Silence

We have been away for a few days and "away" has many meanings!  We were lucky enough to spend some time with our grandson in Toronto where we were "away" from all the stuff that goes on in running one's home -- cleaning, watering flowers in July heat, meetings, routine.  It was all good.

We then had the opportunity to spend a few days at our daughter's-in-law parent's lake cottage.  First with our son and grandson -- and then just the two of us.

In this setting -- we were really "away".

Away from home
Away from familiar surroundings
Away from TV
Away from internet connections
Away from radios
Away from traffic
Away from noise
Away....

And it was grand.  There is something remarkably liberating once you get used to knowing that you can't check messages or websites or news or all the other things that assault our senses without our realizing it.  It was comforting to know that phone service was available in case of an emergency -- but we weren't counting on needing that.

I deliberately did not take my little Janome -- I wanted to read a real book with pages and not on the Kindle or iPad.  I wanted to do handwork.  I wanted to enjoy the silence and loons and birds and occasional voices from across the lake (I wasn't so enamored with the occasional jet ski!).  And it worked.  I knit.  I read.  I sewed a few hexagons.  Mostly, I just sat and looked and listened.

I am glad to be home -- but,

I am particularly glad to have experienced a great weekend -- family, friends, and generosity -- all while making memories.

I hope you are able to find a time (and place) to hear the silence as well!

Jan

And then there were three!

The journey of Lollypops continues.  This is not the first, and is far from the last, post on my ongoing relationship with Kim McLean's Lollypop Quilt.  I will spare you all the links; if you're interested, you can click on Labels on the right side of the blog. Suffice it to say, I've chatted about this before.

I love the Tour de France!  Also not a new comment.  I also love Wimbledon!  So the last two weeks have been perfect for handwork. As I've had a few minutes, I've run up to my little quilting room and pulled out this block that I prepared months ago, and have done a little stitching. My tension on my stitches is a little wonky -- you can see some puckering in the block --but that will "quilt out" right?

This block that is prepped has fewer motifs to appliqué so it will be next.  My personality is to start with the hardest (or most unpleasant) first and get it done so the balance is easier (or less distasteful in some circumstances -- that's not the case here).  It's not distasteful in the least -- it will just take longer.

The last prepped block looks like a breeze, doesn't it?  Bigger motifs, fewer small circles, and fun colors.  And this is the actual design -- no editing from me.  While I now have three (of 16!) blocks completely appliqued and two more ready to go, I had a moment of epiphany and realized that if I put everything aside and just prepped blocks and appliqued like a madwoman, I probably could not finish this quilt by the end of the year.  Really?  YIKES.  I need to get my act in gear and be more deliberate about this wonderful quilt.  I love it.  It makes me happy.  BUT. Piecing makes me happy.  Long arm quilting makes me happy.  Giving people finished quilts makes me happy.  But not getting this done before I'm 90 doesn't make me too happy!  I need to give this some thought and decide on some priorities and commitments.

Let me say -- this little gem from Superior Threads is a lifesaver!  I would never have enough different colors to appliqué all these bright colors.  I do have four spools of silk thread and I like them a lot but sometimes the colors just work better.  What a beautiful rainbow!  I highly recommend it if you have an appliqué project in your future.

I hope you have something that you are working on that makes you happy!

Jan

Who would have thought?

Seriously, who would have thought that I would miss binding a quilt?

I just realized I have not put a binding on a quilt since December last year.  At least by hand.  I machine bound the two donation quilts each month. And I've missed it.

I have a lot of tops that are ready to be quilted (I counted at least 8 without giving it much thought).  That probably means there are more.  I know that's not many to most of you, but it makes me a little nuts to keep making tops and not finishing them.

Sadie (the Gammill that lives with MacQuilts) is in the midst of a home renovation and should come out of wraps soon.  I'll be anxious to get to Chicago and see friends -- and Sadie!

But, because of the generous spirit of a quilting friend, I have had the opportunity to use her HQ16 and get my feet wet with a bit of longarming. I have not done any since November! Some things come back to you -- some things take a bit longer.  I played around with a mystery quilt top that I am sick of and forced myself to finish. It's big.  It's heavy.  And it's QUILTED.  It will get a machine binding and be ready for donation when the need arises.  And it will be done!

Once I played around with Ethel (the HQ16) and got the hang of her, it was time to "go live" with a quilt I cared about. As an aside, Ethel is a sister to Lucy (a bigger HQ that lives with in the same home).  How wonderful is that -- two long arm machines!  One computerized and fancy and one a good reliable machine.  But I digress.....

Baby C's quilt is finished!  Quilted.  Bound.  And delivered - before she was!

I hope you are getting a chance to finish a project and smiling as a result of it.  I also hope you are as lucky as I am to have so many generous quilting friends.  Aren't they the best?

Jan

Trade you!

Some of you may remember my gushing over the Daiwabo fabrics, design, and ultimately, the finished quilt top.  Man -- I love this!

But, these are fabrics well out of my price range and quite frankly, out of my normal comfort zone when it comes to color and tone.  So -- how did I get so lucky?  I'm glad you asked.

A few years ago, I posted about falling out of love with this quilt block.  When I saw the original quilt (made from old kimonos) in a Quilters Newsletter, I fell madly in love with it and knew it was how I wanted to use up my scraps from the Wavy Log Cabin I had made.

I sort of believe that these beautiful Asian fabrics can't really go on your shelves by color -- like Kaffe fabrics (in my little world), they have to stay together.  So, I had a tote of every little scrap as I couldn't bear to throw them away. But I got tired of it.  I fell out of love.  I don't really like paper piecing and the process was taking the joy out of the design.  I thought the blocks were fabulous and the potential for the quilt was great -- but I was losing any mojo for finishing it.  And into a shoe box it went!

Wavy Log Cabin

At the same time, mom22smartchix was losing her mojo for the Daiwabo quilt.  These little blocks look so simple. Ha!  Lining up 1/2" strips after you have sub-cut is not easy and there is a lot of ripping involved.  Whether it was a pity swap or a joyous swap, I'll never know for sure -- but last year during a visit, we gladly gave each other our shoeboxes and walked away from our projects.

I am still doing the Snoopy Happy Dance that I don't have to paper piece all those strips -- and now the Daiwabo top is done and making me smile every time I walk by it.  It's in the living room -- never even made it upstairs to the quilt top closet.  I have chosen not to fret about how to quilt it or what color thread as those decisions are far far away -- instead, I am tickled it's done and happy to have it to look at and all the little snippets remain isolated (of course) in their shoebox!

Tired of something that you started -- find a friend to trade with -- it's a blast!

Jan

A Finish and Fun!

Finally!  Have you ever had one of those "holy moly" moments when you realized that a gift quilt is going to be needed sooner than you expected?

Meet the quilt top for Baby C who is coming in August.  I'm not sure why I hadn't focused on the fact that August is around the corner and I will need a gift in July.  Seriously....it comes at the same time every year.  I had my "holy moly" moment two weeks ago and started looking for fabric that would work with this pattern.

Luckily, I remembered I had been hoarding this Moda Three Sisters  fabric for a baby quilt and had more than enough to make a quilt for Baby C.  And, there was diversity in patterns -- different scaled florals, fabrics that read as solids, stripes, polka dots, paisley.  All in all, I decided it should work.  These fabrics were those that I bought in an absolute panic to make a quilt for a young woman who was diagnosed with bone cancer while in medical school.  She was in the same high school class as my son, we were in Chicago and feeling very far away, and I knew I had to do something.  So -- I wanted to make a quilt that was peaceful.  This fabric fit the bill!  I was very busy at work and impulsively ordered a 50 fat quarter pack so that I didn't have to spend time searching!  I have also used this fabric for my Oak Park Beauty.  And I had some left over which was sequestered for another project.

So, Baby C will have a lovely feminine baby quilt and I'll continue to look for the right nursery fabrics for a later quilt.

This pattern is from Cozy Modern Quilts by Kim Schaeffer and is not the first baby quilt I've made from her book.  As you can see from this post, I made two at once by resizing the block and improving (I think) the construction process.  The Mahalo quilt was also made from this pattern. So, it's tried and true and fast!

Making this quilt top should have taken less than a week but it ended up taking a bit more than two weeks.  But I have a very good excuse!  One of the kind and generous quilters from our little church group loaned me her Accu-Cut Studio cutter.  Oh, how fun!  And efficient! This shelf of men's shirts was attacked in full force.  The smaller cuts that you see here are sleeves and they are awkward to cut with a rotary cutter.  With the 2.5" die in place, they all were cut and scraps thrown in the scrap bag!  Great improvement in the shelf.

And for good measure, I cut a bunch of fabric that I had bought for baby charity quilts and finally had to force myself to stop cutting.  Otherwise, I was going to start pulling fabric "willy nilly" from the shelves to cut with no idea what the final purpose was.  I managed to cut 10.5" stack of 2.5" strips and came to be a believer in the Studio!  For those of you who have them, kudos to you!

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty productive and I have a lot of blocks leftover and believe I can make a quilt for a friend's daughter that will "fit the bill" as well.

I hope you have had a creative week -- productive or not.  

Jan

What a great pattern!

Don't you love this pattern?  I have been looking for a denim quilt pattern to make use of a full tote of jeans parts that I've had for years.

EDITED on 2.20.16 This is by Alicia at Lucy's Quilts and she makes it available through her Etsy shop, Lucys Quilts, -- for $10.  It goes together like a dream and you never sew denim to denim.  That is exactly what I had been waiting for! PLEASE NOTE.  I DO NOT SHARE THIS PATTERN. IT IS NOT MINE.  Please click on the link at the start of this paragraph and go to Alicia's site.

The sashing is 1" wide and you press to the sashing; the back is flat for quilting as you can see below.  She ties most of her quilts but I will try to long arm this one.  Alicia recommends an 80-12 needle and sewing this was crazy easy.  Her instructions are clear, supplemented with a schematic, and are modified from a Kaffe Fassett pattern. How cool is that?

And the assembly is in sections and not readily apparent when you look at it.  She has made 100+ and I will definitely make more - but not that many more.   This one goes to mriquiltforfun (seen here) for fishing or camping or picnicking or the back of his car or who knows what.  It should be terribly sturdy and last for years.

Alicia estimates that a quilt takes about 5-6 pairs of jeans.  Here is one pair of jeans that I cut up last weekend.  As you can see, there is not a lot of waste when you cut up jeans.  And in my family, we have big jeans.  Our son is 6'5" and mriquiltforfun is about 6' and I'm 5'10". My sister and nieces are much smaller but I'm guessing I only need four pairs of "our" jeans to make one quilt!  I have left in some "imperfections" -- paint, pen marks, small grease marks, unidentified substances. These reflect the history of my family and I like capturing some of it in the blocks.

I made this quilt from the loose jeans you see here and the bags haven't been touched...and then there is the huge tote upstairs waiting for cutting into blocks. I am guessing I have enough enough denim to make another 6-8 of these. Over time -- not in a row.

Like sewing with men's shirts, there is something amazingly rewarding to me to take perfectly good fabric that is no longer wearable due to size or holes or whatever and create a quilt with it.

I hope you are working on something that is fun and easy!

Jan

Sometimes it's not "just fabric"

So, you know how we justify using that special piece of fabric we love or have been saving? We say things like "it's just fabric" -- and we're right....to a point.  I do not feel that way about these fabrics.

I adore them.  I revere them.  I want to do them justice.

They are Daiwabo fabrics from Japan.  I don't really know a lot about their history but I do know that very few mills produce them and they are muted with a "taupe" overtone.  The patterns and designs are amazing.  I have never ever felt this way about fabric before - Kaffe, Cherrywoods, batiks, anything.

When I was working on these blocks, I trimmed them each to 5.5" to square them up, ripped out those that weren't quite right, and re-made the blocks.  Not to mention starching them into submission.  Love the fabrics - don't love the raveling!

I ended up keeping one of my seam rippers at the ironing board so I could rip out whatever made me unhappy right there before I pressed it.  I was not in a hurry.  The strips finish at 1/2" and much variation shows a lot -- as you can see in a few of the blocks.

This is a terrible picture of the finished top -- the wind would not cooperate.  So, I'll just say that the borders are much larger and mitered and leave it at that.

How did I come to have these wonderful fabrics? Well, that's another story for another post.  In the meantime, I'm waiting for a calm day to take a picture of the quilt top so I can do it justice.

I hope you have fabric in your stash that you adore.  It's so fun when you start to use it!

Keep piecing (and ripping!),

Jan