Paper Pieced Ornaments

Am I crazy to be thinking about Christmas ornaments in January? Considering how this project is progressing, I might be.

This past year I worked on a block of the month club with Amy Gibson and one of our blocks was paper pieced. That’s not English paper pieced which is a whole different thing resulting in the hex quilt I was talking about earlier this week.

For paper piecing, you start out with a square of paper that might look something like this

Following the instructions, fabric is sewn directly onto the paper using the lines to indicate where seams go. Four of these pieces are then sewn together ending up with something that might look like this.

At least that’s what my twelve inch finished block looked like for the quilt.

All good so far. The problem started when I decided to take the designs I had come up with for a tree,

a star,

and a bow,

and make them all three inches square.

The tree wasn't all that bad if you can ignore the sloppy top stitching. But it took over two hours to sew one and I didn't think repetition was going to knock off much time.

Then I tried the star. Disaster.

I didn’t even bother to finish the star. Granted I could have managed the seams better, but with these designs and sizing, I’m always going to be trying to manage too many tiny little seams that are on top of each other.

No wonder I never liked making doll clothes.

So I’m going back to the drawing board. I think I might even need to study up on paper piecing tips and tricks. I’m sure someone has solved this problem before. Probably more than a few times.

I’ll keep you posted.

Memory Quilts

I've been thinking about the idea of memory quilts lately. A friend told me a story about a quilt the kids in her family used when one of them was sick and grandma watched them. There were stories about all the different pieces of fabric in the quilt. I imagined stories about a dress made to wear to a special dance, and new curtains for the kitchen of a house the family doesn't live in anymore.

As I skip around the internet and look at other memory quilts, I find many with photographs printed onto fabric. Others are made of Grandma’s dresses, Dad’s ties, or hubby’s old band t-shirt collection. In one example a Mom took all of the baby clothes, blankets, etc. that were too precious (or stained) to pass on. She cut four inch squares out of these and stitched them together to make the sweetest memory quilt of her first child’s first year. What a treasure.

For my memory quilt I decided to sort my scraps into nine colors (black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and to further sort them into dark, bright, and light (just like Mom taught me to sort laundry). That makes for one bright quilt top. I’m about half way through the brights.

Sadly, I’m taking an enforced hiatus from this project since the tendon in my shoulder is acting up and aggravated by hand stitching, but I hope to get back to it in a couple of months. It has little bits and pieces of almost all of the sewing and quilting projects I've attempted in the past ten years. That’s how long it has been since I picked up needle and thread again after a decades long break.

Since then I've made table linens and bags for family and friends as well as quilts for all their babies. The quilts for the little ones have been used from the nursery to the floor as play mats, and I have tried to make them big and sturdy enough to fit as the coverlet on a toddler bed to get a few more years use. I like to imagine that one day these same children will visit Aunt Kay and seeing my quilt with over 2,000 tiny hexagrams exclaim, “I have a quilt with that material!” Then I can tell some stories. 

Blocks, Blocks, Blocks

During 2012 I participated in Amy Gibson’s Block of the Month Club on Craftsy, and I might have mentioned that I don’t usually like these types of projects because I prefer to design my own quilts, rather than make someone else’s design. However, as I worked on the quilt through the year I discovered something about myself.

While I did learn a couple of new techniques last year and found that rewarding, the best part was the camaraderie of my fellow students. For me fiber art is a very solitary pursuit. I don’t have many friends who share these interests, and none who don’t have a full time job doing something else. In the online community others are working on the same project but giving it their own twist, and offering advice and feedback. Sometimes I even experienced the gratification of receiving a “like” from a student whose work I admire. These all kept me interested and challenged. So surprise, surprise, I’ve signed up for the Craftsy 2013 Block of the Month with Laura Nownes. And I’ve also signed up for Amy Gibson’s Sugar Block Club – a new block and a new recipe every month – what fun. 

Now for the big challenge – fabric selection. Do you audition every piece of material in your stash when you are starting a new project and then go out and buy something new anyway? For these two quilts I did a bit of both. For the Laura Nownes quilt I decided to follow her lead up to a point.

Since Laura has shown us her finished quilt, there isn’t much mystery about what we will be making. That does make fabric selection easier (it also makes it easier for those of us with some experience and a bit of impatience to jump ahead).

She chose Robert Kaufman’s “Spot On” and “Metro Living” lines and while I loved the polka dots, I found her finished quilt just a bit too busy and my eye just couldn't find a place to rest. I think part of this is the design, which may require a bit of rework for my taste. Adding in the number of colors – this quilt is a real ROYGBIV sampler – and it’s just too much. I chose just greens, red/orange, and grey/black prints from “Spot On”, and will probably use more white and gray where she used pinks and blues. I may have to skip that flower basket too, but that's just me.

Now you may think I’m crazy, but for the Sugar Block Club I went a different direction from Amy Gibson. Amy hasn't revealed the finished design, so all we know is that the blocks will be modern interpretations of traditional designs and that Amy is using Westminster Fiber’s Free Spirit Solids in bold colors.

I like the idea of solids but thought I might like something a bit more subtle since I'm working on something quite bright in the other BOM club. At first I though of all of those Kaffe Fasset shot cottons I've been saving to use for a quilt?

I do love these fabrics, but truth be told the fabric is lightweight and stretchy, and even with a lot of starch will be difficult to work with. Besides I have this idea for circles…

Since I do have a ridiculously large stash of Robert  Kaufman Kona Solids in all the colors of the rainbow, I auditioned colors in many colorways and combinations. What I ended up with may surprise you. I've always wanted to try a really neutral quilt with subtle variations on brown, tan, and gray. So here is my selection.

It’s a rainy gray day here in Atlanta so the indoor photography may not give true color fidelity, but the variation in colors really is quite subtle in natural light. Will it work with Amy’s blocks? Hard to say. I might have to add additional blocks, sashing, and borders to make it work in the way I want, but at any rate I’m committed. Here is my first block.

And here is the first Craftsy block too. We were instructed to make four of these 6 ½ inch log cabin blocks, but I made eight while I was at it. I suspect as I change things up in the pattern I will find a place to use them. If not, four of them sewn together will make an cute pillow front.

I can’t wait to see what happens in February.

Post-Holiday Catch Up

It seems I've been so busy preparing for, celebrating, and dismantling the holidays that I've forgotten to blog about it. Lest you think I'm a total been slacker, here are a few of the things I've been up to since Thanksgiving.

Back in the spring of 2012 I mentioned that I was taking Amy Gibson’s Block of the Month class on Craftsy.  Well in due course I finished the quilt. Because I chose holiday colors (if not necessarily holiday themed fabric) it seemed essential that I get it finished and hung before our annual holiday party on December 15^th. I made it with a few days to spare and even managed to get our tree up and decorated to show it off. In hindsight I wish I had used a bit less aqua in the background and more white, but all in all I liked it well enough.

Speaking of that party, I also always make ornaments for our guests to take home as party favors. In October I had the opportunity to meet Natalie Chanin, (please watch the video at this link). Natalie is the founder and head designer at Alabama Chanin, and I talked with her about her work. I was wowed by this phenomenally talented entrepreneur, designer and author. After looking at her current collection of handmade apparel, I knew I had found my inspiration for this year’s ornament. Like her apparel line these ornaments are all hand stitched and embellished with simple monochromatic designs. Most of the techniques can be found in her book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design.  The ornament shown at left is just one example. I always ensure that each of my ornaments is bit different. Some of the ones for this year included embroidery, beads and a variety of embellishments.

I wish I had some good pictures of the party to share but the truth is that I cook for a week straight to get ready for the party and by the evening of I just want to relax, drink a few glasses of wine and talk with friends. Somehow I never remember to pick up the camera. I did have good pictures of the ornament I made last year. Remember these? I leveraged that one for the invitation this year.

One final holiday sewing project to consider for next year – or any time of year depending on your fabric – is holiday tissue box covers. We keep tissue boxes all over the house since I have allergies and I’m also prone to boohooing over everything from true tragedy to cute commercials on TV. In past years I've found cute holiday themed boxes to scatter about, but this year nada. My solution? I made some covers to go over a standard Kleenex Ultra Soft tissue box. This is a really simple project and you should be able to make one cover out of a fat quarter or regular ¼ yard cut left from another project. Just follow these instructions.

Find an empty tissue box and take it apart.

Cut out two pieces of fabric that are 5 x 5 inches for the top and four pieces that are 5 x 6 for the sides.

Fuse a piece of heavy weight interfacing to the back of all four side pieces and one of the top pieces.

On the reverse side of one top piece of fabric trace the opening from the cardboard box top.

Place your two top pieces with right sides together and stitch around the line you have made.

Trim away the material in the center of the oval opening leaving about a ¼ inch seam allowance.

Clip the curves on the oval and turn and press the fabric so that right sides are now out.

Stitch the side pieces – one to each side of the top – and press these seams away from the top of the cover.

Turn the cover inside out and stitch down the side seams making sure to back-stitch at the top and bottom of each seam. These are pressure points so you want to make sure the stitches won’t pull out.

Turn up the base of the cover toward the inside to make the cover approximately 5 ½ inches tall – measure with your tissue box to ensure it fully covers the cardboard. Stitch around the base to hold the fold in place.

That’s all there is to it, and now that you know how to do this with this particular box, you can see how easy it would be to do with any size box of tissue, just measure your box, make sure to add sufficient fabric to leave seam allowances and use the box top as a template.

Now about those toilet paper covers…

It's Good to be Home

It's Sunday and we arrived home from a Thanksgiving visit with family in Southern Illinois last evening. As I sat catching up on email, I took a break for a quick visit to my friend Susan's blog The Spice Garden to see what she and her family were up to. That set me to smiling about our own feast and the quirky spin that combining a large family with crafty hobbies brings about. Yes that groaning board is set up on two vintage treadle sewing machines. Never mind that these are just the two prettiest ones kept in the living room for show. The real workhorses, longarm,  and featherweights are elsewhere.
There is so much in this picture that makes me smile and remember a story. Take the stone you can see in the background. It was hauled all the way from Arkansas, where my husband's family has roots. It forms the core of the house with fireplaces on the ground and basement level (quilt studio) in this home his aunt and uncle built on their farm in the 1960s.
On the far wall there is a crazy quilt hanging on a quilt hanger fashioned from an old headboard. This same aunt is the one who I credit (blame?) from getting me back to the sewing machine and invested in quilting. At first I was just going to make one crazy quilt, but I don't think that one was even finished before I had ideas for a dozen more.
Seven years later I have made more quilting projects than I can count and actually made a bit of cash selling patterns for my designs.
Did I mention that we stopped in Paducah, KY on our way to Illinois so that I could visit the National Quilt Museum? I was blown away by the current traveling exhibit from the Manhattan Quilters Guild, "Material Witness". More ideas for more quilts.
Perhaps the best part of the trip is that I had the chance to help Pat get started on a knitting project. She has been wanting to learn to knit for some time and I've bought her books and often said I would help her, but somehow we've never found the time. This year we made the time on Friday afternoon to sit quietly in the kitchen - well as quiet as that kitchen ever is with people and dogs wandering in and out all needing something. Before I left she had completed several rows and I'm optimistic that she is really getting the hang of it. Can't wait to see the finished product and to know that I've finally been able to give back a bit of craftiness to one of the women who set me on this journey as a quilt maker and fiber artist.
It really was a wonderful trip. But now I'm taking stock of all the projects waiting for me in the studio and itching to get back at it. There are ornaments to be made for the annual holiday party, gifts too, and a holiday themed quilt that really must be done quickly. Busy, busy, busy. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, food and at least a bit of craft.