The Next Chapter

I'm back already because there has been a new development in the saga of the "big girl" quilt for DGD #2. But first let me show you how the preemie top came together:

"Teddy Bears in the Park." You should be able to click on the picture to get a better look. I really like the way the border print echoes both the burgundies and the pinks in the crumb blocks. It still needs to be backed and quilted but that will have to wait for another day.

Now, back to the saga of the quilt for DGD. (I really need to figure out how to refer to each of my grandchildren individually since there will be four of them in a few months.) The butterfly print was just too overwhelming as a background fabric as you can see in the lower left block below.

I went to two shops yesterday, looking for suitable background options, and struck out on both counts. Which is not to imply that I bought no fabric at all (perish the thought!). I brought home two pieces that I thought I might be able to make work... and some other stuff that was just too fun to leave in the store. ;- ) (Sorry, no pictures.)

Hours later I was able to have a nice long conversation with my daughter, mother to all of the children in this story. She reminded me that the animal panels she provided...

...had been purchased when DGD #2 was a baby. Which may be why she thought it would be appropriate to include them in her big girl quilt. But it was the infantile quality of the artwork that made it so hard for me to include it in a big girl quilt for this child. She's not a baby anymore!

DD had told me more than once that I didn't have to use the animal panels in DGD's quilt but I felt compelled to do so. Until we came to the conclusion yesterday afternoon that I could use the animals in a pair of baby quilts for the twins that are now on their way. Perfect! DD gets to have the cute animals in quilts and I get to make a quilt that I feel is more appropriate for a toddler growing rapidly into a preschooler and beyond. The question now is, what in the world am I going to make for her?!

Oh, and in a happy aside, I took a container of frozen blueberries with me when I went shopping so I could consume them immediately after running into toxic vapors. I've learned that, for whatever reason, frozen blueberries have the power to mitigate the severity of my reactions. It worked pretty well yesterday. I still had symptoms of exposure afterward but it could have been so much worse.

Up & Down

I made a few more crumb blocks yesterday. Then I remembered some patches I'd cut from a cute teddy bear print decades ago... Sure enough, the patches and the rest of the fabric were right where I thought they'd be. And voila, a new preemie quilt-to-be!

These blocks will finish at 5". That makes this layout 25" square when I fill in those corner spots. My plan is to find something to use as a border at the top and bottom and also use that to fill in the corners. That may change. I don't have enough of the teddy bears to cut four more 5.5" patches so the corners will have to be something different.

At first I had all the bears with their feet pointing south as it were. But I've come to realize that for some quilts it's better to have the pattern of the quilt top look good from any direction, not just one way. I decided this was one of those cases and I think it worked out pretty well!

What I am less happy with is the way the blocks are turning out for DGD's quilt. You may (or may not) recall that I had to hunt for appropriate background fabric for this project. I had some pieces in my stash that I really liked as background but there wasn't enough for a twin size quilt. So I shopped around a bit and brought home the butterfly print you see in the block below, on the left.

I thought that very colorful, busy retro print would be strong enough to stand up to the butterflies. Now I don't think so. I much prefer the look of the block on the right (above).

Granted, those are 9" blocks. The butterflies aren't quite so overwhelming in these 12" blocks with good strong colors for the star points. It's still busier than I want however. So I am planning to go out today, to a couple of different stores in the area, to see what I can find. If I don't come home with a new potential background print maybe I'll at least come home with a possible solution for this dilemma. Let's just hope I don't also come home with a crippling reaction to toxic fumes!

Baker's Dozen

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. I made a point of putting the camera out in the living room where I expected I would be spending the most time with the granddaughters. The intention was to get pictures of them and their mother 'cause, you know, they're so cute and we don't get to see them that often. It didn't happen. I was so busy actually playing with the girls that it never occurred to me to use the camera. Duh!

By yesterday everyone was gone and most of the mess in the kitchen had been dealt with. Like Sharon over at Indigo Threads I needed to sew. I wasn't in the right frame of mind to begin making blocks for my granddaughter's new quilt so I dumped out my bag of pink-to-burgundy scraps.

I sorted them roughly by size and shape and started sewing the smallest bits together. Much later I had ten 4.5" crumb blocks:

And two 5.5" blocks:

And this one 6.5" block:

Now my sewing table looks like this:

The piles are smaller but far from being gone altogether. ;- )

This has me thinking about better ways to collect and store my littlest scraps. I don't expect to tackle this job until after the holidays but there are definitely some ideas percolating. For the last few years I've had sort of an overarching theme or goal for each year. One year was dealing with my UFO's, deciding which ones I wanted to finish and how soon. 2008 was a year of learning and experimentation. I think my theme for next year is going to be scraps. It's time to get that beast under control. I don't intend to use them all up or anything drastic like that. I just want to get to a place where I feel like I have a system that works for me for collecting and storing and using them.

Now I have to clean up the sewing table once again so I can finally get started on that DGD quilt!

Warmest wishes

From the Magpie's Nest

to all my blogger friends

for a warm and cozy

Thanksgiving day.

:-)

A Finish and A Question

Woohoo! The binding on the Lincoln Logs quilt is all sewn down. I even slept under the quilt last night. Slept real well too. :- )

The official title for this quilt will be "The Comfort of Friends" because most of the blocks were made at my request by members of my quilt guild. And because it's tied, technically it's a comforter, not a quilt. But I'm trying to get beyond those technicalities.

Why is it, I'd like to know, that I can find more threads that need to be cut and removed after I've photographed the quilt than before? I had to re-take this picture about three times and there's still a thread on one of the blocks!

Before I fell asleep under my newly finished quit last night I got to thinking about the fact that I rarely label my quilts. I sign them, but I don't label them. The thought of trying to put all the pertinent information about the origins of the quilt on a label just makes me shudder. But I think it's important that that information be recorded somewhere.

Sure, it's all in my studio notebooks and project notebooks, but I'm the only one who could decipher those notes and scribbles. Even I can't figure it out sometimes. And then what about the quilts I've not made but have inherited or collected in some other way?

I've written the history of the oldest quilt in my possession but I have several other quilts and tops that my kids might want to know about some day. So now I'm thinking about creating a new book or journal. One in which I can record the story of how each quilt came to be or how it came to be in my possession. I know there are blank quilt journals on the market but I think I'm going to want to create my own. I think it's going to be an actual book too, not merely a spreadsheet in the computer. The question is how to build it. What format, what information, how will I add to it as I make or acquire more quilts?

I welcome any suggestions you may have.

Since Last We Met...

It's been kind of a scattered week here in the Magpie's Nest. I was out and about a bit more than usual. Some fabric was purchased locally and some that had been purchased online was delivered:

I saw this batik print during one of my online shopping trips and thought it might make the perfect pillowcase to go with my Black&White&Pink Friendship quilt (when I get around to finishing it!). I also finally found these Metro Market prints that I've been lusting after (the egg beaters). I don't have a clue what I'm going to do with them yet but I had to have them. :- )

There were even more fabric purchases but I'll save those for another time.

I've also been thinking more about what I want to do for the Bead Journal Project next year. I'm just not satisfied with the idea of making more postcards. I want something else, something different. In the process of thinking about that unexpected insight came to me. The quilts I embellished with beads for the first BJP mostly began with an idea I wanted to express. (You can see them here.) Then I chose the fabrics to use, and the bead selection came last. What I realized the other day was that this time around I really want to practice improvisational bead embroidery. I did that to a limited extent the first time, but this time I want it to be the raison d'etre for each piece. That helped me realize that I need to start with a palette of beads, not with an idea or a selection of fabrics. The beads will come first. And rather than piecing fabrics together as I usually do, this time I believe I'm going to stick to a whole cloth ground for my beadwork. Finally, I'm going to use Robin Atkins' latest book as my guide, my touchstone.

The BJP is a perfect opporutnity to fully explore the techniques she presents within its' pages. All I need now is a shape that's not too big or too small and that does not require extraordinary efforts to make it look finished.

The other thing I accomplished this week was to apply the binding to my Lincoln Logs quilt. Today I stitched down some of the binding while listening to this week's edition of Car Talk. It's a long way between corners on this quilt! Turns out Mr. Reilly loves flannel. He has his own blankets to lay on but everytime I left the Lincoln Logs quilt in an accessible place I would come back to find him snuggled into it.

He's no dummy!

I Understand

For the first time in my quilting life I can understand the need for more than one sewing machine. I always thought it would be nice, if I had the room or the money for a second machine, but never really thought it could be a necessity. Now I wish I had the room to have two machines set up all the time. That way I could leave out the flannels, continue playing in those scraps, and not have to switch out the needle and the tension settings all the time. I could begin making blocks for DarlingGrandDaughter's quilt without getting the two projects all mixed up. It would also be helpful to have a place where I could sit and do the hand work I like to do from time to time. Right now I have to juggle all my projects and the stuff that goes with them in pretty much one space. This is going to require some thought on my part, to see whether I can come up with at least a partial solution. I only have a couple of months before the Bead Journal Project starts up again. I don't want one type of creativity to suffer because of another.

And speaking of the flannel scraps, I made this little dog using some of them.

He will probably be another drop for The Toy Society, maybe for their Christmas Drop. He's a pancake dog so he has only two legs. DH suggested I figure out a way to give him all four legs.

That's been in the back of my mind and I'd like to follow through before I put the flannels away. I want to shorten the muzzle on the pattern a bit too.

I finally found a piece of yardage in my stash that I like for binding on the Lincoln Logs quilt.

It's a paisley from RJR Fabrics. I don't even remember when or where I acquired it. I was thrilled to discover that there was enough to make it all the way around the quilt though!

Before I apply the binding to the quilt sandwich I'll have to get the little scraps out of the way, one way or another. Flannel picks up everything and this is one big quilt. :- )