Letters...

Diving into the world of Tonya's pieced letters has been on my back burner for a long time. This fall, with some other projects out of the way, it was finally time to give free-pieced letters a try.
As part of a challenge, Tonya sent me four pieced sets of the word LOVE and the race was on--incorporate her words into a project of my own.

Not being one for the flowery or the schmoopy, it took me a while to figure out how to use four sets of the word LOVE in a way that would be neither.

Earlier in the fall I saw this (you have to scroll down a bit) showing a typography exhibit. Typography is a big interest of mine--love the look of words in print. One of the works in the exhibit was "four letter words"--obscure ones, may of which required a dictionary. That got me thinking... Of course the expression "four-letter words" generally connotes obscene or, at the very least, negative words. I decided to do a quilt of four letter words that were all positive.


And it seemed that this was the perfect vehicle to use some of the wordy fabrics I've been collecting.


So the letters are all solid brights and the background is a cacophony of words, numbers, and other writing.




I pieced each word using one color, and Tonya's LOVE letters are in multicolors, so they stand out a bit.


Yes, they ARE wonky, but I like them that way. This was a great learning experience. Can't say I'm totally at ease with piecing letters yet, but I'm getting better at it.

The object was to have a completed top by years end, but I just ran out of time. The central part of the quilt is done, but there will be a border or two. I need to let it sit and to think a bit about the borders. There are several ideas floating around in my head.

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Tuesday morning Mr. Kathie and I are jetting out to Washington, D.C. for a quick several-day visit with our firstborn. It promises to be a culinary visit, as our daughter has been commissioned to make a tarte tatin as a Christmas gift for her boss, to be hand-delivered to the boss's house. I haven't ever made a tarte tatin and neither has my daughter, so it will be an adventure for us both.

Never knew that expertise with French food was part of the job description for a law clerk, but then what do I know?

Happy New Year to all. Back Saturday...

Merry Christmas to All!

No heaven can come to us
unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future
which is not hidden
in this present little instant.
Take peace!

Fra Giovanni

Round Robin Christmas

A kind reader asked about the quilt pictured in my header and after poring through the archives, it looks like I've never shown this one in its entirety. Very fitting to give it a showcase now, as it's my not-too-Christmas-y Christmas quilt. And that subtlety is part of what I love about this quilt. That and a whole lot of other stuff.

OK, let's see some hands--who has taken part in a round robin quilt project? And who has done one with a more-or-less anonymous online group? And who has gotten burned??

I jumped into the online quilting world in the mid-90s and learned through bitter experience that not all round robins are created alike. Let's see--there was the one where I sent a journal, a complex sewn quilt block, AND fabric, which all immediately disappeared into a virtual black hole and were never seen again.

When I started over again and mailed to a different person, that mailing disappeared too. And then there were round robins where I had to re-do the previous round because things were wavy or cupping or worse. That meant sewing TWO ROUNDS on my turn. I remember a friend's hand-appliqueing 35 or more album blocks which also disappeared into the void. Is there a lesson in this??

It finally dawned on me that round robins are best done with quilters whose skills and reliability are a known quantity, especially considering the investment of time and materials. As they say, DUH!

And so, a local round robin was born, among 6 friends. Each of my co-conspiritors is a careful sewer and a principled person, not likely to renege or fink out. And we all knew where everyone lived, so there was nowhere to hide! I made my inner Lone Star,


vaguely thinking Christmas, and sent it on its way. Each person's center panel traveled around and was added to and embellished by each participant.

About a year later, we held The Great Unveiling. I literally gasped when I saw my completed quilt top. It was absolutely perfect, beyond my wildest dreams--Christmas-y but not beating you over the head with Santas and cutesy fabrics.


Is it any wonder that I just love my gang of quilting peeps?


I quilted it myself and it was one of my few stabs at traditional-looking machine quilting. (I do much better at devil-may-care technique than at precise wreaths and continuous curve...)


This is everything I love in a traditional quilt--tons of different fabrics, lots of different motifs, lots of visual complexity.



Every time I look at it, I see the work of some of my best friends and it makes me unendingly happy that this quilt is mine, all mine.

Scrap Bag Log Cabin

It's finished!

This Scrap Bag Log Cabin, which is my back pages in the truest way, was a blast to make from start to finish. Well, the last few of the 100 blocks were a slog--I vowed to get them all completed during my week at Wildcat in September, by God, and I did it.


This quilt was planned to be darks and lights only, and it was quite an adventure pulling each mystery strip out of the bin. These are scraps from nearly thirty years of quilting--quilt historians two centuries from now will have a field day dating all these gems.

And I bet everyone looking at these pictures recognizes a lot of these fabrics from their own scrap bins too...



Being too lazy to cut the individual logs to size, I sewed with long strips, then trimmed and trued up. Things turned out pretty much straight and true, and the blocks needed only a minimum of final truing up before assembly. So it CAN be done this way, with good results.



I need to make more of these scrap-tastic quilts--we all do--and I hope to do another one in the coming year. Don't know if or when I'll ever get control of all the scraps but it will be fun trying.



I have the prolific Bonnie Hunter to thank for this quilt. If it hadn't been for her Scrap User's System, which I printed out, saved, and made part of my life, this quilt would never have gotten off the ground.

Lessons learned on this quilt: of course such things are all pretty subjective, but in another Log Cabin, I would have those central squares--the red ones--finish to 2" square rather than 1". I think a more emphatic punch of color would be better. ALL the colors worked pretty well together. I was concerned about including reddish tones in the logs, but I'm glad I did.

And I probably didn't really need the piano-key border. It's a honking big quilt even without the border!

What I Did on This Snow Day

We woke up to a full foot of new snow this morning--enough to solidly shut down the whole Milwaukee area. What could be better than a bonus three day weekend right before Christmas? I for one can use the time!

We all thought last winter was bad... We're running ahead on snow so far this season. Local kids have already had three snow days. And I might point out that it isn't even officially winter yet. Sigh.

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I had been itching to make some of the Artful Eco Bags from Quilting Arts Gifts, and had been thinking they would be a good use for some of my African fabrics. I got down to business and turned out a bunch of them today.


They'll make cute and useful gifts for a few people on my list.



I made a couple modifications in the pattern. I made the facing much deeper, sewing it completely down, all around, inside the bag. (I really dislike loose facings flopping around.) And I don't get to use my serger all that often; here was a perfect serger project.


These bags make terrific use of a yard of splashy-print fabric. With ribbon ties, they're compact for carrying in a tote, to be whipped out and filled up at the supermarket.


Holiday gift sewing--done.

Secret Sewing

Some sewing is happening, secret stuff for gifts.

Most of my time and energy this week has been taken up stressing out over computer issues at work. At long last I have a new computer, but much needs to be done to get everything handshaking and conversing politely. This sort of thing puts my stomach in knots.

I don't need this.

Off to work some more on the never ending binding on the Scrap Bag Log Cabin. No, it's not done yet.

Talking Books (with My Mouth Full)

Look how much sewing got done tonight--zip. Cookie exchange at Library Coffee Hour tomorrow, so I spent a good deal of time making a double batch of my grandmother's Ginger Cookies. Something tells me that Coffee Hour tomorrow may not be exactly diet-friendly.

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For the last several weeks I've had my nose firmly planted in The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (I've never claimed to be a fast reader).


I sat up till 2 this morning finishing it, all 973 pages of it.

Hands down, my favorite book this year.

The story, set in 12th century England, is about the building of a great cathedral and covers several decades in its scope. I like historical novels and this one grabbed me with great characters--plenty of good guys to root for and plenty of dastardly bad guys too, page-turner plotlines, and best of all, a fascinating view of life in a long-ago time. The characters felt like real people and it was hard to let them go at the end of the story.

This isn't a new book--it was originally published nearly 20 years ago and it's very different from Follett's usual spy thrillers. Word of mouth has added to its well-deserved reputation over the years. And being an Oprah book a year ago didn't hurt either. That's how it came to my attention--lots of library patrons asking for it!

There is a sequel, World Without End, set two hundred years later. I've already got my copy. Ready to dive in.

Trimming Tradition

It may be too icy for my morning walks but I'm managing to put on the miles. We slogged through the snow to the art show Friday night, I trudged through two malls and numerous strip centers Saturday (plus a 45 minute drive to my favorite sewing center only to find that they were OUT of the black thread I needed!), and I made a ton of trips up and down stairs with Christmas trim today.

We've decided to forgo a Christmas tree this year. My time is so limited, there is so much to be done, and frankly, I usually end up doing most of it. I always stress out at Christmas and have little meltdowns. Really trying to minimize that and get back to being able to enjoy the season and not to dread it. But there ARE tschotschkes to arrange, although mine pale in comparison to this.

I'd rather be able to spend time enjoying relaxation with family and making some fun food. Accordingly, we had a great pork roast tonight, crusted with herb-y breadcrumbs (right out of Betty Crocker) and kale done like this. Outstanding. And pumpkin pudding.

Back to stitching the binding down on the Scrap Bag Log Cabin.

Art Date

After work, I took off for the city and met my son and his girlfriend for a great dinner at Cafe Lulu in Bay View. After dinner, it was a short trudge through the snow and ice to Paper Boat Boutique for the opening reception of an exhibit of new work by the famous Lisa Congdon. Yaaay!

Lisa's was one of the first art blogs I stumbled on as I traipsed around the internet a few years back. I so admire her for taking the creative leap and quitting her day job to become a full-time artist.

Some of us have the guts, some of us toil as librarians. Sigh.

Lisa's exhibit, Life in WonderMountain, provided a lot of visual food for thought for me--she takes inspiration from antique imagery and makes edgy, evocative collages.


And what she sees in vintage handcrafts like crocheted doilies takes them far beyond stereotypical little-old-ladydom. Lisa uses them as jumping off points for mandalas and graceful mobiles, always fired up with shots of vibrant color.




Two of my favorite things--vintage photos and vintage handcrafts. This exhibit gives me a lot to think about... And I was really pleased to see that Lisa got good press. I hope she comes back to Milwaukee again, preferably in better weather. I think her California sensibilities were thoroughly flattened by what passes for fall in Wisconsin. Which tonight meant temperatures in single digits Fahrenheit.

A picture! Yes, Gerrie--I was there, with my best deer-in-the-headlights look!


And apropos of absolutely nothing else, this is my 500th blog post here at Threadlines. Yay for me too!

Holiday Sewing #1

Here's one gift that can be shown as it's already been given. Our Seams Group holiday party was last night and I made this fun butcher-style apron for the gift exchange.


This is Rag Merchant's 5/4 Apron, made from five fat quarters.


It was an easy evening's sew and made a cute and perky little gift.

I flat felled the seams and top-stitched everything to death to make the apron a bit more sturdy and carefree for laundering. The pattern calls for grosgrain ribbon ties, but I made the ties from a coordinating fabric I just happened to have on hand. I topstitched the ties too, to give them a bit more heft.

The trim is a pieced panel applied to the upper part of the apron.


I went with the pattern on this, but of course there are tons of possibilities for trimming an item like this!

I want to make more!

A Gift from the Universe

A good sized snowstorm hit Sunday afternoon, and when the snow slowed down, the winds kicked up. We were lucky(?) enough to be in the narrow band of heaviest snowfall. And the outfall from all this is: SNOWDAY! Yup, the school district where the library is located closed for the day which means the library closes too. It's an unpaid day, but it's also a great gift from the universe. I was able to sew all day long.


I picked up the Scrap Bag Log Cabin from the long arm quilter over the weekend--incredible turnaround time! I made miles and miles of bias binding and accomplished the machine sewing part of this operation.


Now all that remains is miles and miles of hand stitching. Good TV watching job. Very pleased to have gotten this far on this quilt.

I was able to spend the bulk of today working on my super-secret letter project. Feeling pretty good about all this...

Watched two movies through all this: Iron Jawed Angels, an HBO film, with Hilary Swank, about Alice Paul and the American Woman's Party and their role in women's suffrage. That one was so-so with a jarringly modern music score. Also watched The Hours. I had loved the book and the movie was really well done. Nicole Kidman and that fake nose...!

No doubt it's back to work tomorrow.