Another year… and more unfinished projects

I didn’t sew as much as I intended this year. In some ways the baby being older made the whole idea of finding time to quilt seem impossible. Naptime seemed to always be in the car or better yet when I was at school and she was with someone else. Bedtimes were not relaxing for her and sewing was impossible. So I fell behind behind.
My goal is to play catch up and get rid of the back up of started but never finished projects. I hope to completely finish (top, quilted and bound) 12 quilts this year.
Some need bcks and dropped off to my local long arm quilter (three are ready for that). I have multiple small quilts and table runners that I want to learn to quilt myself. Then I have a ton of quilts that are ready to be quilted on our mini long arm. The problem is the machine hates everyone and no matter what we do it acts up.
So may everyone be as inclined as I am to finish the year off the way it began…hopeful and positive.

Sew it’s not quilting

    Well it is not a quilt.   But it is handmade.   And I am not referring to the baby.  Weeks ago I mentioned getting material for a homecoming dress.   This is the completed dress.   It has an adorable matching coat in lavender linen.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, it was 85 degrees in Ohio yesterday.   So no coat.   I love handmade baby gear, so more to come.
  On the other hand, no quilting in days.   Created a new bawby Instead.  Sorry.   But I hope to be back to sewing soon!   The little one is Elaine, my newest model, after two male models this should be fun.  A whole new section of the quit shop.

Nascar and quilting

I am a Nascar fan.  Actually I am a pretty big sports fan period.   I like my sports, have since  i was a kid.  My far out favorite is my Nascar car racing.  Growing up in Northern Ohio racing was not easy to watch.  I probably saw a race or two on television for many years.  I was already in high school before I saw almost full seasons.  I rarely see a full season even now.

Tonight I was watching an evening race in Richmond.  I was casually thinking about how I should be hand sewing but truly did not feel like doing anything but laying on the coach.  I was watching the commercials even.  I happened to see a lawn mower commercial with Jimmie Johnson.  I paid a bit more attention right then.  I mean he is not a bad looking fellow and all.  Well suddenly I realized the brand of lawnmower he was advertising.  It was a Husquarvana.  I was stunned!!!  Iwas like wait a minute that is a sewing machine.  Which led to my thoughts on who would think you would go from making sewing machines to lawn mowers?!?!  Not just push mowers but ride on mowers!  It was odd.  I then pondered where else sewing machine makers could go… and decided i did not want to know.  But I wonder would I really want a lawn mower made by a sewing machine company?!?!

The Ten Things I LOVE about Quilting

  So after last weeks semi serious rant on what I dislike strongly about quilting, I am sharing what I love.  I think today being Easter and a wonderful day of joy and great happiness for me and others of many faiths I should share the good of my favorite (well other than reading) hobby/obsession.  I know there are more than ten things I love so some are going to be groups of items…

  1. Sharp new rotary cutter blades, new needles,  and fresh scissors:  Yes I hate replacing needles.  Yet there is nothing more enjoyable about the beauty of the first few seams made by a fresh needle.  Also I love how crisp a fresh blade makes the fabric cut.  So perfect and even.  The scissors; well I hide my scissors because for some reason my dear husband, whom I love more than words can say, likes to use my very expensive Gingher scissors to cut his goatee.  Or cables for his computer/ wiring.  (His defense is they are so sharp and strong…. well duh they are good fabric scissors.)  So a good pair is heavenly.

2.  Fabric:  Ahhh… the colors, the feels of cotton.  I do prefer cotton.  But fabric with its diversity and design.  I adore fabric.  I can spend hours in a fabric store pondering what, I could do with nearly every single piece.  I picture batiks in quilts for my Florida nad California living relatives.  Brights in new quilts for the children.  All the 1930’s prints for the new baby girls room.  The delicate pastels and classic Modas in my own quilts.  The rich Asian prints for my husband.  The classic prints and Civil War lines for my male relatives.  Even the tone on tones and white on whites inspire me.  Fabric is so appealing it is not even funny.

3.  Patterns, magazines, books, blogs… all the reading:  I love to read.  That is my first passion.  But the chance to read about my second passion… pure delight.  I love  nothing better to open a fresh magazine and read it cover to cover; often reading even the patterns word by word.  I love to read what new item are available, what tips and ideas others have come up with and even better to get a chance to see the new colors and patterns that are going to be big in fabric.  I love reading blogs to see what other quilters are doing.  I love books because I can find so many great ideas of future projects that I can go a little crazy.  Even better are books that are not specifically quilt books but within them you find quilts.  Perhaps only briefly mentioned as a covering on a bed but I love these found bits of quilting.

4.  Moda bake shop:  I loved baked goods.  That is not the point here.  I also as I said before hate making the first cuts.  The joy of Moda nad their precuts has changed my life.  I know other fabric lines carry them but I love to go directly to the source of all that madness.  I think what I love even better than the fact the majority of cutting is done is that you get a whole line in one touch.  I can create a beautiful quilt that looks scrappy but at the same time it works in terms of value and placement.  I have many books and plans featuring these wonderful friends that I could get lost for years in just the bake shop.

5. The Redwork resurgence:  This is to me my favorite classic trend in quilting.  Right here, any modernism that I appear to try to have collapses.  This is to me one of the most traditional aspects of quilting.  And I love it!!! I started in embroidery.  I love that once again it has become a huge part of the quilting process.  It combines my roots with the joy I find in quilting.  I want to thank the person who brought the beautiful new patterns out to the forefront of quilting and made this popular again. Thank you.

6. Hand Applique, and binding:  I do not hand quilt.  Well I could but I like to finish at least a few quilts a year.  I do enjoy handwork.  (I could write a whole blog post just about hand work and I may in the near future… since my handwork time triples once the boys get back in sports for the season.  All that time sitting at practices is great to do handwork.)  I love to do hand applique, and even enjoy turn under.  I am not as good as I wish I was but that is only a matter of time and practice.  Since I do all my bindings myself these days, I have grown more fond of them.  I think again that I really am beginning to enjoy the chance to not only complete a project that is so near to being done you can taste completion!!! Also as any parent of small children will agree, any chance to sit on the couch and watch a movie is great.  I almost never sit down for a few uninterrupted hours and a binding that needs to be done is a wonderful reason.

7.  Freshly completed blocks, or each step of the creation (except borders):  I love the quilting/sewing part.  I love how you go from piles of squares and triangles and create something beautiful.  I think this is why I appreciate the joy of 30 minutes of quilting (which I have been bad about doing recently.)  I can admire the small steps more.  I can really see how the strips look together, or how a single flying geese looks.  I notice all the details, and it is wonderful.  Just wonderful.  Though the completed quilt is a wonderful moment, I love all the pieces and parts that go together in it.

8. My box of some days:  UFOs and PhDs are one thing (unfinished objects and projects half done for those who are not in the know) but the joy of taking a pattern I like and putting the fabric with it… that is glee.  I think it’s the feeling of possibility of having a plan ready to go.  I also think it is the anticipation.  It is like when you lay out the ingredients to bake cookies, you can almost taste the finished cookies all warm and yummy.  (Hmmm… cookies, fresh-baked cookies…)

9.  The homemade touch to gift giving:  I read somewhere once; that you should only gift quilts or quilted items to those who will appreciate them in an appropriate way.  The article continued on to discuss making sure the benefactors knew the “right” way to display, use, store, and care for a quilt.  They even continued on to discuss only giving them to those who understood exactly the great pains that go into quilting.  Once I had finished laughing my eyes out trying to picture who, if anyone, I knew who would really be that perfect person, I knew that was not where  I was going with my gifts.  I make many quilts as gifts.  I know that they may not be used the way they should (my brother has a tendency to use them as curtains on big windows to create privacy… talk about completely sun faded backs… and did I mention he uses nails to hold them up?)  Yet there is not one happier then him to receive a new quilt.  I get more hugs from him than I imagine possible.  Give a quilt to a child and you know it will be used as a tent, ate on, played on and who knows what else…  Give one as a wedding one, and well nine months after that quilt goes on a bed, you are giving one for a new baby… I love to see quilts used.  I love to make them to be used.  I would rather have to make them a new quilt because they used it to death, than to have one quilt last them forever.  I love giving wall hangings and table runners to teachers as Christmas gifts.  I always feel that since they take so much of their time on my child I can give them some of my time and talent as a gift.  I love baby quilts as gifts.  I find joy in wall hangings for holiday presents, or wedding showers, or just for a birthday gift!  I love that because I give away so many quilts I can work with different colors, patterns, and sizes then I would ever use if I was making them just for my household.

10.  Quilts, quilts, everywhere.. I spy a quilt:  I love, love to see quilts.  I think what I love most about quilting is the great joy and connection I get in seeing quilts.  I love seeing them in my house from the true lovers knot that was our wedding ring, to my sons  (and my the anytime now new baby girl) crib quilts, to the ones we hang on the walls, and the doors.  I love to admire the dick and jane fabric quilts that I have created for the boys and have enough of the fabric to make a fourth quilt in that series.  I love the ones that fill a box, and are used as back ups to the ones on the bed.  I love them!!! Yet even better, are seeing store samples and admiring others color choices and level of talent.  I love going to a class or a meeting and seeing other creations shared at show and tell.  I love shows.  I was going to Paducah this year until new one decided to come along.  (In fact, I had even convinced my non-sewing husband to come along.  I appealed to his sense of manly pride as a helper for all the elderly ladies who quilt… he was all excited like a boy scout and an old lady on a street corner.)  I love to see them.  And I love to spy them.  I get great joy out of visiting a random person and seeing that they have a quilt.  I adore watching a movie and seeing a quilt on a bed.  I love it even more when I recognize the pattern.  This is what makes quilting so very thrilling.  It is a secret society that plays “I spy” together.  We find joy in looking at the same pattern a million times and unlike an unconcerned observer enjoy the repeat.  We recognize each others mistakes and perhaps love what we see even more for it.

 

 So that is what I love about quilting.  It has inspired my quilting this week.  I have completed more, and now have at least two projects at the point of needing to pay them special attention.  So since, I have no kids tomorrow: add binding to baby quilt and piece back to husbands quilts… ohh and cut and cut and cut…

The ten things I hate…. about quilting

In honor of April Fool’s Day, I have decided to share the items about my favorite hobby that  I do not like.  I know that in anything I do there will likely be something that maybe not hate exactly but do not like!   I know that to some people this list will not agree with their preferences but hey we are all individuals…. Also just because I do not like these things does not indicate I should find a new hobby.  I HATE  that my husband snores and takes over the bed but that does not mean I want to replace him!!!!  Because the good definitely outweighs the bad, so my list:

The Ten Things I Hate About Quilting

1.  Cutting Strips:  I used to not like cutting in general.  I was not very good at it at all.  With time and  a lot of practice, I can enjoy most of the cutting.  Except strips.  For some reason I still do not like cutting these first cuts.  I think it is because I hate when they get that wonky curve thing going on!!! So if someone wants to cut these for me… please!!!

2.  Borders:  I think what I love best about many of the new patterns you see is there are no borders.  Borders are Russia in Winter for an invading Army… my Waterloo, whatever historical battle where the one side gets its ass kicked in a painfully depressing way.  I find that this is where in a quilt I frequently stop.  I have more quilts done to this point in my PhD collection, than the rest combined.  I do not know why I hate this… no that is a lie.  I had issues at first with sewing a consistent 1/4 inch seam.  A large amount of issues.  I have greatly improved on this for the majority of my piecing.  I still have problems with my borders.  Perhaps it is because the seams are so long, and the fabric weighs itself down and I feel like I get nowhere…ever.  This is the place where my 30 minutes a day fails me because I sew for 30 minutes and see almost no progress in that time.  I go from finishing blocks to barely finishing a single seam.  So borders are not cool.

3. Unsewing:  I have to unsew.  I mean who really can go without making a single mistake in a project?  If you know anyone who can (or if you can) go away.  I  know that some point in a quilt  I will have to take out at least part of a seam, a whole seam, or in quilt every seam I ever put in it.  (IT was the quilt from hell)  I am very opposed to this.   In fact I frequently get very upset and refuse to unsew.  Especially after I “think” the quilt is done.  At that point an upside down block can stay upside down.  If the damn points go the wrong way… bite me.

4.  Bobbins that run  out and I do not catch it till: five chain pieces later/ end of a border seam:  This is frustration.  The reason I want the expensive machine with the “low fuel”  alarm.  (See “My Request”) It totally breaks up the rhythm I have going.  I still cannot understand how I do not see it till I have been sewing with no bobbin thread for a considerable amount of time.

5.  Fabric that runs:  I do not prewash fabric.  (That is a whole soliliquily to itself.)  I hate when fabric runs in a quilt.  I have one quilt that no matter how many times I wash this one quilt it runs.  This is not cheap fabric people!!! I now have the perfect solution Shout Color Catcher Sheets.  Greatest invention, not made directly for quilters ever.

6. Pinning:   NO NOT PINTERST.  In fact I think Pinterst will be a crucial factor in encouraging a younger crowd to join me in the wonderful world of quilting and other home crafts.  I have found many of my circle are actually inspired to be crafty.  I mean those pointy ended/ glass beaded things that live in a pincushion.  I am one of those bad, bad people who avoid putting a pin in a project at any cost.  I do not pin seams to make sure they match because do you think I will unsew?  I rarely pin at all.  Unless I have no choice.  Then I do it.  But I hate how they mess up my rhythm.

7. Curves:  I cannot sew a curve.  I believe that has to do with the one crucial detail in curves:  you must pin.  You must pin a lot.  So since I do not like to pin therefore I do not like to create a project that has a large amount  of pinning associated with it.    I may though eventually wimp on this because I have seen a wedding ring quilt and a pickle dish quilt that I absolutely adore.

8. Changing/Breaking Needles:  Well these go together.  I do not change my needles with the appropriate frequency.  I tried to make it a task of the first day of the month and it still does not happen.  So I am bad and often do not do it to the needle breaks.    Sorry, I am bad.  I also have another issue here, frequently when I do change a needle I do not get it set in the correct position.  It isn’t inserted far enough, or not tight enough  (and wow this sounds just wrong) and as soon as I go to sew the needle pops and breaks.  Leading to a repeat of the process.  Frustration.

9. Stores that cut not tear material fabric from the bolt:  I know I square up material.  Yet the most frustrating thing is to see how much fabric I lose on the first cut.  It can be as much as two inches.  Since I am fanatically careful with my fabric usage (it is getting so very expensive) I hate to lose what I have.  Since I am already nervous about those first cuts, the fabric not looking straight at first is very, very weird.  I like it torn please.

10 PERFECTIONISM:  This is my biggest pet peeve.   I sew for fun and to relax.  It is like a Calgon bath (do they even have that anymore?)  I have to deal enough with exacts in my schoolwork, my family, my finances (though quilting does cause that havoc) and in many other areas.  I wan at least one place I can take it all as it comes.  I do not go crazy over perfect points, seams or even if my 1/4 is perfect (I lean toward a scant but in a few blocks I have created generous is definitely a kind term).  I will take out a seam if is noticeably bothering me, backwards, going the wrong way, the fabric is upside down (unless it is a batik) or just completely wrong.  But I have seen people take out entire rows over one intersection that was off by an 1/8th of an inch, not just once but multiple times!!!!  Worse, when you run into one of these people as an instructor and they expect you to do that too.  Not for me.  I use my quilts and my family, though they love the quilt gifts, would not notice a mistake on a quilt if it bit them in the leg.  They just love the fact that I made it just for them.    I do try to improve my skills but at the same time I am not going to pull out my hair (which is currently, due to pregnancy, lovely and full), kill my nails (also strong and healthy due to pregnancy) just to be perfect.

 

 So there we go.  What I do not like about quilting.  Are there things you do not like?  I promise that soon, as in within the next week I will give you my list of what I really, love about quilting.  So my list of what I do not like is complete, well wait I have one more issue.  Never being able to find my camera when I need it…

My request..

A few years ago my grandmother had stopped machine sewing.  The abilities she had enjoyed for many years and employed her  for many years, had become too difficult.  She continued to do some hand work; embroidered some hand towels (complained about finding material of the right quality to last), lots and lots of bindings and some blind sewing in bags and purses.  (The last project she ever completed was the blind sewing on my oldest’s aftercare/gym bag.  Let me tell you as soon as I find the pattern I used I will post a link.  I know it was a Better Homes and Gardens “Quilts and More” pattern but I do not know the issue.)     Yet like any one could recall the Depression years, and she did, she was frugal.  She had no intention of letting her machine go away.

Enter me.  I had no machine.  Well I had used a machine of my Aunts but we could not get along.  As in I could not thread the machine right ever!!!   It was very, very picky about how it was threaded.  I broke more threads, had more knots than it was ever worth.  Ever.  I could not continue stealing a few minutes here and there on the good machine at my Aunt’s house.  I would never get anything done.  I also like to spread out a bit more and have more than one project going.  I could not do that sharing a space exclusively.  I also could not come over every evening for a few hours to sew; one my husband traveled and two I like to see the guy occasionally.  So I was falling in a  funk.  I could not afford a machine.  Especially not a good machine;  the price is still only a dream.  (I recently I had that conversation with my husband about this awesome Bernina machine I saw.  It warns you when your bobbin is almost out, like a low fuel warning!!! I was definitely appreciating the machine when I used it as a class rental!  He asked my how much… I mention a number with 3 zeros.  He nearly fell out of his chair.  As in no way!!! He seriously did not believe me.  Even when my Aunt confirmed the price he still thought  I was crazy.  Apparently, I will not be getting that for Christmas this year.)   Well, in a moment of brilliant inspiration it was recalled that a beautiful machine was in my grandmother’s room.  After a bit of pleading, (Okay all I had to say was “Grandma can I have your sewing machine? As I snuggled like I was six.)  The machine became mine.

So I am now the proud own of a 1940’s (we think) White sewing machine, in a beautiful teal color.  i think it was the color that got me.  It is one of my favorite colors!  It is built-in the cabinet, which means I can really spread out my sewing!  I love it for borders and long seams because I do not have to worry about the  machine pulling.  Also it has the best, most even stitch ever.  Not to mention the scant 1/4 inch foot!!! I am in love.  Now it is not perfect.  I can only do straight stitch unless a find a zig-zag foot for it.  I also would love to find a walking foot to start doing some very basic at first, machine quilting because it does have the throat space to do it.  I cannot wind bobbins on it (you can but it is way to time consuming) and if you don’t put the bobbin in right… it drops to the ground, where it will unroll across the flower.  (Where it scares the daylight out of my dog who has attacked a bobbin before.  I want you to picture those commercials with toilet paper everywhere… now insert a border collie mix  and thread.  It was a nightmare.)  I cannot take it to classes, way too heavy, and getting it serviced is a nightmare!  Yet I love this machine!!!!

My grandmother passed away after I received this machine.  As we look at all her items and everyone asks for something I am content.  I have the machine.  As the only grandchild who machine sews (my cousin is a hand sewer, well she was, but is now a engaged PhD candidate so I think this hobby has gone away.  IT is a bit too solitary and old-fashioned for her at this point.  Plus she has an Aunt and a cousin who sews so why should she?)    I am very glad I have this one item of hers.  To me it speaks of many very good memories.  I can think back to the days when she let me play with her thread spools as families.  I can remember the beautiful coats, dresses, play outfits and seasonal outfits she made us as kids!  There were some very, very beautiful ones!  No matter how old I grow I think I will always appreciate what she made for me!!! More than that I think I will always recall what the machine meant.  It was a way for her to share what she was with us.  Something I am very happy about.