individual pieces of fabric, a layer of purple tulle, and outline quilting around the cup and saucer. The little quiltlet is stitched directly onto the fabric covered cardboard backing and then inserted into the frame with no glass.

Let's try that again

This time, I'll post the steps as I go on one. I've been wanting to experiment with melted poly sheers for a while, but had neither the sheers nor a heat gun. Thanks to my dear friend Vicki in Miami, and the $1 table at WalMart, I now have both. I began by layering the sheers in a not-planned-ahead design.

I stitched them down with black thread on a cotton background. After the first few rows of stitching, I added the black felt batting for stability with the sheers. I started by stitching down the outline of each piece, then doing some quilting lines, again with black, over the different pieces, keeping in mind that anything without stitching in it had the potential to melt away to nothing. I didn't do any specific patterns with the stitching, just random and relatively close together.

I also layered different colors and fabrics over each other to see how the under layers came through. I also added some fine lace that doesn't melt. I debated doing everything and then melting it, but finally decided to melt this much of it and add more. I knew I needed some dark at the top. I had the best time playing with the melting part! And no "art incidents" from the fumes this time. The last piece I added is 4 layers of the red over a layer of the lace. I wanted more depth of color than I was getting from one layer and I wanted the lace to peek out of the holes. I love the way it looks right now, but it will most likely get some beading and embellishments on it. And I'll definitely have to get some close-up shots of the detail once I'm done. Very cool effect, and worth the wait for playing with it.

So much for that bright idea

I had intended to do a step-by-step with this one, honest I did. But once I got the initial border on and thought through colors, my entire plan changed. Why can't I EVER just do what I originally plan to do? I took the border off and used black piping between each border instead. I am WAY MUCH happier with this than I was the original too, and the owner loves it (his words, not mine!) and he claimed to be speechless. At any rate, I'm happy with it.

All that's left is the quilting and binding and sleeve and label. And then he's going to paint me another picture to keep for myself. Collaborations are more fun than challenges, and you all know I love a good challenge!

KokoJazzMan - step by step

A friend in IL has painted a picture that I'm turning into a quilt. I'm going to try to show each step as I put it together. The first step is the initial border, which is black satin and will ultimately be only a half inch wide. I'm auditioning greens, purples, deep golden yellows and reds for additional borders. I have no definite idea of exactly what I'm going to do, but I have some ideas to try. I'm also going to take the plunge and do an applique border on at least 2 sides. The picture itself is 14.5 x 17.

"Big Eyed Fish"

So here is the finished quilt for the Draw Down. Total size is 62x76. Not a standard size but it works for me anyway. Cotton background fabrics and backing, appliqued fish and raw edge seaweed. The eyes are 2 buttons. A horizontal wavy quilting pattern in the center tie-dyed area and a vertical seaweed-y quilting pattern in the darker border. I pulled out all my cool variegated Mettler and King Tut to use on this one. They are a dream to work with and give more of an effect than you expect them to just looking at it on the spool. All free-motion quilting with some small detail quilting on the rocks and leaves at the bottom. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE free-motion? And my new discovery for getting the sandwich flat and stable makes it that much better since I don't get the pleats and tucks in the back and I can work on a smaller section at the time without worrying about messing it up by leaving it in the machine for a day or two, and it seems to wash better.

Long week

It's been a very long week. A man I've known for almost 30 years died suddenly of a heart attack at 51. I've gotten calls from people I haven't heard from in ages, and I think they were just touching base with others who were close to him. It's hard to reconcile his energy and humor and drive with his death. My mind continues to wander back through all the memories of him over the years and it's a good sign that I find myself laughing at some of the memories. J.D. would like that. Laughter was very important to him.
The brother of another friend was killed in a plane crash last week too. I knew him slightly, but I've known his sister for 15 years at least and worked closely with her at the church for many of those years. Again, memories intrude to the point of distraction. I'd like to be able to say it's a function of my age to be losing people. That it's just a natural progression and to be expected, but that brings me to the third death of the week.
My son's fraternity big brother committed suicide this past Sunday. He hanged himself in his room at the frat house. Both the college and the national office of the fraternity seem to be doing an outstanding job of providing support and counseling for the fraternity members, and my son has been relying on his church a good bit too. I can't imagine what Austin's parents are going through, losing a child so young to suicide. It's hard enough dealing with my own. I'm so scared I won't have the right words for him when he calls, and the best I can hope for is to not make things worse.
Some weeks are worse than others for trying to be a mother.

More boys than girls commit suicide.
Suicide is the second most common cause of death for college students. (Car wrecks are first.)
Cluster suicides are common at schools.

None of this is reassuring to the mother of a 20 year old boy off at college.

Monday motivation update

The fish are quilted. I still have to quilt the background and border and get it bound. A new basting method I tried and I LIKE it. I pin basted around each fish and then ironed the stuffing out of it. It stays perfectly flat as I'm quilting and the stitches seem to be a bit flatter too. I've always ironed the binding to within an inch of its life at each step, but never the body of the quilt. The batting doesn't stay flat. It eventually puffs back up in a couple of days but it's a dream to quilt on while it's still flat. And no pleats on the back!
Joyce, you asked how I was quilting it. Fairly close quilting in the fish, going with the shapes of the applique with invisible thread. For the batik in the center it will be a King Tut blue/green variegated in a loose horizontal wave, and tighter quilting (McTavishing? Stipple?) with matching thread in the bright blue border. Maybe something vertical for the seaweed.

The package from my friend arrived yesterday and the picture and hand sketches are even better than I expected. I'm forcing myself to hold off on those until I get the fish quilt out of the way though. Another day or so. Of course, I fell asleep with designs swirling through my head for the Kokojazzman too. My original ideas from seeing in-progress pictures of him painting it are pretty much out the window now. Once I got the real deal hanging on my wall the ideas started flowing. The first idea just won't go away now so I think I'll have to start with that as a base and build on it from there. Maybe I can get some pics up of it as soon as I talk to him. I don't know if he wants to follow along as I work on it or if he just wants to see the finished quilt.

I managed to find a backing for the rudbeckia quilt I did ages ago. I started quilting around the blooms using a brown backing but I was never happy with it so I set it aside. I have one now that I'm happy with (who could NOT be happy with 6 yards of batik?) so I'm going to trim away the brown backing and use this one. And in the meantime, I also decided to add borders on 2 sides. I think it needs the definition. No progress other than that on getting stuff together for the quilt show. This may not be my year to have any shown.

No laundry or dishes done, but I did vacuum up the dog hair on the living room rug so I could baste the fish.

Monday motivations

It seems like a good idea to write down stuff I want to tackle (fiber-related stuff anyway...nobody wants to hear about me doing laundry or loading the dishwasher) during the week. Maybe if I see it written down it will make me do more of it in a more organized way. Or not. Time will tell. I did manage to do the entire month of NaBloPoMo though so there's hope for me yet.

• Get the fish quilt finished and delivered to the school for the Draw Down
• The kokojazzman collaboration piece and the hands my friend drew for the abstract music piece were shipped yesterday so I'll get on those as soon as they arrive.
• Go through finished and half-finished pieces and decide which ones (if any) to submit to the GSQA quilt show by Feb 1.

I gotta get some sleep.

Or not. This is the result of waking up at 3:00 am and being bored.

I know! I'll just make a king size bed quilt! I'm sure I'll be able to think of something to do with it once it's finished.

Speaking of finished, just the quilting and button eyes left to do on it.

I'm on a roll today

I finally got a picture of the quilt I gave my son for Christmas. I made a matching stocking for him and he really seemed to like both. The quilt hangs above his bed in the apartment because the living and dining room walls are covered with stolen beer banners.

The photo sucks but I was pleased with the quilt.

This is a test, this is only a test

I'm posting these pics of a WIP to get a better idea of the next thing to do to it. The first pic is the actual quilt as it stands right now. The second pic has another musical note added, but I'm not sure I like it. If I do use it, I think it needs something more in the "hole" created between the staff and the note. Any ideas? It will ultimately have 2 hands on the keyboard that will be done in thread painting and, like all the other pieces parts, will be separate little quiltlets. As it is right now, the quilt will hang flat and balance with a ring at the top of the staff and a sleeve across the blue piece above the trumpet. I can't believe I got that to work out right!

I just don't get it

//rant mode ON
On the Today show this morning they showed the winner of the $100,000 quilting challenge http://www.quiltingchallenge.com/ and now the quilt art list is full of posts by women who are aghast (AGHAST, I tell you!) at the fact that Al Roker had the absolute balls to TOUCH the quilt! How dare he! What was he thinking! And they shot the segment OUTSIDE! IN THE ACTUAL SUNLIGHT!!!! The fact that it was a white-on-white whole cloth quilt and was exposed for a short period of time apparently escaped them. And the fact that quilts were originally MADE to be touched. And the fact that it's a cotton quilt with no doodads. And the fact that Al probably washed his hands at some point this morning. And the fact that it's a quilt, people! We wash them. We sleep under them. We fold them up. We toss them in the trunk. We even (GASP) throw them down on the ground and eat on them! I have a ratty ass quilt on my bed that's at least 50 years old and has had NO special handling. I don't doubt that the eventual owner of the winning quilt will display it lovingly and take care with it, but why in the world are these women sending emails berating the Today show for handling a quilt exactly the same way they were originally intended to be handled? If it isn't meant to be tactile, paint it on wood. If you make it out of fabric and then add texture to it with the quilting and put the batting in to make it soft why in the HELL would you NOT want people to touch it? Comparing it to a "work of art" and Picassos at the MoMA and telling them what idiots they are for displaying it to the public does nothing but make quilters come off looking like a bunch of elitist old ladies who probably use antimacassars on their sofas/couches/davenports/divans and use plastic runners on their carpets too. If it's so delicate it can't withstand being shown on national television she needs to use a better quality fabric. Besides that, comparing handling a quilt to handling a painting makes no more sense than comparing handling a painting to handling a sculpture. Different media require different handling.

Get off your high horses and admit that this may be a beautiful, breathtaking quilt, but I simply don't see it as a work of art on the same level as a Monet.

And don't even get me started on the women who obsess over the 100-year archival quality of fabrics and materials. I want ALL the love and softness and use in my quilts used up by the time their 100 year birthday rolls around.
//rant mode OFF

We're defeating one of the defining elements of quilting if we take away the comforting, tactile aspect of it. If we lose (or drive people away from) the warmandfuzzies of quilts, we're creating something different and just calling it a quilt. I, for one, would hate to see that happen.