Quilt pinned to batting and backing

Been busy working on my AAQI quilt.  I decided against fusing it.  I wanted to keep the frayed edges and the softness.  Another reason was that I would have had to disassemble it to iron the Wonder Under onto it!  I learned that if you want to fuse something, it’s a good idea to have the fabric fused ahead of time!

So this quilt top is not sewn together.   It’s being held together with the quilting, which is working surprisingly well.  The edges of the strips are fraying a little, which is the effect I was looking for.  (I suppose I should add a note saying that this quilt should not be washed in the washing machine!  It would probably be OK to hand wash it carefully, roll it in a towel to absorb excess moisture, and let it air dry on a flat surface.)

Pieced backing

I probably spent too much time worrying about the backing, but I finally hit on this combo, using leftover fabric from the front.  Now I just need to come up with the binding!

My collection of "darning silk"

I have a big bag of embroidery floss that I ran across recently, but do you think I can find it now?  I need to tear apart my closet to locate it.  In the meantime, I ran across a bunch of darning silk thread that I’ve had for years.  I probably got it in a box of stuff from one of the many farm auctions in South Dakota I used to go to when I lived there.

Darning silk?  It’s probably from the days when women used to take the time to darn wool socks.  The thread is probably at least thirty years old, but it’s still strong and usable after all those years.  The colors are goofy in the photo; the blues are really gray.

I settled on a light tan to quilt the piece with.  The hand quilting is going well.  I haven’t done any hand quilting in years, and I forgot how relaxing it is.  I spent several hours quilting the piece yesterday, and should finish that today.

I recently ran across the concept of “slow cloth.”  This is a reaction to all the quilting shortcuts that are available today.  While I don’t have a problem with the shortcuts (they do make it possible to finish quilts in a short time), there is something to be said about taking your time with some pieces, to just enjoy the process.  This is something I want to explore further, in another blog post.  In the meantime, take a look at Considering at Judy’s Journal.  This is a thoughtful post on what quiltmaking is today, and what it could be.

So I haven’t been in a hurry to finish this piece.  This is a change for me.  I’m deliberately working at a slower pace, not rushing the process.  Because the piece is small, even though it’s taking longer than I expected, it’s OK, because it’s nearly done now anyway.  It’s interesting that I’m using the darning silk to quilt it.  It’s like the thread has come full circle, from an era when women took the time to darn socks, to taking the time to handquilt my challenge quilt.

On a different note:  I’ve joined two Yahoo groups.  The first one is the Liberated Quilters.  While they’re not affiliated with Gwen Marston, they follow her liberated quilting methods.  In the words of the group, “We just want to have fun and say boo! to the quilt police!”  I love it!

The second group is Studio Quilts–Goldilocks And Friends.  This group was started by Debbie Babin, “to offer learning opportunities and communicate on topics that relate to textile (fiber) arts and quilting.”  This group is a bit more serious-minded, which is good, also.  My goal this year is to find my voice, my own personal style, so this is a place where I can go to explore this aspect of my quilting.

I would also recommend visiting any of the blogs on my blogroll.  Seeing what other quilters are doing has two advantages.  Not only are my horizons being expanded, but I already have ideas for my next two AAQI Challenge Quilts!

Liberated Challenge Quilt for AAQI

Today my inspiration came from Playing Games With Squares by Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth.  She’s combining patchwork with weaving strips of fabric.  This seemed like something I could try with my Liberated Challenge Quilt.

My quilt is tentatively titled “Winter Journey.”  I wanted to portray the journey Alzheimer’s patients and their families face.  In the lower right corner, the strips are still woven together, although things are a bit off-kilter.

As you move across the quilt, up, and to the left, , the woven strips start losing their orderliness, until at the upper left corner, there’s no structure left, just disjointed pieces.

I’m going to use the smaller wolf image, and place it towards the lower right corner.  The wolf is moving into an inner landscape where once-familiar things have changed into something unrecognizable.

All the strips are pinned down right now.  There will probably be a little more tweaking, but this is close to the finished arrangement.  I think I’m going to fuse the strips right to the batting, and then hand quilt with large, primitive-looking stitches.  Then I’ll applique the wolf on the top.  By adding the wolf after the piece is quilted, I’m hoping to give the impression that the wolf doesn’t really belong in this place where it finds itself.

I’m still not sure about the fusing, since it will make the piece stiffer, but since the edges of the strips are raw, I think this will stabilize them.  I’m not sure that the quilting alone will hold everything together.  And it would be a disaster if it fell apart later on, after it’s sold!

Salvaging a quilting disaster

Remember my quilting disaster from last week?  I cut all the blocks in half this morning, and looked through my fabric to find something that would go with the scrappy triangles.  I had lots of possibilities, but not enough of any one thing.  I wanted to use the same fabric throughout, both to tie things together, and to calm down all that frenetic activity.

I found a large piece of a chestnut brown.  It looks redder than it really is in the photo.  But I think it will work well with the wild combination of scraps.  I tried a dark green, but it was a print, and this quilt REALLY didn’t need another print!

So I’ll cut some strips tomorrow, and start sewing my triangles down.  Then I can see how they fit together (if they do) and try some different arrangements.  The pinwheel looks pretty good.  I also did a barn raising design that I didn’t take a picture of.  I’m sure I’ll find lots of ways to put the blocks together.

The nice part about is that that I’ll have 60 blocks, instead of just 30.  Hopefully they’ll finish around six inches.  I may need to do some creative piecing to get them close to the same size!  I can either do two lap quilts to donate, or a twin quilt.

Molly, looking innocent, before The Great Avalanche

Molly just wouldn’t leave me alone this morning.  She walked around on  my ironing board, supervised closely while I was trying to cut and arrange strips, knocked things in the floor, and generally helped in any way she could.

I keep my fabric in one of those three-drawer plastic bins.  This is a bit unstable when one of the drawers is open, especially when a cat jumps into the open drawer when you’re not looking!  Over it went, along with the iron, which was off, thank goodness.  The noise startled me, and I let out a yell.  My hubby thought something had fallen on me, while I thought Molly was trapped under the mess.

But kitties are very fast, and she was crouched in the hallway, with BIG eyes, wondering what had happened.  I was annoyed at her, but I was also glad she was OK.   Of course, she came traipsing in while I was picking up, reminding me what a wonderful kitty she is, and maybe I could feed her a little something to help her recover from her traumatic experience?  Cats.  Ya gotta love ‘em!

Front of quilt. The spots are from snowflakes that melted on the camera lens.

Here they are!  Pictures of the finished baby quilt!  It was quite an adventure getting them.  I was all set to shovel a path to the clothesline when my wonderful husband, Andrew, said, “Why don’t you just put on your snowshoes to walk out there?”  Duh.  And he didn’t even laugh at me for not thinking of it myself.   His comment was, “I hate to see you shoveling all that snow for a path you’ll only use once.”  Now you know why I married him.  I wasn’t letting him get away!

Or course, it was dark and snowy and windy, so it’s not the best picture. I even managed to drop the quilt in the snow, too.  But if you click on the pictures, you can see somewhat bigger versions.  Click on the little icon on the picture, and it will get bigger yet.

Wish I could have shown more detail, but it was COLD out there!  It was also very windy, so I had to wait for the quilt to stop flapping in the refreshingly frigid breeze to take a picture!

I appreciate my warm gloves every time I have to do something bare-handed outdoors.  They were $60 gloves that I got at the end of the season for $15.  I would never have paid $60 for a pair of gloves, but these are definitely worth it.  My hands do NOT get cold when I wear them!

With this quilt, I started out to do the Crayon Box design from Quiltville.  If you’ve never been there, go visit right now, and check it out.  I’ll wait for you to come back.  This is a totally awesome site that I highly recommend.

I had bought a panel of Laurel Burch cat pictures a while back.  Each little picture is a portrait of a cat family.  I thought of Sarah right away when I bought it.  Of course, I forgot I had it, but I found it when I started digging through my scraps.  I cut the panel up into individual pictures, and used the Crayon Box idea to sew the quilt.  It was a fun quilt to make.

I emailed Sarah pictures as I was working on it, and she showed them to my grandsons.  The oldest one, Tal, said, “Granny sure does like cats, doesn’t she?”  He’s right!  Three out of the four baby quilts I’ve made for Sarah have a cat theme!  I didn’t even realize it til he mentioned it.

Back of quilt.

The back could almost stand on its own as a quilt.  It was an experimental piece that took off on its own.  The strips were an experiment with the Wave Runner tutorial from V at Bumble Beans.  I was intrigued when I read the tutorial and wanted to try it.  I couldn’t imagine getting wavy seams like that to lie flat, but it worked!  I will definitely be doing more with this technique.

The purple cat (who’ll you’ll recognize from my blog header) was my first experiment in liberated piecing.  I just sketched the kitty on a piece of paper, and pieced it without a pattern, or anything.  Now that was fun!  I was really tickled at how well it came out, and it was easy, too.

Between shoveling the driveway, running to the library and grocery store, and fixing lunch and cleaning up, I haven’t had a chance to work on my AAQI quilt yet today.  I might later on, but Andrew may go fishing this afternoon, and if he does, I’m going to go with him so I can go snowshoeing.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress with that project!

Well, I promised you pictures of the finished baby quilt, but it will have to wait til I can get outside and shovel a path to the clothesline, probably tomorrow, since I’m feeling lazy today.  I tried laying the quilt on my bed and taking pictures, but between the lighting and my cat, and other logistic problems, I think I can do a better job just pinning it up to the clothesline outside and taking pictures outdoors.  Since there’s probably 18 inches of snow on the ground, I either have to break a trail or clear a path.

"New Territory" by Robert Bertram

So instead, I’ll show you what I’m doing with my Liberated Challenge Quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  Lots of ideas were perking in my head, but inspiration struck this morning, in my basement, of all places.

My hubby picked up this poster last year at the local DNR office.  When I went down to the basement this morning to put the baby quilt in the washer,  the poster caught my attention.  Here was my subject!

Tracing around wolf's outline on tracing paper

I taped some tracing paper to the wall and traced around the image of the wolf.

Auditioning fabrics for the AAQI Challenge quilt

The finished quilt will be around eight by eleven inches.  I wanted to make the wolf smaller, so  I used the old artist’s trick of putting a grid on the tracing, so I could make the image smaller.  This is a slick trick for those of us who can’t draw!

Here are the fabrics I’m thinking about using.  The wolf will be cut from the gray batik, and the snow from the lighter fabrics.  You can’t really see the fabric under the gray piece, but it gives the effect of snowflakes.  I’m thinking of using it for part of the sky.

I’m trying to decide if the wolf should be isolated on a whte background, like in the poster, or if he should be coming out from some pieced or appliqued trees.   At this point I’m leaning towards using the smaller wolf image by itself, appliqued to a background made by using the Wave Runner Tutorial from V at Bumble Beans.

I’m thinking of calling it “Winter Journey,” to symbolize the journey Alzheimer’s patients and their families must make.  I want to symbolize hope by having the wolf moving towards a patch of blue sky. I also have a piece of light-colored batik with pale multicolor spirals on it, too, that may work.   But we’ll see how it all plays out.  Sometimes a project takes over and tells you how it wants to be done!

Hope everyone enjoyed their New Year celebration.  Here in Marquette, they have a lighted ball drop downtown at midnight to celebrate the New Year.  Andrew and me were going to go, but us old farts fell asleep in our chairs in front of the TV instead!  Oh well.

Driveway before I shoveled it out. It wasn't as bad as it could have been!

Our snow storm is still going on, with the snow coming and going in waves.  I finally went out this morning to clear the driveway.  Andrew tried to tell me not to bother, as he can drive out easily with the truck.  But the snow will only get deeper, so I decided to get out there and take care of it.  You can see there was a pretty good pile at the end where the city plow always leaves snow.

But it didn’t take very long to get it cleared out.  I shoveled out the end of the driveway and then used the snow blower on the rest of it.  It always amazes me how there isn’t even a slight breeze til I get out the snow blower.  Then a gale always comes up to blow all that snow back in my face!  I look like the abominable snow woman when I’m finished.

When I went inside, I managed to dump a load of snow from my hat right down my back!  ACK!  It (of course) went right down the back of my shirt and down into my long underwear.  Who needs a brother to dump snow down your back when you can do it yourself?

The result, 75 fun-filled minutes later...

These photos were  taken around 10 and 11 AM.  Looks like twilight, doesn’t it?  Actually, it was snowing pretty hard when I took the second one, which is maybe why it looks so blue.

I joined the Liberated Quilters Group at Yahoo last night.  I was interested in participating in the Liberated Challenge for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  What you do is to make a little quilt that will fit into one of those Priority Mailing envelopes from the Post Office.  It has to fit without folding or scrunching it up, so that means small, about eight by ten inches.  You can see all the rules at the AAQI website.  They auction the donated quilts off to raise money for Alzheimer’s research.  A very worthy cause!

I’m looking forward to trying my hand at the Liberated Challenge.  I’ve never done anything like this before, so it should be fun.  There was a picture of a seagull-type bird in the paper today.  I cut it out to use as inspiration.  Since I live so close to the beach, there are always seagulls around here.

I’m also excited to connect with other liberated quilters out there.  It looks like a great group of people.  I’d encourage you to join, too, and take part in the challenge!

I’ve found a couple of really cool blogs to tell you about too, but this post is long enough.  So I’ll share those with you tomorrow!

Baby quilt update:  I should be finishing the baby quilt today!  I started sewing the binding on yesterday.  I should finish it this afternoon.  Then I’ll run it through the washer and dryer, sign and date it, and take some pictures to share tomorrow!