Friday, September 25, 2009
Family Quilts
I know I've mentioned it before, but it deserves repeating: my family is quilty. My grandmother on my mom's side spent her lifetime making something out of nothing. She had her very own sewing room (which I suspect may have been more about a quiet escape just a pocket door away from her 9 children--but they were all angels, so I'm sure that's not it).
Last Christmas I went to her house which hasn't been lived in for years and got the quilts out of the cedar chest in her room. They had probably been there for 60 years or more, never used. Maybe she had quilts and used them, but I don't think so. Besides a few glorious chenille numbers in the girls rooms, and denim blankets in the boys' room, I don't remember seeing anything on the beds that resembled these quilts.
Now I'm a pack-rat (my mom would tell you it skipped a generation) but I also believe in using the quilts you have--at least displaying them. I have several up around my house. They're out of direct sunlight, which is important. Sadly, it's hard for me to get direct sunlight in my house. That's another point.
But these quilts are still in great shape because they were put away. Some have a few small stains, or heavy creases, but mom and I are working on them.
We did this photo shoot as part of a larger project. I want to make an album of our family quilts on Blurb--so everyone can have a copy. I intend to have a wide shot and detail shots of each of them, and also include any information I can find on them.
It's so important to have record of these things. With these quilts, we have no idea where they came from except that they belonged to my grandma. Sadly, she's gone now, and we can't ask her. I could just kick myself that we didn't ask her last Christmas.
Here are a couple of quilts that belong to me. First, the black and gold is one my mom made for my college graduation (still my favorite of all).
And then the wedding quilt my aunt made for me. I love color, what can I say?
So here are some tips if you want to make your own family quilt record, whether in book form or otherwise:
- Take photos with the quilt as flat as possible. Hanging up is best because you can get the whole thing without being at an angle.
- Take the photo with a high-resolution camera in the shade, or on a slightly cloudy day. This way there won't be harsh shadows or washed out images.
- Get an assistant!
- Gather all the quilts you can whether you know something about them or not.
- Document the following:
- Name of owner:
- Name of creator/quilter (sometimes they're different):
- Date created:
- Name of pattern if any:
- Materials used and where they might have come from (like a child's dress or the flea market)
- Any special notes about the occasion, the story of why it was made, or really anything. You don't know what will be important in future generations, so as much information as possible is great!
I'm going to use Blurb to make this book. I hope to make one with the other side of my family also, but it will probably be harder to get those quilts all together. I'm hoping for QuiltFest 2010, ladies!
And you know I'm excited about designing the book. Maybe I'll even do some freelancing books for other people. You could send me your photos and I could lay them out in book form and send it to you...hmm. I'm always entreprenuering!
The only thing out there on the web I can find about family quilt documentation is this site in Australia. You need to save your heritage! When one generation passes away, all the information is lost. I can't bear to think of my hard work being donated to Goodwill or otherwise.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Stitching!
What's that you say? Actual stitching on Stitch.Rip.Repeat? That's right. I realize it's been a while since I talked much about sewing or quilting. That little letterpress is just a time monster.
What's that? I did take a few moments last weekend to work on my newest project. I set up my design wall in the studio, and stitched away.
I'm so anxious to see this done, but I'm having a hard time finding time to work on it.
A
Monday, August 24, 2009
I'm in a Magazine!
First, I should mention why I didn't post all last week. My sister got married this past Saturday, and last week was a flurry of activity on my end. The wedding was a blast. I don't have any photos yet because I was the photographer's assistant, and he let me use his secondary camera. Oh, I was in love with that thing. More on that later when I have photos to show for it.
This week on newsstands is my first published quilt. It's in the September/October issue of Fons & Porter's For the Love of Quilting.
This is one of my landscape quilts that I did a few years back. I gave it to my dear friend Abby and it hangs proudly on her dining room wall when it's not being photographed for magazines :)
I'm still a little addle-brained from the party weekend. I hope to be back tomorrow with actual work and progress!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Let's try again
I scheduled this post yesterday, but forgot to get around to writing anything in the text. How lame!
So last weekend I got itchy quilting fingers. I still have tons of scraps left over from this quilt, so I thought I'd make a little wall hanging to put up for sale on Etsy. (Not to shamelessly promote, but you can go see it on Etsy if you wanna...)
It was so nice to just sit in the studio and run my little sewing machine and piece things together. I'm not sure what is so alluring about the putting together of little pieces of fabric, but I love it!
I freehand quilted it, then handstitched the binding. I also love the feel of needle and thread in my hand, so I really satisfied all kinds of cravings.
Labels: handmade, obsessions, quilts
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Gratitude
Gratitude. There just aren't many words but to say "thank you" to my Aunt Elaine for this quilt. It's unbelievable. She was incredibly worried about her color choices. It's really a sad state of affairs when making something for you stresses out your loved ones.
This is a queen size beauty!
Elaine and several of my other aunts hand quilted this over a period of months.
Of all people to receive a hand made gift like this---I was speechless. I'm afraid I wasn't excited enough when I opened it, but I love it so much!
P.S. I took this on the day when the temperature was a HIGH of 12 degress Farhenheit.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Time to quilt!
I put the top, batting, and backing together for this new quilt last night. I used the spray glue type basting stuff, which I normally love becaus it keeps everything so smooth and wrinkle-free. This time, though, I realized I've never tried to hand-stitch through the stuff. It's quite sticky and not pleasant. And now I have a whole quilt to stitch. I'm hoping as time goes on it will be less sticky, or else I'm going to have very sore fingers for the next few weeks.
I've been in a white quilts mood lately. I love how it makes the colors pop, and with such subtle colors in this quilt, it was mandatory.
Did you know that Wal-Mart doesn't sell embroidery floss anymore? What the heck? I think they replaced it with scrapbooking supplies and cake decorating nozzles. (Haha I think the word "Nozzles" is really funny)
Now I get it at one of the little quilting stores in Mexico, Mo where I work. That's all well and good because I'm supporting local business, but they're only open 9-5 Monday-Saturday. Mostly, I just find it disturbing that Wal-Mart is edging out their crafts section. Way out here in the corn fields my options for see-and-touch live shopping are VERY limited. Even JoAnn is 30 minutes away!
This is my mom's quilt frame--it's several PVC pipes put together with clips to keep your quilt in place. A lot easier than the traditional quilt frame. It's brand name is QSnap if you want to know. I can pull it up right to the sofa. It makes for a lovely working surface. I feel like I could just dream anything up and stitch it, but then again, my plan for this quilt is basic running stitch.
Labels: quilts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Wedding Quilt FINISHED
It's finished! I started this quilt at the end of September and actually had it finished in time to wrap it and take it with me to Tennessee last weekend.
I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I'm so darn picky about colors. If I could go back I would probably tweak them a little (Sorry, Jenn!) But since the otherwise awesome quilt store 2 blocks from my work doesn't carry solids, I was pretty much out of luck or up to dying my own.
(And as an aside: why are quilt store ladies so freakin' grouchy? I mean, really? It's not a place anyone HAS to go. It's a store for something fun. I brought 2 quilts in there to find backing for, and no one even wanted to see them. The owner did say something snarky about how my wedding quilt had a LOT of colors in it. And that clearly wasn't a plus in her book.)
I love the way you can see what's on the front through the "quilting". I'm not sure you can call it quilting since I used embroidery thread. I loved working on this quilt by hand. It sat on my lap through several Netflix movies.
Movies watched while quilting:
the entire first season of the HBO series Rome (very violent. Yuck)
Run, Fat Boy, Run
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Love in a Time of Cholera
Feast of Love
Baby Mama
Death at a Funeral
and many, many episodes of The Office and 30 Rock.
I resisted the urge to wash and dry this to make it look more "quilty" But perhaps Jenn will do that. I did wash all the fabric before I sewed it together since I was making it for someone else and I didn't want it to be screwed up or run when they washed it later.
I take some sort of sick pleasure from embroidering. I wonder why. And I wonder why I consider it to be a guilty treat. Maybe because I could do this so quickly on my machine, but instead insist on spending a couple hours doing it--even though I'm not that good at it. Or because I know it plays to my neurotic love of tiny tiny work. I also love doing really picky photo touch-ups in Photoshop, which is just weird.
I love how the signature looks--sort of beaded.
Labels: quilts, weddingness
Friday, October 17, 2008
The quilt is progressing!
Netflix is our friend here out in the country. We have satellite, but we're used to the best cable package ever. So we watch lots of movies. And while we're watching these movies, I sew. And sew. And it makes me so happy.
I'm so thrilled with this technique. It was born out of the desire to hand stitch the top and to have a "couch" project which I can work on while watching all those movies. And also the desire to finish a quilt in my lifetime. This is so FAST! And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Basically, I'm hand-quilting with embroidery thread. I love the graphic effect that it has. It's big color and high effect. I love hand quilting--perhaps because it's so laborious and difficult--but I don't have the attention span for that.
I'm already daydreaming of the next quilt I can design and stitch in this way. It has been 3 weeks of working when I'm not doing anything else, and I think that's the perfect amount of work. It's almost done! Here's the original post.
Another good thing about living in the country--the Bookmobile! It comes to the bank parking lot in our little town of 901 every 2 weeks. Here's the view of my couch right now:
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Just a little quilt project--FREEZER PAPER APPLIQUE
This is a little quilt project called IMPROVISATION. The first non-scripted, non-deadline oriented project I've done in literally 9 months. It felt great just to know that I had the head space and the calendar space to start a really big project.
And it's coming right along! I piece the back tonight and am well on my way to quilting.
I used the freezer paper piecing method for machine applique--meaning this:
1)I drew the pattern on freezer paper
2) ironed it to the wrong side of the fabric
3) cut a 1/4 inch seam allowance outside the edge of freezer paper
4) cut tiny slits perpendicular to this edge.
5) used a washable glue stick to fold this edge cleanly to the edge of the freezer paper
6) pin to background fabric
7) stitch onto background using a blind hem stitch or similar
9) Turn onto back side of fabric and cut out excess backing, then tear away freezer paper (helps to wet it first!)
10) press and you're good to go!
I have more detailed instructions in this tutorial for perfect circles, but you can do almost any shape!
Labels: a little something, quilts