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Me, again. I have also been most remiss about posting on all sorts of things recently but particularly about projects underway and projects finished.
First of all a project underway to thank Di for the wonderful package previously blogged about. Little did I know that after requesting that Di sew something for baby bear that I would return to Seattle and have a crazy burst of sewing inspiration and time.Oooh, inadvertent craft swap happening here. Apparently her little boy needs an apron for cooking and painting and other potentially messy activities and she never gets around to making one. A-ha, my opportunity!
I was going to buy waterproof oilcloth of some sort but in the spirit of refashioning and using my stash I decided to look a little closer to home and decided on a graphic black and white fabric, thrift-store purchased, which I originally used in my vintage fabrics quilt. My initially plan was to sew it with a layer of vinyl over the top but was delighted to discover a product that allows you to, effectively, laminate your own fabric - Therm O Web Iron-on Vinyl! Wow.
Here is a before- (unlaminated on the left) and after- (laminated on the right) shot:
The actual making of the apron is also progressing - I have cut out the pieces and pinned the binding around the edges but am not going to say or show any more so that it will be a surprise when it arrives in melbourne. I am also going to have to wrack my brains as to what special Seattle extras I can put into the final package.
A year ago, when my mum was visiting, we shopped together at various thrift stores for the fabrics to make a quilt, inspired by the one on the cover of Vintage Fabric Style: stylish ideas and projects using quilts and flea-market finds in your home. My mum is visiting again and this evening I finished the quilt. Yes, absolutely finished the quilt, removed it from the 'I'm busy with' list, it is utterly and completely done. HOORAY!!
I estimate that it has taken me a year to make: the squares were cut out and some sewing was done at the end of last September; in October the top was all sewn up but it took me until December to deal with the batting; by the end of March this year I had the top and batting all pinned together and the backing ready to go; in early April, much sooner than expected the quilting was done; and then ... well, somewhere along the line I must have sewn the backing to the top/batting and that is where it remained until today.
What a story of delay and procrastination! Although, admittedly and in my defense, several of the, ah, pauses in production were the result of not knowing quite where to go next and some leisurely consideration of options and possibilities. I was put off at times by not knowing what to do next, but hey, I've made it through.
A couple of quick notes about the construction of this quilt:
I quilted only the top and batting together. This was because the top has so many different coloured squares and I wanted to use an appropriate thread colour on each but didn't want a riot of thread colours on the backing (because I always like to match my sewing and bobbin threads). It only occurred to me later that I could indeed have substituted in a different, matching-the-backing coloured thread in the bobbin. Oh well.- Following examples in Make Your Own Contemporary Quilts, I then sewed the top/batting and backing together, right sides facing, leaving a gap of about 20 centimetres. I then turned the quilt inside out and ... well, that was April.
Today, in the glow of my recent advances with the doily quilt, I finally stitched that opening together using blind stitch (which is kind of like mattress stitch for sewing). I also stitched the junctions in the pieced backing to the corresponding junction in the quilt top to anchor the whole thing together. I did this in four places. I could have done it in sixteen places but I chose four, that's it. And, last but not least, top stitched around the edge.
It was the details of this last one that has had me held up since April. I was struggling, again, with what colour thread to use. I had toyed with ideas of changing top-stitching thread colours for each of the squares on the top but finally took my friend Di's advice and just chose the darkest colour thread to go all the way around. 
However, I actually put this darkest thread into the bobbin and did the top stitching with the quilt backing uppermost in order to top stitch in red on the red sections and in blue on the blue sections (not Di's advice, my compromise).
Given all of the above I'm sure that you'll understand that making this quilt has been a real learning experience, but also a real thinking-it-through-and-figuring-it-out-for-myself-(and-asking-for-some-advice) experience. No wonder it took so long! And still, after all the hours that I have spent looking at it and thinking about it and thinking it through, I still love it.
More book love. This is another of the swag that I picked up at Bellevue Library a week or so ago - Quilts of Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life prior to 1930 by Bets Ramsay and Marikay Waldvogel. I've only had time so far to leaf through and look at the photos of the quilts and read a few captions and sidebars but just that experience has been wonderful. The work(wo)manship, the make-do-and-mend mentality, the pride and most of all the incredible amount of time that went into making these quilts. And best of all the reassurance because I tell you, some of them are really lumpy!
As I am sure the astute reader will have picked up, I have a few issues with perfectionism, namely with letting go of it. I would say that, apart from time and energy constraints, it is the thing that has held me up the most in the past with my creative endeavours. You know, that it wouldn't be good enough, that it wouldn't work out, that it ... blah blah blah. It is reassuring to see that wonderful works of creativity have a few unique bumps in them. When did it become the case that quilts were supposed to be perfectly smooth and orthogonal? When did idiosyncracy go out the window and machine-made precision became the requirement? Point of all this being that I'm a little anxious about some of the rumples that I expect to see in my quilt as a result of some puckering in the batting. I could just say that I'm going authentic (although I did receive some great advice from millymollymandy about reducing the pressure on the foot - I can see how this would help the fabrics to glide through more easily).
Anyway, a wonderful book, even just to look at. The premise that quilts can tell a story about domestic life is also fascinating and I hope that I manage to read just a bit of it before it's due back.
Stitch in the ditch, that is. Yes - hooray - much sooner than expected I have gotten around to doing some further sewing on my vintage fabrics quilt. When I consider how much prevaricating there has been around this project, it is actually quite amazing that I am up to the quilting stage - yes, quilting!I don't want the quilting to be too obtrusive because really, it's all about the different colours and patterns so I have opted for the 'stitch in the ditch' quilting method, which is about as un-decorative as you can get. It involves stitching ever so carefully along the actual seam between the two fabrics. I found it fun to do because you have to gently but firmly pull the two fabrics apart to expose the seam and then try to stitch along it. The example on the left shows a line of purple quilting stitches along the 'ditch' between a floral square and a purple patterned square. As is always the case with my illustrations, this one was carefully chosen to reflect only the highest point of my stitching efforts (that is to say, there are other, lower, points).
It's even more surprising that I have gotten around to doing this when you consider what I had to come to terms with in order to do the quilting - a walking foot. What is that big white appendage that all too closely resembles the distended belly of some particularly scary insect? And that needle-sharp proboscis; oh wait, that is the needle. But you get the picture - I found the walking foot to be very daunting. What it, apparently, does is help to feed the upper and lower fabrics through at the same speed, thereby reducing the chances of the fabrics becoming misaligned. There are actually a couple more parts to the foot that aren't even shown here. Please believe me that it was scary.
So what I am up to now is the cross quilting - two diagonal lines from corner to corner on each square. Now that I have the walking foot attached and the tension correctly set, I dare not take it off which means no other sewing until I get all the quilting done. Should push me along a bit (or signal a return to exclusive knitting).
Here is a fascinating photo of quilt batting stuck to the floor:
Yes, I have been working on my vintage fabrics quilt, which has actually been a lot of fun. I like to sew, I do, I really do ... really ... truly. Heaven knows then why I spend so much time procrastinating and putting it off. When I get around to it, I do actually enjoy it. Really I do.
The much needed impetus to keep working on the quilt came last Friday when knitting friends and I got together for some mutual sewing support, to finish things that had been sitting around for too long (or which had never even been started). It was very successful - I finished cutting out the fabric pieces for the backing for the quilt and even got it sewn up. Hooray, that was my major achievement for the day.
Then of course I was on a roll and decided that I absolutely had to get the quilt layered together and pinned. Wow, what a chore. I had no idea and it took me two pinning sessions because I ran out of pins. the next day I went and bought three more packets (65 pins per packet - that's 190 more pins) and still I didn't have enough. Those things are pricey too so I have decided that instead of buying more I am going to quilt some of the inner squares and the pins that I take off then I can use on the edges.
So yes, that's the batting taped to the floor to keep it taught. I'm not actually going about it the traditional way, that is, I am going to quilt just the top and batting together and apply the backing later, instead of quilting the top, batting and backing together. The batting is a length of mystery fabric (certainly at least some percentage wool) purchased at Goodwill in Burien I think, cut in half and joined together. It will be snuggy.
So what I have now is a punk quilt. The packaging for the quilters safety pins reads 'will not rust or tarnish and can safely be left in your quilt'. It doesn't specify for how long. Because the only problem with completing one step of a project is that you then have no excuse for not getting on with the next step - yes, now of course I actually have to quilt it. After all that pinning effort I'm kind of tempted to just leave them there. At least for a while (ha ha, like that wasn't going to happen anyway).
Ok, this post is going to be a bit of a Ravelry(-related) rant. Those of you who don't use Ravelry may want to skip it, or may wish to continue for an amusing insight into a meticulous* mind, namely my own.
The particular feature that I take issue with is the little status bar that indicates your progress through a project. Here's a quick screen shot:So, Ravelry is great and the progress feature is great but it causes me enormous amounts of angst. To begin with, how do you know how far you are through your project? Is it just knitting progress that you're measuring? What about blocking and seaming - how do they factor in? I mean, these things bother me.
The answer to all this is, of course, that you just guesstimate it yourself according to your own rules but, oh people, the lack of structure and boundaries leaves me in such a quandry. Not to mention that you can only measure your progress in intervals of five percentage points. Yes, you're either 25 per cent of the way through or 30 per cent; there's no in between. So how can I express that I am 95.6 per cent of the way through my swallowtail shawl?? 95.6!! Only four rows and the casting off to go. I am really excited.
Ok, on the topic of progress, where are things at around here at the moment?
diamond mittens (the second engagement) - I have started on these mittens again and am about halfway through the first one, according to a mental schema that I have instituted that divides each mitten up into four parts - rib, hand, mitten top, fingers. So half of one glove means about 25 per cent of the way through the project. I'm going to say 27 per cent, just because I can.
Baudelaire socks - I have made some recent progress on these, just a few rows here and there (well, one after the other but you know what I mean). I have finished the heel and am now just working on the leg. I have to work until I have enough yarn left to do twelve rows of ribbing? How will I possibly know when I have twelve rows worth of yarn left? This dilemma alone is enough to put these on the backburner for me.
black velvet floral printed skirt (the second) - Yes, I have two. This one is in much more autumnal tones and is finished (took in the waist, new waistband) but for the want of a hook and eye at the top of the zip. I'd say 97 per cent for this one.
black cotton floral printed skirt - Noticing a trend here? I worked on this one today and sewed in the gathers at the waist. I'll be doing the grosgrain waistband facing again and it will also be wanting a hook and eye at the top of the zip but that will have to wait until Monday. About halfway.
estate sale quilt top - I was fortunate to rummage through the linen cupboard and find a very large, dense cotton sheet that I picked up at another estate sale of sorts (except there was no sale - the bloke was completely renovating the house and wanted it cleared out; everything was free). I have tacked the quilt top to the sheet in order to stabilise it. Progress? I'd say about one per cent because there is a lot of mending to do. Anyway, it's all packed away now so that I can finish the long languishing vintage fabrics quilt instead.
Overall progress? 95.6% x big project + 27% x small project + 30% small project + 97% x sewing project + 50% x sewing project + 1% x huge overwhelming project .... umm, I'd say about 100 per cent crafting satisfaction.
* yes, that is a euphemism for obsessive
I'm wondering how long it will take to lose these mittens ...
The vital statistics
Pattern: Basic Cuff-Up Mittens by Patti Pierce Stone
Yarn: Recycled hand-dyed yarn - it was originally a Gap sweater, 90 per cent lambswool 10 per cent angora, which I unravelled and then dyed with the help of Val of Actual Size Creations; the colourway is Auntie Jane
Needles: 4.0mm Addi turbo for the cuff, 4.5mm Addi turbo for the body of the mitten
Start to finish: 30 November 2008 to 9 December November 2008
Comments: I have actually knit two pairs of these mittens. Not that the first pair got lost or anything - it was given away as a thank-you gift at Thanksgiving. Now baby bear and her best friend have matching, interchangeable mittens. A very simple pattern, the second time around it was a bit of a slog. The yarn is lovely, very soft and has already survived a machine wash. II made the smallest size and cast on only 20 stitches (instead of 24) and increased to 28 because otherwise I felt that the cuff wasn't snug enough. They've knitted up quite densely and with at angora in there should keep baby bear's hands very toasty. I'm still debating whether to crochet up a safety cord to keep them together. I think that I would prefer clips to clip them to the cuff of whatever baby bear is wearing - is that sort of thing still available?
Verdict: I hope that they don't get lost because there's no way that I could knit them a third time, well, not this winter at least.
And in other crafting news, after trying to work out what to sew I did find a bit of motivation and finished sewing the two lengths of batting together for the vintage fabrics quilt. At night while trying to fall asleep I have been dreaming up what the backing will look like, so I'm getting there. I today completed repeat 12 of the budding lace pattern for the swallowtail shawl - yippee! That's seven more to go. I am trying to knit one repeat a day in order to maintain momentum and also because I can't wait to start on the Faux Russian Stole (ravelry link) which I plan to be my next project knitting.
I spent a lovely couple of hours yesterday sitting in one of the display galleries at Seattle Art Museum knitting Baudelaire while baby bear slept in her stroller. Much to my horror though, and quite uncharacteristic of my knitting woes, I discovered two dropped stitches! After working an entire pattern repeat or so of the leg. Dreadful. Lots of frogging and confusion about where I was up to with the heel once I had frogged back far enough to rescue the stitches. Still have no idea what went wrong.
And practical knitting - it's time for a new practical knit. I had mentally committed to starting a baby version of Olga Buraya-Kefelian's Cabled Cowl but all I really have to knit it in is a dark grey and being for baby bear I just can't get into it in that colour. Truth be told, I'm not really so into the dark grey wool either which is what I knit my wide-brimmed hat from. So on a whim instead I decided that I need a slouchy beret and cast on today for the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret (ravelry link) by Natalie Larson. I didn't have any appropriate weight wool for that either but rather than going out and spending money, I went through my thrift shop sweater stash, found a J Crew sweater, 100 per cent wool in a very nice purple and started to unravel. The yarn is very fine but I'm finding it working well knitting five strands together. Actually, I think that this is a sweater that I bought at a yard sale, I think that it cost 50 cents.
Ok, so I have my knitting under control and it's going well. I'm sticking to my knit list, enjoying the discipline. I've always been good at following rules, I think that this is just what I needed. I'm up to the ninth repeat on my swallowtail shawl and have turned the heel of my first Baudelaire sock.
Now there's the sewing issue. I have so many things that I want to make but I seem to get around to sewing even less than I get around to knitting. Knitting is, of course, more portable and easier to pick up at a moment's notice. And easier, and safer, to put down. Unless you have a place to leave it out, getting out the sewing machine is a trial in comparison and all those pins and needles and scissors and the two-year old. Hmm, what to do?
In the absence of a ravelry for sewers (or is there one?!?) here is my current sewing situation.
complete unfinished projects
This was the first stage in dealing with the knitting. So, currently lurking around and in no particular order I have:
vintage fabrics quilt - the top is long complete and several weeks ago I found some great fabric to be the batting on a thrift tour in Burien. I was afraid that there wouldn't actually be enough of it though and that has put me off proceeding for weeks. Friday past I finally laid it all down on the floor and yes, there is enough! Now I am hand sewing two lengths of the fabric together and am about half-way there. Next steps will be putting together the backing and doing the quilting. This will involve getting out the sewing machine (sigh).
felted jumper bag - lots more bird embroidery to do. I worked on this a bit a few weeks ago, it's just a matter of sticking with it.
reverse engineering a dress pattern - impetus for this has stalled given how cold the weather currently is but I still think about it often and would like to get on with it. I actually have a number of these on the go and they're at ready-to-cut-out stage. I think that I will make toiles first.
black skirts - I have three black skirts - one cotton with a floral print and two printed velvet - all of which are in a different state of disassembly so that I can replace the waist band or add darts or some such to make it fit me. They have been like this for a long time. And although once upon a time Di helped me to draft a new yoke for one of them I have no idea whether it would now fit me.
practical sewing
That is, things that are required in our household right now that I have resolved to sew from recycled fabrics.
pyjamas for baby bear - I did actually have a go at these a couple of months ago using a pattern from a Japanese pattern book but with no great success. I did buy a commercial pattern at the thrift shop recently - Simplicity 8173 - though and should try that. I think I'll make the pyjamas but with long sleeves.
woollen legs - I love love love this idea of using the sleeves from garments to make children's pants and would like to try it with some woollens. This would mean getting out not only my sewing machine but also my overlocker.
Where to start??
I am making some great progress at the moment on stitching projects, much to my delight. I think it is inevitable that I will be working on many things at once, it just seems to be the way that it happens. What I need to do is just keep working on things in small manageable doses, keep track of things and keep focussed. So, here's a bit of keeping track:
roses quilt
I sewed the last mechanical seam on this yesterday evening, that's the binding attached to all four sides now. Yes, last night's stitches were just to sew that last seam but I got there so it feels good. What remains is some serious pinning and hand slip stitching to completely finish it off!
gentleman's fancy socks for Tim
Yes, I still knit. I have been plugging away at the second sock every chance I get and have just reached the end of the foot. Toe to go (and toe to finish on the other sock because I ran out of yarn just a few rows from the end).
vintage fabrics quilt
I have finally had to add this to the works in progress list - 36 squares chosen, cut out, placed, pinned and now this evening six of them sewn together. I don't think that I can keep pretending that this one is just an idea. So, a little update on that - the Ralph Lauren blue and white stripe with floral bouquets didn't make it in - it's pretty, just a tad insipid for this quilt. I did cut up the dark purple doona cover but regret it - great colour but the texture of the cotton was just too overwashed. I used a dark purple pillowcase that I picked up later instead. The deep red sheet turned out to be a twill and I couldn't cut a square square from it, no matter how hard I tried so it was replaced by another red sheet, not quite such a deep hue but easy to cut.
The curtain swag, blue sheet and polished chintz made it in, as well as three more florals and the purple geometric floral pillowshams. I also added (contrary to my mother's advice but hey, isn't that what mother's advice is for, to lead you in the opposite direction?) the very graphic black on cream print. I think that it will balance out the florals and help to lead the eye around the quilt. We shall see.
Well, it should be evident from the previous post that my favourite place to buy craft supplies is the op shop, that is, the thrift shop here in the US. I have been haunting the bed linens aisle of late:
Top image, from the left:
- dark purple self stripe queen-size doona cover (or duvet cover in some parts of the world) - Value Village I think - destined for the vintage fabric style quilt
- Ikea single bed doona cover, floral on one side and coin spot on the other - $1 at a local yard sale - perhaps big floor cushions for baby bear's room
- deep red doona cover - thrift store - destined for the vintage fabric style quilt- curtain swag (as mentioned in the previous post), floral on one side, blue and white stripe on the other - thrift store - vintage fabric style quilt
- Ralph Lauren floral queen-size sheet - Value Village - vintage fabric style quilt
- blue doona cover - Goodwill - vintage fabric style quilt
- red floral pillow shams - thrift store - I really like these, I think they may escape intact!
Lower image, from the left:
- length of fabric, white with floral - thrift store - undecided fate
- length of fabric, polished chintz with a check - Value Village - vintage fabric style quilt
- two small pieces of fabric, hemmed - thrift store - undecided fate
- two purple pillow shams with a geometric floral print - Value Village - vintage fabric style quilt
- blue floral pillow sham - thrift shop - vintage fabric style quilt
- dandelion sort of print cream and black fabric shower curtain - thrift shop - vintage fabric style quilt
- pale green waffle weave cotton blanket - $2 at a local yard sale - could this be batting for the quilt?
Of course, there are some great shopping stories behind a couple of these purchases, particularly the two from the yard sale. I was walking baby bear to child care that day and came across the sale. A woman was negotiating a price on a great floral doona cover and I was very disappointed to have not left the house five minutes earlier. Ok, I thought, there will always be more and continued on.
I was, however, of course, drawn back to the sale on my way home and there was the great floral doona cover. It turns out that the other shopper decided that she didn't want it at the last minute, leaving it there for me to come back to. And the cotton waffle weave blanket? Same yard sale, found the day after I decided that was what I was looking for. Kismet, I say.
My blog seems to be in a bit of a slump at the moment, it's all a bit random, rambling, lacking in focus. In this sense it is actually a very precise reflection of my life in general. I finally came to my senses and withdrew from that second uni subject - sigh, bittersweet - and was rewarded with a great sense of relief and wellbeing. Nature, however, not liking a vacuum, swept in with a million little things to fill the void and I somehow seem to be further behind myself than ever.
Part of that is of course a whole new slew of craft ideas and perhaps that's where I should focus on the blog, at least for the moment. Difficulty is that I haven't taken any photos (despite this being on my daily list of things to do. I completed the first thing on my list at 5:45pm today, just before the garage closed at 6:00, if that gives you any idea of what things are like). Might have to use some stock footage:
I love this book - Vintage Fabric Style: Stylish Ideas and Projects Using Quilts and Flea-Market Finds in Your Home (isbn: 1841724165). Love it. It's one of those books where almost every page has me wanting to dig out a doily or an old pillow case or go shopping at Value Village for second-hand bed linens, which is precisely what I did yesterday.
One of the things I love is that quilt on the cover. The simplicity of it - big square blocks, the bold colours, a bit of floral. And now that I know how easy it is to make a quilt (well at least by machine) ...
(intermission for update on roses quilt)
Quilting complete - hooray. Did it free-hand with a darning foot and loved it. Need to trim the edges now. Bought some fabric for the binding - green with small tan dots - and realised after the fact that I had bought the wrong colour (I wanted sage and somehow settled for moss). So I have ordered the sage online, having had no luck finding it in the Seattle area, and hope that it will be a good shade. If not, I can always go with the moss. Have also bought a Clover 2-inch bias tape maker gadget in preparation. I love the accessories.
(return to normal programming)
... I am planning my very own version of that very quilt. Yesterday I picked up a queen-sized fitted sheet, Ralph Lauren no less, blue and white stripe background and some pretty rose bouquets. Another fitted sheet - deep red. A curtain-type attachment thing (I think) - blue and white stripe on one side and floral on the other. I have a lovely blue floral pillowcase and a deep purple doona cover in the cupboard (but what will mum sleep under when she comes to stay if I cut it up?). And some lovely polished chintz somewhere, and two purple geometric floral-type print pillowcases. I'm excited.
I also bought an Omnigrid 15" square template which is perfect because I have calculated that the 36 blocks need to be approx 14" square. And some black hat elastic ...
(intermission for update on recycled shetland wool tam)
I knitted the tam, then I blocked the tam, over a plate. Perhaps this wasn't the best idea because really, it has made the circumference of the opening way too loose. Dismayed, I cast it aside thinking, oh, I'll buy some hat elastic someday. Yesterday was that day - Hancock Fabrics was having a half-price sale (or half-off as they say here) on all their notions and threads and what not.(return to normal programming)
... so I'm just about ready to start cutting out some blocks. Which I'm going to do with my Clover rotary cutter and my Clover self-healing cutting mat (neither of which were purchased yesterday but as I said, I love the accessories).
Ok, I think that I have adequately put the craft back into the craft blog. On the right is a freebie arty photo taken at the Japanese Garden in Washington Park Arboretum. Those decorative carp are huuuuge.
Me, again. I have also been most remiss about posting on all sorts of things recently but particularly about projects underway and projects finished.
The actual making of the apron is also progressing - I have cut out the pieces and pinned the binding around the edges but am not going to say or show any more so that it will be a surprise when it arrives in melbourne. I am also going to have to wrack my brains as to what special Seattle extras I can put into the final package.
