Sans Sewing Machine

My sewing machine is being repaired.

For some time now, the stitches have been uneven. This didn't bother me while I was working on the Dead Guy quilts, which contained a mismatch of fabrics thick and thin, and had to be force-fed through the feed dogs.

But recently I've turned over a new fat quarter, as it were, and have been doggedly pursuing accuracy. So my odd stitches began to bother me. Plus, the cutter was no longer working, and my walking foot and darning foot squeaked.

So off I went to Penelope's and handed my machine in on the appointed day. Only to receive a phone call a few hours later saying that the place where you plug the power cord in was broken (it was fine when we left the house) and that the part had to be ordered (and it would be two weeks) and only then could they begin the repairs to the machine.

I was prepared to be without my machine for a week or so, just not a MONTH or so!

Yesterday I was losing my mind all day! Spent a good deal of the day looking at the possibility of buying another, simpler machine, to get me through the month.

"Do your knitting now!" "Do some baking now!" "Clean your sewing room!" "Work on your music now!" "Take a walk!"

Lots of helpful suggestions. But I am bouncing off the walls missing my sewing machine.

My friend has an extra machine, a small one she takes with her on retreats.

I don't go to retreats, they cost too much. So there goes that excuse.

It's my money and I can do what I like with it. 

Uh-huh. And I'm already broke.

Looking at "rentals" only brings me to places where you can sew in their establishment, not a machine I could bring home.

Sigh. It's gonna be a loooooong month.

Courtepointe Quebec Quilts Exposition: October 3-6, 2024

 

A new concept this year - quilters are permitted to PRESENT their quilts! Accordingly, I will be at the Salon presenting my quilt:

Friday, October 4, from 11:00-12:00

Saturday, October 5, from 11:00 - 12:00, and again from 1:00 - 2:00

Presenting means I get to tell people what the inspiration was, what materials I used and why, show off my hand quilting, etc. (I get to brag about my quilt!) 

Retirement Looming

Nine working days left - *gasp!* Nine days to freedom! Nine days till I can finally get quilting again!

My psyche did the *flip* about a month ago - what am I doing here (at work)? Am I having any lasting impact? Like a quilt that will last 100 years, lasting?

Or will my job be posted online before my obituary?

The call of the quilt, and the knitting, and the painting, simply got louder than anything I was doing for pay.

And we've celebrated the upcoming change by buying a new trailer and a new car to pull it!

Retirement can't loom fast enough!

Two Thirds!

Good morning! This is me writing my blog on a projection of a keyboard, while having my morning coffee, which is where I usually have most if my ideas for the day, promptly forgotten once coffee is over!

Of course, I can’t think of a single thing to say now...

And isn’t that often the way with life? We wish and wish for things, then when we have them, we forget to use them, or don’t bother to use them.

Here I am, all set up with a great big quilting floor stand, and a section of a room for sewing in. But is my Cousin’s quilt getting done? Not here! I have to go out with it, take it, and all my paraphernalia, to my friend’s Atelier Fiber Arts, and quilt there.

But human nature/laziness notwithstanding, the quilt is 2/3 completed! Yes, the hand-quilted queen sized quilt might actually get done this calendar year! I don’t know who will be more surprised - me, or my Cousin!

Vacation day 1

I'm off work now for twelve beautiful days in a row!

This morning, at five o'clock, when Boyfriend got up to face his workday, we chatted a bit, then got on to the topic of my plans for the day.

I said I was hoping to get some quilting done.

Boyfriend thought a moment (I could see the wheels turning), then said "Ok, and then how about putting away your stuff in the basement family room, dusting the downstairs, and straightening up your sewing room?"

He was attempting to get back at me for interfering with his plans for his days off, you see! Very cute!

Except that my list is always longer. I didn't say it then, but I'm saying it now:

Is that before or after I clean the bathroom, vacuum, empty and re-load the dishwasher, mow the front and back lawns after picking up the dog poop, wash, dry, fold and put away the laundry, wash the kitchen floor and some of the cupboard doors?

And after lunch...?

There are three of us living together now. A couple of weeks ago I put my foot down about cooking dinner. See, if I make a dinner, it's wholesome and nutritious, and takes into account the fact that these two diabetic men shouldn't have too many carbs. I plan what I'm going to make, I shop for what is needed or make a list for one of the guys to pick the stuff up, and I start cooking early enough that we're not eating at eight at night.

If they "cook," it's Harvey's or Miss Italia, or Benny's.

So we are trying out a new system, suggested by my Beautiful Daughter, called GoodFood.

There are 7 days in a week. We order in one of those days. That leaves six days, divided between three people: i.e. - we each have to make dinner two days a week.

So, since we get three GoodFood dinners a week, we each only have to come up with ONE meal per week out of our own brains.

We've finished one week, and it was more or less a success. I had to go out Tuesday night, so the men decided to go to Harvey's.

I really am a ball and chain in their way! They really don't care if they live or die, nor how young!

Ahem. I digress.

Today's jobs are well begun. The first load is through the washer and the upstairs has been vacuumed. Hubby says the lawn doesn't need mowing, so that lets him off the hook. It does need mowing, so lucky me, I get to do that as well, despite the fact that there are three of us living here, and I mow the lawn every week, and do all the vacuuming.

Now, there are lots of stressors in life, and most of them we can't change. Apparently, I can't get Hubby to understand the need for mowing and vacuuming. These have been bones of contention between us for over two decades, and I guess I just have to learn not to react in anger.

BUT I WANT TO SMACK HIM!

No, no, Debbie, "don't be negative" one of my BEST FRIENDS said to me last weekend!

Everyone blames me, because I get angry! I squawk. It's "blame the victim" time all over again! "Oh - you married a man who doesn't cook, doesn't clean, and doesn't do yard work? Your fault! You left him once, you knew what you were getting into when you went back, why are you yowling now?"

To be fair, it was accept his invitation or go live in a car.

At any rate, I simply can't go on like this. I've got to learn how to vacuum, scrub, mow and whatever...without getting angry.

Wish me luck.

Success at Warp, machine quilting and free-motion

Keeping track of warp and weft worked wonders for my quilt!

All the rows were absolutely painless to stitch together, since they were being sewn along the WEFT - the ever-so-slightly stretchy part of the fabric weave. I've never had rows go together so easily!

And there the joy began to fade...

Sandwiching this lap quilt, I damaged nerves in a couple of fingers, so I'm obviously doing something wrong there. But I dutifully did verticle, horizontal, and both diagonals, despite an e x t r e m e boredom with the process and a flaming desire to get AT it on the machine!

Came the day, I made myself attach the walking foot too. I don't know how you feel about the walking foot, but I absolutely hate using it. Nevertheless, reason prevailed over passion and I hooked it up. I had even used chalk lines to mark my diagonals! I've NEVER behaved myself so well!

That's when things went rapidly downhill.

The first thing that happened was that the walking foot snagged on every single basting line. Even when I lifted the foot to its maximum. So, so much for all that nerve-damaging basting: who knows what will hold and what will slip now?

The actual stitching was fine. Exactly on the points. But basically, I do three or four lines and I'm looking around for something else to do. It might be more fun if I could use an ordinary foot, but then layers would probably slip.

The simple fact is, sewing on a home machine simply isn't as much fun as I thought it was!

Over the years I've gotten used to hand-quilting, which, while slow, lets you fix small errors as you come up on them, is emotionally soothing, and your basting stays put.

This process was not soothing.

On to practising the free-motion part that was going to be in the blank squares of my Irish Chain quilt.

I dutifully made a small sandwich to practise on and pounced the chalk outline of the Scotch Thistle pattern.

Now, I don't do free-motion the way most people are instructed to... Leah Day on the web had a great tutorial that tells you to a) leave your feed dogs where they are, b) reduce the pressure on the presser foot, and c) turn the stitch length to 0.

It works wonderfully. A little bit of practise and I had gone all the way around my thistle. Perfectly. The tension was balanced (you have to make it around an 8 for free motion) and everything worked perfectly.

Except...

Except I don't have a stitch regulator on my home machine, so some of the stitches are small, and others are larger. Don't get me wrong - they're all "in the ballpark!" They're not radically different from each other...

I held my piece up to examine it at close range, and heaved a heavy sigh. Years of hand-quilting have spoiled me. I like my stitches to all be the same size!

I suddenly had an image of the meeting room where I used to attend our quilt guild, filled with familiar faces of people who love quilting. I remember talking about my machine quilting and how much fun it was, and especially trying to convince the ladies to try some free-motion quilting.

I clearly remember how their faces all became polite, blank masks, and I remember wondering what was wrong with these people that they couldn't get excited about this process!

Ahem. Now I know. They like all their stitches to be the same length. They don't like their laborious basting to get ripped out as they're sewing. In hand-quilting, you have absolute control. With a home machine that doesn't have a stitch regulator, it's simply not perfect.

Good enough - to be sure! Nothing the uninitiated would see, only quilters would see the problems!

But not perfect.

Sigh.

Warp, Weft, Weeping and Wizardry

I'm starting a new quilt, a very simple pattern: a single Irish Chain.

That means alternating blocks of 9-patches and squares. In this case, my 9-patches finish at 6.5 inches, and I have 6.5-inch squares in white. The 9-patches are in mixed tones and patterns of yellows. This is for my other cousin, whose favourite color is yellow, and he's older than me, and I had to use something I could do quickly!

But this time I tried, really tried, to use my noggin. For a change.

I started off cutting my white 6.5-inch strips the easy way, how you get it from the store, folded cleanly with the selvages meeting...It's a white-on-white, and it's not floral, it's geometric. Rectangles and faint lines.

My first (easy) cut was less than satisfactory, however, as the lines in the fabric didn't line up with the cut edges I had so carefully measured.

That was when I made myself stop and consider the problem of warp and weft.

The warp fibers are the ones firmly attached to the ends of the loom, at the top and bottom, as it were. In cotton, there is virtually no stretch at all along the warp, because these threads are pulled tight, tight, tight.

The weft is the horizontal threads, pulled through with the shuttle. As the shuttle reaches one end, it is turned back to go the other way. This leaves a finished edge, originally called a "self-edge," now shortened to selvage.

There is a little give in the weft - in a line from selvage to selvage. A teensy, ever-so-small bit of give.
Cotton fabric, even the best quilting cotton, stretches a bit along the weft.

Now, as quilters, we are all concerned with controlling stretch. And when I started off quilting many moons ago, I made every effing mistake it was possible to make concerning stretching my fabric!

I ironed the bejeezuz out of it with steam - which served to set in plenty of distortion. I pinned it up the yin-yang, which created lumps and bumps. I didn't cut accurately, which meant none of my squares or triangles ever fit, and I sewed a generous 1/4 inch seam instead of a scant 1/4 seam, which meant I had no room at all to square things off.

None of my blocks lined up with each other, and I was in tears most of the time. Because I didn't understand how fabric stretches, and how to use that knowledge to my advantage.

So on this day,  I stopped cutting along the selvage (weft) of my fabric and took the time to open it up, turn it around, cut it into manageable-sized pieces and cut my 6.5 inch strips along the line of the warp.

And after that, I turned my strips over and drew a chalk line the length of that warp strip, so that when I cut it into squares, I'd be able to tell immediately which direction would stretch, and which direction wouldn't.

Now, when I go to sew my alternating blocks into rows, I will put my 9-patch up against the warp side of the square. Because I can tug at the 9-patch to make it fit the square, and the square isn't going to stretch vertically.

When I go to attach the rows, I will be using the faint stretch of the weft to compel the blocks to line up with each other at the seams.

In this way I am using the natural stretch to my advantage, for a change.

Pictures if it works!

UFOs

G R O A N . . . 

Un Finished Objects

I am currently (supposed to be) making a quilt for my cousin. It is sandwiched, and I have begun quilting, but it got put on hold for...

A baby quilt, because my cousin's son became a daddy! And at the same time as that happened, I received a birthday present of the accuquilt tools for appliqué, so I thought I'd just whip out a quick little baby quilt for my new first-cousin-twice-removed...

Now, the green leaves are actually part of the print the leopard is on. But the white leaves and the purple leaves are from other fabric, and I had to cut them out individually. There are twenty of those around the leopard. Twenty appliquéd leaves around each animal on the quilt, six animals in all.

It's taking an eternity.

To top that off, there was another little baby born at very nearly the same time, to Boyfriend's family, and I gaily thought, "oh, I'll just make two at the same time!"

Hah! Boyfriend's little nephew will be getting a substantially simpler quilt!

But in the middle of trying to make the two baby quilts, it became Boyfriend's birthday, and I had promised to make him a chest protector for archery.

So the baby quilts stopped while the chest protector got made. And the birthday party was had.

Now the birthday is over, the baby quilting has resumed, and I have high hopes my cousin will get her quilt by christmas.

I dearly hope.

Courageous L'il Ole Me

The 2016 Quilt show in Montreal has finished. It was spectacular! I was exhibiting one quilt, "In Spite of Dread and Doubt and Tattle-tale." I am never under any illusions about my quilts winning anything - I'm far too careless.

It is true - I get impatient when I'm quilting. I change my plans part way through, I can't be bothered to switch thread colors...my name is Debbie and I am an impatient quilter.

I always ask for my quilts to be judged though. There are three judges who view each quilt separately and give marks for certain criteria and written comments.

My marks have stayed pretty consistent for a decade. I'm not going to divulge them, (apparently I have some pride) but suffice it to say that, had I had marks like that in high school, I would have had a lot more friends!

I am most pleased with the written comments though. The judges clearly took their time studying my piece. It can't have been easy for them, because there is such a variation between the great parts of my quilt, and the less-than-great parts.

But one thing all three judges said was how courageous I was to put text in my quilt. (Most of the actual "quilting" - the bit where you sew all three layers together - is done in text.)

And several people who I know from the two guilds I've attended met up with me and asked me how I did so much text.

So I thought I'd describe my "courageous" technique!

So I will use this quote as my example: "When all is dark within the house, who knows the monster from the mouse?"

I did the text first, before going back over the quilt and filling in the spaces left unquilted.

So first I had to mark the writing on the quilt. The easiest way to practise this (because practise actually helps!) is to use a small quilt sandwich with white fabric. Mark the words with a graphite marker or just a pencil if you're going to be sewing in dark thread. That color combo is the easiest way to mark.

Of course, I didn't have that option. I had to use the blue water-soluble marker for the orange and pink backgrounds of the quote. Where the color switches to dark purple, I had to use a white marker.

Those white markers are tricky to work with though, because you have to go over them multiple times, and it takes up to ten seconds for the white marks to start to show. So you have to be patient when using them.

Once you have your text written out to your satisfaction, you have to use a hoop. You will be using your preferred method of free-motion quilting. Some people drop the feed dogs, I don't. I use the method proposed by Leah Day, where you set your stitch length to zero. She explains it better than I can!

Doing the text as quilting, you really have to put it in a hoop. Some smaller hoops you can put in place simply by lifting your presser foot manually, larger ones are a bit trickier. You have to put the outer ring of the hoop under the presser foot first. I turn it so it's standing up - that way it's not even 1/4" thick - and slide that under the foot. Then you do the same for the inner ring. Finally you shove your quilt in and get it all settled in the hoop, with you writing hopefully contained within it. If the writing extends, well you sew up to where you can't sew any more, and stop with needle down, so you don't have to make a lump backing up over your stitching.

Then you move the hoop around the fabric. Your quilt is held in place by the needle. You move the hoop around the next bit you want to sew, lock it all in again, and do the next bit.

That's it. Not rocket science. Why do we put the outer ring in first? Well, you want the fabric you're sewing on to lay flat against the bed of the sewing machine. If you put the inner ring in first, your fabric will be floating above the bed of the machine.

Now one of the comments from one of the judges was that perhaps I should take a bit more time to plan. And I wholeheartedly agree. Had I planned everything out in this quilt, you'd be able to read all the writing clearly, and it would look more cohesive.

It's actually, as it is, a pretty good representation of my thought...er...process (if you can call it that!). As in, there is precious little process to any of my thinking. Like the bits of text that are very difficult to read because there is so little contrast between the color of the thread and the color of the background. I know what it says, and my friend who is the recipient knows what it says...and if you read the book (The White Deer, by James Thurber) you'll know what it says! But if I had planned it out properly, and taken just a wee bit more time, everybody would have been able to read it.

My marks suit the quilt perfectly. I am content.

And I still love my quilt, imperfections and all!

(If you want more pics of this quilt, see this posting!)

Almost a YEAR!!!

I was stunned to see that the last time I posted was darned near a full year ago! Of course, this year has been an eventful one for me - my Beautiful Daughter got married in October. And that meant my sewing room went out of commission sometime last July, because I was doing the wedding cake.

I haven't touched a quilt since last July. Oh, except once or twice I dragged the queen-sized quilt I'm hand quilting for my beloved Cousin...But really, since July, there has been no appreciable momentum.

I did have a bit of an epiphany when I sat in my sewing room a month ago, gazing in despair at all my fabric and tools, wondering how to make sense of it all, when it occurred to me that the first thing I had to do was stop buying fabric.

I have enough to "see me out," as a Friend so aptly put it tonight! I realized that I don't have time to make all the quilts in my mind, that I have to knuckle under and finish the really important ones, because that's all I've got time for. Seriously, I was never a fast quilter to begin with! And I'm slowing down every day! Tick tick tick tick tick...

Well, all that aside, Thursday May 26th (tomorrow as I write this) the BIG quilt show opens in Montreal, with exhibitors from all over Quebec. They hold this show every two years, and nearly 400 quilts are exhibited.

I have one quilt in the show - "In Spite of Dread and Doubt and Tattle-tale." (the link takes you to my blog with pictures.)

But I am most excited by the prospect of being inspired.

I get ideas all the time, but inspiration is more than just having an idea. Inspiration makes you actually WANT to get out of bed, makes you look forward to getting working on a project.

I can't wait to see the exhibits. I'll probably go all four days. And this year I'm bringing some friends to come see it WITH me - a rare treat, as I usually end up doing this all by my lonesome. I don't have company for all four days, but for two of them, and that's not bad!

But I'm staying away from the vendors. There is nothing I need, except to be inspired.

Love those letters, Baby!

So my last post dealt with doing free-motion lettering as the actual quilting. This time, I'm doing letters as reverse appliqué on a baby quilt. And for some reason, I feel the need to share this process!

Here is how I do it.

1. Choose your letters and cut them out. Lay your letter down on your fabric.

Here is my letter "C," atop my color fabric. Since this is reverse appliqué, the letter C will be in white, underneath this light blue batik. But you draw the outline on the top fabric, which, counter-intuitively, is actually called the "background fabric!" Yes, this is reverse appliqué, and the background fabric is on the top. I am using a purple air-soluble marker.

2. Here it is, all outlined.

If you're smart - not like me, I always forget this step! - you'll now make a small clip somewhere inside the letter, so that after you've got it sewn down and you want to trim away the batik to let the white show through, you'll have a wee hole to start with. I always forget to do this, which means that later on I have to struggle to separate my layers.

3. Now I put my white fabric onto some lightweight fusible stabilizer. I iron the stabilizer to the back of my white fabric, and I used a teflon pressing sheet over it.

There are three layers here - the fusibe, which I'm folding a bit with my thumb to show it, the fabric, a white-on-white print, and then up there by my middle finger is the teflon sheet.

The reason I'm sticking it to fusible is to waste less of my white fabric, because it will be cut of and discarded. With the white fabric attached to the fusible, I can put it in a hoop to do the sewing. I have done it without a hoop and don't recommend it. Nice even tension in a circle all around the letter works best.

4. Here we are all hooped and ready for the first stitching.

I set my stitch length very small - the setting on my machine says 1.2. One-point-two what I'm not exactly sure, but here it is seen from the back.

And here it is next to a ball point pen so you can see the scale.

5. Now you have to clip away the part of the "background" fabric (blue batik) that's covering the white fabric, trimming as close as you can to the fine stitching. (And here's where it would have been helpful to have made that little snip at step 1!)

Once it's all clipped, back into the hoop we go for the satin stitching.

6. The satin stitching needs to be wide enough to cover the line of stitching and the cut edges of the fabric. A lot of people make it too tight though.

I have to say, not bad for a camera phone! Anyway, there's the line of tiny stitches, and you can see the needle and about three of the zig-zag satin stitches. You've covering the stitching and the cut edges.

Satin stitching done...

7. Now it's time to trim away the excess white fabric.

You'll notice I'm holding my "background" blue batik fabric away while I cut. Be careful, or you'll end up having to start all over!

You can then neaten everything up on the back side, make all the allowances even.

And there you have it, all ready for a nice press.

In Spite of Dread and Doubt and Tattle-Tale

I finished a quilt! Here's a lousy picture... Oh, and if you click on the pics, you'll get a larger view.

A long time ago, a former Boyfriend gave me a book tape of the story The White Deer by James Thurber. Thurber was a great humorist, and the story is hilarious and poignant.

It's about a king and his three sons who go hunting in an enchanted forest, chasing a beautiful white deer. When they bring it to bay, it transforms into a princess. But the lovely lady doesn't know her name, so they can't bring her to her father's kingdom and they don't know what to do with her. Eventually the king orders her to send his sons each on a perilous labour, and the first to return would marry her. (The exact words are "Nothing like marriage to bring a woman to her senses!)

Throughout the story all the characters are trying to figure out who the lady is, and one of them tells a story about a true deer who happened upon a wizard who had tumbled into a stream and saved his life. In return for this good deed, the wizard had given the deer the power to change into a maiden in the event that it was hotly pressed. This particular deer did just that, and asked the wizard how it could remain a woman. The wizard had given her the power to remain a woman until such time as love had failed her thrice, whereupon she would resume her true form, come what may.

Eventually everybody in the story comes to believe that this is exactly what has happened to their lady - that she is not actually a princess, but an actual deer of the woods.

It's not true, but I don't want to spoil it any more! Suffice it to say there is quite a twist in the tale and a happy and surprising ending.

I have loved this story for years and played it to anyone who was willing to sit through a book tape. It's about three hours long in all - like a rather long movie - but very few people are willing to sit still and listen for that length of time. I love long movies, and long stories, and I love sitting still and listening to beautiful things, so I play this tale over and over. It's actually perfect for a drive to Ottawa or Toronto, but I digress.

The former Boyfriend who gave it to me has cancer. First it was prostate, then it went to the bones. He's just finished a year of chemo, during which he was told he had an expiry date of this coming August.

That's when I decided to make him this quilt. It is quilted with my favourite lines from the story and some imagery as well.

Here is the white deer at the moment she transforms. Look very carefully and you will see the writing along the edge of the mountain "By night and day the White Deer shines, betwixt the Mountain and the Mines."

So yes, I sewed each and every one of those letters in separately. Ugh! But that wasn't the hardest part!

That's thread-painting folks. "In such confusion and caprice, who knows his hound-dog from his neice?" That must have taken me three weeks alone!

You can see the reverse-appliqué stars under that text. 

There's the castle - isn't it simply delightful? It's all wobbly and silly - just like the characters in the story!

Here we see "Scribendum Est," one of the rules of the kingdom. It means a thing must be written down in order to exist. After my many years in a service facility, I laugh every time I hear that phrase, when I think of how people have to fill out forms! If it's not written down, it don't exist!

Beneath that you see the barking tree. Remember, we're in an enchanted forest! There are a few phrases showing here, or showing partially. Prince Jorn's rhyme shows on either side of the barking tree: "What's black is white, What's red is blue; What's dark is light, What's true is true."

And a part of a hilarious line shows under the tree. It's the king complaining after the deer has transformed, and the full line is "Swing her to your saddle, Jorn, and we will serve her at our table in another way than I had hoped!"

This is the seven-headed dragon of Dragor! Yes, they are machine appliquéd. Seven of them. Took ages! Prince Gallo's comment shows partially on the right "I tell you the dragon has to be wound up - with a great big key!" Oh, and notice the deer tracks meandering beneath the dragon.

This is a sundial and its happy legend. The character of Taco, who told the bleak tale that the lady was nothing more than a deer of the woods, keeps writing dark rhymes for his sundials because he's nearly blind. But at the happy end of the story he finally creates a happy verse: "As slow as time, as long as love, the Rose, the Fountain, and the Dove."

And finally, the chalice filled with a thousand rubies, that Prince Jorn presents to the princess, with his declaration of love, "You hold my heart."

I call the quilt "In Spite of Dread and Doubt and Tattle-tale" because I want to tell my former Boyfriend to cling to hope. Yes, the cancer metastasized, and yes he had to endure a year of chemo.

But I am pleased to report that in his recent spate of tests, it so happens that the cancer has not grown this year. So, in spite of dread and doubt and all the things people say about cancer, he has a little more hope this year than he did last year.

So his expiry date has been moved back, and he will have time to enjoy his quilt.

I plan to have the quilt registered. It may not be everybody's cup of tea, and I'm pretty sure people will have a hard time knowing how to classify it. After all, "art" quilts aren't usually so structured. But I think of it as art.

The Dreaded Cleanup

I'm a scatter-brain. And my sewing room reflects this fact.

Or at least it did till yesterday.

My beloved Cousin C came to see me, and, more to the point, came to help me clean up my sewing room.

I needed the help.

I had tried on my own to organize my fabrics - I did, in fact, have them separated into solids, prints, batiks and specialty fabrics. But a couple of weeks ago I watched a webinar where the speaker said she further broke her stash down into color sets. (Blue/purples, blue/greens, yellow, reds, etc.) So my Cousin sent me off to the dollar store to obtain smaller trays than the storage boxes I had been using.

We put things away, we sorted fabric, and sorted fabric, and threw things out, and sorted more fabric. Old UFOs came out to haunt me, every time I thought we'd seen the last of the half-heartedly begun projects, another bag would peek out at us from the corner where it had lain forgotten for a year or two...It was getting embarrassing.

She made me deal with every single thing in that room, no matter how much I begged for mercy. And wouldn't let me just toss stuff into any old container. I did try, a few times, but she'd heave an exasperated sigh at me and make me pick it up again and put it where it really should go.

A moment's thought. That's what it takes. A single, focused moment of actual grey matter processing time. That's what it takes to actually put things away.

I'm now casting my mind back to earlier this year, when Daughter's Fiancé J helped me clean my sewing room too. He had less time, having only an afternoon, and less experience getting me to do what I was told than Cousin C, who has known me all her life! I do not wish to belittle the help I received from J. But this was a much bigger deal. C was not going home till the job was completed to her satisfaction. And she doesn't fall for ploys, or pouting, or crying...And she definitely does not have my scattered-brain tendencies! She can see what needs to be done.

And I am so grateful! Now I have a tidy sewing room where I know where everything is, and I'm looking forward to this weekend to be able to get in there and...

...mess it up a bit?

And then put stuff away!

Fitting a Border - without bordering on a fit!

I've known the theory for some time now, about how to properly fit a border to a quilt top. And by "properly," I mean so that they're not wavy, but instead lie flat.

You take the vertical and horizontal measurements through the center of the quilt top - not the top, bottom, or sides.

That's because the edges get distorted. The closest measurement you will get to the "true" measure of the quilt top is through the center.

Once you have that exact measurement, you cut your borders that same exact length. You pin one of the borders to the quilt, with a pin in each end, and you find your centers and you pin all along the length of the edge, making the quilt edge fit the border. Sometimes this involves (gasp!) s t r e t c h i n g the quilt edge, sometimes it involves gathering it. Note: if there seems to be a lot of either, check your measurements again.

Today was the first time I had to wiggle the quilt to get it to fit the border - a testament, I guess, to either the care with which I had constructed previous quilts, or to the lack of care with which I constructed this one!

*Ahem. I digress!

If you don't do this process, you get borders that look like they're drunk, or you were, when you made them. The quilt never lies flat. And it's not actually that much more work to do properly. Yet I know quilters who routinely bypass this step, because they're in a hurry.

You can never be in a hurry when you're working on a quilt. Every skipped step will show, and you simply won't be as happy with the final result as you would have been had you done it "Comme il faut!" as they say here in Quebec! (the way it's supposed to be done.)

Anyway, I did it, and it worked, and my borders lie flat, and I'm happy as a clam!

Connecting

I am currently in Louisiana, visiting my father, who has just been widowed after 45+ years of marriage.

My stepmother was from down here (the deeeeeep south!) and she had four children of her own when she married my daddy, so I have two step-sisters and two step-brothers.

Well, around 35years ago Mother made me a quilt. I was in my twenties (and that's all I'm saying about that!). She and Daddy had come up to Canada for a visit, and they brought with them one of Mother' neices, a lady called Fay. Mother had the quilt all sandwiched when they got in the car and set out to drive to Montreal, a three-day trip. (Note: it might take a normal person five days, but Daddy was a bit of a maniac behind the wheel in his heyday!)

We'll, Mother sat in the co-pilot's seat, and Fay sat behind her, and each of them took a needle and started working furiously on that thing for the duration of the drive to Montreal.

And they did it! By the time they pulled up in our driveway, they had hand-quilted a queen-size quilt!
Sure, some of the stitches were a tad large, and not every seam was done...it was a pattern if hexagons made into diamond shapes. Some of the little hexagonal inside seams didn't get done, but it has held together for all these years, despite some rude treatment by yours truly...

See I knew absolutely nothing about quilts at the time I received this wonderful gift. It went through the washer, and yes, I am sorry to report, it went through the dryer as well. Till about a decade ago, when I began quilting and I suddenly realized the value of what I had. Then I started treating it with a tad more respect!

Well, about three years ago my step-sister asked me to come down south and visit my daddy and my stepmother while they both still knew who I was. See, they both had either Alzheimer's or dementia, and their faculties were slipping away visibly. While I was down on that visit I told my step-sister the story of the quilt, and she couldn't hold back her tears, because apparently, though my stepmother sewed her heart out on her machine every day of her life till she got sick, she never made a quilt for her children.

We'll, I started looking at that quilt differently after that. See, being a child of divorced parents, I know how the parent you don't live with becomes kind of super human in a child's eyes, having no discernable faults in the eyes of the child. And the same process happens to parents. So, because I was the child that was far away, I kind if became set on a bit of a pedestal. I'm very much afraid that my father and stepmother probably talked a lot about me to their children. It was more than likely a case of "Debbie-this" and "Debbie-that" for all the long years they lived in Louisiana. And that is why I received the gift of a quilt when none of them did.

We'll, my stepmother passed away last Sunday morning, and the family flew me down so I could be here with them and with my daddy, who is quite far gone in Alzheimer's now. And I brought the quilt down with me and gave it to the sister who has been caring for them in her home, who had wept that her Momma had never got around to making any of them a quilt.

Of course she cried again when I gave it to her, but this story doesn't stop there.

At Momma's funeral I met up again with Fay, and we clung on to each other for dear life and wept our hearts out. I don't know anything about Fay' life before or since that one summer I met her, but being a woman over 50 I could see she had endured some hardship in her life. We clung to each other, two women connected by the life of one woman, and by the quilt Fay had helped her make for me.

And seeing her, and helping care for my dad, and just being around my step-family, has been just like tying a knot and burying the threads of a quilt. It is the end of a story, the finishing-up of one pattern, the securing in place of bonds.

If I can, I'll post a picture if the quilt before my day on the blogathon, but I'm doing this from my cellphone and it's pretty hard! I hope you all enjoy the blogs that link us as quilters together, and more importantly, enjoy making those quilts for the people you love, and who love you. http://sewsisters.blogspot.ca/p/blogathon-canada-is-back.html

Batman Oven-Mitt Covers

As you can see, the Batman oven-mitt covers got a great reaction! So here's the palm side...

and here's the back of the hand side...

Notice the grey drop-shadow on the text! So, all this is machine appliqué, done in satin stitching. Yes, I used fray-stop on everything, but a little word of warning about Fray-stop...

It can change the color of your fabric slightly. Even if your fabric has been previously washed. Now, since these are to be used on oven mitts, they're likely to get washed frequently and vigorously, so believe me, I laid the Fray-stop on pretty thick! I poured some Fray-stop into a small container and used a Q-tip to apply it to the edges of the fabric.

If you're going to use Fray-stop, I'd recommend laying your piece down on a scrap fabric, lighter than your piece, or else using a teflon pressing sheet as the background while you apply it.

You can hasten the drying time with a dry iron - I'm REALLY impatient!

My only regret is that I did "Pow!" on both mitts. Half way through the second one I thought, gee, I should have done "Bam!"

Oh well.

And here's the Venn Diagram...

First, I wish to remind all readers that I did not design this. The Owner is a fellow by the name of Crispian Jago and the image is from his blog, http://www.crispian-jago.blogspot.com.

So the pieces started out as squares or rectangles with the shape the words had to fit into drawn in disappearing marker. Then I used the text function on my sewing machine to sew the words onto each piece, and finally trimmed to within 1/8 of an inch of the outline. I used temporary spray adhesive to stick the pieces down to the background and outlined each piece in a plain stitch, after which I went over them with two rows of satin stitching.

On the front, in the bottom right-hand corner, you can make out Crispian Jago's name and blog site. I didn't do it in a bright color, but it's visible.

I have only to make a label for the back and a sleeve, and then it's ready to be given to the lady at work who said she wished she had a copy of it.

Perhaps a bit over the top - I could have just printed it out for her! But I bought that particular sewing machine because it could do letters, and it's been ages since I've done any raw-edge appliqué.

My daughter was quick to ask me why some of the words showed on the back and some didn't. Of course, that's because I didn't have my wits about me after I'd appliquéd the diagram onto the dark blue background. I was in such a hurry to sandwich it and do the satin stitching I forgot to do the words on the blue background until after I had sandwiched it!

It'll never win any awards, but I hope it helps my friend remember me as she starts a new phase of her life.

So many quilts, so little time!

Here I am at my home-made quilting frame from my previous post.It worked, for basting purposes. For quilting though, it was a bit low - I prefer the quilt close to me. I found, even for basting, that I was bending down a lot. That increases my "hump" and my tendency to migraines. So if I were to do this, I'd need to raise the height somehow. In it's current higglety-pigglety configuration, that would be a tad unstable - balancing tv dinner tables on large books, etc. So for now it's back to the hand frame. Any day now, I hope to start the actual quilting...but read on...

I've been trying out a very modern project for an acquaintance who is leaving my workplace soon. She had seen a printout I had stuck on my wall called " The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense." She looked it over and said "I wish I had that!"

So I started to make it. My machine has alphanumeric stitches, and I usually use it to make quilt labels. This calls for a lot of words on fabric, but I've been longing to start doing the types of quilting I did when I first started - thread painting, words on fabric, raw-edge quilting... I saw this as a "back to my roots" project after so many years in my guild learning the (necessary, but boring!) basics.

See the link above to get to the site.

Well, it's a LOT of words! And the machine does do two sizes of letters, but it's an extra button to push to get the smaller ones, so I'm doing my best to make it all fit in the normal text size. I'm 3/4 of the way through my first attempt. I have one month before she leaves the university, so I'm hopeful of getting it done it time.

Then there's a belated birthday present for my one-day-to-be-son-in-law. I've got as far as buying the fabric, washing and ironing it, and printing the pattern. But he's going to be around longer than my friend from work, so I kinda bounced his gift a little lower in the line. No picture for this one - it's a secret! Shh!

And yesterday I received the news that a very, very dear friend of mine will be undergoing chemotherapy and radiation this month. I had been working on a design for a quilt for him, and I fear I may need to really put on a burst of speed to get it done in time for him to have the use of it.

So who knows when I'll be able to do my dear Cousin's quilt? There seem to be an awful lot of projects, with shorter and shorter deadlines!