.....and for the past two months

 I've been busily enjoying myself, my husband, my home and garden.....but especially my time in the stillness of hand stitching.

Confession time:  I have a problem.  The problem is not necessarily a good one nor a bad one.  It's just a problem I have of needing to finish what I start - whether a movie, a book or a quilt!  I've learned through the years to walk out of theaters when the movie isn't giving me pleasure.  I can even shut a book and return it to the library unfinished.  Yet, I haven't been able to give in to having an unfinished quilt.  

So, what started out in my mind to be a grueling task, turned into a joyous adventure.  Two wool applique quilts finished in no time....an hour here, an hour there.  

A quilt pattern....A Cottage Garden

Quilt pattern.....How Does Your Garden Grow

Add to that my newest wool applique table runner....a kit purchased years ago at a quilt show in Little Rock, Arkansas that was a bust for vendors.  I stopped and chatted with one vendor who had not made a sale in her two days there.  My heart went out to her and while I didn't embroider, I purchased the kit.  Lucky me!  

And still a work in progress that I had initially intended to finish with machine decorative stitch embroidery, but now might just do all the edging with hand stitches.  Inspired by a painting I saw somewhere???

Revisiting some art quilts from my past...this one I dubbed 'Opposites in Black and White'.

and 'Chinese Checkers' 

and some free motion thread work 

Here is 'Collette' a framed fabric art card....one in the series "Pretty Ladies in Smart Hats".

and my thread sketched self-portrait.  Funny thing is she has no mouth which doesn't equate to she has no voice! 

  

Until next time.  While I enjoy re-visiting previous projects,  I remain being one who enjoys looking forward ~

Inspired by the quilts out of India

 I was so intrigued with the display of Kawandi (quilts)  made by the Siddi quilters of India way so long ago (it seems) while at QuiltCon in Savannah.  Was that 2017????  While at home all these months now, I've been stalking some of those Siddi quilters and finally had an opportunity to participate in Sujata Shah's workshop this weekend past.  What  a great zoom treat.  Sujata is also known as The Root Connection if you'd like to be inspired by her quilting style.  

My kawandi finishes at 15" x 23".  It was a new way to use fabric from the scrap heap.  

From the beginning.....start with a thin backing fabric and a thin batting cut 1" smaller than the backing.  Fold backing over and baste in place all around the quilt.  Begin layering fabric and stitching from the outside edges of the quilt.  Now that's a new twist!  Stitching continues and layers are added round and round in concentric circles to the finish in or near the center of the quilt.   

The Phula (flower) adorns the four corners.  It's a traditional adornment and  the quilters of Siddi feel their quilts are not finished until the decoration is added.   I agree. That little flower in each corner just makes me smile.  

It was a great zoom workshop with 30 participants from around the US and into Great Britain    Just two little glitches which took away from my personal pleasure - one participant felt it was perfectly all right to interject her political viewpoint.  I was dismayed that she wasn't immediately muted.  Another participate dominated a goodly few minutes sobbing over the loss of her parents and how uncomfortable she was cutting into their clothing to make memory quilts.  I felt her pain but did not feel this was the best venue to elicit sympathy.  Both the politics and sobbing incidents diminished  my $50 value of the workshop.  Just saying ~ 

A brief share ~

this morning:  I awoke refreshed after
yesterday afternoon being on the road for a few hours

stopping at even another fabric shop for respite
from Saturday and Sunday:
from two full days of fabric shop-hopping

A Patchwork Tours shop hop in and around the east of Texas.  There were 50 happy shoppers on our bus that started at Stitchin' Heaven in Mineola and stopped along the way at seven more fabric shops, ending again for more shopping at Stitchin' Heaven.   There were 8 buses in total, each filled with 50.  The shops were happy!  Imagine having 400 customers, pockets filled with credit cards, coming through your shop in two days.  That's a lot of green! 

One of my favorite finds - "hipster hare" from The Alexander Henry Fabric Collections.  I saw this umbrella at Quilt Con Savannah and have been searching for this fabric......I'm sure I didn't buy enough yardage for the umbrella, but I know good things will come from it. 

Ginger and I joined eight of our Lafayette quilting friends and enjoyed a weekend of shopping and sharing.  It goes without saying that our pocketbooks were lighter as our bags got heavier.

Now I'm recovered and ready to start sewing up some of that fresh new fabric.

Before I left home Friday, I finished hand quilting my improv half-rectangle triangles.   Big and bold stitches just tie this one down beautifully and fits right in with the improv style. 

Slow Stitching ~

Hand stitching is slow.  It's a time for relaxing, for thinking, for watching a long movie or listening to good music.  It's my time to let go of preconceived ideas that all quilt stitches must be small and that they must be equal in size and in distance apart or that the quilting thread must be small.   Hand stitching is personal. 

It was in a QuiltCon 2017, Heidi Parkes workshop that I learned about layering.   Just another interesting dimension - a buried  snippit of perle cotton thread between the quilt top and batting.  Quilting through the layers holds the buried  thread in place. 

This picture shows layering, big stitch quilting and the Korean Jogakbo stitch (in pink).  Yes, Jogakbo is meant to be a visible stitch.  It might take me a bit more practice to achieve sameness in each stitch. 

You can also see where the quilting threads were attached and tied off on top of the quilt.   Interesting idea I picked up on at QuiltCon 2017.  There was more than one quilt in the show that didn't have buried threads!!!  and you can bet the police were getting ready to make a few arrests. 

 

 

Improv quiltmaking and slow stitching are addictive. 

Life doesn't have to speed by.  Mine now includes some slow stitching.

Aimlessly Waiting ~

I've been waiting for something large and wonderful to blog about.  Something witty. Something important.  But none of those adjectives describe anything I've seen or done lately.  So, I'll just talk a little bit about what's going on around here.  Naturally, there is always a quilt work in progress. 

We dined out last night and dinner was wonderful.  It rained as we dined - he on a steak, a medium to rarely cooked ribeye and I on grilled halibut.  Servings are large,  even at  fine restaurants,  so we'll have a steak sandwich for lunch today.  I didn't think a halibut sandwich sounded very appetizing, so I left my remains at the restaurant. 

Moving backwards.....I basted four quilts Friday.  You see,  I have a new way of basting quilts and so far it's almost worked out.  I say 'almost' because I'm still having to  wrestle around with the larger quilt tops.  I use my dining table as my basting surface which isn't as wide as the large quilts.  But anyway, next comes my 1" layer of foam that I purchased at JoAnns' last week.   The quilt back smooths out nicely on the foam and, of course, the batting takes care of itself.  If I use cotton batting then the quilt top usually snugs down and smooths out without a hitch.  Wool batting, which I adore, gives a little more of a smoothing struggle.  But my new basting technique is with that little Micro Stitch (as seen on TV).  Those little tacks are just the trick.   And, as they advertise, say goodbye to pens AND  there is no spray basting required. 

Moving forward again....in my zeal to do more hand quilting, I started another one yesterday.  After quilting four lengths up and down the quilt, I decided that the thread was too heavy.   I had some Valdani 8 weight that was a nice variegated color mix for my quilt but 8 weight is just too hard to pull through the layers and it was puckering the back.  I bit the bullet and pulled out the 4 lengths of quilting  that took all morning to stitch in.  Now I'll start with a #12 weight and see where that takes me before making an investment in heavier weight quilting thread.  Perhaps by Houston Quilt Festival this November I'll know more about my likes and dislikes on using heavy thread in my slow stitching.  I'm sure they'll have a thread vendor that will be more than happy to assist. 






 
 
 


Now you see, there doesn't have to be an earthquake to shake a blog post out of me.  It just takes a minute longer to type as I ruminate on my everyday happenings.



























That's it from the home front.    Happy Sunday to you all. 

Marty

 

 

I walked and slept at the same time ~ oh, dear !

A perfect daytime nap quilt  at 53" x 66".  I've read that I will seldom walk in my sleep while napping  - if I keep it brief.

 I've been told through the years that as a child, I walked in my sleep.  My mom or grandmother or whoever found me walking about in the night would just nudge me back to bed without waking me.  I never remembered any part of it so don't know the truth of my walking about in the night.   I did  jar myself awake many, many years ago as I rattled the safety chain on the front door - heading out in my nightshirt, I guess !  I must have been in my mid-twenties when this happened. 

But I don't recall sleep-walking since that time - until last night when the cold water I was drinking woke me.  WHAT Am I doing in the kitchen?  Drinking ice cold water!   HOW did I get from my bed down the hall to the kitchen - I don't remember. I don't remember getting a glass out of the cabinet nor filling it from the water cooler.  Wide awake I did come when the cold water hit my throat.  Oh, My - did this ever scare me.   I did tell the HuMaN to be on the alert for bumps in the night.   There is some safety in knowing that he might call out to see if it is I before he pulls the trigger or that the alarm will wake me and everyone else should I try going out to walk about the neighborhood!

So, what else is new for me?  I have been enjoying hand quilting all over again.    I once hand-quilted all my quilts but it has  been 20 years or so since I decided I didn't have the time.  I've thought about hand quilting on and off through the years - remembering the calm brought about by the simple act of stitching.    

Excited  by this finished project and jumping with joy that I did it myself.  Yes, I loved the one-on-one quiet time this quilt and I have shared the past couple of months.  The project stitched up rather quickly since I used 12 weight Perle cotton thread....giving me the totally imperfect big stitch I wanted.   Perfect will come with practice.  At 53" x 66", this will make the perfect daytime nap quilt.