Tuesday, December 28, 2021

2021 Quilt Review

If the only prayer you ever say is, "Thank you," that will be enough.
~Eckhart Toile

Quilting Review 2021


Personal matters still occupy most of my attention but there was time this weekend to pull this post together. I'm not doing anything new but I occasionally read some of your posts. They are welcome reminders! Hopefully I will be back by summer. We'll see.

Staying home again this year gave me the time to finish several long term projects. DH is delighted his Giants baseball quilt was finished in time for the playoffs. What fun to watch the games under it.

SF Giants baseball quilt

And the back... because you might forget what Giants fans we are. ;-) Two-sided quilts more than double the fun. I've made a few but need to figure out how to make more.

SF Giants baseball quilt back

What a delight to see the Shadow Star quilt  on our bed {where the applique shows up nicely}

Shadow Star quilt

and the Wheel quilt in the guest room. 

Wheel quilt

I quilted the baseball quilt on my domestic machine {hey, it's smaller} but sent the two behemoths to my friend, Peg Collins. What beautiful work she does.

The rest of the year focused on clearing my excessive stash by making  kawandi placemats and baby quilts. 

Kawandi placemat

As usual there were several styles of baby quilts. When I get a new idea I like to reprise it. Small changes help me explore the usually easy designs. It's a way of slowing down even when I make several during the year.

This time, there were Hatchets

Hatchet 4 quilt in blue

and Hourglasses

Red and yellow Hourglass quilt

and Crosses

Cross quilt 3

and more Scrappy Trips/ Postage Stamp quilts

Scrappy Trip in green

and Strings

String Tulip 3 quilt

along with a new style. Is it Coins or Strings or simply a scrap quilt?

LOVE baby quilt

Reading


Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a joyfully meditative series of reflections on the natural world blending her Potawatomi heritage with her botany degree. In addition to looking at plants with scientific tools and questions, she also acknowledges them as our oldest teachers. There is much to consider in this book, not the least is viewing the abundance of nature as a gift to be treasured and reciprocated rather than a resource to be collected and hoarded. It's an excellent example of the importance of listening to multiple viewpoints.

Wishing us all a safer and more constructive world in 2022.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Friday, November 12, 2021

Taking a Break

Many things need attention now so I will be stepping back from my blog for a while. Hopefully there will be time to read some of your posts. Enjoy the holidays ahead. I wish you lots of time with your beloved families and friends, as well as time to quilt, read, or whatever keeps you engaged. Stay safe. 

Ann

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

I Hope This is the Start of the Baby Words Series of Baby Quilts

Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways. You could think you were starting something afresh, when actually what you were doing was carrying on as before.
~Rachel Joyce

Quilting


Since this is the third baby quilt with a four letter word, it must mean a new series has begun. The Coins will make words suitable for babies... even if they are  FLWs {four-letter-words.} I wrote down several then used an online Scrabble dictionary to find others. {There were amazingly few appropriate ones in the that dictionary.} Now ideas come day and night. 

My DIL highlighted the ones she thought her friends would prefer and I've {sort of} prioritized them. Of course sometimes a word will pop to the top of the list depending on who the quilt is for. 

This is HOPE as a top...

HOPE baby quilt top

and again when it's finished. 

HOPE baby quilt

The border is supposed to make it a bit larger and set off the words better. Not sure if this version succeeds with the second task. With solids running low, two were combined to frame the center. {It does look better in person.}

The quilting is a spiral.... again. I enjoy this {now} easy design although sewing and watching the circling sometimes makes me dizzy.  I'm also using up all the thread that's been hanging around for years. There's no selvedge on thread so no way to know how old they are. This time I used two partial spools of pink. 

Detail of letter P, spiral quilting,
and binding of HOPE baby quilt

The back contains a reef print. Is is sea fern? I'm not sure, but the colors are quiet and the fabric was on sale. To make it wide enough I inserted an ombre remnant from my sister and, since that remnant wasn't wide enough either, I added a small scrap of pink in the center. 

Back of HOPE baby quilt

The background solids each use about a fat quarter. I purchased them for this quilt since there is none in my stash {Hallelujah!}  It's obvious I'm out of those soft pastels of the previous two quilts because the prints are mid-range values. Some more fabric, both solid and printed, will be required soon if I keep up this series. I see shopping in my future.

HOPE baby quilt, folded

As soon as the last thread was buried and the quilt washed and dried, it was off to my DIL's house for a friend of theirs.

Quilt Specifics
Size: 45" x 45"
Design: String quilt
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Aurifil and Metler cotton thread in pink
Quilting: Spiral with walking foot
Approximate yardage: 5.5 yds

Reading


Stories like Becky Chambers' are creating a new genre - Hopepunk {like Steampunk.} Her first was intriguing and engaging; each subsequent novel has been better as her talents strengthen. Although most consider her a science fiction author, A Psalm for the Wild-Built has no aliens, weapons, or space travel at all. Instead, Becky's populated a world with humans who realize they are destroying it. As their robots gain sentience, they {the robots} put down their tools and head into the wilderness never to be seen again. Two hundred years later a tea monk encounters a robot who asks him, "What do people need?" 

This is an insightful and thoughtful book as the two characters begin to learn from the other. Hopefully it is the start of a long series, too. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Dear is Another Baby Word

America is a nation peopled by the world. And we are all Americans.
~Ronald Takaki

Quilting


DEAR is another FLW {four letter word} we use for babies. You have to read line by line. If you read counterclockwise, it becomes DARE. 

Dear baby quilt

The Coins are from the same set as LOVE but a couple of the backgrounds are different. 

This time I wised up and arranged the letters A and R so they have no points. It's much easier to sew when those pesky points aren't in play. Haha. There's another FLW.

Detail of letter E, spiral quilting, and binding

The print on the back has loads of cute baby chicks. It's a bit too narrow so a five-inch strip of bright orange was inserted. You know I had to put some brights in there. 

Back of Dear baby quilt

The binding is a remnant from our beloved sister's stash. I've been saving it for the perfect place but it fits here. She was a dear and would enjoy seeing a new generation nap on a quilt with some of her fabric.

View of letter E

A quick wash and dry and it's ready to gift to a darling dear somewhere. 

Quilt Specifics
Size: 45" x 45"
Design: String quilt
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Metler fine embroidery cotton thread in yellow
Quilting: Spiral with walking foot
Approximate yardage: 5.5 yds

Reading

Photographer Meddelin Chan works in the family business, wedding planning. She accidentally kills her blind date who won't take no for an answer. Dial A for Aunties is Jesse Sutanto's debut adult novel and she introduces us to Chinese-Indonesian culture as Meddelin's mother and then her aunts try to help her cover up the event. 

A cute, quick read that has been optioned for a Netflix movie. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Love is a Baby Word

Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.
~Yogi Berra

Quilting


Events are superseding quilting. Even with so many calls on my time, I can't quit sewing completely. When I can't sleep, sewing Coins and string soothes me. Lots and lots of columns. Finally I wanted to put one together. 

My original plan was to simply sew a Chinese Coin top but when the first columns fell perpendicularly, they brought letters to mind. That sparked the memory of a sign with VO on the first row and TE on the second. I've always admired four block quilts and wondered what other four letter words might be useful. I started a list. BABY and LOVE tickled my funny bone. They might look good as a quilt.

I spent a couple of days doodling letters on graph paper to see if my idea would work. Some seem to have lots of background. 

The fabrics I pulled for the Coins are pastel, something I don't use much. They've been hanging around for a while and I wanted to use them up. There are a {very} few light solids in my small stash and I knew just where they were. How would a completely pastel baby quilt look?

Love baby quilt

Pretty good. 

Spiral quilting is easy for me now and works so well for a baby quilt. Secretly I enjoy having so few thread ends to bury. But going in circles can make me dizzy. If I take my eye off the stitching line, it won't stay in the right place. So I take frequent breaks to look at things at a distance.  

Spiral quilting in progress


Each of the background solids took about a fat quarter. The leftovers made a narrow border that I I thought might make each letter look like a baby block. Now I'm not so sure the effect works.

Detail of letter V, spiral quilting, and binding

With so many sweet pastels, the binding called for something light but calm. I pulled almost every piece from my stash before hitting on this beige and tan print. 

Back of Love baby quitl

I found a yard of a quiet print with shore birds for the back and increased both directions with a green remnant to make a cross.

Quilt Specifics
Size: 45" x 45"
Design: String quilt
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Metler fine embroidery cotton thread in yellow
Quilting: Spiral  with walking foot
Approximate yardage: 5.5 yds

It's going to a family friend in time for the baby shower. How lucky is that?

Reading


Over the years I've enjoyed the Maggie Hope mysteries by Susan Elia MacNeil so I've been looking forward to her latest, The Hollywood Spy. Maggie's ex-fiancée, who works creating war films for Walt Disney, asks her to investigate the death of his current fiancé.  After reaching California, Maggie realizes the same problems that engulf Europe are at work here - from racial tension to Nazi infiltration. 

The plot line is good but this is not my favorite book in her series. She's done a tremendous amount of research and I'm looking for some of her reference materials {which are listed at the back} but at times this reads like a check box of famous people and places of the era. 

Monthly FUR (Fabric Use Rate) 

Three more finishes in October used 25 yards. YTD =  149.375 yards. Something about the approaching end of the year always lights a fire for me.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Pulling Pastel Scraps

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.
C. S. Lewis

Quilting


After a couple of years effort, my stash is much reduced. Years ago I had a single box of fabric for quilting and loved knowing where each fabric was purchased. But after the kids grew up, the stash quickly expanded until I had half a wall of stuff. Even though I sorted by color, I lost track of what was there. And sadly I couldn't remember where most of them were purchased. Now it's again easy to see what I have and build new stacks. 

Case in point: The blue and white rabbit print was an impulse purchase in Berkeley four years ago. I planned to feature it somewhere. Instead it's just been languishing in a bin. Time to get it out and see what I can make. 


To make it easy, I started a Coin column that I think looks lovely, limited to blues and whites. Different from my usual color scheme. Hopefully the other pastels will work in well.



At one time the Coin columns fell to the floor perpendicularly. See. Here's an E.


I have an idea. Hopefully I can move it along. 

Reading

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

Josephine Tey's mysteries were always favorites of mine but I was startled to find Nicola Upson created a mystery series featuring her as the main character. In An Expert in Murder,  a young woman Josephine meets is murdered before she can leave the train when it arrives in London. Mementos arranged in the cabin leave a nasty feel. Josephine and Inspector Archie Penrose join forces to find the killer.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

The Final Squares

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.
~Robert Frost

Quilting


Perhaps that quote applies to quilters, too. Ideas wax and wane. Abilities increase but also decrease with the passing years. 

After all those quilts, there are still some squares and blocks remaining. How is it that the more we use our scraps, the more appear? It's very hard to use them all up... especially when they seem to regenerate nightly.

This little quilt combines most of the leftovers. I liked the look of the larger postage stamp quilt so I tried it again here. Not many blues or greens left; this top reflects desert colors - red rocks, golden dirt, and sage brush. The few bits of blue could be the midday sky or the bright oranges could be a sunset. 


The back is a yard of cactus print lengthened with some leftover greens. The fabrics blend well with the front.  Perhaps the greens should have been added in the middle of the cactus rather than at the bottom. I can never make up my mind about positioning the little bits needed to lengthen a back.


Here's a look at the front and back together. 


All my leftover green binding scraps made the binding for this quilt. 

Quilt Specifics
Size: 40" x 40"
Design: Scrappy Trip Around the World
Batting: Hobbs cotton
Thread: Superior 50/3 green cotton thread
Quilting: walking foot grid
Approximate yardage: 6 yds

When I took it to my DIL, she knew immediately who could use this gift. A friend of hers loves cactus. Perfect.

Reading


Since I enjoyed the first two books in her Joanna Brady series, I decided to try Until Proven Guilty which began her J.P. Beaumont series. I didn't care for it much as it reminded me of those 1950's macho detective stories. Perhaps it will grow on me but I much prefer the Brady books. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

A Finish for a Friend

Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace within difficulties.
~ C.S. Lewis

Quilting


The quilt is finished and gifted to a young man who's been waiting patiently a couple of years. The design looks masculine to me and blue is his favorite color. About a quarter of the squares are still scrap squares but the rest was pulled from my stash. 

Postage Stamp quilt with blues

I wanted the back to reflect his love of blues so pulled more yardage from my stash. The largest dark blue is a yard printed with boat-making blueprints. The rest of the navies are quarter yards that have been lurking around for a few years. On the left are several white fat quarters that continue the marine theme. More ships, crabs, and lighthouses. It was hard to pull them because they were intended for a different quilt... that has never been completed. 

The light blue is a remnant from the Shadow Star quilt back. It's long enough to join the different sections and reprises the back from a previous baby quilt. I like the way it outlines the different fabrics but I kind of wish the middle strip was as narrow as some of the others. I just used what I had. 

Back of Postage Stamp quilt with Blues

The blue and white stripe was chosen to bind the quilt. I thought about using some leftover binding strips but decided a single print here adds more cohesion. {Something this quilt could use.}

Postage Stamp quilt with Blues detail

A final view of the quilt.



Quilt Specifics
Size: 60" x 72"
Design: Scrappy Trip Around the World
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Aurifil blue cotton thread
Quilting: walking foot grid
Approximate yardage: 13.5 yds

Reading

I just finished the second Baby Ganesh mystery by Vaseem Khan and enjoyed the development of the characters. The Koh-i-noor diamond is stolen from a Mumbai museum while Inspector Chopra and his wife are in the room. With both India and the UK determined to recover it, Chopra and Baby Gansesh are drawn into the mystery.

PS: This wasn't my final view of this quilt. My son sent a photo of the quilt with its new owner. Utter joy for a maker to see how the recipient appreciates the work.

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

SF Giants Baseball Quilt Finishes with the Regular Season

A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz.
~Humphrey Bogart

Quilting


I pushed and finished the quilting, the signature, and the binding of the SF Giants baseball quilt. Hooray. I began thinking about it when the season began in April and now there are only six more games in the regular season. The Giants already have a spot in the post season but need five more to win the division. 
My husband is thrilled to finally get his own baseball quilt and thinks it’s bringing the team good luck. No one is more superstitious than baseball fans. 

The colors and the black and white fabrics make it very graphic and the variety of greens set off the skin colors of the various players. Plus, they add more interest. Most of my quilts have many more fabrics than this. 
 
SF Giants baseball quilt

Changing all the threads took more time - a couple of weeks more. And burying threads is one of my least favorite tasks, even with Sench self-threading needles. These have a side slit instead of a closed eye and they make it easier to make a single stitch such as thread-burying. They aren't for multiple stitches. Mel Beach introduced me to them. Read what she says here

We have more favorite players than can be fielded so I didn't add their numbers. Lefties and righties are included...

Left and right-handed Giants baseball players

along with players wearing knickers instead of long pants. Kaja informed me that word means underwear in the UK rather than America’s definition as “men’s pants that end at the knee and usually worn by boys.” Years ago I read an article about divergence of a common language in different regions. Here’s some evidence supporting the thesis.

Giants baseball players in long pants and knickers

My last minute decision to add a catcher in his chest protector livened the quilt up some more.  Can you see that he's throwing the ball?

SF Giants catcher

Watching baseball is DH's idea of bliss... and mine, too. We've been fortunate to have seen many in person over the years. I enjoy watching on TV, too, because they replay events frequently and use multiple views. I don't, however, enjoy seeing players spit on TV. TMI with a high definition TV. Yuck.

Back of the SF Giants baseball quilt

After making a long list of possible phrases for the back, I chose to modify the 7th inning song. The back has the alternate {leftover} diamonds from the front. I made some adjustments to match the length of the back to the front but still needed some additional fabric for the sides. Hence the grunge black. The diamonds don't match up point to point with the front and the thread changes are more visible here. 


One of the ballplayers in knickers is visible underneath the capital T. 


My only regret is that I wish I'd made one for me, too.
 
Quilt Specifics
Size: 71" x 71"
Design: Original
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Natural Cotton
Thread: Superior 50/3 green and white cotton thread, Gutermann orange cotton thread
Quilting: FMQ
Approximate yardage: 16.5yds

Previous posts:

Reading
A Quilter's Practical Guide to Color
by Becky Goldsmith

Becky Goldsmith's Quilter's Practical Guide to Color was available at the library. Somehow I'd missed it when it first came out. I admire her work and enjoyed learning about her ideas for using fabric. As the title says, it's practical but also enjoyable and readable.

Monthly FUR (Fabric Use Rate) 

Two finishes this month and one is this lovely baseball quilt DH has been patiently waiting for several years. September = 24 yds. YTD = 124.375 yards. 

Enjoy the day, Ann

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

A Scrappy Trip Lap Quilt for a Friend

There are only two ways to live your life. 
One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.

Quilting


A friend requested a lap quilt with some blues last year and this is the first time I have to work on it. Since there are still loads of squares, I combined some of them and pulled some blue fabrics from my stash to emphasize the color he wants. The scrappy variety of fabrics works well. There's not enough of any to run across the entire quilt. Instead, the colors add a twinkling aspect as they values change position. {At least, that's my story.}

Here's what I have after a week.



I'm not sure if this is a postage stamp quilt or just a one-block design. 

The Giants baseball quilt is coming along. Binding is all that's left so it should be finished next week.

Reading

Science journalist Chelsea Wald spent several years studying sanitation world-wide. Pipe Dreams amalgamates the history of toiletry throughout human development and looks unflinchingly at the lack of sanitation in countries without sufficient water or infrastructure as well as rural areas in developed countries that lack equal access. She discusses how we waste resources - including water, energy, and nutrients - by continuing to use technology that developed over one hundred years ago. 

She begins the book in Amsterdam where much of the country lies below sea level. Current western toilets depend on gravity to move waste. That's often not possible here. Additionally, they are working innovatively to keep their water clean.

One interesting chapter told of a company creating jet fuel from human waste. At the very least, methane escaping form current waste water treatment plants contributes to air pollution and global climate change. 

As Chelsea points out, there is a huge yuck factor discussing the issue but avoiding something everyone does doesn't make it go away or improve.

I mentioned this book to my niece and found out she it installing a compost toilet to the RV she is building. We had a great discussion about how her toilet works and about details of this book. Have I mentioned how talented she is? No sewing but she can make almost anything.

Enjoy the day, Ann