Quilting in the Morning
Well, not exactly quilting yet, there’s more to it than cutting out fabric and sewing the pieces together. I’m learning short cuts too. I haven’t been this excited about something since I started knitting and spinning with yarn and fiber. Running across pictures and books can be hazardous to your bank account! Going through old totes of fabric can yield treasure.
This morning Robb was home studying for finals and I got up at the normal time and decided to make a block before going to work. I was up at midnight because I took a nap as soon as I got home last night (my favorite hours to sleep are from 7am to 10am - SO NOT a morning person!) and was on the phone app for Pinterest™ and found something called a “Disappearing Four Patch” that I fell in love with immediately. It looked easy…and it was for the most part. I don’t know what freak of nature did this to me, but even with rulers on the cutting pad, several straight edge rulers, AND a razor rotary cutter I STILL can fuck up a straight line! I’m so crooked, drawing or cutting - hell even walking in a straight line is practically impossible. It’s like there is some perverse part of my nature that will not allow me to draw, walk, cut or do anything else in a straight line. Let’s hope I don’t get pulled over for weaving! Heh, weaving…maybe that’ll be next. (insert giggle here) Sometimes, I kill me.
But I saw this quilt block on Pinterest and couldn’t get the app to open on my phone (remember, I’m already in bed but can’t sleep so I’m cruising Pinterest on the Iphone app.) and I SQUEAL….and that woke him up.
Robb: What the hell are you doing on the phone in the middle of the night?
Me: Can’t sleep.
Robb: Told ya not to take a nap. But hey, you got free dinner out of it! (This was his reference to the fact that HE cooked dinner last night). We switch off on that now that I’m working, but I will have to put up with canned corn and macaroni and cheese too often for my liking.
Me: I can’t get the app I’m on to work right.
Robb: Does that mean you’re getting up?
Me: Um…maybe.
Robb: Good, take your phone with you.
Me: Actually my computer is right here.
Robb: grumbles something about ‘blessed darkness’ and pulls the cover over his head and is snoring in 45 seconds. I really envy him that ability. Really, I do.
So I was so excited when I saw this last night that I just had to make sure I’d saved it where I could find it later. And this morning, after I accidentally got up a whole hour early, I thought why not. I made it with about two minutes to spare.
Here’s a pic of it:
And here are the others I’ve made. I’m not really aiming at a quilt right now, I’m just learning techniques.
I should mention here that what got me going on this were two events that were totally unrelated except by peripheral subject. One of my students brought me all the books in the Jennifer Chiaverini Elm Creek Quilt novels and I started reading them and got hooked. Then I changed out my altar and opened the trunk I keep my altar on looking for something else and found, at the bottom, something that I had not really looked at when I first got the trunk from my mother’s place. This trunk was my grandmother’s trunk, depression era, painted black…you know the type. Anyway, there was this folded up thing at the bottom, I’d thought it was nothing more than a furniture blanket. Boy, was I wrong! It’s beautifully made…and sadly very much frayed in places,,QUILT!!. That said, whoever made this quilt was excellent at the art of ‘quilting’ but not so much at the art of design when it comes to color and fabric. For the most part it’s okay, but there are some really incongruous blocks in this quilt. They are all the same design, what looks like a Mystic or LeMoyne Starburst, with sashing, a border and Nine Patch blocks on the corners. The SHAPES are great, well put together and all, but the materials and colors left something to be desired. This tells me that this was one of my grandmother’s ‘depression era’ quilts when they used what they had and couldn’t afford ‘nice’ fabric. The sashing and border fabric look very much like flour sack designs from that time. The design, from what I’ve been able to find out, looks like a Blazing LeMoyne Star, or Mystic Star. Here’s a pic of some of the blocks of it:
As you can see, some of the fabric has disintegrated. But it made me want to learn about quilts even more after I’d been reading these novels. So I tried to see if I could find the pattern of the quilt online. There were some similar ones, but not this one. It has a nine patch on each of the corners and long sashes on the border and between the blocks. But the center blocks look like stars made from what I had thought were ‘flying geese’ blocks and triangles. That got me to thinking about another quilt that my sister and I had had on our bed when we were girls. I can still see it - even remembered the name of the pattern…”bow tie”. So I found some of those too. Then…I drug out “The Tote”. I have been hoarding fabric for more than a DECADE!!!! I actually took the time to go through the quilt tops I had stored from the trunk. There are 54 blocks total…and they are some of the god awful ugliest things I’ve ever seen in my life. However, that’s what makes these so special. They were made in the early sixties from material collected when my aunts were teenagers.
They say your first quilt should be a ‘sampler’ because it teaches you how to make nine to twelve blocks or twenty blocks as well as the various techniques used in quilting. As usual, I don’t do anything by the book. I’m having fun just figuring stuff out on my own. I could do this by reading books on quilting, and I may do that as I go forward. But it excites me to figure out how certain designs are accomplished and makes me feel all smarty pants when I see instructions and realize I was right….or even better, when it teaches me something I didn’t ‘know’. I do a lot of things like that. Just jump in without reading the instructions or directions and figuring out with my own brand of Zen, or maybe it’s osmosis, whatever, but this method of ‘hands on learning’ aggravates some people, but it's how I approach everything and it works for me.
I can’t wait to go through ALL my stored fabric and sort it out and see what I can come up with. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I have enough denim for blocks, borders and sashes.
I also have other fabrics, some silk, leather, and other materials…there’s no telling what treasure lies in those totes just waiting to be born. Here are some of the leftovers from the ‘neck buddy’ days:
These fabrics are more than twelve years old and I still find them gorgeous. I’m a jewel toned paisley kind of person, but I also like the simplicity of gingham as well as delicate florals so there is a lot of possibility in these pieces.
Can you tell I’m excited? I haven’t been this on fire since I learned to knit and then learned to spin fiber. Speaking of which, I need to start sorting out my time so I can pay attention to those projects as well. I still have fiber to spin into yarn which will most likely be sold, since knitting anything more complicated than garter stitch or simple knit and purl, and I start screwing it up. I’ve seriously considered getting some Adderall, to see if it will help me stay focused. I’m afraid of the strain on the heart valves though. So if I can figure out how to budget my time so that I can do all this stuff, I’d like to do that without drugs. I’ve even found an online quilting course for beginners! ‘Course I might be found curled up in the fetal position in a corner of the room one day just as likely.
And....at the bottom of the tote, in a plastic bag that I had never opened was this...
So...overnight, I can haz QUILTS!!! This is a fully assembled top, with a piece of newspaper backing one of the blocks from 1961...before I was even born. This is definitely a crazy quilt, no rhyme or reason on the fabrics, but all put together, they make a nice abstract design. Not my cuppa really, but I'm still tickled.
I have a feeling this is going to be one helluva an adventure.