Mystery sewing

A month ago I started having recurring dreams. Each night I found myself transported back half a lifetime to high school. Each night I would bumble around innocently reliving my youth, until the inevitable horror struck. And each night, it was the same horror: I would find myself in a classroom, only to discover that I was about to sit an examination, in a course that I had apparently signed up for but failed to attend for the entire year.

I'm no interpreter of dreams, but for me that one is a no-brainer. It's a classic procrastination dream. Clearly there was something I was avoiding that I knew was going to catch up with me if I didn't acknowledge it pronto. Only I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was trying to tell myself. Outstanding bills? Nope. Work deadline? Oh, that's right, I haven't had one of those for about two years now. Event horizon which is causing me stress? Come on, the only major event of the year was birthing a child, and that's done and dusted!

 Finally, last week, I got it. It was about the sewing machine.

The poor sewing machine. It's been packed up in a box since well before we moved. We parted on bad terms - it had lower thread tension issues, I had unpicking fatigue. I was waiting for the perfect time, the perfect project, the perfect motivation to get back on the horse. Of course there wasn't one, so  last week I plucked up the necessary courage and just did a spot of mystery sewing.

Here's what came of it... and it remains a mystery!

When I started foundation-piecing these kimono offcuts together, I think I was envisioning a scarf. Initially, I cut my patchwork into three long strips and tried them around my neck. But no, it wasn't quite right. So I sewed the strips back into one piece, but in a different order.

Then I thought maybe I'd go for an Obi. I added wadding, and backing, and two waist ties. And then I put it on my waist and realised that THAT IS THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH I would like to draw attention to at the moment. Particularly with a big, bright, thickly padded belt.

Now I'm flicking between 'table runner' and 'fancy baby change mat'. Except in either case, it's really not practical, as vintage silks and brocades are not the most washable of fabrics...

Perhaps you have a thought about where this mystery sewing could end up?

The sewing might not be going anywhere obvious, but the sewing machine is back in action and you'll be pleased to know that I'm not waking up in a cold sweat screaming 'what's the square root of Shakespeare?' anymore.

The perfect Friday night in

3 children quiet in their beds (for now)
a tired but happy husband home from his long day
West Wing season 4
warm apple and rhubarb crumble
cold ice cream
and
some satisfying hand-sewing
(one pentagon patchwork ball completed, another on the way)

I just had to take a break in between episodes
to take a photo, remember a lovely moment
and make some tea.

My creative space...taking shape.

It feels like I've been doing a refresher in primary school geometry in my creative space recently. 

This week I've completed the piecing of these half-square-triangles for a small lap quilt on its way to a sick friend. 

So far, my short patchwork career has consisted of the scrappy, the imprecise and the mismatched. I like it like that. Nonetheless I'm really digging this classical approach to piecing, using a charm pack of French General Rural Jardin fabric and some hankie linen. Matching fabrics - gasp! I even toyed with a symmetrical design, but that was all a bit staid so I've come up with this asymmetrical suggestion-of-concentric-square thing.

Alongside the triangles-in-squares, my circles-in-hexagons are coming along:

I'm half-way through the hand quilting of my ugly hexagons and enjoying the process a whole lot more since I switched my thread from sashiko thread to Perle 8 cotton, which is gliding through the layers far more easily. Thanks go especially to Mary for the helpful suggestions on how to mark the design and reduce thread friction.

Tune in next week for rhomboids, isosceles triangles and dodecahedrons.

What's shaping up in your creative space?

Finding peace in the piecework.

I started a new quilt top on the weekend. 

This one will be for a friend who has a long six months of chemotherapy ahead of her. I hope that a small lap quilt, while not the most practical offering, is something that will bring a bit of comfort, beauty and a reminder that she is loved and prayed for.

I've wanted to try playing with triangles since the first issue of Fat Quarterly came out. So this weekend I chose the fabric from my stash and made a stack of half-square triangles. I decided to cut first, design later. It's just how I roll.

I surprised myself by enjoying the process. Usually my head is racing ahead to the next step and the next, impatiently wishing I was done with the 'preliminary' steps, wanting to see the whole thing come together. Instead, I got into the rhythm of cutting, marking, pinning, sewing, pressing. Perhaps the spirit of monotasking is really beginning to sink in.

I especially loved the pressing. I must have spent an hour last night lovingly ironing imperfectly-aligned points into the appearance of almost-perfection. It was weird. And then I spent a good while gazing affectionately at my little stack of raw-edged half-square triangles. As though they were my children.

Hmmm. It could be the monotasking. It could be the frontal lobotomy. You decide.

Check out my muff!

Now for those of you snickering into your cup of tea, I'll remind you that the word 'muff' remains the term for a handwarmer or hand cosy, whatever other tawdry meanings it may have acquired in modern usage. Thank you very much.

A few weeks ago I received the best request ever. A dear friend of mine, Melski, owner of cold hands and warm heart, asked if I'd make her a muff.

As soon as it was requested, I knew in my minds' eye just what I wanted my hand cosy to look like. There is in fact a patchwork muff project in the book Denyse Schmidt Quilts,which I own and love. I followed  the pattern, which gave clear dimensions and construction tips, but encouraged a very free and approximate approach to laying out the fabrics and designing the outer layer.

Just my type of project.

It was a joy to riffle through my fabrics and find what I was looking for. The bulk of the fabrics are kimono offcuts, which I offset with scraps of brown linen and suiting fabrics. I played a bit with layout and then foundation-pieced the strips onto some muslin - a useful new technique to learn.

I went for a lining of red fleece and four layers of wadding, which hopefully will keep dear Melski's hands just that bit more snug.

Of course it wouldn't be a handmade gift without the label hand-stitched on as an afterthought!

Dear Melski, who said bad circulation couldn't be stylish?

My creative space... random acts of patchwork

After my little whine last week about my lack of space for quilting, I did actually get around to basting my ugly hexagon quilt. And then I stopped. It seems that I only like to think about one step ahead, and I have not yet decided on the pattern, or the method, of quilting (let alone whether I will straighten the edges, give it a border, bin it in disgust or what have you). 

Meanwhile, having finished last week's little filler project, I had to find a new filler project to help me procrastinate. I opted for a bit of patchwork and quilting practice. I raided the scrap piles and decided to make a tea cosy, inspired by a design in this darling Japanese patchwork book, the design of which I approximated. Very approximately.

Perhaps it was my approximating... perhaps it was the design... but it's one HUGE cosy.  I'm afraid it won't keep my poor little tea pot very toasty at all:

It certainly holds far more potential as a husband-cosy....

After fitting it on various objects, both animate and inanimate, I've opted for the toaster-cosy. It fits perfectly. I'm not sure that my toaster really needs a thickly padded, quilted cover... I guess I'll think of it as an elaborate dust-cover instead.

In terms of quilting practice, it was excellent, because it reminded me of the importance of accurate cutting, accurate seam allowances, accurate basting, using the walking foot, accurate quilt design drawing and slow, careful stitching. None of which I did. That's why I've cheekily blurred those photographs!

I think I might be hand-quilting those hexagons....

 But first, I'm off to visit some creative spaces via the lovely kootoyoo.

My creative space...where to from here?

It's been a little while since I've managed to join in with kootoyoo's creative spaces round-up. But I really, really wanted to get amongst it today, because I need your thoughts on my hexagon charm quilt.

I've pieced all the hexagons I'm going to piece, leaving me with a small cot-sized patchwork top. I either love it or hate it, but I'm not sure which it is yet!



Now I was thinking about backing the top without a border and leaving the edges tessellated. But as I've been looking at it (kind of in horror) I've realised that there is nowhere for the eye to rest. Because there is no dominant colour, no repeated pattern, no focal point to draw the eye, I've found my eyes bouncing around the quilt top. I like the effect, but I wonder if it might be better to add a plain border to tone it down a bit.

What do you think?

Can you see this with a border?
Do you think a border would tone down the quilt? Should it be toned down?
What about the edges, straight or as they are?
Do you find this quilt horrendous or fabulous? (I can't decide...)

Opinions much appreciated (although of course I will disregard them and do my own thing :))

More creative spaces at Kirsty's house.

My creative space... some actual quilting!

Things have been a bit insane around chez clutterpunk of late, with a toilet-training older child, a non-sleeping younger child, a few weeks in north Queensland, a malfunctioning sewing machine, pantry moths and a bit too much television - all amounting to a big, fat, craft-shaped hole in my universe.

So nothing speaks of a return to normality more than THIS picture:

The basting of my Scrap Management Quilt. I jumped to it on Monday evening, having heard that my sewing machine, replete with new walking foot, would be coming home on Tuesday.

Having heard on the blogvine that basting pins must be inserted at the terrifying interval of every two inches, I set about dutifully sandwiching my layers on the lounge room floor. Man, that was a tedious process! How do you regular quilty types not go insane? It got better as I moved outward, swapped my silly small pins for much larger ones, and... ahem... extended the 2" gaps to slightly larger ones. Like 2 feet. 

Anyway, the pain in my knees and thumbs and the boredom in my head was worth it, as on Tuesday, I was able to get to the quilting!

This was my first time using a walking foot, but in my enthusiasm to get this thing quilted I didn't do any practising on a test-piece. Thus, I adjusted and learnt as I went. My stitch lengths are very uneven - the machine seemed to want to slow down and do tight stitches in random places. Any thoughts? I had visions of lovely, evenly-spaced stitch lengths like Rita's... ha! In time, perhaps.

No matter... it is still looking just smashing and I can't wait to make some binding and finish it off so I can get snuggling under it, and of course show it off in next week's space!

I'm off for a cuppa-for-a-cause now, but will be back to see what's in your creative space this afternoon - thanks Kirsty for hosting.

How do you manage your scraps?

For those of you who like crafting with fabrics, I have some questions.

Do you intentionally manage your scraps?
What do you keep and how do you keep it?
When do you throw something away?

With my growing interest in patchwork and quilting, I'm realising that even the smallest of fabric scraps can be used to great effect in projects big and small, and that I should use up every last bit of fabric or preserve it for further projects down the track.

The reuser/recycler in me is in absolute agreement. The romantic/creative in me thinks of all the Depression-era women making stunning quilts out of discarded undergarments and nods her head.

The lazy, disorganised crafter in me thinks 'too hard, just bin it!' and 'I'm SO over that fabric I can't use another jot of it' and 'I could always buy scrap bundles or charm packs if I need them'. Particularly when I see something like this scrap below, which is a fabric I've never liked (I didn't buy it!), has already been hacked into and is a horrid mess:

(See below for its fate... it has not gone to waste).

SO... what am I doing about my scrap issues? Taking a challenge or two, of course, and setting myself some scrap-management ground rules which will hopefully serve me and my patchwork obsession well for the long term.

Well, here are the ground rules I'm setting myself:

1. Thou shalt not hoard. Buy fabric for specific projects and use it up with pleasure! Fabric will always be available: if I like something particular I can probably chase it down when I need it or if not, find something else I like. There is no fabric shortage at present. I will not miss out.

2. Keep anything from a fat eighth or bigger neatly folded in your cupboard, in size piles. Ha ha ha.

3. Cut and sort smaller pieces into the following categories: 

a. 5" or 6" squares and rectangles 

b. Strips (any length but no thinner than 2.5")

c. Scraps that could be used to make 1" hexagons or 2" squares (e.g. pieces approx. 3" high and wide)

d. Scraps that can be used for 1/2" hexagons (e.g. pieces at least 1.5" high and wide)

Everything else that is left is allowed to go into the bin with a clean conscience.

My scrap sorting is pretty specific, isn't it? That's because I'm joining in with this:

 

This piece-along gives me a real motivation to carefully look after my scraps. In fact, I'm kind of joining in twice. 

I'm committing to a 2" hexagon charm quilt, which will require 297 hexagons in unique fabrics (if I want to make a 50" x 60" throw). I'd like to see this pieced by the end of 2010. A 2" hex can be cut from a 5" square, and I've cut 30 so far - Kate, most of these are from the scrap pack you sent me, thanks SO much!

I've also opted to cut 1" hexagons while I'm at it. I prefer the look of 1" hexagons in a quilt, but after cutting out the 60 pieces below, I realised that I might struggle to cut, baste, piece and quilt 1,173 hexagons in unique fabrics within, say, the next decade. So I'll just add to this lot slowly. Maybe I'll end up with a charm cushion, maybe I'll throw a few on a skirt, maybe they'll be discovered by a great-granddaughter who will lovingly make them into a dolly-quilt.

And - just because I'm going a bit mad with all the scrap possibilities at this point - I'm cutting up those really little, annoying scraps of just over an inch in width and adding them to my 1/2" hexagon scrap bucket. 

Here are the scraps from that horrid pink fabric... I know they'll look great once they're blended in with other tiny hexagons in some form or other.

Maybe even in another cute Dear Fii brooch:

OK. So I have a bit of a hexagon thing going on. 

You might not be hexagon obsessed. But how do you manage your scraps? I'd love to know.

My creative space... brickwork

I've been into the manual labour this week, laying me some bricks:



Actually, it hasn't been labourious at all. This is the pieced top of the 'scrap management quilt' I mentioned in my creative space a few weeks ago. I'm really excited by the way it has come together and am itching to quilt it down to a backing, add a border and bind. (Yes, in that order... I'll explain when the process happens!)

I wish I could get a better picture, but here's a bit more detail anyway. There are some really fun fabrics in there. Some fabrics make it in over and over again... others only have one small guest appearance.

It has passed inspection from my ultra-critical woolly-headed ruffian William, who has found various pops of boy-themed fabrics.

The man of the house is rather approving too. This is a good thing as I intend the quilt to be our lounge-room lap quilt. I suspect the frequent occurrence of Moda's Authentic In The News newsprint fabric, which has become something of a 'neutral' in the quilt, may have been an accidental stroke of genius on my part. I could see Justin's thought process... Boy that's an ugly quilt... oooh, look, a bit of newspaper print. I love reading the newspaper... If I could I'd sit around all Saturday morning reading the newspaper, but Gina hates how they take over the whole living room. And render me incapable of conversation or parenting for hours on end. Maybe if we have a quilt which camouflages the newspaper, Gina won't notice I'm reading it and avoiding reality... hmmm... "Hey honey I love that quilt!".

What's happening in your creative space today?

My creative space... scrap management

I'm making a little progress on my 'scrap management quilt' and hoping to let it dominate my creative space today.

Over the last month I've gathered four paper bags' worth of rectangular scraps cut into four different widths. The scrap lengths are quite varied, depending largely on how much of the fabric I've had. Yesterday I started sewing the scraps together into strips (columns), ironing the seams flat and slinging them over my ladder. I'd like to finish that today. 

I'm not thinking about placement too hard. I figure that once all the columns are roughly the same size, I can lay them out together and start casting a critical eye over the balance of colours, textures and sizes.  I'm already sensing that I might need to add a few more pops of bright red to this quilt. But we'll see...

I'm really liking what I see so far - it's so fun looking at these very disparate scraps which have made it into my stash in lots of interesting ways. A jelly-bean for you if you can identify a fellow-creative-spacer's fabric design in there ...?

Looking forward to visiting some more of Kirsty's creative spaces a bit later today with my afternoon cuppa...

A bag of sunshine

The glorious weather of the last week had me thinking about Spring rather than Autumn... I felt like getting all Northern-Hemispherical, frolicking in fields of daisies with a gathering basket on my arm, skipping around in swishy romantic clothing, and sitting down to a picnic high-tea. None of which I did, obviously, except for fleetingly, in my head, during a particularly dire episode of Postman Pat.

So instead, I riffled through my fabric cupboard and spied some very Spring-y vintage pillowcases and sheeting, which I proceeded to butcher thusly:

Of course, I started butchering well prior to knowing what I wanted to make with it. I just knew that I wanted to do some patchwork, because, well, it's becoming an obsession, and surely it is the favoured indoors pursuit of breezy, romantic Spring girls?

OK, it's true, I have been gazing far too frequently at THIS picture:

(front cover of Daily Patchwork Goods, a Japanese crafting book I obtained from here)

Now I realised after cutting out and sewing back together a bunch of 4-inch squares that I should have been working in hexagons, because what I really really wanted to make myself was that very basket, the one on the cover, the frolicking-in-fields, dressed-in-flouncy-frock, flower-gathering-basket (perhaps not the actual title, but who knows? It's Japanese, and I wouldn't put it past them!)

So I went ahead anyway, and here's my interpretation:

The instructions for making the bag were all in Japanese, but were fairly easy to interpret visually. Given that I'm usually rather too impatient with patterns anyway, it is my cup of tea to just 'catch the drift' and see what happens. And it happened, and apart from a mostly-salvaged handle diasaster, I'm pretty chuffed with the outcome.

Serendipitously, when I was looking for something sturdy to line the bag with, I came across a denim skirt in my refashioning/mending pile. It had been cast there by my neighbour a year ago, for the unforgiveable sins of being both a daggy length and impossibly small at the waist. But Lo, when I inverted the skirt, the waistband matched the circumference of the bag base perfectly, and then flared out at the same width as the outer bag. So all I had to do was turn the skirt upside-down, lop it off at the appropriate height, add a base, and voila, I had a bag lining! I even left the side-zipper in and turned the bag back through it to right-side-out once I'd finished sewing it together. Ahhhh... slack short-cutting disguised as refashioning. Perfect.

Now I'm using my lovely bag of sunshine to go a-gathering... picking up the scraps of fabric in my house which seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate. Oh well, I guess it's breeding season right, being Spring and all?