My Checkered Embroidery Career

Until about a year ago I would have doubted your sanity if you suggested I do hand embroidery.  You see, I was traumatized as a young girl by an embroidery needle, a toaster cover from W. T. Grant stamped with a blue pattern, and a determined mother who insisted I hand embroider Christmas gifts for my aunt.  It was NOT a pleasant experience.  And I was forced to work on a mixer cover, too!  I recall the pattern featured a cuckoo clock with a demented looking bird popping out of it. The toaster cover sported a rooster.  Here’s one similar to my childhood nightmare. (And someone’s asking $19 for it.  Maybe I should tell my aunt.)

Then, I signed up for a Craftsy course called “Stupendous Stitching” which called for some extemporaneous hand embroidery, using big stitches and perle cotton.  Well, once I didn’t have to deal with floss that refused to separate (and why on earth is it made that way?) and those trite blue stamped patterns I kind of got into it.  Lazy daisies, French knots, stab stitches, fern stitch – bring them on.  And I got to decide where to put my stitches.

Here’s a pillow I made using that class’ techniques – couching, machine decorative stitching, hand embroidery, and quilting.

Lest you think I hate fine embroidery, I don’t.  I know one woman whose work is exquisite.  She wins blue ribbons.  It’s just not my thing.

Blasts from the Past

It’s hard to remember a time when a quilter’s biggest problem wasn’t choosing among a plenitude of fabric, but was finding all cotton fabric suitable for quilts. And then the choices usually were between little calico prints.  So, SQ was surprised to uncover some old fabric that didn’t fit that description when she was going through an enormous fabric donation to her guild.  Actually, one piece is redolent of its period, so let’s get that out of the way first.

Here’s a piece of Thimbleberries fabric from 1995.  The line is called Christmas Valley.  Now, I know some folks love this fabric, but why would anyone want to use this dreary stuff with all the wonderful fabric out there?  And I own fabric from the 90s so I know it wasn’t all this drab.

Now that I’ve maligned the Thimbleberries lovers, let’s move on to a fabric line I never knew existed – Nancy Crow’s for John Kaldor.  I assume it’s from the 1990s as well.  I don’t know about the plaid one, but I love the wavy stripe and the purple/violet piece that’s practically a quilt in itself.

Finally, the trove contained three pieces of fabric from Jeff Gutcheon’s American Classic line.  Each is quite different – a small print, a delicate floral, and an eyeball numbing swirly number.  At one time, maybe the 1980s?,  Jeff and his then wife Beth were big names in the quilting world.  Jeff has pretty much left Beth and quilting behind to concentrate on his music.  I gather this line was one of the first expressly made for quilters.

Update 8/29/13:  Here’s a link to a piece about the death of Jeff Gutcheon.

Please get in touch if you know anything about these fabrics and/or are interested in adding them to your collection.  My guild would be happy to entertain offers.

Reflections on the Quilting Life

When I reorganized some bookshelves I found an old copy of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.  A former boss had given it to me, and had even inscribed it. Always looking for an excuse to stop working, I started paging through the book and was struck by how applicable Dillard’s comments on writing were to quilting.

She talks about how hard it is to jettison work you’ve labored hard over even though it’s a failure.  How reluctant you are to abandon it because you know how much work was involved.  She says writing is life “at its most free…because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself.”   All this sounds like the frustrations and joys of quilting to me – at least quilting when you’re making it up as you go.

Here’s just one of the quilts I refused to call DOA even when I should have.  I kept adding things, thinking just one more bit would make the difference.  Well, it never turned the corner.  At least I really love the backing material.

Paper Piecing Wizardry

If you’ve looked at my finished quilts page (you have, of course) you know I do paper piecing.  I turned to that method after my efforts to evolve into a perfect piecer hit a brick wall at barely adequate on the piecing meter.  So I was excited to come across Deb Karasik’s website.  This lady is not afraid of color in her paper pieced creations.  Exuberant is the word that comes to my mind when I look at her work.  Now, I’d love to show you samples of her work, but I’m somewhat intimidated by the notice on her website about reproducing the pictures without Deb’s permission.  Just click on the link above and see for yourself.

Anyway, besides selling tools and patterns of her work, Deb offers some free stuff.   Scroll down her home page to get to that link.  Free patterns, hubba, hubba.  I really want to make “Turning Over A New Leaf” and have downloaded the PDF files.  Bet I could make one for each season – pale green, dark green, reds/yellows, don’t know what I’d do for winter.

I’ve given myself permission to post a picture of one of my paper pieced quilts.  It’s from a Nancy Mahoney scrap quilt book.  And I’m sure you noticed it’s also about leaves.

Quilting Makes the Quilt

It’s really hard to see the quilting in most pictures of quilts, which is frustrating.  I look for all the examples I can get as it’s the quilting that can take a quilt from fine to fabulous.  Since I’m not even up to novice level at free motion quilting I’m always excited when I come across pictures of quilting that’s achievable with a walking foot.  Thank you, Google and Bing image searches, and modern quilters who think straight lines are just fine.  Of course, nothing beats seeing the quilts in person.  I guess that’s why my quilting friends are always up for road trips to shows.

The quilt at the top was exhibited at FAVA in Oberlin, Ohio, this year. The picture shows only part of the quilt.  The one on the bottom was featured on the Pink Chalk Fabrics blog.

Notes from Quilt Canada

My husband got me to Nova Scotia only because I learned that Quilt Canada, Canada’s equivalent of NQA, was being held in Halifax in June.  The show was actually several shows – miniature quilts based on the theme “Seams Like Home” (what is it with quilters and bad puns?), the juried show, quilts by instructors and quilt committee board members, art quilts by FAN, a west Canada group, and Secret Codes – quilts by black Nova Scotian quilters.  Yes, Nova Scotia has communities of blacks – descendants of black loyalists from the colonies.

This is Marlene Dorrington in front of her quilts at the Secret Codes show.

I took pictures at all but the juried show.  Photography wasn’t allowed there, but you could buy the catalog for $10 Canadian and a DVD of photos for $20 Canadian. Since the catalog pictures were woefully inadequate and I thought $20 was too much for a DVD of maybe 100 quilts I took notes instead.  And you know what, I think they’ll help me more than pictures.

Here they are in the order I wrote them:

• Use small yoyos for borders.  One appliqued quilt was made up of yoyos of all sizes, sewn together to make the figure of a dancing woman. And the border was yoyos without any binding.
• Use old damask table cloths for fabric.  One piece with lots of fabric dyeing and painting took advantage of the patterns woven into old cloths.  I have some damask table cloths and napkins that are stained and really not suitable for festive meals but I couldn’t throw them out since they were my mother’s.  Now I have a way to repurpose them.
• Selvedge mummy.  One quilter cut off hundreds of fabric edge strips and created a mummy wrapped in them.  The border was wonky blocks of Halloween fabric edged with selvedges.  Very whimsical.
• English paper piecing “flowers” combined into tree with leaves, etc.  The quilter surrounded flower centers with other hexagons and then used these to suggest clumps of leaves.
• Curved piecing – Gloria Loughman.  This teacher was mentioned in a quilt description.  Found out she’s Australian.

• Use diagonal stripe flange.  Really effective with black/white fabric.
• Color black/white fabric print with fabric markers/paint.  A quilter had created a unique fabric line out of one print and made her quilt look like it used several fabrics.
• Torn raw edge strip pieced landscapes – torn edge applique on base of Timtex.

And Buy the World a Coke, Too

Just saw this posting on Bonnie Hunter’s blog about sending quilts to folks made homeless by wildfires in Colorado. The blog headline is “Canyon Fire – Quilts Needed.”  Now, quilters, bless their hearts, believe firmly that what anyone affected by a disaster needs is a quilt.   SQ begs to differ.  While I think a quilt is a lovely gift under any circumstances, not everyone shares that opinion.  I tease my brother by threatening to send him another quilt for his birthday.  He sure comes up with alternative gift ideas quickly.

Then, there are practical considerations.  For one, there’s the cost of shipping the heavy quilts to an area where “Brown” may not be functioning at its peak.  Two, there’s the distribution at the receiving end.  Three, if folks are bereft of their homes from an earthquake, tsunami or fire, they don’t need something else to lug around.  Food, water, shelter and the like are going to be higher on their lists.

Now, before you get all incensed and accuse me of lacking the true spirit of a quilter, let me propose an alternative.  How about holding an actual or online auction of quilts to raise money for victims of natural disasters, and then sending the proceeds through a charitable organization in a position to deliver needed supplies.  I believe such an approach was used by an online group to aid flooding victims in either Australia or New Zealand – somewhere that’s now heading into winter.  I know equilter donates a small percentage of its net proceeds to various charities, and those donations have totaled more than a million dollars.

And if you’d like guidance on where to start with aid to the latest natural disaster, here’s an article from the Denver post called “How to Assist Colorado Wildfire Victims.”

Thanks for hearing me out on this.