Strings

Ami Simms came to our guild a couple weeks ago and gave a really funny quilting lecture, followed by a moving presentation about Alzheimer's. I took her string quilt workshop the next day. I've made a lot of string quilts and went to Kay Capps Cross's string quilt workshop last spring, so I almost didn't sign up for this class. The last thing I need is another UFO! But Elaine Adair raved about a workshop she took with Ami, and Ami had very generously allowed us to use one of her patterns for our Linus raffle quilt, so I decided to take the class. I'm really glad I did!
I decided to use my guild's Linus stash to choose fabrics and make a quilt to donate. We have lots of animal prints, so I cut strips from those. Ami had us make strip sets, but her smart innovation (and the reason that I'm glad I took the class) is in her tube method of attaching the solid fabric for the other side of the half square triangles. So clever, so quick! I haven't finished mine yet (I need to get the solid fabric), but her method worked very well for the people who got that far during class. Follow the link above to the workshop if you want to see what the end result will be. I'll post a photo when I'm done.

I'm also working on another string quilt for Project Linus. Lots of kids around here are big Fighting Illini fans, so I thought it would be fun to make a blue and orange string quilt.
Here's a sample block with two different Illinois fabrics. I thought we'd do orange stripes in the middle of each and then a variety of blues, with the occasional strip of dark blue Illinois fabric thrown in, and then border it with the orange Illinois fabric. We may need a deeper orange strip, and I'm not sure or the range of blues. So I'm not sure if this is exactly how we'll end up doing it -- if you have suggestions, please let me know! We make lots of string quilts at worknights, but I get tired of the same old thing and am trying to make them thematic in some way (like my rainbow strings, which you can see part of in my blog header).

Color Hue Test

My friend Lisa, who's in my quilt guild, just sent a link to a Color Hue Test. I looked at it and thought it would be easy, but it was tricky. As similar colors are grouped together, it gets harder and harder to distinguish among the subtle shades. I didn't have the time/patience to do more than the first section this morning, but when I clicked to score the test, it showed me graphically how well each section was put in order. Give it a try, and have fun!

New computer!

Hoorah! I apologize for not blogging, or reading blogs, for over 3 weeks. My old computer had become a real pain. My photo storage was overloaded and difficult to handle, and the blogger-photo interaction was crazy. Every day I could see fewer and fewer photos on other people's blogs -- really frustrating. But my new computer moves so fast I can hardly believe it! :)

To catch up a bit:
I pieced together the fungly blocks (and have enough blocks now for another fungly top). The blocks were made by attendees at a Project Linus worknight.
The front/back or Otto's top is done and it's ready for quilting. I am so disappointed that I forgot, completely forgot, to put on the narrow inner red border! But I'm not taking this border off to do it. I got so many comments on which outer border to use -- thank you! I ended up going with this one just because it was brighter, which I think is good for a baby.
Kate at Kate's Quilting sent me backings and embellishments for several ATC's. I had never made one and wanted to try. It was really fun! Her background reminded me of streamers at a party, so I decided to add a glass of bubbly and title it "Celebrate" -- but it got a little crooked. That made me change the title to "Tipsy" and put the bubbles trailing out behind. I think it was an accident that worked out better than the original plan. Thanks, Kate, for inspiring me to try something a little artsy!
There has been a lot going on with Project Linus for me lately. This is Make A Blanket Day for the Central Illinois Chapter in late September. Wow -- 700 blankets turned in/completed/made that day! Really impressive. The women in charge of organizing this were absolutely amazing.
I also took a couple classes at the Red Cross to get CPR, AED, and First Aid certification. They had this quilt hanging in the training room. I love the story behind it. One little girl and her friends made the quilt at her birthday party and donated it to the Red Cross. I hope that eventually it gets donated to someone in need after a tornado or other local disaster.

Finally, I used my new computer to take this photo of myself! It's a computer with a built-in camera. What a blast! I've been having fun playing with this new machine, though there's some work to do transferring things from my old computer and installing various other things. My DH and DD have been a huge help! Now that I can actually see the photos that you guys post on your blog, I'll do some catching up. I have missed you!

One more audition

I did make it to my LQS and got some of the white with black squiggle fabric -- it's the reverse of the one I showed yesterday. I added some red strips this time so it would be easy to imagine the inner red border.
I think I prefer this to the predominantly black one just because it's lighter and brighter. Comments welcome! And thanks so much to those of you who commented yesterday. It's really helpful to hear what everyone thinks. I've learned a lot when other bloggers post their auditions, too.

Several people have asked me how my foot is doing. It's great! Yesterday was my last post-surgery doctor's appointment and I got confirmation that things have healed very well. I can now walk fairly briskly for an hour at a time and don't limp at all until near the end. Soon even that should disappear! Thanks for all your encouragement and concern.

Auditioning borders

I finished piecing the "back" of Otto's quilt (which is now really the front). Somehow I was off in my measurements in a couple places and so in the spirit of this quilt, I simply whacked some edges. It took me a few days to get up the courage, but in the end I think it's ok. I had planned on red borders, but I don't have enough red fabric and I can't get more. My first thought was yellow -- bright and cheery, and there's yellow in the blocks. But when I tried it, I wasn't too crazy about it. It just looks stuck on.
I neglected to add the red inner border and red binding when I took the yellow border photo (they are on the right side in the photo below), but I think it needs an inner border.
My memory was that this fabric was white with black squiggles, but it's just the opposite. I think I prefer it to the yellow, but I know the quilt shop has the white with black fabric, and I think I'd prefer that to either of these -- it would be brighter than this one, and fit the design on the quilt better than the yellow. Right now the top is just lying on the fabric, but I think I'd have the stripes going the long way across the top and bottom, just like they are now on the sides. The side borders will be bigger than the top and bottom ones.

Any thoughts? All help greatly appreciated!

Quilt from old clothes at Houston

Before I tell you about the quilt, just had to share this photo. Any knitters out there may remember I posted a photo of this baby kimono that my daughter Jocelyn made last May for a friend's baby. Zoe was born a few weeks ago and looks absolutely adorable in her stylish kimono!

Last night was my quilt guild's annual summer picnic. I happened to sit near Charlene Bremer, a lovely woman who had seen me looking around the parking lot for the building entrance when I first joined the guild 3 years ago, introduced herself, took me in and sat with me. I am still grateful for her kindness. Charlene is also a fabulous quilter. For the first time ever she had submitted a quilt to a big quilt show, and it was accepted! The quilt depicts about 20 appliqued scenes from her daughter and son-in-law's life while they were in the Peace Corps in Mali -- and she used the clothes they wore in Mali to make the quilt. Really something. She had already sent the quilt off to the show, so I only got to see photos, but now I can't wait to see the original. I'm very pleased that Charlene is getting recognition for her wonderful work, and I'm equally happy that a primitive-style, applique quilt made from worn clothing is being shown. What a treasure that quilt will be for her DD and SIL -- memories at every level. I neglected to get the name of the quilt, but I'm sure you can find it under Charlene's name if you're lucky enough to go to Houston.

Thanks, Kate!

Last week Kate noticed on Facebook that it was my birthday, so she sent me birthday wishes via a postcard that I had so shamelessly admired on her blog. She has a wonderful tree series that you can see here, and now one of those trees is mine! It's sitting next to my computer so that I can glance over at it whenever I wish, and eventually I will hang it near my sewing machine for inspiration. I'd like to do a tree series one day, too. Thanks so much, Kate!

(Sorry the photo is blurry -- this was the better of two photos. I have a hard time with closeups.)

Splendiferous

The Wednesday morning farmer's market is great for mid-week restocking, but it's nothing compared to the lush piles of produce available on Saturdays. I stopped by this morning to pick up the usual stuff (though August's bounty should hardly be deemed 'usual'). What I got instead was Mother Nature putting on a show. Only two days ago I read about beets like these, and there they were, looking like purple tree trunks with their distinctive rings.
Normally I cube beets. They are easier to eat that way, and no matter how I love the color, I don't want beet splotches on all my clothes. But tonight I sliced the beets. With their concentric circles, they were begging for it. Like Michaelangelo claiming his chisel only revealed the figure already lying in the stone, my knife and I did the same with the beets. I was a kitchen Michaelangelo for the evening.

Vegetables are gorgeous, and no one quilts them like Ruth McDowell. I bought this book before I learned to quilt, just to look at her work. You can search the book at amazon. It's out of print, but used copies are available.

Ottawa

A couple weeks ago my husband's cousin phoned to tell us she was getting married! Whoohoo! It was to be a very small affair, arranged at the last minute, and she was sure we couldn't come, but ... we went! We were so happy for Judy, and we have so much fun with the Canadian branch of the family, that we couldn't possibly miss the wedding! Turns out the groom's family is as crazy as we are, so the small crowd grew. Family and friends came from all over Canada, as well as from New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois (us!), England, and Germany. It was a blast, and by the time we left we had become good friends with a wonderful extended family.

Ottawa never fails to charm me. I've been there several times but always in August, when the weather is warm and breezy and the foliage is lush. It must be great all year. My husband has a friend who works in Ottawa and in the winter she ice skates down the canal to her office each morning and back home at night. Wow. This trip we drank in the beautiful views of water and rolling hills, and managed to find time to see the Byward Market, the National Art Gallery, and the locks at the Rideau Canal. We also strolled by Parliament. I love the effect of the old-fashioned legislative buildings reflected in a modern skyscraper.
I'll limit the rest of my photos to things that, as a quilter, I found at least intriguing and inspiring. The wedding was on the balcony at the National Center for the Arts (it was supposed to be in one of the little rooms inside, but the day was so gorgeous they set up outside). The symbol on all the doors was, well, I don't know the name for it -- an interlocking shape related to a hexagon.
An incredible set of metal doors hung in the room where the reception was held. I was awestruck. Here's a photo of most of one side of one of the doors -- each was about 15 feet tall, covered with rich textures on both sides. I kept looking at them all through dinner.
The art museum had an exhibit of Inuit (aboriginal Canadian) art side by side with Sami (indigenous Scandinavian) art. No photos were allowed, but you can see some of the art and read about the exhibit here. I didn't see an inukshuk, but I love the idea of them and bought a necklace and earrings made to resemble them.
Inukshuk, which are symbols for a safe journey, are stone figures made by the Inuit to provide directions. What a wonderful theme for free piecing! You can read more about inukshuk and see two photos of them here. Do follow the link -- that first photo with flowers growing around and on the inukshuk is just amazing. Four seasons of inukshuk would be a great quilt.

Much more mundane but nonetheless charming is this grate we saw on the street. Another fabulous quilt-to-be.

And completely off topic, I have been thinking about using old clothing for a quilt. When clothes are in good condition but we no longer wear them, we donate them. But some clothes are stained or worn in spots and we add them to the rag pile. From now on I'll see if at least parts of those 'useless' items might have some good fabric left. Take a look at this shirt made of a woven-in plaid fabric.
I hope you can see in the photo how the inside is much brighter than the faded outside. My husband has had this shirt for years, and I love it, but I think a quilt is in its future.

Not too much longer, Otto

All my sewing stuff is back downstairs, so I couldn't put off doing the borders on Otto's quilt any longer.
This next photo gives an idea of what it will look like with red binding.
You may have noticed the clips holding the top onto the design wall. I purchased one of those portable design walls a couple years ago and have not been overly impressed. It doesn't stand well on its own, and the surface isn't very clingy. Lately everything has been sliding off it, even small blocks. I do have a smaller design wall of batting fixed to the wall with painter's tape, and that works great.
I put the completed top upside down on the table so I could gauge how much space I had for the back. I don't have room for another zig zag. I think I'll fill in the rest with leftovers from the front and also the red fabric.

I think Otto is going to think the back is the front, which makes more sense than the way I have been thinking of it. I had to call the free-pieced part the back or I would never have had the nerve to play around so much! I know that's silly, but I don't have a background in art or design and I have very little sewing experience, so it's difficult for me to trust my ability to create. The little mind game of putting something fun on the back of the quilt made it much easier for me to play around.

A bit of family history

What a happy morning! I was browsing through some blogs and saw a post about Marken Island on Annemiek's blog, Carpe Quiltem. (Love that blog name!) She showed a place where you can get your photo taken in traditional Dutch dress.
Annemiek leaves that sort of thing to the tourists, but many years ago my family visited Marken Island and got our photo taken there. My dad was stationed in Germany in the early fifties and my family traveled around Europe with our pup tents. We took the ferry to Marken Island in 1953 (nowadays you can drive there on a road they put in) and had this photo taken. I was 2 years old -- that's me sitting in my father's lap. In the 1970's my brother worked in the Netherlands for several years and went with my sister-in-law and nieces to Marken Island, where they also dressed up and had their photos taken at the same place.

Even though I don't remember that trip to the Netherlands, I grew up looking at this picture. It made my morning to read about Marken Island on another quilter's blog.

Waste not, want not

First off, Happy Birthday to my mother!! I hope you read this today! I can't be there to celebrate, but next year we will all be there with bells on.

More and more blogs are publishing patterns for reusable shopping bags (like the green bags in the style of Walmart bags at Feeling Simply Quilty, or the basic morsbags at With Heart and Hands). A few quilters have returned to the original 'waste not, want not' spirit of quilting and have been making quilts of cast offs. Libby at Quilty the Libster made a charming baby quilt out of a sheet, 3 blouses, and a pair of pajama pants! Michael 5000 is in the midst of a Quilt Storm to make twenty salvage quilts. You can scroll through his most recent posts at State of the Craft to see how that project is coming along. (He's on a summer break but truly quilted up a storm right before that.) The Fungly Challenge by Bonnie and Tonya also presents a wonderful opportunity to make use of fabrics we never thought would be any good, anywhere.

It's becoming clearer that we need to be better custodians of our resources, but for many of us, it isn't yet a real imperative. One day soon it probably will be. I think that realization made me far more appreciative of what it was like to be forced to do without when I took a tour of the Churchill War Rooms in London.

Walking through the actual bunkers where Churchill and his cabinet worked during the second world war really gives a sense of what it must have felt like during the Blitz -- cramped, sunless, and frightening. One of the rooms held a temporary exhibit about the fabric shortage during the war.
People were encouraged to use every scrap of fabric and to wear clothing with no fancy extras like pleats that would waste precious yardage. Clothing was rationed.
You can click on the photos above and below to enlarge them so they are legible. (These are photos of posters at the exhibit, and some were behind glass.) They tell some of the suggestions for making the most of the fabric already on hand -- turning old pillowcases into summer shorts, making worn adult clothing into children's wear, etc. Eventually fashion designers started coming up with designs that used the least fabric to the best advantage.
Thrift used to be a necessary virtue. In America, land of plenty, we've gotten away from that -- thrift itself has become expendable. Hopefully, things are starting to change. It would be wonderful if we could take the "waste not, want not" adage to heart before we absolutely have to.

Fungly blocks!

We had a blast making Tonya and Bonnie's fungly blocks at last night's Project Linus worknight. The Fungly (fun + ugly) Challenge is to use your ugly fabrics to make a really fun quilt.It's a perfect project for using donated fabrics. Our guild members very generously supply us with lots of fabric for making Project Linus quilts, but sometimes the pieces are small, the fabric is dated, or the designs are not really cheerful or appropriate for children. We try to use them as creatively as possible, but it can be challenging! If you click on the above photo, you'll get a better idea of the variety of fabrics we have to work with -- big prints, calicos, novelty fabrics, brights, pastels...
I precut some 3-1/2" strips yesterday and cut fabric for a couple blocks, too. I set them out with a bag full of fabric ends for people to choose what they wanted. You can see in the photo that I also printed up pictures of one of Tonya's blocks as well as her finished quilt top to show people what the Fungly Challenge is all about. We used the Easy Angle ruler that Bonnie recommends to cut the triangles. Being able to use only one size strip for all the pieces is easier for a group than having strips of different widths for triangles and squares. I encouraged people to be free and not to worry, but I've learned that when working with a group, there's always lots of variation anyway. Our guild has members whose superb technical skills have won them national awards, and at worknights we also get walk-ins who have never sewn a stitch! We'll make it all come together when we put on the sashing.
These are two of my favorite blocks. I wish I had thought to photograph that red fabric before I cut it up (we just had a very small piece). It's lip prints, like you'd get if you put on lipstick and then kissed a mirror. Very cute, but not really the best choice for a Linus quilt! We can use it here, though. And look at those adorable roosters in the next block! They are a lot more fun when cut up and re-assembled!

Leaders and Enders quilt

I first heard of leaders and enders from Bonnie on the Quiltville website. I thought her idea of slowly putting together pieces for a quilt from those little bits of fabric at the beginning and end of your stitching was brilliant, but it takes a little advanced thought to plan what to stitch and have it ready. I have so many small bits of novelty fabrics that I've used for my hexagon I Spy quilts that I decided to use them up making a simpler I Spy of 3-1/2" squares stitched together as my leader and ender pieces. It wasn't as simple as it sounded, because many of the novelty prints are directional and quite a few have to be fussy cut. Perhaps not the best choice for leader and ender pieces, but it worked. I had done about all the leader-ender stitching of them I could by the time I moved my machine upstairs to the dining room so I could quilt during my recovery. I brought them all up to stitch together into a quilt top.
I don't have a design wall upstairs and I wanted to lay things out to be sure the layout was ok, so I put them on batting and rolled it open as needed. It worked pretty well -- you can move it around and everything stays in place. And did this ever stitch up quickly! When you already have the pieces sewn in pairs, you're almost half way done before you begin.
There are going to be a couple narrow borders and then more squares around the outside, but the top is otherwise done. I hope to move back downstairs tomorrow or the next day (my leg is healing very well), and then I can put the borders on Otto's quilt and on this. And, of course, plan what to use for my next leaders and enders. It will definitely be simpler than this.

Focus on design

Have you seen this stamp? It has been out since last year but I saw it two days ago for the first time. I thought it was a picture of a quilt! It isn't. According to the post office website, the stamp was designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Maryland. (She also designed the beautiful breast cancer awareness stamp.) Anyhow, I was looking at the stamp and trying to figure out what makes it so appealing. Partly, I love letters, such beautiful shapes, and she uses a lot of variety in her letter styles. The subtle stripes and dots in some of the squares as well as that green stripe after the 'r' also add a lot of interest. I guess variety is the spice of life -- and stamps and quilts. I'll remember that if I find myself getting too matchy-matchy.