Pennants and porch quilting: a weekend round-up

The morning has been spent moving between Safety Pin Studio and the screened porch.  I made the bias tape for the pennants since I had all of the "READ" pennants finished.

Here's the R going on the raw edge of the bias.

Once the pennants are sewn down to the raw edge, it is pressed up and the other raw edge (that's been pressed under one-quarter inch) is brought over to cover the first stitching and pinned down.

The second edge of tape is topstitched through all the layers and grommets are added to each end so the string is ready to hang.

A Great Weekend for Getting Things Done

While I did spend some time quilting on the porch on Saturday, the weekend was mostly given over to a variety of jobs around the house.  Nearly all of the supplies are now here for the bathroom remodeling.  (More on that in the days to come.)  I took off the last of the wallpaper borders in our bathroom and we are ready for the demolition and then, the new floor and fixtures.  The front beds are weeded and ready for the fall and a large limb that came down in the backyard is cut up and ready to be collected by the city tomorrow.  I made Thanksgiving for Jim and our niece and we are all nursing food babies at the moment.  I hope your weekend was enjoyable and productive, too.

Screened Porch Quilting on Jim's Woobie

Another gorgeous day in the Piedmont Triad, so I was out on my screened porch quilting on Jim's woobie quilt.

The stippling design shows better on the back side.  I'm loving the 80/20 batt and the soft backing fabric.  They quilt like a dream.

Basting Jim's New Woobie Quilt

Since it was lovely and cool today and the table on the porch is the perfect  size and height, I basted Jim's new woobie quilt. You can search the labels on the right to see other posts about this Denyse Schmidt pattern called "Single Girl."

I use a curved upholstery needle for basting which should be not further apart than the hand.  Miraculously, I didn't stab myself with it this time.  There's an old tradition among quilters that it's good luck to bleed on the quilt you are making.  That should make me a very lucky person.  If you do bleed on the quilt you are working on, your own saliva is the very best stain remover.

This long, thin table is ideal for basting. I tape the back down to the table to keep it still and mark the side centers with pins.  The batting comes next and then the top with the side centers also marked with pins.  I line up the centers, secure with long pins and begin basting.   Starting in the center with the excess resting on the chairs, I use long threads and baste the entire center area, then move the quilt to the two extremes to finish.

I've decided to use the large stippling stencil to quilt this one.  More on that process later.

Finishing up the doll quilt and a weather change

We awoke Saturday morning to a lovely change in the weather--beautiful deep blue skies and temperatures in the high seventies and low eighties.  I spend a large part of the day on the screened porch finishing up the hand quilting on the doll quilt.

The quilting is finished and the continuous bias binding is all machine sewn.  Now I just have to bring it around to the back and hand sew it down.  The tag has my name and the washing instructions on the reverse side.

Here's the lovely little lady who will soon be covering her babies with the quilt.  Dan took this photo of Zoe at Anna and Matty's wedding.

One third of the woobie quilt

I'm making some progress of Jim's woobie quilt this weekend.  Ring five is under construction, but here are the first three sewn together.  There will be nine rings in total.  This is Denyse Schmidt's "Single Girl" pattern.  Click on the tag over on the right side of the blog to see posts about Anna and Matty's wedding quilt that I made using this pattern.

A doll-sized version of the African Striped Baby Quilt

One of the little girls for whom I made a baby quilt is now an active toddler who loves to take care of her dolls.  She is particularly fond of tucking them in for naps.  When I discovered this, I determined that I had to make a doll quilt for her upcoming birthday.  Using Kaffe Fassett's African Striped Baby quilt as an inspiration, I cut the basic block size down by an inch and came up with the perfect measurements. (Click on the tags at the right to see previous quilts from this pattern.)

These are the fabrics I chose from the back, binding, and the two borders.  My palette for the striped fabric was pink, brown, cream, and yellow.

Here are the striped fabrics.

The top comes together.

The center is quilted and I'm working my way around the edges now.  This has been great fun.

An Incredible performance of "Litany" by Billy Collins

If you've read this blog for very long, you know that I love poetry.  Dan sent me the link to this today and I had to share it.  It is so much more than a little child memorizing something adult.  He really seems to "get" it and he rolls the words around like an old master.  Enjoy.

"Curiouser and curiouser" is finished

"Curiouser and curiouser" is finished.  I finished hand quilting it Tuesday night and put the binding and rod pocket on yesterday.  The photo above shows a detail of the quilting on the final border.  I didn't mark anything--just did roughly parallel lines in the body of the quilt and then followed the printed design of the final border.  This is my favorite kind of quilting.  This quilt and "Mérida Remix" will be entered in the Piedmont Quilters Guild Show in October.  More on that when it's closer to the show.

Our first teachers' meeting is tomorrow.  The librarians all meet on Monday and then Wednesday, the students arrive.  It's been a full summer, but I'm sure going to miss my time in the studio.  Posts will be fewer and farther between again, but I promise to stay connected.  Happy school year to those of you so involved.

On organizing the chaos that is an art studio

Now that Safety Pin Studio and its closet have been gone through, cleaned, and reorganized, I thought that I would show you the results of some of my work of the last several weeks.

One of the problems that I had before the great reorganization was having my stamping materials spread out all over the studio.  Now, everything is in the same area AND I can access it easily.

Both of these containers are on the shelf below the work table.

The stamps I use most frequently are in this three-tiered basket on the work table.

This is my wonderful little oddment cabinet wherein the bulk of the rubber stamps live.

On top of the oddment cabinet are the calligraphy pens and more often-used stamps.

My thimble collection is organized in an old printer's drawer.  This one was used for punctuation.

Originally intended for kitchen utensils, I'm using this handy little device that spins for cutting tools.

Here's another item that I've repurposed.  It was originally intended for a bathroom counter.  I'm using it behind the sewing machine.

There are two of these metal boxes under the worktable.  One holds ribbon and trim and the other embroidery floss.

The first view of the newly organized closet.

The two sewing baskets in the back of this photo were also redone.  The one on the bottom is mending and general sewing supplies.  The white one is all quilting notions.

Threads are all separated by composition.

These are canvas bins that contain fabric separated generally by color and are kept on the shelf under the work table.

More fabric storage bins in the closet above and below.

My next goal is to empty the U.F.O. bin!

"Klimt cum Kenyon"

In my work to straighten up the closet in Safety Pin Studio, I did a lot of rod pockets yesterday.  One was for this quilt that I made in Crawfordsville back in 2001.  Titled "Klimt cum Kenyon,"  it's dedicated to Anna with apologies.  I had tried for months to do a large portrait quilt of her in the style of Gustav Klimt.  It just never looked like my mental image and so, I cut up the elements of the borders and background and made this quilt.  The title comes from the original intention and the fact that Anna was at Kenyon College at the time.  It was improvisationally pieced and hand quilted.

This is a detail to show the quilting.  I'm sending this off to Anna and Matty now that they can hang it properly. "Kundun" also got a pocket along with "Mérida Remix" and "Curiouser and Curiouser" that will be entered in the Piedmont Quilters Guild show.

Pruning my fabric stash for a good cause

A large portion of this last weekend was spent cleaning out and reorganizing all the stuff in the closet of Safety Pin Studio.  Now that the studio is clean and neat, the state of the closet started eating away at me.  When we moved in, I was more concerned with getting things put away and didn't always pay enough attention to where things were kept nor to how accessible they were.  I've now got all the supplies I need for stamping under the work table.  Sewing and drawing supplies are stored together in the closet and are easily accessible.  I also got some no-skid shelf liner to put under the ironing board and now it doesn't move around on the work table.   There is more floor space around the work table and I have begun to prune my fabric stash.

With the Piedmont Quilters Guild show coming up in October, I decided that one of the ways I can help is by cutting fat quarters and making charm square packs for the boutique from my fabric stash.  Many of the canvas boxes will not close because there is just too much fabric inside.
I did a little investigating online and found that most charm square packs have 30 pieces of fabric in them--either all unique or a small variety with duplications.  Since most charm  squares are pinked, it was also an opportunity to use my pinking rotary cutter.

Here's the pinking blade and what it does.

First I pull out thirty different fabrics from each color bin.  You will remember that I have a great deal of orange because of Alexis' wedding bento box quilt.

In addition to cutting charm squares, I also cut a certain number of fat quarters.

Once I've got thirty squares cut, I make a wrapper for them and then I'm on to another color.

The newly pruned orange bin is not only neat, but will now close.

Quilting "Curiouser and curiouser"

Finally, I'm getting around to quilting "Curiouser and curiouser" that was pieced in May during the third Bloggers Quilt Festival.  And look where I am!!  Oh, yes, it's still plenty warm out here, but since the rain last night cooled things off a little, I decided to try quilting on the screened porch with the fans going.

The quilting thread is a light grey and since the quilt was improvisationally pieced, I'm not marking quilting lines, but just going intuitively along in thin, vertical lines.

These are close-ups showing some of the rubber stamped images of the John Tenniel illustrations for Lewis Carroll's  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that inspired this quilt.

Abbott's quilt is all finished

Abbott's quilt is all finished.  I took Jim's car in for servicing and finished the hand quilting whilst waiting for the car.  Here's a little peek at both the front and the back.  Usually, I let the backing fabric dictate the color palette for the stripes.  I will actually get to give it to him in person in a little over a week.  I'm very excited to meet him and get reacquainted with his mother.

A long weekend in Florida and a baby quilt update

Jim and I made a short trip to Florida to visit with my parents.  We spent many happy hours in their pool and enjoying the view provided by the lovely flowers and plants that surround it.  My mother has a very green thumb especially for orchids.

The center of the baby quilt for Abbott is finished as is one side.  I'm now working my way around the other three with the half hoop.

Mom and Dad took us to the Columbia Restaurant at the St. Petersburg Pier.   There are several branches of this wonderful old Spanish restaurant around Florida.  The original is in Ybor City.  We had Cuban sandwiches and soup--delicious!

We returned to find Greensboro overcast and much cooler.  Quilted Librarian is now off to finish the baby quilt.