The Fabric Made Me Do It!

Needle and Clay Sewing With Nancy Original Sewing & Quilt Expo Daughters of Dorinda My gallery of (much) older work Archive December 2010 November 2010 October 2010

Feb 14 2011 My blog has moved to a new location. Feb 6 2011 Superbowl Shopping results Here's my take from the quilt shop half-price sale: Olive greens; the fat quarters on the right are for a Jo Morton quilt I am starting later this month. Purples, one more to finish up the Crossed Canoes quilt top, one just because I loved it. Victorian prints; my plan is to mix these with black I already have for a miniature log cabin quilt. Jan 28 2011 I got out the backing for the Crossed Canoes quilt and ironed it today. Isn't it pretty? It's a silver design on light purple. It was given to me a few years ago by a friend who had bought it off ebay. When she got it she was disappointed to discover it was a printed damask and not a woven one. And so it became mine. Jan 26 2011 It's been a pretty quiet couple of weeks. I've been making 9-patches with my challenge fabric, and plugging away at the purple Crossed Canoes quilt. Unfortunately I've come up a little short on fabric for that one and may have to get creative. Or spend money. Tonight was the night of our first Charm School club meeting and it was nice to get out and meet other quilters. I was able to get everything but the borders cut and some preliminary construction done. Next up I have to trim all my 2.5" half square triangles down to 2". The 5" blocks have to go down to 3.5". I hate hate HATE the process of carefully making a block a certain size and then having to trim it down. Why can't we just make the block the right freaking size to begin with? Jan 16 2011 Stash Attack! I found 2.5 yards of the dark blue fabric in my stash. It matches perfectly with the dark blue in my challenge fabric. I bought it for the backing of a baby quilt way back when Bill Clinton was new to office. That was back when I was still buying yardage for quilting, and hadn't limited myself to fat quarters. Fabric for this project has just been leaping off the shelves this week. I remembered a strip of purple left over from a skirt I made. The I caught a glimpse of some more purple leftovers, and then a hot pink revealed itself, along with another dark blue. There's about 2 yards of each piece, but they range in size from 4" wide to 26", so they might become borders. As I was sewing strips the memory of some yellow cotton popped into my head, and sure enough there was a 2.5 yard piece on the shelf with my dress fabrics. It was given to me a few years ago by a local woman who was forced to get rid of her stash due to family circumstances. So there is backing #2. Jan 11 2011 It's Done! The green and gold quilt that I started in August is finally completed. I made the mistake of hand quilting it, won't be doing that again any time soon. This quilt was an adventure in re-discovering quilting. I learned that no matter what the teacher says ("Oh yeah, a couple of fat quarters should be fine") you always want to have extra fabric. I found out that the 1/4" seam on two sewing machines is not necessarily the same. I also discovered that one should always wait until one has put the borders on before cutting the backing or you'll end up like I did with a back that is 2" too small all the way around. Oops! I ended up piecing the backing, a trick I picked up years ago from Karen Stone. And I decided that if my backing was going to have seams in it, well it was going to have SEAMS in it, so I made the strips from leftover scraps to give it some interest. I confirmed that while I like the look of hand quilting, and the concept behind it, I hate doing it and I haven't the strength or the patience for it. Finally, I remembered that Murphy is never far behind. Somehow in the quilting the back shrunk a half inch more than the top did, so it still ended up too small despite the added width. But the wide binding holds it all together and I am happy to have it DONE! Also this week I finished assembling the top for my signature block mini-quilt. I scrounged around for fabrics to make 3 additional blocks that would match the others, and pulled an assortment of shirting prints out of my stash to do the half triangles around the sides. I'm feeling no particular rush to finish this, especially as I have to find (ie. buy) a backing for it. Jan 8 2011 Today was Meet the Teacher day at my "local" quilt shop. I put that in parentheses because it's a 40 minute drive across the city. In a different state. I went to see the new projects for the spring, and take advantage of the discount for signing up today. They also offered a $10 off a $20 purchase coupon if you signed up today. So this spring, in addition to everything else I've signed up for two classes. They meet every other month, but they alternate, so I'll have one class, then the other until June. What did I sign up for? I'll be taking the Jo's Little Quilts sessions again. Here's the poster for that, sorry you can't really see any details, even the original is not large. Our first project is going to be the little pink one in the bottom right corner. The second class uses the book Schnibbles Times Two and is all about using up charm square and layer cake packs. I happen to have two shoe boxes full of charm squares, so this seemed like a good class for me. Our first project is going to be Nice Day, shown in this picture from the publisher. I should probably get some other things finished before I have to start one of these. Jan 4 2011 I have received my exchange fabric from my partner Deana: Isn't it bright? And purple! They are children's prints, not something I would have chosen for myself, but since I have a surplus of nieces I think I can find a home for a small quilt made from them. There are two fat quarters of each of six prints, for a total of 3 yards. All of the prints are very busy and about the same value, so putting them together into something will be a challenge. Quilt patterns really need good contrast to work well. Side by side you can barely tell these are different. I'm also limited to fabric in my stash and the purchase of one new piece. I'd need solids to make this work and I don't have any. So I can go out and buy a few new yards of fabric --which defeats the purpose of the challenge --or I can find something I have and make it work. What I have is muslin. Bolts of it. Yes, my stash is that bad in places. Muslin sounds pretty plain and ordinary, but next to a bright busy print it really makes the colors sparkle. Here's the pattern I'm thinking of, Single Irish Chain. I love the beauty and simplicity of the pattern, the way that the small 9-patches become a chain of jewels against the white background. The design is clean and fresh and I think it will be lovely for a little girl. I just have to do the math and see what size to cut my fat quarters into to maximise the use of fabric. Jan 1 2011 UFOs on Parade 2010 was a year of transition. Various aspects of my life altered course, not sharply, but in that effortless way that water tumbles then glides around a rock in its path. One of these changes was my resumption of quilting. In doing so I've come to accept what I've known for a while: I have too much crap. I picked up projects old and new with the intention of using up some of my stash and finishing up quilts that had sat far too long. 2011 will see this continue, maybe even intensify. This is not a resolution so much as a goal. My stash is mostly fat quarters, which means I will need yardage for backings and borders. It's going to be challenging, because new fabric constantly catches my eye and sales are irresistable. So here's to 2011, the year of the stash, and purchases only when they complete an existing project. Now, let's take a peek at what we might see this year: Each of these is an existing unfinished project, some go back longer than I want to admit. Some have stalled in assembly, some in the finishing. I'm hoping to get to more than a couple of these this year, in addition to existing projects and new ones I want to pick up. It's going to be a full year! Dec 30 2010 Let it Snow! I finished this earlier this week. I think it came out pretty well, despite a few counting errors. Now I need to find a frame for it. Dec 27 2010 I've been accepted into a Brown Bag fabric exchange and quilt challenge. I signed up back in August and didn't hear anything back from the organizer, so I was kind of surpised, but very pleased, to finally get a response this week. There are two parts to it. First, I take fabric from my stash (two yards worth) and trade with another person. Then we each take our "new" fabric and some from our stash and make a challenge quilt. Quilts finished by March 1 are eligible for prizes! I am sending my exchange partner, Deana, 4 half yard floral prints in shades of red, yellow, and black. I can't wait to see what she sends in exchange. Dec 21 2010 Just a quick look at my embroidery in progress: Hope to finish it by the New Year. Dec 14 2010 Ornaments Here's some more holiday ornaments, made from felt left from my autumn projects and beads, embroidery thread and quilt fabric from my stash. Some of the thread and beads are older than most of the people blogging these days: The golden partridge and the red bauble are from the book Fa La La La Felt. I'm going to try some stars this week and then call it quits for the season. Initially there were a dozen or more designs I wanted to try, but I'm running out of time and energy. Dec 10 2010 Signature Blocks Here are the blocks I received in the Little Quilts exchange we did this month. I even got one signed by Jo Morton herself! There are 15 of them, which will make setting them a challenge. Right now I am considering setting them on point, in rows of 2 or 3 across, and filling in the sides with triangles. At 4" there's not enough blocks to make it a good sized lap quilt, even with spacer blocks in between, so I think I'm going to make it as small as possible. We got a peek at the 8 quilts coming up for the 2011 classes. IIRC 7 of them are done with half-square triangles. It's going to be a pointy new year. Dec 6 2010 Furrows Finished another quilt. This is Jo Morton's "Daffodil Hill" done in alternate colors. I used black and white fabric scraps given to me by another quilter, some black and brown from my stash, and a little extra brown Jo Morton fabric I got on clearance from Fabric.com. The brown fat quarter I started with just wasn't enough, and I needed some for the backing too. I thought the center of it came out beautifully. The borders I wasn't thrilled with, even the author admits she calculated them wrong, they just don't match up nicely. I also thought the pattern was too busy, the border and the center just all run together with no definition. So I made some piping from leftover strips of white and inserted those to help separate the sections of the quilt. I think it really helps define the pattern. The outer edges are all bias so it waves a little along the binding, but overall it lays pretty flat and I am happy with how well it came out.

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