Grey Coat Done

The grey coat is done, shipped, and hopefully already on the back of it's owner.

Time they are a changing. Or at least my age is about to. I always said that if I was still single when I turned thirty I would spend all my savings to go back to Scotland over my birthday, so no one could celebrate me turning thirty. But as it happened, I'm not still single. So I guess I don't get to go to Scotland, but that leaves the question what does one do for a thirtieth birthday?

Quilted fields.

Scrap pinwheels

Clouds and such.

Strips

Finished quilt.

I've finished Baby M's quilt. It's passable; the linen piecing pulled and wrinkled a bit. Using linen for quilting doesn't work so well as stiffer fabrics like cotton, which is why pieced quilts are always cotton these days! But my goal was to use up some of my fabric scraps, and I have a lot of linen.

I'm coming to love diaper boxes. They're sturdy and they have handles, and we currently have a lot of them. I want to pack everything in my cupboards and closets in diaper boxes so that when we move, in about a year and a half, everything will already be packed. I'm not sure John really appreciates all the closet items migrating into diaper boxes; but I so enjoy having things organized!

Thistle Quilt Finished!

The Thistle Quilt

One of my before-baby goals was to finish the Thistle Quilt. And I did! Looking back over my quilting blogposts, I finished the central medallion on this quilt in September of 2015 after putting it together that summer. Less than two years to finish a decorative bedcover? I figure that's not too bad considering all the other things I was working on at the same time. Quilting is, after all, a relaxing hobby.

The central square is quilted with patterns of thistles. The white fabric is fine linen. Around the edges are colored blocks of linen, and the floral strips are cotton. The batting is cotton, and the backing is forest green cotton.

The quilting around the sides is made up of more thistles and church window patterns, while over the floral is a simple vine, and on the colored blocks are simple sentences: one side reads "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork" and the other "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, King of creation."

A corner and the backing.

I know the pictures aren't great, so just trust me- seeing that many stitches in one cover is just cool! Now I just need to finish my queen sized wholecloth... and the baby quilt... and the vintage quilt from Grandma....

Work and Wedding

Mostly right now I'm working at the costume shop, and getting ready for the wedding. We're gearing up for Reformation Day at the costume shop, which sometimes means more people around, but also that the boss orders pizza more often. She always gets the same thing, but I don't mind because I'm pretty sure that Dominos chicken-bacon-ranch pizza is just the best. 

A shirt for Pirate Festival season

I've been working on tunics, capes, 1970's pants, general alterations and repairs. I haven't gotten to design anything in a while, other than a plus sized shift dress that turned out looking like a big banana. There are some things I don't like working with on the costume front. Fur is one, for sure. Another that is not fabric-specific are can-can or saloon girl outfits. I am sure I make the most modest saloon girl outfits around, but I still don't like the idea behind it.

Thistle Quilt

 I finished the medallion on the thistle quilt. I don't even know when I found time to do that.

Lady Dracula?

I had this custom Etsy order this month. I think it turned out pretty neat, but it's not what the customer wanted. Sigh.

Speaking of quilts, my mom found this vintage quilt top in m Grandma's things. It's been sitting in a trunk for fifty-plus years, so it was pretty musty; I hand-rinsed it in the bathtub and the water turned brown. It was supposedly made by one of Grandma's Aunts out of Grandma's old dresses. It's just the top, so it needs batting, backing, and stitching together. And it's currently third in line on my list of quilting projects!

My Life this Summer

I got a new quilting book for my recommended reading list!

The Essential Quilter, by Barbara Chainey, 1993. I read a recommendation for this book on some other quilting website. It's a really cheap buy on Amazon! This is a great book for those beginning to quilt by hand because the whole book focuses entirely on hand-quilting, and describes the basic techniques in detail. It's an older book, but still with good pictures and relevant information. Especially considering the price, it's worth buying.

Using my butter churn at the Fort

I gave notice at John Adams fabric shop, so I will be leaving there at the end of the month. Once the pressure is off to sell those nasty promo products, the job is so much more enjoyable. I'm going to miss the Old Manager, that tough old cookie, and my employee discount.

Getting up early for work.

At the costume shop right now I'm working through making non-essential items from fabric that builds up during the busy season. Easter bunny vests, bell-bottom pants, pioneer dresses, clown costumes, and butterfly wings are some of the things currently on the list. Once we get closer to October all those will get put on hold for costume repair and prep for Reformation Day.

Getting back late from work.

 It's been raining a lot, and it's been warm, and everything important in life is stuff I can't blog about right now. Change is afoot, and it's good and hard, and fun and difficult. I'm leaving this weekend for a ten day trip to to Texas. Adventure awaits. And very hot weather, but I'm trying not to think about that.

Stars, Thistles and Birds: Plans for Wholecloth Quilting

Maybe this is a bad thing because I haven't finished the Green Star quilt yet, but I've already started planning my next two Wholecloth quilts. The Green Star quilt probably won't get done until the end of this year. It's harder to get quilting done when it's hot; I'm probably about halfway done right now. Getting one quilt done a year is, I think, a decent goal.

The Plan

Introducing: the Thistle Quilt

So the next quilt is going to be a bed cover for a twin-sized bed. The backing is a piece of deep grass green cotton; the top is a piece of white handkerchief linen with strips of tan floral quilting cotton and various remnant squares of linen. The batting is a remnant of "Warm and White" cotton from work. The design plan is to have a Scottish thistle as the central medallion, with a Celtic/Norse flavor.

Pinterest: I generally dislike using Pinterest, but it is a good place to store idea pictures. 

For the next next quilt, it's not all settled yet. It's going to be a queen size again, and I know I want to buy wide cotton muslin quilt backing($7 a yard from fabric.com) so there aren't any seams on the back side, and use linen/cotton for the top(possibly the $7 a yard Kaufman Essex also from fabric.com). I'm thinking this quilt might have a bird theme.

How I Quilt

I don't have a quilt frame. I don't baste. I just break all the rules. That's how I roll.

When I'm drawing out my design on the quilt top, I usually mark the central medallion with a water-soluble pencil. I also use a fine-tip disappearing ink pen for more detailed, smaller designs. I usually begin by penciling a basic graph on the quilt top so as to mark the center point and a square around the size of the medallion. I haven't used stencils much, and mostly I do freehand based off my graph measurements. Since 18th Century quilters didn't have lightboxes and would have had to free-hand or stencil the designs on, I figure I'm in good company.  Quilting does require much more geometry and math than I would like!

I may not keep all the rules, but one rule I stick to is always start from the center and work outwards. I certainly don't have room for a quilt frame, so I'm always dragging my quilt around the house to work on it. Even though the layers are safety-pinned together at about every three inches, sometimes there are still small ripples on the underside from the quilt being moved around and not being kept flat or rolled. I'm ok with that, since I only quilt for myself, but it's something to be aware of.

It's been hard for me to find online resources specifically on wholecloth hand-quilting, but I recently found this old post by Natalie at Sewing Room Secrets. It's a great post with pictures of her hand-sewn wholecloth quilt(Personally, I think all wholecloth quilts should be hand-sewn). She also talks about her fingers getting torn up by the needle- that happens to me too, because I'm too lazy to learn how to use a thimble.

Quilting Accessories

Leather thimble from Clover: something I haven't tried, but should.
Fine-tip disapearing ink pen. This is the one I have. It's lasted me two years at least, and works well.
Water-soluble pencil. Get the one specifically for quilting, not apparel: there is a difference.
Hancock Fabrics(the only local fabric store that I'm acquainted with) has cotton, poly, wool and bamboo batting. They also have quilt backing, but at my store it is all patterned with a modern print and is $12+ per yard to boot. I get my quilting thread from Hancocks, when it goes on sale. I know people have said using normal thread is fine, and I'm sure it is, but I like working with the thicker hand-quilting thread.
Fabric.com has muslin quilt backing for $7 a yard, and free shipping for orders over $35.


So there you go! Way more details about my quilts than you ever wanted to know.

Working on Green Stars: My Queen-sized Wholecloth Quilt

I've been working on my latest wholecloth quilt. I laid it out in February almost a year ago, and just really started working on it this Fall after I finished the Fan Quilt. This new quilt is for a queen-sized bed(someday, whether I marry or not, I'm going to have a queen sized bed), and it's the largest quilt I've done so far. It has organic cotton batting; the top is pistachio linen/cotton from fabrics-store.com and the backing is a plain white cotton sheet from Walmart(hey, I'm on a budget!). After trying cotton batting, though, I'm never going back to polyester. Wool, or bamboo, or cotton again, but never polyester.

 The Medallion.

I know it's probably most common to trace out the entire pattern of the quilt top, with some sort of stencil, in the beginning before the layers are put together- but as usual learning on my own means I do things my own way, and with all my quilts I've pinned the layers together and then started with a central pattern, and worked my way out from there. I start with a general theme or picture that's based on patterns of the 18th Century or earlier and add to it as I go along. I just don't have a big enough brain to think of the whole quilt pattern all at once. Speaking of 18th Century Quilts, if I'm ever rich(not likely to happen) I would buy this super over-priced book: Four Centuries of Quilts by Linda Baumgarten.

Introducing Green Stars and Ham. Green Star Rising. Green Star Wars? The name of this quilt is still open for debate. I usually don't settle on a name until the quilt is done; but I'm open to suggestions. It's a central medallion quilt with the medallion being a large eight pointed star.

 You can't really tell in the pictures, but the fabric really is green.

The border around the star is made of two different star patterns with a sort of simple Celtic knot woven around them. Around that I'm going to put a verse from Henry Van Dyke's well known hymn, Joyful Joyful we Adore Thee. The hymn wasn't written until 1907, but the tune was completed by Beethoven in 1824, so I figure I'll be halfway correct when I work on this at the Fort. It's a grand song, and it talks about stars, so it fits.

Wholecloth Quilting by Hand

The Liberty Bedcover: vintage re-purposed fabrics

Since I've added another book to my list, I decided to update my post on wholecloth quilting resources. Here it is again: my advice for books on wholecloth quilting.

Quilting is a popular craft right now, but hand-quilting is rare. A lot of the women I meet who are quilters only do pieced quilting, and then take the quilt in to have in machine-stitched, or only do even easier tie quilting, and most fabric stores cater to that market by stocking more blanket fleece and quilting cottons than quality apparel fabric. Wholecloth quilting is time consuming, but there's great appeal in the hand-quilted look. The simplicity of wholecloth quilting is just as beautiful to me as a pieced quilt!

Good books about Wholecloth and Whitework Quilting

Quilts of Provence, by Katherine Berenson, published 2007. Gorgeous color photos of original antique quilts and quilted clothing. This book focuses on French wholecloth quilting of the 18th Century, with some patterns shown in the back. I love this book. It's worth buying.

America's Quilts and Coverlets, by Carleton L Safford and Robert Bishop, published 1987(a good year). I picked up an old copy of this book for $1.50 at a book sale, and it's really a neat book! Since it's about all kinds of coverlets, not just quilts, there's more variety featured than just wholecloth quilts, but still a good resource. It's an older book, so the photos aren't nearly as good quality as in "Quilts of Provence", but it does cover a wide variety of American quilting and related folk art. Very interesting and pertinent to wholecloth quilting.

Whitework Quilting, by Karen McTavish, published 2004. I don't own this book and the library doesn't have it, but in a world with fifty million books about pieced quilting, this one is about whitework, so it has to be good. It's currently out of print, so even used copies are a little expensive.

Quilting by Averil Colby, published 1971. Another book I picked up at a thrift store for $3. I like this book a lot because it is mostly about wholecloth quilts. The book has chapters on tools, filler, and patterns, then goes through the centuries in order, starting with a chapter on 16th century quilts and going through early 20th century quilts. Great pictures, though all black-and-white, and lots of pattern detail from old quilts. Averil Colby is an interesting figure in herself; read a bit more about Averil HERE.

The Essential Quilter, by Barbara Chainey, 1993. I read a recommendation for this book on some other quilting website. It's a really cheap buy on Amazon! This is a great book for those beginning to quilt by hand because the whole book focuses entirely on hand-quilting, and describes the basic techniques in detail. It's an older book, but still with good pictures and relevant information. Especially considering the price, it's worth buying.

Also check out this list of resources and events at the Nebraska State Quilting Guild website. 

Quilt on!

Famous Fairfield Weekend

Last week was amazingly stressful with work leading up to Pagan blood-fest day(Halloween totally needs to get squashed by Reformation day celebrations) and everyone wanting a hideous costume, and also because I had a difficult Etsy transaction that led to a Paypal case and a custom order bring returned. So that happened last week, and then I went on a welcome road-trip weekend vacation with Silent Man, Mr G, and the Glamorous French Librarian.

Silent Man posing in Pella, where we stopped for Church and lunch on the way home.

It's been four years since we attended the Famous Fairfield ECD Workshop, and it was just time to go again. Every year the mighty dance group in the small  town of Fairfeild hosts an ECD weekend with some of the best callers and the absolute best ECD band in the country. We danced Friday night, Saturday morning and afternoon, and then had a formal dance Saturday evening. It was a lot of dancing and not a whole lot of sleep, but fun.

Glamorous French Librarian, also in Pella, the only place I remembered to take pictures.

Like a lot of Iowa towns Fairfield has a town square with shops around it, and one of the shops on the Fairfeild square is a Ladies' Auxiliary Thrift store. We stopped there last time, and it's a cute store with good prices, so we stopped there again this weekend.

The Marchioness and the Glamorous French Librarian(GFL for short) in Pella a very nice looking town.

I bought three patterns(.20 each!), two zippers(.20 each!), and I paid three dollars for a book called "Quilting" by Averil Colby, published in 1971. I already love the book because it's mostly about the quilting I enjoy, wholecloth quilting in the old style. The book and chapters on tools, filler, and patterns, then goes through the centuries in order, starting with a chapter on 16th century quilts and going through 20th century quilts. Great pictures, though all black-and-white, and lots of pattern detail from old quilts.

Averil Colby was born in Yorkshire 1900. Averil is apparently a legend among quilters. She worked with old fabrics in traditional ways, and I find her life story interesting.  Read a bit about Averil HERE.

The Fan Quilt: A baby-sized Wholecloth Quilt

The fan quilt is done, and it's up for sale on Etsy. I don't really expect it to sell, and I would like to keep it, but I had to buy a car, so everything's for sale.

Hand quilting is a labor of love, because no one could really pay enough for all the hours it takes to hand-stitch a blanket together. The more I ask around it seems like whole-cloth quilting in the old style isn't being done much anymore. A lot of the ladies who come into John Adams(code name) do piece quilting or tie quilting, and most fabric stores market blanket fleece and quilting cottons much more than they do apparel fabric; but hand-quilting seems rare. I know it's time consuming, but there's great appeal in the hand-quilted look. The simplicity of wholecloth quilting is just as beautiful to me as a pieced quilt!

Good books about Wholecloth and Whitework Quilting

Quilts of Provence. Gorgeous color photos of original antique quilts and quilted clothing. This book focuses on French wholecloth quilting of the 18th Century, with some patterns shown in the back. I love this book. It's worth buying.

America's Quilts and Coverlets. I picked up an old copy of this book for $1.50 at a book sale, and it's really a neat book! It's older so the photos aren't nearly as good quality as in "Quilts of Provence", but it does cover a wider variety of American quilting and related folk art. Very interesting and pertinent.

Whitework Quilting by Karen McTavish. I don't own this book and the library doesn't have it, but in a world with fifty million books about pieced quilting, this one is about whitework, so it has to be good. You can channel your inner Outlander and use it to make an 18th Century-appropriate covering(The name McTavish made me think of that).


Also check out this list of resources and events at the Nebraska State Quilting Guild website.

Quilting through People

The Fan Quilt: A baby-sized Wholecloth Quilt

The upstairs rooms now have sheetrock walls, just in time for guests this weekend and again next weekend. We hosted a Pastor and his family from Ohio. A very lovely family with eight children, and all of them very loud, except for the fat adorable baby who didn't want to be held. Goodness, I could never marry an Italian/Greek/loud person. Living History was also this weekend, so I am totally and completely peopled out.

Remnants of cotton muslin and blue linen/cotton

I've been working to finish small sewing projects this week, mostly alterations that tend to get put aside. I did make two hoodies and finally started sewing a new Regency dress for myself. That's been on the to-do list for a long time, and you can be sure I'll post about that soon. On the job front, I had three applications turned down last week and one call back about an interview.

I'm on the homestretch for my little fan quilt, and that means I'm quilting obsessively right now. I really need to learn to use a thimble, because my fingers are constantly getting painful holes and rough callouses on the tips. But I do love hand quilting and can't imagine doing it any other way. People are always amazed that I would spend hours and hours making even a small quilt by hand- but that's what makes it look so neat! Every stitch was done individually by a real person, and it gives a character and look to the piece that machine quilts just don't have. Plus, it fits into my historical era, and I can take it with me wherever I go.

Summer Evenings

I'm house-sitting for one more week. I sew by day and drag myself out of the house at night.

Breeches, going out in the mail tomorrow. Eight hand-done buttonholes and it took me way too long.

This week I got invited to two Biblestudies. Monday was the charismatic Biblestudy, hallelujah, thank you Jesus! It was a small group of ladies, led by my Clothing Shed manager, reading through "The Bait of Satan." It was pretty basic, there was really nothing too shocking, and they all prayed for me that I would get a husband.

My current wholecloth quilt. It's pretty small.

Only once in a blue moon do I have a free Tuesday night, so this week with my free Tuesday night I went to a quilting group here in North Omaha. You know, when you take away the scary ethnically-diverse men with tattoos and chains, NorthO is really a lot of fun. The Golden Threads Quilting group meets at the Library every Tuesday evening, and they make quilts for people struggling with cancer. It was a fun bunch of older ladies(also ethnically diverse, but not scary) and some granddaughters.

Wednesday was the Young Adult Biblestudy. An older gentleman in my church has been telling me I should go for weeks now, so I figured I had to go at least once. I had preconceived notions of a group full of mid-twenties hipsters in skinny jeans and glasses. It turned out to be a more sportsy, tanned, and just out of college group. I hate to say it, but it was a little boring. When did my peers get so boring?

February Happenings

Green Stars Wholecloth

  The Pistachio Quilt has begun. I've safety-pinned more than half and started the central star medallion, and it's all very exciting. It's a North Star pattern, with eight spikes.

This month I bought a couch(Craigslist win) and made cheese. Loving the couch, worried about the cheese. It just doesn't smell too good. In fact, it smells really bad, but I can't bring myself to throw it out.

Jobs: This week I had an interview with Princess Hoodie(code name) and another tomorrow with the Clothing Shed(also code). Princess Hoodie is seasonal sewing from home, as many hours as I'm willing to take. The Clothing Shed is the job I mentioned back in December before I was hired at O2FS. It's a location closer to home and has a Christian manager. They weren't hiring back then, and I was surprised to get a call from them this week asking for an interview. We'll see what comes of that.

Today I took a picnic lunch to the Fort. It turns out that yes, the chimney does have a flue; and not knowing which way was open or closed, I had to find out through trial and error. My first trial was error. I lit a fire and the room filled with smoke; I had to throw snow on it to put it out so I could reach in to pull the flue open. Even after that it was incredibly smoky, and by the end of lunch I was thoroughly smoked.

But it was still really cool to see the Fort again.

Sitting in a House

I'm house-sitting again all this month, which I suppose is no excuse for neglect of the blog, but as you can see it hasn't been my priority. The schedule of my first week alone went like this:

I got up; took care of emails. Then I went to sew. Around 2pm I would finally remember to eat lunch. Then I would sew. Then around 7pm I would think of dinner. Evenings are reserved for sewing by hand, and bedtime is strictly before 10:30pm.

A week of that was enough, and I've learned to sprinkle my work with other happenings.

The Liberty Bedcover

I'm almost done with my Liberty quilt. I've quilted my way through Northanger Abbey, Mansfield park, and the whole Spiderman trilogy, and I only have a few teeny bits left. Goodness, the girls scream like crazy in the Spiderman movies. I should hope that if I ever end up hanging from a skyscraper, that(besides the fact I cannot physically scream like them) I will conduct myself with a little more aplomb. 

 

Housesitting:  I truly hate gardening, but I do love tidiness! Trying to keep plants alive on my watch. Rain helps.