Safety Pin Studio: What's Happening Now

The little quilt above was made using some wonderful kimono fabrics that I bought from a vendor at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  I made two quilts with these amazing textiles.  The second one is a combination of the kimono fabrics and fabrics from other Japanese fabrics I've collected.

Up close and personal on the quilting.

My green fabrics have been doing yeoman service this year with the two big wedding quilts I made, so I decided to make a little baby bento box quilt just in case.

Here's the back and the binding.

Jack, the little boy for whom I made the Film at Five quilt, just had a little sister, so I've been working on a quilt for Fiona.  I made Jack a baby quilt using the Single Girl pattern, so I did the same pattern for Fiona and used one of the fabrics I used in Jack's quilt as well.  Fiona and Jack's momma is Anna's best friend, so there are also several fabrics that appear in quilts I've made for Anna.

The African Striped Baby Quilt continues its appeal for me and I made this one for a friend of Steph's who just had a baby.

Bob: a special doll for a sweet little girl

Before our recent trip to Canada to visit Dan and his remarkable wife, Steph, I made a doll for their little niece.  She loves the music of Bob Marley and, though, just past two years old, she can find the CD she wants, turn on all the equipment and put on his music videos so she can dance.  

Bob also has pajamas and we spent lots of time taking his clothes off and putting on his pajamas and then reversing the process the night I gave her the doll.

Bob also has a miniature version of the Kaffe Fassett African Striped Baby Quilt.  To carry all of these things, I also made her a bag using a T-shirt.

She seemed very pleased and she recognized the doll right away.  Later that night, the little darling's father sent us a photo from the baby monitor: she had covered herself with Bob's little quilt before going to sleep.  If she hadn't already stolen my heart, that would have done it.

Facebook Fan Page and Instagram

I have to admit, I am not very good at keeping up with my blog.  I do, however, post more frequently on my Facebook Fan Page and on Instagram.  If either of these platforms interest you, please join me there.

The Wedding Quilts

Our nephew and his wife married in a small ceremony last year and our oldest niece is getting married today.  I have been very busy for the last six months working on wedding quilts for both of these couples.  The quilt in the photo above is for Caylan and Michael who are being married today on Sandy Hook.  Michael proposed to Caylan In Ireland when they were on a wonderful trip to Europe, so a variation on the Irish chain pattern seemed appropriate.  The label on the back of the quilt was cross-stitched using the gingham fabric's squares instead of canvas.

I saw the design I used for Duke and Arielle's quilt on Pinterest.  It is an unevenly divided square using a sunshine and shadows type setting.

This is the label on their quilt.

Both of the quilts were hand quilted.  Here are some photos of my work in progress.

Working with a new design of an old block, plus an old favorite

The pattern that Kaffe Fassett named Jiggery Pokery in his book, Quilt Romance (Taunton Press, 2009),  is a variation of the Jacob's Ladder block generally known as World's Fair.  Here's a link to an antique quilt in the pattern.


This blogger made the quilt in the size Kaffe Fassett designed.  I decided that the size in the book was a little too big for me, so I reduced it slightly.

In the beginning, I was making it as a baby quilt, but was not at all happy with the way several of the fabrics worked with the overall pattern because they weren't reading light or dark.  Sometimes a void in the light and dark is interesting, but not so with this.  Long story short, I decided to pick out the fabrics I didn't like and had to disassemble the quilt by rows to do that.  Don't try this at home.  Ugh!

An interesting side note on this:  The text in Quilt Romance says that Jiggery Pokery is based on an antique quilt in Kaffe Fassett's collection.  If you look at the photograph, you will notice that there is a mistake in the way one of the blocks in the bottom are set, also as you go through laying out the blocks, there are several mistaken fabric assignments.  My guess is that someone other than the original quilter finished this quilt who didn't quite "get" the pattern and then may have run out the of the fabric that was needed to correctly finish the blocks.  Not to deny the whimsy of an antique, Fassett goes right along with the mistakes in his design.  I'm OC enough that I needed to do it correctly and that's how I drew my pattern design.

One of the first cars I owned was a red VW Beetle.  When I saw this fabric, I had to use it for the back.  The bias binding was made using one of the fabrics in the  blocks.

The baby quilt that I ended up making, was another baby bento box--my new favorite baby quilt pattern.

"Trucks and Trains for Jack": a scrap quilt

I've just finished a new quilt in the "Film at Five" design.  It is for Anna's darling little godson, Jack.  Now that he is growing up, I felt that he might like a "big boy" quilt and since he is all boy, he loves trucks, cars, and trains.  This is a great little design that is all 2.5 inch squares, so it is easily composed and easily quilted.  You can check out the first one I made in this post.

Here are some closer shots of most of the individual blocks.

Here is a close-up of the bias binding.

And finally the back, which is a flannel with all sorts vehicles.

Finding out what gives me joy and living with less stuff

Much has been written of late concerning a little book written by Marie Kondo  called  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese art of Decluttering and Organizing (Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2014 ISBN978-1-60774-730-7).  As one who is always looking for new ways to reorganize and reduce the clutter in my life, I grabbed it up instantly.  The radical nature of Kondo's philosophy is that you have to do the throwing away of unnecessary items in a hurry so that you can know and appreciate the difference less stuff makes in your closet, drawers, and other areas of the home.  This helps reduce the rebound effect of the return of clutter.

When Jim and I moved down to North Carolina in 2007, we got rid of lots of stuff.  We also resolved not to put anything in the attic of the house or the attic of the carport.  I can honestly say, we haven't missed one thing that we got rid of.   We moved into a much smaller house in North Carolina, but we love its cosy character. My thoughts now are to fine-tune.  If something is in a box in the closet and I haven't looked at it or thought about it since 2007, I probably don't need it.

Since I had already done some weeding in my drawers and closet, the clothes and shoes part of the job was quick and easy.  Kondo also has a great folding technique for clothes which allows you to see everything that's in your drawer at a glance.  I haven't done the little jewelry cabinet yet because much of that falls into the memento area that Kondo suggests saving for last.

The work in my studio has been slow, but steady.   I've discovered that my love of containers has meant that I use up much more room than really necessary for not that much stuff.  As Yoko Ono appropriately once said, "We're container minders."  Or at any rate, I am.

I've taken two loads to Goodwill that were mostly clothes and small furnishings.  Edward McKay, our wonderful local used book store, was the recipient of five cartons of books.  Next on the schedule is paperwork.  Industrial shredder, here I come!