...and the White Moon Among the Stars....
So I’ve been making quilt tops. I guess I should not say ‘quilting’ until I’ve actually put a quilt on a frame and started that process, which so far has not happened - but it will. The quilt frame is just awaiting cash. Soon baby, soon!
Anyway, I’ve paused in my own projects to do one for a friend by request. She wanted me to take her father’s old flannel shirts and make a snuggling quilt out of them. She even gave me another homemade ‘quilt-like’ item her mother/grandmother(?) made by attaching a fabric to some batting and straight line quilting it. She wants it to be that on one side and her dad’s flannel shirts on the other.
She brought me twenty shirts! She’s currently looking for her dad’s khaki pants because that is the border she wants on it. She wanted the pockets of four specific shirts as a focal in the middle, and I had to set them ‘on point’ to get them to look right, so there is a grouping of four pockets in the middle in diamond shape. Then I’ve taken the pockets from four other shirts and set them also on point in the corners of the quilt top. I’m presently stitching it up but here’s what it looked like on the design wall.
As you can see, it went pretty quickly. Honestly the most time consuming thing about this process is the design and cutting and redesign process. Sometimes what you conceptualize one way, has to change because it doesn’t work on the wall, and therefore not on the finished project. Luckily she doesn’t care so much what this LOOKS like, she’s more concerned with having her father’s energy wrapped around her. This was a lucky break because "flannel shirts" are not always flannel (sometimes they're summer weight) and not always easy to piece and sew. Add to that they are all different thicknesses, and well, there were some issues that she is not worried about, thank goodness. Instead of actually quilting this one, I'm going to be tie basting it. That means I will be using embroidery floss and tying knots at the corners (to be embellished with buttons from the shirts) of each block so that it stays together. No free motion quilting needed!
These pics show the progression, and it’s still in progress. I will post more as it gets done.
Meanwhile I have planned out a ‘series’ of quilts based on phrases from the “Charge of the Goddess”. The first quilt top, is the one I’ve already featured on LJ, but here's a pic of the finished top
I used the antique tile quilt block for this one, which is a very old, historical block, very easy to make and most of all, easy to calculate for yardage. We all know how math challenged I am! I’m learning tips and tricks to help with that problem through quilting though, which is just another awesome side effect of my foray into the fiber/fabric crafts.
So, the phrases I will be adapting as titles are from the Charge of the Star Goddess…which is to me the most beautiful of the prose compilation. Here is “The Beauty of the Green Earth”. This is the fabric collection I used for Beauty:
Hoffman California Fabrics' Bali Batiks 1895 Spearmint Collection. I have used FOUR sets, so that's about $200 not counting backing and background fabric and thread for this quilt.
Also planned are “The White Moon Among the Stars”, “The Mystery of the Waters”, “The Soul of Nature” and “The End of Desire”. There may be one or two more ruminating in there to be added later.
I ordered this the other day to help me get started with The Mystery of the Waters. It's Robert Kaufmann Fabric's Kona Fat Quaters in "Poseidon".
Not sure why I jumped over White Moon Among the Stars, but I think it has something to do with being in the sign of Cancer…even though it’s ruled by the Moon, it’s still a water sign and my love is a Pisces, so the water theme was strongly prominent. Add to that I’m having conceptual problems with the color scheme for White Moon Among the Stars which will require a Moon of some sort and I haven’t graduated to doing curves yet! But I know it will incorporate blues, silvers, whites and purples…
I’m using fat quarter collections because it’s easy to get them, though they can be expensive, but they all coordinate and work together so making quilt from them only takes finding the right pattern fabric to compliment them.
These are the ones I plan to use, in no particular order:
In the Beginning's Historia Avalon, Robert Kaufmann's Kona Quarters Blue Heaven, Greener Pastures and Purple People Eater. There are more of my fabric ponderings here: http://pinterest.com/ivorywitch/fabric-lines/ I haven't really decided yet on the block patterns for these others, I've just been merely mulling things around. As much as I loved that All Hallows block, I think I'd drive myself to the looney bin if I tried to make a quilt out of that block! I will find one that suits for each of these though, and I will have a selection of quilts appropriate to the season in my home as a result. That's my goal.
So, even though I've been somewhat distracted by the events detailed in the locked post about court, it is NOT affecting my life in any other way. Such people are mere footnotes in my life these days, and I like it that way.