OK...draped over the double-sized antique canopy bed...read on!

So, you might ask, does Sarah EVER make quilts any more?  Art quilts?  Bed quilts?  Lap Quilts?  ANYthing?  Some days it feels like the answer is no, there is so much life happening that I can barely manage to get myself dressed and stumble through a day!  But I have managed a few new class samples and a few other things.  A while back, I wrote about Jenny Bowker’s totally awesome idea (seen in her blogpost,  here) and my riff on the subject here and here.

Well, I had been collecting tropical colored big prints (Kaffe Fassett, Martha Negley, Phillip Jacobs and the other designers from the Westminster Fabrics crowd) for a possible project for a possible (in a couple years) new book.  Well, I had (still have) this totally cool idea, but decided it was probably too complicated for a simple book project and, honestly, was more piecing work that I wanted to do.  Then I made my sample a la Jenny, and had a brainstorm!  A QUILT made with bright squares and simple sashing.  PRESTO–fabrics re-directed to new project.  So I got out my graph paper and charted out sizes for a BIG new bed quilt for us!

I decided to use squares of the tropical prints cut 8 1/2 inches, which meant I could get four pieces plus some leftover from a fat quarter (usually about 18 x 22 inches or thereabouts) of fabric.  A sashing that finished at 3 inches would look good.

Blocks cut, order set out on wall, vertical sashing on first six rows...

I was VERY careful cutting, and used my AccuFeed foot on my new Janome Horizon 7700.  I even went to the extent of cutting the strips on the non-stretchy lengthwise grain of the fabric because I wanted this to be perfect.  Drat!  It wasn’t!  The white pieces, on the bottom, were coming out 1/8″ too short, and I KNOW (and triple checked) they were cut to the same length.  Luckily, I am on this great Yahoo group for 7700 owners and another one for 6500/6600/7700 owners (a lot of us on the first list are also on the second one, which was the mother list).  Someone (and boy do I wish I could remember who so I can say THANK YOU) mentioned the button on the right of the machine and some instructions in the manual (yes, I had read it, but just didn’t remember this part!).  If your fabric isn’t coming out even, you can turn the knob to fine-tune the dual feed!  PRESTO! Problem piecing solved.  I told the little red guy with forked tail and spear on my shoulder making rude noises at me to go away, that it wasn’t MY piecing at all…I just needed to learn how to be smarter than and adjust my machine!

Here’s what it looked like as I was chain piecing lots of blocks and strips:

(Notice the lovely “Lemon Grass” Fiesta Ware mug amidst all those lovely prints!)

Here’s the quilt top a bit farther along,

Then I measured.  SHRIEK!  adjust border plans to smaller!  Eliminate the white what *was* going to go all around the center blocks and go straight to the pieced (from leftover bits) border of all colorful prints!  Here it is as I am ironing…. under the top is an ironing board with a 60″ wide Big Board PLUS a 39″ (one metre) wide table….and it drapes over the ends!

Aren’t those colors awesome??????

Trying to get a picture of the enormity of this thing was beyond a do-it-yourself photo shoot, so you’ll have to put up with me!  The finished top is 107″ square!

It's too big to fit...this shot, before all the borders are on, shows only 6 1/2 of the 9 color squares going across and up...so it's about 2/3 of the quilt!

That would lead to some questions:

Q1:  Is Sarah sane?   Answer:  obviously not

Q2:  How do you plan to baste this?  Answer:  I don’t; bless Doris and Debbie at Quilt Divas (great quilt shop in Rockland, Maine), they will baste it for me with water soluble thread on their longarm.  I don’t care what it costs.  I am NOT basting it.  Answer, part 2:  re Q1, perhaps she’s not as far gone as we thought

Q3:  What about the quilting?  Answer:  Yes, I plan to do it, but NOT for a while.  And at least the worst part, the basting, will be done by checking account!  Also, my big treat once we get moved in late January and next year’s teaching is done, is to buy myself an HQ sitdown model for working on very large projects.  I think a quilt 3 yards by 3 yards square qualifies.  Answer to Q3, part 2: ummm…OK, Sarah is clearly certifiable; either that or she has no life

Q4:  What quilting design will you use?  Answer:  I’ll do something similar to the sample I did  up in the links posted above.  When I shared an in  progress picture with a friend, she was concerned that the white is TOO bright.  I agree, it is!  But once it is quilted the starkness will be toned down and I think it will be a lovely summer quilt.

Q5:  Is Sarah insane?  Answer:  Ayuh!

Our younger son has joined jazz band, and practices are Weds. mornings before school.  So instead of sending him to the bus at 6:50 a.m., I drive him to school.  In winter, this means GLORIOUS sunrises, and today was one of the best.  The pictures are with my cell phone camera, so not as good as my good camera, but still pretty darn amazing.  So just an hour ago this is what I got to see after dropping Eli, snapping a shot over town to the harbor and distant islands.  I uploaded LARGE files, so I apologize if they are slow to load; they should be clickable to see a larger view.

Sunrise over Camden, 6:55 a.m. That tall thing is the smokestack from the old woolen mill. Notice the cool vertical flare from the sun peeking through layers of the clouds. The vertical brightness was there in real life; it's not a camera flare!

And here is the sunrise in my neighborhood:

A woodsy sunrise, downhill from our house

And from the road, by the driveway of a downhill neighbor whose house faces more towards the East:

From a neighbor's driveway, looking East

Ahhhh…..Maine!

I keep thinking of my Dad…he was born in 1899, when gaslight was not common, was a teenager when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, when telephones were rare. He used to be amazed at men on the moon, think of what he’d think of the internet and cell phones!  I can’t imagine what he would think to see me have a phone smaller than a deck of cards, that is also a camera, so I can send a photo to my son and to myself then post it to share with the *world* in a matter of minutes.  He’d be amazed and smile!

Just a short post today to share the second round of postcards I made for a recent swap.  The theme for this one was Windows!  I had made a postcard a couple of years ago with a swinging door… a second bit of Peltex (the stiffener that I use inside the postcard instead of batting..the stiffer middle makes it FAR easier to quilt on the machine) that was sewn to the top with yarn as strap hinges.  So I decided that for my windows, I would make shutters that move!

I found the stone print fabric in my stash, so thought I’d make English (or Irish or Scottish) stone country cottages with windowboxes and shutters.  Then of course every good cottage needs a cat (or several!).  I had a print fabric with kitties in green leaves, so I fused up a chunk, then fussy cut the kitties and some of the leaves.  In my stash of fused fabrics, I had some leftovers from previous projects, and used the prints to cut up more leaves and flowers for the window boxes and for the “wood” of the boxes themselves.  The coral windowframes are the same fabric I used to make the guitar in the portrait I did of my son, here.

I used a VERY wide zigzag set to almost zero stitch length to make the “hinges” where one end of the stitch just caught the edge of the shutter.  This left enough wiggle room to swing the shutters open and closed. Here is one with closed shutters:

Because of the shutters, I mailed the postcards in those plastic slipcovers that you seen on fancy cards at the stationery store.  Enjoy!

A shot of the batch, with a post-it note to tell the recipient to open the shutters:

And a different kitty-in-the-window:

For this round, I wrapped the stone fabric around to the back to finish the edges of the card and used printed cardstock on the back side.  The shutters are edge-finished with a metallic paint and a bit of stitching around the edge to secure the fabric (I never trust any fusible to hold forever!).

We woke up today to the first snow-misting (too light to be a true snowfall) of the season, so I’m celebrating by sharing this YouTube video with you.

The first time I heard the Hallelujah chorus was shortly after college when I was living near Washington, D.C.  I was friends with a Jewish guy (whom I wanted as a boyfriend, but alas he was coming off a serious break-up and wasn’t interested….sigh….don’t recall his name but his car was an ancient Pugeot named Ogg) who loved classical music and opera.  For Christmas, he gave me a gift of a ticket to go with him to the Kennedy Center for the holiday performance of Handel’s Messiah.

I was utterly mystified when everyone suddenly stood up!  The not-a-boyfriend explained that when first played for the King, the King was so moved that he instantly jumped up on his feet.  Since no one was permitted to sit while the King stood, everyone else in attendance at the performance also stood, and that tradition has continued now for what, almost 300 years?  So, I invite you to stand up with me and enjoy this—wouldn’t you have loved to be there?

Here’s to joy and sharing and the unexpected in life!

PS—just looked it up in Wikipedia, there it said about the King (George II of England) and standing during the chorus:

• He was so moved by the performance that he rose to his feet.
• Out of tribute to the composer.
• As was and is the custom, one stands in the presence of royalty as a sign of respect. The Hallelujah chorus clearly places Christ as the King of Kings. In standing, King George II accepts that he too is subject to the Lord of Lords.

Cool beans (as my teen would say)!  And I can sing along and my lack of ability to carry a tune won’t offend anyone except perhaps the cats and the pug!

OH WOW am I in love with a new product and process! 

The product is called PhotoEZ and it allows you to make detailed screens for printing (on paper or fabric), such as the treetops in the fabric postcards in the picture above.   The best place to get PhotoEZ  is directly from art quilter Ginny Eckley at http://www.photoezsilkscreen.com/about.htm .  Wonder how many requests Santa is gonna get now……

Many quilt artists now use Thermofax machines to make their own highly detailed screens for surface design printing.  These machines were on their way to becoming dinosaurs and land fill when they were discovered by art quilters and tattoo artists.   In both cases, the artists involved create intricate designs which are then “burned” into an emulsion-coated screen (or for the tattoo guys spirit masters).  The process removes the image, leaving a screen to use for printing or, in the case of tattoo artists, for transferring the design to the skin to use as the guide for inking the tattoo.  As the machines become more and more scarce, the price has   gone through the roof:  reconditioned machines now cost nearly $1000.  Yes, one THOUSAND dollars.  Plus supplies! My budget doesn’t stretch that far.

Well, a year ago at Quilt Festival in Houston, I visited Ginny Eckley’s booth where she sold (among other things) the PhotoEZ screen kits — a starter kit is $37 — and materials.  Here is a picture of my kit and the photo I used:

PhotoEZ kit, instructions and on the bottom left my image

Ginny told me she likes PhotoEZ so much she actually SOLD her Thermofax machines because she no longer used them.  Rather than carry the stuff home, I opted to order the supplies from Ginny (here) and have them shipped to my home.  One key thing:  You need to refrigerate the screen material to keep it fresh!  I have a flat baggie on the back wall of my fridge, behind the shelves, to keep mine fine.

After a year, I FINALLY got around to trying it out.  I was concerned because I don’t have strong sunlight up here in Maine most of the year the way Ginny does in Texas!  But I used my tulip-lights that I use for photography and they worked fine.  When I asked Ginny a couple of “how to” questions this year at Festival, she said she uses a light box most of the time, so this makes the process accessible for everyone (not just those of us in sunny spots).  In addition to the detailed info in the kit, you can find even more instruction on her website.

I had forgotten that the kit included an inkjet transparency sheet, so I fiddled with my photo of treetops in spring in Photoshop Elements (to turn it into a crisp black and white image) and printed it on paper.  The trick was to figure out the correct time under the lights to get the screen to burn.  I thought I had messed it up, but was elated when I did as instructed and popped the screen into the sink:

The image began to materialize; I used a soft paintbrush to swooosh away the area that had "burned" where the black ink reacted with the emulsion

Anyway, here’s another view:

Part of the burned emulsion removed (lighter area), the rest to be removed

And here are the fabric postcards, for a “circles” swap I recently did, in process:

five of the postcards screened, with the full screen on the lower left

The moons and eclipse glow were done with freezer paper stencils using Lumiere paints, and the treetops were screened with Jacquard Lumiere Citrine (the lime green color).  I REALLY like the squeegee that comes with the kit…it was JUST the right balance between firm and soft for me.

What I learned:

• I LOVE THIS PROCESS!
• And it costs a fortune less than a Thermofax.  It isn’t, however, cheap per screen, but it will work and cost less per screen I think than a Thermofax.
• Spring for the extra cost for transparencies for your images.  Then you don’t have to guesstimate the exposure time for your screen.  With a clear sheet, exposure time will be consistent.  If you print on paper you have to think about how heavy the paper is and how much it impedes the light working on the emulsion-ink reaction.
• Play with your image and print it in black and white (to make sure you like how it turned out) before printing it onto the not-as-cheap-as-paper transparency.
• Think about your images; in my case, I deliberately took the photo with only sky behind the treetops to make the photo editing process easier.
• Clean your screens promptly so the paint doesn’t clog the screen permanently.
• There is a learning curve about how much paint is enough but not too much; like most things, it takes a bit of practice and testing the various consistencies of paint
• I’m gonna do more of this!

PS–I am not affiliated with Ginny in any way.  I just really liked the product and process!  I surfed around online and Ginny’s prices seem to be the best out there.  Plus she’s a quilter! While you’re at her site, check out her artwork, here.  Her newest work uses the screens and is amazing (click on the New Work button).

And a last look at all the “circles” postcards:

Spring Moonrise and Spring Eclipse postcards