The Quilt Inspector...

..is tired!!

Sunflowers and Tea

January 2011 at Road to California I took Terry Waldron's class called 'Scavenger Hunt Art Quilt'. She sent a list of 'things' we should find around the house that might be incorporated into the quilt that would come out of the class.. Here is the list from her email:

THE SCAVENGER HUNT ART QUILT

with Terry Waldron

Using your BEST sense of humor “funny bone”, you have until the day BEFORE our class to find:

1  NEW ITEM THAT EXCITES YOU AND YOU WANT TO HAVE ON THIS QUILT

  (example:  a glorious bead, some specially dyed cloth or yarn, an antique doily, some alpaca hair or spun yarn,,,,)

1 ITEM THAT IS OR WAS ALIVE

(example:  a flower, a leaf, some tufts of grass, a nut or pod,

a silk worm cocoon, a unique scrap of paper, a natural fiber like silk, a piece of bark from a tree!!!)

1 ITEM THAT WAS THROWN AWAY BUT INTERESTS YOU

It will probably be some sort of paper item like some newspaper or a ticket or a sales slip or a napkin, but it could be a snipped scrap of fabric or ribbon from a present or a piece of sandpaper or… ?

1 PICTURE – BLACK & WHITE OR COLOR

This can be a photograph or a printed logo from a package or a picture from a newspaper or a design on a piece of cloth or a magazine page or something from your wallet.  (I am going to bring my copier for you to use to transfer this to cloth.  I will have fabric that is ready for copying.  It will cost $1 per sheet, or you can bring your own if you want to.)

1 ITEM THAT IS LONG AND WILL CREATE A LINE

(example:  string, yarn, wire, ribbon, torn paper or cloth.

 You could even fold twist-ties together to make a long line!)

Oh..the possibilities!!

My scavenged items that ended up on this quilt are an antique doily (it has a small hole in the center...), the fabrics that make up the sunflowers are decorator fabrics from a huge bag of scraps from the Fullerton Civic Light Opera, the green ribbon along the left side and the sunflower 'paper' that was wrapped around a pot of flowers that my son gave me when I was in the hospital... 

I knew going into the class that I was going to do 'something' that had sunflowers on it..It turned out to be a modern-ish tea table with a pot of cheery flowers..I know the perspective is not quite 'real' but..it is pleasing to me..and I hope..to you!

Here is what the quilt looked like the first day - the elements are just pinned onto a piece of batting over a foam core board:

The cup was odd..and the background swallowed up the pot..so I changed out those elements once I got home.

 

Here is what the quilt looked like after I stitched all of the elements down with Monopoly at Retreat:

And....here is the completed quilt...I quilted the leaves and the rays from the sunflowers with my Octi-hoops...and hand stitched on the buttons into the flower centers and added the tiny ladybug seeds.

Front: (click to view larger)

Back:

 

All the pieces were free-hand cut - even the borders. I fused the plastic-y sunflower paper from the pot of flowers to muslin - that became the saucer liner under the tea cup and the backing to the quotation on the reverse of the quilt. The tea bag tag was a piece of trim that the lady who was sharing my table cut off for me. The saying on the back was a quotation that Terry had us pick out to help our creative juices get flowing (hence the cup of tea!)...the two 'ladybug' seeds were in the packet of interesting 'stuff' she gave us at the start of the class..as were the pieces of yarn over the cup of tea, the stems for the sunflowers and the border of the flowerpot. The buttons were from my button collection. The backing fabric was a remnant that I found fascinating because of the scarab-like graphics.

All in all...a very satisfying class...Thanks, Terry!

Presenting....Heart's Garden...is DONE!!

I took the last stitch this morning...

This was one of my oldest UFO's...in 2002, I took up quilting..in 2003, my Mom asked me if I would make quilts for both my Sis and me out of the scraps of fabric she saved from making clothes for me and my Sis when we were children. I finished my Sis's quilt in 2004..and started on mine..I had a grand notion of what I wanted to do for mine..I wanted to use up as much of the scraps as possible...so I started out with the big hearts..then the center bouquet...then the back blocks which started out as two strippy blocks, cut on the diagonal, rotated and stitched together. I used up most of the solid greens and the solid dark blue that became the sashings and the bindings -the light blue on the back came from the background fabric I used for my Sis's quilt...and then took a chunk of almost every fabric in the box and made the small hearts in the border and on the label. There are over 75 different fabrics in this quilt.

There are fabrics for dresses, several uniforms for Band, formals, swim suits, a bridesmaid's dress, shorts, blouses, a cape, Grand Bethel outfits, the dirndls we wore when our Grandmother took my Sis and me to Germany and even the fabric we used to slipcover the seats in my first car.

I had to learn to applique..the big hearts were prep-ed  by stitching on the line drawn on a piece of interfacing on top of the colored fabric, clipping and turning...by the time I did the hearts in the border a couple of months ago, I am a much better applique-er and did the small hearts with glue stick prep and the leaves by needle-turn.

I had to learn to free motion quilt...the hearts are echo quilted, and the setting triangles have a V shape with a heart-flower coming up from the center of the V...the V was done by ironing a piece of freezer paper onto the white fabric, then stitching along the edge. There is a flower stitched into the center of all of the large hearts.

I wanted a two sided quilt..so..I had to learn to make a Quilt As You Go quilt..this sounds easier than it is..because once the two halves of the quilt are together (the first couple of rows are a piece of cake!), the quilt gets VERY HEAVY! The two longest seams I ended up taking out multiple times..the lower one I took out three times before it lined up.. All of the green sashing is hand stitched down along the folded edge..

I used the same technique as the joining strips for the binding..the blue fabric is folded under the green and I did an invisible stitch along the folded edge of the green binding strips..

Pieces of this quilt went with me to the Arizona Retreats each year...I stitched the big hearts while my DH was in rehearsal for a play...


Here is the front side of the quilt: (click to make the picture bigger)

Here is the back side of the quilt:(click to make the picture bigger)

And the label:
My Mom wrote a poem for the label...and we collected up a few pictures of me, my Sis and my Mom wearing dresses made from materials included in the quilt.





And..as much fabric as I used up with this quilt...there are still TWO large boxes of fabric left!! (I think scraps breed when they are left in a box in the dark...LOL)

Locust Tree Blooms and a Solution to the Bobbin Winder Issue

We made kind of a mistake planting a locust tree in the yard many years ago..it has spread from the original tree (which died after about 15 years) to three clumps of shoots - it's a rather invasive tree..but..they provide some lovely blooms in the spring time...


My Tiger cat under the locust tree:


I got an email from one of the ladies on the TreadleOn list, Cindy, saying that if I took the top screw out of the bobbin winder it could move down into contact with the wheel..only downside is that one has to hold the bobbin winder down whilst winding..but not a big deal..may still look for something to make the bobbin tire and the wheel match up a bit better some day...but it's not a priority...Here is a shot of the bobbin winder without the top screw..Oh..and you can see the orange spool protector in this shot as well!!

Playing with Alis

I finally got to sewing with Alis, the Singer 99 that I converted to a hand crank back in February. I am really liking hand cranking!

 First, I made her a felt spool protector out of bright orange felt (you can't see it in the pic since there is a spool on it!) Then I oiled her up, cleaned out the hook area, threaded her up and started cranking...had to do a few tweaks to the presser foot pressure and the tension knob, but I have her sewing a pretty nice stitch - the stitch length knob is still frozen but that is not dreadfully necessary yet - I did oil it and hopefully it will loosen soon.

I took the knee-bar controller out..took me a few to figure out there were screws on the bottom of the case! And one screw needed some 'manly muscles' so I got DH to at least start that one...Machine is significantly lighter with both the motor and the controller removed.. I bagged the pieces..just not quite sure what to do with them!


I am noodling with whether I can move the hinges on the case..but not sure on that since there are two holes for the screws that come up from the underside that would need to be filled and re-drilled...it's just a wee bit off for leaving the hand crank in place and putting the dome case over it (maybe 1/4 inch!!)..I can SEE there should be room to move it..but just dunno about the mechanics of it..for now, I am just leaving the bolt tightener tool in the underside of the case...and taking the crank off to cover the machine...


Need to figure out how to get the bobbin winder to work with the spoked hand wheel..am thinking about adding something to where the bobbin tire should meet up with the wheel...thought maybe a piece of
treadle belt would work, but it's a wee bit too thin..need to go to the hardware store or the craft store to see if I can come up with something that might work..

Oh..guess who helped:

Garden Bird, Daffodils and Birds in My Garden

The embroidery is done on the Garden Bird..on to doing the borders and getting prepped for hand quilting.

Got some daffodils the other day..they were sooo pretty...

There are at least two of these hawks that hang out around our back yard..The other day, the kitties were out in the yard for a few minutes..they heard the hawk scream..and all three of them bolted for the back door and were back inside in a flash! (smart kitties!!)

A couple of other birds that show up in our trees: