A snuggle quilt

I honestly don’t know how long I had the fabric for the two lap quilts I just made.  Maybe 18 months ago (?) Joshua’s sweetie Ashley asked if I could make a lap quilt from some of her Grandmother’s clothes.  Of course I said yes!   Her gramma had died recently, and Ashley’s mom, Sue, was really missing her.  I looked up some quilts on the internet, hoping for a pieced pattern that would work for a scrappy quilt, look good, yet not take a ton of time to assemble.

When Thanksgiving rolled around and her mom came up to Maine for the holiday, she brought with her….gulp…three white kitchen garbage bags FULL of clothes:  turtlenecks, sweatshirts, fleece tops, a fleece bathrobe and a couple of nighties.   Oh.  My.  Not a single woven anything.  Wish I had taken pictures before I began the deconstruction process!

These are just a few of the leftovers!!!! Yes, that is one of those huge IKEA bags. I started with the equivalent of three of those!

And Sue asked if I could make two quilts, not one–one for her and one for her brother.  Sure!   I showed Sue the images of quilts I’d found and she picked the square in a square design you see above.   The original was quite scrappy, and went from lights in the center to mediums to darks, with a half-drop on the columns.  Alas, I seem to have deleted the original photo, plus I don’t know where I saw it anyway!

The second quit, on my sewing table. It is about 60×66 inches finished.

Well, let me tell you–the lesson is to make sure FIRST what the fabrics are.   Then see if you can ask (I didn’t) if you could buy and use something woven for the back.   I didn’t fully realize how much time it was going to take to prepare the fabrics.  First I had to cut apart the shirts and sweatshirts and nighties.   Then I figured out how I could maximize the fabric in the body and sleeves.   I cut those bits a bit oversized and, having made a trip to Joann’s Fabrics with a fifty percent off coupon to buy a bolt of tricot interfacing, I starting fusing the interfacing to the stretchy turtleneck fabric. Then I made another trip to Joann’s and bought another bolt (almost used up).

FINALLY, I could start cutting out the pieces.  I decided given the fabric, it would be best if I used a 3/8″ seam (from needle to edge of walking foot) and pressed the seams open.  And I decided to use only turtlenecks and nighties for the top, leaving the sweatshirts I had deconstructed for the backs.   I sorted and stacked.  I sewed blocks, trying not to duplicate any pairing of fabric.   I realized that I had lights and darks, but no mediums.  OK, the point of this quilt is love and family, not duplicating a picture from the internet.  Mental adjustment.

Once I got to sewing, it went fairly quickly:  sewing the blocks for and assembling the two tops took less time (by quite a bit) than prepping the fabric!   I divided the blocks into two pretty equal piles and started plopping them on the design wall.  Turned out I had enough for two very similar quilt tops six by seven blocks (they are about 9.5 inches finished).

Next:  backing.  I laid out the sweatshirt fabric:  enough for one backing.  So I also cut apart the fleece tops.  I decided to make one quilt with only sweatshirt fabric, the other with only fleece, to avoid “bad behavior” on the part of the fabrics.

Laying out the fleece for the second backing

I cut batting (poly needle punched from Quilters Dream) a little larger than I needed.  Then I sewed the larger squares to the batting batting by overlapping the edges and using a zigzag to join the “seam” and attach it to the more stable batting.  Regular seams would have been ridiculously bulky and stiff.  I didn’t interface the backing as the quilt was going to weigh a ton already, plus I didn’t think the interfacing would stay stuck long enough to do any good.

I used the walking foot (thank heavens) on my Janome 15000 (thank you again to Janome America for their support and the loan of this phenomenal machine) to quilt a spiral from the center out, then switching to straight lines in the dark border.  I used a variegated light color for the center, and a purplish variegated for the outside (Superior Threads).

Quilting in progress….it was a workout

The two lap quilts, the one with the sweatshirts on the back is on the right, back side up. Can I just say it weighs a flipping TON!

The two quilts, the one with fleece on the back folded and on top of the other one.

The only thing from those three big bags I did not use was the green fleece bathrobe!  I have a few sorta larger pieces of fleece left, and then stuff like the cuffs and top of shirts left.  And oh….I used a dark blue solid for the binding.   Done!

The slivery bits too small to use for anything else–yes, my garbage in my studio is one of those big garden tubs!

I’m so glad they are done, and so glad I was able to make them.   It will be a while, though, until I do another something like this–I may need to lift weights to be ready for the quilting process!  Eli may want a t-shirt quilt for college, but I’ve already told him, it must have woven cotton sashing on the front and a regular quilting cotton on the back!   I’m really looking forward to being able to give these to Sue (or have the kids take them down to Connecticut to her) and really, really hope she and her brother like them and enjoy being snuggled in a “hug” from their mom / mom’s quilt!

A couple posts ago I shared Insalata, my work in progress with ginormous tomatoes.  It needed something for a background that wasn’t in my stash.  So I decided to MAKE some!

Here are some fabrics in the deep values: greens with berry and a deep burgundy.

And more: the ochres and greens.

A friend suggested really out of the box and try a blue, so I did. I like the color combination, but it looked too much like sky (for which the fabric was originally dyed). Not working for me.

I finally chose the ochre that is down three from the top in the second photo.  Once I get home, I hope to do a little surface design (maybe), then quilt this baby.  It will be  a couple months until I can share, but stay tuned!

So I’ve been seriously AWOL (Absent With Out Leave), busy with summer, son, spouse, other son, life, garden, art classes, and (drum roll) art quilting!   I want to have a quilt to enter in an upcoming SAQA exhibit and have had this idea of an oversized tomatoes quilt as the final one (I hope) in my tomatoes series.  (Who ME?  A series?)  The top is about 48 inches square, each tomato the size of a beachball.  As usual, I created the imagery then decide on what background will suit it best.  I had planned to include a big ball of mozzarella, but it looked so blah and blank that I omitted it.   Then I needed to audition backgrounds:

I had this gorgeous hand-dyed fabric from years ago, done by Judy Robertson (whose fabric inspired me to learn to dye fabric!) in the middle–see the next photo for the entire piece. Thought it would look good: lush and dark and inviting. Hmm. Not so much. The ochre is good, but the rest of it, nyah.

And with Judy’s fabric only. Love the fabric, but not the blues with this piece. The darks pop the tomatoes, but I want the overall feel of the piece to be lighter, more summery. And by the way, it is tomatoes, avocadoes, shallots, and generic green on the bottom.

So I pulled out my ochre batiks and hand-dyes.

In progress: Ochre option 1. Closer but not quite. The color on the left is best, but don’t have enough to do the entire background.  The other two, nope.

Insalata, in progress. Have enough of this one, but the sunflower repeat in this batik is too regular. Nope.

One of my hand-dyes. If it had EITHER the light spots or the dark spots, this could work, but not this piece.

So what about other color options:

This green batik is nice and summery, but the blue-lilac portions aren’t quite cutting it for me.

So then I tried greens. Maybe.

And finally one more of Judy’s fabrics, rust and green. Looks OK, but not enough contrast with the edges of the tomatoes and not summery enough.

Stay tuned:  I decided to dye fabric!

An old/new project

Quite a number of years ago, before I taught at my first national-level show, I had a rare opportunity in about 2007.   Dianne Hire, author, teacher, quilter, artist, gardener, lives nearby me here in Maine.   Alas, she hurt her back–badly–just a wrong move picking up a light stick.   And she was scheduled to teach at her favorite retreat in just a few days.  She needed someone to drive her and help schlep all the teacher stuff.  Luckily for me, my name came up as one of two folks who might be able to help her.  The other person couldn’t do it, so I finally got to meet Dianne (we have a mutual friend but had never met) and in the one week of summer where I could take a break from Paul and the boys and go.  So I drove her to Paul Smith’s College (!!! Yep, can you believe it, a college with that name in upstate NY near Lake Placid) and got to sit in and take all her classes.   I began this project back then, but never finished it though I always liked it.

Another bit of astounding good luck:  I’ve been affiliated with Janome America in their artists and teachers program for a decade now.  Can you believe it?  I can’t, but they seem to be happy with me and willing to keep me on.   I had never really wanted or liked the high end machines that do fancy embroidery software etc.  Then at International Quilt Festival in Houston last year I taught a class in a room with Janome’s new top of the line machine, the 15000.   WOWIE ZOWIE is it a BEAST!  And much easier to use with all sorts of cool features.   Even more astounding, Janome is lending me one!   Here it is, newly set up in my studio:

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, because the Janome 15000 is of course the great White Wizard, the most powerful wizard ever

I decided to finish the quilt above (I won’t show the whole thing because Dianne is working on a book with the pattern) as my first project on the machine so I could get to learn the machine and make friends with it.  THEN I’ll move on to the Embroidery function learning curve!  Here are some close ups of the fantastic satin stitching I’ve achieved on this beauty!  I was able to taper (adjust) the width of the stitch as I stitched to get smooth thicks and thins in the satin stitched line.  WOOT!

Satin stitched, quilted, then the applique was outlined to make it pop. The large motif in the center is stitched in the ditch, but the motifs in on the right aren’t yet outlined.  It really makes a difference!

And my border design.  Here, the motifs on the right are outlined, the ones on the left are not.  The ones on the left kinda ripple.  By outlining, you really define and refine the shape.  Getting the tension just perfect was a bit fiddly.  I have found that the more complicated the machine, the more delicate they are in their settings.  Once you get them set, they are perfection, but you really need to understand your machine, be patient, and get to learn and know the way the machine works.  So often I hear students say “my machine won’t do that.”  Most of the time, I regret to say, it is operator error–not taking the time to learn and be patient.  So I am telling myself just that and hoping for LOTS of time in the near future to get to do that learning!

MASSIVE thanks to Janome America for their continuing generosity with me.   I hope to be able to give back to them and make some awesome, award-worthy quilts on this beauteous wizard of a machine!

Let’s start with some beauty: sunrise yesterday en route to the All-State (Maine) New England Qualifier tournament at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine. LOOK at those colors on the snow, the farm on the crest at the right, the maples silhouetted (and likely soon to sprout sap buckets)…. sigh..swoon…

It’s been an action packed few days:  it is now 9:34 a.m. Friday.  Since this time Wednesday morning…..

I received two memory cards (RAM, not hard drive) for my 2010 MacBook Pro and successfully installed them!   WOW what an improvement now that I’m at the max. for this machine, 8 GB!   Why did I wait so long?

In the upper left you see one of the two old RAM memory cards. The two new ones are installed, in the center of my laptop. The Apple Store no longer does upgrades on machines as “old” as my 2010 model, so I had no choice but to do it myself. Luckily, there were handy videos online and it was easy peasy! And boy does my laptop switch from one thing to the next faster!

Then I got to go downstairs.  As promised, I’m sharing some of the fabric–since I can’t share the in progress pics until the quilt is done and juried (either in or out).

Here are the pre-fused fabrics for my current quilt. There will be plenty leftover, but that is the joy of Mistyfuse–it never goes bad. I can keep and use all the scraps and leftovers. In fact, many of the fabrics on the table that aren’t big rectangles are leftovers from previous projects. Yep–I’m a Mistyfuser! I’m gonna have to blog how I use it, maybe even try doing a video….

Yesterday was Eli’s final meet/tournament of the wrestling season:  a new one, but a worthy addition to Maine’s line-up.  In the past, the three state champions for each of the 14 weight classes (from 106 to 285), one each from Class A, B and C schools went to New England Regional Championships.   This year, in an effort to have the best of the best, they instituted a New Englands Qualifier tournament the week after States.  The top four finishers in each weight class got to compete.

As usual, I had to take “good luck” photos of Eli warming up. Here he has doffed his sweats, put on his headgear and is running into the gym for what became his final match.

As my loyal readers (thank you! I am still astonished at that concept!), you know Eli is a GOOD wrestler, hubby/dad Paul is an Asst. Coach, and I’m a loud fan of Eli and the Camden team.  Last weekend, Eli placed third in States, having lost by just two points to the eventual winner of the 145-lb weight class in an early round, thereby ended up in the Consolation bracket where the top spot was number 3 (which he got!).

Earlier in the day, he and buddy Connor Winchenbach (who placed first at 152-lbs at Class B States) take a break between rounds to have some lunch. In the far mat another of the Camden boys is wrestling (tiny figure in red with white lettering down the spine).

Earlier in the season, the kid from Massabesic tooled all over Eli at a duals (regular season) meet. Eli was in a better frame of mind this day, but Eli told me the Massabesic kid is **really good** on his feet. You don’t often see Eli in this position, about to get dumped! (Eli is in red, Massabesic — a Class A school from the southern part of the state — is in white-green-yellow.

But it wasn’t one-sided:  it was back and forth and tied at 5-5 until halfway through the third period:

After getting brought down, Eli came back and here is in control, trying (but not succeeding) to get the boy onto his shoulders.

PK and Coach G are on the right, watching Connor who is wrestling on the next mat. Eli and Massabesic wrestler are in the back, with Eli on top and in control.  Eli is doing a cross-face, which makes it hard for the kid to maneuver.

But in the end, Eli couldn’t hang on to the very strong senior from Massabesic, who got back on to his feet and managed to score two points at the end of the third period to eke out the win.

That makes Eli one of the top SIX 145-lb. wrestlers in the State—all classes! (there is no wrestle-off for 5/6, but the other one tied at 5/6 is the boy won won Class A States!).  As a SOPHOMORE!   Of the other six, one is a sophomore (he placed third), and four are seniors.  WAY TO GO, ELI! (Yup, bustin’ my buttons proud!)  AND, Eli placed higher than ANY other Class B or C 145-lb wrestler (meaning he did better than the boys who won first and second last Saturday)!  The top three in each weight class from the Qualifier meet will compete in two weeks at New Englands.  And (drum roll) Connor Winchenbach, a senior, qualified to compete, too!  Way to go, Connor!

Then came food!  Connor’s parents and three teammates who traveled with them (the school did not provide a bus!) and the three of us went to Pizza Hut, and boy could you tell only Connor has to make weight.  Those boys ATE!  <beam>

Eating continued this morning with the first waffles in 3 1/2 months. My recipe, from Joy of Cooking, uses 3 eggs, and I generally think of it as feeding 3 people. I had 3 waffles (small). Eli had ALL the rest. <Beam!> I’ve missed feeding Eli!

Hmmm…just noticed my watermark needs the date changed! ….Anyway….

During breakfast guess what it was doing:  yep, snowing.  This is the FIFTH snowstorm/snowfall we’ve had in the past seven DAYS.  I ran out during breakfast to get this photo.  Good thing as the temperatures have just pushed above freezing and it has changed to (yuck) rain.  That means slush and, when the temperature drops tonight, ice.  Yuck.

HUGE snowflakes coming down during breakfast.

So that’s the past 52 hours.   Today:  work more on that quilt, hopefully work on a drawing lesson/class, and hang out with Eli on the last weekday of Winter Break.  Tomorrow:  to Portland with Eli to buy new running shoes for the upcoming Track and Field season, then to a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) meeting in Portsmouth, NH on Sunday.  WOOT!  And fabric dyeing with Kathy, hopefully on Tuesday!!!  Double WOOT!