Thinking Out Loud

TAst Week 3: Feather Stitch and Some Design Inspriation

2012-01-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

I used this week's feather stitch to make a little plant for the hummingbird I also stitched. The hummingbird is made up of satin and long and short stitch, and I used the background fabric instead of stitching on its breast to mimic the iridescent feathers of a hummingbird. In spite of the stormy weather I still see hummingbirds in my backyard. They come for the scattered jasmine blossoms that have bloomed out of season on the porch.

Here's another bit of feather stitch, embellished with buttons, that I actually made the week before. I used perle cotton and some tiny buttons from JoAnn Fabrics.

Here's an updated photo of the whole block. It's a nice spring scene, a respite from the winter storms that have finally come late in the season, but with full force.

Before I decided to make this St. Francis piece, I coincidentally found this book at a thrift store. It's a collection of popular stories about Francis written about a hundred years after his death.

The book has this wonderful inscription, and I felt included in its good intentions. I've long felt an attraction to St. Francis's story. He was the son of a rich man who rejected all worldly goods and recognized the brotherhood not only between people of different social ranks, but between people and animals as well.

When I first thought of this project I though it might be in rustic browns like the Franciscan order's habit, but reading the book I came across a description of the place where Francis first undertook his work, a part of central Italy between the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea, considered an area of immense natural beauty. When Francis and his friend Giles arrived in 1209, the introduction says they saw "deep warm valleys and sloping meadows rich in wheat and vines."

"While the two friars walked through the vast forests of poplar, oak, and beech, and inhaled the soft fragrance of honeysuckle, clover, mountain lilies, and white roses mingling with the fresh sea breezes, it is no wonder that--as an old chronicle noted--'Francis sang aloud in French, praising and blessing the Lord for His goodness.'"

This description is guiding my design.

A St. Francis statue hanging in my house

TAST Week 2: Buttonhole Stitch

2012-01-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

This week I used buttonhole stitch as the foundation for this seam treatment. From this angle you can see how the buttonhole stitch forms the stems for the blue and pink flowers. The blue flowers are French knots, and the pink ones are Lazy Daisy and French knot combinations. The leaves are Lazy Daisy stitches.

Here you can see the trim in its right-side-up orientation. I like the way the flowers are growing in both directions of the seam. At the bottom of the picture you can see part of my feather stitch and buttons seam treatment. I found a package of tiny buttons at JoAnn Fabric in a coordinating colorway that I'm going to use throughout this piece.

I've also added some wheat to one patch, and I've got a hummingbird positioned that I hope to embroider this week. The outline is from an Aunt Martha embroidery transfer.

This week is the first week of school. We'll see how much time I have to stitch now that I'm back to work.

TAST Week 1: Fly Stitch

2012-01-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm participating in Take a Stitch Tuesdays and in the Crazy Quilt Journal Project this year (links in the sidebar). My project for the year will be a wall hanging of St. Francis of Assisi. I've posted my preparation notes for this project on the Tuesday Stitchers blog.

I get my best ideas when I'm waking up in the morning. The idea for using fly stitch to make a dandelion came to me this way.

I remembered I have this old embroidery book. If you look closely, you can see the thrift store price tag.

Sure enough, this book has outlines of wild flowers, including a dandelion (below right).

I sketched the drawing I wanted to use on a piece of scratch paper, and then traced it onto iron-on, tear-away stabilizer. If it was an intricate drawing, I would have traced it directly onto the stabilizer.

Once the image is ironed on, I stitch directly over it.

I used cotton floss for the leaves, and perle cotton for the rest of the image. The dandelion fluff is made up of the fly stitch. I think it makes a nice companion to the thistle in the printed focus fabric.

Once the stitching is done, you (carefully) tear away the stabilizer. I'll get some tweezers to pull out some of the paper from under the leaves.

I'm working on seam embellishment next. I realize I'm going to have to keep up the pace to finish a block a month.

Belive in Miracles (21 x 25)

2011-12-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

I wasn't able to finish this piece by Christmas day, but if we fall back on the notion of Christmas continuing for 12 days, then I finished right on time.

After I turned in grades I came down with a really bad cold, but Christmas came nonetheless, and once the wrapping paper was recycled, and the leftovers packed away, I was happy to sit down and put the finishing touches on this piece.

It seemed only fitting, crazy quilter to crazy quilter, to add some seam embellishments to the outer border of Allie's quilt. And I took a page from one of her techniques to use these beautiful shiny ribbons--some have beads, and all have metallic threads, in lieu of a conventional binding. I hadn't set out to do this, but I had four perfect ribbons and I also wanted to avoid cutting the points off on these embellished blocks, so it was a happy solution. I didn't follow Allie's instructions exactly, but the basic idea is there.

I added some mother of pearl buttons to the floral part of the composition.

Another close up. You can see that I extended the halos with more buttons and with beads.

A lot of handwork is like prayer or meditation. It infuses objects with spirit and with intentions. It's a wonderful opportunity to make a quilt for someone like Allie who is tuned into these messages in the cloth. This has been a fulfilling project, and in many ways it's been an unexpected form of dialogue between two quilters.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays in the ways you love the most and with friends and family. I am sadly behind on my blog reading, but I'll be catching up over the next few days.

Embellishing Allie's Madonna

2011-12-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

I've now come out from under the semester's work. Finals are over, grades are submitted, and I'm officially on vacation. Between the madness, I've been working on Allie's Madonna, which became a serene meditation to counterbalance the busyness of work.

In the final composition I added that pink and white inner border, which to me adds breathing space to this piece. I then machine quilted the whole piece with metallic silver thread.

The floral part of the composition got some hand embroidered foliage: the dark green is rayon ribbon and the light green is silk thread. The ribbons are top stitched with machine embroidery using rayon thread.

I took a close up of this part of the outer border because it's a little joke I've inserted into the piece. The green fabric has that line of stitching because it was cut from a pocket of a night shirt. I love this fabric and it's appeared in other projects, but I wanted to hint at its prior life.

The Virgin's crown was beaded with all kinds of sparkly things: beads, sequins and pearls.

The halos on the Mother and Child are embellished with tiny mother of pearl buttons, which reflect light like you wouldn't believe, although it's hard to capture on camera.

This is the first layer of embellishment. It only seems fitting to finish this by Christmas, and the final layer is nearly done. More pictures by Saturday.

Allie's Madonna

2011-12-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

Allie Aller and I agreed to a swap several months ago. She made me a CQ, "Barbara's Door", one of her lovely and extra-special house quilts, which I have hanging over my sewing machine for inspiration and mojo. In exchange, I am making her a Madonna Quilt.

I began with an image from Flor Larios, who sells fabric transfers of some of her painted images. I love the innocence of the figures in her work, plus the baby Jesus in this picture reminds me of my son Alex when he was a baby. He had the same round face and heavy black hair. I framed the image with a vintage napkin, which I strategically cut and pieced in order to get the parts of the rose print that I wanted.

I used the left-hand and bottom ribbons in the final composition. Allie sent me the woven ribbons, and the bottom one, which says "philosophy: believe in miracles" came to me with some wonderful bath salts from my daughter Allie. I've been saving it for a project like this. I also found the bit of lace in my stash. It's the perfect size for a wreath or crown for the Madonna.

I look these pictures with my phone, so they're not so crisp, but I used some textured fabric samples to piece half-square triangles for the outer border.

This is the rough mock-up of the piece. I must confess that I got stalled for a long time at this stage: there was something I didn't like about the composition, and I couldn't put my finger on it for awhile. In the meantime, I sewed and ripped out the pieced border in multiple configurations, several times. Finally, I successfully wrestled it to the ground. Next I'll show you the final composition and some embellishment.

Scrapbag Explosion

2011-11-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

Over the Thanksgiving Day vacation I finished two scrappy tops. These will go to Debra, who will quilt and donate them to an organization that works with children whose parents are incarcerated.

This first quilt started as blocks made from the leftovers of another scrap quilt. It's pretty pathetic that scrap quilts produce more scraps, but that's the way it is.

I'd made several of these star blocks when I saw this faux applique block fabric by Kaffe Fassett on line. It was the answer to my prayers. Combining the stars with the floral blocks allowed me to finish this quilt in no time flat. I had really gotten tired of those stars. The piano key border allowed me to use up a stack of odds and ends.

Miraculously, the scrap supply is still plentiful, and I paired up some novelty squares and made this quick top. Plain and simple, sometimes I need a quilt like this just to cleanse my creative palate.

I seem to be clearing the decks for the end of the year. I've got two unfinished Madonna pieces that I'd like to see finished by the end of next month, so I've got a bit of hand work waiting for me. In the new year I'm planning to participate in the Crazy Quilt Journal Project and Sharon B's Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge, both starting in January. I'm looking at these as a chance to work on some long-deferred projects that have been simmering for awhile.

Knitting With Vintage Yarns

2011-11-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

I knew it was going to be a good thrift store day when I spotted the plastic pitcher full of older knitting needles. I am completely outfitted in the needle department, so I rounded the corner to the spot where they keep the yarn, and for $2.50 (it was half price day) I picked up this vintage vest kit, compete with pattern, yarn, and even the plastic rings to make covered buttons. This is a special find. The kit has been stored in its original plastic bag so the yarn is clean and the labels are intact. The pictures of the patterns you can knit from this kit may be the most charming part of the whole package.

I'm not sure that I'll use the yarn to knit myself a pink mohair vest. I feel like there should be an age limit for wearing pink mohair, and that the cut-off is about 25, but maybe I'll change my mind. I can easily use the yarn for weaving with a coordinating more sturdy yarn in the warp, or maybe I'll knit a shawl or cowl. There's plenty of yarn to make something special so that this yarn can finally live up to its full potential.

I happen to be knitting myself a vest right now from some vintage wool I bought on eBay a few years ago. I'm almost done knitting the back. I love this gold color (which is more accurately rendered in the photo below). Yes, it's that 70s harvest gold, but I've had to stop myself more than once from buying sweaters this color in the store, so I know it's in style again. Knowing I have this yarn has made me resist buying a gold sweater, and now I've cast on this free vest pattern from Lion yarn to put this loveliness to use.

I knit with vintage yarn because of the savings over buying brand new, plus there's the satisfaction of using something that another knitter loved and saved, but never quite got around to using.

I do buy new yarn too, of course. I knit this fun scarf for my friend Bernadette's birthday gift. Over the summer we got together in Ashland, Oregon for a few days, and she told me in advance that she would take to The Websters, one of the best yarn stores ever. The place definitely lived up to its reputation.

I bought a few skeins of my favorite Noro yarn, and some coordinating harvest gold yarn, which I mixed into Shizuku, a free pattern on Ravelry by Angela Tong.

The pattern is fun to knit as well as fun looking. The little leaves/dangley things are easy to knit, and the famous Noro color changes keep me knitting to see what's next.

I guess I've been in a harvest gold mood for awhile. Well, that's fall for you.

Quilting Again

2011-10-18T23:53:00.000-07:00

I finished my Friendship Star quilt, which will go to Debra for quilting and donation as part of the Quilt Smackdown. I made only a minor dent in my stack of 5" squares, but I've gotten the quilt bug again I think.

Seeing this fabric on another blog added to my enthusiasm for quilting again. It's a Kaffe Fasset print that was on sale from Hancock's of Paducah.

Of course, I had to get the black too. There's something about the black colorway that reminds me of Mexican textiles.

The white floral panels are the perfect alternate blocks for these scrappy stars I've been making. I think I'll add another row of blocks so the finished quilt will be twin sized. The floral blocks are too small, so I'll add some plain white fabric to size them up.

Here are three more cotton towels fresh off the loom. My technique is getting better. I finished these with some hemstitching, and I threw in an extra row of hemstitching on the towel on the right as a design element.

I cleaned up my sewing room in preparation for getting the rugs cleaned in the house. I put away the piles and organized my closet. Now that I have a nice open and orderly space, I really want to spend some time in there. Of course, there's a growing pile of midterms waiting to be graded too, so my weekends may be not be mine for awhile.

Sugar and Spice

2011-10-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Michael's granddaughter Solis is going to be one next month, so I knit her this baby Swing Jacket, pattern designed by Erika Flory, which is available free on Ravelry. For size 18 months, I used 2 and a half balls of Vanna's Choice yarn, my machine wash and dry able workhorse yarn of choice.

With the other half ball of Vanna's Choice I knit Solis this matching hat, using a a free Sun Hat pattern from Red Heart Yarn company. The pattern was a bit more involved than I expected, but it came out exactly as I had hoped.

The hat is being modeled by a doll I made for Allie when she was Solis's age. It looks pretty good on her, and she may need one of her own.

I also finished knitting myself this shawl, loosely based on a Cheryl Oberle's pattern Wool Peddler's Shawl, from her book Folk Shawls. The main yarn is a blend of wool, nylon, viscose, angora and cashmere from a recycled Gap sweater. For the bottom of my shawl, I added some stripes in Trendsetter Yarns Soleil, a cotton yarn that comes with beads and fabric leaf embellishments sewn in.

I had a heck of a time trying to get the embellishments to not line up the way they insisted on doing. After two foiled attempts to break up the separation of leaves on one side of the shawl and beads on the other, I threw in a few short rows to at least bring a leaf down to the shawl point.

In the end I decided that it's a design feature. Works for me.

I also ran across a wonderful knitting resource: Laylock's Free Shawl Knitting Cheat Sheet, with formulas for knitting 5 basic shawl shapes, which can be customized in multiple ways. This could keep me busy for awhile.

I'm intrigued to see that the cape/ capelet, and yes, gasp, poncho seem to be making a come-back this season. Check out Vogue Knitting's "Into the Woods" pattern group. So what do you think? Can you see yourself wearing one of these yet again?

Done and Done

2011-09-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

At long last I have some quilts to show for myself. Debra quilted these finished tops for me (thanks Debra) though it took me forever to put the binding on this one. Just in time for the beginning of Fall, I bound this quilt and and the pink one below, which I just got back in the mail, and they're ready to be put into use.

This quilt may look familiar since I blogged this top after I finished it. The pattern is adapted from one I saw in a magazine.

Here you can see some of Debra's quilting, and some of the variety of scraps. It's a real scrap album of the fabrics I've used over the years.

This pink quilt has a distinct story. I bought this top on eBay a few years ago when I really wanted a quilt made from one of those embroidery kits. When this quilt came in the mail, I was disappointed because the embroidered blocks are not well executed, and because the pink was too neon for my taste. These embroidered quilt kits have been available for decades, but because of the color, I estimate that this one may be from the 1960s.

This top sat in the closet for a long long time. At one point I thought I might take the blocks out of the top and re-set them. Then I finally resolved to just quilt it, and I pieced a backing from some bright 60s-70s prints.

When I went to Texas this summer, I thought, hmmm, maybe Debra will do this for me, and she gamely came through, though this piece had its challenges. For example, all the fabric was torn, and none of it was straight. Somehow she got it all to behave, and lo and behold, I love this quirky quilt.

It's a bright pop of color and I smile every time I see it.

Woven Dishtowels from Recycled Yarn

2011-09-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I reclaimed some yarn from an unfortunate looking but new cotton sweater. I've saved it for the right project, and now that I'm weaving, I decided to use it to make some cotton towels.

I warped the loom with the recycled yarn, intending to weave three towels with new Sugar and Cream cotton yarn as the weft. Towels, place mats, and similar shorter pieces can be woven continuously and then cut apart. It's like weaving one of those old gas station bathroom towels, (except, of course, it's clean).

After I got the first towel woven, I got worried that the new cotton would shrink more than the recycled cotton, which had already been washed, so I wove the other two towels using the recycled yarn for both the warp and the weft.

After I got everything woven, cut off the loom, and machine hemmed, I washed them, and found that the mix of old and new yarns actually came out the best. The towels made solely of the recycled yarn shrank unevenly, perhaps because the yarn had no twist. Recycled yarn, especially cotton, can come untwisted.

But the towels were serviceable nonetheless. The last towel on the warp came out short, as I'm still figuring out how to accurately calculate warp lengths. Michael got the short towel to use as a golf towel. The other two went to my daughter Allie.

The towels are soft and drapey. I'm going to make another batch, this time mixing the new and old yarns.

Recently my son Alex turned 21, and we had a dinner for him at the house. Here he is with Jessica his girlfriend, who is a favorite of my old cat Wee.

Allie and her boyfriend Matt were also at the party. It was a very sweet time. The kids have grown, and now I officially have two adult children.

Woven Shawl Genesis

2011-09-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

The school year has begun again, and I've been wrapped up in preparing for and launching my courses, but I did take time to warp my Ashford Rigid Heddle loom for a second shawl. This one is for me, made of fine gauge wool sock yarn. I had these yarns in my stash: mostly inexpensive self-striping sock yarns widely available from craft stores: for the warp I used one skein of Soles and More and two skeins of Deborah Norville Serenity yarns from JoAnn. All the yarns were in fall colors, with lots of orange. I love orange.

Warping the loom requires stretching the yarn across my kitchen table and onto a sewing machine cabinet near the window. Because these are finer yarns, and I'm using the 12 epi heddle, it takes more wraps to fill the loom than the worsted weight yarn I used in the previous shawl, so warping took a bit longer. I like to warp on Sunday afternoons and use the couple of hours it takes to enjoy the calm repetitive activity. Needless to say, no cats are invited to this fiber event.

This is what was left of the three balls of yarn I used to warp the loom. It took about 660 yards--more yardage than it takes to knit a pair of socks. Weaving takes a lot of calculation at the planning stage. I've gotten good about calculating the warp, but my weft calculations have been over generous, and I haven't figured out why.

Here's the loom with the warp tied on and ready to go. I leave the loom on the dining room table, and weave in several sittings.

For the weft I used these two sock yarns: Patons Kroy and Lion Sock Wool. I used a whole skein of the Kroy and about half of the Lion. Both yarns are self-striping.

Here's the finished shawl. I alternated both weft yarns in a random pattern and got this lovely plaid effect. I double knotted the fringe.

I was hoping for a 20 x 72" shawl, and the finished size was 20 x 66. Somehow there was more warp take-up than I anticipated, but live and learn. It still makes a decent sized shawl and I'm thrilled with the fall colors. And I made plaid! A very back-to school fabric that reminds me of my Catholic school days.

A Tisket a Tasket, a Shawl and a Basket

2011-08-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

I must be going through a purple phase. When I uploaded these photos I noticed that I had a color theme going here, including the African violets I picked up at the market last week.

This shawl is the second project I've made with my Ashford Rigid Heddle loom. I warped all the spaces in the 8-dent heddle with two skeins (about 520 yards) of TLC, an inexpensive acrylic. Then I wove with more of the same recycled variegated acrylic and wool yarn I used in my first project. The results are a large (22x64" excluding fringe) and drapy shawl that I took to my mom when I visited my parents over the weekend.

I'm still practicing getting my edges even, but I think for my next project I'll bring out some of my better yarns and make myself a shawl.

I also made a second fabric basket, using the same very helpful Craftstylish tutorial I used before. This time I coordinated the colors: green and violet, one of my favorite combinations. The straps are attached with kilt pins so I can carry it like a tote, but I think it may end up as a cat bed. I've got lotsa cats, and they like soft sunny places to hide out and sleep.

The Hard Stuff

2011-08-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is my new toy, a 24 inch Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom. RH looms are the knitter's gateway drug into weaving. They're relatively inexpensive as looms go, and are very user friendly. They also help one to use up the stockpiles of yarn many knitters acquire.

The Ashford comes with a very handy booklet that lets you start weaving as soon as you get it out of the box. I warped my loom with some ancient sport weight acrylic, and I wove with a fuzzy yarn I recycled from an acrylic and wool unraveled sweater.

The warping, which scares lots of people, was a simple process I completed in about an hour and a half: not bad for the first time.

Then I wove this scarf in a couple of sittings.

This is going to be really fun: I'd like to make shawls, hand towel, place mats, pillows, and table runners. When I get tired of that, I can weave yardage and make garments.

Quilt Smackdown!

2011-08-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

I made these blocks yesterday as part of Debra's Quilt Smackdown, organized to make quilt tops to be donated to a veteran's service program. Debra and others made pyramid quilts, but I got inspired by a pattern I saw in an old magazine and decided to use up some of my big stack of 5" squares.

I set out these basic nine patches made up of the 5" squares. Choosing mostly greens and blues, I decided on red stars. I had a lot of olive greens and the stars are a rusty red, so I avoided it looking too Christmas-y. I really love the pops of turquoise and orange.

For the star points I sewed red 2.5 inch squares to four of the patches. You could make the points from larger squares if you like.

Sew the small square to the big square diagonally. I have one of these sewing guides designed to let you do this without marking, which does make things go faster.

Press the small square over toward the point. Some people would clip away the layers under the small square, but I don't bother.

Voila! A simple star block. Eight down, only twelve more to go.

Summer Travels and Summer Knitting

2011-07-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

I went to Austin this month for the CantoMundo workshop for Latino/a poets, which I went to last year in Albuquerque. Like last year, it was an inspiring and informative experience, and most of last year's fellows returned, so that says a lot about how much everyone values the experience and the community of participants.

I had a free day before the workshop, so Debra and Sophie came to visit, and we spent all day together, chatting, walking in the million degree Texas heat, and visiting the UT campus. I only have two pictures to mark the visit: the one above, taken by a waiter, the the one below, which Sophie took as we serendipitously passed by a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Debra says we have so few photos because we had such a good time visiting and I tend to agree. There's nothing like talking quilts to a fellow quilter. No one else understands exactly the feelings we have for the process and the products of our work, and this sharing forges profound friendships between kindred spirits.

I needed some airplane knitting for the trip, so I cast on the Wraparoud Eyelet Shawlette by Tess Young, a pattern I bought on Ravelry. This is a pattern I will make again: it combines mindless and mindful knitting in a balanced way, and the the finished shawl is very drapey and wearable.

I made mine out of some thrifted light blue wool, and some leftover Knit Picks Palette. The designer includes specifications on the amount of yarn each plain stripe requires so that you can also make this shawl alternating scraps with a background color.

I cut my head out of this picture because I make funny faces when I try to model and take my own picture at the same time. It's kind of like the face lots of people make while putting on mascara.

Before I left for Texas I finished my Linen Stitch Shawl. This was made out of scraps of different mostly red yarns and the pattern is from Sally Melville's book The Knitting Experience Book 3: Color.

I love the effect, but this shawl was slow to grow and I was really glad to bind it off. It will be a warm shawl for winter.

I've got a few more weeks of vacation and I'll spend part of it continuing my shawl-knitting jag. I also have a quilt in the works. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Fabric Basket

2011-07-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I cut a lot of my smaller fabric pieces into strips of varying widths. I've been incorporating them into quilts, but recently, I found this excellent tutorial on making fabric baskets, and I had fun making a scrappy basket of my own.

I used 1.5" strips that I folded over on the exposed edge as I wrapped the cotton clothesline rope. This eliminated the raw edges that could produce a lot of loose threads. You could also cut strips on the bias.

I used up lots of narrow strips, and a lot of neutral thread. The finished basket used 96 feet of rope. I also went through several needles before I realized that using the needle down setting was bending them.

I love the swirling colors and it was very meditative winding the fabric around the rope and sewing around and around.

While I was making this basket I bought 100 feet of cotton cording from JoAnn Fabric (with a coupon) for a second basket. I think I'll coordinate the colors on the next one.

This made a nice sturdy basket and I used up a staggering amount of fabric strips.

I'm using this one as a knitting basket, though I can see making cat beds and tote bags using this technique.

Cheap Thrills

2011-06-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

I found these goodies on a recent thrift store trip. I spent all of $4, and I came away with some minor treasures.

I got a bag of the tiniest white buttons, some fine crewel embroidery wool, and this ceramic hand.

The hand rides that fine line between creepy and cool. I keep thinking one day I'll find one of those hands that are meant to display and store jewelery, but so far no luck, but this one isn't a bad substitute.

I'll use this hand, which is life size (hence the creepy element) to hold beads and buttons. Remember Thing, that hand in a box on The Addam's Family? Like Thing, it can be my crafty helper.

As long as it doesn't move around the house on its own like Thing.

I also finished this Deirdre shawl, a free pattern by Linden Heflin on Ravelry. It's a fairly plain knit, in that androgynous style so popular these days.

It has a very simple lace edging, which I'm not sure I did right, but I think it looks fine nonetheless. I had to knit the lace section twice when I dropped a bunch of stitches in the last row and couldn't pick them up properly, so I ripped that part out and re-knit.

It was that or toss the whole thing in the back of the closet, and I've run out of room back there.

The yarn is two skeins of Deborah Norville Serenity sock weight in "Teal Tease." It's a great bargain for a wool, bamboo and nylon blend, and it comes in some nice self-stripping colors. I'll put this one aside until the fall, or perhaps save it for a gift.

147 Pyramids

2011-06-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

My Pyramids quilt started enthusiastically when I went through my stack of 3 inch strips and pulled a bunch in purple and green to make a Thousand Pyramid quilt using Debra's amazing tutorial.

Once I had a bunch of these on my design wall, I stepped away and sighed. Though I love the look of the Thousand Pyramid design, the thought of all that repetitive sewing gave me hives. So I went back to my pile of 3" strips, and decided to to do a strippy version of the Thousand Pyramids quilt.

I also decided that instead of starting yet another big project, that's it's okay to stockpile a few baby quilt tops. There are always babies coming along that need a quilt.

This is not quite a thousand pyramids, but I like the way the prints blend and contrast, and the way it's both geometric and floral. For me 147 pyramids (more or less) were quite enough, thank you.

Bistro Apron and a Finshed Sweater

2011-06-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

It was Allie's birthday this week, and I decided to make her a couple of bistro aprons as part of her gift. She cooks at a restaurant, and likes the long half aprons. Since they're pretty casual at her job, I took out some fun fabrics I knew she'd like.

Fabric: Alexander Henry's "Las Señoritas"

These are a cinch to make, and you can easily get one from a yard of fabric. The finished size is 29.5 inches wide and 34.5 inches long, so cut a rectangle a little bigger than this, fold narrow hems all the way around, and top stitch them down. Also cut two 1.5 inch wide strips the length of the apron, fold in half along the length of the strips, and then fold and press the long raw edges toward the center and top stitch. Attach a tie at each top corner, reinforcing each one by sewing an "x" over the spot where the tie meets the apron. You can add an optional 9X9" pocket at the top. Press nicely, and you're done. I'm glad to get some of these fun fabrics out of the drawer and into the light of day.


Fabric: Alexander Henry, "Los novios"

I also finally finished my Top-Down Raglan Sweater, knit from a bag of Noro Kureyon that I treated myself to.

I got a little carried away by the buttons for this project. I had stashed a bunch of these bee buttons, and when I began this sweater, I decided to see how many I could use. Because of all the buttons, the finishing, with the button band and buttonhole reinforcement, took a little while.

This yarn has long lovely color changes, but I cannibalized a few skeins to concentrate the light and dark colors in the most flattering places. In our cool summer weather, this sweater is my new jacket substitute.

The Bitter with the Sweet

2011-06-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

My dear cat Fatty died over the weekend. She was 15 or 16 years old, and came to live with us after the neighbors she'd lived with moved away and left her behind. They'd adopted her from a shelter, so she had an uncertain early life, but she had great spirit and a big personality, that helped her maneuver in the world until she landed at my house.

The neighbors named her Cleo, but giving nicknames based on physical attributes is a Mexican sign of affection and familiarity, so she became Fatty to me. Ironically, when she got sick over the last few months, she shrunk down to half her highest weight.

She was very photogenic, and she liked to "talk" and "sing." Here's a favorite post I wrote in 2007 about Fatty, with one of my favorite photo sequences of her.

She's in the Spirit World now, but I'll always remember her with great love.

Wedding Bells and the Honeymoon Shawl

2011-06-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Michael and I were married May 20 at my house with my kids as witnesses. We've been moving toward this step in our relationship for some time, but hadn't quite set a date. Then in May we booked a vacation cruise to Mexico, and readied to leave town on the 21st. Suddenly The Right Time had manifested itself, and our vacation turned into a honeymoon, with visits to my parents and to one of Michael's sons and his family as bookends.

The wedding itself was hastily arranged. I only had a dress because I'd bought one for the trip. We got the license that morning, and I called my kids at noon to tell them that the wedding would be at 2. Troopers that they are, they showed up right on time (both on their way to work) for the short ceremony performed by a local judge, a friend of Michael's, who also gamely agreed to perform the ceremony at my house on short notice. We would've gone to his office, but he insisted that a less bureaucratic location would be much better.

That night I put my tennis shoes back on and we went out to dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. Though the arrangements were very casual, we were both very happy.

The cruise was wonderfully relaxing. We stopped at Cabo San Lucas and at Puerto Vallarta, where we enjoyed the hot weather, shopping and the beach. On the ship we spent time reading, getting sunburned, listening to music, and otherwise honeymooning. It was very romantic.

Looking back on the photos Michael has noticed how happy I look. Yes, definitely happy.

And there is a fiber-related angle here too. I started knitting a simple shawl to take on the trip, a variation on the Kid Silk Haze Shawl pattern. I used some anonymous thrifted mohair yarn on size 11 needles. If I'd known I was going to get married I might have planned a more elaborate project, but as it is, I finished the shawl, not before the wedding, but on the long drive to Sacramento before our flight to southern California and the cruise ship.

So this is my Honeymoon Shawl, and it worked perfectly as a lightweight but warm shawl for the nights at sea. It's very much a reflection of our whole wedding experience: it's plain, thrifty, yet cheerful and not without style.

Mother's Day Aprons

2011-05-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

I've had the idea for awhile to use some of my vintage linens and fabrics to make aprons, and Mother's Day provided me with the inspiration to make one for my mom and one for my sister. These were quick projects that went into the mail the other day, and hopefully they'll arrive on time.

My mom and sister actually wear aprons when they cook, so this is a functional gift. I usually only wear an apron when I'm going to be cooking for a holiday, when I plan to be in the kitchen for a long time involved in a big cooking production. But lately I've been wearing a couple of aprons the kids made in middle school home ec., and I think I may make myself a new apron too and expand my choices.

The fabric for this first apron is probably from the 70s. It reminds me of a Marimekko print--remember those? It has that bold graphic and bright colors. This fabric was a tablecloth someone had roughly hemmed, and making the apron allowed me to cut around a couple of stains and the ugly hem. The pattern is one a I copied from an apron that belonged to my grandmother. That poor apron is threadbare, but I outlined each piece onto waxed paper and I've used it as a pattern. Even the bias tape is vintage. The pink tape came in a package with a 15 cent price printed on it. I've noticed that some vintage aprons mix and match the bias tape colors, so I did that here too.

The my sister's apron is made from a commercial pattern, the Sassy Plus Size Apron Pattern, which runs from sizes 14/16 to 26/28, which allows for a generous apron that covers more than just the front of your clothes. The paisley fabric is new, but the flounce and pocket were cut from a pillowcase. These aprons can easily be made from odds and ends, I used a third fabric for the ties and neck straps.

I've got a big stack of fabrics piled up to make a few more aprons. This is a very satisfying project. I may have to join the campaign to bring the apron back into widespread use so there will be a reason for all this sewing.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Sacred Threads

2011-04-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

My Fall Madonna has been accepted into the Sacred Threads show in the Washington D.C. area this summer. I'm very exited to be included in my first non-local show.

Converting a Pullover into a Cardigan Using Ribbon, and Making 1000 Pyramid Quilt Blocks

2011-04-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'm having a cashmere love affair. It's softness makes it a wonderful indulgence, and I've been on a streak finding cashmere sweaters at the thrift store. Recently I found this really nice pullover, clearly from the 90s since it's long, and brought it home, only to discover why the tag said "as is."

It had a tiny hole right in the center of the front. Undeterred, I turned the pullover into a cardigan by machine sewing two lines of stitches up the middle to prevent raveling, and then cutting between the stitching lines with a sharp scissors. Here's a link to another sweater conversion I did using bias fabric, which has additional photos of how I cut the sweater.

At the fabric store I found a wide ribbon in a matching color, and pressed a seam along the length so that one side was a quarter inch wider that the other. I then cut a piece of pressed ribbon for each sweater front, making sure I had a little extra on the tops and bottoms.

I machine sewed the narrow side of the ribbon to the inside of the sweater, having lined up the cut edge of the sweater with the fold. Do this for each side.

Then I hand sewed the wider side of the ribbon to the outside of the sweater, and trimmed, folded, and stitched up the top and bottom ends as well. Initially I thought I'd do a Laura Ashleyesque finish on the sweater, embroidering a few French knots along the ribbon, and using a flower button for a closure.

But then I found these great wood fish beads in my stash, which is really more my style. These are purely decorative. I sewed hooks and eyes to the inside edge of the sweater.

I'm loving this new-to-me sweater.

I also stole an hour from my day to make some blocks following Debra's 1000 Pyramids Tutorial. I have a drawer of 3" strips in purples and greens. I'll throw in some yellows and oranges for good measure. When people were making 1000 Pyramids quilts for the millennium I was a newish quilter and never made one. This is my second chance.

Spring Scenes

2011-04-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

I was invited to do a poetry reading at the University of California, Merced last week, so I hopped in my car and took the drive down to the Central Valley. I had a lovely time on campus, reading to a receptive audience of students, and chatting about Chicano literature with Manuel Martín-Rodríguez the faculty member who invited me, and with his graduate assistant Martha Acevedo. That's me in the orange (store bought) sweater.

The trip had many other benefits: I got out of the torrential rain zone here on the north coast. We've really been soaked this year. I also got to visit with my parents, sister, and nieces, who live within a short drive of Merced.

Spring had sprung at mom's house. Here she is in her garden with Handsome her cat. She's wearing the Corrie vest I knitted her for her birthday last year. She has assured me that she's wearing it a lot.

Her tulips were in bloom, and Handsome was enjoying his sunbath in the grass. God, it was nice to see some sun.

Baby, one of my parents' other cats, also kindly posed for me.

I took a different route back home, as highway 101 had suffered a major mudslide near Garberville since I'd left. The highway has been closed down for days, though there is some hope that it will open tomorrow. I returned home on highway 299, and caught this view of Lake Shasta from my side window.

This is a beautiful drive, and at the summit, there was a considerable amount of snow on the ground. The day after I got home, a mudslide temporarily closed 299 as well, and I felt lucky to have negotiated the highway closures without getting stuck.

When I got home, the skies were grey, but the azalea in my front yard was putting on the best show in years, and some red tulips were also showing themselves.

I returned to the Top Down Raglan sweater I'm making with Laura Chau's free pattern and a bag of Noro yarn I couldn't resist buying recently .

The sweater is knit in one piece from the neck down, so there's no seaming. I'm in the home stretch, making my way down the second sleeve, and I'm thinking of adding some embroidery over the fabulous long color changes for which Noro is famous.

While I was gone, Fatty kept the knitting basket warm.

Confection (76 x 90)

2011-03-18T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with this quilt. It reminds me of black licorice and cotton candy, or of Good and Plenty candies, so sweet they makes your teeth hurt and delicious to eat in the dark of a movie theater.

The blocks were pieced on my treadle machine with some 5 x 5" squares Debra sent me, with some of my fabrics thrown in for good measure. When I finished the blocks I took them upstairs to the sewing room, where I organized them on my design wall, and sashed and bordered them on my modern Janome, which is way more accurate.

For the border I had a very special piece of black and white print which I bought at IPQF a few years ago. I didn't quite have enough to go all the way around because it looked like the 1-yard piece had been cut in the dark with a hack saw--don't you hate it when that happens?--so I substituted a related print on the bottom.

Here's a close up. I think those blue cornerstones make everything pop.

Have a great weekend. If the new version of Jane Eyre opens in my area, I'll go to the movies. I hope they have Good and Plenty at the theatre.

Spring Break

2011-03-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

I'm now officially on Spring Break--whoo-hoo! Although there will not be any bikini-clad beach trips to warm locales for me, I will be off work for a week, and taking a much-needed breather.

Very appropriate to the season, I recently read our dear friend Allie Aller's new book Crazy Quilting: Modern Piecing and Embellishing Techniques for Joyful Stitching, which is a happy bowl of eye candy and practical skill-building instruction.

The book is beautifully photographed, and has clear and precise tips and instructions on a number of fresh approaches to crazy quilting. In addition, it's a homage to the friendships among stitchers in the on-line community. We see contributions from Susan Elliot, who has posted tutorials here and here for her beautiful queen project. There are are also contributions from Debra Spincic, and...

...yes! From me too! My St. Therese quilt is in the gallery. If you'd like to see process photos for how I made this quilt, the links are tabbed under "St Therese" in the sidebar and they're right here too.

Also appropriate to the season, I finished this lovely shawlette, which is from Stephen West's popular pattern Pagona, knit some some inexpensive Deborah Norville sock yarn. The design is very attractive and not hard at all to knit. Just a little something to throw over the neck, just in time for Spring.

Adaptations

2011-02-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

After a lot of de-griming, I got my treadle up and running. Like I posted before, she's a 1903 Singer 15, and according to the serial number she was made in Elizabeth, New Jersey, though, mysteriously, she came with a manual written in German. After several rounds of cleaning and oiling, I replaced the belt, and she was ready to go.

I got all my technical information, including a facsimile version of the manual in English, off the web. There are YouTube videos on changing the belt and threading the bobbin. If not for the Internet, I don't know that I could have gotten this machine working on my own.

After some false starts, I figured out that a small post was missing from the otherwise working bobbin winder, so I turned to yet another modern adaptation: the electric bobbin winder. These are pretty useful, I don't know why I didn't get one sooner. It easily solved my problem, and now the treadle is fully operational. There's something sweet about the rhythms of sewing on a 108 year old treadle machine, and the modern adaptations don't subtract from it one whit.

I'm reminded when sewing on the treadle of how easily I've adapted to the needle down setting, the automatic thread cutter, and other handy innovations of my modern machine. The old Singer is more temperamental and fiddly. I have to be very precise with my technique, which isn't the case with newer machines. I also have to pin a lot more than I've become used to due to that funny narrow foot. Now I'm remembering vividly what it felt like to sew on the old family Singers when I was a girl: I have to approach this machine like a wild horse: cautiously and calmly.

But when the woman- machine relationship is in sync, some lovely things can come of it. I've been making these big 9-patch blocks from 5" squares Debra sent me. I'll sew them together when I get enough of them--either with or without sashing--and let her quilt it for donation.

I also wound my Kool-Aid dyed yarn into balls:

I think I'm going to make a shawl with these coordinated colors. I'll knit the body in the variegated yarn and do a lace edging in the solid color.

The greenish yarn has already been cast on for a 28's Big Sister 77 shawlette, available on Ravelry. The old lime green sweater is adapting to its new life as two completely different colored shawls quite nicely.

Playing Mad Scientist: Unraveling a Sweater and Kool-Aid Dyeing the Yarn

2011-02-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

I saved this old sweater to harvest the yarn. I wore this sweater a lot, but although the wool yarn was still good, the color had started to fade in spots, and it didn't fit me very well anymore.

I unraveled it and wound the yarn into skeins. Here's my favorite tutorial on reclaiming yarn from knitted garments. I got two big skeins: one from the back and one from the front, and two smaller skeins from the sleeves. I soaked these for several hours until they were good and wet and then Koolaid dyed the yarn similar to the way I did before.

The small skeins got dyed with two colors of Koolaid: purple and orange. I just barely dipped part of the skeins in the purple, which resulted in an olive green. The parts I left in longer dyed a dark brown, and the orange turned into a nice rust color.

Snazzy, huh? These will make some nice fingerless gloves or a shawlette. The yarn is fingering weight.

One of the big skeins got dipped in a pot of blue Koolaid, and then I pulled out one end, added more Koolaid to the pot, and let the other end get darker.

This is enough for a nice shawl. Those light bands are the spots where I tied the skeins. Next time I'll tie them more loosely, though I like the random light bits.

I ran out of Koolaid for the other skein, which I dyed an almost solid rust after a quick trip to the store for more orange. I've been accumulating some shawl pattens on Ravelry, but I'll have to wait for the yarn to dry to cast on.

I hope you're looking forward to a creative week. I feel my schedule calming down into a more manageable pace, so I'm looking forward to some new projects.

"Her Radiance" (11x17)

2011-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

I've been even more MIA than usual, working on a big project at work, and not having a lot of spare time. However, I've been working on this piece a bit at a time, using one of Flor Larios's fabric images.

I had the idea that I wanted to use prairie points as a textural feature, and some of my extensive collection of metal buttons. After some initial clumsy construction errors, this piece came together very nicely. Friday I came home late and buzzing with adrenaline, so I sat down to finish the machine sewing, and then on Saturday, I added the hand work. There are times when I just need to sew for the sake of my soul, and I finished this piece in just that mood.

I embellished this Virgin of Guadalupe image with machine stitching and embroidery, which also acted as quilting. Don't you love her blue eye shadow? That's what drew me to this sweet image in the first place. I remember shopping for a Virgin of Guadalupe statue in Tijuana and selecting from the ones whose makeup wasn't too heavy-handed and whose eyeshadow wasn't too obvious.

I used a variety of plain metal buttons. You can see my free motion quilting on her dress, and the blue inner border was cut from a pillowcase my mother sent me.

I've continued to use vintage linens for small quilt backs. I used half a doily for the rod pocket, and I cut the back from an embroidered dresser scarf.

The title of this piece comes from the Nican Mopohua, the narrative of the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, written in the 1500s. On the label I've included a quote from the narrative in the original Nahuatl language and in English: Her radiance was like precious stones, it seemed like an exquisite bracelet. This is what I wanted to capture with the prairie points and the buttons: a picture of the light radiating from her person.

Have a creative week everyone.

Winter Knits

2011-01-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

Over the last month I finished up some knitting projects, just in time for the peak of the winter weather.

I made Iced, a free sweater pattern by Carol Feller from the fab on-line magazine Knitty. The sweater is knit in bulky yarn, yet it's very flattering, due to some nice waist shaping. I knit my sweater in some serviceable and cheap yarn, Lion Brand Wool Ease Chunky. I wanted a brown sweater and this one knit up fast and fits the bill nicely. The cute buttons were dollar store finds. You never know what they'll have at the dollar store.

I also finished a Boneyard Shawl by the popular designer Stephen West. This pattern is a free Ravelry download and a perfect project for meditative knitting. It's one of those wonderful projects that you don't have to pay close attention to, so you can empty your mind, work on your enlightenment, and end up with a nice shawl at the end of it all.

I knit this in a bulky weight yarn too, Hulda by Louisa Harding, which I got at Tuesday Morning. Hulda is a drapey blend of wool, acrylic and linen. I'm planning to wear this shawl to work with my navy raincoat and hope it will remind me of how close I got to enlightenment while I was knitting it.

Michael's grandson Emil will turn three next week, so I made him a sweater. It's knit from a free Lion Brand pattern that comes in both children's and adult sizes.

For this small version I used three balls of Vanna's Choice acrylic yarn, since sweaters for three-year-olds need lots of washing.

Although I had these three projects on the needles at the same time, now that they're finished, I find myself in an unprecedented fit of Knitting Monogamy. I'm still working on my linen stitch shawl, having found a few more yarns to work into the mix. Although I've got my eye on some new patterns, (like this jacket, and Pogona, another Stephen West shawl) I'm content to work on one knitting project at a time right now.

Who knew? Sheesh, next thing you know, I'll be making one quilt at a time. And then maybe pigs will fly. And warm places will begin to freeze over.

A Linen Stitch Shawl

2011-01-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

The week between Christmas and New Year's day is one of my favorite times of the year. The big holiday is behind me, the fridge is full of holiday leftovers, and I'm off work. Plus it rained buckets last week, which means it was perfect knitting weather.

I decided to gather some compatible bits of yarn and knit a rectangular shawl in linen stitch, based on a patten in Sally Melville's The Knitting Experience Book 3: Color, which has a lot of well-designed classic patterns. I am in love with linen stitch. It produces a fabric that looks woven. I can see many applications for this stitch: it's perfect for using up odds and ends of various yarns.

While I was knitting on a couple of rainy afternoons, I watched the BBC series Victorian Farm on YouTube. In this series, three experts, two archaeologists and a historian, live and work on a Victorian farm in rural England for a year, and we see them doing various routine tasks: cooking, raising sheep, and farming, using the technologies of the time. There's a wonderful scene when Ruth Goodman, the historian, who is an expert on domestic practices, cross stitches a pair of suspenders by lamp light in an unheated room so cold you can see her breath.

What a pleasant way to pass the hours. Unlike poor Ruth, I was nice and toasty, and with a few more good movies, I'll have a nice wrap.

Starting as I Mean to Go On

2010-12-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

I'm greeting the year having finished two UFOs. It's a good thing to bring some projects to a conclusion, even as I'm continually thinking about projects yet to come. I quilted and bound my Bee Quilt, which features hand embroidered blocks from vintage patterns. I blogged about the finished top back in June.

This is the unquilted top

I quilted straight lines around the blocks, and I did some random free motion quilting over the embroidered motifs.

It's not perfect, but it's done, which is just as good these days.

I had this cheerful floral backing fabric in my stash, and I was happy to put it to use.

Several months ago Debra quilted Big Scrappy for me and it's been waiting patiently for me to put on the binding. Debra used a fleece blanket for the batting, and it's wonderfully warm and cozy. Here's a shot of the unquilted top and here's the original post.

This is a time of beginnings and of endings. It's good to wrap up loose threads, and prepare ourselves for what's to come. I hope your New Year celebrations are joyful. Many blessings to you and yours in 2011.

All is Calm, All is Bright

2010-12-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

This is the season of calm and bright, but the swirl of daily life continues nonetheless. I'm almost done grading finals, and grades are due in a couple of days. In the meantime, I thought I'd share the wall quilt I'm making in fits and starts. In the outer border you can see some of the scraps of Debra's 12 original yards of Hawaiian fabric that has gone into so many quilts, but is still not quite used up. Debra also posted some scrap blocks yesterday that feature some of this won't-die fabric.

The beautiful focal point of this quilt is a fabric print by Flor Larios, who sells her lovely folkloric prints, including prints on fabric and other goods, in her etsy shop. If I sat down for a couple of hours I could finish this piece. Maybe it'll happen in a few days.

Here's the calm and bright scene in front of my stove. All the cats decided to call a truce to share the warmth of the fire. The black cat, Wee, is visiting from the kids' apartment. When they both work on the weekend, she gets lonely, and likes to come to "kitty daycare" at my house. We've had Wee for 15 years, and she was our original cat. The others are, in her view, interlopers. She's happy to visit the old homestead, and knows the routines at my house, then Allie picks her up and takes her home after work.

A favorite place by the fire is this cat bed I crocheted using triple strands of old acrylic yarn. I used this free pattern for a crocheted bag as a reference for the increases and decreases.

Fun fur trimming make this kitty bed extra elegant.

Happy holidays to everyone. I hope your corner of the world is calm and bright.

Fair Isle Vest and a Baby Quilt--Finished!

2010-12-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the Faire Isle vest I was knitting for my mom. I began it early this year, intending to give it to her for her birthday, but it didn't go as fast as I'd hoped, and then I fell and needed four months of hand therapy to recover the use of my left hand. Finishing the vest, I'm convinced, has helped me to recover the complete use of the injured hand.

This vest was a kit from Knit Picks, the on-line yarn company. The kit is discontinued, but it was an excellent first major Faire Isle project for me. I sent it off to mom, and she assured me that although she hadn't tried it on yet, she would wear it to church. Arg! I told her wear it often, because it's warm, but I should've realized she would likely save it for special occasions.

Here's the inside of the vest where you can see how the stranded yarn looks on the back. Yes, I am showing off.

The vest is knit in a big tube with decreases for the neck and arm holes. Then I sewed the steeks up on my sewing machine to secure everything, and cut the holes open with a scissors. The little yarn ends felted nicely against each other, so I didn't feel the need to cover them with hem tape or ribbon.

I'm on a roll, so I quilted this top for Michael's new granddaughter Solis, who was born in November. I had the top already made, and I like this toile fabric with a big brother and little sister, and the baby's mom said she was re-using the brown and blue bedding from baby #1, so this seemed a good choice. It felt good to quilt again, so I basted another project and began quilting that one too.

Back in the Saddle Again

2010-11-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I just sat down in front of the machine and sewed. It felt good to pick up a project and work on it again, and I finally finished piecing this still-unnamed quilt that I'm making with Debra. She pieced the center medallion and the pinwheel blocks, mostly in western themed fabrics. I added two side panels and borders. You should be able to click on it to see the details.

I was taken with the western theme of the center medallion, and then my friend Leslie gave me a large piece of this old Alexander Henry fabric "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," which is a riff on the old Byrds album cover of the same name. I've been obsessed with this image for a few years: I have a picture of it hanging above my sewing machine, so when Leslie gave me this fabric, it was double serendipity.

My only qualm with the fabric was that all the cowgirls were white. In the service of historical accuracy, I took out my gel pens and inserted some racial diversity into the mix.

This one got some silver "highlights." There's no reason cowgirls all have to be young.

I love the pose of these cowgirls. They remind me of angels. I thought they'd be a good guardians for a western themed Virgin of Guadalupe. I'll be sending this off to Debra soon. We'll see what she adds.

Basic Fingerless Mitts and Other Adornments for the Hand

2010-10-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

My job is keeping me pretty busy these days. I try to carve out recreational time, but I still end up working long hours during the week and part of the weekend, so I don't have much creative time. There's not much sewing going on here, but I do knit. Sewing seems to take more energy than knitting, while knitting seems to quiet and center me. I can also more easily pick up projects for short bursts of time. Doing a row or two in odd moments doesn't require the time commitment it seems to take to quilt.

I made this great free fingerless mitt pattern in a dk weight wool I picked up at Tuesday Morning, of all places. The yarn, Hacho, is a soft and colorful Peruvian wool, and I needed less than one skein (about 130 yards) for the pair. Tuesday Morning is a discount place that gets home decor stuff, linens, gardening supplies, dishes, toys, and some craft supplies. You never know what they might have in the yarn department, and they never have more than a few balls of each color, but it's generally high quality yarn for a discount price, and just the thing for small projects.

And here's another small hand adornment, but sign of a bigger project in the making. Michael and I are planning to get married. Of course the way we're doing it hardly counts as wedding planning. When you're our age, marriage is about the logistics of sharing our households and families. So we're working on it, and when we figure out all the details, we'll tie the knot, no big rush, no deadline.

This is a lot different from when I got married in my late 20s, but wonderful in its own way. Michael and I have been a couple for several years, and have been very happy together. We've liked not being married and having separate houses. But looking toward the future, this is the direction we've decided to take. I feel very lucky both to have such a great partner --he really is one of the most wonderful people I've ever known-- and another shot at marriage.

Sewing a Knitting Needle Case

2010-10-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

I was in Jo Ann Fabrics with my 40% off coupon burning a hole in my purse when I saw this packet of 5 sets of sock needles. I bought it to have spares, since I feel a major sock knitting jag coming on, plus 5 sets of needles for $10 (less 40%) is a great deal.

When I got home I decided to make a knitting needle case to keep track of these skinny needles. I found a 10" orphan block left over from an old project, and I cut a piece of scrap flannel to the same size.

For the inner pockets, I cut another 10" square of fabric, then folded it in half with the pretty side out, and marked some lines for stitching the pockets.

For the top flap, I cut a 6 x 9.5" inch piece of fabric, folded it so the right sides were together, stitched up the short sides, and then turned the right side out. The top flap isn't sewn into pockets, but is left loose.

After adding a quilt-style binding and a tie, I marked the needle sizes on the pockets with marker and sorted through my collection of new and old needles.

Not bad for a little impromptu project. Plus I found my way back to the sewing machine, where I spent some time on the Madonna quilt I'm making with Debra.

Sometimes I guess I have to just put a toe in the water and see if I'm ready to take a dip.

More Knitting

2010-10-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been doing more knitting than sewing these days. It's not that I don't want to sew, but after a long day at work, it's about all I can do to sit upright on the sofa and knit a few rows. This is what my coffee table looks like these days. I'm trying to finish the Faire Isle vest for my mom that I started in the Spring. I have a few technical problems to solve, and then I think I can do the shoulder shaping, cut the steeks, and do the ribbing. I want to get it to her in the next few weeks to that she can wear it this winter.

You can see my copy of the John Sayles film Lone Star there too. It's a wonderful complex narrative on life along the Texas-Mexico border, a great film you need to see multiple times in order to see the interconnections between the various story lines. The film is organized like a patchwork. There are lots of pieces, but you have to stand in the distance to appreciate some of the ways they're linked together.

I finished a few small projects in recent weeks. Sometimes I need to make something easy and quick just to deep my momentum going. I made this Multi-directional Diagonal Scarf from a free pattern. Judy at Stitch Along with Me had made it I think, and I loved the way it looked. I made mine wide like a shawl. The pattern is dead easy, but looks complicated. I used Lion brand Amazing yarn, which is 50% wool and 50% acrylic and has long beautiful color repeats. I think I'll use this a lot this winter.

I finally finished this pair plain ribbed socks in Kroy sock yarn. The yarn is great: I love these colors, and it doesn't bag after wearing like some other sock yarns. It probably took me a year to finish these socks, and they feel so good on my feet I wonder why I don't make more.

I also made a baby sweater in acrylic DK weight yarn for Michael's grandchild #2, who is expected in December. Nothing is as satisfying to knit as a baby sweater, and since this will be a winter baby, I wanted to make the sweater in a small size so that she'll wear it right away. Paxton Preemie and Newborn Jacket is a free pattern on Ravelry with sizes for preemies and for small and regular newborn sizes.

When you're done with the sweater, you get to pick buttons, which is almost as much fun as the knitting.

The Sweater Knit from Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn Part 2

2010-09-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

The sweater knit from Kool-Aid dyed yarn is a big success. I used the pattern Whisk Cardigan, from the Fall 2010 Knitscene magazine. It's a basic A-line cardigan. The only change I made was to add 2 inches seed stitch hems all around.

When I knit the pieces, I alternated skeins every 2 rows so that lighter and darker parts of the yarn blended pretty well.

That was Cleo's opinion anyway. This worked well with the fronts, but when I knit the sleeves, the color difference between skeins was more dramatic.

I got a definitely stripe pattern going on one sleeve. If I hadn't injected extra dye into the centers of the balls, the color absorption would have probably been more uniform.

My solution was to over dye the sweater pieces after I'd knit them. I dyed the back, the fronts, and the sleeves in separate batches in the turkey roaster with the same amounts of diluted kool-aid. Here you can see that I also over dyed some extra yarn to knit up the collar, and that I made myself some eggs while I was working.

This is the nicest softest sweater, and I like the color gradations. The over dying evened some of the striping out, and I finally used up that yarn.

Kool-Aid Dyeing a Sweater's Worth of Wool Pt. 1

2010-09-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a newbie knitter in the early 90s, I bought a bag full of this yarn through a catalogue. I intended to make a specific sweater I'd seen in Vogue Knitting, but once the yarn arrived I realized that it wasn't going to work for that sweater. I never did make the sweater, and the yarn has followed me from one end of California to another in the intervening years.

It's 100% wool and worsted weight, but it's slubby and has a big halo. The color is also one I never wear.
And did I mention that I bought a lot of this yarn?

On Ravelry, there's a group devoted to dyeing yarn with kool-aid and with other food colorings called What a Kool Way to Dye. After perusing their forum and their pages of helpful links, I decided to see if I could change the color of this yarn into something I'd want to use.

I also decided to see if I could dye this yarn without re-skeining it. Usually to kool-aid dye yarn, you skein it and tie it in several places so that the dye will reach all the fiber. I decided to dye my yarn in its original balls. Since this yarn had already been sitting around for almost 20 years, I figured I didn't have much to lose.

I soaked all the yarn I was going to dye in water for a couple of hours so that it was well saturated. Then, using the smallest amount of water possible, I put it on the stove in my turkey roaster. Since these are food colorings, it's fine to use your regular pots and dishes.

I dissolved 20 packets of black cherry kool-aid in water to dye my 10 balls of yarn. I added this mixture to the soaking yarn, and on the stove, gradually raised the temperature to just under boiling.

Lots of kool-aid dyed yarn is done in multi-colors for socks and other small projects. It's also possible to over dye yarn to alter the color.

Um, wear gloves when you do this.

When the yarn approaches boiling, it will have absorbed all the dye.

It's miraculous, but the water will be clear or nearly clear once the yarn has taken up the dye.

Contrary to what you might think, subjecting wool to hot water will not make it felt. The combination of agitation and rapid temperature change are what make wool felt.

When your yarn is dyed, turn off the fire, let the water come back to room temperature, and then rinse the yarn well. I put mine on the back porch to dry.

This is what I got: ten skeins of kettle dyed wool. Parts of the balls were darker than the rest. You can play with adding the dye to the water before you put in the yarn to see if your results are more even. I used a turkey baster to place dye in the center of the balls, but this made dark splotches wherever the dye hit first, and didn't necessarily darken the yarn at the center of the balls. Exposing the yarn to hot water made it bloom: it was softer and fluffier that it was in the original state. This yarn is color-fast, though if you were to expose it to lots of sunlight, it would likely fade.

Next: Part 2: The Sweater I Knit from Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn

Another New Old Toy

2010-09-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

I always wanted a treadle sewing machine, and now I've found one and it's taken up residence in my kitchen. I wanted one because it reminds me of my grandmother's treadle, which we used to keep in the dining room of our flat when I was growing up. A favorite childhood pastimes was making that treadle go, which is why my mother kept the belt off the wheel when she wasn't using it.

I also have a reoccurring fantasy of living someday in My Cabin in the Woods. A quiet retreat with a large garden where I'll live off-grid, sewing and knitting and growing things. The treadle machine is a key component to that dream.

This machine came my way in the same thrift store where I recently bought my Singer 185J. It's a Singer 15, according to the serial number, made circa 1903 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The decals are sometimes called the Tiffany pattern.

It's in great shape, except that it was a little grimy. I've seen few treadles around here, and most have been real fixer-uppers, but this one is solid, and has all her parts, including the key to the cabinet, and all the extra attachments. I've been cleaning her up, oiling her, and getting to know how she works. There are great web resources for vintage machine fans, including an active Vintage Sewing Machines group on Ravelry, and there are helpful YouTube videos on various aspects of machine repair and operation.

Although this machine appears to have been made in the U.S., the manual that came with her is in German. They did make Singers in Germany, but perhaps a German-speaking sewer acquired a German manual for her machine. Or maybe the serial numbers are wrong, and the machine was made in Germany, and has traveled a very long way in 107 years.

The machine accessories came in these two tins, which to me, are as beautiful as the machine. One is a cigarette tin, and the other is for some kind of stomach tablets, and the labels are in German. I've got a German-speaking colleague I'm going to ask to look at these for clues to the story of the machine.

I'm getting close to an actual sewing test with the machine. I've got to adjust the belt so I can wind some bobbins and thread her up. There's nothing like the sound of a treadle sewing machine.

Summer Knitting

2010-08-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I don't show a lot on knitting-in-progress, though I usually have at least 2 projects going at any one time. I think that looking at unfinished knitting is akin to watching paint dry, but finished knitting is like looking at toys or candy. Here is a display of a few projects I finished over the summer.

The first is Splash, a vest pattern by Wendy Bernard. It has a clever construction--the shoulder is seamless. You make a provisional cast-on, and then knit down the back to the bottom of the arm holes. Then you pick up the stitches from the cast-on edge, and knit down the front to the bottom of the harm holes, join front and back, and knit the body to the hem.

Designers are very big these days on garments that don't need any seaming, and I think a lot of newer knitters have an unreasoned fear of seams that makes these patterns popular. I don't mind seaming, and I think they often lend garments structure, but this was a fairly quick knit and made a cute vest. The body is meant to hang straight from the bust, but I made mine A-line, which suits me better. The yarn was recylced from a thrift store sweater that I unwound. It's 100% wool tweed, and the color is very cheerful.

I also knit a Shalom vest, which is a free pattern by Meghan Mc Farlane. It's also knit seamlessly from the top down. All the yarn for this vest was bought at the thrift store. It's unusual to find sweater quantities of yarn second hand, but I did score this discontinued Patons acrylic-wool blend in a bulky weight in the exact quantity I needed. Some days the recycling gods send you a small gift. Of course the buttons cost me twice as much as the yarn, but that's the way it goes.

I get to knit even in summer because it never gets hot in this coastal climate, and this year has been unusually foggy. Small knit projects are also great for travel, and I knit most of this Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl , a free pattern by Sarah Bradberry, on a trip. I made great progress on this shawl when I got stuck overnight at the San Francisco airport when trying to get home from Albuquerque. Note to self: pack lots of knitting for plane trips.

This shawl was knit from one ball of sock yarn: Deborah Norville's Premier Serenity Sock Yarn, which is a blend of wool, bamboo and nylon. I knit it on a U.S. size 10 needle, and before binding off knitted every stitch twice so the edge would been extra stretchy. I blocked it aggressively to open the lace, after throwing a bit of liquid starch in the rinse water. This shawl went to Michael's daughter for her birthday.

I'm finishing the second sleeve of a cardigan that I hope to show soon, then I think I'm going to cast on a massive shawl and use up some coned wool I've got stashed. There are some nice small shawl patterns I've been eyeing, and I'll probably mix in a few of those too. This will be the Fall of the shawl.

Charmed I'm Sure (70 x 80")

2010-08-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I've cut a lot of my stash (especially the smaller pieces) into 5" squares and into strips of various widths. This quilt top was pieced from some squares I fussy cut. I sashed the blocks with some of the pre-cut strips, and added a piano key border. This top will go to Debra and she'll quilt and donate this top along with others she's making.

I also finally finished piecing this top, which has been a few years in the making. The basic units are 16-patches made of 2" blocks, and 3.5 inch half square triangles.

This top was done except for one of the long outer borders. I must've gotten completely sick of making these blocks, so I just folded it up and put it in the Closet of Doom. Once I had my new Singer 185 installed on the kitchen table, I decided to make up the remaining blocks and finish the border on this poor quilt. Of course it came together very quickly. I think this one will likely go to Debra too because I can't foresee a specific need/ recipient for this quilt. I just needed to make it, and now that it's done, I can let it go.

With some of the remaining 2" strips I made 4-patches for these blocks. Debra shared the link to this great method for making half-square triangles. Scroll down until you find the short tutorial for Fast and Easy Pinwheels on the right of the page, and your approach to the hst will be revolutionized. To get 4 of these 3.5" half square triangles, start with 2- 5.5" squares.

It looks like another scrappy donation quilt is in the works.

Vintage Baby Saque

2010-08-06T08:33:00.001-07:00

I've been straightening the stash, and I came across this baby saque. I've had it so long, I don't remember where it came from. It's pre-printed with a design for embroidery, and it had little holes around the edges of the finished garment. Michael's son and and daughter-in-law are expecting their second baby, and it's a girl, so it seemed time for this project to get made.

I think these little projects were once widely available. They seem like the kind of think you could have once bought at the 5 and 10 and embroidered for your baby. I imagine that this one is from the 50s or 60s, but maybe someone has a better memory of this than me.

I quickly embroidered the front, but then I had to figure out how those holes figured into the finished saque. After surfing the net, I saw a photo of a similar garment. The holes are for crocheting an edging.

It's almost scary that I had the right size crochet hook (I think a 7) and some DMC cotton in the exact color I needed. After giving the piece a much-needed wash, which removed the markings, I trimmed a narrow hem around the edge and added a row of single crochet. I was planning to do a picot edge, but I like the plain look.

I remember that these baby gowns used to come with ribbon ties, which to me are totally impractical. I added buttons and added a row of button holes to the crochet.

Voila! Finished at last.

Beautiful Flower, Bountiful Garden (41 x 41)

2010-08-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

I put the binding on a quilt Debra and I made in a round-robin. "Beautiful Flower, Bountiful Garden" or, as we usually call it, the pink madonna, is our first joint madonna quilt collaboration, though we've been bouncing ideas off each other on this series of quilts for years. If you haven't seen it, we have a blog The Madonna Idea, which includes the bulk of the madonna quilts we've made.

The center of the quilt is a pre-printed panel flanked by some of Debra's machine embroidered blocks. She gave these blocks to me when we met at IPQF in Long Beach a couple of years ago, and I immediately knew they were meant somehow to go with the panel. From there we went back and forth a few times, each of us adding a round of blocks. Debra came up with the text for the embroidered ribbon: "Oh holy mother, beautiful flower of our life's bountiful garden." The results are, I think, seamless.

The quit is the center of my newly-decorated home office. With all that color and pattern, the rest of the room is quite subdued: a calm palatte for this and some of my other favorite quilts.

On the opposite wall, I've put two chairs and I've hung some of my favorite small quilts. For hangers in this room I bought some tall bamboo poles (found at the garden center), and I painted them black. They hang on some single coat hooks that I screwed into the wall.

The rocking chair was my grandmother's. I recovered some pillows I had around the house with black and cream fabric.

I bought this wing chair and the footstool at two different used furniture stores. The cats like this room a lot, and I can see that I'm going to have to fight them for the chairs.

At the entrance to the room, I hung I my St. Theresa piece. The room has a very peaceful vibe.

Green Hornet

2010-07-26T08:46:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Michael and I were walking back from the movies when we did our usual dialogue:

--Should we stop at the thrift store?

--I don't know, do you want to stop?

--I don't know, I was just there...

I'm sure you have these conversations too. But it was my lucky day, because we stopped and I spied this distinctive small green case,

and sure enough, there was a pristine Singer 185 J. Because it was half price day, it was $10.00.

This machine is 3/4 size, so in addition to being green, it's cute. It was made in 1954, and my machine was made in Canada. The 185 Js are Canadian, and the 185 Ks are American made.

Although it's diminutive, it weighs 30 lbs, and can double as a boat anchor, so I had to come back with the car to pick it up. I've been very lucky with my Singer collection (I've got a 127, a 201, a 301 and a featherweight) to find machines that have been little used and that have spent their years in someone's nice dry hall closet, as opposed to the damp garage, or even in the shed or barn. Greenie wasn't at all dirty. I just wiped her down, oiled her up, changed the needle, and she was almost ready to go. I had to get her a new belt. The Singer repair man saw me come into his store with the green case and right away exclaimed: it's a 185! She inspires excitement.

I've got Greenie parked on my kitchen table, which she matches, so you know how much I like this color. I'm piecing some strip sets to finish the border on a UFO. She makes the happiest sound.

Micro Fiber Laptop Case from a Women's Suit

2010-07-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

I needed a laptop case, and decided to use a micro fiber women's suit I picked up for $1 at the thrift store. It's a nice soft yellow, though it photographed a little paler than it is in real life.

Actually, I started out making a messenger bag like I did here, but you know, sometimes projects have a life of their own.

Micro fiber looks and feels like suede, but it's polyester, so it's machine washable. It also doesn't fray. It sometimes is labeled Ultrasuede. The skirt has a lot of usable fabric.

And the jacket had these nice pin tucks that I cut across for some interesting textured strips.

It's the simplest sewing: you make a big rectangular envelope. Since the skirt was lined, I didn't need to add lining, though I did add a big pocket cut from the suit fabric. I used the strips like bias binding to hold all the layers together. The cool buttons are dollar store finds.

I could have used this laptop case on some of my summer trips. In May I was at the Getty Museum in Malibu, which has spectacular grounds

I fell in love with the windows in the parking garage.

And earlier this month I was in Albuquerque. Here are some shots of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

They know how to do skies in New Mexico.

Now that I'm back home, I can take my laptop case into the redwood forest.

Starts and Finishes

2010-07-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

I finished piecing the Bee Quilt top. This has been a slow quilting year for me. I've been looking at this top in progress all year it seems. I settled on borders, sewed the whole thing together, and was glad to get it off my design wall.

I'm not thrilled with the border, but done is done and I used up almost all of these fabrics.

So now on to something new. While dawdling about finishing Bee, I've been combing through my fabric stash and cutting up everything smaller than a FQ into strips (3", 2.5" and 1.5") and squares (5"), some of which are fussy cuts of charm fabrics. I'm freeing up a lot of storage space, and I've got lots of nice piles of scraps to play with.

It was very freeing to come up with this:

...and then this:

I'm sewing together the individual blocks. There will be sashing. Maybe black...with skeletons.

Empty Nest

2010-06-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

I knew it was coming, but I didn't imagine that I would have an empty nest in one fell swoop. Both my kids moved out together into an apartment. They have fairly grown up lives with two jobs each and school, and living at home with mom gets old after 20 or 22 years.

They found a cute apartment together, and except for my daily calls and inquiries into what they're eating, they're doing great. It's hard for me sometimes not to imagine them as these two little ones perched on the love seat. This is one of my favorite photos of them, as it shows how close and how protective of each other they've always been. When Alex barely had begun to talk he wanted to hit a kid on the playground who had thrown sand at his sister. And Allie has always been the cool big sister, even when, a kindergartner, she used toilet paper to make "casts" and "bandages" for Alex, her cooperative patient.

When Allie and I were making the sweep of the local thrift stores looking for a sofa, we found a love seat identical to the one in this picture, and in great shape despite the years. We snapped it up, and when Alex saw it later, he was amazed that we had found this replica of their childhood love seat.

I still had some of the old pillows to that set of furniture, so I recovered them with swatches of upholstery fabric that I had stashed. They create continuity between the old life and the new.

I covered some other old pillows with a piece of chenille that I had put away, lord knows why, but it does make nice pillow covers.

For good measure, I made some pot holders. What else is a mother to do?

Busy Bee

2010-06-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

I've been a Busy Bee. Even though I was really tired after the end of the school year, I've since taken two trips and had my old friend Bernadette and her husband Adrian as house guests over Memorial Day weekend.

Bernie and I have been friends since college, when we lived in the same residence hall. After graduation, we shared a house for about a year when she was in law school. She is a very loyal friend, someone who makes the effort to keep in touch across distances and time. It was fun to show her the sights around town. We had a break in the wet weather just for her visit.

It's been interesting for me to realize how the core of people stays the same across the course of their lives. That old familiar essence--and the connection we have with old friends-- is always there unchanged.

In my sewing room I've been looking at this quilt in the making for months. I embroidered these blocks a couple of years ago. The patterns are vintage outline embroidery patterns from the Flickr site Hoop Love Vintage Transfers. You have to join to access the patterns, but once you do, you can enjoy an amazing array of old patterns. It will leave you wanting to embroider dishcloths.

For some reason these busy bees struck my fancy.

The collection of patterns could be titled Advice for Life, or Mother's Wisdom.

I embroidered them in black cotton floss on white cotton, not really knowing what I'd do with the blocks.

When I saw this stretched churn dash block, I knew I'd found the setting.

Since I alternated the colors in each block, it makes a nice secondary pattern in the corners.

I'm making this quilt in a very controlled (for me) selection of fabrics. I've got the border designed, but I'm still making the pieces. Then this one will be done. It makes me smile every time I see it. It's a lap or large baby quilt size. I haven't quite decided what I'll do with it.

Enjoy your weekend. My plan is to have a blissful, quiet and slow couple of days.

Mystical Rose

2010-05-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

I finished my AAQ entry and mailed it off. Mystical Rose is one of the names of the Madonna, and the rose symbolizes Mary's mystery, her virginal role in the incarnation of Jesus. In addition, "the invitation ... 'Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds' (Wisdom 2:8) is addressed to all. We are called to be sons and daughters of God." (http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/prayers/rosamystica.html)

This piece is a tribute to women’s spiritual lives and especially to their ownership of their spiritual practices. It also highlight’s Mary’s role as an icon of the feminine divine.

The central block is a vintage handkerchief, emphasizing the personal, and the everyday as valued parts of spiritual life. I recently connected my handkerchief obsession with the story of St. Veronica, who wipes Jesus's face on his way to the crucifixion, and whose handkerchief is left imprinted with his image. This story will be the subject of my next small quilt.

The name of the original owner of this handkerchief, Olive Welch, (or maybe Welsh, it's hard to tell) is stamped on its top white border. I bought this handkerchief at a garage sale in the 70s, so I never knew Olive personally, but I feel like keeping her handkerchiefs over the years has helped to preserve a relic of her life.

Here are some close ups.

The photo is a vintage holy card image transferred on to the handkerchief. All the lace in this piece is vintage.

I pieced the hanging sleeve and used a vintage doily for the label.

Another close up.
I'm glad I used these old treasured pieces of fabric and lace to make this piece. They really needed to come out of the drawers and to see the light of day. I find it ironic sometimes that so many of my art quilts are made with such a nostalgic and sentimental tone, but I find myself drawn to the innocence of my childhood, and especially to the core place religion had in my early life.

Garter Stitch

2010-05-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a little garter stitch is good for the soul.

And a lot of garter stitch has miraculous healing qualities.

It heals the stress of end of the school year piles of work:
the student papers, the exams, the last committee meetings squeezed in during finals week.

It soothes the soul as you repeat to the 20th person: no you can’t contact me/ call me for a meeting/ send me drafts/ leave me in charge of this project over the summer. Garter stitch, done enough, gives you the fortitude to repeat the words over and over: “I’ll be unavailable.”

I’ve discovered that I can knit garter stitch even after I tripped on a hole in the sidewalk and scraped up and bruised my left hand and right knee. It even helped me to slowly get full mobility back in my hand, and gave me something to do over the days I sat with one leg elevated.

Knitting garter stitch is repetitive and mindless, and replicates that zen state of mind. Done enough, it allows your imagination to expand and concoct summer plans: trips, writing projects, and yes, more knitting of garter stitch.

These past few weeks my dream state has been induced by the bib pattern Baby Bib o’ Love in Mason Dixon Knitting. I’m currently knitting washcloths from a container of odd balls of different sizes and colors of crochet cotton, in the classic diagonal pattern. One more, I keep repeating to myself as I knit myself into a calm state of mind.

I could be at this all summer. I’ve even pulled some yarn for a Modern Log Cabin Blanket, also from Mason Dixon knitting. Just in case I need the enlightenment.

Knitted Rag Rug Tutorial

2010-05-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

I know you remember where good intentions lead. Nonetheless, I did intend to continue my regular posts when the end of the semester workload and all my gardening intervened. School is out in a couple of weeks, and I intend (there's that word again) to resume my regular schedule of posting.

In the meantime, I did prepare an Earth Day project. Of course I didn't get it posted in time, but we'll take the attitude that everyday should be Earth Day, and act as if it's not late at all.

I've been streamlining my stash lately, and confronted a big pile of cotton yardage that had been my living room curtains. They were badly faded in spots, but otherwise in good shape. I had 8 panels of 100% cotton and I finally decided, after seeing some similar projects on Ravelry, to cut them into strips and knit a rug.

If you've never made continuous fabric strips, here's a quick way to do it. Remove all the hems from your fabric, and fold it so that the raw edges are even and extend a bit beyond the rest of the fabric. Using a rotary cutter and ruler, cut strips without cutting through the raw edges. These strips were cut 1", but if I were to do this again, I'd go smaller, because the thicker the strip the more cumbersome the knitting.

Cut every other strip apart with a scissors, which will give you a continuous strip that you can roll into a ball like yarn. The location of the cuts will alternate in the top and bottom layer of fabric. I knit my rug on size 13 needles by casting on 42 stitches and alternating blocks of garter and stockinette stitch. This isn't very precise work, so make it up to suit yourself. The garter stitch makes for a nice thick rug, though it's harder on the hands to knit.

Voila, my new bathroom rug! I've freed up a big space on my fabric closet shelf, and got a rug out of it in the bargain.

The illusive Wee gives it the fireside seal of approval.

I used six panels of fabric for this rug, so it really eats up stash that is otherwise useless. I may crochet a basket or a cat bed with what's left. Or at least that's what I intend to do right now.

Project Updates

2010-04-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a few projects in my typical erratic fashion. I'll spend a couple of hours hand sewing, a few hours knitting here and there on various projects, and every couple of weeks, I manage some machine sewing. I've done some more work on my AAQ project. In the closeup you can see that I've added tiny French knots and beads over some dots in the hankie fabric. I've also duplicate stitched some petals in green cotton.

The lace in this piece was a gift from Allie Aller. I'm glad to have found a very special use for it. After I embellish the lace, I think this piece will be done. I think I'm going to bind it with ribbon. I haven't done this before, so I'll have to play with it a bit.

I've made a big stack of pillowcases for Operation Pillowcase. These didn't all fit into one box, so I'll be sending another box in the near future. If you'd like to add even one or two pillowcases to the next package, let me know. Operation Pillowcase has now sent over 1100 pillowcases to service members in Afghanistan. It's amazing what dedicated sewers have accomplished.

I treated myself to a copy of Martha Stewart's new craft and sewing book. It's a great book with plenty of projects: baby items, linens, toys, and it has an extensive section of basic instructions of various techniques for new crafters.

Of course the photography is clean and beautiful, and the projects have a contemporary feel.

Aren't these cute potholders?

We're still getting plenty of rain here, but the sunny days in between have been delightful. I hope you are enjoying these Spring days.

Some Shawls and More Mail

2010-04-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

I like to keep a shawl on the needles as one of my 3-4 knitting projects in progress. I like a plain shawl I can knit without paying too much attention. I can knit one of these while reading, or when in a dark movie theatre. I don't get to too many movies, but just in case I get the chance to go to one, I've got a shawl to knit.

The pattern for the top shawl is Eye of Partridge Shawl by aemmeleia and I knit it in some Kroy sock yarn in the Burnished Sierra Stripes colorway. The stitch pattern shows off the yarn nicely, though the shape is a deep V and not very wide. I guess it's more of a neckerchief than a shawl.

I buy sock yarn in colors I like, though I don't actually knit many socks. I think the last pair I knit took me two years to finish, but sock yarn makes very pretty shawls.

This shawlette is knit from the pattern 22.5 Degrees by Martina Behm. The pattern is here on her website. Though the site is in German, you can see the link to the pattern in English is marked at the bottom of the pattern post. This is a great pattern. I knit it with two strands of a Deborah Norville sock yarn in the Thyme colorway, and I knit the edging with an odd ball of wool and silk blend yarn. Martina has an indispensable link in the pattern to her YouTube video tutorial for making the edging.

I actually made another one of these for my mom in a teal worsted weight yarn, but I mailed it off before I thought to take a photo. Shawlettes are perfect for keeping your neck warm under your jacket, or while you're at home, and they only take one or two balls of yarn to make.

I got more great mail. I won a give-away on Floribunda's blog, and I got this nice batch of gifts. The book has some good ideas: one I liked was personalizing buttons for your projects by painting them with nail polish. Thanks Julie!

I also got a batch of pillowcases and some playing cards from Magpie Sue for Operation Pillowcase. These will be going into the mail as soon as I sew up the pile of pillowcases I'm making to send. Thanks Sue!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you had a relaxing and creative day. I'm knitting my colorwork vest, and watching the Yankees vs. the Red Sox game on TV. The beginning of baseball season means lots of knitting opportunities in the months to come.

Tutorial: Converting a Pullover into a Cardigan Using Fabric Binding

2010-03-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in San Francisco we lived near a train track. While walking home with my sister through the tracks, my grandmother found a table, and the two of them carried it back to our house. This is a totally characteristic event in my family. Finding free stuff is always a cause for celebration, and an old woman and a 10-year old girl carrying a table down the street is seen as a minor inconvenience. It was one of those wooden 40s tables with the drop-leafs on two sides. My mother stripped and refinished it, and we used that table for many years.

Finding something with potential, dragging it home, and making it close to perfect can be an art form. I keep practicing it, anyway, and someday I’ll be a master.

I bought this turtleneck sweater at the thrift store because I like the color, and because it’s 50% wool. However, I find it increasingly hard to wear things that are tight around the neck. I think it may be an age thing, but this clearly wasn’t going to work. I put the sweater aside, thinking I’d put it into the donation pile, but then I started to see some possibilities in the sweater I hadn’t considered at first. I decided to convert it into a cardigan.

The first step may be the scariest, but fear not, you are the master of your project, and if you're like me, and only paid $3 for your sweater, you can be bold with it. Mark the center line of your sweater with chalk or with a sliver of soap. If you're feeling really rebellious, make it an off-center line. Machine stitch along both sides of the line with a narrow zig zag, then cut between the stitched lined with a sharp scissors.

Make some continuous fabric bias tape. Here is a handy tutorial if you've never done this. In my mind, the fabric you choose can really make your project stand out. I had a fat quarter of this nice pink and brown floral that was perfect. I made 2" wide binding, and it made about double the amount of bias binding I needed for this sweater. You can make your binding wider or narrower, as you like.

Iron your binding in half length-wise just so you have a reference point. Match raw edges of your binding and the wrong side of one half of your sweater, and sew with a straight stitch. I used a 1/4" seam.

Flip to the right side, and fold the corners neatly, especially at the neck edge, since the inside edge is going to show. Fold the free edge up to the center crease.

Fold the binding to the right side so that the sweater edge is completely encased by the binding. Top stitch on the right side. You can see that the binding is wider on the right side than the wrong side. Carefully press the stitched binding so the fold line is no longer visible. If you want it to be even on both sides, use a wider seam allowance when you first attach the binding. Repeat for the other edge of the sweater opening.

I added hooks and eyes to the inside of the sweater opening, and these three vintage buttons are purely for decoration.

I've worn this sweater a few times already. I feel very chic, and clever to boot.

If you want more ideas: Craftzine has a great tutorial for cardiganizing a pullover in which you crochet a new buttonband.

Wardrobe Refashion is a blog that has a constant stream of re-fashioning ideas.

Sister Diane at Craftypod has done an excellent series of podcasts on the concept of "Free" in the on-line crafting community. She also has a great list of links to related discussions. Check out her earlier podcast and show notes as well, where she describes her own experience providing free craft content on the web.

Granny Squares

2010-03-21T00:09:00.000-07:00

The closest thing I have to a crafting tradition in my family is the granny square afghans my mother and aunts crocheted while I was growing up. Sometime when I was in my early teens, my mother and aunts started getting together weekly for what they called their “sewing club.” My mother has six sisters, who all participated, except for Auntie Jo, who liked to wear sunglasses inside, and who was rarely without a cigarette hanging from her mouth. I don’t think the sewing club was quite her thing. Instead, my Auntie Helen, an aunt by marriage, joined the club.

They met on Wednesday nights after dinner, and took turns meeting at each other’s houses. The hostess was expected to provide tea and a dessert. Of course the real purpose of the sewing club was to get together and visit, which is remarkable to me in retrospect, because they spoke to each other continuously on the phone and in person. It was always someone’s birthday in my family, so there was a regular schedule of parties, and of course we got together for holidays. My Auntie Lu would often stop to have coffee with my mother after she’d dropped her kids at school, and before she had to show up for her part time job wrapping packages downtown at the Emporium. She’d arrive with her coat thrown hastily over her nightgown. However, Auntie Lu had to stop driving around town in this attire after her car broke down one morning. Fortunately, she was within walking distance of Auntie Helen’s, but she had to make the walk, as she later reported, sin calzones, without underpants, as she had again rushed out of the house wearing nightgown, coat, slippers, and nothing else.

When they first met for the sewing club, the aunts would bring pants to hem, or other mending. Auntie Nena was the first one who crocheted, and she quickly taught the others. Eventually, the granny square afghan, in its classic incarnation with black-bordered multicolored squares, became the sewing club’s official project.

The aunts swapped brightly colored acrylic yarns so that everyone had the maximum number of colors in their granny squares. They carefully chose what colors to contrast between rounds. They shared extra aluminum crochet hooks in size E with those who couldn’t find theirs. I don’t remember my mother working on her granny squares outside of sewing club meetings, and my aunts probably didn’t either, which is why the afghans seem to have been completed over many years. Eventually everyone finished one, and except for Auntie Nena, the original crocheter in the group, I don’t think anyone continued to crochet after the granny square afghans were done. Eventually the group disbanded. My aunt Helen separated from my uncle, my parents moved out of the city when my father’s plant relocated. But everyone had a granny square afghan proudly displayed in her home. It was an accomplishment they’d made together, as a group, as sisters.

The granny square afghan appears to be trendy again. Or maybe it’s that its trendiness has been acknowledged by a new generation. Check out the work of Attic24 . There are some remarkable examples in Flickr groups Attic24 Inspired and Crocheting Sunburst. As always, careful color selection is the key to the granny square.

I was inspired by a project in this post on Attic24, and by the sewing club afghans, to make a granny square scarf. It was fun to make, choosing from a selection of bright scraps. I got Allie to model it for me. She has the panache to make it look elegant. I’m going to wear it with my jean jacket now that the weather has been warmer.

The granny square captures some of the best parts of the crafting experience. It’s best executed when both yarn and experience are shared with others. It’s being fostered today in virtual sewing clubs all over the world.

Progress Report and Mail Call

2010-03-13T07:39:00.000-08:00

I had some time this week to work on my piece for the AAQ contest. I love it when I can take an hour or two first thing in the morning and sit by the window and do some hand work. It's the best way for me to begin the day. I've added more roses and some white sequins and French knots, which I think of as stars. I've also added more beads.

In the evening, I'm working on my Faire Isle vest. I'm getting closer to the point at which I start the steeks for the armholes and the v-neck. I'm feeling very confident with color work knitting at this point, and I'm going along at a pretty good clip. I won't make the deadline of finishing this before my mom's birthday next week, but she'll get an IOU and a small consolation shawl.

I've had great mail over the past couple of weeks. First Beth sent me these lovely vintage linens. She an I share the passion for old fabrics and I really love the avocado green in this selection. I'm thinking of making aprons from my now-expanded stash of pretties. Check out Beth's blog, Love, Laugh, Quilt, where she posts a lot of scrappy and improvisational quilts.

Sue sent me this really cute ATC of my cats called "Cleo and Louie in the Garden." It's so cheerful and fun. I'm keeping it on my desk where it keeps me in a good mood while a grade midterms. Sue is making a series of beaded ornaments this year, and she makes a lot of preemie quilts that she talks about over on her blog From the Magpie's Nest.

My crazy Christmas cactus is blooming. It does that sometime, blooming a couple of times in the winter. The Christmas cactus is one of those old fashioned plants. My mother's got several of them, some of which she's had for decades, and my grandmothers kept them too. They're hardy and this one really likes it in my kitchen near the window.

Photogenic Louie was happy to pose next to it, just to make the photo prettier.

Enjoy your weekend. When you sew remember to make a few pillowcases for soldiers for Operation Pillowcase.

Old and New

2010-03-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

Since I'm easily distracted, I started a new project. The Alliance for American Quilts' contest this year is themed "New From Old," which is my favorite creative approach. The deadline for 16 x16 entries is May 31.

I'm working with a vintage handkerchief and a transfer from an old holy card. I'm going to use some of my vintage trims as well. Here you can see my silk ribbon spiderweb rose swag is studded with old pearls from a broken necklace. I threw in a few new ones too.

I remember buying this handkerchief at a garage sale in the 70s. I've always liked old things. This one is stamped with the original owner's name: Olive Welsh. I love that detail, and will make sure it shows.

I also made this apron, which is a hybrid from a few patterns. The pocket shapes are copied from an old apron that my grandmother wore. The Scottie dogs are reproduction fabric, but the pockets and sash are vintage fabric.

Don't you love that scallop?

And here are some lovely towels to match. If you'd like to win these and even more beauties, check the Operation Pillowcase site. There is a gift basket giveaway and all you need to do to enter is make a few pillowcases for soldiers serving in Afghanistan. We are currently collecting pillowcases for a unit of 500 soldiers, so we want to encourage lots of contributions. See the site for details.

Have a wonderful weekend. I'm so glad it's finally here.

Big Scrappy Quilt (70 x85)

2010-02-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

I finished my big scrappy quilt top. It is foundation pieced on used dryer sheets, which, when all is said and done, is not worth the trouble in my opinion. I love the diamond shapes that the dryer sheets allow you to make, but mostly they're hard to iron and too smelly when you're sewing the whole quilt together.

I played a bit with concentrating the light colors in the center and the darks at some of the edges, but it only occurred to me to do this late in process, so it's not as prominent a feature as it might have been. I love this pattern (or un-pattern). I love the fished results, and I love the purging of odd sized strips.

Here are a few close ups of some of the blocks. These quilts are a nice album of favorite fabrics.

An you never know who or what you're going to see peeking out at you. (That's George Washington in the middle there)

Have a great day. If the weather holds I'm going to do some gardening.

Fair Isle Vest

2010-02-22T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm knitting a Fair Isle vest. Fair Isle uses multiple colors: traditionally two colors per row, and anywhere from two to countless colors in the whole garment.

This vest uses nine colors and I'm making it from a kit: the Corrie Fair Isle Vest from Knit Picks. I bought two kits when they went on clearance. I'm knitting this one for my mom since she likes bright colors. Her vest is a good test project because I can knit the smallest size for her and getting a feel for the technique. It's very satisfying to reach each section and to see the patterns unfold.

The kit I bought for myself is in neutral browns and greens.

And what's goes with knitting better than cats? Here's a cute picture of Louie in a basket.

...and one of Fatty in a box on the porch on an old quilt.

Winter Madonna Update

2010-02-14T09:17:00.001-08:00

Between making pillowcases for Operation Pillowcase, I'm working on my Winter Madonna. I've fussy cut some poinsettias from fabric and ironed them on to form a tree. Besides being a Christmas flower, the poinsettia is a Mexican flower, so it fits thematically with the Virgin of Guadalupe, though traditionally, her flower is the rose.

I'm blending silk ribbon embroidered poinsettias with the fabric ones, and I've added silk ribbon leaves that blend with the leaves in the background fabric.

The elements blend into one uniform plant with various levels. I can't wait to add beads to the centers of the silk ribbon flowers.

I've also added trim around the moon and duplicate stitched over the lace to highlight three roses. I used some shiny DMC thread.

Happy Valentine's Day to all my pals!

Pillowcases Are in the Mail

2010-02-10T16:09:00.001-08:00

I fit 33 pillowcases into my shipment for Operation Pillowcase. That includes 25 from me, 4 from my mom...

...and these lovelies from Julie at Floribunda Quilts. (Yes, sorry, that is a cat butt in the background. They insist on being in all photos taken at my house, and they're not particular about the angles.)

If you're thinking of participating:
--there are links to EASY pattens in the sidebar of the Operation Pillowcase blog.
--We need MANY more pillowcases. This is an on-going effort throughout the year, so you can participate now, later, or both.
-- You can make any number of cases, and mail them to someone near you who will bundle and ship them to service members serving in Afghanistan.
-- When you're ready to send your pillowcases, contact Debra through the Operation Pillowcase site, and she will direct you to a team leader who is collecting and shipping cases.
-- If you're in California, or in the Pacific Northwest, email me through my blog when you have some pillowcases, and I'll send you my address.

It's easy, and fun.

I have a new box from the Post Office ready to be filled again.

Shirts and Sheets (60 x 70) and a Package from Mom

2010-02-07T07:59:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Debra, who quilted it for me, I finished my Shirts and Sheets quilt. The fabric is harvested from vintage linens and from some coordinating cotton shirts I'd collected.

One benefit of piling fabrics up around the sewing room, is that sometimes I'm surprised by the things that want to go together. These plaids with their blues, yellows and greens, coordinate nicely with the big romantic yellow roses.

This is a very nostalgic quilt for me. Yellow was my paternal grandmother's favorite color. She always had her kitchen painted yellow, and being a very independent woman, she always did the painting herself. She wasn't a sewer at all, however. I remember how proud she was once when she used hem tape to make a set of kitchen curtains, without sewing a stitch.

Of course these florals also remind me of the 70s, of clean sheets, and of the satisfaction of a well-made bed. The fact that these are re-purposed fabrics thrills me to no end of course.

And just so you know where I get my aesthetics, I'm showing you the contents of a package I got this week from my mom. Debra once aptly called her my "enabler," which isn't far from true. Like my grandmother, Mom isn't a sewer nor a crafter, but she has the best eye for goods than can be re-purposed. She sent me these three beautiful panels of home dec fabric. Each piece is nice and big, so I should be able to do something substantial with them.

She also sent four of these very gently used pillowcases in the perfect colors for Operation Pillowcase.

And for me, there where king-sized pillowcases I'll harvest for fabric...

and a big chunk of this thrift store fabric, which will likely go into more Operation Pillowcases for soldiers.

She must've been a crafter in another life. I've absorbed some of my best quilt making concepts from her attitude toward collecting, salvaging, and reusing. She's got the eye, and I'm fortunate that she passed it down to me.

Who influenced you in your approach to your craft?

The First 25

2010-01-31T09:08:00.001-08:00

I finished my first 25 pillowcases for Operation Pillowcase, which is sending dark pillowcases to service members. Boy I love that mindless sewing, and as unintended consequence I'm doing an archaeological dig on my stash, removing the top layers, and finding all those projects that I still want to make, that I still have supplies for, but that have fallen into the deeper sedimentary layers of the stash (OK, no more geology references).

I've always known that I get distracted by clutter, but somehow I didn't use that realization in my sewing room. Now that I've peeled away some layers, I feel more organized and less distracted. I'm sure I will get even more pillowcases done for OP, and in the process I plan do work on some long-hibernating projects.

Of course, the main benefit of OP is to do good: to bring a little comfort to soldiers in Afghanistan. Debra just posted a list of things that soldiers can't get, but need or can use, and the simplicity of the items just breaks my heart. There's still time, if you want to help out.

I also finished knitting this sweater. Isn't it cute? It's a free vintage pattern you can find on the web here. I love this design, and I updated it with this deep purple color. The yarn is Vanna's Choice, an inexpensive acrylic, which is soft and lovely, and not the least bit stiff like older generations of acrylic yarn.

One of my students made this pin for me, which matches the sweater perfectly. When I wear it, I feel like quite the fashion plate.

Final Dollhouse Tour

2010-01-24T08:42:00.001-08:00

Here are the last photos of my dollhouse tour. You can see the others by following the "dollhouse" link in the sidebar, and they're in my Flikr page too. This is the small bedroom.

I made the bed: the headboard is from pre-made fence shapes from Michael's craft store. The dresser and vanity are from the dollar store. I felt like it was my lucky day when I ran across those.
This room still needs pictures on the walls. Just like with a real house, you're never quite done decorating a dollhouse.

The T.V. is a Japanese magnet. You may be able to see the perfume bottle next to the lamp is made from beads.

This is the second bedroom. I enlarged it by covering over the opening for the staircase that was originally on the right side. The stairs would have had to face away from the open side of the dollhouse, toward the front wall, so they wouldn't have been visible. I've been able to use the display space for more furniture.

This bed was made from balsa wood, and the headboard is a decorative wooden medallion.

This picture of my kids as babies was a charm for a necklace.

Don't you love these side mirrors? I was lucky to get this dress form on EBay.

Originally, there was a sepia-toned picture of a large house pasted into this frame in the wall. I wanted to keep it, but when I masked it off to paint the room, the picture got damaged. I replaced it with a postcard featuring a painting by Carmen Lomas Garza, of a family making tamales.

She does beautiful paintings of everyday life among Texas Mexican people, some of which are incorporated into children's books. The postcard advertises an exhibit of her work at the University of Texas. In front of the picture is the treadle sewing machine I knew I wanted for the dollhouse.

One big question about dollhouses is how to display them. They take up a significant amount of space, and you want to be able to see both sides. For the time being, I've installed mine on the counter between my living room and kitchen. From the living room, you can see the inside of the dollhouse.

From the kitchen, and when you come in the front door, you can see the outside. I'm pleased with this arrangement for the time being.

Thanks for visiting the dollhouse. Drop by anytime, the coffee's always on.

Doing Good Works

2010-01-18T18:40:00.001-08:00

Crafters are such generous people. Debra has spearheaded an effort to send pillowcases to service members in Afghanistan, which you can find out about at Operation Pillowcase. Her goal is to send 50 pillowcases to one unit, and I've sewn up a few myself towards the effort. In less than a week, and with the help of some friends, she's halfway toward her goal.

Others have posted about ways to contribute toward the Haitian earthquake relief. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, has been championing Doctors Without Borders for years, and the post-earthquake donations her readers have reported to her blog have put the total contributions of her Knitters Without Borders over $750,000. Knitters can flex some major charitable muscle.

Crazy Aunt Purl posted instructions on how to make small donations to the Red Cross and to other groups using your cell phone. She reports that over 7 million dollars has been collected to far for Haitian relief using the mobile giving campaign.

With so much loss and suffering, it's good to know we can each do our small part, and that these small efforts add up to a groundswell of tangible help to those in need.

Winter Madonna

2010-01-11T09:18:00.001-08:00

Thanks for your good wishes about the earthquake. I think my heart rate is almost back to normal and the general level of panic in the community is subsiding a bit. I went grocery shopping yesterday and the store was jammed and people were shopping for the end of the world, but I think things should continue to calm down as the days pass.

I'm working on the next piece in my seasonal Madonna series. I'm working with the Hoffman Virgin of Guadalupe fabric, and I cut out the motifs and use them as appliques. Here's an image of the original motif trimmed down.

The background for the four pieces are a set of vintage napkins. I take out the hems and trim them up so that the finished pieces are 16 x16 inches

Like for the Fall Madonna, I'm switching out the Madonna's robes to match the season of each piece. For this one I gave her and black and cream costume, and the new fabric is added over the old with needle-turn applique. I like the winter foliage in the print for her veil, and the skirt fabric has a Jacobean-style subtle print that I've used as the pattern for the bead embellishment.

Because this is the Winter Madonna, I've chosen the poinsettia as the floral motif for this piece. I found some poinsettia beads that I've worked into the skirt. At the bottom you can see the machine basting that I used to outline this piece. The stitching will be the fold line for the applique and I'll cut the rest of the fabric away about an eighth of an inch from the stitching.

Here's the finished motif. I'm thinking that when I attach her to the background, I'll add embellishment along her edge.

And this is my mock-up of the placement of the elements on the background. I use a freezer paper outline of the Madonna to figure out where to place her. I'm also using a piece of black lace to indicate the new moon. Each piece will incorporate a different phase of the moon.

Here's the completed Fall Madonna for reference. I'll be adding silk ribbon embroidery and broidery perse flowers to the Winter piece as well.

Mother Nature's Roller Coaster

2010-01-09T23:13:00.001-08:00

Edited to add: a link to a front page photo from today's paper and to the story.

We had a 6.5 earthquake at 4:30 pm on Saturday. It was a firm reminder that Mother Nature is really in charge, that we delude ourselves with daydreams of control and mastery, but ultimately, greater powers are in charge, and when they remind us, we are humbled.

We're all well. My house is fine, we didn't experience even one broken dish. I had an old bottle of sunscreen on top of the furnace in the garage, and it fell, the bottle cracked, and the sunscreen spilled. We had no power until just now, 11pm. I bless the people who work for Pacific Gas and Electric, who work so hard to restore power at times like this.

When the quake hit, I was in the middle of my first foray into the new Kohl's department store. It opened about 4 months ago, but I still hadn't been in. I decided to go shopping for bras. Michael had gone to pick up things for dinner, and was going to come to my house and cook. Allie was at her job at the restaurant, prepping for dinner service. Alex was at his job at the grocery store.

So here I was, thankfully, as Michael later noted, at least not in the dressing room naked from the waist up, but casually looking for a cashier, carrying two bras, (one beige, one black) a pair of leopard print drawers, (of all things) and a set of pink pajamas, when everything started to shake and the lights went out. The first jolt was pretty strong, but then, a bad sign, the ground kept rolling. I was in an area with racks of clothes, and had to struggle to keep my feet under me. Across the isle, dishes started to fall off the shelves and break. I could see the exit because it was still light outside. I dropped the merchandise and headed for the door, as did almost all the other shoppers.

Once I got outside, I saw a woman with a little girl, still holding garments on hangers. A pregnant woman clutched her belly and said she hoped this wouldn't send her into labor. An older lady stopped to chat with me as I fumbled for my cell phone. She seemed completely unaffected by the quake. She was just annoyed that she'd come all the way to town to exchange something, and now she wouldn't be able to.

All around me people began to run for their cars. I stood there for several minutes with my cell phone in my hand, in a quandary about who to call first. I called Michael, but he didn't answer. I later learned that he was at my house on the phone with his son in San Francisco, so he didn't answer. He realized it was a strong quake, but perhaps because he wasn't in a public place when it happened, he was the least effected of all of us. I left him a message.

I called Allie, who didn't answer either, so I sent her and Alex a text: "I'm okay, check in when you can." Allie works in the basement of one of the oldest buildings in the county. When the ground started to move, she was standing with a knife in her hand. All her co-workers, not being Californians, were confused when she dove under a table. They headed for the exit, and she followed them out, leaving her phone behind.

I was especially worried about Alex. I had visions of toppled shelves and broken glass. It turns out he was in the beer cooler at the time, surrounded by walls of stacked beer in glass bottles and cases of cans. He stood in the door frame of the cooler, until he remembered from his Red Cross training that the door frame isn't necessarily a great place to stand during an earthquake, so he exited the store. They thankfully had minimal breakage, though I think Alex was pretty shook up. They kept the store open, after hooking up a generator to the store manager's car battery when the generator battery wouldn't work. Alex spent part of his shift moving ice cream into the freezer at the back of the store to prevent them from losing inventory. Locals kept coming in to get candles and batteries.

As I pulled myself together to drive home, I lined up with all the cars leaving the mall. Emergency vehicles were coming in. I later heard that ceiling tiles and skylights came down in the mall, but that there appear to have been no major injuries and no major structural damage to buildings. As I drove home, Alex texted me that he was okay, and Allie called to check in. A woman called into the radio station I was listening to to say that all her glasses and dishes had fallen from the shelves and broken.

It's taken hours for the adrenaline to subside. Michael cooked and we had dinner and sat in the dark waiting for the power to come on. We got out the candles and the lanterns. Allie came home after they closed the restaurant, leaving meat on the cutting boards in the dark, and the food in the refrigerators spoiling. Alex came home after his shift and played the guitar. I knitted a few rows on a shawl that I can knit by feel. I feel like we dodged a bullet. I'm grateful that we're all well. That we have each other.

Alex brought home stories from customers of how windows blew out of a big grocery store, and of how ceiling tiles came down in a store at the mall, but with no power, it's been hard to get a sense of what's going on in the community around us. But for now, we're safe. In the coming weeks, we'll be stocking up on fresh batteries and I'll be stashing supplies in all the cars and in my office. This wasn't The Big One. Thank Goodness. Yes, it could've been much worse.

New Year Greetings

2010-01-07T21:29:00.001-08:00

The kids and I just came back from a quick trip to see my parents. Now that both kids work, we have to squeeze our travels in between every one's work schedules, but here the kids are with my dad.

And here they are with mom. She was recently in the hospital, but is doing much better.

Finally, here I am with the kids. My parents live in California's central valley, and we got typical cold foggy winter weather during our visit. We didn't get five minutes of sun over three days. I was glad when we drove out of the valley and into Lake county, where we finally got some sun. Then we drove into the familiar Humboldt County drizzle and we were home.

One of the many good things about having young adult kids is that we now have multiple drivers for our trips. This makes travel easy for me. I sit in the back seat and knit.

Here are a few recent knitted items. Knitting and winter are naturally compatible. Here's a fun hat I knit for myself. The pattern, Columbia, by Sarah Pope, is available through Ravelry.

I also knit myself this shawl from some lovely Misti Alpaca baby alpaca yarn that I had stashed away. The border is knit from an odd skein of Kid n Ewe mohair and wool blend that I picked up at a thrift store. The pattern, called Textured Shawl Recipe, is also available on Ravelry.

Quilting content is on the way. I'm working on a new hand embroidered Madonna piece, and I'll be posting some photos soon.

Happy 2010 to everyone. May the coming year bring us all closer together.

From My House to Yours...

2009-12-24T09:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays, and all the Blessings of the Season.

From the Dishtowel Factory

2009-12-17T21:34:00.001-08:00

The academic year puts a major crimp in my holiday spirit. This is finals week and I've got piles of grading, so my decorating is minimal, and most of my shopping is done by ordering on line. What did I ever do in the days before Amazon.com?

But I also managed to make some dish towels to give as gifts with jars of the jam I made this year.

You probably don't need a tutorial, but cut some cute fabric into 5 inch strips the width of a purchased dish towel. Sew a length of rick rack on the right side of one or both long edges.

Press the hem back so that half of the rick rack shows on the front side. Pin this panel 4 inches or so from the hem of a purchased dishtowel. Fold the short edges under so that the panel is even with the sides of the towel and top stitch it down on all sides. Here are some examples of what I made:

Isn't this cowboy fabric cute?

...And food prints are fun.

I think this Chinese print looks nice on these black and white towels.

I made these towels from yardage, which I later decided was too much work. The dish rag, however, is a very fast project. Cut a 9.5" square and apply a fabric binding just like you would for a quilt.

I made these 4 this morning in an hour before I had to leave for work.

There's no rest for the wicked.

Pillowcase Quilt

2009-12-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

Debra was very kind and quilted my pillowcase quilt for me. This was the quilt I made in part with fabric harvested from thrift store pillowcases. I posted about the construction of this project here, here, and here. Of course no sooner did I get this quilt out of the box, that my cats had to take turns sitting on it to make sure meets their high standards.

Debra did a lovely job quilting this utility quilt. I bound it with my favorite neutral: red, and Debra gave me this pretty blue backing fabric. She was very clever about recycling a thermal blanket for the batting. It's wonderfully drapey and snugly.

I decided to take the quilt to a bed to snap some photos, and Fatty volunteered to be the spokes-model.

Can you tell that she thinks this is her bed?

When I was done with the pictures, I had to wrestle her to get the quilt back. Cats are like that.

Doll House Tour

2009-11-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'm opening up my rehabed doll house for tours. I've finished three more rooms. The tour begins with the living room.

Allie brought her Sailor Moon dolls to be guides. In case you don't know, Sailor Moon is a Japanese anime teen superhero. These dolls are some of Allie's favorite childhood toys. I used scrapbook paper for wall paper throughout. The picture frames are also scrapbooking supplies. Of course I had to have a Virgin of Guadalupe in a prominent place.

I made this entryway table by sawing a cheap wooden armoire in half. The photo shows Allie and my sister's two older kids when they were little. Alex wasn't born yet, nor was my sister's younger daughter, Maria.

I love this coffee table, and you can get a peek into the kitchen.

Here's the den. I used an old postage stamp to put a picture of Sojourner Truth over the fireplace. I've got to get the picture to stick to the frame better.

Of course there is a cat near the fire.

I used more stamps to make pictures over the desk. I guess I have an abiding interest in small things, as I started a stamp collection many years ago, though I haven't worked on it in ages.

Here's the bathroom, which has the original "marble" flooring and striped wallpaper. I bought these vintage bathroom fixtures on Ebay. It was inspired by the bathroom in my aunt's house. When she moved in (in the 70s) it had beautiful lavender and green tile work and lavender tub and toilet. She's kept it true to the original, and I've always loved that bathroom. The pictures over the tub are sequins and beads glued to sandpaper.

The curtain was embroidered on my sewing machine to match the wallpaper. I made the towels with ribbon, vintage rick-rack, and iron-on tape.

If you want to see the kitchen and patio, and other project pictures, the posts are here. The bedrooms are almost done. My next task is to make the bedding.

If you want to learn how to make big giant pictures, check out Susan's very helpful post. It's incredibly easy.

Latticed Strippy Quilt (60 x 80)

2009-11-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

I was going sorting through a pile of pin basted quilt tops, and I ran across this strippy quilt. Because of the construction, it needed only minimal quilting, and so I decided to get it done.

This strippy is made from blocks I foundation pieced on 6" squares of leftover flannel. Because I use a lot of flannel sheets as quilt batting, I end up with odds and ends that can be used for foundations. Once I have enough of these blocks for a quilt, the batting is already there and I only need to add the backing.

The trick is to make the finished blocks bigger than the flannel foundations. When you're piecing, extend the strips beyond the foundations and then trim the finished blocks a half inch bigger than the foundations--these finished at 6.5". That way you can seam them without all that bulk, or in this case, join them with lattice strips.

Here's a picture of the quilt from the back. You can see the cotton extends beyond the flannel foundations, which was from an old sheet.

When you use the lattice construction--which I learned from another blogger whose name I unfortunately don't remember--You cut lattice strips (say 2.5 or 3", but you choose) and iron them in half lengthwise. Then you place four blocks side-by- side, with right sides up in a 4-patch arrangement.

You can see from the photo above, that you align the raw edges of your lattice strip with the raw edges of two blocks, and then sew with a 1/4" seam. Then you iron the lattice strip down and top stitch the folded edge to the other edge of the 4-patch formation, abutting but not overlapping the blocks. Then you repeat the process, joining the 4-patch blocks in the cross-wise direction.

Gee I hope that made sense.

Once you have a bunch of these 4-patch blocks, you join them together in the same way with longer strips.

I had this big piece of pastoral farm print for the back, courtesy of my mother. It's funny, because when Alex was little, I made him a vest from this exact fabric. I quilted the quilt in rows, just to secure the back to the front and middle. All the strips were already attached to the batting. The finished quilt is very warm and snuggly.

I've made other quilts from blocks pieced on foundation flannel before. You can also piece them conventionally, and because the block tops are bigger than the block foundations, when you sew them together, you avoid sewing through too many bulky layers.

I also make a few more of my diamond strippy blocks. I really like how these are coming along.

Laws of Physics

2009-10-26T19:48:00.001-07:00

The other day I was making a few more blocks for my spiderweb quilt. This paper pieced pattern uses up some small scraps, so I decided to go through my scrap bin and cut some of the larger pieces into units for a different scrap quilt.

I actually have two scrap bins, but from this one I cut almost all the pieces for the second quilt.

I cut 110 5 x 5" blocks, and even more 5 x 2.5" rectangles. The quilt requires another 20 squares. I think I can scrape together a few more from the drawers full I fabric I have around here.

Since I'm easily distracted, I decided to work on another scrappy UFO. This one uses up skinny strips. You foundation piece them on used dryer sheets. Make sure the sheets have been through the laundry a few times, because otherwise, they're sticky, and they especially stick to your iron. Using dryer sheets for foundation piecing is one of those quilting tips that sounds like a good idea, but it practice, it's not that useful.

But when you get a bunch of these pieced and trim them to 6 x 9" rectangles, I think they look super together.

So I did all this scrap busting, but when I checked the scrap bin, it was still full.

I've discovered a law of physics. Scraps can never be completely used up. At the end of time, it will be them and the cockroaches. We quilters are engaged in an impossible task. The scrap bins, according to the Second Law of Things in Small Pieces, can never be used up. It's impossible. I should give up now.