2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Twenty One - Top 5 Gift Ideas

I am presuming my Top 5 Gift Ideas would be things I could sew? Or could they be things I would want as a sewer/quilter? What age group? and are they for adults or kids? I am just full of questions!

Anyway, I decided to go with things I have sewn.

Bags. I have tons of them, and have given away tons, but I still run out.

Potholders.

Mug rugs.

Neck or travel pillows. These dog-bone pillows are comfy.

Lap quilt. A bit more involved project, but doable. This one I made two pillows to go with the quilt. There is a handwarmer pouch hidden in the top squares.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Twenty - Proudest Achievement

This isn't so much just my achievement, but a collaboration between my Dad and me.

One day as I was trimming up a bunch of blocks, I wondered if there was a way to do the setup to trimming easier.

So I contacted my Dad and described what I wanted to make, and he made it for me. I named it a 'SquareUp'. First one he did out of plastic which was ok, but the pressure handle was kind of strange. The second one he made was out of wood and has a hand hold slot cut out so I could take it to class. We briefly thought about trying to sell these, but unless you were going to have them made in China in vast quantities, the price to produce one is prohibitive! So, I have the only two in existence! 

The arm folds up flat against the base. The cutting surface can rotate (or not, depending on how you set the levers) - it can go in one direction or in all directions!  

One year at Retreat, I picked up a set of plexiglass squares with a hole in one side for a ball chain. Those work well as the cutting edge.

This is how you line up a block. The arm puts pressure against the plexiglass holding the fabric - the dial on the top of the arm lets you put more fabric under the cutting form, if you wanted to cut multiples. You just have to whack off what sticks out!

Here is a block after trimming...

And a stack of trimmed vs untrimmed blocks!

My Dad and I work well together. He has made other items for my sewing room as well.. my Big Board ironing surface that fits over my ironing board, a collapsible hand quilting hoop and an extension table for my sewing machine for taking to class, Retreat and craft days. He unfortunately cannot do building projects anymore so I am very grateful to have these items.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Nineteen - On My Design Wall

 

This is what is on my design board at the moment. The astute viewer will note the poppies are actually from the Martha Nordstrand class from eons ago. I got this notion a few nights ago and took the poppies off the wall to see if I would like them in this bowl and I really do! They have been waiting for a long time to get into a quilt! 

 Most of the rest of the design came from a class from Diane Kirkart - her pattern is called 'For Anne' and looks like this:

First change...didn't care for the black background...so mine is a mottled tan. and I cut out the hundred or so pieces of fabric for the ferns, but I just did not want to make that many of the same thing over and over (the same issue I have with patchwork!)  So my bowl of flowers is a bit different than the pattern. The flower units are mostly the same, but arranged differently. The picture on mine is a bit foreshortened because not all of it is pinned to the board and I am hesitant to try to prop it up until I am sure the elements are not going to fall off! 

I am going to stick the appliques to the background with GlueBasteIt hopefully in a few days so I can work on it over the Christmas break. It will need some embroidery - the stamens on the amaryllis and the center on the big poppy and maybe some lines on the bowl. And I might add a butterfly or two... and I still think I need to darken the pink on the amaryllis a bit more...and the pears could use a bit of shaping with yellow.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Eighteen - 'If I Could Sew With...'

Who I really would like to sew with is my craft/sewing/quilting buddies AKA 'The Krafty Techs Guild'...but this blasted COVID virus is getting in the way. (Bad, Bad Virus...go away!) This is mostly the same ladies that go on the So Cal Quilter's Run together. I worked with two of the ladies who ended up working with another of the ladies and a couple of them are in a Dungeons and Dragons club and that is where some of the other members came from! There is one member who moved out of state that we miss a lot. Another just retired to Arizona which will make it a bit more difficult to all meet. Sigh.

We had a good thing going. We would meet usually monthly at one of the ladies' house. She inherited her childhood home when her Dad passed and remodeled it heavily to suit her needs...First she evicted all of the yard implements and other stuff normally in a garage to the back shed. Then she had the garage outfitted for a craft studio! She has a large table in the center where all of us could set up our machines and an industrial level power bar for us to plug into that comes down to the table from the ceiling. On nice days, we could raise the garage door and have a nice breeze and fresh air since she is kinda close to the ocean. All of the light colored furniture is on wheels so she can move stuff around to suit her whim and how many crafters are enjoying the area. We would have lunch on her patio and snacks on the kitchen counter. Her sister would make us tea.

Here is a view of the side of the studio...the piano did not fit anywhere else in the house, so it lives in the studio! Note the shiny floor - it was epoxy coated!

Here is a view towards the back of the studio...she later had a sliding door put in so there is cross ventilation. In this picture the lady in the back is beading, a couple of us are sewing and the gal that is standing is designing a CosPlay outfit for ComicCon. 

Here is the industrial power supply coming down from the ceiling.

This is one of my setups. I was sewing the 'Chicks in Red Shoes' at this craft day.

Chicks in Red Shoes

She has the neatest showers in her bathrooms. This is one...

And this is another..

And her kitchen floor is splendid too!

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Seventeen - Favorite 'Sewlebrity'

My favorite 'sewlebrity'...oh gosh there are so many of them! Not sure I have just one favorite!

Let's see...should it be Eleanor Burns? I have visited her store many times on the So Cal Quilter's Run. Got to see her at Road one year. She is a fun Sewlebrity..

or should it be Alex Anderson? or Ricky Tims? or Kathy McNeil? or Holice Turnbow? or John Flynn? I have met each of these at Road to CA. They are definitely Sewlebrities...

or should it be Jinny Beyer? I'd like to meet her! I'd like to take a class from her - thankfully I have her books!

or should it be Sharon Schamber? Oh I would LOVE to take a class from her. I used to spend hours watching her YouTube videos before they all got lost. She is a big Sewlebrity.

or should it be Mary Ellen Hopkins, who said 'Its OK if you sit on my quilt'  and devised the ' Personal Private Measurement' system which works as long as you keep it consistent thru the whole quilt and my favorite of all of her sayings - 'Put your big girl panties on!' She was a hoot to listen to...and I learned quite a bit thru her funny lectures...like to make a pillow case for your foam core board so you can take it off to wash it! (I went right home and made a pillowcase out of flannel for my foam core board! Still have it...) Definitely up there in my favorite Sewlebrities list...a funny, witty lady who is missed!

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Sixteen - Why Do I Sew?

Why do I sew? Because I can...

At first, what I sewed was clothing. I made quite a bit of my garments from Jr High to College. I took Home Ec in High School. The first sewing project was a skirt. Now, I had already sewn many a skirt by then. The teacher said to come to class with fabric and a pattern. She expected a normal skirt pattern with a zipper - those were the kind of skirts most girls wore in that time period - we didn't get to wear pants to school. I came in with a wrap around skirt pattern since that was something I had not yet tried and was all the rage. Teacher was very upset with my choice of pattern! She said the purpose of the lesson was to put in a zipper. I had put in MANY zippers by that point. So I picked a dress pattern and made both in the same time that the others spent on making their skirts, just so she could see me put in a zipper! The challenge on the wrap around skirt turned out to be the buttonholes.

Many years later when I became a quilter, my Mom presented me with a flip top crate of all the scraps that she saved from her sewing projects and mine! She had intended to ask my Granny to make quilts from them, but by then, Granny had passed - so that project fell to me.

This became several quilts (and I still have a lot of the scraps left!)

This is the first quilt out of those scraps. I made this for my Mom to give to my Sister. And she has loved it almost bare. The applique's were originally done with silk thread which did not last with heavy use! I repaired it a few years ago, going back around all of the applique. 

She had asked for butterflies, ladybugs and dragonflies. I alternated the bugs with flower patches and the quilting thru those flower blocks looks like the trail of a bug. 

The blue fabric is not included in the scraps - but being a new quilter (this was probably my fourth quilt) I bought a HUGE amount!

There is a poem written by my Mom on the label.

Next is the one that I made for me - Heart's Garden - several years and many other quilts under my belt. It is a two sided quilt, intended to use up those scraps - but, I still have a tub of scraps left! The fabric for the wrap around skirt is the top big heart on the right side. The fabric for the dress is the pink heart on the second row from the bottom. 

There are SOOO many memories in these quilts. Band uniforms, dirndls for our trip to Germany, Grand Bethel dresses, swimsuits, formals and a bridesmaid dress, the dress Mom and I made when I was sent home after a race riot at the school, shirts and Easter dresses, play clothes for the summer. 

I used the blue from Sister's quilt on the back and had just enough of that to make the big blue pieces. The green sashing on the front was from the aprons for the dirndls. The blue sashing was from a band uniform. The white was new fabric, similarly to Sister's quilt's blue. The squares were made using Quilt As You Go. Ended up having to re-sew those long pieces several times to get the intersections to line up -by then, the quilt was really heavy and kept pulling out of alignment. I ended up hand basting to get it to stop squirreling around. My Dad made me a Plexiglas square so I could square up all of the squares.

There is a poem written by my Mom on the label on mine too. Plus some pictures of my Mom and Sis and me wearing items from these fabrics.

front

back

This is a quilt-let that I made from the corner cutoffs from Sister's quilt. This became a lap quilt for my Mom. The design was to try to make columns with the colors spinning around the single color in the center - Twisted Pole layout. Eh, it did not work out really well with these leftovers - the columns would have been better if they were a different color. Can you see the columns? (the elongated diamonds)   I tried to make the columns stand out more by heavily quilting them. Might have worked better if I used a different color of thread.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Fifteen - Earliest Sewing Memory

 Ah..I DO remember the first thing I  ever sewed. A blue and white dress for my Barbie doll. Mama was making  blue Easter dresses for my Sis and I and I asked for a scrap of the blue fabric. I remember sitting under the kitchen table where Mama was set up to do her sewing. I was seven. I received a  child's sewing machine for the prior Christmas and this was my first real project! I remember the machine being in a wooden box...this is as close as I can come to what I remember the machine looking like:

I made tons of Barbie clothes on that machine.  

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Fourteen - Show Us Your Fabric

I don't have nearly as much fabric as some quilters. But, it is mostly enough for me. I have lots of Fat Quarters but not much yardage. Since I mostly do applique projects, I really only need yardage for backgrounds.

Here is a column of fabric in the end of the closet:

Here is some of my Fat Quarters in strawberry tray boxes under the ironing board:

And my scrap bags in the corner of my cutting table. Needs to be reorganized!

Some day I will get the other stuff out of my studio and have enough space to put in shelves in the closet. Other stuff includes boxes of books from my kids and old clothes.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Thirteen - My Least Favorite Color

I don't have a color that I really don't like. I like every color and have found uses for all colors - though I am more partial to brights than dulls or pastels, they all have their uses. DH does though - he detests the color black. I have a couple of quilts with black backgrounds and he mentions that he does not like black every time he sees them! 

I have fabric types that I don't much care for - like 30's repros..most of them look odd to me. But, I have seen a few quilts that I like in 30's, so I can't discount that fabric class too much.

I really like this one, but DH says its too dark for him. Had beads on the flowers. 

This one is the Columbia Gorge...picture was taken thru the archways in the parking lot of the Vista House. I have almost finished this piece - ended up machine quilting it. Added some colorful hot air balloons and some 'shrubbery' around the curve part. Its languishing because the current 'shrubbery' is from silk flowers and eh - just does not look quite right. I need to make fabric leaves and applique them on instead of the silk stuff.  It has a pocket on the back that I stuff with foam board to keep the arch part up. DH likes the center part...but the rest of it not so much. The arch definitely makes it a strange piece.

I think this one sparkles against the dark background. Tentmaker Work - I was lucky enough to take a class from two authentic Tentmakers from Egypt. The technique is fascinating. One of the guys can stitch with his eyes closed - and he stiches FAST! Its amazing to see them work. Their thread never tangles and they use HUGE scissors - typically they only get one pair for their whole working career. (Me, I have all sorts of scissors, small ones, large ones, practically one in every project bag)

This one though, is his least favorite of all the quilts I have made. Orchid Convergence. One year at Retreat we all did this Ricky Tims technique called Convergence. I think it turned out interesting,  though I probably wouldn't make a bed quilt with this technique.

Note that all of the above have GREEN!

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Twelve - Favorite Color

 My very favorite-est color is GREEN!

I dare say there is green in almost every quilt I have ever done. Can only think of a few where they have no green. My very first quilt (shown on the introduction to this blog challenge) was red, blue and ivory.

A table runner for Valentine's Day.  Done in two different Valentine fabrics - I did a couple of blocks of a mystery quilt at Retreat one year.

A baby quilt in yellow, orange and white. Those are my second favorite-est colors!

 My very first paper pieced 'quilt' (its so small its hard to actually call it a quilt!) A wee Amish block. Hand quilted with doubled black thread (I quickly learned that was a no-no!)

An embellished heart that was done in orange, black, brown and white. This was a fun one to do.

A pink and white pillow top that I did in Shadow Trapunto. I was in a class for this technique and my hopping foot kept squeaking louder and louder. I finally figured out to coat the part that was rubbing up against the needle bar with some glycerin soap.

A Quilt of Valor for my Dad. He served during the Korean War - was stationed in Argentia Naval Station in Newfoundland, Canada when I was born.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Eleven - Most Impactful Class

 I have had several classes that I consider impactful. 

My very first class covered hand quilting but I cannot remember the lady's name who taught the class. I took that class at a nearby quilt shop - The Tattered Rabbit. We gathered round her Q-Snap frame and took turns learning the rocking stitch. I came home with a small Q-Snap frame to practice. 

Martha Nordstrand - the best applique stitch

I have taken several classes with Martha Nordstrand. The first one was on making prepared applique shapes. Her technique for making them was to either trace the shape or print it on un-scored sticker paper which was then adhered to the right side of the fabric. Then you flip the piece over and use glue stick and two tiny screwdrivers to manipulate the edges against the pull of the sticker. The second one was a technique using a 8 x 10 sized picture inside a page protector to build your applique - you traced the major shapes onto the sticker paper and turned the edges using the glue stick and tiny screwdrivers. But the BEST thing I learned from her is the applique stitch - come up from the back, right thru the fold and go back down thru the fabric you are appliqueing to 1-2 thread(s) behind where you came out. Reason being that if you go forward, the stitch is always going to be visible, but if you go backwards, the stitch will sink into the edge of the applique.

This is the flower piece from the first class.

This is the piece from  landscape class - I used it as the center of a round robin for embellishing so 3 other friends worked on this piece - one did all the lovely ribbon roses, another did the embroidery on the house, the fields and the two pots on the left and another did the trees. I added the sheep (those white blobs!) and the wee horse button. The picture was of the very famous scene in Val de Or in Tuscany.

Rosa Rojas - Apliquick tools

Martha's mini screwdrivers foreshadowed the invention of the Apliquick tools by Rosa Rojas. I got to take a class with her last year at Road To Ca. At first I was not too convinced that I would like the tools, but I do. Took a class from Diane Kirkart where we used the tools, but then decided since Rosa was going to teach at Road, that I would take the class from the inventor herself.

This is 'Little Boy' from the class. And those wee buttons on the bottom...those are turned with the tools and it is almost magic how they turn out. Rosa can do even smaller ones (but she has had a LOT of practice!)

Jenny Bowker - tool to 'see' color value

The class I took from Jenny was one of her techniques where she does an applique 'center' then uses traditional blocks to build out the quilt until it is the desired size. First you have to decide on a center! Print it in color. Then you trace the essential elements onto a piece of plastic using a Sharpie. That gets blown up using a projector, which you throw up onto the wall where you have taped a piece of paper that is at least bigger than the block you are making! Trace the projected outlines with pencil, then go over it with Sharpie so the lines are dark. Then tape a piece of muslin over the pattern. Then the fun part starts - picking fabrics that will fill those shapes, In order to actually 'see' the colors, Jenny has this neat tool you make from an index card. Snip a small diamond in the bottom of the card and one or two  larger ones nearer the top. Laying the small diamond on the original photo, you can use the larger diamond to audition fabrics. Corrects for the biases we all have when looking at something recognizable.

This is the center I did and the picture that it was based on. It is pretty amazing seeing these centers built. Original picture at bottom.

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Ten - Top Five Books

I had to think about this topic for a while! I presume these are my five top quilting books...but maybe not...though I did find 5 quilting books that I like. (I have a lot of books, not just on quilting - though there are a lot of those too!)

This is a cute book of useful things that you can make with English Paper Piecing besides hexies - I bought the kit for the Thimble holder...just need to make it! 

This is one of the best books on how to piece by hand.  It is 'the' authoritative book!

This is a fun book on how to do tessellations.

Landscapes (and flowers and birds) are my thing...Love this book.

This was one of the very first books I bought when I first started quilting. I love looking thru it. But have I made one of the quilts? no...not a huge fan of patchwork, but maybe someday. The pictures though make me smile. I really love the cover quilt! I would even make this one in the same colors.

I have a whole shelf of quilting books. People give them to me. Or I get them off the recycle table at Retreat. I have bought a few!

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2020 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - Day Nine - Favorite Tip

Favorite Tip:  Red Feather in the 4th!

Kind of tongue in cheek...but whenever someone asks me for a tip, that is my reply! (I think it came from a comedy routine about horse racing...but that is lost in the annals of time - could have been Jack Benny?)

I suppose you really want a tip about sewing or quilting though.

Not sure if I KNOW a favorite tip - but how about we cover paper piecing by hand?

Yes, you CAN paper piece by hand!

There are a few 'rules' for stitching. 

First, use a largish needle so it pokes nice big holes in the paper - this makes tearing the paper off  a whole lot easier. The holes will not be visible in your finished product, especially if you launder it.

Second, never stitch into the seam allowance - reason being you do not want to risk accidentally cutting off the knots. Start and end your seam exactly on the line, using lingerie or knicker knots - these are flat knots that will not cause lumps.  

Third, every four to six stitches, make a small back stitch to lock the seam - this helps keep the seam flat when you tear the paper off.

Fourth, when you tear the paper off, get it a bit damp (not soaking wet, just damp!)

This table runner was hand paper pieced:

And this hummingbird was too:

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