A Year's End

This is the year that my patience was tested.  I had to constantly quiet the ants in my pants and learn to be quiet and peaceful while sitting with my parents.  This quilt that John and I slept under last night is one that I pieced and then quilted, all while sitting with both or one of my parents.  It's warm and lovely and I smile when I look at it.  And now that Mom has died, all I want to do is hand-quilt this elliptical Drunkard's Path.  Continuing to sit and be quiet and be thankful.  Mom was the one who taught me to sew - I even took her sewing machine to college with me in 1967.  Because that's what we did - take our sewing machines to college.  It is ironic that I always found a way to get out of handwork, usually by giving it to Mom.  And now in her last years and in her death, it is handwork that is such an important solace.

This is the year that I recognized how much I am gravitating toward minimalism in design.  I study the two books I have by Yoshiko Jinzenji - Quilting:  Line and Color and Quilt Artistry:  Inspired Designs from the East.   In February I am taking two classes with her at QuiltCon in Austin. 

This year I feel good about trying new things, like hand applique and curved piecing.  I am glad to have these techniques in my bag of tricks.  This curved pieced bit - my homage to the Badminton Shuttlecock - still needs some handpiecing on the background.  But I don't love this piece and don't know whether I want to spend more time on it.  And it's ok.  What I did learn from this piece is that an unexpected color, like the grellow, can really perk up a palette.

 As we ushered my parents out of this world, my family prepares to welcome another into this world.  My NYC niece Jen is having her second baby, a little girl, next month.  My favorite quilts to make are baby quilts.  I made three just after my dad died.  And now to make this special baby quilt helps balances the loss and focus on the Circle of Life (cue music from Lion King).  We had all the kids and grandkids with us Christmas Eve.  One of the many joys of that evening is that our youngest grandson Ben is now 12 - we played Christmas Charades and Christmas Trivia and Ben competed along with the rest of us.  But one of the sadnesses is that the grandkids are all too old for toys.  I'm thankful for my great nieces, my niece Laura's little girls, who are not too old for toys.  I had great fun watching them open what John and I got for them.  And I'm thankful for my friend Eileen's little boy Henry who came over and played with John and his train.  There is nothing like a 5-year old who can't keep his eyes off the train.  Or a 75-year-old.

This year was one of peace for my family as my parents lived their final chapter. 

P.S.  And this year was one of deepening friendships with my circle of quilt besties - an amazing group of women whom I love.

In the Bleak Midwinter...

Do you know this hymn? It's a Christina Rossetti Poem - lovely, simple, and not at all sad.  My mom died earlier this week from pneumonia after over four years of dementia/Alzheimer's.  She went through a lengthy period of asking for and wondering about her mother.  Once, over two years ago, my mom, dad, and I were walking down stairs and heading to an appointment.  Mom asked where Dad was, and I said, "He's right behind us."  She replied, "Not your father.  Where is my father?"   Sister-in-law Kim was brilliant with her responses to these questions - she would say that Mom's mom was with her sisters.  And that seemed to satisfy my mom. 

So in this bleak midwinter (Mom died on the 22nd and was 86 and a half on December 21st), I rejoice that my mom is at peace and with my dad and the rest of her family.  I have been writing my mother's obituary and celebrating her life and altruistic spirit.  I will use these next few days to work on the business end of things as my brothers and sister work on the memorial service in January.  I will soothe my soul with my hand quilting and then begin the quilt for the next great niece who will be born in mid-January.  And I am at peace. 

Scattered

Me.  The studio.  Projects.  The studio carpet was cleaned while we were gone, which meant packing everything away.  So I am still finding where I put things, like my walking foot (found it - phew...).  The elliptical Drunkard's Path is off the design wall and pin-basted.  While I wasn't quite ready to do this, I wanted the leftover wool batting to use in Infinity Scarves. (While I do love the feel of the wool inside cottons, I must remember that I tend to run hot and should be making these without any batting at all.)  Thanks to Charity S for putting these scarves on my radar and for the tutorial from Pink Castle! 

Fabrics and the germ of an idea for niece Jen's baby girl quilt

While on the cruise I did finish appliqueing the circle for my Yoshiko Jinzenji panel. But now I need to figure out how I want to combine these two elements. A few days on the design wall might help.

An Iron Cozy

People who don't travel and sew won't understand how difficult it is to carry a hot iron. Seriously. So using some old batik fabrics, leftover binding bits, and some thermal batting, I made one using this tutorial. It may not be attractive, but it gets the job done!









 My mom has pneumonia. My sibs and I are wondering how serious this is. An odd time for all of us. Scattered...

Hi Ho Hi Ho...

We leave tomorrow morning for a 12-day Panama Canal transit cruise - first time we have traveled in over 18 months. John's excited - well, it is a jazz cruise. And I have my iPad loaded with books that I'm looking forward to reading. The studio is ready for the carpet cleaner, projects are lined up for when I return (baby quilt for a niece, Christmas purse, piles of Marcia Derse fabs just waiting to be touched, and handquilting the colorful elliptical Drunkard's path). This piece from Camp Stitchalot and Sherri Lynn Wood's class is mostly quilted. The background still needs to be done. I like it. Except I wish I didn't think of a badminton shuttlecock when I look at this. Happy December!

Little Wallet Goodness

Let's be clear. This isn't a wallet to carry every card and all the cash you have. This wallet will hold a bit of paper money, a couple of coins, a credit card or two, and a driver's license. And it's pretty darn cute. Despite Thanksgiving and travel preparations, my goal for tomorrow is to go to the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild western suburban sew-in in Elmhurst and make some of these little wallets in colors other than red and black! The pattern is Wonder Wallet by Lazy Girl.

Meeting Two Personal Heroes

Wow, that sounds dramatic, doesn't it?  But Camp Stitchalot did allow me to work with and watch two  important quit bloggers who have greatly influenced my attitude towards quilting.

Rossie Hutchinson's Double Plus Good

When I started quilt blogging in 2007, I thought at the time that I was doing something unique and unusual.  And then I began to be aware of quilt bloggers and how many there are!    I'm not sure what led me to Rossie Hutchinson's blog - she began hers in 2010.  I saw her  Double Plus Good, and I was hooked on Rossie's approach.  It was she who started the whole Process Pledge movement.  And I had spent the past few years knowing that the inception and execution of a project is just as important as the finished piece.  Having Rossie - and so many others - validate what I discovered to be true for me has been liberating.  One of the things I love about my guildsters is that I have friends who care about the process:  they want to talk about their process and listen to mine.  Rossie has a PhD in Communications and has been on the faculty of University of Michigan.   She is also one of the organizers of Camp Stitchalot, along with Brenda from Pink Castle Fabrics.  Throughout the weekend, Rossie was a fellow camper, taking the same delight in both teachers and classes as the rest of us and working as madly on her projects as we were.

Rossie was the July speaker at my Chicago Modern Quilt Guild Meeting.  I was afraid I would miss her lecture/trunk show - it was the same weekend as my father's funeral.  Sunday afternoon was clear, and I went to the guild meeting.  As delighted as I was to meet and hear Rossie, I was emotionally fractured and couldn't make it through the whole meeting.  So Camp Stitchalot was a nice Rossie Hutchinson bonus. 

This one word sums up Chawne's approach to quilting and needlework

 The other hero/camper is Chawne Kimber, a math professor from a small college in eastern Pennsylvania and fiber artist/quilter who blogs at Completely Cauchy. Chawne was on my radar in later 2011/early 2012 before QuiltCon. She's a political quilter - her quilts make statements. Sometimes she tackles broad topics about race and language and gender. And sometimes her work is highly personal. She works both large and small.  Her art evokes reaction - that is the goal of art, isn't it? I wanted to meet her at QuiltCon, but she had a death in her family and didn't go. Except she did wind up making it to Austin for a bit. And when I learned that and that I had missed her, I was sad. 

Fast-forward to dinner Friday night at Camp Stitchalot.  It was the only ice-breaker meal where we were assigned seats. And looky looky looky who is across from me.  Miss Chawne! Chawne and I have a friend in common, the lovely Mirielle/Mimi, whose comment on Instagram tipped me off that Chawne would be at Stitchalot.  So meeting her, working along side her, and seeing her in action (omg she is working on such a tiny piece right now) was a highlight of the weekend.  Chawne, Mimi, and I have a date at QuiltCon in Austin next February.  Chawne's devotion to what we do speaks volumes to me. 

Throughout the weekend I slowly met more and more of the campers and could talk glowingly about so many of them.  How rich it was to meet so many lovely women, especially Rossie and Chawne. 

Camp Stitchalot - Part 2

 

Carolyn Friedlander is a young quilter, an architect by trade, whose fabric designs and now new book, are hot hot hot. The way some of my guild members throw around the names of fabric designers scares me a little bit. I just don't pay attention. Until I see something I like. And within the past six months I have become aware of fabrics that are architextural in design. And whose fabrics do you think these were? Yep. Carolyn Friedlander. Then I bought a copy of her book Savor Each Stitch. The past half year has been one in which I have slowed down and experienced the joy of handwork - so her book is timely for me. At Stitchalot Carolyn focused on teaching us a method of hand applique. It was odd to be in a room with 30 quilters and not have any machine whirring away. Needle-turn applique is awkward for me, but I did improve a little over the weekend.  On the strip below, five of those circles are appliqued.

 I'll take these circles to my mom's tomorrow and see how far I get.  Even with a needle threader, it's difficult to thread the applique needle - I may have to use something bigger.  My goal is to inset a strip of circles into the above Yoshiko Jinzenji fabric (look, another designer name!).  Carolyn's use of hand applique and machine quilting is inspiring, and that's the direction I want to head in with this panel.  Carolyn gave us little samples of her new fabric line, Doe.  And I must say there are several fabrics that I like a lot.

The pairing of Carolyn Friedlander and Sherri Lynn Wood as counselors at Camp Stitchalot was very clever.  They are quite different in their approach to quilting, and both have enriched the bag of tricks and techniques that I bring to quilting.  A good good weekend.

My Curve is Basted

This piece is now 32" x 32" and ready for some hand work.  Some echo quilting in the background and something in the curves.  I like this.  I'm not sure what the orientation should be.  Maybe I'll figure that out as I stitch.  One observation about the process:  there is no economy of fabric.  I took these leftovers and pieced together a little Runaround, which I gave  to Sherri Lynn Wood last night after her lecture to our guild - a little remembrance of her very chilly and successful day in Chicago

Homework from Camp Stitchalot

What a great weekend!  Sarah S, Melissa and I went to Camp Stitchalot with 28 other campers and camp counselors Carolyn Friedlander and Sherri Lynn Wood.  The whole experience was fun AND educational!

We decided to go one day early to have the luxury of extra sewing time and make Two-Zip Hipsters.  All turned out nicely by Friday morning.  Special thanks to Sarah for figuring out the twisted zipper secret.  Then Sarah, Melissa, and I decided we needed to go to Pink Castle Fabrics about 45 minutes away.  Carolyn and Sherri asked if they could go with us.  Um, yeah, well - OKAY!  Later that day Carolyn led us through design choices and her method of applique.  There will be more about Carolyn and this project in a couple of days.  But now?  Gotta focus on Getting My Curve On and Sherri.  She's our Chicago Modern Quilt Guild Speaker tonight, and I promised I would have what I worked on in class in a more advanced state.

Sherri led us all through her approach to improv quilting - guidelines that involve no rulers and working at one's creative edge.  Look at the link above to see her sweeping, bold, and wild use of color and design.  After I made these three wedges, I was done.  I needed to think about what is next with these pieces and how I want to create something that I want to keep in my home.  So I took them home.  Last night I began to play.

I tried overlapping these wedges, like so many in class had done.  but my instincts kept leading me back to keeping these pieces separate. And I also knew I that needed to trim these up and make them more symmetrical. 

Wonder if John has missed this Tupperware lid I keep in the studio...

As I have been blogging, I have had several epiphanies. I think I will stop, take a walk, and come back to this. Let's see if I was paying attention when Sherri was teaching how to sew curves. To be continued...maybe even today!

Hand Project Completion

 This project, which measures 72" x 94" and was done by hand, is complete.  I started it (and blogged about this) in April of this year.  Each time I headed to my parents', I had these blocks with me.  Through my dad's hospitalizations, I continued to work on these blocks.  Just as he died, I finished piecing the this top.  And then I decided to quilt this by hand while sitting with my mom.  Each time I got to my mom's I would take out this quilt, show it to her, and tell her that I now sew because she taught me how to.  And each time she smiles and says, "I did?"  My stitches are big and primitive.  I used a No 8 perle cotton.  Some of the stitches are with No 5 perle cotton, which is just too difficult for me to work with. 

The batting is wool.  And the texture of this quilt is wonderfully lofty and airy and warm.  This project has provided me with solace and purpose as I have sat with my parents.  And I love it.

I'm heading to Camp Stitchalot (***squeel***)in Ann Arbor with Sarah S and Melissa today.  And I am packing this quilt. 

"City Spokes" is home!

After traveling with the International Quilt Festival for several months, "City Spokes" is home.  John hung it in a space intended for something not quite so tall - the grandchildren and travel tchotskis seem to be blocking the bottom of this piece.  And I'm surprised at how much I like this piece (she modestly says...) in this particular location.

The wall hanging made from t-shirts bought in Nairobi now hangs in the first floor hallway to the bathroom. 

Today was spent quilting this gorgeous piece made from shot cottons.  I was torn between which binding to use.  But just taking these pictures and looking at them has clarified what I need to do.  The sedate grey wins over the multi-colored.   Love love love the fall time change.

Hello, Winter! Goodbye, Summer...

All pieced - and I love it

The final version - all pieced and ready for quilting.  70" x 70"

Final Layout

This  might be it.  Seeing the layout on a screen will help tweak certain bits. 

Quilting Tip from "Macbeth"

Today's layout features horizontal color arrangement and staggered columns.  This layout is closest to the layout of the inspiration quilt by the Australian Helen.  But actually I like the first of these layouts with the cluster of colors.  Lucky for me I am busy for the next two days and can't do any sewing.  But when I do get back to this, I think I will need to be "bloody, bold, and resolute" and just pick a layout and do this instead of dithering for days about which one is better.  All these are beautiful, right?  (I think I will try a column of warm neturals and cool neutrals on both sides to make this 66" wide.)  To be continued...

Design Wall Goal

A new design every day.  Here's #2.  I still have a set of blocks to do in warm neutrals.  I think they need to go into this mix.  And today the staggering on the columns is less pronounced.    Do I have this upside down?  Note to self:  Put iPad on ScreenLock and study.

Wordless Wednesday

Thinking Out Loud

 A couple of things are in my head. One is one of the projects being taught at Camp Stitchalot in November. Carolyn Friedlander is teaching her Aerial Grove technique. This picture is an illustration of this hand applique technique. I want to honor learning the technique, but I also want to do something that I will like and want in my house. .

I have a couple of panels designed by Yoshiko Jinzenji, and I'm thinking that one panel from these fabrics might be the perfect sized wall hanging.   And perhaps draw from that pile of fabrics for the appliqued parts. 

 And finally - some progress with the ellipitcal Drunkard's Path blocks.  A bundle of Pepper Cory shot cottons, the template from Australia, one retreat, one sew-in day, and now something on the design wall.  A small quilt?  Two small quilts?  I have yet to trim the many greenish blocks, and there's also a set of pumpkin/brown/tans blocks.   Kind of fun to play around with no end goal in mind, so not the way I work.

Runaround Bag

Welcome to the October 15, 2014, installment of Purse Palooza.  Like the previous purse enthusiasts, I'm very happy to be a part of this online purse extravaganza.  While I have made several of Sara's patterns - Aragon, Aeroplane, Arabesque - and love them, the one purse/bag that I have made again and again AND AGAIN is the RunAround by LazyGirl Designs.  This bag thrills girls of all ages, is simple to make, and very practical.  It finishes at 7" x 9".  This pictured bag?

Eileen's Bag

Reverse of Eileen's Bag

I made for my buddy Eileen.  She uses it to "runaround" and it becomes an insert for her bigger purses.  There's a zippered compartment on one side, and a pocket on the other - it's that simple.  Plus a strap that can be used for across-the-body or just knotted to be grabbed.  She's been using this now for over a year.

MATERIALS NEEDED:  Two fat quarters, a zipper, some interfacing like ShapeFlex, and some fusible fleece.    Plus this fabulous pattern.

Because I am a quilter, I always have tons of scraps in my studio.  When I sew these scraps and make new fabric, they turn into some lovely Runarounds.  (Note:  all pictures are in pairs so you can see the front and the back of these clever little purses.)

These purses can be playful and whimsical, like the ones I made for my great nieces.

 Or they can be formal, like these: 

So, you know I can make these RunAround bags.  But so can anyone else.  My neighbor Jo, a high school junior, came over and made this Runaround within two hours.  If you have zipper fear, this clever pattern will help you get over it.  Seriously, the zipper insertion is the simplest I have ever done.  Both Jo and her sister had no difficulty at all with this part of the process. 

Here are some pictures from that afternoon with Jo. 

Jo's fabric palette - she's a musician

Putting pieces on the floor, just to keep track of her project and mine.

Jo and my Husqvarna becoming friends - she had no sewing experience.

A few weeks later Jo returned with her little sister Kate (also a musician), an 8th grader.  And here are the results of that two-hour session:

Smiling at the end of our session!  and both girls are ready to return to the studio

One of the things I have learned from Sara through her SewSweetness blog and patterns is that the more pictures the better.  Here are more pictures of various RunArounds.  What a great pattern!

Batiks and Shot Cottons

Pieced fabric and a funky print 

Marcia Derse fabrics, zippers, and the pattern

And Voila - bags!

Treasured scraps become perfect Runarounds

Making them can become an addiction

This favorite scrap became a RunAround.

Study this last picture because it shows two bags in process.  The two left bags are the finished bags.   I made twins so you could see the components.  The top pictures are the back of the bag, including the pocket.  If you're very clever, you'll figure out a way to put a little pocket on the inside.  The bottom pictures are the zippered component.  This pattern shows you how to very clever layer these components, leaving the zippered part open.  Then you sew all the way around the four sides, making sure you've accounted for the straps, and turn the bag inside out through the zipper.

Good pattern directions.  Clever but easy construction.  Practical results which can be dressed up or down.  I estimate I have made 40 Runarounds so far.  And I don't think I am finished yet.