Multi-Tasking, Thanks for Asking

This is not a pattern. These are shapes.

I am all over the place.  Depending on the outside temperature I find that during the shoulder season I need something to work on in different rooms of the house.  On cool days the upstairs sewing room is best. I'm cutting in to an old, hurt quilt and making a teddy bear.  I had to find a new pattern because while I saved the directions and the pattern envelope from my old (and I do mean old) pattern, the pattern itself went missing. I love a crisp, new pattern. I cut it apart with pinking shears, too dull to use on fabric but perfect for that light tissue that real patterns are printed on.Then I indulged in the ritual 'ironing of the pattern' where you lightly press the fold and crease marks out so when you place it on the fabric it lies perfectly flat. I started sewing the pattern pieces together without consulting the directions. I was using a REAL pattern, and the markings and information on the pattern pieces made that possible.

THIS IS A PATTERN

 Well that, and because I learned how to sew from using real patterns back in the day when Home Ec was mandatory for 7th grade girls.  I still think it should be mandatory - for boys and girls.  Why not learn to sew? Cook a meal? Banking, growing plants, living with a budget. Do a load of laundry without ruining the works. How to paint a wall. How to wield a cutting brush. Life skills, baby, I'm talking about basic. life. skills. Back to the bear -  I started watching an old movie on the VHS in my sewing room (man, I am a dinosaur) and clipped and darted and notched my way thought more than half of the bear before I called it quits for the night. (Okay there is a DVD player in there too, just sayin'.) I love old movies. I love REAL patterns. They are a marvel of engineering. How else would you get such elegant curves and shapes and forms?

NOT BLUE

If it's too hot for the sewing room I work on the main floor in the family room, paper piecing. I'm working on making a new purse and I loved my Japanese big bag so much I'm doing a smaller version, but NOT IN BLUE, MOM (if you're reading this in heaven and you probably are because I hear you yell at me every time I sew over pins.) I went WAY out of my color comfort zone and am doing this in shades of purple, mainly because it's already in my stash and I'm not getting any younger. I am photographing the hexie layout on my ironing board so I can work from the picture when I go downstairs to sew it together. (Easy to consult the iPad and double check the layout.) I'm also using straw needles and YLI silk thread to join them - double thread, because it's a purse. Even with interfacing and future layers, I want it sturdy. I must say, silk thread is the most unbelievably EASY thing to sew with, once you face the fact that properly knotting it is never going to happen. Even a quilters knot slid down the length of it tends to just melt apart. Oh silk, you are so...silky. It's very therapeutic to hand sew in the evening, I find I sleep better when I'm thus tranquilized.  As long as I manage to leave my iPad alone and not read email, Twitter and other assorted addictions (okay ANGRY BIRDS) I have a productive evening with beautiful results.

Sewing used to be my reward.  I work multiple jobs and it involves a LOT of juggling. I say "used to be a reward" because I've realized lately that it is something I MUST do. I'm happier, more aware of color and texture in my personal and professional lives (I work with art groups) and it opens up my head.  When I was commuting to Lowell every day I used to sing in the car.  I'm sure people wondered what the hell I was singing that took so much air and effort (usually something from Handel's Messiah or another choral work...) but it had the same effect. While it did cut down my road rage, I will confess to changing the words to an expletive when someone cut me off or changed lanes in front of me too abruptly.  It also made me laugh hysterically - you need to sing "motherf)($&#(er" in full soprano head voice to get the full effect.  Regardless of the word usage, when you get it really going and flowing it spirals up and creates a kind of harmonic buzz in your head. You get a little bit....high. At least I do. Music and art are the gifts that let us glimpse at the Paradise Lost - the world we were supposed to be living in, and not the one mankind has created.

I love autumn, it's my favorite season. It's good for inner reflection, taking inventory of life and time left. Hand sewing provides the opportunity to think back, remember, and relive wonderful memories. I am more awake - is that possible? I'm conscious of counting my days, wanting them to be full and filled with the glories of creation, the people I love and excellent football. Not every day will be so burnished and successful, but I'm working on it with the hope that it helps me through the days that are.......well, not so much.

What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

Willa Cather

The Morning After

It was about 2AM before I finally fell asleep last night, too keyed up over the day's events and wrung out with worry about a loved one a mere 3 miles from where the bomber was found. Still cannot wrap my head around the phenomenon of seeing law enforcement and Special Forces from all over Massachusetts descending on the area. The whole of greater Boston was shut down, even Gloucester was so quiet my husband closed the store and came home early.  "Shelter in place" was added to the local vocabulary.   It felt like a Bruckheimer movie nightmare.

So today I'm chillaxing. Take THAT, fearmongers!  There is no better place to dissolve stress than my sewing room. I have this lovely, big  photograph hanging over my ironing board so I have something wonderful to look at while I press quarter inch seams and iron the (occasional) blouse.  This is a detail shot:  

The Village

There is a whole world in this photograph, all kinds of little people cleaning and scrubbing and working and moving giant buttons and zippers.  It is endlessly entertaining to me and I'm almost at the point of giving the people names and writing a little story about their world.

So it's back to the drawing board with the William Morris hexagon project as the adhesive, wash-out stabilizer I marked the side quilting borders with was, I learned, not so wash-out.  The Sulky label said "spritz with water and it dissolves."  I completed one side and decided I better try out the removal before proceeding further.  I spritzed half of it and the whole thing turned to slimy glue.  I scraped off what I could and let it be, hoping it would dry and be fine. It dried - hard as a rock.  I took it downstairs to the kitchen and soaked just the border in a pot of water and let it sit there a while.  After I gently hand scrubbed the rest of it out I put it outside on the clothesline to dry in the sun.  I think it will be ok, actually, but "dissolves" should be taken off their label.  I'm not crazy about throwing it in the washing machine to let that do the work either - the piece will be fine but having that much glue in my washer and/or water lines doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Maybe I'll soak the whole thing in a pot and toss that water on the weeds out back.

This is the first thing I've ever made that is entirely machine quilted. I love the stippling process, very zen, but wanted a more constructed look for the border quilting. I think it will finish up fine. I'm happy to take an afternoon and pop on a CD or book on tape and just let the world turn without me for a while.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we already know the bomber can't get a fair trial in Boston so we're thinking of sending him to New York. 

Sunday Afternoon Spooning

Trying out a new Wordpress app to see if I can do this on the fly.
I'm using a spoon to pin baste a table square, am going to do some stippling and thought I'd give this kind of basting a whirl. I can't see doing it for a full sized quilt - it takes just as long and frankly I don't see the attraction. I'll have to watch them closely as I stipple around, removing them as I go, right? I still see broken needles in my future!

Historic Paper Piecing - Design Wall Monday

I've got a pretty broad range of fabrics in my stash and what I make reflects that spectrum.  I have an equal opportunity (and era) stash.  However, I do love hand sewing and since I love paper piecing hexagons I thought I'd give it a whirl with some different shapes and historic fabrics.

Oy vey.

I wasn't prepared for all those ANGLES.  I can stitch hexagons in my sleep but the octagons and coffins (my word) were a new ball game. To make matters worse, I PAID FOR THE SCRAPS so I couldn't ditch the project.  No, I am not insane - they are the gleanings from late 1800's - early 1900's quilts that have been rescued and conserved by loving professionals. In some cases, entire portions of the quilt had to be removed and the surrounding fabric was lovingly harvested and sold for around $8 a bag.  To a good home, you might say.

I bought a bag of the scraps just to touch them, to study up close and personal how those fabrics were made, the stunning colors and intricate designs.  They just breathed life.  I didn't know what I would do with them until I hit on the idea of paper piecing a little something to go on my end table. (Okay, probably under glass, I spill a lot of coffee.) I felt compelled to gently hand wash them, let them air dry and used the survivors in this bit of piecing. I like the idea of giving those very old fabrics a very new life.  The gold connecting squares and the border fabric are not old, just reproduction fabrics in the same color family.  Even though from now on I will probably stick to hexagons, I really like this little bit of a thing and can't wait to see it finished.

I Did It. My Way.

We've already established that reading pattern directions is my kryptonite. Even when I was making dresses and blouses for Home Ec I needed help translating arrows and darts. The fact that my mother was a pretty accomplished "sewist" didn't help matters because she was left-handed and (to me) did everything upside down and backwards.

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I wanted a purse made from my treasured stash of Japanese fabrics.  I knew how I wanted it to look, and I knew I had all the hardware and fabric and fusible fleece to do it.  I even had the right size hexagons to paper piece the top part so I dove right in and then spent an inordinate amount of time ripping it apart.  Ironically - I understand purse construction SO much better that now I might actually be able to tackle reading a pattern!

When I made this I tended to put pieces together and then say, "Hmm, I should have put those snaps in before I joined the 2 pieces together."  I honestly think I made a purse upside down and backwards.  While I don't think Mom would be proud,  it is finished.  I might need to remake one of the snap-in inserts, I got so caught up in stippling that the finished insert might be too heavy for the purse.  I was always so afraid to stipple but I'm finding it can be very Zen-like.  (It's also quite a workout for your upper arms, let me tell you!)  I have no explanation for my obsession with pockets other than to admit I have a fantasy of presiding over a completely organized purse. I bought a special zipper for the topmost closure - just in case those pockets get overstuffed and unseemly, I can zip the whole thing shut and no one will know.

I'd say it came out about 85% like what I wanted, and I might up that percentage after using it for a while. Think I'll move into it and give it a test drive next week.  But YAY, I finally (after years of waiting) did it!

Using the "Good" Scissors

My mother had a nice pair of Gingher scissors that were to be used ONLY on fabric.  She did a lot of garment construction - clothes for her kids -  but later she became a quilter.  As children we were roundly and soundly clobbered if we took the "good" scissors and used them to cut up paper or magazines or newspapers.

Fast forward to about six months ago when I saw a much smaller pair of Ginghers that called my name. I could not resist the siren song of having a really, really good pair of scissors so I took the plunge.  They came in a lovely little box which I kept open on my cutting table so I could admire them then and relish the pride of ownership.  It was enough for me to just have them. I was content to keep them,  save them for something "good."

Fast forward again to about two weeks ago when I crashed and burned on a baby quilt for my niece. I've been doing this long enough to know that when things go south you need to just. walk. away. and come back later when the fog clears.  I decided to take a bag of leftover quilt scraps and try my hand a paper piecing hexagons. (Note:  do not start paper piecing hexagons - EXTREMELY addictive.)  I went to grab a scissors to trim up the hexies when, for some unexplainable reason, I busted out the Ginghers.

You know where this is going.  I could not believe the difference.  Like a hot knife through cold butter, this thing sliced and clipped like a laser.  I was  thrilled with the results, the ease of cutting, the razor crisp edges. Like dawn breaking over Marblehead (local joke) I realized it was STEWPID to keep things "for good."  What if I get hit buy a bus tomorrow?  What was I waiting for?  WHY DO WOMEN DO THIS?  Because honestly I know I am not the only one. Every woman on the planet has something put away "for good" and most of those things will never see use or the light of day. Why do we do this?  So we have something to look forward to?  Is the "looking forward to" part better than the actual joy of using it or wearing it or whatever the hell it is we're trying to capture?  I don't know, but I don't think so. I'm not getting any younger and I'm tired of waiting.  Not only am I going to use these Ginghers, but I'm gonna bust out some cash and pick up one of the new Gingher Seam Rippers.  You heard me. Retractable blade, beeuches.  Who says quilters are old ladies with afghans in their laps?  I'm armed and dangerous.  I run with scissors. ( Really, really GOOD ones. )