Stitch Adventures

Add a penguin!

Went to the Camarillo Quilt Guild monthly meeting yesterday - I guess I never get tired of quilts! 

Our speaker at the quilt meeting was magnificent.  I'm not particularly fond of portrait quilts, or landscape quilts for that matter.  But once I heard Nancy S. Brown speak, I was absolutely in awe of her passion, and her ability to make an entire group of 300 tired quilters laugh for 30 minutes straight!

Of course her artistry, and her techniques are truly inspsiring. She is in love with animals, of all kinds, and she hand  appliques all of her animals.  Layer upon layer of fabrics of unusual colors - like an Andy Warhol style dog quilt. 

Who would have the ability to make green and yellow dogs look so natural except this amazing quilt artist?  Every dog had a different expression - even the chihuahua looks cute.  (Sorry, I'm just not a fan of little yippy dogs - but more power to you if you love one!)

And then, there was the Baltimore Album style quilt - a very traditional pattern.  But when Nancy does one - the flower blocks are all animals!

See how the detail picture on the right is really hummingbirds.

One of Nancy's favorite animals is penguins.  Her first quilt, and many many others, have penguins.  Her advice - if you have a quilt that isn't working, or lacking in some way, or you're just not happy with the way it's turning out (we've all been there) - add a penguin!

There is a great retrospective of some of her work at The Quilt Show

How I wish I had signed up for her applique workshop today!  But the class filled quickly - so I'll have to keep looking for her at local quilt guilds and workshops.

 

An awesome quilt show

Just got back from The Camarillo Quilt Show at the fairgrounds in Ventura.  A weekend that was filled with inspriation, delightful quilts, and wonderful vendors and people. 

I volunteered many, many hours to help prepare for, and set up the show.  One of my jobs was to be in charge of "white glove" volunteers.  Those are the ladies that walk around, literally, wearing white gloves to lift the corners of quilts so the backs can be seen by viewers. 

No fair touching a quilt without gloves on - fingers (especially hundreds of them) have oils that leave a residue on quilts.  So, to protect the quilts, you should not touch.  Pointing, and oohing is allowed though.

I'll be sharing some of the pictures I took as I walked around helping people.  Here are two similar quilts that I thought were interesting - they show a distinct difference in stitch design.

This was a quilt made by Nancy Kimery called "Unterwaschockstellungs", which was hand pieced and machine quilted.  I count nearly 400 separate pieces on the front.

As you can see by this closeup, there are curved pieces to fit together - but they all have the same shape - either placed vertically or horizontally. The pattern is traditionally called an "apple core quilt", but the name on this one is really fun - German for underwear crotch, because that's what the shapes resemble!

Now, here's another "apple core" quilt, which was made by Camilla Picard, called "Memories".

Again, hand pieced because it is easier to do all the curves that way.  But, the reason I noticed this one is because the hand quilting is done about 1/4" inside each shape.

So, I like this one too - because the shapes are emphasized by the stitching. 

Either way, that's a monumental amount of hand piecing.  But a great way to use up scraps!

As a volunteer, I spent a lot more time than usual looking at the quilts.  Instead of a quick hour, I saw the same quilts, over and over - front and back.  That's when I really began to appreciate not just the quilts that were "show stoppers", but the "simple" ones too.

Amazing to me how each quilter interprets a pattern that has been done for decades, by their own use of fabrics, stitching and title. 

 

What is this supposed to make?

Yesterday at the Craftcation conference in Ventura, I was surrounded by  wonderful craft business energy - learned so much.  Lots of ideas, business seminars, like-minded people, and cute things:

Painted bottles with fruit tree branches, and starched yarn balls.

I also received a bag of goodies for registering, with an interesting muslin bag containing the following:

Four small wax paper bags, one with confetti; three strips of stickers; four miniature closepins; a wooden spool of red/white cotton yarn; a jam jar top with a design cut out; and a blank drawing ticket.

Okay, my mind is dead from all of yesterdays input.  But what is this for???? The "kit" (or is it?) came from ana spick at we love citrus. And yes, I can look it up on the website.  But what would you do with it?  No fair cheating - I just want to hear some ideas!

It's okay to just let a project hang out for awhile.

A few weeks back, I decided to sew a jacket from an unusual pattern - from Indygo Junction.  The pattern was originally printed in 2005, and somehow ended in my stash.  Probably found it at a sale somewhere.

It's got several views, with no way to tell which view is which.  And definitely not the best directions either.  But, I decided I wanted to make a wool jacket for the Sewing Expo in Washington.  Even though it was spring weather in California, I knew it would be freezing in Puyallup! 

With just a yard of my favorite checkered black/gray fabric, I knew I needed to find other wools to combine .  So I bought a new grey wool jacket at a garage sale for $1.

Even though it looks like there's a lot of fabric, it was difficult to decide how to piece the various pattern parts to use all of the fabric I liked, and just a little of this garage sale fabric. 

I decided to bind all the seams with black seam binding because my checkered wool is loosely woven. And even though I worked on the jacket a lot, there was just something that didn't look right. (The way the front draped!)  And with no more time before my trip, I just left it on the form.

I used the gray fabric from the garage sale jacket on the back and back sleeves.

Now that I'm back from the trip, I've decided to figure out what else I can do to make the jacket turn out great.  I looked in my boxes of wools, and found these amazing rolls of firm wool binding.  Probably found these at a garage sale too.  (One of the advantages of getting older, I find all sorts of wonderful things hiding in boxes in my sewing room!)

The light lavender looks kind of neat on the front edges of the jacket.

So, I've decided to take out the jacket facing, which was too stiff for a drapey jacket.  I am going to try and add some of the wool binding, maybe even both colors of purple?  It should wrap around the edges, and can easily be cut narrower, without raveling, because it is tightly woven wool.

Truly, it's okay to let sewing projects languish awhile, so you can think about them.  It's when you put it away in a bag that it gets forgotten and never finished. 

 

What is blocking?

If you could learn a technique that would even-out your knitting stitches, would you want to learn it?  If you found that there was a way to make the edges on your crocheted afghan lay flat, would you do it?  If the squares that you got back from your weaving group were all different sizes, and they weren't supposed to be, would you know how to fix them?

I'm asking these questions because many fiber hobbyists don't seem to know what the one answer is for all of these problems.  Blocking!

Blocking is the final shaping of your finished or nearly finished garment, afghan, purse, etc.  It fixes all the little "oops" problems, straightens edges, gives you the right size, and evens your stitches.  It definitely makes your item look finished and professional.

Last week, I was a judge at the county fair, and only one crocheted afghan had been blocked - it was wool, so presumably the stitcher knew that it should be blocked, and the finishing showed.  I gave the afghan a first place ribbon.

The other 35 crocheted afghans that I looked at had curled corners, or unstraight edges, or bubbles and uneven stitches.  If the stitchers who worked so hard on their afghans had taken just one more step - and blocked their afghans, none of these distracting results would have remained. 

It doesn't take much time to block your item, except drying time. 

For lightweight items, you can spray with water, then shape to the desired size.  For heavier items, like afghans, submerge in water to get completely wet, roll in several towels to blot excess water, and shape onto a flat surface like a bed, couch, or dry towel covered floor. 

In both cases, hold the desired shape with pins that won't rust (alot of people use flower pins for this) and let dry flat.  Depending upon the weather and temperature, this could take awhile - a day or two. 

Here's a crocheted baby vest that my daughter just made - her first!  She used rust proof pins to block the sweater to shape, then let it dry on her ironing board - for a day.

 

For small items, you can steam with an iron on your ironing board, making sure to hold the iron ABOVE the item, not on the item.  You definitely don't want to flatten your stitches.  Again, pin and let dry completely - just because it's not hot, doesn't mean it's dry.

Don't hang or drape the item!  That will stretch it out of shape.

There are a lot of great videos online that talk about blocking.  Here's a simple set of knit blocking instructions that I think are good:  Blocking tutorial. 

Whether you are knitting, crocheting, weaving or embroidering, you really should consider blocking as your final step.  Without it, your item is just not complete!