Basting Baby

I am such a baby about basting. It's my least favorite part of the quilting process. I'm always feeling sorry for myself when I'm basting.

Can you guess what I did tonight?

I finished the top for my quilt with the reproduction fabrics, and would really like to quilt it, so I had to bite the bullet and baste the thing.

Overall, I'm still not crazy about the block in the very middle. It doesn't read very well in the photograph, but it works well enough close up. I always intended this to be a quilt for my couch, so I guess that's what matters.

And, the whole thing only took me an hour to baste. I timed it, so I could remind myself that it doesn't actually take that long to baste things the next time I start to feel sorry for myself.

Why did I only remember to take a photo after I'd folded it up?

I can't wait to get this thing quilted and move onto the next project. I'll post more about it in a few days, but I'm super excited to start. I only mention it because while I was writing this post tonight, I was scanning a few sketches that I plan to use for the next project, when somebody had to sit on the scanner. I'll give you three guesses as to who it was...

The trouble with prints...

I'm pretty into solids. I like working with them. I like thinking about how to make them interesting.

I'm generally not that into using printed fabrics. I like them, and I like seeing quilts made with prints, but I'm usually not inspired to create with them.

It's for a variety of reasons, and one of which is that I think it's more complicated to use printed fabrics. You don't just have to worry about matching a few colors to each other, it can turn into matching several colors in various intensities, as well as worrying about the interaction of the scale of the prints.

For me, it's like moving from 2-D to 3-D. It's a whole new level of stuff to worry about. I'm generally happy just to stick to the relative simplicity of solids!

The quilt I'm working on now was originally intended to be a solid color quilt.

I may still make the pattern out of solids, as I really like that look, but for now I am enjoying stretching myself by using prints.

It hasn't been smooth sailing though.

I find myself pretty dissatisfied with the block on the bottom. I really like both the prints that went into it, but they don't work together the way I want them to. The shapes are to similar in size, and the colors aren't different enough to really define the shapes in the block. The pattern is very clear in other combos, and it become almost unrecognizable in the bottom block.

I like the block on top though, quite a bit, even though I'm not a huge fan of the printed fabric on an individual level.

I think if I worked with prints more, it would get easier, or more natural to pick things that went well together. I'm not saying that I'll never work with prints again, but it will probably be awhile. I'm anxious to get back to solid fabric.

The block itself, came from a sketch I made, and then discarded for my sampler quilt, Hey Cherri.

This was the sketch.

It's the right-most sketch second from the bottom. Here it is in computer form.

A lot of the blocks for the sampler were explorations of repeating patterns, like taking 4-patch to a 16-patch, and others were explorations of what it was to combine various shapes. I'd had a snowball block, and a 4 patch snowball, and I wanted to see what else I could do with the snowball idea. Connecting two of them seemed like a good move.

(I also like the look of just half of the block, I think it looks like a skeleton key)

The connected snowball idea was to small for a 4 inch block, or rather it was to frustrating at the time. I tried it once, messed up my measurements and moved on. I didn't forget that block though, because I thought it had potential. Fooling around with it for awhile led to the quilt I'm working on now.

Disclaimer: While I did not reference any particular block that I had seen to create this block, it's a small world out there, and it is likely that someone, somewhere has made this too. I am in no way claiming that I invented this block, but gosh, wouldn't that be fun.

Yeah, about that...

When I was in China, I took a lot of pictures that I hope to use for quilt inspiration.

Pictures like this.

Those green square posts could make kind of a cool block, but...

And this is kind of a cool repeating pattern, but...

And this could be an interesting quilting pattern, but...

And I like this style of woodwork, it could translate into a block, but...

I like the colors here, but...

I mean, it's obvious at this point. They all have swastikas in them. Some are more apparent than others, but they are all there.

Now, I know that the symbol of the swastika has been around for a long time. For thousands of years, it was a symbol of good luck, and change, especially in Asia. It's not unusual to see a lot of swastikas in motifs around China.

It would be really poor taste for me to put these patterns in a quilt though. When your first introduction to the swastika is through Hitler, it's sort of over. I don't think I could ever be comfortable showing a quilt with anything resembling a swastika, no matter what my inspiration was. I don't know if there would be a point in the European/American future that it would be acceptable. I'm guessing it's not in my lifetime.

When you are working with geometric shapes, the swastika, or the shadow of it comes up more than I thought it would. I never knew that I would have a hobby where I would have to be vigilant that my own work didn't have swastikas in it.

For example, when I was brainstorming ideas for my sampler quilt, I showed a sketch for a block to my old roommate.

It looked like this:

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Corky, when you look at this, what do you see?
Corky: Um, I dunno, a pinwheel?
Me: (excited, thinking that I can get away with it) Oh really!? Just a pinwheel?
Corky: No. It's obviously a swastika.

I did a lot of research for that sampler quilt, and ran across that type of block again. It's called the "Crazy Ann". It looks like this.

And people still make quilts with this block! I mean, if you don't do it in black, it's not so obvious, and the block's origins are pre-WWII, but still, to me, it's an obvious swastika no matter what color it is.

Fortunately, I did get a lot of photos in China that I found inspiring that were swastika free.

And, at a flea market, I saw this guy.

Too bad I didn't have room in my suitcase!

Free Motion Weekend

 I've been doing some free motion quilting for the past few days, and it's been nice. I think I'm having fun with this particular layout because what I'm free motioning changes for every row.

I'm hoping that in the far off future, when this quilt is at an antique store (in this scenario, I probably died and was eaten by any and all cats I happened to have) that whoever buys it and blogs about it in their thought clouds (which I'm guessing is what future blogs will be called) will call this quilting "charmingly folksy", rather than "bumblingly crafted".

Don't get me wrong, I really like the way this is turning out, but oh man do my technical skills need some work. Up close there are some real messy bits, but luckily, the only person who knows or cares is me!

Dinner Party Weekend

If you didn't already know, I grew up on a vineyard. (Just to clarify, a vineyard is different than a winery. Wineries make wine, vineyards grow grapes. Many wineries have vineyards attached, but the terms aren't interchangeable. Our vineyard was grapes only.)

Not a bad view eh?

 My parents were friends with all sorts of wine folk, and they would have dinner parties almost every month. Sometimes that meant me and my brother had a babysitter, but sometimes the whole group would come to our house.

My mom and dad would get me a movie and stick me in their bedroom. I used to sneak out into the hallway and watch as my parents and their friends drank bottles of wine, and ate tons of food. There was always abundant laughter.

I always assumed that when I "Grew Up", that I would have dinner parties like that. In fact, when I moved into where I am living now, I bought a big table assuming that now that I was "Grown Up", that I would start having dinner parties just like my parents did.

That didn't really happen. I use that big table mainly for sewing, and I'm thankful that I have that space, even though it's not what I originally intended to do with it.

I mention all of this because it was my friend Chris's birthday this weekend, and we all went to his house for a New Orlean's style potluck. The food was amazing, there were baked beans, fried fish, cornbread, gumbo, mac and cheese and many more good things.

I realized that although I may not be having the dinner parties of my parent's day, I was having the same sort of social experience, just in a different form, which made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

I don't remember my parents using paper plates, but I do remember them washing a lot of dishes!

Leslie made an awesome multi-color cake. 

This is the second picture of Leslie and cake I've had this year.

All and all, it was a fun birthday party.

No birthday is complete without beer and Light Bright.

 It was Chris's 21st birthday, so here he is celebrating the very first taste of alcohol he's ever had in his life. At least, that's what I'm going to assume.

I'd be more excited about the fruit garnish than the drink, but that's just me.

This weekend I also got my Project Modern quilt basted, and have been having mixed feelings about it ever since. I've gotten to a point in the project where I can't really look at it objectively anymore. I was lucky that my friend Jennifer came over to help me baste it, and she offered that critical eye on the placement of the arrows that I really needed.

I'm not sure what the rules are on help with the quilt, but I'm assuming a little help with the basting is okay. It's nice to have that extra pair of hands when laying out and taping down the quilt.

Jennifer and I put in the safety pins, and then I came back and closed them with the Kwik Klip, which honestly made everything so much easier on my hands. It was a good purchase.

I basted the quilt in the meeting room at my building, and got this "in process" shot of Jennifer. I was teasing her that I would just claim it was me in the photo so no one would know that she helped me baste it, but she wasn't to pleased with that. Then we tried to come up with reasons that she would be in that pose that wasn't basting, and she suggested that I say that she was overcome with the beauty of the quilt that she sat quietly weeping beside it.

And honestly, I wasn't there, so I can't prove that isn't what happened.