Pause vs. Produce

Sometimes we are so busy doing, we do not take time to reflect on what we have done. My previous post was July 5th, nearly a month ago and the day before I left for travel to see my daughter's family in Oklahoma and my sister's family in North Carolina. I was surprised to note I had been away from quilt blogging that long. I was initially dismayed that I had been unproductive for that period of time, especially when I sat down to write this post. All I could claim was that my sewing room had stayed tidy through disuse. I had nothing to say. Or did I?

I had not taken any handwork with me on travel, realizing I would be more focused on the kids while visiting. But, while away, I did reflect on projects I had completed. This post is not so much about what I (and others) have done, as it is about how those projects once gifted, have lived on. It was gratifying to see how many projects had not faded into oblivion but were in active use. I have often professed that quilting is about the process, not the product; but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see the product appreciated as well. If you are looking for creative inspiration or instructional tutorials from this post, read no further. If you want allow yourself to bask in the belief that what you create has an afterlife, then please read on and see these examples.

I enjoyed seeing my oldest granddaughter, four-year-old Autumn,  playing with the mermaid doll and accessories (May 23, 2017 post) I brought out to her.

I also recalled that three-year-old Vivian, my second oldest granddaughter, had taken her Lil Red Doll (March 8, 2016 post)  with her to a Sleeping Beauty stage show several months ago.

While I was away, it was cool to get a text from my son showing how Vivian and had set up two mermaid dolls for herself and her little sister Lillian. I made me feel that making three sets of them had really been worth it.

My daughter, my granddaughter, my sister, and I had a girls' night out where we went to see a Disney show, titled When You Wish, having its pre-Broadway debut in Oklahoma City. Autumn wore a My Little Pony dress made by her mom. It is gratifying to see the sewing gene is being passed on.

My sister brought with her from North Carolina a sweater our mother had knitted for my sister's oldest son. Glenn is about to turn 48 so this sweater is over four decades old. It had been worn by my sister's three sons, by her grandson, by my two sons, and now by my two-year-old grandson, Isaiah, who is the younger of my mother's two great grandsons. Now that's longevity.

Making is not restricted to cloth and yarn goods. Here is my husband Frank assembling a Spider-Man Desk for two-year old Isaiah, a true fan of the Marvel Comics hero.

Isaiah was very excited to see it and he put it to immediate use.

Seeing how into Spider-Man Isaiah was, I purchased some fabrics to make him crib sheets. I just started yesterday and here are the three prints I picked, two for crib sheets and one for a changing table pad or pillowcase. So far I have made a crib sheet of the bottom-most red fabric. I am confident the sheets will get loved and used! They will be replacing the dinosaur themed ones (June 22, 2016 post) that are fading into the past (much like Puff the Magic Dragon). Triceratops and Brontosaurus, move over for Marvel Comic heroes.

.

While visiting I got the opportunity to look through some quilt book and patterns with my daughter. Just spending time together like that is rewarding. I did a bit of quilt-related reading. I was bemused by That Dorky Homemade Look by Lisa Boyer, and my sister was, also. It is a humorous tongue in cheek collection of essays reminding us all to not be so serious and critical about our hobby.

A quick look at the Table of Contents gives an idea about the fun topics.

While visiting my nephew in North Carolina I caught a peek of my sister sleeping under this quilt, made for her son in 2007. The red/white/black color scheme was chosen by him based on his college Alma Mater. The pattern was of stack and whack vintage. 

So I hope your takeaways from this post are not feelings of inspiration or education, but rather an over-abiding sense of jubilation and appreciation. Reflect on items you have made. Take joy in the knowledge that many of those items you've dispersed to a good home are loved, be they a spectacular work of art, or a dorky homemade item. To quote Lisa Boyer about the dorky ones: 

The most important aspect to remember about dorky-homemade quilt making is that once you have put your last stitch in the binding, you are still only half-finished. The quilt must now under go a thorough conditioning. Give it to someone you love dearly. They must drag it around the house, wrap themselves up in it when they have a fever, spill something brown on it, and occasionally let Woofie lay on it. 

This trip, I got to see items I've made being used. It was great! Productivity? Hmm ... Why was that so important, again? I will delay being productive a bit longer while I link up with Sew Fresh Quilts' Let's Bee Social #188. It is a pretty sure thing that I will find inspiration and education there in addition to jubilation and appreciation.

East Coast and West Coast Purchases

I've been traveling. I was in North Carolina last week visiting my sister and the weekend I returned my husband and I took a 90 minute drive up north to Sacramento so I could check out a quilt show there. Here are some of my purchases.

In North Carolina...
I picked up a half-yard piece of each of these boy-like flannels for burp cloths.

I bought three fat quarters of this orange and white  stripe to go with some bathing beauty fabric I already had at home. It is a pretty darn good match on the oranges based on memory alone.

It also reminding me of summertime as a kid and the Creamsicles brought by the ice cream truck in our neighborhood.

Somebody else must like Creamsicles, too. While searching for an image I came across this wall sculpture on bungalowww.tumblr.com. It really tickled my fancy.

I bought some pinkish fabrics. The one on the left is 1 yard, just enough for an apron for my sister. The one on the right came home with me because I liked the squiggly pattern and it reads like an interesting solid. I plan to use it as sashing so I bought 1½ yards to minimize piecing long stretches. It seems versatile enough that I am sure it would also be good filler somewhere.

I've noticed I am into asymmetry of late and I bought a card of three buttons because I liked the offset flower. The gray and yellow combination seems to be everywhere now, but this gray had a slate-like bluish tone to it that caught my eye for some reason that I could not quite put my finger on. When I got home it clicked. These buttons will be the perfect accent on a periwinkle sweater I am knitting for myself. It is one of the projects that just got set aside and others intervened. I bought a second card of three buttons at my local store. The buttons are large but then the knit is rather bulky so I think it is fitting. Funny, but just a acquiring a set of stimulating buttons has renewed my interest in this project.

And in Sacramento...
At first I was practical, buying only fabrics that read like a solid. My sister in North Carolina had been unable to find turquoise pin dot for an Easter dress for her granddaughter. Believe me, we tried and hit every store for miles around while I was visiting there last week. Of course I had to buy it when I found it out here in California and mail it back to her.

But that purchase whetted my appetite for pin dots so I got a yard each of grey and orange for my own stash.

I have a boy grand baby on the way, so these two blues will definitely be useful. They read like a solid and I think the term for that these days is low volume fabric...? I bought one yard of each.

I bought one yard of this purple because I liked the whimsy of the irregularly shaped polka dots.

Then that whole "stick to practical solids and low volume fabrics thing" went awry. I could not pass up these fat quarters. I think they will add great dimension to a quilt so I bought one in each colorway. Although I could only get one fat quarter of each, that is a good thing since a fabric like this is best taken in low doses. A little goes a long way. Crazy! I hope I do not get dizzy working with them!

I bought this pattern. I was drawn to its asymmetry and think the construction will be quite different and maybe a bit challenging. I actually like the colors and fabrics it is made up with. I may keep the white, gray, and charcoal but tip the orange more toward red and tweak the turquoise to a blue that better matches my décor.

My daughter has a friend who loves pirates so I bought this pillowcase kit. But then my granddaughter loves pirates, too, so... ♫ YO-HO, YO-HO, a pirate pillowcase will be ♫.

Ok. I have not determined a use for this fabric, but how could I pass it up when I have two granddaughters?

Then at home...
After traveling I am usually tired and take a couple days to recover. So I launched into a couple of quick projects to relax. Doing this also further delays my FMQ in waiting, which demands my courage and concentration. I made four burps cloths, each of which take two fat quarters or a fat quarter and a regular quarter yard. And I made an apron that took 1 yard of fabric.

I paired the race cars flannel I'd bought in NC with a multicolored chevron graphic print from my stash to make two burp cloths. I made both cloths the same, instead of complements of each other as I usually do, since I had the chevrons in a quarter yard cut and not a fat quarter.

The two blue zoo animals burp cloths I made today are not complements of each other, either. Again, the orange flannels I had were quarter yard cuts and not a fat quarter format. I'd bought a clearance kit of fat quarter cuts about two years ago that was intended to be made into a patchwork flannel blanket. I have been pirating the pieces for the central section of burp cloths instead.

Here is the apron for my sister, also sewn today. The night before I'd left from visiting her we had hastily traced her favorite apron on a sheet of newspaper for a pattern I could take back with me. The waist ties are extra long, just as she likes them so she can criss cross them in the back and tie them in the front. The neck tie is not adjustable simplifying its construction. It is attached at just the custom length that is comfortable for her.

I got to practice using my handy-dandy Clovis Bias Tape Maker. I only steamed my thumb twice! Ouch! Not with using the bias maker, though, but afterward when ironing the tape output from the end of it in half along its length. I've got to get better at that part of the process. I made the ties along the length of grain and did not bother with making them bias. They are simpler to cut out this way, the straight of grain feeds though the bias tape maker just fine, and in use they are not as stretchy, so they work well.

Here is the apron all tied up with a scrap of leftover ties and ready to mail off.

Now I am linking up to this to look at others' Works In Progress at this week's Freshly Pieced.

Saturday Afternoon Quilting in the Garden

After the tree sweater installation Saturday morning (October 1, 2014 post) my daughter, my husband, and I went over to our local nursery Alden Lane which was hosting its annual outdoor quilt show. I had entered my Grinch quilt (July 2, 2014 post) and it was exciting to see it hanging clothes-line style among the trees with other quilts in the Christmas themed section.

Here I am pointing at it in a more head-on view that was taken when the breeze was more cooperative. It is number 7 in the middle.

The ambience of this quite extensive nursery during the two days of this annual event is even better than usual. Here is an overview photo I snagged from the Alden Lane web site. It was amusing to see a yarn bombed cow statue (lower left in the photo) this afternoon having just come from a knitted and crocheted Tree Sweater Forest in the morning a few hours before.

There were amusing signs to read and to pose at. The three voluptuous quilters in the following wanted poster board are dubbed Penny Cushion, Bernina A. Biasbottom, and Longarm Lucy. My daughter Robin posed in the center position. The footnote at the base of the sign reads

LAST SEEN WEARING DENIM AND CARRYING LARGE COLORFUL TOTES 

Hah! Scroll back up and look at me in the second photo. I am wearing jeans and have a hot pink tote slung over my shoulder.

Scattered throughout were clever little displays. I liked this wicker dress form, clothed in a skirt created of pattern tissue, with an apron from artfully draped muslin.

I've included photos of a couple of quilts that especially caught my eye. The border on this one is incredibly striking. Number 21 is title Mystery Quilt and is listed in the program as having been made by a local quilter B.J. Meier.

The double lined quilting detail on this quilt is unique. Having twice the stitching lines in the stems and leaves and apples lends it a sort of flair like an artist's sketch.

Here is a view of the entire quilt that had that stitching. It is called Apple Time and was in the portion of the show featuring quilt artists Diana McClun and Laura Nownes.

This event occurs annually the last weekend in September. I look forward to it every year.

This year the show fell on my husband's and my 39th wedding anniversary, September 27th. He enjoyed browsing the 2014 show with me and our daughter. Even though it may not be considered a standard romantic anniversary activity, he and I visit this show on our anniversary weekend most years. This tradition just might be a contributing factor to the longevity of our marriage.   :•)

WIP: Nautical Borders, Backing, and Binding

WIP Wednesdays went on hiatus. The timing was great because it coincided with the week and a half my husband and I spent in Seattle with college friends. Before I'd left for vacation, I'd finish piecing the majority of the top of my nautical baby quilt. All that was left, was to add the narrow inner border and the wide outer border. My last post on this quilt was five weeks ago on July 16th. When I returned from Seattle, my daughter-in-law and four-month-old granddaughter were visiting for a week. Much as I love quilting, the presence of a granddaughter trumps being in my sewing room. Adding the borders to the nautical quilt waited a bit longer.

This week I ventured back into my forlorn and abandoned sewing room, which is more accustomed to nearly daily companionship. I added the two borders this week after mom and baby returned home. Here you can see the red and white candy striped inner border and the sailboat print outer border from the fabric line Seaworthy by Jack and Lulu for Dear Stella Fabrics. I was auditioning bindings in the far left side of this photo. At first I thought I wanted more of the candy stripe. I had a similar fabric but only in other stripe widths and they were a bit too graphic, even in the small dose of only a binding width. See the top-left and bottom-left fabrics. Perhaps something more subtle would fit better such as a binding of the zig-zag wave fabrics, also from the Seaworthy fabric line. I considered using one, the other, or possibly alternating both. Neither seemed right and seemed to distract from the feature boats, even though they were color matched and intended to coordinate. See two middle-left fabrics and the half-square-triangles of waves near mid-photo.

I then tried the same sailboat fabric from the wide outer border as the binding fabric. I usually contrast my binding but in this case I liked that it blended in and did not draw the eye outward. It is all the way on the right in the next photo. I made up my binding for the quilt, also, this week. I cut the binding strips from half widths of fabric rather than whole widths because that is what I had left. I actually think that approach will work out better because the pattern print changes more often within the binding itself. I am curious to see how it turns out when sewed on. I did not have enough fabric to cut each strip along the same horizontal line of sailboats and, even if I could have tailored the binding to the repeat of the fabric, it would have been very wasteful. Whoops! I just noticed in the photo a pucker by the lower rightmost wave and the candy stripe. Gotta fix that... Glad I spotted it before quilting...

I was determined not to buy backing material since I have  a lots of fabrics in my stash that I bought on sale for backing fabrics. I probably have more "backing fabrics" than I will ever make quilts in my lifetime! But let's not go there. That is true of my entire stash as well. I decided to piece this backing with an assortment of nautical prints I had from the Sail Away fabric line by Northcott Studio. I had one yard of each of these three prints, two with anchors and one with sailboats. None was long enough nor wide enough for the 58.6" wide x 61.5" tall quilt top.

The Sail Away red is a bit subdued and not as bright as the red in the Seaworthy line on the quilt top and the navy is a bit darker, but I felt it kept the theme alive and was fine as backing. I needed to make my three one yard cuts fit. All three prints were directional. I split the anchor ones in half crosswise and the sailboat one in half lengthwise and sewed them in somewhat of a checkerboard pattern for the back.

The block-like pattern remind me of nautical flags. Although there is no yellow, the back  is kind of bold with the same sort of rectangular elements. 

Alas, I am now at my pausing/stall point in my quilting process. I just need to forge ahead and layer that backing, batting, and top. But I can delay as I ponder my quilting pattern. The original pattern had swirls among the ships but I would like to deviate from that and use my feed dogs for control rather than free motion quilt.

At this point I am leaning toward parallel channel stitching the quilt on the diagonal to reinforce the slant direction of the sails and waves. I would like to just echo the stripes in the red and white candy stripe border, perhaps carrying the stitching out to the binding. This will work in the top and bottom borders. Since the sailboat heights may not be integral number of wave blocks, there might need to be some uneven spacing in the side borders. Here is my Power Point doodling as I figure this out.

I might wind up just straight stitching between the boats. Here are those options.

It has also been a long time since I have posted my project status list. Here it is updated from my post of July 2, 2014 without many changes. I've decided to post the status updates less often so that some ongoing projects – those I do not want to abandon yet am unwilling to tackle just yet – do not keep staring me in the face.

Completed projects (0):

1. But I had a great vacation with college friends and a terrific visit with my granddaughter and daughter-in-law.

Ongoing projects (5):

1. Nautical themed baby quilt ( July 9, 2014 post and July 16, 2014 post)
2. Mask quilt (October 19, 2011 post) - hidden away awaiting inspiration for arranging hexagons
3. Chicken quilt - spray basted, awaiting embellishment (April 24, 2014 post)
4. Classic Cars strip quilt (August 3, 2013 post) - need to back, quilt, and bind
5. Overlapping square wall hanging - awaiting FMQ

New projects (0):

1. ... other than buying more fabric ...

Now that WIP Wednesdays are back, I am hooking up to today's Freshly Pieced post.