From My Very First Quilt

Over the summer my oldest nephew got married. This is the nephew that got me started on quilting. I’d always wanted to quilt, having grown up sewing. But I was in my early twenties and felt embarrassed to start. When my (eventual) sister in law announced that she was pregnant, though, I took it as an opportunity. Nobody could fault me for making a baby quilt! So I got my Mom’s old machine tuned up, lugged it on public transit to the closest quilt store, and learned how to make a quilt over a weekend. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

(Side bar, I thought I’d posted already about my very first quilt, the one in question, but look for that in the next post.)

So when J announced his wedding date to his lovely C I knew, of course that I would make them a quilt. Now they are young, with a fashion and lifestyle that doesn’t exactly scream quilt lovers. After some consultation with his sister, our niece, it was decided that something with black would be more appreciated. As I was binding said quilt I thought back to my very first quilt for him. It was a yellow and white Irish Chain quilt with a pale grey background. Sweet and simple, perfect for a baby and perfect for a beginner. I thought it would be nice to reference the quilt somehow. Sure enough, after a dig through my grey scraps - the only colour that survived a scrap purge last year - I found one small scrap from his baby quilt. Yes, 25 years later. Cut to width it was only enough for about. 4” piece. Luckily, it fit absolutely perfectly on this one spot on the quilt.

Now I doubt a couple of young lovers care much about a detail like this, but I do appreciate the full circle moment. You probably do too.

Randa - A Mini Quilt From My Trip Diary Scraps

Randa

28: x 26”

When you cut a bunch of random shapes to make 30 quilt blocks you are left with a lot of weird little scraps. Not surprisingly, I decided to sew them all together into a slab. No rhyme or reason to the construction, just what fit. A few concessions to design in order to manage the bossy red and dark blue fabrics, but that’s it. In the end, it pretty much used up all my scraps too.

Since my big Bernina spent the summer at the spa I decided to test out her energy and fixes by quilting this immediately. I grabbed a random variegated yellow from the stash and went for an echo wave using my walking foot. Good news, many of the fixes the old girl needed happened. (Just like me and my summer off.)

Not one to stop at just simple and because I really enjoyed the handwork over the summer I decided to add some hand quilted elements. I’d actually brought the thick thread with me on the trip, but never used it. Just a few colours to add some shapes and texture here and there. it would have been easy to go overboard, so I had to exercise some restraint. The hand quilting threads are a mix of Valdani and Wonderful Eleganza.

To finish off this piece I went with a white linen binding. Not just any linen though! I had a pair of pants that I bought for the trip and they ripped before the trip was over. That dreaded thigh rub ruined these quick. While I wouldn’t use such an obviously weak linen on something that will get used and washed, it worked perfectly here for the binding. You can see more of that process here.

Now, in our house my husband mandated a no quilts on the wall rule years ago. But here I am making not 1, but 2 wall hangings! I can probably convince him to hang up the trip diary quilt when finished, but this one might be pushing it. It’s okay, I think I might give it away. One of my daughter’s teammates travelled with us on their off week so we spent 3 weeks with him and I think I might give this to him and his family as a souvenir.

Oh, and the name? I named her after our lovely guide in Cairo. Randa was an outgoing, very knowledgeable Egyptologist. We had a great time with her and are very grateful for her kindness over the days we spent together.

Morning Make 2023 - Raw Edge Appliqué Portrait

This portrait feels a little more me. I don’t mean the likeness, although I think that is there. Rather, as a quilt it feels more me. To complete the portrait I made up the process. Enough years of play and exploration gave the confidence to just go for it. Well, that and a willingness to try a few things in the hopes of success. Also, very me.

Since my drawing skills are lacking, albeit improving, I took a different tact to create my actual portrait. I printed out a photo of myself and traced it. I reduced the lines to those necessary to get a likeness and some interest, with a hope that it wasn’t too much of a cartoon. I just printed the photo off at the office, on the regular inkjet printer. After tracing my lines I scanned the new drawing to create a digital image. This I sent to my local print shop to have printed at a much larger scale. I think we used their 18” x 24” printer.

Once I had the drawing I reversed it and traced it on to some double sided fusible. In this case, Wonder Under. I’ve had good luck with it in the past so was confident using it here. More on that shortly. I debated a glittery purple for the appliqué but ended up with a tone on tone black from my own fabric collection.

With the lines traced I pressed the fusible and fabric together. I cut out the appliqué from the fabric. In hindsight I would have made less cuts, like where the jaw line and hair meet, but I was a bit unsure of how it would come together at the beginning.

For the background I decided I wanted something that felt more me. The previous portraits were great, but I wanted a bit more of my kind of quilting in there. Instead of making something new, I dug out all the crumb blocks I’ve made over the years and put together a handful to create the background. Knowing I was using black for the appliqué I tried to use pieces with as few black or dark pieces in it, so that there was always contrast with the appliqué. Without a purpose built selection of crumb blocks this is mostly, but not all the way successful. I’m still happy with it. And one dark scrap ends up mimicking the scar on my neck from last year’s thyroid surgery.

After playing with the positioning I removed the backing from the fusible and pressed the appliqué into place. And pressed it into place, and pressed it into place. It would stick for a while then come undone. Rather frustrating. I’ve never had trouble with Wonder Under before. I even bought new stuff in case what I had was too old. If I do this again I will be choosing a different fusible.

The drama with the fusing led to my quilting plan. I didn’t want to zig zag stitch around every piece. I just don’t like that look. But with the appliqué misbehaving I needed a dense quilting plan to keep everything in place. Matchstick quilting was the obvious choice, but I don’t like to be too predictable. I marked a few lines and decided to do rays from one corner. A lot of rays.

WIth a strong multicolour background I knew that thread colour wasn’t super important. With dense enough quilting it would also hold the appliqué down and provide varying contrast on the black fabric. Embracing my inner and outer scrap quilter I pulled out all the partially filled bobbins that I had. Finding their coordinating spools I went nuts with multicolour rays. And I cleaned out 6 bobbins to open them up for new thread choices without wasting any thread!

All of my self portrait quilts are bound with the same tone on tone black fabric using the single fold technique. It creates a sharp edge on these smaller quilts.

Since finishing these quilts I’ve been practicing my drawing and painting some more. I recently started an embroidered portrait too. Perfect for on the go. I’ve got my next quilted portrait planned out too. I want to continue to explore how I can make these more me.

December Morning Make 2022

A bit too on the nose?

In December I dug into my daughters’ craft supplies, augmented by yarn scraps from a dear friend who knits, and experimented with punch needle. Each day I used one little ball of yarn to randomly fill a space. It’s easy to do and doesn’t take long at all. Indeed, some morning’s I was at it for only 5-10 minutes. In the crazy days of the winter holiday season it was just about perfect.

We had a ball of that ultra soft acrylic yarn in white. A fake chenille? It was the right choice for the directions.

I’ve been thinking about touch a lot this winter. Realizing, mostly, how important it is to me. Not that I am a huge smuggler or hugger, but I do love a good hand hold. I was reading about how you can get your own body to release dopamine and serotonin and reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) through non-sexual touch. I found myself gently petting or rubbing my own hands in a calming gesture. My husband thought I was weird, if I’m being honest, but I found it very helpful.

Thinking about touch and seeing the benefit of these simple hand movements for myself also made me realize that this is part of why I like hand work. Using your hands isn’t just useful for the task at hand. It activates something else, something associated with the sense of touch outside of the brain’s task. When I am getting stressed or ansty I tend to feel an energy in my hands that is distracting and uncomfortable. I am often looking for an outlet to ‘get it out’. The more hand work I do, the more active my hands are in a positive way, the less I feel that bad energy.

Punch needle itself is practically fool proof with the right tools. Obviously some yarns and tools are easier to work with. It really does help, as well, to use the right base cloth. If I were to do this again I would upgrade our punch, the cheap plastic one we had was nice for being adjustable, but not very comfortable in the hand.

One of the things I quite liked is that the back is/can be as neat as the front. Depending on whether you used the punch from the front or the back it changes what you see, but both work. Varying the thickness and type of yarn as well as the depth of the punch meant I have a lot of textural and visual variation in the piece. Being open to the scrappy nature of this comes naturally for me as a quilter. If I hadn’t used words I could have chosen which side to display.

In the end, I mounted the piece on an old dollar store canvas with a staple gun. We don’t need another pillow in this house and I liked the visual of a mounted piece.