Pretty Random

The Postie brought me a copy of “Pretty Patches” magazine with a super article about The Quilt Quine and my Ebook, “Deviant Quilting”. Let’s just hope that helps to boost my sales because my first loyalty cheque was only just short of a fish supper!

An irate customer phoned me to demand where I was because she was waiting for me at my studio while I was at school teaching mathematical Probability to some under 12’s. We both seemed to have different days marked on our calendars which was unfortunate. I had enjoyed my bonus “free” day to complete the appliqué on Purdah and decide whether to order a big bag of black beads when she didn’t show up as expected the day before;)

One of my clients, who lives as an ex-pat in Nigeria, came back to Scotland for a brief visit and brought me an amazing bag full of African fabrics. I had told her that I wanted to have a go at a quilt that I had seen in an Amy Butler supplement which was a take on Japanese folded patchwork. It is a quilt as you go project so I immediately cut some large circles to have a go! I think it would be better to use a very thin wadding but I decided to use up some leftover pieces of 80/20 so it is a little bulky. I expect it will soften up with washing or general use. The magazine project was not actually quilted, except at the seam joins and where the flaps were sewn down but obviously, I thought it would look better with some quilting and machine embroidery. I was so enthusiastic about my new project that I went ahead and cut out enough fabric and wadding to make an entire single quilt, despite having other projects to finish first… 

Inspired by having an entire quilt ready to construct in kit form, I went ahead and calculated the required number of pieces for 20 blocks of my 1930 reproduction quilt that I still don’t know whether to call “Grumpy Goose/Bloody Mabel”. It took a whole day to raid my stash of plaids, spots and vaguely feed-sack style prints plus whatever else might go. It will be a pretty random quilt, including all sorts of prints, checks and polka-dots. There is a possibility that it could be an ugly quilt but I am hoping that it will look charmingly scrappy. I intend to put the pieces for each block into 20 poly-pockets which will take a while to organise. The original quilt has some very co-ordinated blocks but also some garish ones that obviously used up the dregs of someone’s scrap bag. I wonder how long I can resist the temptation to work on one of my “kit” quilts while I still have to complete the black Purdah shawl?!

I am Not a Fabric Snob

If you look at all of the fabrics in an old feed-sack quilt you will notice that the maker simply used a selection of whatever fabric they could lay her hands on. I have some old quilts that include pieces of shirting, linen and even crimpelene. When I decided to make Freya a quilt using my Grumpy Gertie/Bloody Mabel block I was getting all enthusiastic looking at bundles of lovely reproduction fabrics even though I already own all sorts of suitable materials. I reined myself in and made up my mind to use up stash fabric (mostly). I confess that I happened to find a bundle of rather nice plaids on Ebay which were very inexpensive because they are POLY-cotton. I was really pleased when they arrived as they are great colours and don’t feel horrible. I might wash them - but probably won’t - and I certainly won’t worry about the quilt disintegrating after I am dead because it is not meant to be an heirloom!

Black wool suiting arrived in the post which declared on its selvage that it had been “Woven in England Specially for the Ministry of the Interior of Kuwait”. This is an intriguing provenance - perhaps it was destined to be made into uniforms? It is very fine and silky; riskily, I decided to cut out the felted shawl and appliqué it onto the fine black wool. I attached tiny strips of bondaweb onto the reverse of the felted wool and used a lot of steam to try and get it to stick . Some of it adhered quite well but other areas just would not! The Bernina 710 did a great job of neatly machine blanket stitching the felted wool onto the suiting. It took many hours to stitch around all of the cut-out hexagons and triangles which I might embellish further with some simple hand stitching. There is also a possibility that I may attempt to print some black motifs down the edges to look like a sort of jacquard border.

I was invited by Aberdeen Patchwork and Quilting Group to a day class with Edwina Mackinnon to experiment with printing on fabric. We were generously provided with 2 metres of soda-ash treated fabric and guided through various processes. A day just was not long enough to try everything out! I decided that I was pretty useless at sticking pieces of masking tape to a screen to create a negative image for screen printing but at least I found out how to use a silk screen frame with stencils. I loved messing about with thickened dyes and thermofax screens and I could probably become as hooked on them as I seem to have become on Indian wood-blocks.

Edwina had to step in and command me to stop printing more detail on my blue fish  which everyone found highly amusing. It would seem that I have a reputation for not knowing when to stop;)

I must say that I really enjoyed a day out experimenting with new-to-me creative techniques and learning how to use some of the dyes and kits that I may have purchased at at show and have not looked at since. It could easily lead to a new idea…

Beetle Mania

A smug week in my workshop is inevitably followed by an interrupted week where almost nothing gets stitched at all. In my defence, I have several good excuses including trips into town for Nell’s violin exam, an orthodontist visit, a driving lesson and a day in the classroom. Fergus was lying around with tonsillitis and I had to find the best insurance quote for a learner driver as well as making multiple trips to the Post Office with my eBay packages. 

I hand stitched the voile overlays onto the Purdah quilts and hoped to assemble the entire piece but hit a major snag. The original black wool shawl was wide enough to cover everything up before I accidentally felted it. The backup shawl proved to be a smidgen too narrow and the whole thing did not look very arty. I considered buying a replacement black wool shawl and wondered how my internet history must look after searching for burqua, hijab, dupatti, and various other garments that I did not know about before. They were all too fancy or too narrow so I came up with a plan B. I found some ex-military, black wool, uniform suiting on Ebay which I will use as the shawl/dupatti and then I will appliqué on the almost ruined, original shawl into which I have cut out Purdah screen hexagonal holes. This will need to be hand embroidered onto the new “shawl”, which is not my forté. Just as I had thought I was on the home stretch, this project looks like it will involve a lot more time.

The ONLY other sewing that got done was making 2 very basic ladybird cushions for the back seat of Freya’s new car, a modern VW Beetle, that would match the tartan travel rug and ladybird key-ring. 

Freya was delighted to receive an unconditional offer to study International Relations at St Andrews University! I am very proud of all of her hard work and immediately offered to make her a “Going to Uni” quilt. Interestingly, she told me that her favourite quilts are those made from random, vintage feed-sack prints that I purchased on Ebay. This looks like a good excuse to order some retro prints and spots to recreate my favourite feed-sack quilt using my rehashed 30’s block. Studying the original quilt, it is obvious that I will need dozens of different fabrics, including some ugly ones! I have even sourced some 1930’s style ladybirds. It will be fun to make a quilt that is not for a competition or book project;) Although I do have one or two other projects that ought be finished first… (Ha-Ha-Ha!)

A Gin Worthy Week

Sticking to my plan for a change, I completed the 4-patch version of the 1930’s block then immediately re-made it in feedback prints. Amazingly, it finished at 15.5” after squaring up both times! The trick was to make sure to sew exactly ON the seam crossover to get the points looking good. I have even made a note of the correct sizes of squares to crosscut for the setting triangles. I asked for suggested names on Facebook - Susan Briscoe thought it could be “Grumpy Gertie” as a homage to a feral goose that was dispatched by vandals and Ellen wondered if “Bloody Mabel” would like to be memorialised in patchwork. 

I secretly enjoyed sewing large sequins onto organza. It was a slow task to avoid getting tangled up but it gave me a chance to sit and listen to plays on Radio 4, knowing that I was scheduled to be in a classroom for 3 days.

I let my classes loose with woodblock printing on paper and fabric which they enjoyed and they started wonky hand-stitching their pieces which can be made into mats or book covers. 

Two magazines arrived this week which had great reviews for “Deviant Quilting” - it was featured in The Quilter and Today’s Quilter so hopefully that may lead to a few sales. 

My other vintage typewriter was sold on Ebay. I did not make a profit on the original purchase but at least I got rid of it without taking it to the dump. According to the postal address, it will end up as a film prop at Pinewood Studios.

Freya had a good week… she received another Uni offer, enjoyed showing off her portfolio at her school’s Advanced Higher Art exhibition and went shopping for a VW Beetle with her Dad. I have already sourced ladybird fabric to make a pair of fun cushions but I’m not sure whether she will want to kit it out with outrageous rubber eyelashes. I have the chore of finding a competitive insurance quote for a young driver so we can collect it next weekend. 

I was thrilled to receive an email from AQS late on Thursday night informing me that “Tartan Tattoo” has been juried into the Paducah show in April. I just need to get it back from its travels in Holland in order to send it to Kentucky. I would dearly love to go to the  show, especially if the Quilted Yurt might be launched but I will have to make a LOT more Ebay sales to fund my trip…

I decided to treat myself to a rather nice bottle of gin on Friday to celebrate a pretty successful week;)

Definitely Deviating

I definitely deviated from my Plan for the week but I actually ended up getting more done than I expected. I had a few more grand ideas for a potential DWR project which I am trying not to start until I have caught up with everything else. My pupil had to cancel her class so I gained a day, which was handy as I “wasted” quite a lot of time advertising patchwork books for sale on Ebay. I decided not to auction them off for 99p and put Best Offer prices on them all. I sold a few and also one of the surplus typewriters but was disappointed that I had woefully under estimated the postage. 

At least I was in profit enough to splurge out on some more textile paint and marine life stamps from Colouricious. I was surprised that a parcel of blocks from India arrived fairly soon after I placed the order. (I didn’t mean to buy elephants but they were on a special offer!) I intend to plan some classes around a seaside theme for a beach based arts centre that has invited me to teach. I am delighted with the interlocking rubber playmats from Amazon that enable me to have a soft surface for wood-block printing over the entire table.

I spent an evening making crafty things with Nell’s Girl Guides - they enjoyed making pen pots from old jeans, mug mats and simple brooches. One of the leaders was able to take charge of the sewing machine for the jeans project but everything else was hand-sewn, which most found a bit tricky as they never get the opportunity to do anything with a needle and thread. I have a few classes with children coming up so I think I will combine some printing with simple stitching projects. 

Purdah1 was the last quilt in the series to get its faced edging. I have now written myself some scruffy notes on how I like to do this for future reference so I don’t forget. I need to run over this black quilt with a de-fluffing device as it seems to have collected every stray thread from my workshop. I am very impressed by how restrained this quilt is compared with Purdah3 which I think probably now has as much bling as it can withstand. I got my knickers in a twist overlocking the tissue organza that I wanted to overlay on top of each quilt. The overlocking was very neat but the tissue organza was so thin that it shredded if you just looked at it - considering that I need to sew it onto the quilts somehow and want to attach large sequins, I decided that it was useless and ordered some different organza from Ebay. The new, super-shimmery stuff arrived quickly and is far more robust. I printed some motifs onto it which are almost invisible until they are held up to the light. 

Freya needed a “toga” for a party but the costumes on Ebay looked trashy so I bought some cheap white fabric and looked up chitons and peplos on Google Images, remembering something about the attire of Classical ladies from my Latin O-level 30 plus years ago! Freya’s chiton was printed along the bottom hem, had some fancy Greek key embroidery around the cowl and brooches made from fake Roman coins in my button tin. 

My final challenge for the week was to recreate the mystery 1930’s block from my favourite feedbacks quilt. It is a bit of a mash-up of flying geese and Jacob’s ladder but I have not yet found the same block in any reference book. I drafted it onto 12” squared paper after giving up on EQ7 and Touchdraw as my computer drawing skills were not up to the task. I am not entirely sure why I thought the centre square should be a different size to the original which meant working out what size all of the components should be and my patchwork maths is not very good. I got a wonky block together in the end, figuring out the setting triangles by trial and error. The flying geese were bigger than they should have been and trimming them down chopped off their points. At least it allowed me to see how it went together. I decided to mess around with the centre square to see if I could get it to finish at a better size for calculating the size of the connecting geese and I decided to start with a 4-patch. So far it looks promising - I just need to finish it, write it all down, repeat to see if it works twice, then give it a name!

Double Wedding Ring Can of Worms

I have always admired double wedding ring quilts but having bought a couple of vintage, unfinished DWR’s on Ebay, I had never actually wanted to make one. They tend to be hand-pieced and have missing points, bulging areas and even holes. I have been asked to teach a novice quilter how to make a DWR for her daughter’s wedding and I admired her beginner’s enthusiasm so decided that I should have a crack at it myself in advance of the lesson. I used the Accuquilt Go DWR die set first. The instructions were not good and the pieces were rather small so I decided not to use that version for my pupil. I found some larger pattern pieces and decided to practise joining the bits using solid rings for speed. Sewing the curve is not so bad on a larger piece but getting the end squares to meet the melon points can be hit or miss. 

 

Once you have a set of reasonable rugby ball shapes the next challenge is getting them to attach to the large squashed square. Just out of curiosity, I might have a go at some sort of invisible appliqué method. I downloaded a PDF pattern for MetroRings from Sew Kind of Wonderful which works fairly well if you follow the instructions for their “Quick-Curve” ruler but I still found that the melons lost their pointy end. It really depends how picky you want to be - the old quilts that I have are full of bloopers if you go scrutinising but you really don’t notice them as part of a lovely, finished quilt.

I have certainly opened up a can of worms for myself - I am now determined to figure a way of making DWR quilts less fiddly, possibly by using larger templates. I have even had an idea for a potential quilt that I might regret later. 

I found time to give my modified Q24 ruler foot a whirl - a quilting friend, Brian, made me a prototype set of plastic inserts based on the HQ feet that did not fit the Bernina so I can now couch with finer yarns. It looks like this will work well so after a bit more practice maybe I will finally be brave enough to tackle BzB with some fancy couching. I bet couched fuzzy yarn could be be used to hide dodgy joins on a DWR melon!

Not convinced that Purdah3 was glitzy enough, I have hand-sewn some sparkly beads around some of the painted hexagons. I am going to try to finish tinkering with it this week so I can work out what to do with the organza layers but I am quite sure I will still be adding sparkles right up to the FOQ postal deadline. 

Part of Sunday afternoon was spent helping Fenella to produce a 3D version of a plant and animal cell for Science homework, as you do;) 

Purdah Progress

Technically, I only had a 3 day week in my workshop since I had a Quilt DIY lady one day and the kids started their mid-term break, which is always an excuse not to be busy. I was interviewed for an article in “Pretty Patches” magazine which should hopefully promote my Ebook, Deviant Quilting and I spent a couple of hours thinking about some new patchwork classes for which I will need to make samples and write a blurb. I have been asked to teach a beginner how to make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt! There are different ways of tackling this so I will need to work out the most successful. I had a go using the Accuquilt Go DWR dies but I decided the pieces were too small for a novice so I put them and some other redundant dies up for sale on Ebay. I have SO much stuff that I could put on Ebay/Gumtree/Facebook if I could spare the time;)

Not unexpectedly, Bloody Mabel, who had become geriatric and was gradually fading, just  went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Freya and I miss her more than we thought - she had an an unpredictable character, typical of a terrier, never to be trusted near poultry and eager to pick a fight if another dog looked at her askance. We took her in temporarily around 10 years ago and the dogs’ home estimated that she might be 3 years old so she had a reasonable innings, despite flying off a cliff at St Cyrus beach a few days after she arrived! Welly does not seem to miss his companion - he is still a doo-lally spaniel, aged 12 and I have resorted to keeping him on the lead since he likes to chase anything with wings for hours/miles, and across raging rivers, deliberately ignoring my shouts, whistles and treats. 

I sewed a facing onto Purdah 3 and a conventional black binding onto Purdah 2, hand-sewing the bindings onto the reverse. I am really pleased with the red and black quilt but despite adding 3 coats of pink Jacquard lumiere to Purdah 3’s hexagons in an attempt to get a depth of colour, it still does not seem finished. There are a few hot-fix crystals but I have a sneaking suspicion that it needs yet more bling. This may involve glitter, beads and trim of some glitzy description. People won’t actually see much of it hidden behind all of the layers but what glimpse they do get has to be absolutely glittering! I think I will just have to have a quick trawl online to see what trash I can find to add to the beads I already have…