Done, done, and done!

Done, ...

Whoo, baby! The project I'd been SO close to completing before/for the Australia trip is finally done and on the wall!!

This was a challenge wuh* I'd "completed" for the Rio Grande Valley Quilt Guild Challenge and show in 2002. The challenge fabric can be seen in the butterfly wings. The other element of the challenge was to use the "Flying Geese" pattern/block. The only quilting done on it was in the wings of the captive butterflies, and a tiny meander in the free butterfly's journey. All of that was done with metallic thread (I look at it now and wonder, "What was I thinking?" and "How on earth did I manage to do it so well?!?")

*short for "wallhanging", in honor of a certain Magpie who canNOT bring herself to say that word or create that item.

The only thing it really needed was more quilting in the body of the quilt, and a sleeve for hanging. I popped it onto my new-to-me quilting frame and free-motion-quilted a larger meander over all the rest of the piece. Going back and doing more quilting, on a frame, on a finished and bound piece can be a challenge in itself, but my Brother Quilt Club 1300 ("Sister") loves her new 'long-arm' status and quilts whatever I put on the frame with little to no problems or arguments. (Some long-arm quilters claim their machines are "thread snobs". I refer to Sister as a "thread whore"--she's yet to meet a thread she doesn't like!)



I like my stuff to be easily maintained, so before committing this piece to a permanent place on the wall, I threw it into the washer and dryer. In the 12 years it's been languishing in my project drawers, I'd managed to forget what I had used for the captive butterfly bodies: glitter glue. When I pulled the clean and dry wallhanging out of the dryer, all the butterflies were bodiless! The glitter glue, in the meantime, was spread on everything else I had thrown into the load: my bathrobe, a nightgown I was using in another project (later in this post) and even some (unwanted) sections of this wallhanging. What a mess.

After resigning myself to having nothing to add to the "Finished Projects" pot in Perth, I decided that interesting beads would make a nice alternative to more glitter glue (which I had no more of anyway, and wasn't about to go out and buy some), and give me something to search for at the Perth Craft Show. I love attending shows and visiting the vendors with a goal in mind. I found a hank of delightful and unique oblong beads which worked perfectly. I used the (very slippery) cord/thread that the beads were strung onto to sew them onto the wallhanging, knotting the thread in the back and then securing the knot with a dab of clear fingernail polish.

Zoe was a huge help through this process--not a single butterfly flew away under her watch!







So here's the final project, complete and hanging as of 21 June 2014. Happy Summer Solstice!

Done, done, ...

Last April (2013) the mother of a friend passed away, so I offered to make a quilt out of anything Pam chose to give me of Helen's clothing. Pam gave me a big plastic bag of Helen's tops, T-shirts, and her nightgown. Helen, it turned out, was fond of rayon Hawaiian-print shirts, and LOTS of bling. Once I sorted through everything, I decided to make a reversible lap quilt from the rayon tops and my stash of cotton strips (for string quilts).

After cutting apart the shirts and starching each piece until it was like cardboard, I cut the required triangles from each shirt. I found a wonderful batik in my stash that complemented both patterns, so that became the third main fabric. For some reason, I couldn't get as many triangles from the African-like print, so that meant some creative arranging of my blocks. The layout of one side is horizontal, while the other is vertical.

 Some of the wider/plainer strips were embellished with pieces of lace from Helen's nightgown. The quilting of the large triangles is accomplished when the strips are added to the reverse side. The most tedious part of this quilt was hand-sewing strips over each seam. I doubt I'll make another of this style, but it did use up a whole bunch of my batting scraps (I only needed pieces as large as 11" square.) I can't see a dent in my box of strips, however.

The piecing of this block looks very weird--even I couldn't figure out how all the pieces came together! Then I realized I folded the quilt back onto itself to take this picture: the black strip is the binding, and the "label" can be found in the upper right corner of the top quilt picture.

Done, done, and done!

When I got back from Australia, one of my project I absolutely wanted to get started on (dared I hope, completed?) was the final piece for Pam: a wall hanging out of Helen's bling-y Ts (some of which would never stand up to the wear and tear of standard use and care, and might put an eye out if carelessly flung over someone!)

Unlike Jean and her cereal-box templates (a brilliant idea, by the way, if one eats cereal), I prefer to use my graphics manipulating software to play with placement of blocks. I placed the pile of shirts on the floor, took a picture of each, measured the size of the pattern, then trimmed the picture to that size (x100). So a picture of a T with a pattern of 6"x9" would end up being a neat image of 600x900 pixels:

After playing with all the images, here's the computerized mock-up I made:

The black bowling shirt had a studded collar on it, which I decided to put into play by using it to flesh out the poor little teal square at the bottom. I used a purple knit top included in the batch to square it off.

Did I mention all the help I got from my QI Zoe?

After playing around on my analog design wall, with the actual tops, I got a good idea of how well the original mock-up would work, then gave each design a rough trim followed by stabilization with MJ's suggested Pellon Shape Flex SF101. After that it was a matter of sewing on borders (that bright, playful fabric was also one of Helen's tops) then placing, trimming, sewing. I hated seeing all those T backs going to waste, so I starched then pieced together 4 hunks and made a simple backing out of that.

Quilting each block was mainly echo quilting, with a bit of FMQ on a couple of blocks. Like Jean, I was able to stitch through the images, although I only did that on the Las Vegas and the Harmony Honey blocks, outlining the cards and the State of Texas, respectively. Because the interest is in the blocks, I used matching thread for the top, but variegated thread on the bottom (and the borders, where it matched every color perfectly at least once.)

The dotted denim-ish top had 5 large buttons on  it, so I decided to give Pam a choice of sleeves: the standard hidden sleeve, or tabs. I used the large buttons to secure the tabs (with small buttons on the back for further strength and security), sewing them on with yellow blue jeans thread. If Pam would rather have a more discrete hanging method, she can simply snip off the buttons and the tabs will come right off, revealing the standard sleeve beneath:

The completed wall hanging, side by side with my original idea. Pretty close, huh?

The label (raw state, pre-sewn-in, with my shadow cast upon it) written on a piece of Helen's nightgown:

As a final piece, I'm giving her the quilt and wallhanging in this bag (Cabana Mesh Tote pattern by Marlous Designs). I made several personalized bags this winter for my chorus Baritone section, and they are a HIT! Pam is a gardener (and a member of Austin Harmony Chorus, which explains the music square) so I used heavily from the various flower and plant fabrics I've accumulated. Pieces of Helen's shirts and her nightgown are used in this as well.

 

Three line items knocked off my vacation To-Do list. I'm so happy!!!