the joy of being useful

Here they are, fresh from the dryer, all warm and nicely cobbled from the experience.



To me there is nothing quite as satisfying as completing a project that is useful, well made and fun to look at. Some little person is going to drag one of these two blankies around with them as long as they can get away with it. It will give warmth and comfort for many  years.

In my present frame of mind, all other studio activity seems self-indulgent and rather pointless.  These two will be for sale and I have another started that will be donated to the Red Cross hurricane relief.

I sent two quilts to Japan last year. I figure I owe NY at least the same effort.

enough digression

and monkey business, I have three large pieces in varying stages of completion and need to come back from fooling around.

two of the three are troubling me and and I don't want to rush into the home stretch on the third.  All this futzing around with blankies and obtuse techniques..I know what's really going on - stonewalling with the works in progress is all.

spectacle

Staggering around the internet yesterday I came across the blog of Sheila Frampton Cooper with great images the quilt festival in  Houston. One of the winners in particular slayed me - "ElaTED" by Ted Storm. I remember a similar fascination with another one of her quilts, "Nocturnal Garden".

Then this blog post at Wonkyworld came into my radar and I finally did some research on "broderie perse"

Are you shocked that I would be absorbed by something so traditional? I have always loved chintz-the colors, the gloss, they all appeal to the Magpie brain.

The technique of clipping elements out of the whole cloth and reorganizing them to my own satisfaction and all that obsessively tiny stitching has grabbed me by the tiny attention span. I watched the video four times and still cannot get the buttonhole stitch..maybe if I watched it in the mirror.

I found a half napkin with my embroidered initials in the scrap basket. The reverse applique Easter eggs were raided from another UFO and the cranes clipped out of a scrap of chintz gifted to me some time ago..there were only about four whole birds left because I've been using up wings on other things. It's my day off and all I wanted to do was a little hand stitching.

wicked commerce

Sat down at big J this morning to get this top wrapped up into what I call a Kindergarten quilt..bigger than a baby blanket, smaller than a twin.  It was pure fun to free piece the top which has both commercial and hand dyed cottons, no vintage in this one. It's backed with a wonderful commercial print of dancing blue waters and I used one of the IKEA fleece as batting.

The design is a little wonky - at the last minute I wanted some length and added on that keyboard looking business, kinda like a counterpane (she tells herself). Waste nothing!

For about thirty seconds I thought about hand quilting it...then I remembered who I am making these for and why. These quilts have to take the licking, get washed, dried, and keep on kicking - and they do just that when I machine quilt them! I'll post this one for sale in the store for a while and then off it will go to NY when I get the word that the venue is back up and running after Sandy.

the (better) lost week

I know it's the worst kind of sin to wish away ones  days but this week has been so hard on everyone in so many ways.

 I would shout TGIF from the rooftops except that I have to work this weekend but just reminded myself that the weekend clients can be quite entertaining and I can further amuse myself by practicing my Downton Abbey accent on them with an effort to pare down the snobbery case by case. Yeah, I watched a few episodes and I'm hooked hard.

I have busied myself with this little gem of a crib quilt constructed from a tiny fraction of the commercial batik fat quarters I was recently blessed with. So much cloth! So little time!  There's a little more machine quilting to go here and then into the washer and dryer with it to get the full effect of how it will be when it's gifted away.

On the shopkeeper front, it's restocking time.

I've packed up half a dozen baggies with very small pieces culled from this huge pile of hand dyed treasures. Read more about Bites over at Random Acts of Dyeness.