Sewfrench

Kansas Twister Quilt

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Sewfrench

This quilt has been around a while, too, but is finally finished. It was last spotted here, back in January. Under a year isn’t bad, for me, with so many ideas swirling in my head.

I suspect this pattern has been around since the beginning of quilting, it has enough names to have been, anyway. Whirligig, Kansas Twister, Texas Trellis, Whirling Triangles in a Hexagon…. are just a few that I have heard.

I see others currently making it and calling it all kinds of crazy “new-fangled” names. For me, I try to stick with the traditional quilt names when possible. You?

I hand-quilted this one 1/4″ inside the twisting shapes, using Aurifil 28wt thread, leaving the little background triangles unquilted. I used Quilter’s Dream Select batting, in cotton. It creates such a nice, old-fashioned feeling quilt, but still easy to quilt through as opposed to some of the other cotton battings out there.. Every so slightly thicker than Request. I love them both.

This pattern is made up of 60° triangles cut from 2 contrasting strips. The higher the contrast the better, that is the key to making them pop. No match-matchy here. The strips are cut 2 1/2″ wide then sewn together. To make a whirling hexagon, you need to cut 12 triangles, 6 matching triangles with the same color on all the bottoms, meaning as you cut, every other one will match. My fabric is two deep, so you are only seeing half of what you need.

You end up with enough triangles for two hexagon shaped blocks, one with the light on top, one with the light on bottom. You have to decide whether you want them all in one quilt or not. It does change the look. I used them all, in this one. My goal was to use up as much old fabric as possible.

I had some larger pieces of calico that I was struggling to use up and this turned out to be the perfect spot for them! Some hand quilters refuse to use a quilt back with seams. Obviously, I’m not one of them.

I think it matches perfectly. I’m finally beginning to see my fabric collection evolving from the 1980s to current times. It feels good. 🙂

What do you call this pattern? Have you made it? Did you use matching tips (the background fabric behind the twister)? All light tips, all dark tips or some of everything?

Kansas Twister
a vintage inspired quilt by Sewfrench
58″ x 70″
machine pieced
hand quilted
using Aurifil 28wt thread

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Posted in 2014 completes, Design, fabric, Finishes, Quilting, Tutorial | Tagged 60 degree triangle, aurifil thread, hand quilting, hexagon, kansas twister, pattern, pinwheel, quilt, quilt back, quilting, scrap, Texas Trellis, traditional quilt, triangles, tutorial, vintage quilt, whirligig, Whirling Triangles in a Hexagon | 8 Comments

Have you ever used voile for a quilt back?

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Sewfrench

Yah….

I do think I must have ADHD, or another Attention Deficit Disorder, type issue.

Another quilt I am working on was in my lap, today, during this blizzard-like weather we are experiencing and seems like we will continue to “enjoy” for the next week…..

We woke up, yesterday, with about 7″ on the ground and another 7″ fell throughout the afternoon leaving us with 15.6″ a new November record. This is scary, for so early in the Michigan snow season. I am just hoping this is not a tease of what is to come.

Sooo…. I am working on hand quilting another project. Even when this is my view from my usual quilting spot. Ha! It really does look like ADD from here. But in my defense, I have a very active, creative mind. I am constantly having to try something out. And those quilts don’t have near deadlines, so they got put on the back burner.

This one is yet to be named. You are seeing the back. I am doing some outline quilting before I work up a design.

I’m using Aurifil 28 weight thread on this one. That is the gray-spooled, heavier weight one, made for hand quilting. It is still much finer than many of the other hand quilting threads out there, but it does quilt up beautifully. Even with it being finer I am still not finding it any more tangle-y than any other, but I don’t ever seem to have an issue with that anyway. I wonder if it is because I have learned you should always knot, the end of the thread, where you cut your length. Thread is spun in one direction and is meant to be used in that same direction. Thread the needle with the end coming off the spool, cut your length and knot where you cut and you should be good to go.

My backing fabric, shown above, is Robert Kaufman’s Veronica Voile, in Stone. This was one of the 40% off fabrics I got at Pink Chalk Fabric’s going out of business sale. This was one of the few pieces I chose that were not your typical solids. I was happy to see it was a perfect match for the front. You can never be sure when buying fabrics online.

I have used voile, for a quilt backing, only once. It was the perfect match for the quilt top and I questioned using it for a backing, then. I wonder how it has held up…..

If you aren’t familiar with voile, the word rhymes with oil, and is a very fine fabric. One of the most luxurious fabrics you have ever caressed. It’s name is derived from the Latin work veil. It is as light and breezy as a Sunday afternoon. It is often used for blouses, scarves or beachy, flowing curtains.

Voile usually costs a little more, but I LOVE that it is usually 54/55/56″wide. This often means I only need to buy only one length for a quilt back, as opposed to the usual 42″ wide fabric and needing to piece two quilt lengths ($$) to get the width I need. For a lap quilt, it is perfect, not seam needed, making hand-quilting even easier. “Hooray” says all the hand quilters out there!!!

This quilt feels like it will float away as I work on it. You can actually see how light it is where I have it pin basted. It looks loose, not taut, like most quilts in the process of being quilted. I will just be extra diligent with the hand on the underside to keep wrinkles at bay. It quilts like buttah’, I say. Surely I can get this one worked up quickly. I’ll share the front before the year is out. I hope….

Have you ever used voile as a quilt backing?

What’s your weather like? Are you bundled up working on something snuggly??

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Posted in Design, fabric, Sewing | Tagged Attention Deficit Disorder, Aurifil 28, hand quilting, hand quilting thread, hand quilting voile, how to thread a quilting needle, lap quilt, quilt backing, robert kauffman, Robert Kaufman Veronica Voile, snowday, tangled quilting thread, using voile for quilt backing, voile, Which end to thread your needle | 9 Comments

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Sewfrench

Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Enjoyable historical novel.

The main character is a servant in the house of the 17th-century Dutch master, Johannes Vermeer, and is used as the model for the painting ‘Girl with a pearl earing’. The author re-creates common life in the town of Delft with what seems to be fascinating authenticity. The smells of the marketplace, the drudgery of laundry, the subtle tensions between servants – it all comes across here viscerally. The young maid seems devoted only to her master and obeys his every wish. When he tells her to wear his wife’s pearl earrings for the painting, she agrees even though she knows it could lead to her downfall.

Who is this guy’s publicist? For a man who left no more than 35 paintings, he’s suddenly getting plenty of attention outside the museums. Perhaps it’s the paucity of information about Vermeer’s life or the small number of exquisite paintings that makes his work such an attractive subject for novelists.

This book was also made into an extremely successful 2003 movie starring Colin Firth as Vermeer and Scarlett Johansson as Griet. I might need to see if I can find it.

View all my reviews

Posted in Books, Reading | Tagged "Colin Firth", "Johannes Vermeer", "Scarlett Johansson", "Tracy Chevalier", book, book review, Girl with a pearl earring, movie spoilers, reading | 4 Comments

Endless Chain quilt

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Sewfrench

Endless Chain’s windmill-looking block is based on a vintage pattern featured in newspapers in 1942 and throughout WWII. It was traditionally done as a paper pieced block. I’m not a paper piecer, can’t seem to get the hang of it, so I drew up my own pattern.

Hard to believe it has been a year since I talked about finishing the quilt top. I had even gotten it sandwiched and pin basted but just recently finished the quilting.

I hand-quilted it in the low volume areas, 1/2″ apart, echoing the shapes. This allowed the “chains” to pop.

The perfectly matching back came from straight from inventory. I bought this fabric years ago at a day after Thanksgiving half-off fabric sale. I had no idea what or when it would be used but who can resist a sale that good! Because they match so well, you might think that they were the inspiration for the quilt front and then you would be right. What better way to use up inventory that to start with the quilt backing and go from there?

I really do love how these colors just pop. You can really see how the color value you choose can make or break the design. Looking at the center row, see how the diamond on the right really pops? The open diamond shapes create a chain and look so connected? The center one isn’t bad, but the one on the left…. it almost looks like a different pattern all together. This is one of the reasons I like making smaller quilts. You can never really “see” how a quilt will turn out until it is done and smaller is a perfect way to test it out. At least that is how this “Show-Me” girl from Missouri sees it!

But that’s not to say I don’t love this quilt. It is so happy and cheery it lives on the back of my rocking chair, for now!

Endless Chain
a vintage inspired quilt by Sewfrench
60″ x 60″
machine pieced
hand quilted
2014

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Posted in 2014 completes, Design, Finishes, Quilting, Sewing | Tagged citrus color, color values, endless chain, endless chain quilt, quilt, scrap, values quilt, vintage pattern, vintage quilt block, vintage quilt pattern, WWII quilt pattern | 19 Comments

Echo Quilting

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Sewfrench

Another quilt that has been in progress for a long time is in my lap today. I finally decided on how to quilt it. Spiral quilting it will be.

And yes, you can see, I had a change of plan from what I drew, to where I decided to quilt. An artist’s prerogative?!! LOL

I did think about quilting it by machine but decided that that just wouldn’t be right for this one. I settled on big stitch quilting. Primarily because the majority of this quilt is 2″ squares, so lots of seams. Also, lots of batik, hand dyes and metallics, too, making traditional hand quilting painful.

To spiral quilt, this large quilt, I had to come up with a plan. I decided to quilt it with lines 3.5cm apart (looks like 4. on the ruler, but it is 3.5). I started out with a template, but quickly out grew it. I then taped my Fons and Porter chalk pencil, using packaging tape, to my 6″ ruler. I then lined the end of the ruler up with the previous line and start drawing in a circular form, copying the last line. I’m not looking for perfection in my echoing, organic lines are fine, I just feel better following a line, any line as opposed to just eye-balling it.

Have I talked before, about how much I love these pencils? They are not waxy, so they dust off, or even better wash out, beautifully. The four pack, I buy, has all the colors that work with ever project you might have. And they aren’t waxy, did I say that? A true bonus there. They sharpen in an electric pencil sharpener, fine, too. Not sure about a handheld sharpener, but I bet that will work well, too.

I once marked an entire queen sized quilt with a white quilting, marking pencil. Hand-quilted it, tossed it in the wash, feeling so proud. Pulled it out and to my horror the white waxy lines were there as plain as day! I ended up using a toothbrush on the entire quilt. That could be why I never got a good photo of that quilt!

Once the spirals got to the width of the quilt, I timed it and it takes about 37 minutes to do one line. I draw four lines at a time, enough to do in an evening, but not too many to where they brush off before I get them quilted.

I am using Finca Presencia Perle Cotton #16 in Dark Pewter. I have two spools that I opted not to use on another project and am hoping this will be enough for this one. Looks like I might make it, but you never know!

Echo Quilting @ Sewfrench

My stitches are about 1/8th of an inch long with the spacing being just shy of that.

So far, so good, it looks like about another 15 hours of quilting to go. Now to find something else to watch on Netflix…

Back at it!

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Posted in Crafting, Design, fabric, hand quilting, Quilting | Tagged big stitch, chalk pencil, drawing templates, echo quilting, echo quilting tutorial, hand quilting, how to draw, how to mark echo quilting, how to spiral quilt, quilting pencil | 4 Comments

Filling the Gap

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Sewfrench

I mentioned that I had finally placed a big order with Pink Chalk Fabrics, the prize from my Blowin’ in The Wind entry in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. Several asked to see what I chose. Well, my packaged arrived, even quicker than I expected!

Aren’t they gorgeous?!! As you can see I chose solids to fill in the soft spots in my collection. I chose a mix of Kona Cottons and Michael Miller’s Cotton Coutures to get the variety I needed.

Buying what was available, when everything was 40% and liquidating, I still feel weak in the pinks and yellows but this put me back to where I feel more comfortable in the fall colors that have been depleted ever since I created Tomorrow Morning and that has been over two years ago!

One of the things that impressed me about this $100, felt like a windfall, order was that the fabrics were cut and stacked in the same order as the receipt, making it easy to find which is Mud as opposed to Espresso. This is one of the special touches I will miss with Pink Chalk Fabrics going out of the fabric business. They still have some a few good deals if you haven’t checked them out lately.

Receiving these encouraged me spend yesterday, straightening and reorganizing fabrics, and projects, in my studio. I’ve been meaning to get a round to this for a while. I feel like a can breathe deep before I start pulling fabrics to make another mess!

Or maybe I should just sit in the calm and finish one of the many projects that are just waiting patiently to completed…
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Posted in fabric, Sewing, studio | Tagged Cotton Coutures, fabric, fabric stash, kona cotton, Michael Miller, michael miller cotton couture, organizing, Pink Chalk Fabrics, storage, studio | 4 Comments

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Sewfrench

★★★

I’ve read several books in this same hiking adventure genre. Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail was funny. Southbound, The Barefoot Sisters, #1, by Lucy Letcher and Susan Letcher was fluffy. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer was some serious stuff.

The following review contains some spoilers.

In Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed, I was expecting Bill Bryson mixed with (Wo)Man Vs. Wild. It reads more like Eat, Pray, Love mixed with college liberal’s sexcapades. This book’s soul-baring stuff rode the fine line between whining and brutal honesty.

The thoughts that stuck with me.

She had no experience as a long-distance hiker. None, nada, zilch. She never bothered to even put on her overpacked gear before she stepped foot on to the trail. The whole idea was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” The most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, to Washington State—and to do it alone.

She does heroin with a guy who is not her husband; she tells us that she really, really loves her husband. I guess there is something that is just part of Cheryl that *makes* her cheat on her husband who she really, really loves.

She brought a whole box of condoms with her, on her hike, to “find herself”! She is still having one night stands with strangers a week before she is at the end of her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail.

She loses one of her too-small REI shoes off the side of the trail? Seriously? Who does that? Then is MAD when they can’t overnight her new ones because she is in the middle of nowhere.

And the kicker has to be the last chapter when she touches the Bridge of the Gods, and next thing we know, all her intimacy issues have been resolved. Nine years into a stable marriage to a wonderful man, wonderful kids and a wonderful life. The idea that punishing physical activity is the panacea for mental suffering is absurd and possibly dangerous. Such a journey can be a source of strength and self-esteem, but being alone in one’s head while ripping one’s feet to bloody shreds is not a reliable path to resolving childhood abandonment and mistrust of/intimacy issues with men.

I liked and I hated Cheryl at the same time. I admired her for hiking 1,100 miles and, at the same time, resented that she left her husband and ran away from her problems to find herself. All she needed was to stay away from the drugs and to focus on something rather than to linger on how she missed her mom and what a bad wife she was.

I think I’ll stick with Bill Bryson’s humorous style of writing, the next time I find myself wanting to take a walk in the woods.

This book topped the 2012 Best List, by GoodReads readers, as the favorite in the Memoir & Autobiography category. I have to wonder how many readers read more than one of the nominated books…. When I added it to my “to-read” list, I had no idea a movie was being made of it. With all that said, only because Reese Witherspoon will play Cheryl, will I be tempted to rent it….

Posted in Books, movie | Tagged Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson, book review, Cheryl Strayed, hiking, movie, movie spoilers, Pacific Crest Trail book, Reese Witherspoon movies, spoilers, the Pacific Crest Trail, Wild by Cheryl Strayed | 2 Comments

Marcia Derse has it Sew Together

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Sewfrench

I am in love.
Still.
I should say.
Ever since I met her fabulous fabrics a couple of years ago I can’t get enough.

I bought this pattern a couple of years ago and just couldn’t decide what fabrics to use or even what to use the bag for, which, in my mind, could make a difference in which fabrics I would choose.

Feeling the need for an instant gratification project, I decided to pull some fabric and get to work. Using scraps, from the quilt I made our eldest daughter, I finally whipped up the Sew Together Bag. I created my outer fabric panel using 2 1/2″ squares, with a stripe up the center of tiny scraps. I then quilted it directly to a piece of Quilters Dream Request cotton quilt batting using organic 1/4″ -1/3″ rows. This turned out to be the perfect weight, and body, that this bag needed.

And I did use three very different colored zippers for the interior, green, blue and gray, but for some reason they didn’t photograph accurately. I also chose 7 different fabrics for the interior, part of all those difficult decisions it took to make this one. Looking at the finished product, the most important choices, for the interior, are the outer “leaves”, if you will. The rest you hardly see. You can also see that I didn’t opt to add the wool needle landing pad. Obviously, I should have because my needles have automatically landed in that very spot.

I am so stinking happy to have chosen these fabrics to look at every single night when I am hand quilting. My previous bag was too small and I was constantly pouring everything out to find what I needed. This is perfect for all my needs. I can keep everything organized in different zippered pockets, that when zipped it won’t spill out into my chair. Duh! Marking pens in one pocket, needles in another, thimbles old and older, in the third. Current thimbles, thread, needle-puller and clippers in the outer edges. I am in love!!!

The pattern doesn’t use pictures and doesn’t give as much direction, as even this very experienced sewist would have preferred, but I managed. I did hand-stitch the bindings because as a hand-quilter, I think they look better. I left an open area to attach the end of the zipper tabs and hand stitched them into the seam, also. I couldn’t quite figure out how the pattern developer expected you to do it, so I did it my way.

I’m thinking this bag could be expanded into a really cool travel/toiletry bag. I think I will work on those changes soon.

Have you made one of these Sew Together Bags???

Yet??? Because I think anyone that sews will eventually make a wise decision to go for it.

What are you, or would you, using yours for? Any thoughts, comments or changes for you???

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Posted in Crafting, Design, fabric, Finishes, Quilting, Sewing | Tagged bag, cosmetic bag, Marcia Derse, pattern review, quilting bag, Sew Together Bag, sew together pattern review, toiletries bag, zippers | 21 Comments

Picking up my Maple Leaves

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Sewfrench

Still plugging along on my Maple Leaf quilt. It is hard to believe I started this in May! But I did. I made the top, from Kona cotton in my stash then got side-tracked. One of the reasons I put it aside is because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to quilt it. It had to “come to me”. And it did. I decided to hand quilt it in the Baptist Fan pattern. I think it needed the texture and curves to soften the pattern. I am loving the way it is feeling.

I drew up a plastic template with my lines at 1″ intervals and an extra line 1/4″ above the last one, at the top of each fan. That adds up to each fan being 9 1/4″ tall. I couldn’t find a pattern or directions that recommended a certain size/width/dimension so I just winged it. I used my water erasable blue pen and marked the entire top before sandwiching it and then pin basting it. Marking, before pinning, saves so much frustration what with the template and the pins not playing well together. In my eyes, I nailed exactly what I was looking for.

And while looking back at when I created this top, I realize it was during the last Blogger’s Quilt Festival. My prize, for winning, was a $100 gift certificate to Pink Chalk Fabrics, one of my very, very favorite online fabric stores. I have bragged before about their fabulous customer service. Well, I had not used it yet. I think I was waiting to buy something really special, as my prize, and it just “hadn’t come to me”, yet. Then I got a sweet email from Kathy encouraging me to use it with a bonus 10% off their lowest prices, for regular customers. Imagine my surprise, when I went to their website to find out everything was 30% off and they were going out of the fabric business while liquidating everything! I then spent the next two hours filling my shopping basket with $100 worth of goodies. The discount is now 40% off for everyone.

Pink Chalk fabric coupon Now, hurry and go see what they have left!

WIP
Let’s Be Social

Posted in Design, fabric, Linkys, Quilting, WIP | Tagged baptist fan, hand quilting, kona cotton, Maple leaf, Maple Leaf Quilt, Marking a baptist fan, pattern, quilt, solids, template | 10 Comments

I Spy…

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Sewfrench

I have no idea why my sister and I chose this, thread catching, fabric to be used in a thread infested sewing room, but I suspect it was because it was what we had on hand, at the time. This is my sewing room, go-to stool. The one without casters, that I stand on constantly because I am not quite tall enough to reach the high shelves and the rolly chair is a little risky. I can not tell you how long it has looked this way, but I am sure it has been more than 10 years since we found this cool stool and decided to recover it. After looking, and cringing, at this pitiful fixture, every day, I finally made a decision on what to use and recovered it, again. I definitely do not remember needing 4 hands to take it apart and put it back together again, but maybe subconsciously I did, that is why it took so long to get it done! I stitched together some of the selvages with interesting names. I pulled the longer lengthed ones, so I didn’t need to stitch short ones together, from my overflowing tub, and just overlapped and topstitched them together, leaving some of the color showing. I didn’t really see a need for a backing fabric, to stitch them to, not in this application, anyway. If you haven’t started collecting selvedges (what is the proper American English spelling, anyway??) but want to start, I’d suggest you leave at least 1″ of color when you trim them off. Some of mine only had 1/4″ of the actual fabric and those aren’t really usable. Of course, I could have trimmed them like that because that is what we have always done to get rid of the tightly woven, unusable because it shrinks at a different rate, edge of the fabric. It is fun remembering all the different projects these fabrics were used in. I spy placemats, a travel bag, raincoat lining, a bathrobe, a couple of quilt backs, a pair of slippers, an ironing board cover, another travel bag….. And, of course, all the scraps of these fabrics have all been used in any number of quilts. Now to decide what to do with the rest of them! Have you created any selvage projects? Have any you are planning on making? Anything cool I should know about???