Bootsie & Astrid's brown & olive linen placemats, and a new mug mat

I finished and shipped a gift to my sister Ginnie (she's Bootsie to me) and her wife Astrid in the Netherlands for their summer birthdays, and since they have received them now, I can post photos. :)

Four reversible placemats and napkins. My sister Nancy gave me a stash of fabric she's been collecting, and the front and back fabrics of the placemats were from that stash. I picked out the binding trim and napkin fabrics at the quilt store. This binding is the same as for Olive's quilt (here and here). (Nancy's birthday is tomorrow, and I am trying to be patient until she can tell me what I can make for her bedroom. A wall hanging? A quilted pillow?)

I quilted straight lines every 1"

The brown linen is just beautiful, and I was able to frame four different floral patterns because of the large repeat.

I know there is a way to straighten the edges of the placemat in the photo in PhotoShop,
but suffice to say that the placemats are straight in person.

As for the quilting lines' imperfections,
they witness that this is handmade. :)

My sisters tell me they love them and intend to use them every day, which makes me supremely happy. Now I am almost with them at their table. One day, I hope Don and I can join them for real.

I also sewed a mug mat for my Etsy shop. The cat and bird linen and some of the other remnants were part of Henry's quilt.

front

back

I do believe tan/brown and blue/turquoise are my favorite colors together. Anything with brown just sends me.

I am designing more mug mats today. Joy!

Gussets for Inge's dress

Inge's dress on me, post-gussets

Last weekend I went with friends to Lake Michigan for a birthday celebration. Inge turned 55, and I wanted to sew her something. Inge likes loose-fitting, sleeveless clothes, and boldly I decided to practice sewing and make her this shift.

I found this pattern and thought it fit the bill.

I enjoyed the cutting, sewing and finishing. Since the dress was a surprise, I did not have Inge's measurements. She and I are close in size, so I gambled and used my own. What I didn't account for was that the bust, in spite of choosing the right measurements, was too tight. Before I gave it to her, I was peeved trying it on!

When she tried it on, sure enough the bust was tight on her, too. But she loved the dress and said if she'd seen it in a store she would have bought it no matter how much it cost. Score.

So I brought the dress home and learned (from Pinterest and a link to Linda at Sew for Dough) how to add gussets to expand a bustline.

I wanted to add three inches to the bust to make it loose and comfy. So I cut each gusset 1 1/2" at the top, and 5 inches long. I ripped out the edge and seams of the dress at the side seams/under-arms exactly 5". Then I sewed the gussets in, re-sewed the upper edge, and I think they turned out well!

pinned

inside sewn; too bad I had to adjust my Hong Kong seam :)

outside sewn

I used polished tangerine orange linen (I call it "tomato bisque") purchased online at Fashion Fabrics Club. They are reasonably priced! This fabric was $11.75/yard, and the pattern took 1 1/2 yards (60" wide).

Lesson: Measure the pattern before cutting to ensure it matches measurements.

placemats, napkins and a mug mat

Life has been happening! But I've made a few gifts. This is good for practice in design and craft.

Next weekend I will go to a dune by Lake Michigan with friends. I sewed gifts for each of the three ladies. A dress for the one whose birthday we are celebrating, which I won't show here. A set of four placemats and napkins for the hostess. And a mug mat for our friend from Minnesota.

The hostess loves blue and yellow.

All summer she stays at her house on the dune and sleeps on the screened in porch under pines. Her dining table is also on the porch. I think these will be cheery.

I enjoy sewing mitered napkin corners.

And for our friend visiting from Minnesota, a mug mat.

summer rose placemats & "flying north" quilt

a quick pair of placemats for practice

It's been five weeks since last post. Our granddaughter Olive was born (beautiful!!), and life got very busy with family and work. I've had just a couple of home days for quilting.

My current big project (below) is taking forever because I am quilting every 3/8". Why did I think this was a good idea?

Here is the whole quilt top before starting to quilt:

The right side is tan moiré, slightly darker
than the left side of muslin.
I call this "Flying North."

I am actually enjoying the improvisational quilting. It is meditative, and I just have to forget about how much is left to do, which is about half the quilt (45" x 65" or so).

But I longed to design and finish something. So I made a set of four coasters for Lesley for her birthday next week. I didn't get photos. Today, I wanted to finish something again, so after adding a few patterns of quilting on "Flying North" I pieced and quilted a pair of placemats.

the floral fabric was a 50's tablecloth of my mom's;
I had tried to incorporate it in the last project,
which was quite a fail, though I will make it into
a picnic blanket

I learned a few things making these placemats, and so I'll probably keep them for us. I did better with the top stitching along the edge with the walking foot than the regular foot, and I need to be more precise making a straight edge. I like improvisational piecing, but I'd like the edges straighter. They are also too small for regular dinner plates. I will love using them though, they are so cheerful! I used this same aqua in Lesley's coasters, with deep blood red and green, and I'm beginning to think aqua is just the color to pull others together.

The Brother PQ1500 sewing machine is still great, though I had MAJOR issues with tension last time I  free motion quilted. I kept getting bunched up thread underneath. After reading a suggestion online to change thread, I did, and it totally solved it! From now on, only Coats & Clark Dual Duty thread for me. Maybe I should call "Flying North" "War & Piece" instead. ;-)

when colors give the wrong vibrations

“Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.” 

― Marc Chagall

I wrote and then deleted a post a couple of days ago regarding this quilt project. I had been working on it for a couple of weeks, struggling with the design. The quilt top I finished was so hideous that I couldn't leave it up here. :)

Theoretically, the reds, green and yellow of the 1950s tablecloth, the green and white polka dots from a girl's dress, a yellow and red mini-print from my 1980s stash, and the yellow gingham should work together. In the photo above, they look all right. Cheerful even, which is what I was going for: spring.

But the final result was bad in composition (an ambitious attempt to take inspiration from this gorgeous painting by Linda Vachon) — bad vibrations (thank you, M. Chagall) — and one of the main factors was this yellow and white gingham. When looking at the final piece, the gingham faded in juxtaposition with the yellow and red mini-print, which came off as golden/olive by comparison. I wish I had the heart to post it here so you would be convinced. Maybe you can picture it.

Chagall also said,

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.”

At first this sounds contradictory to his other statement at the top. But I think it's important to keep both in mind while designing a quilt. Color is everything.

I haven't ripped this top apart yet, but I've begun another project: a modern flying geese quilt in white, cream and soft blue/green. I needed to get away from bold colors, which need a good deal of design skill to pull off.

"Rose and her sisters"

I finished the first quilt for my etsy shop (not launched yet), which I call "Rose and her sisters." I feel excited about my goal for the shop: to create homemade modern improv quilts from 100% repurposed fabrics and fabric scraps.

This quilt really expresses my aesthetic. It has an old world feel, with deep, rich tones and lots of close quilting. It has the colors and feel of a tapestry. The toile linen in the two panels of "Rose and her sisters" was leftover from a chair recovering project. More about the quilting in a minute. The brown mini-floral is from my fabric stash and must be thirty years old. The large cabbage rose print is from a Ralph Lauren dust ruffle my sister Nancy gave me long ago. I never used it as a dust ruffle. It is a beautiful soft cotton with the sheen of chintz.

This could also be "Ruth and her sisters" since I have three sisters.

I sewed straight line quilting on all the panels and strips except for the two toile panels with ladies, which I free motion quilted. The sisters remind me of characters in a George Eliot novel, maybe that's because I'm reading Middlemarch now.

I can picture Miss Brook sitting in Mr. Brook's library reading with this quilt on her lap. All my quilts will probably be this size: 65" x 43 1/2" or so, perfect for laps, naps, thrown on a bed, sofa, or porch swing.

I only learned about improv quilts recently, since getting back into quilting. Back in the 1980s I only pieced traditional quilts (log cabins, lone stars, traditional blocks). When I started following Pinterest quilt boards recently, I discovered the exciting world of improv piecing. (My Pinterest quilts board is here with inspiration galore.) No measuring or straight lines. Just cut and create as you go. This is so satisfying for me and feels just right. You can see the wonkiness of the four brown bars in the full top below, like tree trunks or fence posts in the ladies' rose garden.

Cutting up the fabric into strips this way deconstructs the elegance of Ralph Lauren's world and puts it back together with an embrace of folk art, of women who for centuries have used what they had to create beauty for themselves and their family. She may think the sumptuous life of toile ladies is gorgeous, but she will probably never attain it. She'll piece together what she can.

The back of the quilt is pieced with more scraps, mostly from my 1980s stash. The rose print on the top right was another gift from Nancy, an upholstery linen. The deep red and the olive green were scraps from Henry's quilt and my granddaughter's quilt (due to be born Thursday!).

You know how they say you should follow your passion and see if you can find someone to pay you for it? Well, that's what I'm about these days. It will be thrilling when someone decides they need to own this quilt.

For the binding I chose the same olive green I used for my granddaughter's quilt. I wanted a bright contrast.

Now a bit about the quilting. I stitched straight lines on the strips and panels, except for the linen toile. I alternated horizontal lines with vertical from panel to panel for interest. Because the fabric is flowery, I wanted straight lines as a balance. The great news is that the walking foot worked very well on my old Singer! I still didn't get it to fit just right (it knocked a little), but it breezed over the layers without a pucker! The back of the quilt testifies to this (above).

About three quarters through the quilting I decided to invest in a new quilting sewing machine, the first new sewing machine I've ever owned. It is a Brother PQ1500S. The "new product shock" was incredible, and wonderful. On the old Singer, I had to crank the wheel with my right hand to start every new row of stitching. If you imagine this with every turn of the quilt, back and forth, back and forth, over the whole top, I was an aching mess. With the new machine, I only have to touch the pedal with my toe! What a breeze. I guess I've been living in the dark ages, happily. So I finished the straight rows of quilting, and I saved the two toile panels for last.

Though I'd tried free motion quilting on the bottom half of James's quilt on the old Singer with decent results, I knew I could not progress in FMQ with the old machine. You really need to lower your feed dogs (though a few quilters don't), and I could not figure out how to lower mine. I found instructions online for an old Singer, but it wasn't the same model as mine. This contributed to the decision to buy a new machine, one that had all the settings, feet and possibilities I was looking for.

After some practice, I tackled the free motion quilting on the ladies. I was terrified. But the control I felt with the new machine was much greater than on James's quilt, and I am happy with the result of the echo stitching.

For me, the best part of creating a quilt is designing it. I have the next two in my head and will post about the process. After the deep old world hues of this quilt, and after such a very brutal winter, I am ready for a spring quilt next, which I'm calling either "jelly beans" or "crocus and jonquils." After that, a black and white one from Goodwill skirts.

a quilt for Henry

The second of our three grandchildren was born right on his due date February 20. Henry Bennett arrived in fine form, we are so grateful. (The third, a girl, is due March 12. Her quilt is finished and posted here.)

I was relieved to be able to finish his quilt the weekend before he arrived, well actually on Monday. I pieced it Saturday, quilted Sunday, then sewed on the binding Monday. He arrived Thursday. Phew!

This quilt is full of my brother Bennett, who passed away in 1996 at age 47. He and I were close. I used a linen table cloth of his for years after he died, and it began to get threadbare.

Bennett's table cloth from India

Because Henry was to have his name, I used that cloth in the quilt (the parts that were not threadbare, of course) and paired all the fabrics around it. I also wanted it to be a "hippie" quilt. Although Bennett wasn't a true hippie, much of his outlook was shaped that way. He wore a black arm band at his 1970 college graduation to protest the Vietnam War. He was non-materialistic, and his taste in music shaped my own. (CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, James Taylor, so many more) He wore soft, worn chambray or flannel shirts.

Bennett's table cloth linen is the floral one
and also the border with red;
I'm sure this was made in India

I decided I wanted to design a free-form quilt, and this was not easy. I cut the pieces at the beginning to place them in a composition I liked. And then as I began to piece it, I adjusted the pieces to fit into each other. I wanted it to be more folk art than precision pieces. This process was organic for me and felt just right as I connected with Bennett.

I really love linen, and I ordered a second special one from Australia, with cats, birds and trees. Bennett loved nature, as do I, and I wanted to introduce Henry to this love.

I tried to use the new walking foot, but I could not get it to align with the needle when I installed it. So I used the regular foot. Since finishing, I found a helpful piece of advice at a quilting blog to simply push the foot to the side until it aligns. It sounds intuitive, but when you're working with it, you'd think that would break it. I will try it before starting the next.

Henry and I had a little photo shoot yesterday on his quilt. He seemed to like it just fine. He already rolls from side to side.

Henry Bennett, age 4 days

In this picture, Henry looks like his brother James, who is now 2