Announcing a Really Big Adventure for the Studio - And for us...!

 After 35 years in this stucco bungalow in LaGrange and 15 years in this lovely studio, we are moving.  We bought a condo in OakBrook (we thought it was in Westmont) and this house is on the market as of this afternoon.  The past few weeks have been busy, but of course I've been sewing with a deep appreciation of what I've had for the past years.  These final days in this studio are sweet ones.

I have always loved log cabins, and this bundle of Japanese canvas linens seems perfect for this block.  I’m making this quilt for grandson Ben.  I think I may want to hand quilt it.  Since I have no deadline with this quilt, it can just stay all basted and wait for the winter weather.  I hope our nee place is as cold as this house - perfect for winter quilting.  This is not what John is hoping for at all.

Niece Laura is having her fifth baby and her first boy this fall.  That’s who this quilt is for.  That crooked vertical line represents a the path this little guy is going to have to walk among his 4 sisters!  His oldest sister will be a sophomore in hs.  That’s the same age I was when my little brother Doug was born!  I may have to baste this one with actual thread since all my pins are in other projects.  I’d like to have this hand quilted by September, but who knows?  I think things might get busy…

Three Projects in Process

By in process I mean the ones that are actually started and not just ones that are in fabric piles on the studio floor - more on those in the next post.  You know I'm a sucker for jelly rolls and layer cakes.  I saw this line Thrive by Natalia and Kathleen and loved the gentle graphics and color.  Against this background of a dark cool grey?  I'm in love.  As I put these shapes and colors together, I kept thinking of how I want to hand-quilt this.  So I made nine 29" blocks.  Each center is a 10" square from the line.  There are 5" squares and 2.5" squares.  Circular quilting?  Yes!  But circles are easier to do in small bits, not as a large quilt.  So I have batted each one of these 9 blocks with wool and an Art Gallery fabric backing.  They are pinned and edges have have been zigzagged.  Voila - my next hand project.  Still looking for an 18" template.  And then I will join these blocks in my reversible fashion. 

Another project in process is this grey-black-white log cabin.  So far there are forty-two 14" blocks.This layout of diagonal furrows pleases me, but these blocks are set aside for a day when I'll try another layout.  It's nice to have all the black and white and grey logs put away for a while.

And the last project I just started this morning.  I have loved working with peppered shot cottons - I started accumulating them 4 years ago.  This morning I was trying to explain to John what these shot cottons are and realized that I have three projects in the living room that are all made from shot cottons - see the end of this post.  The pile is dwindling but still sizeable.  I have been thinking about a Rail Fence design.  You can see below what I have so far.  Each block is 10.5".  It's pretty in-your-face - does it need toning down?  All I know is that I am going to keep making blocks! 

As I worked on the Rail Fence, I realized I have almost enough for a full-size Trip Around the World.  So the strips are cut, just waiting to be sewn.

Here's the thing about these meaty peppered shot cottons - they feel great and have a nice weight.  They are a dream to quilt because their weave is very open and looks good with my primitive sashiko quilting.  I know I want to hand-quilt this Trip.  I'm not sure about the Rail Fence.

This was from a jelly roll of shot cottons. 

This Glam Clam was hand-pieced and hand-quilted.  These curves almost made themselves. 

The quilt that started my love affair with peppered shot cottons. 

Adventures? You Betcha!

 I think about the title of this blog.  While what I do may not be daringly adventuresome, my adventure certainly has longevity. And it's highly focused on quilts, bags, and purses.  Quilty buddy Mimi gave me a big pile of wonderfully Asian-ish blues.  I took two of them to pilot this unstructured bag, Hampton Weekend Bag.  It went together quickly - I can see keeping something like this in the car for small shopping trips.  There's a magnet closure, a little zippered pocket inside, and a little slip pocket inside.  The strap has a slider so that it can be a cross-body bag or an over-the-shoulder bag.

Even though I just sent off 34 purses, I needed to make more.  These are an experiment with the various styles of this cross body pattern.  The top three have a gusset joining the front and back.  The bottom three have boxed corners.  They are slightly easier to do. Pink Castle Fabrics in Ann Arbor has a lovely sale with these fabrics at $6 a yard, which is terrific.  It's fun to work with coordinating prints.  Since the whole purpose of this Menstrual Hygiene Management program through Sew Powerful is to encourage young ladies to stay in school, I think the back flap fabric is just so perfect.  I just ordered some more - a lot of future purses are going to include this alphabet fabric.  I am putting purses away (ha, as if...) for a few days and moving on to a couple of other projects.

 As I was working on the previous black and white quilt, I cut 2" logs from the scraps to start a log cabin.  These 9 blocks are on the design wall, and I don't love this.  I think the problem is that the patterns create a "floral" or busy quality.  I am going to work on calming these blocks down by adding more fabrics that read solid.  And as I made this decision, I remember what I love about log cabins:  the variety in layout options.  And it dawned on me that if I had some grey and white blocks and perhaps some black and grey blocks, the design possibilities will be so much more interesting.  I love working on a project like this - one with no particular outcome.  Below is the same layout only with a white diamond in the center. 

Lucky for me that I have a huge amount of grey scraps!

All My Bags are Packed

Baby Trip Around the World - 48" x 60"

  Well, at least the quilts are packed. I'll carry the big one on the plane, and John is packing the baby quilt in his luggage.  I have enjoyed my month of quilting for the Chrisses and am excited to go to Orlando tomorrow.  My nephew Chris T was one of the first kids that I fell in love with.  To go to a baby shower for his wife Andi and hang with my sister and my niece Jen is definitely exciting.  That my sister-in-law Chris will drive me to this venue and that it's so close to her home is even better!

 My sister-in-law Chris's quilt is the biggest one I've ever quilted myself - 104" x 120".  Sometimes, in the middle of a project, I get sick of it or I'm ready to move on to the next project or I just want to get it done.  But this quilt?  I slowly fell in love with it, especially when I decided to do a piano -key border.  I love the two jelly rolls I used - one by Carolyn Friedlander and one by Zen Chic - and how they work together.  I splurged on the backing, a wide backing by Moda that has the nicest and softest feel.  

 

It's batted with a very light Mountain Mist batting.  Perfect I think for its home in Orlando.  Kona Snow, a great shade of white, is the background for the quilt.  A bit ironic, eh?  Chris and Jerry will no longer have to deal with snow.  And this quilt whispered to me that it needed some handwork.  So there are 12 of these circles stitched at the junction of  four log cabins.   This picture shows the detail from the back.

My sister, soon to be the grandmother of three, put together her Hungry Caterpillar kids' room.  And of course it's charming.  There are still two little doll quilts coming from the leftover fabrics.

 So, now what?  The Caterpillar projects are complete, and the projects for the Chrisses are packed. Here's my trick for getting over the end of a project that I love:  start a new one.  And I've been doing just that for the past week .  At my first Chicago Modern Quilt Guild retreat I was working on a project.  But once I put it together I didn't like it.  So I put it away.   Debbie Pine's November 2017 CMQG meeting about Unfinished Projects really hit home, and this is one of my UFO's.  So after getting it out and thinking and playing, I now have a plan. 

 Seeing these little 8" blocks joined to one another wasn't very interesting to me.  So I took them apart and just let this project sit.  Now?  I've made larger blocks from 4 of these smaller blocks and added some hand quilting.  These blocks are now 15.25" , but I only have 14 of them.  above all, I want this quilt to be a usable size.  What a great design opportunity for some handwork in this middle 6 blocks.  These blocks, once individually quilted, will be joined using Sharon Pederson's reversible method. This quilt is also a great opportunity to use up batting scraps.  Piecing batting is undetectable.  I'm also using scrap bits for the backing.  And yes, I have enough...

Here's to March and Spring! 

Winter Vacation: Out with the Caterpillars, In with the Chrises

I love being "forced" to stay home.  Like when I was teaching and we had snow days.  I see no reason, now that I am retired, to give up snow days.  So I take them happily.  The Chicago Public Schools were closed Friday because of the weather, and of course I had to honor their decision.  My sister came in the day before to pick up the various Hungry Caterpillar projects, and now I'm turning the studio over to all things Chris.

My sister-in-law Chris, John's sister, sold her Oak Park house and moved to Orlando the end of January.  This colorful log cabin was something I started in early January with Chris's daughter Molly in mind (not knowing whether Molly would like this).  Chris told me that she really liked it and that it probably wouldn't fit into Molly's bedroom.  So...HOUSEWARMING PRESENT FOR CHRIS!!!!!  The piano key border is stunning although a lot of work.  But I love the end result.

This weather has been perfect for all the little bits of sewing required.  And for the pin-basting.  And for starting the quilting.  I wondered a couple of days ago whether I could get this finished in time for our early March trip to Orlando.  The answer:  you betcha. 

Not only do I have a sister-in-law named Chris, I have a nephew named Chris, and guess where he lives.  Yep, Orlando.  And guess who is having their first child?  Yep, Chris and his wife Andi.

Andi has chosen navy, khaki, green, and white for the baby's room.  A baby Trip Around The World is going to be perfect for these colors.  Notice the little bit of green grunge in the corner.  I love this fabric and may have to use some of it in the back of the quilt.  Andi's baby shower is in early March, and that's the primary reason we're heading down there.  But of course we'll be staying with Chris and her husband Jerry.  Turns out they live two miles away from Chris and Andi.  So convenient! 

 Meanwhile, on the first floor I've been hand quilting this big Trip Around the World from those wonderful Janet Clare Wordsmith fabrics.  I took a tip from Chawne Kimber and am combining machine quilting with hand quilting.  And I must say I like this look very much.  Besides, it's cold out and sitting under a quilt while working on it is rather perfect.  Let John call me Betsy Ross all he wants to.  Sometimes as I work on a quilt, it comes to me who it is for.  This one?  for grandson Sammy.  He's in Northern Michigan, and this is one warm and big quilt!

A look at the combination of the machine and hand quilting.  

 Every year, for the past 11 years, I have printed out my blog.  It's pretty exciting to see this record of what I've done.  I do wish I had been better about keeping track of what I have made and where various projects are.  But these books help a bit.

I can put a picture on the front of the book as well as on the back.  So these books give me a chance to review what I've done in the past year and which projects I want to put on the cover and back.  My tribute to all things 8.5" x 11, which is in my dining room, won out for the front.  And the Glam Clam that was hand-pieced and hand-quilted won out for the back.

Gotta get back to all thing Chris! 

Perfect Quilting Weather

It's been below freezing with snow and ice and wind chills.  It's January in Chicago.  We work hard to walk, even if it's not outside - the hospital, shopping centers, driving to town (which is 0.5 miles) to walk on the shoveled sidewalks.  Our old stucco bungalow is not well insulated and drafty.  So, working on hand-quilting under a quilt is a perfect way to spend an evening.  This scrappy napping quilt is almost finished - I love using No. 8 Perle cotton and a wool batting - look how gorgeous the texture is.  But now?  I need to find a new project for downstairs since this one is almost completed.

One of my quilting heroines, Chawne Kimber, combines both hand and machine quilting on some of her quilts.  So this Trip Around the World in my favorite Janet Clare fabrics will be my test case.  Most of this has been machine-quilted.  But now I'm moving it to the first floor and will work on this evenings.  There's no deadline for this project and I can sashiko-doodle to my heart's content.

John asks for very little.  But he did request I finish this hand-quilted piece in peppered shot cottons.   I've been dithering about whether to include more stitching in the bottom dark grey portion.  And since I can't decide, I am hanging this and calling it "Unfinished."  Look at the photo below - there is still a needle and thread attached.  Whenever I decide to lay in some more stitches, I can just take it down, work on it, and then put it back up.  This is the third piece in the living room made from shot cottons.  Here are the other two - an elliptical Drunkard's Path and a Glam Clam. 

The body of this log cabin is complete - right now it's 60" x 80".  When I identify where this quilt will wind up, then I'll put borders on it.  I would love to do a piano key border with the various feature fabrics (lines from Carolyn Friedlander and Zen Chic), but I could also calm it down with a Kona snow all around.

I really don't like when quilters Facebook or Instagram about a project they can't talk about.  And yet that's exactly what I'm doing eight now.  In March I'll be able to do a full blog post about the above.

Last, look at the first quilt in this post.  It's made from the leftovers of the above quilt - I made it for my sister-in-law when she had a double mastectomy last spring.  It was her comfort quilt while she was healing.  Now Pam and Al have hung this quilt in their bedroom, and of course I think it's the loveliest of wall treatment.  The color of their bedroom wall?  So perfect. 

Two Sloan Travel Bags, Completed

 

These Sloan Travel Bags (pattern by Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness) are completed, and I am very pleased with them.  Our trip to New Zealand last spring was of the nature and hiking variety, not the shopping kind.  We did run across one fabric store outside of Auckland which seemed to special in Civil War reproduction fabrics.  And I pretty much reconciled myself to not finding any fabrics indicative of New Zealand.  However, on the South Island in the relatively small town of Oamaru which we went to for the penguin nests, I found a fabric shop directly across the street from our "Fawlty Tower"-esque hotel.  And here were a handful of New Zealand fabrics.  The black and white one represents the various weaving patterns the Maori used.  The red-black-cream fabric uses Maori symbols.  Can you see the black-and-white ferny fabric on the side of the red/black/cream bag?  Ferns are ubiquitous, and there are some kiwis hidden among the frond.  The outer pockets on both bags are a black-on-black print featuring fern fronds. That one highly-saturated red became the pockets in the lining of both bags. 

My favorite part of the bag-making process:  the outer bag and lining bag ready for the magic!

This bag has a wide zippered closure at the top. 

Two zippered pockets on the inside, two pockets on each end, and a fob for a key, a feature which I think is a necessity in a travel bag.

The two outer pockets with a magnetic snap

Meanwhile, this scrappy log cabin is in one big piece, and I have decided to do an inner yellow border and then an outer piano key border.  I've done this once before and remember loving the look.  And if it's one thing I have, it's more scraps.  There's a little reminder in the bottom corner of this picture that I need to get moving on this knit clothing project.  Maybe not this week, but certainly next!

6.5" logs awaiting assembly for the piano key outer border