Friday, July 11, 2008

Quilting, bag making, coloring on fabric

I can't believe I haven't made any notes in my blog for two weeks. I've posted a few flickr pictures, but I didn't take the time to jot down what I was doing or the results of my experiments with color on fabric.

Actually, in my mind, I've written many blogs the past two weeks, but they never made it to Blogger. Micah Bezy died two weeks ago, and much of my awake and sleeping hours have been filled with thoughts about Micah and his mother, my friend Margaret.


Tedious work, but paper outlines do the trick!
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.


I finished quilting and putting the shams together for Donna's quilt, and now I'm machine quilting the quilt itself.

It's beyond me to leave well enough alone and do traditional regular quilting. I just don't think I have the skill for it, but I'm determined to try it on the quilt after next.

(The next quilt in line is Nathan's quilt - and I am going to use lots of threads and maybe an overall scheme (picture) on it, and then I'm going to machine quilt a top Donna made several years ago. It's the latter one where I'll buckle down, get my focus fine tuned, and do a traditional, regular, quilt pattern. I need to learn how to do that!)

I have 18 full-size blocks to do for Donna's Mammy's Flower Garden quilt, arranged in three rows of four and two rows of three. For the "four's," I'm going to put in an overall design that doesn't emphasize the four points of the block. I have four of those done. For the "three's," I'm creating patterns where I can put four identical objects in a block, each pointed to the corner (these quilt blocks are on point, so the corners are the focal points). In the picture, I'm putting four clusters of grapes in the block. At this stage, I'm slowly sewing around my paper template, and then I'll fill in the detail next. No two blocks will have the same quilting pattern.

I found a picture of the bunch of grapes on the Internet, and I've found a few things in coloring books. Some of the designs, I just make up by doodling until something comes out right. The shapes have to be simple enough that I can get a definite outline from them. If the design is too complicated, I pass on it. I think I could actually sew over tissue paper, but the risk is always that some of the stitches will loosen up too much when you remove the paper. I could probably overcome that somehow, but I haven't spent too much time thinking about it yet.

My free-motion sewing isn't really all that great, but when a block is finished, I like the total effect. With practice, it gets better, but I've come to the conclusion that practice will last the rest of my life.

When I was a child in elementary school, I used to beg off staying for church on Sunday, and I would come home and thread up Mom's sewing machine and sew. I would clean up before she came home so she wouldn't know because I wasn't supposed to use her machine unless she was there. Not only that, the saying was that if you sewed on Sunday, you had to rip out all the stitches before you died. Ah, I haven't thought about that for a long time!

Sewing fascinated me as a child, and at this stage of my life, it fascinates me again. I can't believe the hours I can spend at my machines, and I can't believe how fascinated I am by the things you can do. We never dreamed of anything like this when I was young. It was buy a pattern, cut out the fabric, and follow the directions - at least most of the time! Mom was creative, though, and she made a few things for me for which she had no pattern. My favorite was a lavender dotted Swiss dress which buttoned down the front, and it had tons and tons of small pleats in the skirt. She received so many compliments for that one, and she deserved them all.

My fascination:

Soft pastels on fabric - pre-wash
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.


I'm experimenting with coloring on fabric, which is fun. But I started free-motion embroidering the colored swatches along the way, and I stayed up several nights this past week turning the dial on my Sears machine, using another stitch, and sewing all over the piece I'd colored. This piece, using mostly (if not all) straight stitch, is my favorite, but I used zig zag, the hemming stitch (oh, I love that), and the few decorative stitches I have on this machine on other pieces I made. By putting the feed dogs down, the traction and movement is all mine, and I see the most fun stuff coming from those stitches. Just can't believe it.

The Crayola colors fade only a little when put in the washer. I tried oil pastels, but most of that washed out. I may try them again and put the color in heavier. A surprise was when I used soft pastels (in the picture above), which is essentially colored chalk. I rubbed the color in before I did the vinegar rinse, and I was surprised at how much color stayed when I washed the piece in the washer. I don't have a picture of the post-washer version yet. I'm putting all these pieces into the bags I'm making for the Lydia project, and I'll photo the final version when they're finished.

The last couple of days, I incorporated the colored swatches into the outside shells for bags - seven of them so far, and I stitched out about a dozen patriotic images (using my Bernina) from free designs I downloaded from Ann the Gran, and I'll incorporate them into bags when I turn to them again next week.

Today, I'm taking a break from bags so I can move on with Donna's quilt. I need to change projects every few days because my head gets buzzy and I don't see the project as clearly as I'd like.

There! I've caught up with noting where I am so I'll remember later. Back to sewing!







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