Quilt journals & workshops

Quilt journals - 1983 to present day

I believe I have previously confessed my near obsession with keeping a record of the quilts I have made.  Why do I do this?  Because I simply adore looking over the pictures and reading the descriptions.  It just makes me happy.  Recently I was asked how many quilts I have made.  I was about to toss off the number 100 but I had this secret vain fantasy that it was probably more.  I decided to count, enter the Quilt Journals.  I went through them.  Twice.  I even updated the current one with the city quilt.

My total?  91.  Bummer.  I really thought I had made a hundred.  28 years of quilting, 91 quilts, that's about 3 a year.  So I won't hit 100 for three more years?  But what if I pick up the pace?  Then I could hit 100 in the same year I turn 60.  Cool.  OK, now I am over my disappointment.  And I have a new goal.  9 more quilts done sometime in my 60th year.

To that end, I spent Thursday at a quilt workshop. I sewed from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm and got to use my cute little Featherweight.  I got 20 blocks done and sewn together.  I still have to put the borders on and decide if I like it.  It might be too busy.  I also don't know - exactly what I am going to do with it?  Give it as a present?  Maybe a baby quilt?  I just don't know, I even dreamed about it, trying to decide!  (Hey, doesn't everyone dream about quilts and fabric?)   Once I get the borders done,  I will be able to pin it on the Longarm.  I do have this new desire to always have a quilt on there, waiting to be quilted.

What's that you say?  How am I doing on the bedroom drapes?

Oh no, we've run out of time, have to go, can't answer that question until later.  I have to go work on my quilt journals or thread some needles or something quilty and urgent.  Ta ta!

Why am I quilter?

Today was a preparation day in the ole sewing room.  I cut 5 strips for the headers on the drapes, you can see them draped in the middle of the panels.  I ironed all the tabs, they are hidden by the headers.  This was hard, the part where I had to really focus was when I cut the panels.  I cut 5 of them, each 85" long.  This required LOTS of measuring.  I would measure and then measure again.  Gladys, the lovely Longarm, is very useful for storing these huge pieces of fabric.  Tomorrow I will repeat the process for the lining.  It's not the fun stage where you get great looking product.  This is like the stage where you tape the room and drape the drop cloths to protect the floors before you paint.  It's painstaking but if you mess it up, the drapes will be dopey looking forever and I plan on having them for a very long time!

While I was working on these I mused about a question my step mom recently posed to me, why did you become a quilter?  I answered her but I have kept thinking about it and here is why I became a quilter.

If you look at this picture you see my Grandmother, Katherine,  standing in the back row.  Seated on the couch in front of her are her sisters and my great Aunts, Marie and Margie.  When I was young, I stayed with my Aunts on family trips to Alton.  They never married, always lived together and took over the Grandmother job after Katherine was killed when I was five.  Aunt Marie and Margie lived in Alton, Illinois where both of my parents were from and they were quilters.  When I stayed with them I would see them working on a quilt on a frame.  I would ask to be able to quilt but was denied.  (In the 1950's kids had rules! and boundaries!)  One visit, they sat me on the back porch and let me pick out fabrics for my own first quilt.  I picked out white and an orange calico.  They showed me how to trace a pattern and sew the pieces together by hand.  They sent me home with a shoe box and my pieces.  I stored the box under my bed and never finished it but it stayed in my head.

Flash forward to 8th grade home economics class and we were about to start the sewing unit.  My Mom did not know how to sew, her Mother and Aunts did all the sewing and the sewing machine was too expensive to fix to let my Mom learn on it.  She really wanted me to sew so she let me pick out any fabric and pattern I wanted.  I chose expensive fabric and she went for it, wow.  (She was a frugal woman so I figured this sewing must be pretty magical.)  I chose a dress with sleeves for my first project and somehow I made it and it all worked out.  My Mother practically flipped out with joy that she had a sewer in the family once more.  I had never gotten so much praise!  Compliments!  Favorable comparisons with other family members!  I was hooked.   I was immediately put to work sewing for her, her sister and my sister and if I ran into any problems, I walked around the corner where my home ec teacher lived and got private help.  That woman let me come over all that summer after 8th grade!  Once I perfected my technique,  I realized I had a huge bargaining chip with my Mom and I would drive ruthless bargains.  I would get fabric for the clothes of my dreams if I would make clothes for other people, always at a "two for me/one for someone else" ratio.  (Fine, I wasn't very nice to my Mom at that stage, I admit it!)  I sewed my way through High School, college and my first pregnancy.  As I was turning 30, I wanted something new and exciting in my life.  You are thinking, finally!  Did I pick yoga, scuba diving or sky diving?  Nope, quilting!  My Mom paid for my first quilting lessons for my 30th birthday and she died 3 weeks later.  It was her last gift to me and what a gift!

In the quilting class we made 12 blocks for a sampler quilt.  I decided I might as well make two of each.

So that summer I made 2 sampler tops, cutting each piece out after I traced it with a pattern, marking every single seam line with a pencil and stitching every piece together by hand.

No one in the class finished except for me and I finished two of them.  I then hand quilted them obsessively. 

Can I have a good time over a summer or what?  For a while those quilts were in my bedroom, then pictured here on the guest beds. 

Now those quilts hang on the walls of my sewing room.


Here is one of them!

This was a pretty long answer to a simple question.  I am a quilter because of my Aunts.  I am a quilter because my Mother gave me so much positive reinforcement when I learned to sew.  I am a quilter because it was the lasting and last gift from my Mother.  I am a quilter because, quite frankly, I can't imagine my life if I was not.  I am a quilter because I love the look, feel and smell of fabric.  I am a quilter because I love being able to see something and think, I can make that. 

I am a quilter because that's who I am!

Triple your pleasure

Breast cancer yarn dish rags

This was a grand weekend because I got to knit with my knitting trio and I finished a third dish rag.  I am trying to make lots of dish rags for Christmas presents for my family.  My original plan was to finish them all in October for breast cancer awareness month.  But, either I have procrastinated or I am perhaps trying to extend this awareness to more months.  Yes, that's my story,  I mean, yes that's what I am trying to do.  I have been knitting for a little over a year.  I have made 5 scarves so far and 5 dish rags.  If I have been able to knit at all it is because of the generosity of the women with whom I knit.  Here we are last summer, "knitting in public", scandalous! 
They know so much more about knitting than I do that I can only assume they keep me around for amusement purposes, a sort of court jester!  Today we met at Mary's house and she helped me start a  new scarf, a sampler.  Pam explained it to me v e r y   s l o w l y so I could understand.  I only panicked once, not bad!

This weekend I also got two more rows quilted on the blue city quilt.  I also finally did what I knew I would do at some point, I quilted a black rectangle.  Way to go, Kath.

Here is a picture of half of the mistake.  Don't worry, I quilted it at both ends before I gasped in horror.  Then I picked it out, one half at a time.  I took a break and did some more quilting before I did the second half.  I left the seam ripper there just to remind me.  But I got it all done and didn't even cry.  Much. 

Here is the completed row, 7 rectangles in each blue rectangle.

And 14 quilted rectangles removed from one black rectangle.

Two more rows to quilt, then the binding.

I hope I have time to do it this week.

AND work on the drapes, yes, I know.  You're kind of nag, you know?  But I like you anyway.  Courts jesters, we're like that.

Hard to get started

 

 

4th row, 5 rectangles

I had a lot of trouble getting started today, it may have been those dark chocolate covered caramels I found left over from the nose bleed incident.  Or the rain?  General laziness?

I put off "working" as long as I could.  Went to Aqua Exercise, did my laps and found myself in the car.  With my cell phone!  "Hi, honey, want to go out to breakfast?"  That killed an hour.

I was nervous about the drapery fabric so I avoided it by working on the next row. Made FIVE mistakes but corrected them and faced the drapery fabric.



But first you want to know the story behind the dreaded drapery fabric, yes?  I knew it!
I took a look at our bedroom a couple of months ago and decided, nope, not going to ride into the sunset with this bedroom set.  We started off with new lamps.  Then we got one new night stand.  You know how it is, each new thing makes the existing furniture look like items left over from some cold war gulag.  We took the plunge and ordered 2 new dressers and another night stand.  It all came and, meh, we spent a lot of money but the room still doesn't look right.  I had a woman from White Street Interiors come and give me advice.  (Don't get at impressed, she didn't even charge me for the advice.  She agreed with my daughter, the drapes had to go and needed to be full length.  Plus we arranged to have the bed and a bench painted.  And when all that is done, she wants the TV mounted on the wall.  (This was the point when my husband got tears in his eyes and kissed her feet.)

I took a deep breath and ordered the fabric and the lining.  Very expensive, the most expensive fabric I have ever gotten.  Did I mention I paid a lot of money for the fabric and no, her assuring me that me doing the sewing was saving a lot of money.  It was still mucho dinero!

I picked up the bolts and put them in the sewing room.  Where they sat.

I picked up new rods.

I  made the maternity clothes.  Hmmm, those are finished.  Guess it's time to cut into that really expensive fabric.  Aack!

I rolled it out and looked at it. 

I looked at pictures of drapes on line even though I knew I was doing 2" tabs.  I looked at all the other curtains in the place. 

 Finally I cut into it.

 I cut across and had three 7 1/2" strips and then cut those into 4 1/2" pieces which I stitched up each length.

Ta da!  36 tabs I need to turn inside out.  I will do that tonight as I watch TV.  (Sorry knitting, you'll be ignored.)  Next I will cut 5 facing strips and then cut the remaining fabrics into 5 panels. 

I will work on these over the weekend and see if I make any progress.  Talk to you Monday.  Now that I am started, I feel a bit better.  I've made the decision, I can't go back.


                                                                             Yikes!

Rewards for good behavior

Second top finished

I was such a good girl today, I finished the second maternity top for Emily and hemmed the first one.  What a good feeling!  I think I will wait to start the dresses, once I get going on something I like to do them all and I have other projects I want to work on.  I was going to make them until she told me that she wouldn't be wearing these until next March or so.  Scrreecccch, brakes on this project!

How's the city quilt you ask?  I got another row done AND I remembered to increase the rectangles by one more.  Some times I really impress myself with actually remembering to do the things I want to do.  I wobbled a bit on one row which irritated me but then I calmed down and recalled this will be up in the air, seen from the living room as you gaze up to the sewing loft.

I am not having the bunching issues I had before, maybe because I am following the directions for the way they taught me to use the machine?

Why would I not have always done that?  Well, I went over to a woman's house who is a complete pro at machine quilting and she would stabilize the whole quilt by stitching in the ditch and drop using the third roll for the top.  I tried her method but it obviously didn't work that well for me.  Or I didn't really understand her process.  It has taken me a while to have an organic understanding of the whole process and it's a ton of work!  This quilt I am doing the way I was originally taught and so far, so good!

I like this shot of the third row I have finished quilting.  I find I don't use the special high chair I bought but I do love having the anti fatigue mat.  My old lady legs and feet can ache if I just stand there even with the mat.  That's why I like having other projects to work on where I can sit and sew at the machine.

I have been so darn good lately, I think I need a reward!

We have a Groupon for a fancy dancy restaurant here in town and I think we will just go over there and have a super nice meal.  I have been sewing like a crazy lady and have made up all the hours I skipped while on vacation.

Plus, I just like going to fancy dancy restaurants!

Increasing the rectangles

 I was lucky, I got to do some of my own sewing today, yay!

You can see the detail here on the dark blue stripes in the middle.  I actually remembered to do three sections, can you believe it?

I know, I was surprised myself!

I was also relieved when I turned the quilt that the stitches on the back were in good shape.  Phew, looking at the camera and checking the tension really seemed to work.

You can see the striped fabric on the back here in this picture a bit better. 

Did you have any issues, Kathy?  Why yes, I did!  The bobbin ran out after only 1.5 rows, grrr!  I made two, this will not be enough.  After I changed the bobbin, the thread kept breaking.  Double grrrrr.  But it settled down and I was able to finish.

I know you are worried if I did any sewing for Emily today.  You know better than to ask that, of course I did.  She came for the final fitting and I attached the straps and the shirt fit great.  Yay!  I didn't do the hem because I am using the green shirt to guide me as I make the second one.  I have finished the front!  Want to see it?  Sure, I aim to please, so here it is. 

I like this fabric so much more, it is an Alexander Henry and has no direction, I can cut strips any which way.  Emily wanted the straps and borders to be all the black and white polka dot but there wasn't enough so we are using 3 different fabrics which I think is super fun!  It makes me so proud of my stash.

I hope to finish it tomorrow, it is going really quickly.  I also want to hem the first one and do one more row on the blue quilt.  And I want to call Shelby and wish her a very happy birthday, 23!

Plus, the green fabrics arrived for the new bedroom quilt.

And I have the new fabric for the bedroom drapes.  Yikes!  So much sewing to do.  I love it!

What are we, Amish?

Book of sewing projects for baby

I made the mistake of letting my oldest daughter, who is expecting, look at the book I had purchased for ideas of things to make the baby.  Next thing I know, she has her hands on a pack of post-it notes and is marking pages furiously.  "Hold on there, what are you doing?"  "I am marking all the things I want you to make" was her reply.  When will I learn?  I have to show her one thing and say, do you want this?

Top my daughter selected

I balked and said, hey, that was for ideas for the BABY.  Her response was to send me links to fabrics she liked for the top and dress she had selected.  The girl knows me, I ordered fabric for two tops and three dresses.
This weekend I looked at the "pattern" which is really more just some measurements of panels and pieces.  Sigh.

I have had Emily over twice for measurements of her body.  The first time was to take rough measurements and the second was today for a more specific modification of the pieces I had cut.

Green and purple, #2 will be black & white

It is a lengthy way to sew what could have been an easy top had I brought home a pattern from a major company.  Making everything she wants will last longer than the latest celebrity joke of a marriage!  I was sewing while Emily was waiting for the next set of measurements and she commented that she had told her husband that I was going to make her some maternity clothes.  His response, "What are we, Amish?"  Hmmm, not so happy with that remark BUT I have to admit this top does look like a hippy maternity top.  We will call it Bohemian.   She is coming over again tomorrow so I can make sure the back straps are tight enough and the back elastic the right measurement plus do the hem.  I have been writing down the dimensions of everything so the second top should go quicker, right?  Also since this fabric she picked out was directional and I had to cut the strips going the length of the fabric instead of going across, the next one has to go faster.  In the book, the top has buttons, she has to see if she wants them.  Then maybe I will get to do some machine quilting on MY project!


I bought the yardage but the accents for all the items are from my stash, it makes me feel frugal to do that.  We all know my sewing habit is the complete opposite of frugal, but, hey, let me keep my fantasy.  After all, aren't the Amish frugal?