My latest strip quilt

Time for another change in direction!  Making strip quilts to donate is fun, and I’m really enjoying it.  It’s been a challenge to come up with a way to make them quickly, and I think I’ve finally figured it out.

Here’s a picture of the strip quilt I finished yesterday.  It went together very quickly, even though I got a little arty with piecing the back.  That was fun to do, though.

There’s no binding either.  I layered the quilt, backing, and batting and sewed them together, leaving an opening to turn the quilt along one edge.  I whipstitched the opening closed after turning it, and then pin-basted to keep the layers from shifting while it was machine quilted.

Pieced back of strip quilt

The quilting is long wavy lines along the long axis of the quilt. The quilting only took about an hour. Not bad!

This kind of strip quilt is very easy to do, and it’s fast.  By varying the width of the long pieced strips, getting a slightly different look is easy, too.

This quilt is about 39″ by 47″.  Haven’t washed it yet, but it will probably shrink up a couple of inches.  I’ll have to remember to measure it once it comes out of the dryer.

OK, so one challenge down.  Looks like I’ll be able to do some serious stashbusting this year, especially if I can make two or three strip quilts a month!

So what’s next? One of my other goals for the year was to develop my own style as a quilt artist. I got off to a pretty good start with “Winter Journey,” shown here.

"Winter Journey," my first AAQI Priority Quilt!

This quilt definitely was a stretch for me.  I had never done anything like this before.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t done another.  It did take a lot of time and effort.

But good stuff doesn’t come easy, does it?

So my new goal is to spend two or three mornings a week working on art quilts.  This includes dyeing fabric and playing around with new techniques.  I have some ideas that I want to explore.

I’ve also decided to join the Studio Art Quilt Associates.  According to their webpage, “SAQA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation.”

I’d been tossing around the idea of joining, but kept putting it off because I didn’t think I was enough of an artist yet.  But Leni Weiner had a great post on her blog about why people should join SAQA, and she convinced me.  So I signed up earlier this evening.

I’m also thinking of entering Fabrications 2, a show open to quilt artists in the Upper Peninsula.  It’s being run in conjunction with a SAQA show, Points Of View, which will be on display this summer down in Escanaba.  Having never had the nerve to enter a show before, this is a big step for me!  So first, I need to make some quilts to enter, and second, we’ll see if I get through the jurying process!  Whatever happens, this is bound to be a learning experience.

Strip quilt made in quilt-as-you-go style

Here are the quilt pictures I promised yesterday. The first picture is the front of the quilt-as-you-go strip quilt I finished on Saturday. It came out pretty well, I think. It seemed like it took forever to make it though. I think I’ll save the quilt-as-you-go technique to join wider and longer strips together, instead of to join individual blocks.

Back of strip quilt

The back does look cute, though.  It could almost stand alone on its own as a quilt.  So this probably makes this quilt reversible, which is a handy thing for a baby quilt. This one will be donated to the local women’s shelter.

Diagonal strip quilt

The next quilt is a long over-due picture of the diagonal strip quilt I made for the ALS Hopes and Dreams Challenge. I really like the back of it. I saw some quilts for sale online that remind me of this quilt backing design.  They were going for an amazing price.  Maybe I should be focusing on quilt backing designs instead! 

Back of diagonal strip quilt

Now that this quilt is finally washed and dried, I’ll be packing it up tomorrow with my other two ALS quilts, and getting them mailed off.  About time, huh?

I finally got my two AAQI Priority Challenge Quilts in the mail today.  Now I can think about doing some more.

It got above freezing today, but it was still pretty cold outside.  My poor little hands got cold taking pictures of my quilts.  Just think, someday the snow will melt, and I won’t have to wear snowshoes for my quilt photography!

Spent most of the day sewing today.  I finished the long strips for my next quilt.  Tomorrow I’ll join them with sashing.  This time I’m going to dispense with binding by sewing the top, batting, and backing together as a sandwich.  Then I’ll turn it right side out, sew the opening closed, and machine quilt it after it’s turned.  I’ve done this in the past, and it works well.  Don’t know why I didn’t remember it til now.

So if all goes well, I may finish up another baby quilt for the women’s shelter tomorrow.

By the way, my city of Marquette, MI, WON the 2010 Dozen Distinctive Destination Contest!  This is really great news, and everyone here is pretty jazzed up about it.  Hopefully it will mean an increase in tourism for the area in the coming year.  There’s always something going on around here, even in the middle of winter!

Me in front of the ice castle in Eagle River, WI.

OK, which of these three things doesn’t belong? If you said outhouse races, you’re right!

How does any of this fit together? Read on to find out. This post is mostly non-quilting, so fair warning.

We now have a 24-foot boat sitting in our driveway. Cool, huh? Andrew has been diligently searching for a boat online, and he found one in St. Germain, WI, which is about three hours from here. Considering that he was looking at boats in downstate Michigan, Ohio, New York, and other far-flung locations, I was relieved that the trip to pick it up would be comparatively short.

We went to get the boat on Thursday. Of course, it took all day to drive down there and come back. But it was a pretty drive, one that we’ve made before on the way to Minneapolis.

On the way home, we stopped at Eagle River, WI, for some dinner.  While driving through town looking for a place to eat, we noticed what appeared to be an ice castle!  Of course, we had to check it out.  It’s not every day that you see something like this.

It was late in the afternoon, so the sun was at the perfect angle to light up the ice castle and make it glow.  It was COLD, but we had to walk all around it and take lots of pictures.

We rested up Friday in preparation for…

The first corporate sponsor! Here's Charmin's entry.

…the Trenary (MI) Outhouse Classic on Saturday.  Trenary is a little town of about 400 people about 30 miles south of Marquette.  To raise money for the town, they have outhouse races the last Saturday in February.  Believe it or not, people come from all over to see the outhouse races.  We saw license plates from Nebraska, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, as well as from Michigan.

Of course, the biggest news was that Charmin sponsored an outhouse in the race.  A major corporate sponsor, for the first time!

The other big news is that the outhouse races are now international, as well, with two racers from Japan who participated.

It was cold and windy, but the crowd was well-supplied with beer, along with hot coffee and hot chocolate.  Potty humor abounded, and poor taste was the order of the day.  A good time was had by all!

Have I actually managed to do any sewing lately?  Surprisingly enough, the answer is yes.  I finished  the quilt-as-you-go baby quilt yesterday, and today I started a new strip quilt.  So far I have two strips done, one that’s 9″ x 45″, and one that’s 5″ x 45″.  I’m going to make the strips different width, and then join them with sashing to finish up with a baby quilt about 36 inches wide. Quilt pictures will follow, hopefully tomorrow!

In the meantime, here’s a video from yesterday’s outhouse races.

Our house was built in the early ’50’s, so all of our electrical outlets downstairs were of the old ungrounded two-prong variety.  We wanted to upgrade the wiring so we could stop using those annoying little adapters to plug in stuff like computers and TVs.  Not to mention the safety issues, of course.

So the electrician was here all day yesterday and most of today.

We learned that whoever originally wired the house was very creative as far as circuits went.  One circuit in particular had the refrigerator, the coffeemaker, the microwave, AND the washing machine on it.  The electrician was amazed that I had never tripped the breaker, even though I regularly used three out of four of these appliances at the same time.  Another circuit runs all over the house, and took some detective work to figure it out.  All I can say is that this guy earned his money.  For a while I thought he might be a permanent guest, but he did manage to finish the job today.

So in between the electrician turning the power on and off and working all over the house, I did manage to work on the quilt-as-you-go strip quilt I started the other day.  I finished the blocks yesterday, and joined them today.

So what do I think of quilt-as-you-go?  Well, it’s definitely not a time-saver.  I had to resort to pinning to keep the quilt batting and backing from shifting when sewing down my strips.  Kinda fiddly.  But the blocks did look good when they were done.

What about joining them?  Easy, but mindless and time-consuming.  It takes five seams to join each block.  See this qayg tutorial for the details.  I thought I would NEVER get done sewing the 30 blocks into six rows of five each.  It does go faster when you’re sewing the rows together, though.

That said, though, I can see where this joining technique would be very handy when making larger quilts.  I think my next project will be made in panels, instead of individual blocks.  If I made four 10-inch wide panels that were 45 inches long, it would be a lot faster to join them instead of the individual blocks.  Perhaps like a Chinese coin pattern.   I could also piece blocks as I normally do, join them into segments, machine quilt the segments, and then join them, like the mile-a-minute quilts.

The upside:  I’m using up strips and making quilts to donate, too!  Stashbusting is a good way to use up old fabric that’s been hanging around far too long.

I have to say that the back of the quilt looks really cute, with the sashing outlining the individual blocks.  Pictures will follow in a day or two.

This is the green from mixing a little black into the yellow dye. It's really a much nicer-looking green, not this washed-out gray!

Here are the results of my dyeing escapade the other day. Putting the heating pad under the fabric did seem to help set the dye, as very little dye ran off when I washed and rinsed the fabric. I’m somewhat annoyed with my camera, as its not showing the colors correctly. Probably operator error!

These aren't as blotchy as they look in the picture; but the colors are pretty close to reality.

For some reason, my camera decided this was pink, but it's really red-brown instead!

This was my attempt at color mixing. These are pretty close to how they really look.

Hand-dyed fabric curing in cottage cheese containers

Here’s what I did this morning.  The green on the left is made from yellow dye with a little black mixed into it.  This was a tip from Melody Johnson from Fibermania.  If you’re not familiar with her work, go visit her blog.  I wanna be like her when I grow up!

More hand-dyed fabric

Playing around with low-water immersion dyeing was my objective this morning.  This is a dyeing process where the fabric is crammed into a small container, and the dye is poured over it.  The more the fabric is crumpled up, the more mottled it will will be.

Mostly I twisted the fabric, and then poured the dye solution over it.  I untwisted the fabric from time to time to see how it looked, and added more dye as needed, using an eyedropper.  Then I smushed the fabric around to blend the colors together.

When I was finished playing with it, I twisted it back up and put in into an empty cottage cheese container to cure.  To avoid having dark spots on the fabric from sitting in the excess dye, I poured any extra dye off, and used it to dye more fabric.

The fabric containers were slipped inside a plastic bag so they wouldn’t dry out while the fabric was curing.  Don’t know if it makes any difference or not, but it can’t hurt.  The basement is pretty chilly, so  the little containers of dyed fabric were kept warm and toasty on  a heating pad for most of today.  The warmth is supposed to help the dye react better with the fabric.

Batik-like design made with gel glue

This yellow fabric shows my attempt at batik using gel glue.  Now I need to paint it with some dye.  After it’s cured, then I wash the glue out, leaving the yellow designs.

The shapes are from a picture I took on the beach the other day.  It was warm enough for the snow to start melting, and the water made some neat designs in the sand.

This is such an amazing design.  It’s so graceful, and it just flows.  It makes me think of a tree with the leaves blowing in the breeze.

If you click on the picture of the sand, it’ll make it bigger so you can see the design better.

Design made by melting snow water in sand on the beach along Lake Superior

The best part about dyeing fabric is that no matter what happens, it’s a success!  It’s just so much fun to play around with the colors, and I’m learning something every time I do some dyeing.  I can see that there’s a bolt of white fabric in my future.  I’ve already used up about a third of what I bought at the fabric sale!

This is totally non-quilt related, but since the UP 200 Dog Sled Race is the biggest thing around here this weekend, I thought I’d let you see a little bit of what’s going on.

This race is 241 miles long, from Marquette to Grand Marais and back again.  The mushers leave on Friday night, and return to Marquette on Sunday morning.

Me in the background, with the dog sled mascot in front

Andrew took this shot this morning.  It was really pleasant out today, warm and sunny.  Last year was COLD and windy, with blowing snow, so this was a definite improvement!

Here’s a picture of the winner, Ryan Anderson, from Ray, MN.   This is the seventh time he’s run this race.  He came in second last year, and third the year before that.

Ryan Anderson, winner of the 2010 UP 200 Dog Sled Race

The first thing he did when he crossed the finish line was to pet every one of his dogs.  He certainly couldn’t have done it without them!

Ryan Anderson, winner of the UP 200, petting all his sled dogs after their 241-mile trip

We pretty much made a day of it, eating lunch at L’Attitude downtown, and then going down to the Welcome Center south of town to watch some more teams come in.

The video at the bottom is from You Tube.  It shows the second place winner, and has some shots of some of the dogs.  You’d think they’d be big huskies, but, surprisingly, they’re pretty small and skinny.  Hard to believe that these dogs just ran 241 miles.  They look as if they’re still raring to go!

All in all, this was a fun way to spend a pleasant winter’s day.  Tomorrow, I hope to get some fabric dyed and do some sewing!

Oh yeah, Marquette is leading the pack in the Dozen Distinctive Destinations voting!  Be sure to vote for Marquette, early and often! 

Cat House Block!

Just visited Bumble Bean’s blog.  She has the cutest house block someone sent her with a sock monkey peeking out the window.  I love it!

Of course, not to be outdone, here’s my Cat House block.  It really is square.  I can’t seem to take a picture straight on for some reason.

There’s a story behind this.  Years ago when I lived in KY, I worked at the animal shelter, and also at the vet’s office.  Because I couldn’t resist a kitty in need, I wound up with seven cats!  The vet I worked for said I had the best little cat house in west KY.  So here’s to my kitty friends from many years ago!

The next two pictures are of my newest AAQI quilt!  Actually, I finished this one the day before yesterday.  This started out as a free piecing experiment.  I just sat down and started playing with scraps, sewing and cutting, and re-sewing.

AAQI Priority Quilt

Back of AAQI Priority Quilt

The finished quilt measures 9″ by 10.5″, and it’s machine quilted.

When I uploaded the pictures, it occurred to me that I need to come up with a name for it!  Any suggestions?

The Heartstrings Quilt Project is a group that makes and donates string quilts to local charitable organizations.  I joined because I’m definitely into string quilts right now!  For my first  Heartstrings project, I decided to try a quilt-as-you-go crib quilt to donate to the local women’s shelter.

First six quilt-as-you-go blocks

Ten-inch blocks seemed a little big for a crib quilt, so mine are seven inches instead.  I’ll need 30 blocks, which will hopefully result in a quilt that will be 35″ by 42″.

I thought it would be a total pain to cut out batting and backing squares, but it didn’t take very long to cut them out at all.

Here are the six blocks I finished this afternoon.  It’s pretty easy to sew the strips down to the batting and backing.  The blocks came out really well, and knowing that they’re already quilted is a nice plus.

Of course, they still have to be joined together, but that process doesn’t look too difficult.

Probably won’t get any sewing done tomorrow.  We need to go to the VA in Iron Mountain again, for a dental appointment, so that pretty much takes up the day.  Then in the evening, we’ll be going to see the start of the UP 200 Sled Dog Race.  Hey, we’ve gotta take advantage of all that snow!

What my backyard looks like. Only there's more snow now! And the sun is definitely NOT out today.

Well, we didn’t have much snow for a while, but it looks like the Upper Peninsula is going to live up to it’s wintry reputation this week.  It’s been snowing since Sunday.  I went out and cleared the driveway yesterday, but it’s pretty much filled back in already.  Plus the city plow left a BIG pile at the end of the drive.  Oh well.  Nobody here has to go anywhere today, which is probably a good thing.

Poor Andrew had oral surgery yesterday.  He wasn’t a very happy camper last night, but he’s feeling somewhat better today.  Having had oral surgery myself some years back,  I’d rather shovel the driveway with a teaspoon than to go through that!  But at least it’s over now, and he can focus on recovering.  I’m taking good care of him, and feeding him lots of soft food.

Enough with the non-quilting stuff.  Finally finished the diagonal strip quilt yesterday.  All I had to do was to bind it, but one corner just wouldn’t cooperate, so it took a bit longer than I thought it would.  But the quilt and I finally came to an agreement, and it’s now sporting a cheerful yellow binding.  A picture will follow after it’s washed.  Then I WILL mail those three quilts off to the ALS Quilt Challenge this week!

Today I want to make another block for the BASICS Home Gather that V is doing right now.  Plus I started a small free-pieced quilt the other day.  Just sat down and playing around with sewing scraps and strips together.  I want to finish that today, and get it quilted and add it to the pile for the AAQI.  Once I get three done, I’ll register them and send them off.

Plus I’m thinking about my next donation quilt.  I’ve joined the Heartstrings Yahoo Group, which is a group that makes string quilts to donate.  You can send them completed blocks, tops, quilts, or fabric, or you can make quilts and donate them locally.  I’m going to take the second route, since I obviously have a problem with mailing things off.  (Actually it’s hard to get to the post office.  Parking is impossible.  It’s easier to walk than to drive, but it’s too cold to walk down there right now, especially with a large box.)

My plans include making crib and child-sized quilts for the local women’s center, and maybe some 60″ by 80″ quilts for the Salvation Army, too.  So I’m thinking about doing the 20″ wide strips mentioned in Mile-A-Minute-Quilts by Sharon Hultgren.  Or I may just do individual strip blocks and quilt-as-you-go.

Why you don't go out on the breakwater during a storm...

This is a picture from last fall.  There’s a sign warning people to stay off the breakwater during storms because people have been swept away in the past.  Andrew was standing right at the beginning of it, but I was so nervous about him being there that he didn’t stay there very long, thank goodness.

Enough of this.  I’m off to sew!

Strip quilt ready for quilting!

Here’s the stashbusting strip quilt I’ve been working on this week. I meant it to be a crib-sized quilt, but it came out about 46″ by 48″, so I think I’ll donate it to the Hopes and Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS.  I STILL haven’t mailed off the two quilts I’ve completed, so I guess I may as well wait another day or two to finish this one before I mail them all off.

I meant to practice quilt-as-you-go with this quilt, but it didn’t happen, mostly because of the bias edges on the outside of the quilt.  I was afraid they would stretch, and they did.  I hurried up and sewed borders on to contain the ever-growing edges, and they seem to have done the trick.

Tomorrow I’ll get the backing done, and get it basted.  If I’m feeling really ambitious, I may even start quilting it.  It should go pretty fast, as I’m not going to mess around and do anything fancy.  Straight-line quilting is the only way to go!

House block with kitty

V over at Bumble Beans is collecting house blocks to make quilts for BASICS, a group that helps homeless people in NYC.  She’s asking for 10.5″ house blocks; click on the link for the pattern and directions if you’re interested in making a block or two for her!

I decided to take a break from the string quilt and make a house block this morning.  V said you could applique a heart on the house, but what’s a home without a cat?

I cut the kitty out of some fabric I had on hand, and fused it down.  Then I went around it with an outline stitch just to be sure he doesn’t go anywhere!  I love that grin.  Wonder what he’s thinking about getting into?

This block really is square.  My photography skills aren’t the greatest, I’m afraid!

Ice mountains along the Lake Superior shore

Went for a walk yesterday.  It was COLD out there!  The north wind definitely had teeth in it.

The constant wind has been blowing the ice up against the shoreline.  This area is usually open water, but you can see how the ice has built up.  The waves are breaking against the ice, which is way out from shore.

Snow drifts across the bike path

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the snowdrifts on the bike path!  The wind comes in off the lake and dumps the snow right on the pathway.  There’s always an adventure around here.

Don’t forget to vote for Marquette in the Dozen Distinctive Destinations at the National Trust for Historic Preservation!  Right now Marquette is in first place!  Woo hoo!  But that could change, so we need to keep voting.

This has been an insanely busy week.  I don’t really like it when I don’t get to sew for two days running!

On Tuesday, Andrew had two appointments at the VA in Iron Mountain, which is 80 miles from here.  A long trip in the snow, and we had to be there at 7 AM!  The only upside is that they’re on central time, and we’re on eastern, so at least we didn’t have to leave until 6 AM.

We didn’t get back home til about 3:30 in the afternoon, which makes for a long day.

Our camper. We sure did have a lot of fun traveling around with it. But once we moved to Marquette, our traveling days were over!

Yesterday we hauled our camper down to Escanaba to the RV dealer, who was going to buy it.  We had a 30-foot long fifth wheel that had been sitting in our driveway for over a year.  We’d been trying to sell it all of last year, but with the economy so bad, there were no takers.

Of course, the camper was snowed in.  I mean SNOWED IN.  Andrew had backed it in from the street when we moved into this house back in October of 2008.  But there was no getting it out the way it came in, until spring!

Since waiting wasn’t an option, we wondered if we could get it out the driveway.  We hired the merry crew of snow shovelers who happened to show up on Monday to clear a path for Andrew to back the truck up to the camper.

Bright and early yesterday morning, we were out there, making our preparations.  I had to move a little more snow, but Andrew got the truck backed up, and we managed to get hitched up.  He was at a pretty sharp angle to the camper, so we weren’t sure this was going to work.

But it did!  We had to trim a few low-hanging branches off the big oak tree at the end of the driveway, and Andrew had to drive through a rather large snowbank, but he got the camper out of the driveway.  Somebody came walking down the street just in time to make sure the camper would fit under the overhead electrical wire that goes to the house, while I watched the back end, to make sure we wouldn’t hit anything with it.

Of course, that was only half the battle.  We still had to drive the thing 60 miles down to Escanaba.  The roads were snow-covered and slick, and poor Andrew was pretty stressed.  We found out later that two vehicles had slid off the road earlier in the morning.  One had flipped over, and the other went over a steep embankment, rolling at least once on the way down.  I’m glad we didn’t know that at the time!

We left just before 11AM and got to Escanaba around 12:30.  We left the camper at the RV place for them to inspect it, and went to have lunch.  After lunch, we picked up our check and headed home.  Of course, it was pushing 4 before we made it back home.  And we were both wiped out!

My intrepid fisherman and his little red boat

We didn’t get as much for the camper as we had hoped to, but at least it’s sold, and now Andrew can recycle that money into a bigger boat. He’s been going out fishing on Lake Superior in his little 12-foot boat for months. Now he can get a 20- or 22-footer, which will make me feel a little better about him being out there!

Today Andrew had another doctor’s appointment, but at least it was here in town.  I even managed to get some sewing in this morning!  I’ll get some quilt pix up tomorrow.