Craft Book

Sewing Projects in an afternoon
Susan Mickey
Dewey: 646.2 M583S 2004
ISBN 1-4027-0644-8

pillows, purses, etc. including a reversible sling shoulder purse I want to try but don't have time for right now. I could see that coordinating with a caftan for a really sharp outfit!

Puddle!

Puddle!, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I'm the annoying person that goes "Oooh, look at that puddle!"

But when you live in an area where rain showers are leading local news I guess it's excusable.

Etsy, etc.

Decided to open an Etsy store and try selling craft/art locally at craft fairs and see how that goes and what if anything sells.

Have been researching Etsy to see whose stuff sells and get some ideas. My craft idea will soon be revealed to the world and since this is a fun/business venture I don't feel it falls into the Use What You Have category, since some of the basics are just not in my stash!

Truly life is a spiral and every time I do something new in terms of hobbies or working, I always find I'm drawing upon previous experience which at the time it was being acquired seemed irrelevant. We are in control of our choices but Allah is really in control of the outcomes. So I believe in doing my best to make the right choices and then enjoy whatever happens.

temple_of_heaven

temple_of_heaven, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Beewax collage made at Maria Lynam's workshop yesterday.

I now realize the Temple of Heaven in the postcard is the same as the picture on the green tea boxes that have been part of my surroundings for most of my adult life!

The postcard is actually a color photocopy. Also tissue paper, specialty yarn, oil pastels, and Chinese writing.

Having played around yesterday I now have a concept I want to try at the next workshop!

foiled fish

foiled fish, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I realized I was only doing half of the Use What You Have Flickr group commitment, i.e. staying out of bars, er, fabric and craft stores.

But it is half way through the month and I need to actually make some stuff instead of just feeling virtuous that I was able to run into Michael's the other day to tell the cashier that the silk trees outside had blown over and not break stride but head straight for the exit.

Monday I sat and brainstormed, challenging myself to come up with at least 10 non quilting projects that I could do with the supplies I have on hand. I came up with 20-some. Do I want to do all of them? No, but that was not the point!

And I did this one -- now would like to make more but that would mean buying more soapdishes!

bluestar

bluestar, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is the first block I made for the Charity Quilts group on Flickr started by Luminous Honey.

It fits in the definition of Use What You Have.

It's so long since I made an Ohio Star and it took a long time to make.

Along came a spider ***

Along came a spider ***, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Photo is blurry because this critter isn't very big. We think it's a brown recluse. Spider bites can lead to amputation or death so this makes up for the unrelenting near daily carnage our cats inflict on birds and geckos.

NOT THAT I WANT TO STOP ANYONE FROM MOVING To ARIZONA!

The Chameleon has spoken :-)

stash organizer

stash organizer, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Had a stupiphany the other day!

The tote bag on the door is for fabric whose rightful home is in one of the bottom totes. Until I can get shelving this will have to do. Also I have a box of scraps for making string blocks and as I generate scraps by quilting, they get tossed into the tote until the end of the session.

Tribal pillow cover

Tribal pillow cover, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This began life as a challenge to make a design using split complementary colors which are yellow, orange and blue.

The blue fabric was discharged with thiox to get the pink tones and white lines.

It is raw edge applique made by folding the fabric and cutting the same way you make paper snowflakes. I see a bird, a fish and figures from a totem pole, but I expect everyone sees their own thing.

Later I wanted to make a very vivid pillowcase to help me get used to carrying a lumbar cushion around with me so I enlarged it into a cushion cover and on the other side my phone number is written in indelible marker.

Early pillow cover

Early pillow cover, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

There's a whole story to this one.

When I made my first quilt it was in a class and I had no stash. Picking the fabric took forever because the teacher was helping me and giving me almost more guidance than I thought I wanted!

When I picked out the blue fabric with the yellow stars she didn't want me to. Most of the other fabrics I picked were tone-on-tone and she had urged me to pick out something with more than one color. But she didn't articulate the real reason not to pick the yellow stars, which was that there was no other yellow at all in the other fabrics. She just said "You're going to MAKE stars" because the Ohio Star block was in the quilt.

Anyway I made a Puss in the corner block, but when it came time to assemble the quilt she again stressed it would not be right for the rest of the quilt (she was right) So I bought more fabric in some other more suitable design/color, and then bought more of this and the tan basketwork fabric and a tan star fabric to make the backing of this.

King of Beasts

King of Beasts, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

There's a Gee's Bend flavor to this, the first quilt I designed myself. I am not, and never will be, a technician! The center is from an English t-shirt, much loved gift from Grandpa, which started falling apart.

I did not know about stablizer, I could only make the quilt fit by working with 2" squares. The blue L round the lion was how I evened the center up to be able to surround with the other squares. i had next to no stash. The blue is deconstructed thrifted capris my DXH made me buy to wear in Florida and the turquoise and yellow is a thrifted dirndl skirt from the 60s I would guess.

Made in 1998.

Part I -- Can't believe I never blogged this ...

... or perhaps I did on my old yahoo blog and never thought to re-post here.

These fabrics were used as prayer rugs at a family marriage contract. They were carefully chosen by a couple of criteria

(1) absolutely could not have any animals or people in the design

(2) had to have enough yardage to spread out flat on the floor and be a decent size

the fact that the resulting choices are quite international is a very happy coincidence!

The one on the left is stars, just stars, which have a universal significance ... at one point this was earmarked for a Blue African quilt -- there are yards and yards of this so even with using some on the back of the wedding quilt there will be leftovers.

The ikat on the right is from Laos. It's too heavy to use in the quilt so I hemmed the ends and presented it to the happy couple (one of whom actually knelt on it at the wedding prayers) as a prayer rug for continued use.

The two in the post below, Japanese and African, will go on the back of the quilt.

Can't believe I never blogged this

Real African fabric from Dakar, Senegal

Japanese inspired Kaufman

Spring colors

Spring colors, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is my color picks for March -- previous time I did this exercise was back in December.

I notice that except for the purple and orange, all the colors seem to be grayed down. Today I look at the yellow and I don't like it! yeck!

another yellow rule breaker

quilt VI, originally uploaded by bradrobinson.

Brad Robinson is another quilter who cheerfully ignores that stupid 7 percent rule.

Makes me want to hop a plane to Paris! perhaps they are decorating fabrics rather than quilting fabrics?

In England I was disappointed that the fabric is mostly the same as in the U.S. only more expensive, except for some plastic tablecloth yardage with wavy impressionistic Union Jacks on it -- heavy and space hogging in the suitcase so I never bought any.

It's wonderful to have a world culture but getting things that are unique to the place you visit gets increasingly challenging!

Spring stash

Spring stash, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I'm in the Stash Sunday flickr group and last week's topic was spring.

The colors are off -- the green is much brighter and the fabric in the background is a custardy creamy yellow.

card

card, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Did I write about this before?

Butterfly WIP

Butterfly WIP, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is a sunprint made using my antique Indian giant paisley stamp, which I stamped onto the fabric four times, and then left it on the fabric at the top as a mask to block out the sun.

April fabric post card

card, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Mixed media, machine embroidery using commercial and hand-dyed fabrics, mulberry paper and snipped up pieces of recycled foil packaging.

Don't worry, I carefully only used foil that had not been in contact with the contents of the packet! The brown-looking strips are really orange but the scan made them look much darker than I see them.

On flickr the image is rotated to the left and makes me think of a comet -- at least a bigger piece with a less rectangular 'tail' could be a comet. And who is to say that somewhere in space the sky doesn't look orange?

Batik

blackbird 2, originally uploaded by robotika.

Robotika's blackbird is a fabulous translation of northwestern native american indian carvings into batik.

Looking at this I want to take up batik again. I did it for a couple of months but being caught up in the great ice storm of '98 somehow put me off continuing, although that sounds so feeble. There are people who are still displaced by Katrina.

Anyhoo I have numerous other projects on the go, including doing something with the Shiva paintsticks I bought on Saturday, the wedding quilt, and other concepts.

Kitty Spa

Kitty Spa, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

No home is complete without one!

Lurking

Lurking, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

I was pleasantly pleased with the spots of brilliant green in this photo.

When she is in the tree, you can always tell because the whole tree trembles as she wobbles around!

Freddy Moran meets Hermes meets me!

Freddy Moran quilt detail, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Freddy's take on the classic Hermes bag, which they have never been able to take out of production! The fabric I used for the bag is from Dakkar, Senegal, West Africa.

Freddy Moran quilt detail 2

Freddy Moran quilt detail 2, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Here you can see that the pink basket handle is frilled (in a primitive post-modern way!) and does not lie flat on the surface.

The heart that Freddy made to demonstrate how to do it with strata is just to the right.

quilt top from Freddy Moran workshop

quilt top from Freddy Moran workshop, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is the finished top from the Freddy Moran workshop I took in January. Freddy believes that red is a neutral, and her signature palette is all bright colors with no tones, tints, or shades. My stash doesn't conform.

(Even in the 64 crayon jumbo set I will always want a color that isn't there.)

Freddy is big on black and white fabs, and so am I. I intentionally left the bottom left fairly predominantly black and white.

Freddy also believes in pieced borders as opposed to cutting lengths of fabric to go round the perimeter of the piece.

Her other thing that you see in here is the fillers, aka the parts department, which can also be defined as any two pieces of fabric sewn together. She will be teaching parts department soon I believe.

The heart block in the middle to the right of the big basket with the pink handle was actually made by Freddy using strata I had pieced together!

Warm Berry Pie

Warm Berry Pie

This is a quick and easy desert invented on the fly.

Take a prepared graham cracker crust, fill with frozen berries, slice a few fresh strawberries on top and scatter about half a cup of chocolate chips over.

Put in a warm oven for about 20 minutes. This can also go into the oven as you take the main course out and the oven is cooling down.

You can either serve to loved ones and wait for the compliments or scarf it yourself keeping a watch for sneak attacks by others!

Secular Fundamentalists

Our book club met later than usual today because the bookstore opened late to mark Easter.

We became engrossed in The Kite Runner and finally the next group coming in tapped on the window to tell us our time was up. Turned out to be a Humanist (a.k.a atheist, they said it themselves!) book club. Had a very brief discussion with a couple of the gentlemen -- they struck me as a group of sterile, dessicated, lost souls!

We can lament the loss of civil discourse as everything seems to splinter into a fragmented mosaic of 500 TV channels, I-Pods, single serving prepackaged industrial meals, personalized everything, so no one has to share anything. But at the same time I have to recognize that I want my zazzle postage stamps and to listen to Rai music, flamenco, the oldies that the oldies station won't play, the earnest discussions on c-Span 2 and the movies that Blockbuster can't be bothered with.

But we have lost the camaraderie of a shared culture, even if the sharing was to laugh at how stupid it was. When there were only 2 TV channels everyone had something to talk about. Today if you want to talk about TV most of the time you first have to tell the other person what the show was about before you can cut to the chase of what you thought about it!

yellow patchwork 4

yellow patchwork 4, originally uploaded by morningk.

The woman who made this, morningk, obviously never read the 7 percent rule!

Freddy Moran workshop WIP

P1240015, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

After two days of Freddy Moran's baskets workshop I came home and tried to figure out how to fit everything together.

This is courtesy of our good friend masking tape.

Top is pieced now and waiting to be layered and quilted. Will post the top so can compare how it finally turned out.

Freddy is a big believer in:
red is a neutral!
no tones or shades, just pure colors
(mine does not follow that because that's not how my stash is!)
borders to be pieced -- mine is

much decorated

much decorated, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

jsix's reptilian skin inspired me to do this, on a much smaller scale using scraps and avoiding some of the technical challenges that she encountered.

Casablanca detail

Casablanca detail, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

detail from center of quilt.

Casablanca

Casablanca, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

The only yardage on this is the retro celadon print.

The Casablanca fabric is from a thrift store shirt that I bought because I love the fabric but it never fit right.

The tan and blue tile print is an offcut of shower curtain fabric bought from a decorating shop at a sidewalk sale, and the blue and white friendship stars and binding came from the same store.

This was almost a UFO, because originally I wanted to use up every last scrap of the Casablanca fabric and made elaborate measurements and calculations and auditioned other fabrics to make it 5 x 5 instead of 3 by 3. Now I'm glad I didn't drive myself crazy and I'm also happier with the restricted and unusual palette.

I love zebra prints and also map prints!

P3270057

P3270057, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

This is my favorite creation of mine!

I made it at a John Willis workshop in Kingston.

The black and white fabric is running horses. It is fun to see people suddenly notice them.

The shape which doesn't have a name is a lifelong favorite shape that resonates back to my childhood and is also found on Islamic tiles and Moroccan zellig mosaics.

When John was showing slides of his work before we started the workshop, he several times showed rectangular quilts and said "I shouldn't have cut off the corners."

That encouraged me to let it be the shape it wanted to be, even though I had to make a small sample to make sure I could work with bias binding and then the bias binding instructions I followed led to a lifetime supply of pink and lilac binding!

Freddy Moran showed a way to make realistic quantities of bias binding in a workshop I took with her in January.

swerve

swerve, originally uploaded by wordnerd411.

Made in Mesa.

Inspired by the John Willis workshop I took in Kingston in 1999.

And that I had read a rule about how no more than 7% of a quilt should be yellow.

Hello! Rules were made to be broken and I hope I stomped on that one.

If you look at some of my other quilts they have no yellow at all, so my overall percentage of yellow is probably below 7 percent.

The black and white fabric in the middle 4 patch has black cats on it.

Must-have link for scattered family + friends!

This is a government weather watch site that is constantly updated and shows where all different weather advisories are in effect for the whole country!

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/

Have not fully explored all the links and features yet but was intrigued that the tornadoes that grounded flights from Chicago last night have killed nine already across the midwest.

Pray for those people and their communities.

interesting maps

http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html

is fascinating. It's a collection of maps that shows the areas of the world based on their importance in different aspects. For example the population map shows the most densely populated countries as large and the less densely populated countries as smaller. There is a collection of over 50 maps showing population, birth rates, population of elderly, tourist destinations, air travel, rail travel, ownership of private cars, imports of alcohol and tobacco, etc. Each map can be printed as a poster. Also thankfully each map has a link to a standard map to remind yourself of the true geographic sizes of the different countries.

starting new quilt!

This is a first for me, since this is the first conventional quilt I started since I got the scanner.

I cut the pieces and laid them out together on the scanner just to see which looks better, more cream or more print fabric.

I decided for this quilt that more cream will give more of the look I'm looking for, romantic without being too sugary and girly.

"butterfly"

Serendipity, Serendipity!

This was created by happy accident when I used a not-very-successful chef's cap to mop up spills when dyeing fabrics. This is the hatband when cut off and opened up. It had previously been ironed to a knife-sharp edge and that's how come this looks so symmetrical.

Now all I need is a project to do justice to this. I've had printed fabrics that were intimidating to cut, but this is even more so!

Suggestions?

December colors

I believe in doing this exercise every three to six months or so. More often doesn't tell you anything.

This is from December.

I happened to be in Home Depot today and of course looking at paint chips is a lot more fun than trying to find what I came for (can you tell I'm not a plumber?). Felt tempted to repeat the exercise but decided to be patient and wait a while longer.

I've often been cutting edge with color. Although I'm not a fashionista, I wore purple in the mid-60s as soon as it was available. In the 70s I started a craze (or a blight?) in our neighorhood for orange drapes and an orange ceiling. And from 1998 I've been involved with hot green.

However, now it is everywhere, and then some, and I think I'm getting tired of it. I never liked avocado green, to me it is icky-looking and drab. I like eating avocado though. I have hot green towels and bath rugs and several tops. In fact some have been well-worn and cycled through to the charity collecting bag.

Logic suggests a smokey blue will be the next color, but maybe it will be orange again. I have a fluorescent orange gel pen that cheers me up. Today at Home Depot I realised people were giving me looks -- then realized it is probably the orange/brick red t-shirt I was wearing that implied I might know where they keep the grommets!

Again, the frustration that I haven't yet figured out how to flip the picture around to make it right way up!

This was the picture I thought I would never see. My mum started making this in 1976, by hand, using English paper piecing and cutting out hundreds of hexagons. She died in 1980 before it was finished and another lady took it over but as her note on the back of the photo above shows, it took a team of quilters to finish it.

I knew the story and that a photo existed but never saw it (or the quilt) until last year when turning out my father's things. So this is extraordinarily important to me!

We are SO lucky to have machines and rotary cutters and strip piecing!

Landscape with hands

This is a sunprint using a paper cut out of hands

Amazing how just three colors and salt give these effects!

Sun Print

This makes me think of outer space.

I used Pebeo Setacolor transparent paint and blocked it with different sizes of mostly round objects that were moved and removed at different times.

Words 2 Live by ...

For a definition of velleity, check out www.onelook.com

Basically I guess it's wanting stuff but not wanting to pay the price.
Like thinking it would be nice to have a llama as a pet but not wanting to deal with cleaning up after it and feeding it.

If you let other people's whims define your life your troubles are even bigger than not having a llama-sitter when you want to pop off to Antarctica for the weekend!

Intro'

Hi everybody!

My new blog starts here and now.

Frequent topics will be fiber arts, crafts, miscellaneous fun and rants and observations about life in general.