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 Here are the leftover peppered shot cottons from Cristina’s quilt.  It’s pin-basted and batted with wool.  The backing is a white and black print that features the name of every color in the world.  This is 90” wide, and a little bit taller.  This will keep me busy for the dark and colder winter months ahead.  I know I am going to quilt this horizontally and may perhaps go for a plaid look by quilting vertically, too.  To be determined.

Surprise No. 1: For Cristina and Joe

 

You know how you want to do something so special for someone and sometimes get a bit paralyzed in getting started?  I knew Cristina and Joe were getting married at some point, and I knew I wanted to make them a "I'm thrilled you found your life partner" quilt.  And then paralysis set in.  What helped me to break through was this fabulous assortment of peppered shot cottons.

I wanted to do something featuring equally all the colors - so saturated and so bright,  I even went to one of Cristina's favorite artists, Robert Motherwell , for inspiration.  I eventually concluded that if I wanted to give her a quilt in this lifetime, that perhaps I needed to stay within my comfort zone.  So I reverted to some basic 9-patches which then I could perk up with some circular hand quilting.  

I started with an off-center spiral on October 5.  Eventualy I added a second needle and then a third.

As I began making the 9-patches and adding them to the design wall, I knew immediately this horizontal design wouldn't work.  It was fun to play around with arrangements, and I'm happy with the one I settled on. 

Its difficult to explain how much I love hand-quilting.  For so many years I palmed my hand-work off to my mother.  Guildmate Mirielle very slowly modeled the importance of handwork.  And as my parents were dying, I finally got it.  Yesterday I put in the last stitches and made a label.  As much as I love Cristina, I'm pretty crazy about Joe, too.  For a while I wasn't sure if he was good enough for her.  But he is for sure.  One night out with them as judges for a local Moth story-telling competition convinced me of that.  

I've known Cristina for almost 20 years. Despite the 41 year age difference,  we truly are friends.  There's a mutual love and recognition of how lucky we are to have this friendship.  

There have been several projects in the past year that I have been working on but haven't been able to share.  I'm thrilled that this quilt is in Cristina and Joe's hands and want to think it will keep them warm starting with their first year of marriage.  And of course I'm eager to reveal other surprises.  Soon...

An Odd Sort of Panic and New Mantra

When I was teaching I would leave for school early, like 5:30, and then run up to the third floor of Hyde Park HS chanting, "Papers to grade, Papers to grade, I still have more papers to grade."  Recently I have developed a new chant. "Shot Cottons and Wool, Shot Cottons and Wool, I will only quilt with Shot Cottons and Wool."  Actually, I mean peppered shot cottons.  The other night grandson Brandon admitted that he goes into a slight panic when he gets to the end of a binge watch if he doesn't have another watch lined up.  I get it.  That's exactly how I am with hand quilting.  I've been working on hand-quilt ing this piece for Cristina since the beginning of October.  It takes about two months to work my way through a big quilt.  I'm maybe three weeks from completion and already I'm worrying about what to work on next.  

So I've done something with this pile of peppered shot cottons and this backing.  And a roll of wool batting just arrived.  As soon as Cristina's is complete, I'll pin baste this new creation (forgot to take a pic before folding it up...).  Hello, December and January! 

The Luckiest ot the Unlucky

Saturday June 20 was such a good day.  I was in the studio finishing this lovely 90 x 99 shot cotton quilt top.  I vacuumed, rejoicing in how easy this task is with 2 hands.  I even set out the fabrics for the next quilt I want to work on.  I want to finish this quilt top by July so that I can turn the entire month over to purses and masks.  One of each every day.  Piles of fabrics for both are set out.

But then I tripped on uneven sidewalk about a mile away from the house.  Nice ladies called 911.  ER took care of facial lacerations and made sure there were no brain bleeds.  I broke my proximal humerus and see my bone doc tomorrow.

Thankful I didn’t do more damage! But I’m incredibly sore - everything hurts.

I keep thinking of I Robert Burns and how the best-laid plans of mice and men “gang aft a-gley.”

An Evening Companion

I'm not a pet person, but I understand how holding or stroking an animal is soothing.  For me that sort of soothing comes from my hand quilting.  That's what I discovered around the time of my parents' death.

In a way the same is true for a quilt.  When I hold a quilt for a couple of hours most evenings, of course I get attached to it.  And this one?  I love.  This top is made from the leftovers of my  shot cottons.  The backing is a very smooth muslin, one of the few fabrics I have to feel before I buy to make sure it has the right hand.

I've been using the wonderful variety of No. 8 Perle cottons on the color stripes - three rows per stripe. the white/lighter portions I'm running two lines of a silvery grey.  

I love how the stitching looks from the back.

My goal is to get this to my nephew Chris in Orlando before Christmas.   Because he and his family live there, I used a Mountain Mist poly batt, very light.  This quilt has a wonderful airy feel.

As I finished this quilt top last winter, I was glad to use of the last of my shot cottons, which do not play well with other quilting fabrics.  But as I have worked on stitching this quilt, I've realized one thing:  I need more shot cottons.
It's not a matter of want - it's NEED!

Today's work will be quilting this charming quilt.  It's not due until mid-January, but I fear things are heating up (two pregnant nieces, period purses, a guild project, a shhhh project, the holidays).  Besides, I really love this quilt!

Trolling for Purse Makers

 

I'm stepping out of my safe zone, big time. It's so easy to stay in my studio and make purses. But now it's time to step it up. I did that last fall when I spoke to the Women's Group in Palos about Sew Powerful. Now? I'm going to the International Quilt Festival at Rosemont to help set up and man the Sew Powerful booth. The purpose? To find and encourage others to make purses.These six purses are the most special ones I've made, knowing that they will be handled and touched. I think it will be fun to meet Jason and Cinnamon Miles, the brains behind Sew Powerful.  And I'm excited about meeting some other purse makers whom I have "met" on Facebook.  Along with these six purses I have 24 more.  These purses, along with purses from some makers in Indiana, will be used to decorate the Sew Powerful booth as we "troll for pursemakers" and tell the Sew Powerful story.

I wouldn't let myself work on a new tote until I finished the purses above. The new tote is the Noodlehead Super Tote (upper left bag). Notice I have a full set of "luggage" made from a fabric crush - it's from the Hello Bear collection by Bonnie Christine, Art Gallery Fabrics.The bottom left bag is my travel bag.  The bottom right is my daily purse.  And the upper right?  All I know is that I like it.  But like the shot cottons I mentioned earler, I am almost at the end of this fabric and finally ready to let it go. 

The wonder of the Internet is that I have some Canadian friends. One of them tipped me off to a block-a-week quiltalong hosted by the Canadian Quilters Association https://canadianquilter.com/quilt-canada-2019/.  Here's what I've made so far. These blocks are 6.5" each, and there will be 52 at the end. I have been using the closest scraps at hand.  No surprise that these scraps have no color.  It's a pleasant change from the purses.

 I finished my polar vortex quilt - these peppered shot cottons and a wool batting were wonderful to sit under and quilt.  The quilting represents 8 weeks of winter evenings.  And now it's waiting for its owner - whoever it may be - to claim it.

I'm taking a break from sewing although I have a lot more to say about current and future projects.  My studio has a closet that needs sorting and organizing.  That's my task for the rest of this month.  But April?  Look out!

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. 

A Hand-Quilted Finish

 Usually I am happy to finish a quilt and see its completion.  This Glam Clam quilt?  I'm sorry it's done.  I began hand-piecing the clams in August after my guild hosted a workshop by Latifah Saafir
and her Glam Clam technique.  As guildsters started posting pictures of their progress, I knew this design was one I wanted to do.  My hand-piecing was just for evenings when I was on the first floor of my house and not in the studio.  By December the quilt top was together.  I ordered a wool batting and a fabric for the back.  After basting I started my quilting using No 8 Perle cotton and matching thread color to the clams.  This quilt has been - along with John - my constant evening companion, and my hands are sorry to let go of it.  This is my 4th hand-quilted finished.  Time to find a new hand project.

These fabrics are all peppered shot cottons. 

The back shows not only the different quilting threads but also the unquilted parts - the puffy parts.

There's a wonderful texture happening on the back.