Leftovers from Leftover UFO's

In my previous post, I described a Tablet cover I made, using an old UFO. I was looking for ideas on how I could use the rest of this UFO, knowing I would never use it for any wallhanging. I was inspired by the work of many artists in the Art Quilt World, to make ATC's, or Artist Trading Cards. These are postcard sized quilted items, painted, beaded, or otherwise embellished to suit the artist.

Out came my cutting board, ruler, and rotary cutter. I cut as many 4x6" cards as I could get from my leftover piece, and cut the rest into Inchies, which are tiny versions of the ATC's. Mine are a little bigger, almost 2x2", but I still call them Inchies. Then I set about finishing them up.

The first step was to do a quick zigzag stitch around the edges. Nothing fancy here. Just getting the edges closed. Then I trimmed all the loose threads with scissors. Just cleaning up the edges.

Step two was to complete the finishing on the edges. On one card, I used a close zigzag with rayon thread. I've never liked this method. I can never get it to look as beautiful as I want, so I moved on to my favourite method, which is to zigzag yarns around

the edge. I thread matched the yarn, and used a grooved foot in

my machine to control the yarn along the edges. I found a better foot in my box of accessories, with more grooves, and an open toe, worked like a charm. I finished the Inchies the same way.

Then I used this same foot, and other yarn to race across the cards, adding dimension. Beads followed soon after, and the cards were nearly complete. My favourite card turned out to be the one for which I added three Inchies, shown at left.

Cold November Rain

Ok, so it's not that cold for November here, it's actually fairly mild (11C), but raining all day today. Yesterday was sunny and also warm, so we put up our Christmas lights out in front of the house. I am old school in using energy hogging incandescent lights, instead of the new led ones, because I like the way they look. I put a giant string on the boulevard tree which pretty much lights up the whole street! Being the eco nut that I am, we also put everything on a timer so they go on at 7:00pm when the hydro rates drop in half. We have one of those lit up deer that I especially like.

This rain today is perfect for sewing. I've been working on some Christmas stuff, that I can't disclose for a little while. But I can say that last year I made a bunch of table runners out of Christmas fabric. I was pulling out Christmas stuff from boxes, and there they were. In my usual fashion, I only ran a few straight lines in for the quilting stitches.

I must say that being in Houston with Cindy and Leanne open my eyes about those quilting stitches. Leanne has a long arm quilting machine, so I was able to see quilting through her eyes. We all saw so clearly, that it is the image or pattern or colour on a quilt top that draws us in, and then we would all see the quilting stitching when we looked closer. We all really enjoyed looking very closely at all the different types of stitches, and all resolved to get better at that part of our quilting.

So when I saw these table runners, they looked nearly naked! And I decided to lay down some free motion quilting stitching. It came pretty easily, actually. It was good practice. Mostly, I followed the lines in the print, and added some infill around the buildings and gingerbread people. This is just the first one, I may be doing the rest as well. Maybe not this year! There are a lot of things to do, all of a sudden.

Laptop Case

I decided before I went to Houston, that I wanted to take my laptop with me. Heavy, doesn't fit in my backpack, but it might be useful for looking up stuff in the hotel at night. It's fairly new, and I hadn't yet acquired a case for it. I had in mind a zippered colourful neoprene thing. That's what I had in mind. What I ended up with is colourful all right, but not zippered, not neoprene!  I looked around the house for another UFO I knew was somewhere. . . I found this.

I had this quilted piece around, one of the first things I made, before I knew anything about quilting.  Looking at it now, I didn't know how to do bindings or applique. It all seems pretty unorthadox now, but I really like the colours, and the second chakra design I worked with at the time.  And I didn't have much stash to work with!  My stash has improved immensely by now, and I probably wouldn't have stuck that turquoise on it.

Anyway, it didn't have any quilting on it, so I did some quick free-motion work to it, joined the corners together, added some velcro for a closure, and voila:  a brand new laptop case. And it makes good use of an old piece that wasn't seeing any action before.

Thinking of Applique

My knee's been bothering me lately, and I thought it might be serious, like a torn ligament, requiring surgery. So I went yesterday to see my oseopath, who easily fixed it up. I go back in a couple of weeks for another treatment. So I'm feeling a lot better than I have been. And I don't have to be so careful on stairs! Isn't that nice?

Must've been some treatment, because I came home with a big realization. My applique project had reached a bit of a stall, because I couldn't figure out how to get my sketches into patterns and cut out for handsewing. Yesterday, I did some searching on the internet, where you can find out almost anything, and now I finally know how I'm going to progress.

Basically, I have to trace my paper patterns onto freezer paper, then iron these pieces to fabric and cut them out. Sounds simple enough, I just hadn't thought of it before. So now, I have to get to work tracing. This seems like a waste of time to me. If I had known this before, I would have worked up my patterns directly onto freezer paper. Oh, well, live and learn.

I still haven't chosen fabrics for this project, either. Yes, I have the background all cut out, but not the applique fabrics. I might do this on Saturday. Oh wait, I'll be picking blueberries on Saturday!

I'm also a little bummed out at how long all this takes. I think it could be several years before I see these finished blocks sewn together. Then there's quilting and finishing, too. I'll have to focus on my "a little every day" thought.

Road Trip

Two of my sisters were in the area for the weekend, one from Alberta, and one from Ottawa, along with a niece from Korea whose blogs here. So I went to visit with all of them, at the home of another niece in Toronto, along with her very adorable baby. It's great to spend some time with these women in the family.

What a perfect opportunity, I thought, to drive to a quilt store which also happens to be in Toronto. The Sew Sisters started selling fabric online out of their home, and have now moved into a nice retail spot. I've seen them selling their stuff at various quilt shows, and promised myself that I would get to their store when I had a chance. Surprisingly, there aren't a huge number of quilt stores in the big smoke. You're much more likely to run into a quilt store in any number of small towns in Southern Ontario, which is always also good for a road trip.

Of course, I bought some fat quarters, but didn't spend a huge amount of money. I've been collecting pale creamy colours for a project that is still in my imagination. I still need more, and in my typical fashion, I won't start cutting out the quilt until I have 30 or 40 different fabrics. Besides, I'm still in the starting stages of my other quilt, so the last thing I need right now is to start another quilt! When I'm ready, though, at least I'll have all the fabric I need.

And there is a delightful change from my usual raspberries. My friends have been scoping out blueberries for me. They were in the Muskoka area and picked up an 11 quart basket of yum. Not cheap for these wild ones, but they will survive in the freezer and taste delicious in the winter. I might still go picking, but it'll have to be the cultured ones.

Title Quilts

So, the two quilts you see in the title frame are made by myself, of course. The top one is made all from denim patches, each block about 5". Many many blocks, many many pieces, many many hours in the making! I had this one machine quilted at a local shop, Creative Sisters. It's such a big quilt, I didn't think I could quilt it on my home machine. I love the way it worked out.

The lower one in the photo is another one with a lot of piecing. It is all plaids, sorted into blues and reds, 16 patches, separated with a skinny navy sashing. I was crazy enough to start hand quilting, and had to finish it that way. It took years, but I recently finished it, and am happy to see it done. I love the way this quilt looks, too.

I am very good at cutting and piecing, once I get rolling. Finishing a quilt, not so good. I have a number of finished quilt tops ready for action, but they are not seeing much action. So I was quite happy to have not one, but two, full sized quilts completely finished this year.