Evening in the Garden Quilts

Adventures in Fabric Art

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Good Sewing Weather

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Back from our short vacation to PA.  Recovered yesterday, and went back to step class today, and dealing with the house and life.  Pretty soon I’ll be out of excuses for not sewing.  This cool, cloudy weather isn’t great for the peppers and eggplants, but you can’t beat it for sewing.

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One place we saw on our trip was Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, which belonged to the Kaufmans of Pittsburg.  I’ve been there before, but its an ongoing restoration, and always inspiring.

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Nearby is Kentuck Knob.  Its much smaller, but a little gem on its own.  And its based entirely on a grid of hexagons!

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Yesterday I started arranging these 12″ blocks on the design wall.  Not sure if this is it yet, but its a start.

What have you been up to?
I’m linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.


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Piggy Bank Pitcher

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Valerie Reynolds invited me to stop over and participate in her Piggy Bank Savings=Money for Quilting Challenge, so I’m in.  What could be wrong with saving spare change to put toward quilting supplies?  So I grabbed my dresser change to get started.

 

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Here’s my Pitcher Bank.  It’s an antique pitcher that was my great grandmother’s, and she was a quilter, so I know she wouldn’t mind.  I’ll use the money saved up to purchase a few Craftsy classes.  I’ve never spent the money to take any, and I’d like to take some on machine quilting.  Here it is on top of my treadle, but now it’s in the china cabinet where Yuri won’t bother it.

So, who wants to join me?  Come on, you have time for this!  No excuses.  See you at Val’s linky.


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Sunday Stash Report: 7/6/14

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Beware of a Stash Report that opens with a fabric store sign!  Yes, some was added, but it was blacks, whites, and some sale fabrics for a backing.  No apologies.  You don’t expect me to pass Waynesville, Ohio without stopping, do you?

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These zippers for future pouches came in the mail yesterday.  Almost as pretty as fabric, but I don’t have to add them in. They came frome Zipperstop.com, a link I believe I got from Jaye.

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On the minus side, I put together ten tissue covers last night, using half a yard of scraps.  I never made them before (I think Benta inspired me), but they were simple, quick, and fun.  I used this tutorial.  I feel this may really be the last bit of Mirror Ball Dot, at least in the lime/teal colorway.  I think.

Also, I took a page from Judy’s book, and cut up half a yard of old stuff for plant ties.

This week: +9 yards, -1 yard

YTD: +73.75 yards, -134 yards

Net stash used 2014: –60.25 yards

Good luck with your destashing!
I’m linking up with Sunday Stash Report at Patchwork Times.


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Yep, It Was the Needle

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My house, etc., was pretty neglected after those two Rail Fence finishes, so I haven’t been sewing much.  Also, it’s been hot and very humid.  Each day I’ve put a few minutes into turning these strings of fabric into something artful. We’ll have to see how I do, eventually.

As I pieced today, the thread started to do that maddening thing where it had double strands coming out of the needle, into the fabric, and back through the needle again.  How is that even physically possible?  I fixed it and rethreaded the machine a few times, and then finally I changed the needle.  Yep, that was what it was.  Sewing fine now.

The reason I was reluctant to change the needle (even though I knew that was what it needed) is because I just changed it a few days ago while quilting the Cowboy Rail Fence.  It had begun to skip stitches, so I changed it then and got back to work.  So I quilted most of that quilt and then the whole Plaid quilt with that needle, then did some mending through twill and light denim fabric with it.  Yep, only a few days, but it was probably due.

When I was growing up, I swear my mother never changed the needle until it broke.  I was usually in trouble for forcing her to get out a new needle from her tiny stock.  We were only sewing garments, but I don’t remember any trouble with those well-used needles.  Were they harder than today’s?  Were the machines more forgiving?  I don’t know, but today I know I put a lot more miles on a needle in a few days, and I need to change them frequently (when I don’t break them off doing stupid stuff with different feet or the wrong plate or my finger…).

Skipping stitches?  Change the needle.  Stitches going, “Thack, thack, thack”?  Mmhmmm.  That weird tangley thing I had today?  Yep.  You know it.  Go ahead and change it, and save yourself a lot of grief.  Wish they came in bigger packages!

 
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I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.


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Design Wall Monday: 6/23/14

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This weekend I put frames around some of the Beach scraps.  There are a few shell fabrics, but by now they are mainly just tan or aqua pieces, and a few whole squares of stripes and ribbons.  I was going to use aqua and khaki in the framing, but the “Azure”, I think it was, didn’t go well with the centers.  This Cream solid and tan print are definitely lower volume than the other quilts, but I like the way the centers stand out.

 

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I also put the top and bottom together for the plaid Rail Fence for the Scrap Basket Quilt Along.

 

What are you working on this week?  I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

 

 


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Design Wall Monday: 6/16/14

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These are not exactly “on the wall”; more like works in progress.  I assembled all the blocks from the cowboy fabric into a Rail Fence top for the Scrap Basket Quilt Along, and made a back.  I included extra rail blocks and a few orphan blocks.

 

Christmas gift bags from a couple of years ago.

Christmas gift bags from a couple of years ago.

I also started making shopping bags from the pile of bird seed sacks in the corner of my studio.  I made some of these a couple of years ago as gifts, and have been saving bags ever since.  My reusable shopping bags are getting a little tattered, so I can use some new ones, but mostly I just want to get rid of some of these bags.  I looked on Etsy to see what others are doing, and found quite a few using these bags.  My favorite is Julia, of One Woman Studio.  Her design sense and color and bag choices really resonate with me.  I also stole a few of her construction techniques.  I’m not going to sell mine (probably).  These are just for my own use, and to keep the pretty bags out of the landfill.

This week's bag

This week’s bag

Nylon web is really the right material for handles, but I’m trying not to buy anything, so my handles are denim cut from old jeans.  Very comfortable for carrying groceries.  I measured my favorite cloth grocery bag to get an idea of size, and cut the front and back 20″ square (from two bags that are too small to use on their own for grocery sacks).  I used a strong poly quilting thread that I have a lot of in a lavender color that I don’t use often.  I tried out some of the stitches on my machine that I usually neglect.  I tried to take advantage of the unique properties of the bags, their body and resistance to fraying, instead of the garment sewing techniques I had used previously.  Lots of flat construction and zigzag-like stitching.  The next will be better, and faster.

I’m also interested in other ideas for using these bags.  Do you have any?

 

What are you trying this week?

I’m linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.


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Git Along, Little Scraps

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It’s been a dreary, rainy week here.  I know we need it, but it does not energize me to do household tasks.  Sewing seems the best option.

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Amanda Jean’s post about her Scrap Basket Quilt Along for charity prompted me to get out my plaid and cowboy left overs (some “scraps”, but mostly yardage that goes with nothing else).

Interestingly, her post today about choosing colors is much more like what I usually do when starting a scrap quilt.  Color really inspires me, and I usually look to see which fabrics have serendipitously landed next to each other in the scrap basket, and then pull other unexpected but wonderful choices.  For some reason, I went directly to these themed fabrics, feeling a boy would love them far more than I do in my stash.  So my quilts won’t have all those gorgeous colors in them.  Unless I make another…

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So, I made enough  Rail Fence blocks for a plaid quilt.  (The centers are khaki, if you can’t tell.)

 

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And yesterday I made all the cowboy blocks.  I mean, there’s so little else to do with barbed wire print…  I enjoyed remembering the quilt shop, (I believe) Extra Special Fabrics in Guthrie, OK.  (I misidentified it on Twitter as Los Vegas, NM, where I have also purchased fabric, same trip, wrong shop.)  Their specialty is western prints and they have a ton.  I already used up the Roy Rodgers/Dale Evans print I bought there.  We can’t keep it all.

I sewed up every little scrap, except for some yardage for backings.  I figure the extra blocks can go into the back.  And I really don’t want to put any of this back in the drawers.

So, are you going to join us in making fun quilts for a good cause?

 

I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

 


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Design Wall Monday: 6/9/14

Apologies in advance for these photos, done in low light with a phone.  Oh, well.

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Last night I finished the top to the Slow Quilt, and I’m happy with it.  It’s big:  70″ square.  It’s going away for a while, until I can get the right batting and find some inspiration for the quilting.

All that careful piecing wore me out.  While catching up on blog reading, I spotted this post from Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  It’s a quilt along for charity (Margaret’s Hope Chest) using the Rail Fence design (talk about Zen piecing!).  She also mentions that they really need boys” quilts.  This started working in my brain and I couldn’t wait to get to it.  Of course I have overflowing scrap bins, but the “boy” thing made me remember that I had a whole stack of plaid yardage left from a long ago quilt (he’s 31, it was his HS graduation…).  In the same drawer I found all my cowboy yardage/scraps.  (What, you don’t have a plaid/cowboy drawer in your fabric closet?  Well, maybe I won’t, either, when these are finished!).

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I am jumping the gun on this.  Amanda doesn’t look like she’s even going to start cutting for a few weeks, so there’s plenty of time.  But I had the house to myself on a rainy Sunday, so I started to play.

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I started to realize that all those plaids were going to be chaotic and horrible a little busy jammed together in a Rail Fence, so I added khaki Kona.  (Now that I look at it, I think maybe the reason these plaids are left over is that they do have khaki stripes and threads through them, and I used the more white ones in the other project…)  So, I think this is working, don’t you?  I did actually cut the strips pretty straight, I just have them crooked on the wall.

So that’s what I’m doin today, blissfully piecing strips and whacking them into blocks.  Check out Amanda’s post and join me.

I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.


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WIP Wednesday: Picking up the Pace

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I have now completed eight of the sixteen blocks for the Slow Quilt.  Each block is not so very slow, only taking twenty minutes or so to assemble after everything is cut.  This does not at all resemble their final arrangement, which will include sashing, but arranging them on the wall like this does have me considering options.

The reddish solids are Oakshott Cottons that I won last year.  Each block has twenty-eight pieces that I rotary cut and am piecing conventionally.  Paper piecing might have been a good option for the long triangles and diamonds, but they are coming out well with a little care.

The rest will have more peach colors in them.  I was very confused at first in the cutting, and found it best to stick with all the green themed blocks.  I think I have it figured out now.   The results will be more colorful as I make more progress.

 

Hope you are coming along with your projects.

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I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.


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Progress on Tops

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I made the first block for the Slow Quilt.  Yes, it’s a modified Storm at Sea block.  It turned out fine.  The only slightly dicey parts were the long triangles (scalene!), but they were okay.  Now to make some more color decisions and do some more cutting.

 

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Meanwhile, my last Beach Quilt sold, so I put together more scraps for another one.  I love to make this pattern!  It practically puts itself together while I think my thoughts.  Also, the fabrics are great.  I will be sad when I am truely out of them.  Maybe one more, scrappier top…  This top is finished, the back is pieced (one seam), now I need to piece the batting, and I hope to sandwich it today.

 

What are you working on?

 

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I’m linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.