Pictoral Quilt: "Flowering Desert"

In an effort to expand my horizons, I enrolled in a Craftsy.com class called Pictorial Quilts by Wendy Butler Burns. HERE is a sample of stuff the other students have done.

This involved piecing different fabrics together in a way I had never done before. It was kind of odd, but I dug it. I also learned a little tip from her class that has helped me with other pictorial quilts: Masking tape can be used to hold things together while you iron the fusible interfacing. This is quite handy when it comes to larger, complicated projects. I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of it...I would have guessed that the tape would melt. Viva the internet!

The picture of the cone flower was a template that came with the class. But I decided that I wanted to stretch out a little bit (remember how I am about following patterns...) and so I added some free-motion quilting and some fabric paint to add texture and depth. This was the first time I used paint in my quilts and represents another turning point in my crafty head. It's a lot of fun to merge free-motion quilting for texture and the paint as a way to highlight and add some zing.

Pocket Monsters

Misha is a thrifty type, and she would often get her fabric by buying old shirts at Value Village and the like. Because she's extra-thrifty, she saved the pockets from these shirts and even ironed and starched them. Then I came along and decided I would find something to do with the pockets, and Pocket Monsters were born.

 

I only wound up doing three in the series before I moved on to something else, but I think they're pretty cute. All of the pockets are still functional, and the idea was that they would be something to use in place of envelopes, small gift boxes, or birthday cards. You could stick a note, money, jewelry, candy...whatever...in them.

 

I've never liked store bought cards. I find them to be an obligation of sorts, with no real originality to them, and they are rarely kept. Even rarer to see one displayed beyond the obligatory "Christmas cards on the mantle" season. So these were my answer to that. I'll probably revisit them at some time since I still have a gazillion pockets, but for now this is what I have. I'll start with my favorite; "Vincent":

 

Har, har. Get it?

 

Full view.

 

"Monocle"

 

"Lucci"

 



Random stuph

Now we come to the odds and ends of my stuff. None of these are anything I care much about but I wanted to get them included here in case my computer $h!ts the bed.

I needed a quilt, STAT, so I whipped this up out of scraps. I feel kind of "meh" about it.

Large wall hanging I made to cover a hole in the wall.

 Trying to follow premade lines with free motion quilting.

Scrappy Runner

Fooling around with free motion quilting

Door mat/Floor quilt

Table runner

Uhg. I don't even want to talk about this one.

 

 

Cuttlefish

 



Another piece done for Eric. He's always had a fondness for cuttlefish, but they seem to be under-represented in the art world. The octopus and the squid seem to get all of the lovin's. Too bad, because they are pretty fascinating creatures.

So once again, I plead ignorance of applique when I did this. I didn't follow a pattern, I just made it up as I went along. I used embroidery floss for the tentacles of the jelly fish, and blanket stitching all around everything. I didn't even know what fusible interfacing was yet at this point. All things considered, it turned out well.

"Grasping Hands"

My friend Misha made a quilt for her guy, and a gigantic version of this was part of it. I was pretty enamoured by it, so I decided to once again follow a pattern to see what I could do. I loved it. But not enough to do it again any time soon. Have I mentioned that I really hate following patterns and precise measurements?

The top pic shows some of the free motion quilting that was done on it, but this picture shows the true color of the quilt. Sort of. It's a Snail Trail quilt, but I call it "Grasping Hands."

Different Strokes

I mentioned in my first post that a friend of the family turned me on to quilting when I was just a teenager. She made me realize that I didn't have to follow any rules, and I'll be forever grateful for that. But it's interesting how many people don't take fabric creations seriously when considering whether or not something is art or whether or not someone is an artist.

 

Quite honestly, that pisses me off. While I have met more artists that are generous of spirit than not, I still have encountered some that like to be too pretentious for my taste. These are generally the types that will poo-poo anything that isn't done on canvas.

 

While feeling indignant about that, I did this:

 

Not sure how well the pic shows it, but that brown thing up in the corner is a paint brush, with embroidery floss as the bristles of the brush. A fabric paint brush painting fabric strokes.

This was, again, before I knew anything meaningful about applique, so it's a little rough. Usually, once I'm done with a project, I don't revisit it. Every pattern or piece is done once, period. This may be the exception to that rule, though. I like the statement it makes and I want to make it a little stronger now that my skills are a little more advanced.

Fabric Post Cards

 

Since my last few projects were large scale, I decided to go small. I like doing tiny things sometimes because you get the satisfaction of a finished project more frequently. And I admit to a kind of quilting ADD; I have to change things up every once in awhile or I get bored.

 

I'm not sure how I discovered fabric post cards, but they seemed like a fun little thing to do, and they were. The one above is my favorite. I would do it differently now, as I know a lot more about applique than I did then, but I really like how it turned out.

 

Here are a few others I did, none of which I like very much but will post here for posterity. I did send one, and it made it through the USPS unscathed.

It was Valentine's Day. What can I say?

 

 

Frog on Lotus

I call this one "Allergen." Used embroidery floss for whiskers.

 

An example of the backs of the postcards.

 

 

 



 

 

 

Some people use fabric for the backs of the post card as well, but after experimentation, I decided that using cardstock was better. It stabilizes the whole card and probably makes it easier to stand up to the rigors of the USPS as well. And when you quilt on it, your needle makes a satisfying popping sound. It's the little things that make me happy. 

 

Life Changes: "Mental State" quilt

When you have a powerful moment in life, certain things take on a kind of symbolism. At the time of my breakdown, I was in the process of making a quilt for Beelzebub my boyfriend at the time. When the breakdown hit, I purged myself of many things, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the fabric for this quilt, even though looking at it caused all sorts of anguish. So I boxed it up with the thought that I would know I had moved past that miserable part of my life when I was finally able to make the quilt and use it, without it causing me any painful flashbacks.

Mission f-ing accomplished!

 

I can't remember exactly how long it took me before I was able to tackle this quilt. Not nearly as long as I would have thought...a few months, maybe? By the time this quilt was started, I had met my current fiance, Jamie, and this fabric had lost its mystical power. In fact, it didn't bother me at all. I had a sense of wonder at the healing capabilities of the mind. Just a few months before, I wasn't sure I was going to live through my breakdown, and suddenly I was in a better place than I had ever been before. Funny, life is.

 

This pattern was just something I made up. By this point, I was sick of following patterns so I took the fabric and just played around with it. I'm sure this pattern exists elsewhere, but I didn't base it on anything. I just goofed around. I really like how it turned out.

 

I called it "Mental State" for obvious reasons, and it's not lost on me that it's got a few holes in it now. But it's still functional and useful and it still keeps me and Jamie nice and toasty on a chilly winter's day. I'll call that one hell of a win!

Life Changes: "Trinity" quilt

So now we come to the big upheaval in my life.

Without going into too much detail, I had what would have been called a "nervous breakdown" in the olden days. It was easily the most traumatic part of my life, and I still haven't figured out what the hell happened.

However, this breakdown slammed the door shut on one part of my life, and opened the one to where I (happily) am now. My own little closet door to Narnia. The mental anguish wound up giving me the courage to make a change I had wanted to make for 18 years: I wanted to move home.

So after 18 years of living on Cape Cod, I finally got the balls to relocate. They say you can never go home again, but whoever says that is obviously not from St. Louis. The city and my old friends welcomed me back with open arms and it was more healing than any medication could have been. I am now exactly where I want to be:

But I digress. A couple of years before my breakdown, I had started a quilt for one of my best friends, Eric. I wanted to try a log cabin quilt because they seemed like they would be fun, given all the variations you can make with the same blocks.

This quilt seemed cursed, however. The monotony of it got to me. To make a log cabin quilt, you become your own little assembly line and I grew tired of doing the same thing over and over again. So after I made about nine 12" squares, I put them on a quilting rack and decided to take a break.

During that break, I got sick enough to warrant the use of a thermometer. I still had one of the old mercury thermometers and kept it, stupidly, in an old coffee mug that happened to be sitting by a window. When I'm sick, I like fresh air. All the fresh air of one of the famous Cape Cod wind storms blew the curtains, which knocked over the mug and broke the thermometer, spilling mercury onto the floor and...you guessed it, onto the quilt squares.

Since I value Eric as a friend and had no desire to poison him with my quilt (although what an interesting concept! A quilt as the murder weapon!), I had to hazmat the quilt squares. As luck would have it, I still had three squares at the quilting table that I hadn't completed yet. These I salvaged, and they were boxed up and moved to St. Louis with me (along with some other fabric that has a story to be told on the next post.).

Fast forward to me being back in St. Louis and reconnecting with a long lost BFF, Misha. We had fallen out of touch over the years, but instantly ignited our friendship upon my return. As serendipity would have it, Misha had developed a love of quilting during our break, as had I, and she got me away from hand-tying my quilts and taught me free motion machine quilting.

This was a turning point in my crafty little world. As with everything I become interested in, I plowed head first into it. Wonderful, trusting woman that she is, Misha gave me a queen-sized quilt she had put together to practice free-motion quilting on. I'm still amazed that she did that. I could have seriously screwed it up. But she's enormously cool that way, and as it turns out, I wasn't so shabby.

Free motion quilting, for those who don't know, is simply drawing with a sewing machine and thread. Basically, it's like you are moving the paper instead of the pencil. Takes some getting used to, but incredibly cool once you get the hang of it.

Since my brain was still tender from the beating it took during the breakdown, I found the free motion quilting to be wonderfully soothing. After finishing Misha's quilt, I felt ready to get started on finishing Eric's.

My breakdown was hard on Eric, I think. I was living with him at the time, and what happened to my head had some nasty ramifications on his life, as well. He was incredibly supportive and understanding to an extent that I still can't believe. So I wanted his quilt to be wonderful. I wound up putting an enormous amount of time and care into it. More so than any quilt I've done before or since. I call it "Trinity."

 Used clear thread here. Basically fishing line. Very fractious stuff!

 

 

 

 

Reverse side

 

Eric has his quilt now and he seems to like it. However, the demon dog, Fizz, decided to chew a couple of holes in it. You'd think I'd mind after all the work I put into it, but quilts get their personality from things like this. I patched it up for him as best I could. Someday, when Fizz is gone, he'll look at those patches and miss her instead of wanting to kill her:

 

Fizz-tastic

 



Tote Bags

Beth contacted me about a pattern she had gotten from a friend to make tote bags. After my critter hiatus, I was ready to get back into functional fabric and I had scrap squares, so I gave it a go.

They seemed easy enough, and they were, but following a pattern has never been my strong suit and I messed up a few times, especially where the straps were concerned. I hate ripping seams, but I got a lot of practice when doing bags.

No fun little stories to report about the bags, except to say that the first thing I ever sold was a bag. It was actually the one I put the least amount of work into, but the fabric was music notes and some band geek (I say that affectionately) must have snagged it. Okay, that's not really a fun story, so how about this: Last night I found myself wishing that I looked younger. This morning I woke up with 4 pimples. Funny, Universe. I see what you did there.

If you do try to make these, I strongly encourage you to reinforce the straps with at least three lines of stitches. That's the weak spot, but once you take care of that these things will hold much more weight than you would imagine.  Also, machine washable so you can carry, oh, say, transplanted irises in them. Versatile!

I made many a bag since I got the pattern. Quick to make, and easy to customize. I scaled down the pattern and made purses, too. Sadly, I don't have many pics of the bags that I made. Guess I didn't take them seriously enough to record them. Too bad, too, because some of them rocked.



 

 

 

 

The Critters: Ugly-ish Dolls

So it didn't take me long to want to branch out and see what else I could do with fabric. At this point in my life, Ugly Dolls had come to my attention. These guys:

 

They were awesome and creative and I really wanted one. But they were just shy of a billion dollars. So after examining their bits and parts at a local store, I realized that they didn't seem that complicated. They really aren't that complicated. Why they charge so much for them, I do not know.

So I set out to make some furry monsters myself. They were pretty easy to do. I goofed around on Youtube for awhile until I had seen enough tutorials that I felt I could give it a go.


Here's the result:



Mona and Humbert

 



 

I had a blast making these little guys. They were created quite quickly. They're clearly a first attempt, but I was smiling while making them, so yay!

So, yeah. Humbert and Mona were born. Humbert was the first born and my favorite. I wound up taking him into various situations and posted about his travels. If you're feeling like seeing what sort of oddness I can get up to, click HERE and you should be able to see Humbert's album. This is a Facebook album and I think this particular one is set to public, so if you can't see it, let me know in the comments and I'll fix that for you.

Unfortunately for me, the thrill wore off after a short while. I tend to love stuffed animals for a few days and then they bore me. I don't know why. They collect dust and I really don't play with them anymore, so I decided to "rehome" them. Mona went to live with an ex-boyfriend and Humbert is still living with one of my best friends, Eric, and I get to visit him on a regular basis.

Anyone interested in trying to make these guys really should give it a go. You draw one side of the monster you want (start simply, no tentacles or anything), make two copies of the pattern you drew, trace the patterns on fabric, sew the two pieces together, stuff their guts into them, and embellish however you like. Fun gifts for people if they're into this sort of thing. Wouldn't suggest them for tiny humans, though. Choking hazard and all that.

Oh, I did do another monster off of the pattern I still had for Mona; this one is a love-sick male named Geoffrey. Note: All monsters must have pretentious names or pretentious spellings. It's some kind of rule, I'm sure of it.

Geoffrey

 

I never really got attached to him, so I wound up selling him at a garage sale. He was just kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did use "furry" fabric for him and it wasn't that great to work with. Very slippery and he shed a lot. 

Rag Quilt: Quilt #4

 

Oh how I hate this quilt. I have never hated a quilt before, or since, but I really hated this one.

 

Originally, it was going to be a gift for my parents. A handmade, flannel lap quilt for Christmas! What a great idea, right? So soft...so cozy...and how hard can they be?

Well for starters, this has three layers of flannel. What was I thinking? I was thinking "softness" but I was clearly soft in the head for attempting this. Using three layers of flannel means that there is flannel "dust" EVERYWHERE. Also, it's thick, unrelenting, wiggly fabric and trying to jam all of those layers together when piecing was an exercise in major frustration and machine rebellion. Remember that when you fold them together to attach two blocks together, you are actually sewing through six layers of flannel. Six! Cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze! Jam, snap, curse!

Once you have finally ruined a million needles and your machine's motor (I had a crap machine then), you still have to snip every bit of exposed fabric into fringe. This. Takes. A. Long. Time. And it hurts. I purchased special scissors for the job...they're spring loaded with small blades, and that did help...but still. Eek and ow. And since the first baby quilt I did only took me an evening...I waited until Christmas Eve to begin. To BEGIN! I was insane.

So I worked like a crazy person all night long and still wasn't able to finish it. I was able to destroy my room, however. I was sewing in my bedroom then and didn't have a designated sewing room, so you can just imagine the fluff and threads and fabric shrapnel that were everywhere. It was ungodly. I hate this quilt.

So I finally admitted defeat and groggily went to bed with the quilt unfinished. I told the 'rents that it wasn't done and that I would get it to them that week. I never did. I couldn't face it. I burnt myself out. This is the only quilt that I never finished once I began it.

Had I finished it...I'm sure it would have been VERY cozy. So any sadist out there who wants to make me one, I will take it with gratitude and respect for the work and insanity involved. Just don't ever ask me to make you one. I don't love anyone that much. ;)

I Spy Quilt; Quilt #3

A friend of mine was pregnant at just about the right time: I was looking for another quilt idea to try out. Beth had told me about something called an I Spy Quilt: It's a baby quilt, and the idea is that you cut out various novelty fabrics that would be something you could ask the spawn to find, like the car game you probably played when you were a kid: "I Spy with my little eye...a lamb!" and then the wee one searches for the square containing the lamb. This particular quilt does have a lamb, but it also has a Dobro as I come from a musical family and couldn't help myself.

I've since seen many variations on I Spy Quilts, and many of them don't seem to use the window-pane style that I used...in other words, they didn't use borders between the squares. I don't like that as much as it seems like too much color and loudness. Like this one for an example:

 

 

 

 

It's not that this isn't a nice quilt, I just personally feel like it would stress me out if I were a kid that had to sleep with all that chaos. The separations I used in this quilt helped with my weird need for organization, and I feel it helps all of the different colors work better together. You do want to avoid putting all of the dark squares on one side though...mix them  throughout the quilt or you'll get an unbalanced look.

The fun parts about making an I Spy Baby Quilt:

• Finding all of the different fabrics. You generally want to stay away from anything too complicated, considering these are made for tiny humans.
• The small size. I honestly finished this one Sat night. I stayed up too late to finish it, but still.
• Because of the small size of the quilt, I was able to avoid binding the quilt and was able to just do the whole "inside-out" thingy.  Note: You'll notice on this blog that I often forget or don't use the technical terms. I have no idea who my audience for this blog may be (if anyone) so if I write about something that needs clarification (like the "inside-out thingy"), just ask in the comments and I'll try to be a little less nutty in my descriptions.
• You can almost guarantee that this quilt will be used if it is given as a gift (even if they hate it). Parents of babies and small children almost always find themselves needing extra blankets. So if you're of a practical mind...there you go. Problem of baby showers solved.
• Cheap to make! Especially after you buy the fabric to make one...save the left overs. These were only 4" squares and years later I still have more than enough to make more baby quilts. Unfortunately, most of my friends have stopped breeding. Oh well. Eventually I'll have a grand kid. ;)

Quilt #2: "Trail of Roses"

 

So here's my second quilt. This guy is a large lap quilt; an Irish chain. I was wanting a more advanced pattern than my last one, so Beth suggested this one. I liked how complicated it seemed and how easy it wound up being. I always appreciate something that seems like I huffed and puffed over it when in reality, I watched many episodes of House, M.D. while doing it.

On this quilt, I learned how to fold over the backing (flannel) and use that as the binding. I then hand stitched it on the front of the quilt. A pretty time-saving technique, but it didn't wind up being as sturdy as the traditional method of cutting strips for the binding. Other than that, this puppy has stood up to time and abuse. I still use it frequently, and I am pretty hard on my functional quilts. What can I say? I have a dog and I'm kind of absent-minded. ;^)

In the Beginning; First quilt

So here it is. The one that started it all. This is my very first quilt, a full-sized, hand tied basic quilt made for my son. This is the only picture that I have of it and the quilt itself is now a little less photogenic.The colors aren't that true in the pic, but they are a rich brown, a blue and a green of a similar tone. I wanted to choose "boyish" colors, but the truth is, I've always been attracted to earth tones, anyway.

I chose a white flannel for the backing since I love the feel of flannel on my skin and I also love my kid, so there was no alternative. For similar, if less logical, reasons, I chose Warm and Natural Batting. Much more expensive, but it seemed to be a blanket in its own right, soft and warm and sturdy. Exactly what I would want for a quilt made for my kid. It is still my batting of choice. I always take time to smooth some against my skin when I first lay it out, even now.

A friend of mine, Beth, walked me through the quilting process. I think she was a little overwhelmed with my intensity...I was often ready for the next step way faster than she was expecting. She tried to get me to slow down, but once I started, I didn't really know how to stop. That's true today...if a project I enjoy is in the works, it's really hard for me to rest until it's done.

As I said, this quilt was hand-tied. I didn't learn about free-motion stitching until much later, and this kept my hands and mind full for awhile. I learned how cut with a rotary cutter, to piece strips and blocks, how to match blocks, how to hand bind a quilt, how to follow a pattern...all of the basics that seemed so difficult then and so tedious to me now.

So that's all there really is to tell about this quilt. My son loved it. I loved it. It's filthy with mistakes, but all the more valuable to me because of them. I never named this quilt, but I guess I could call it "Parenthood" for those same reasons.

Copperhead

I wish I could blog on fabric. It would be SO much easier. Sigh.

The goal of this blog is to find a way to showcase the fabric art that I create. This is a test post to try to figure out what the hell I'm doing.

 

 

This is me. Well, this is me when I was 25. I call this piece "Copperhead" and I am not quite finished with it yet. Full details about it will arrive when I get the hang of this blog.