Time to change gears. Tomorrow I'm starting a series of grief quilts which have a Christmas deadline. This project is a sad one because the life being celebrated is that of a 31-year old young man. It's also difficult to put away all the bright fabrics I've been using. As I was cleaning up the studio, I used some of the scraps and made one final quilted tote. The effect of these scraps is terrific - I need to go off script more often!
My sister Paula's birthday is December 1. Yes, I know there are still 2 weeks until her birthday. But considering I made her present almost 3 weeks ago, I think I've done a great job of keeping the surprise as long as I did! This bag is similar in size to the ones I've been making. But what sets this apart are the fabrics - all of them are batiks. These batiks were pieced onto a piece of muslin. The first trickier and similar bag to this one was pieced on paper. I like the muslin piecing better because the muslin becomes a part of the bag's foundation. Now as Paula struts down the street she can sing the chorus from J-J-J-Joseph: I am handsome, I am smart, I am a walking work of art! How I love my tote of many colors...
When my brothers' daughters were little, they were part of Camp Quilt for three summers. My mother and their mothers would pitch in, as would Uncle John, and the result was that Laura, Candace, Leslie, and Ali all made quilts, pretty much by themselves. Of course the Good Quilting Fairy was a part of this process. The first summer each girl kept their quilts. The second and third summers I suggested that they make quilts for the church nursery or someone else. My recollection is that they didn't (maybe Candace gave one to her Grandma Miller and maybe Ali gave one to a friend) and that there was eye-rolling at the suggestion. The winter of my niece Leslie's senior year of high school, she asked if she could make a quilt for a friend of hers who was going away. Aha! She above all got it: that quilts were meant to be given away. (Leslie also enlisted my help in making her parents a Christmas photo quilt but that's a separate blog entry). 
I saved these scrap pieces, and they became part of a demonstration in foundation piecing for a reversible quilt class that I was teaching. The quilt pictured here has 48 blocks. One side's blocks are all half-square triangles using fabrics from Leslie's quilts. The other side are scrap strips from various projects. Look at the February 6, 2008 blog entry when the body of this quilt was originally done. It's just been sitting, waiting to be completed.
It sometimes scares me how efficiently I can operate in chaos. All my Reds, Orange, Yellows, Green, Blue, and Indigo/Violets are strewn about the studio, which is where I need to have them. Could I close any of the fabric doors? Apparently not. For the past week I've been sewing, almost maniacally.
The Jinny Beyer fabric here is one that's almost 15 years old and just needs to be used. So I made a couple of boxed Mors bags, and John gave them away at Autumn Green's November FM Jazz session before I could photograph them. I still have enough fabric left for a few more.
What I am loving working on are the totes of many colors. I'm learning to match the bottom horizontal stripe with the lining of the bag. I'm about to finish 2 that have a snappy yellow-orange band and a great lining.
My neighbor Pam visited the studio to see what I was doing and noticed a pile of scraps. And she wants a tote from all the scraps. A Scrappy Amazing Technicolor Dream Tote. I like it!
Once a week I drive for the American Cancer Society. I've been doing this since last March, and it's been an eye-opening and rewarding experience. As the newbie, I have relied my passengers to tell me which route to drive and where exactly to go. Today my passenger was the newbie.
The last few years I was at Kennedy High School I had my own small office, which had a big blank wall. This quilt was made in the fall of 2002 and gave me great joy. I love the green/black background of each Monkey Wrench block as well as the batiks. The crisp black and burgundy provide the perfect frame for these blocks. And setting these sashed blocks on point gives the quilt a great sense of drama. 
My sister Paula saw my Amazing Technicolor Dream Tote and thought about Christmas gifts for her office staff. So I began to work on prototypes to figure out price and a less labor-intensive process than mine. The first two had horizontal stripes and look like beach bags. I also got the proportions wrong - the bags are too tall. But now check out the vertical striped one - very attractive, eh? Especially that cute little colorful inside pocket! 
Jinny Beyer is a quilter who understands color and value and has an exquisite eye for design. Her website is great for eye candy and inspiration. I bought one of her quilt kits, Around the World- it's the quilt on the opening page of this blog. Recently I saw her kit for a tote bag. I love the design and love the colors but the price? Not so much. I downloaded the pattern from her website (she really is very generous with her free patterns) and began to put a palette together. And then? Some obsessive paper-piecing and sewing. The result? You be the judge. I think this is fabulous. Time-consuming but fabulous. 
Sometimes I'm happiest when I have several things going at once. This is one of those periods, and the controlled chaos of the studio reflects these several projects. I made myself finish bags 3 and 4, using the grape/vine fabric and the matching lining. These bags are boxed, perfect for groceries. I'm trying to whittle down a pile of fabrics designated for Mors bags and build up my stock. Just because.
And as long as I'm touching so many of my fabrics, I'm putting together a 16-fabric palette for the Jinny Beyer tote bag pattern. It's an interesting and frustrating exercise, but one that was made sweeter thanks to some CD's my grandson made for me. One was by Jason Becker, a guitar prodigy who was diagnosed with ALS when he was 19. He's now 40 and writing music using only eye movements. The other CD is by Yngwie Malmsteen, a fascinating Swedish multi-instrumentalist. Both have "symphonic rock" in common and are CD's I'll look forward to listening to again and again. The album by Jason Becker (youtube him - fascinating) led me down this path: what quilt would I make if I knew it was my last quilt. The tumbling blocks and color/value exercise are just out of my comfort zone. Challenging. Nice.
