Improv Square in a Square with Hand Dyed Fabrics

Hand dyed fabric plus an improv experiment equals a vibrant and unexpected quilt top.

The hand dyes were the rejects from my perimenopause project. Just not right for that project but still a stack of gorgeous fabric. to be honest, I simply expected them to be set aside to be used years from now - like most of my experiments. But then I had an idea, a wonderful, let’s see if this works at all idea.

Even though I’ve been quilting for a few decades and I can design patterns, with the math, without too much trouble, sometimes you just need to cut up the fabric and sew to see if the idea works. So I had an idea and needed to cut and sew to see if it was plausible. The stack of the hand dyes was there, just looking pretty. In my quilting journey I was taught that hand dyes were precious and to be savoured. Well, life these days begs for joy wherever we can get it so I dove into the pile. Also, now that I’ve been playing with the hand dyes I am comfortable making more if I want/need them. So I grabbed the stack, picked a few and got to playing.

And play I did! My experiment worked and I fell in love with the results. So I kept playing and playing and in a few hours I had the makings of a quilt top! The pretty stack of hand dyes is now a messy pile of scraps and I couldn’t be happier.

It all worked so well that I’ve decide to offer up this Improv Square in a Square as the next Quilters’ Playcation Playdate. We will hang out and I will demo a stress free way to make this Square in a Square block in any size. Sign up for the Friday or Saturday session, or both.

June 4 - 5 PM MST or June 5 - 10 AM MST

Remember, if you sign up for the Quilters’ Playcation Get The Scoop newsletter you get a discount code for your first event.

April Morning Make 2021

Blackout Poetry

Take a page from a book, literally, and cross out words so that the ones left are a poem. Made famous by Austin Kleon, blackout poetry is a unique way of creating. Part destruction, part seeking, part rebuilding, all creativity. What you remove is as important as what remains.

To begin I bought myself a hefty Sharpie and perused my bookshelf for a book I was willing to destroy in the process. I chose a self help book on anxiety. Not because I don’t need it anymore (hello third wave of Covid!) but because it was small in stature. My beginner brain assumed that less words on the page would make it easier to construct the poem.

That was a false assumption.

Such a specific topic and small pages meant that each page I ripped from the book was likely to contain one very narrow topic with a lot of repetition of words. This, I think, made it challenging to not only construct a poem I felt was valid and beautiful but also one that wasn’t necessarily about what was already on the page. Some days were better than others. Here are some of my favourites.

At first I felt my heart in my throat as I ripped pages from the book. The destruction! I really do love paper books. Then I started to see the beauty in the craggy edge where the page came away from its confines. I love the back side, where the Sharpie bleeds through. I love the searching for more beyond the content of the page. Finding the poem is almost like resuscitating the words so that they aren’t lost to the ether.

The Perimenopause Chronicle Quilt Begins

I come from a family with scary uterine history. My grandmother died of cervical cancer in her 30s. My mom had a hysterectomy shortly after giving birth to me. That history also means I have zero recollection of any conversations about menopause within my family. Really though, the world just doesn’t talk it; it isn’t just a thing with my family. More specifically, the world does not talk about perimenopause.

A few weeks ago I had a long conversation with one of my girlfriends about this. Is it squeamishness? Denial? the perpetual sweeping under the rug of anything to do with women’s health? Now that we are in the thick of perimenopause it reminds of when I was pregnant and I kept asking: why didn’t anyone tell me about this? In both cases it might be that people did tell me but I wasn’t looking for/listening to the information before I needed it. Or, it is the reasons listed above? Regardless, I am interested in it a lot now, for obvious reasons - being a 45 year old woman, namely.

So, on our last Virtual Trunk Show (Instagram Live, the second Thursday of each month) we had the theme of Change of Seasons and it gave me a wonderful idea: make a quilt to mark the perimenopause experience! I got the idea from the concept of temperature quilts/blankets. You pick a colour to correspond with the temperature of the day and make a block or knit/crochet a row to mark it. Only I would be marking my flow, moods, pain, and other stuff of my perimenopausal menstrual cycle.

Aided by a few conversations with friends and online about what exactly I should track and in consultation with the Monster and The Evil Genius I planned out the quilt. Fabric selection was a bit tough. I went back and forth between solids and prints until I concluded that neither felt right. A quiet Sunday at home led me to experiment with hand-dyed fabric (with Procion MX dyes). It took a few tries but I am happy with the palette for this quilt.

Each block will include a representation of my flow, or not flow, as well as my mood. I am also including a marker for pain and for what my teen referred to as Random Ass Shit like night sweats, bowel issues, breast tenderness, and bloating.

Here is the legend I am working with:

LEFT PILE
Orange = Random Ass Shit
Yellow = Pain (cramps and mittleschmerz mostly)
Pink/Peach = no flow
Pink Red = light flow
Red = medium flow
Purple Red = heavy flow

RIGHT PILE is for moods
Green = Happy
Turquoise = Content
Blue = Sad/Listless
Purple = Grumpy/Irritable/Annoyed
Black = Angry

My plan is to track things for 12 cycles. That adds up to more or less a year. Nothing is perfectly regular anymore so that is only a guess.

I know that this makes some feel uncomfortable. Oh well. We need more conversations on this topic and I am happy to open the door and make space for that. Yes, the quilt is a selfish reflection but it will serve as a larger conversation starter.

Expect the periodic post here and follow along on instagram with #perimenopausechroniclequilt.

Mask Scraps

It’s time to make another batch of masks. Between constant wear and loss the mask basket by the front door needs replenishment. That means extra safety for the family as we ride this third wave of Covid AND more scraps.

Not sure why, but from the get go last year I kept the mask scraps as we sewed for ourselves, family, and friends. Part of me wanted to keep things together, as a form of documentation of this time. I figured I would keep them together and could always recirculate them back into general population of the scraps if I changed my mind. It would be harder to locate them again after the fact though.

Then, at one point in the summer we succumbed to the tie dye lockdown trend. I bought the good fabric dyes and we spent an afternoon dying sheets with the kids. I threw in some solid whites I had with the leftover dye. As a result, I have a whole bunch of red fabric that fits the rage mood of a lot to do with Covid. A match made in creative conscious heaven.

You can learn how to make these sweet blocks in the latest Quilters’ Playcation Playdate.