So, in November, I put together a t-shirt quilt ordered by a customer. I hired some help too. A friend of mine helped put it together. I ordered a $200 piece of equipment to help get the backing fused to the t-shirts in less time. The steam press is totally awesome for doing t-shirt quilts.
Back From Retreat…
Well, I’m back at home this week and getting the rest I missed getting (!) at retreat. I got the quilt finished and put the binding on (see photo from prior post). I got a new jacket model finished.
I finished stitching up 5 new bags. Here are a couple of them. These two are now posted in my etsy shop.
I had taken some layered cloth for backgrounds for new art that I did the machine quilting on. These are pieces in a series like “Flow” on my sidebar.
Some may remember some shibori dyed pieces I did awhile back with the circles on them. I played around with them with an idea I had…here’s where it is so far…
Getting away from home is helpful…like…a quilting marathon…no cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, just sewing and quilting. Everyone should do it once in a while!
Yesterday was spent in an endless round of picture taking while I tried to get good photos for jurying. I used the shots taken in the photographer’s studio as a gauge, since this particular piece didn’t get photographed there. Now I think I’m finally done with that process!
Getting ready for Indiana Heritage show in Bloomington, IN. Planning, preparation and putting in orders. It will be a bigger show than I usually do…but that will be good.
This And That…
From one of my morning walks…the long wispy needles of pine trees always fascinate me. They look soft.
Peanut Butter Chews…my husband’s favorite drop cookie/candy. His birthday was yesterday and he requested these. Recipe follows.
Peanut Butter Chews
1 c. sugar
1 c. Karo light syrup
1/4 cu. oleo or butter
Heat all together to boiling. Then add:
1 cup peanut butter and stir.
Pour over 6 cups of corn flakes, mix and drop by spoonfuls onto a sheet of wax paper to set up. I think peanuts would be good in these too.
Interesting photo…to me. This caught my eye at the opening exhibit last Saturday. The contrast and the sharp lines are what I caught first and I snapped a picture. It will be inspiration for…something…step back from it…you’ll see what I mean.
And….here is the quilt I sold a few weeks ago. I am missing it a bit, but might make another one!
Wednesday This ‘N That…
I have been here, I just haven’t been blogging. You know… how LIFE gets in the way. Monday afternoon I had to go teach my sewing class with young girls. There are five of them, although not all of them sew when I am there. They are working on a quilt called Crooked Nine Patch. It was designed by my friend SuznQuilts and was made so that it is easy for kids to do. They are so excited and having so much fun. Sometime later I will take pics of their blocks to show you all the variety they have.
On Tuesday, I had errands to do and pick up a few groceries. My husband is working long hours in the field, so I am trying to keep the food train going for him and try to keep lunch somewhat interesting, since they eat on the run. But Tuesday afternoon, I decided it was time for me to do some sewing for FUN!!! I actually haven’t sewed anything much for quite some time. First, I worked on the hand stitched bag that I showed awhile back. I liked the pears that the Kemshalls stitched on their bag, so, lacking any other inspiration, I stitched pears on mine too and then added some paint. This is a birthday gift for a friend of mine and that birthday is coming up soon. She likes folk art and I have kept the pears imperfect and a bit funky in shape. Believe me, it wasn’t that hard to do…with free motion stitching. The next thing to do will be to bind it and shape it into the bag, then maybe add some beads by hand.
Creating art takes alot of brain power, so there are times when I just want to sit at the sewing machine and do mindless piecing. That’s my break from thinking…that’s my fun. This is when I like to pull out something unfinished and get back to it. Yeah, I still like traditional fabrics, and yeah, I still like muted reproduction colors. So except for getting the applique stitched down, I did get the borders on and the stars fused to the quilt. This ended up being a double bed size, but the fun thing about it is, it has 579 different fabrics in it. It is called Civil War Logs, again by my friend, SuznQuilts. It is all (as much as we can tell) civil war reproduction fabrics. Four of us started collecting them several years ago and trading strips around so that we all had that variety. In this particular quilt, each fabric has been used only once. It is windy out today, so I couldn’t photograph it on the clothesline. It just flies up like a sail!
I am quite pleased with it and am thinking of getting it hand quilted (probably not by me) in keeping with the Civil War look. I think I know some ladies who hand quilt every week around a big frame.
Today I finished emptying out the van from the festival and organizing everything in the garage. It’s hot out there. I am sweating badly. The other thing I am doing today is attempting to discharge rust dyed fabric. Yep, it works. Here are the results. The circles on the bottom are the discharged areas. Now I want to do some screenprinting with dye paint. How many different chemicals can this cloth stand?