Making Lists

I believe this image (from here) of Andy and Sam in Rookie Blue is from season two, but I like the way Andy looks like she is not quite sure if Sam is right -- in the scene, or for her at all. In last week's episode, now season five, her friend Traci asked if Andy and Sam were back together, and Andy replied that she was making lists. Lists of pros and cons, trying to make the list justify what her heart wants, which is Sam.

In a completely different context, I realized that I have been using lists in a similar way, to try to impose some left-brain order on the right-brain chaos that is my creative life. Just one day before this show I wrote a detailed "project plan" that would get all the quilts that are promised to others finished by the end of the year. In my corporate life developing new products and services I never missed a single deadline, and I was known for keeping my eye on the ball. Sometimes it's hard to understand why I cannot seem to meet a creative deadline to save my life. But recently I've been remembering that it was like this in school too. Problem sets -- on time. Essays -- consistently late, but usually worth the wait.

So, I give up.

Goodbye project plan, goodbye UFO lists (again). The heart wants what the heart wants. You'll be seeing lots of new projects over the next few weeks. Let's see what happens when I let my intuition drive for a while. :)

Starting the Baskets

As I hinted last time, you can see that I went in a completely different direction on my new project, Trick or Treat, designed by Barb Adams. For now I will just be calling it my baskets quilt.

I started out looking online at reproduction shirtings, and somehow I ended up on Hawthorne Threads (my new favourite fabric website), looking at Heather Bailey's True Colors collection. I've had a green and grey colour scheme on my mind for over a year now, and this time it clicked. So I clicked too, and bought mostly this collection and a couple of other fabrics here and there to fill it in.

I know some of y'all are looking at this with doubt in your heart, wondering if the whole thing is going to be too busy for words. I feel that doubt too, but I also have a really good feeling about the project, so it will be interesting to see how it develops!

I do like how some of the baskets, like the top one, will be clearly outlined, while others, like the second one, will blend a little into the background. Because there is such strong repetition in the pattern, I think this will give an added dimension to the final result. Hopefully!

The original pattern had a diamond cut out in the body of the basket. The diamond would be lost in the large prints on my fabrics, so I left that out. The pattern also has the basket handle and body cut separately, but I joined them in one template to preserve the continuity of the fabric design as much as possible.

I thought about different applique techniques, and even cut out a bunch of freezer paper templates, but in the end I went with one template plastic template, and regular needleturn applique. Template plastic lets me position the template on the fabric to the best advantage.

I was hoping to stitch the project with cotton thread, but when I searched through all my different thread boxes, this Kimono 100wt silk thread was the only one in the right colour. So that's what I used, and it's completely invisible, so I think I am committed to it now. It is a bit of nuisance to work with, but, you can't argue with the result!

Previously I've stitched this silk thread with a #9 applique needle, but I found these longer #10 sharps from Clover, and they are working very well too. They are not as long as a milliner's needle, which I find awkward sometimes, but are still long enough to smooth out the seam allowances when needed. I'm sure I've said before how much I love Clover needles -- they are so sharp and smooth that you hardly feel them go through the fabric.

The whole queen-size quilt calls for 313 of these 5" blocks. I am already considering a large lap quilt instead, which would still be 179 blocks. I have enough fabric either way, so I'll see how it goes!

And, I'm linking up again with WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network.

Left or Right?

The other day I sat down to do the blanket stitch on this flower, and I suddenly thought that I'd been doing it wrong up until now! I've always stitched blanket stitch from left to right, I guess because I saw it that way somewhere. But I'm right handed, and I've been finding that stitching is generally easier when I go from right to left. It was! It's a much more natural way for me to hold the needle.

Do you ever struggle with a stitch, only to turn it in a different direction and have it all fall into place? It was an interesting experience.

Anyway, this is the first motif from Month 4 of Rosalie Quinlan's Best Friends Forever.

I managed to get some purples back in the mix this time, and I added the lazy daisies to try to minimize the "sliced eggs" look of the ovals. I think that stitching them in green helped too.

I'm starting to think that Best Friends "Forever" may be prophetic on this project! Maybe after this month is completed I'll put it aside in favour of this project with the Flight Patterns fabric that I showed you earlier in the year. I have an immediate use for that project, but not for BFF, so I may re-prioritize. Despite my best intentions, I've got new projects sprouting out all over again, and my sewing area is getting chaotic. Time to clean it up and make some choices!

Shirtings vs. Blenders

or

Scrappy vs. Stained

Today's cautionary tale is not about something I did, but rather about a quilt I saw at a show here in Ontario a few years ago. I've been to shows from Burlington to Trenton and all points in between, so I'll be no more specific than that!

Walking around the show, I saw a great log cabin quilt a few rows away, and as I approached I could see that it was badly stained. "Oh dear," I thought, "I'm surprised she still put it in the show." It looked like the victim of an encounter with a pack of untrained puppies.

But when I got right up to it, I saw that it was not stained at all. The quiltmaker had sewn all the light parts of the quilt from strips of light coloured blenders, that from far away had indeed blended together into a mottled disaster.

Since then, I've paid attention to how quiltmakers can make a successful scrappy quilt with light coloured fabrics. I've found that the difference is to use shirtings rather than blenders.

Every quilt shop in Southern Ontario has a shelf full of light coloured blenders -- those white on white, white on cream, beige on white "background" fabrics. So our anonymous quiltmaker was likely dependent on the local supply. I have quite a few myself:

But when you look at a great, light coloured quilt in a book or magazine, these are not the fabrics they used. In the Summer 2014 issue of Primitive Quilts Catherine Hughes has a very satisfying quilt called "Shoofly Delight" that shows what I mean:

"Shoofly Delight" by Catherine Hughes, Primitive Quilts magazine Summer 2014

Hughes used shirtings, light coloured fabrics with simple stripes or prints in dark colours. The difference is that with the variety of prints, the eye can clearly see the edges of each piece, even though all the fabrics are light in value. So the quilt looks scrappy rather than blended and/or stained.

And, to finally make this post relevant to my current projects, shirtings were also used in the background of Barb Adams' "Trick or Treat," the applique quilt project that came up in my "quilt lottery" back in April:

"Trick or Treat" by Barb Adams, When the Cold Wind Blows 2008

When this project came up I thought I had all the fabric in my stash and I could start right away. But this shirtings vs. blenders issue put things on hold. I very nearly made the same mistake as that other quilter a few years ago! I needed more shirtings for the backgrounds if I was going to be happy with the result.

I tried to go back to a different applique project instead, but I couldn't let this one go. So, I started shopping online for some new fabric. A dangerous situation! And a very surprising result, which I will show next time!

New Machine!!

I've had my eye on this sewing machine since another Ontario quilter whose work I admire recommended it to me. A couple weeks ago I finally had the chance to drive up to That Sewing Place in Newmarket and give it a good trial. Needless to say, it came home with me after that! Isn't it beautiful?

You can see that my sewing table had a previous incarnation as a paint studio. But never mind, the machine is the Brother 1500S, which is a single stitch, high speed sewing machine. It has everything I want, including a needle down function and lots of workspace, and nothing I don't want, like a bunch of fancy stitches I'll never use. My old Janome still works well for those times I'll need the zig zag stitch. Although I am starting to think that will not be too often!

I was very lucky that the owner of the store, Jaret, who is an expert on this machine, was there to give me a complete lesson. Once I got home I was able to get it all threaded and set up without even cracking open the manual. It also comes with an extension table and a knee lift, which are not shown in the photo.

LOL!

So far I've used it to piece the flannel parts of my snowmen blocks, I've done a little free motion quilting on the Homegrown placemats, and I've done some straight line quilting with the walking foot on Edward's quilt. It is really nice. When you get the free motion up to speed, the fabric positively glides under the needle. And the humongous walking foot is making easy work of Edward's wretched quilt. Plus, the machine will hold a full sized thread cone, which I really love.

So, no more excuses! I have a back log of projects that need quilting. Some are so old and long forgotten that I thought I'd post some photos with my to do list:

Homegrown kitchen set -- a little more FMQ in the centres and these will be ready for binding.

Edward's quilt -- long, long, long overdue, the straight line quilting on this quilt has been an ongoing nightmare. I used a new flannel sheet for the backing and the fluff goes everywhere, and it just keeps getting hung up for no apparent reason on my old machine. But the new machine copes beautifully!

It's Warm Inside -- I have some FMQ and an experimental quilting in sections technique to try on this one.

Hen Party -- I almost sent this out for quilting, but I had my own ideas that I wanted to try too. Now I can!

Highlands Houses -- my latest idea is to quilt this all over in a small clamshell pattern. I hope I can pull it off. :)

Spring Planting (aka the yoyo quilt) -- I think I finally have a way to quilt this monster. The yoyos make it very fat!

Since my WIP list has grown again, it seems appropriate to link up to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network. Here's to a decent list of finishes in 2014!

16 Snowmen Blocks Done!

All my log cabin snowmen blocks are now done! Here's the final layout:

I have to say that my plan to randomly select my next project has been a success. Even when I was tempted to start something else over the past couple of weeks, the inital burst of energy from the quilt "lottery" generated enough momentum to carry me through. Fortunately, the chosen project was not very large, so that helped too!

The next step here will be to sandwich and quilt the blocks individually, and then join them at the end. But before I get to that, I have a backlog of projects to quilt. More on that in the next post!

Four More Snowmen Blocks

I haven't had much time to sew this week, but I do have another four of the log cabin snowmen blocks to show you.

My original plan was to use just the almost-solid blenders on the front of the quilt, and have a very graphic, more modern look. The white snowflake fabric in the block above was intended for the back. However, once I started cutting the strips for the blocks I realized that I didn't have enough for the top, and I had to "borrow" from the back.

That's what I get for buying the fabric before I finalize the design! But, I'm actually quite pleased with the way it looks, I think it adds a little sparkle to the quilt.

I hope I still have enough fabric for the back!