Toys and Comments
I recently defined “crafter” over on Nikki’s blog as
“a person who stores supplies for her 1000 project ideas that she never quite gets to and no longer make sense to make.”
I think one reason for this crafting problem tendency is that if I choose to work on a project already started I will not get to go shop for fabric, yarn and other notions. The purpose not being the purchasing (I’m rather cheap, actually) but the chance to wonder around a store and think about crafting for two hours, you see.
It also means I will not have an excuse to buy new toys that are “necessary” for completing the new project either. Zing! that’s awesome logic right there. (Sorry, husband.) I figured this out yesterday when I received these two tips for one of my new projects. These go with the bias tape maker that my mother-in-law got me for Christmas (which I wanted for another then-new project).
Seriously, they’re going to be useful! Do any of you have this sort of crafty gadget obsession?
On that note, I’d like to mention that I’ve started to use analytics to find people who visit/subscribe to my blog and are LURKERS (if you write me emails or make comments, you are excused). I am doing this for two reasons:
(1) I really would like to meet all you lovely people, because you’re very likely interesting, and if you have a blog too (about nerdy crochet or caterpillars or whatever), then I’d certainly like to read it. So if I show up and make comments on your blog, now you know why. If Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain will go to you however much her sleuthing abilities allow.
(2) Occasionally, although Feedburner and Google tell me people show up here, it does get to feel as if I am talking to a blank wall or an abstract concept instead of to actual, live people. I find this quite depressing, particularly when I’ve shown a project that took a lot of work. Since I know I’m not the only person to feel this way in the history of writing/art, I try hard to comment on blogs as often as I can. (soapbox) AND YOU SHOULD TOO. (end soapbox)
Off to mess with my gadgets.
The Mom Quilt – Finished!
Dear Mom,
Your quilt is finished! When the rain lets up, I’ll roll it up in a plastic bag and put it in a tube with a dowel rod to hang it on and mail it to you. I feel terrible it’s more than a month since I promised it to you, but it’s not like I haven’t been late before. I consider it a family tradition! And I have been working on it very hard. I didn’t really expect it to take this long!
You might have to iron it a little with low heat when you get it, but it’s pretty indestructible at this point. One reasons I find quilting with silks like this so interesting is that it gives the impression of being a delicate sort of thing but as I’ve said before, silk is not really delicate. Most of the silk I’ve worked with is tough – I’ve broken sewing machine needles and when I embroider it forces me to use leather thimbles and needle grippy things or I dent my fingers. Plus the overall project, because it’s quilted so densely, is extremely sturdy. You’ll see. It’s a thick piece of work.
A few weeks ago when you wrote me, Mom, you said you didn’t see how I had enough patience to do this. Truth is that it doesn’t take me any patience. It might be weird, but I can’t sit still long enough to hand-hem a pair of pants, but I can spent 50 hours hand-quilting. It doesn’t feel like tedium, and I don’t get impatient. I love sitting down and putting stitches in this fabric. It’s fun. I even ripped out quilting I didn’t like in some places and started over. I’ve definitely found something that I love to do.
I’ll miss this quilt. I ended up liking it quite a bit, and the pictures just aren’t the same as seeing it in person. There is too much depth and texture to it to really get a good idea of what it’s like in a picture. But then again, I’ve been looking at this so long that I don’t see the picture for the details anymore. In a couple of weeks I”ll look at it again and see if I can see the flowers and leaves again. But I think I need some time away from it first.
Have fun with it when you get it!
Details:
Neutral oatmeal linen backing fabrics (2 layers), thin cotton batting, silk kimono fabrics from Ah! Kimono.
Needlepoint, Inc. silk floss and DMC floss (what’s that stuff made of?) for quilting.
Hand quilted/embroidered and machine and hand pieced. Hand bound.
Posts for this project:
Concave and Convex, Iris quilt: creating the quilt puzzle pt. 1, Iris quilt 2: fabric piecing technique, Iris quilt 3: putting it all together, The back speaks, The Mom Quilt – Finished!
Paper Pieces
So I thought I’d expand my horizons in quilting piecing (they are definitely not the same thing, though people tend to mix them up). I’ve been reading the Intergalactic Transport blog of Jimmy McBride, who makes pieced quilts that depict various pieces of the cosmos like wormholes and things. His quilts involve a lot of small pieces with irregular corners and edges. I thought, “that would be neat. I wonder if I could do that?”
But first, to know what I’m talking about, you have to visit this post to see what I mean: all cut out.
OK, are you caught up? If you didn’t visit, I can wait. Because otherwise the rest of what I have to say won’t make any sense.
So my project is not intergalactic, it’s more terrestrial, and I don’t have all day to do this as he seems to (he’s A Real Artist with Shows and Stuff), but I’m doing trying to do a smaller scale pieced quilt in the tradition of his quilts right now. I’m not going to try to tell you it’s going perfectly, or that it’s quick, because I would be lying.
If you know how big pin heads are, you know how big these pieces are that I’m turning into fabric and sewing together. They’re all irregular shapes. Curves both concave and convex. If you’ve ever sewn before, you know that convex/concave edges don’t play very well together so they can get sewn up properly.
So I’m pretty much swimming in a sea of tiny pieces. Mr McBride makes it look almost easy, but I assure you, having tried it, that I’m thoroughly impressed with him and how tidy and neat his pieces are. I know he’s done a fair number of these, and my hat is completely off to the man. I’d like to sit and watch him in his studio one day, just to admire what he does and maybe learn a few things.
Anyway, I’ll give y’all more info later, but all I have is a sneak peak tonight. The thing is assuredly not ready for public presentation now.
Meanwhile, I saw this outside the Berkeley Public Library last night:
I read about it last Thursday on her blog, but I was quite pleased to see Streetcolor’s huge colorful work in person. I love the squiggly bike rack ones! I’m pleased Berkeley is the sort of place where people leave this type of thing alone and don’t immediately rip it up, deface it or remove it. I think it adds a lot to public spaces. I may have to yarn bomb something down here in Temescal, if only my house …
