Quilt Market Mash-Up

Posted on May 14, 2015 by edges

Quilt Market 2015 is in full swing in Minneapolis this year. If you’re not familiar with Quilt Market, it’s the place where all the fabric designers and fabric makers and product developers present their new products to potential buyers (shop owners).

It is a twice-yearly event, spring and fall. I am hoping to attend the one in the fall, but we’ll see as things get closer!

For this year, I am content to live vicariously through social media.

If you want to follow along with all the chatter and visuals and news, here are a few ideas for getting the scoop.

On twitter, instagram and facebook, follow the hashtags:

#quiltmarket #fqsquiltmarket #showmethemoda #modagoestomarket

Fat Quarter Shop’s blog site will be live tweeting, updating, creating youtube videos and much more.

Art Gallery Fabrics is streaming live at certain times during the show. Find out more here.

Want a visual overview? Head over to #quiltmarket’s Instagram stream.

That’s enough social media to hold me for awhile — especially since I’ll be working into the weekend. Have fun and enjoy all the new and exciting stuff out there!

Quilt Market Prep

Posted on April 13, 2015 by edges

It’s that time of year again. Quilt Market is coming up and the fabric designers and manufacturers are revving up their marketing engines. Come May 15-17, they will be at full throttle and social media will be abuzz with new product, new designs, new fabric and quilty fun.

But I’ve always loved a good preview.

And fabric manufacturers are getting good at it.

One of my favorites is Art Gallery Fabrics. Young, hip, fresh, at least by my standards. I love what new designers (read: young people) are doing in the industry. Art Gallery has released a Look Book of their new Spring 2015 fabric.

Take a look and let me know your favorites. Mine so far is Sketchbook and Happy Home, but I have to admit, I love them all and would be hard-pressed to choose.

Moda, the pop queen of fabric manufacturers, is also starting to tease some of their new lines. On their blog, we get a glimpse of the new Bonnie and Camille, as well as Minnick and Simpson, Zen Chic and Fig Tree Quilts.

Stay tuned, as I will try to distill some of the quilt market info as it becomes available. In the meantime, quilt on, friends!

New quilt in progress for my grand niece, pattern is free from Me and My Sister Designs. Fabric is Airmail, by Eric and Julie Comstock.

Polka Dot Finale

Posted on January 13, 2015 by edges

I am crossing the finish line.

Still sewing the binding, but the quilt label is done, the sleeve for hanging is complete and all I have left is the last bit of hand stitching to pull it all together.

The red background is twill, the tree is wool and the rest is cotton, with a wide variety of thread weights for applique.

For everyone who participated in the Polka Dot Fabric Exchange, I THANK YOU! Your fabric is lovely, especially when it’s pieced together with everyone else’s!

I really enjoyed challenging myself with this project, as it was a meaningful way of bringing together quilters from around the world.

For fun, I thought you might like to see the creative journey, step by step in images. Dedicated to quilters everywhere…we’re all on the same family tree!

Scribbling a thought at the breakfast table.

The fabric begins to come in from all across the US and the world.

I am moved by the notes attached to every fabric square, so I saved them.

Testing for applique.

Getting an idea of how the tree will look.

Transferring the drawing of the tree.

Cut out and fused down.

Leaves have been cut out and placed for position.

All appliqued, embroidered, quilted, just about done.

Hugs to my polka dot friends!

When Your Quilt Needs a Time-Out

Posted on December 26, 2014 by edges

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you know I participated in a polka dot fabric exchange last year. I received 60 – 10 x 10 in. squares of polka dot fabric from all around the world.

I resolved to include them all in a quilt somehow, and managed to cobble together a tree with the fabric as leaves.

But then I had to put the quilt in a “time-out”, as a friend of mine likes to say. Quilts need it, you know. They become unruly, arrogant, resistant. Or sometimes they just become passive or apathetic. Either way, when a quilt reaches that stage of behavior, it’s time to put it in time-out. It makes absolutely no sense to argue or to fight your way through. The quilt needs time to find its way.

So I put it in the guest bedroom where it could have some time alone to ponder its future.

I checked on it occasionally, offering ideas and solutions, a way out. But the quilt obstinately refused. “OK for you,” I would think. And walk away again, to work on another, more cooperative project.

For months it sat, sulking, pouting, depressed even.

Then one day, shortly before Christmas, when I walked in to check on it, the quilt looked eager. Just a hint of it, you understand, but there it was: a small little whisper of earnestness. It had formed an idea about its future.

So I listened.

And I let the ideas float around for awhile with no pressure or desire for any of them to be successful. Tentatively, we tried something. And then another thing, after that.

And now, the polka dot quilt and I are moving forward together, both listening, both asserting, both with renewed vigor.

I’ll let you know how it all works out.

I’m Biased.

Posted on November 11, 2014 by edges

When it comes to binding quilts, I have a new standard. I do my best not to use a straight cut binding any more.

Here’s why. About 14 years ago, I made a silly little Christmas quilt –stack and whack — and hand quilted the whole thing. For years this little quilt has been in our family room — thrown over the back of a sofa, strewn on the floor, used as a way to keep someone’s feet warm, folded and propped up as a pillow, and just generally loved to pieces. Literally.

It has been washed countless times.

And it is beginning to fall apart. How sad.

You can see the fraying. In some places, it’s worn clean through to the inside of the binding.

Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty frayed, even though the rest of the quilt is holding just fine. I used quilt shop quality fabric, so the fabric was not an issue.

But even quilt shop fabric cannot withstand the repeated agitation of the washing machine and pummeling of a hot dryer.

Think about this: when a binding is straight cut, the very edge that you see fraying on my quilt is really only about 2-3 strands of thread. All the abuse that quilts take is right on those edges, on those very few threads. Straight cutting your binding may be great for a wall-hanging or something that will have little handling and use.

But when you want your quilt to last and to withstand a little love (and cleaning), take the time to bias cut your binding. With a bias cut, binding is no longer dependent on just a few threads, but on the hundreds of threads criss-crossing those edges. SO much stronger.

A few tips:

–Take advantage of the special tools out there that will help you to conserve fabric while cutting your binding. The following picture includes the “Bias Binding Simplified” ruler from Creative Grids.

–Watch the video on the Creative Grids page, as she also makes my point about using bias binding. She gets to that explanation in the first 3 minutes.

–Try the “Quilter’s Strip Ticket” for Bias Tube Construction. That’s the red card shown below. You can get both of these tools at your local quilt shop. If not, for heaven’s sake, ASK them to order it. Using this method, you’ll waste very little fabric.

I love a striped binding, and the most recent quilt I finished was certainly completed with a bias binding. I am permanently convinced. Of course I am.

I had to live it myself to learn the hard way. As usual.

The Burden of Excess

Posted on October 3, 2014 by edges

I think I have been building a fabric fortress.

Between Ebola and ISIS, global warming, widespread violence, political inertia and general public apathy, I am exhausted. I am tired of worrying, tired of taking action against all odds, tired of challenging the status quo and tired of cleaning my house.

If only someone else would do all this work for me. Can someone else please solve world hunger, cure the diseases, make sure everyone has a safe place to live, keep my neighborhood safe, write the essays, pay the bills, do my laundry and cook the family’s dinner?

For awhile, can someone else go to work for me and comfort those who wander in and tell their stories, maybe help the woman whose husband is in the alzheimer’s care facility, chat with the lady who just lost her daughter to breast cancer, make the day brighter for the woman who is the only caregiver for her aging mom, and for that matter just generally fix all the brokenness and the heartache and worry and pain?

If you can give a hand here, that would be great.

Because I try to solve all of this with fabric. And I don’t think it’s working.

As a matter of fact, I think the fabric is suffocating me. That’s why I spent some time this past week clearing out a great deal of the fabric in my sewing room. I have come away with 3 giant bags of scraps: batiks, traditionals, solids, you name it.

And I am donating it to the next rummage sale.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have plenty of fabric on hand. I still have projects in the queue. I still have far more than I thought possible. I still have Sterlite bins full of lovely possibilities, full of the hope of one world-weary woman, assembling bits and pieces from random places and random lives and attaching them to one another with the audacity to believe that at some point it will become something, if not beautiful, at least useful.

I’ll never be able to part with it all.

Thank God.

But at least I let go of some of it.

Meditation Bowl

Posted on September 22, 2014 by edges

These bowls are enough to drive you sane.

With a little bit of practice, you can make these and they are useful, visually pleasing and mesmerizing to sew.

I start with 20 yards of cotton cording (generally found in the uphostery section). Traditionally, folks used cording like this as large piping or for drapery –home dec. sewing.

This particular cording, because it is all cotton is very soft, not rigid, like clothesline cord.

I used King Tut all-cotton variegated thread from Superior in both the top and bobbin.

Be sure to have more than 1 spool available. You go through quite a bit of thread. Set your machine to a nice wide zigzag…enough to cross over both sides of the cording.

Start in the center of the bowl and simply sew the cording together. Keep the cording to your right so you can feed it into the machine.

The bottom section of your bowl stays flat. As you progress, gently lift the side of the flat disk and continue sewing. This begins to form a shape.

Crazily, uncharacteristically, the sewing begins to feel like sculpture, like pottery. This is where the meditation kicks in.

You continue to sew at a relatively slow speed, always keeping your eye on the two cords. Is the zigzag always straight down the middle between the two?

You’ll be tempted to keep sewing while you glance away at the cording to see how much you have left. Don’t.

Stop sewing if you need to, but don’t take your eyes off the needle. Guarantee you will slip off track.

The beauty of the process is that if you keep going, you’ll ascend to a higher place. You”ll become a part of the hum, a part of the cording. Your hands will follow the movements automatically and you’ll feel the flow.

Your mind will calm and focus on just about 1 inch of space on the earth.

And when you are done, you will have created something very peaceful, very zen.

And it will be more than just a bowl. It will be the place where you put your effort for a while, and the time when you let your racing thoughts evaporate.

Namaste, friends.

Slow But Steady…Maybe Just Slow

Posted on August 29, 2014 by edges

Finally, between all the end-of-summer commotion and back to school and bus rides and new schedules and coordination, I found a few moments to sew.

I wanted to get back to the Polka Dot Tree project, which has been sitting on my machine for, I don’t know, months now.

I continued outlining the branches, using the triple blanket stitch. This is such a common stitch but is a little trickier to use than a simple blanket stitch. However, for my purposes, it stands out on the tree and branches so much better and has the look of hand stitching.

Throughout the project, I had the dual feed engaged and used a number 20 foot so that I could see exactly where I was going.

With the branches done, it looks a little more like a Halloween project than I was hoping.

However, after positioning some of the leaves, I got a better feel for the direction this project is headed. I guess that’s the beauty of designing and creating my own projects.

I have no idea how something is going to turn out til after it’s done.

With the polka dot leaves laid out, I am liking the patchwork/scrappy thing that’s happening. I am planning (at least at this point) to do some hand embroidery and hand stitching on the leaves, adding in some wools for dimension. You can just get a hint of some of the fabulous wools in the upper left-hand corner of the shot.

I won’t be able to start quilting til after all of that is complete.

Since the fabric on this quilt came from 60 different people around the world in a polka dot fabric exchange, the idea of being united is important to me. I am toying with the concept of adding a machine embroidery quote along the bottom. We’ll see. Ideas are easy. Implementation takes a little time.

Loyal Hearts – Civil War Quilters of Illinois

Posted on June 25, 2014 by edges

I don’t have much in common with my 12-year-old son any more. I don’t write Minecraft apps and he doesn’t embroider. My idea of fun is strolling through a lovely garden and his is slipping and sliding feet first down a water slide.

That’s OK. We venture into each others’ worlds often enough, and luckily we both love the art of conversation. Today we found a precious piece of common ground. He is a civil war aficionado and I am a quilter. And Illinois State Museum in Lockport is bringing both of these interests together in a stunning display until Oct. 17.

Please make the time to go visit. You won’t regret seeing these lovely pieces of history in person and reading the stories.

Just a few samples:

This white on white embroidery whole cloth piece is just stunning. Ask the docent to run the light over it or behind it to get the full effect. Something that had me just mesmerized was the way the cloth does not pucker from all the stitches. I’m still not sure why. The thread is heavy and the stitching is dense and very elaborate. A mystery that went to the grave with this woman.

This one was probably done 1912-1915. Hence the 48 stars. The women who assembled this would have been commemorating the local soldiers, and this likely was a raffle piece.

Detailed hand embroidery for every name on the quilt.

The young lady who created this quilt was from Aurora IL in Kane County. Her husband went off to the war and she stayed home with family and created this masterpiece.

It is speculated that she had ties to the general store and had access to precious fabric. Cotton was not easily obtained so she used wool.

My favorite piece, which is obviously one of the stars of the show is this Log Cabin quilt. The story is that the woman who made this quilt had sons in both the Confederate and Union Armies. Pieces of uniforms from both sides are embedded in the quilt.

I’m not sure why, but it never occurred to me that Illinois could lean both toward the North and toward the South. Chicago, of course was Yankee territory, but southern Illinois, down near the Kentucky border, was very much considered the south. Precisely what makes this quilt so very “Illinois” and so very poignant.

Finally, I had to include this gem. Taken from a note sent with a pair of socks, it is a civil-war era form of social media. Match.com-style. We gals haven’t changed so very much over the years, now, have we?

Fresh Projects and Fresh Strawberries

Posted on June 16, 2014 by edges

This is a project I worked on at work and at home for the June Bernina Software Sampler, which I teach. The project involved learning techniques for machine embroidery applique. The bud of the flower is part of the tutorial, but I went ahead and incorporated other elements as well, adding the stems, leaves etc. to create a simple but “summery” table runner. Once again, I was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest.

No pattern available, but for those of you with embroidery machines and Bernina Embroidery Software 7, it’s a piece of cake….well, once you work out the dimensions. The flower panels are 8 x 8 inches finished, and everything else falls into place after that.

(How many pairs of glasses does one sewist need? Hint: At one point I used them both.)

One of my favorite times of the year is when the strawberries are harvested at the local farm. Here’s a shout out to friends at Norton Farm. They are an important part of our summer! We’ll be waiting for the tomatoes, broccoli and finally the fabulous corn! I’m growing a few tomatoes and cukes out back, but the weather has been a little cool, so they are taking their time developing.

Here’s to the sweetness of summer! May we always appreciate the bounty!

Edgestitch

Sewing is life. Life is art.

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