More Farmers Wife Blocks!

Friendship Block

Quilting is coming second or third these days, while I enjoy the last couple of weeks of summer. The last couple of weeks of freedom with my little girl before she starts school for the first time.

Honey's Choice

So I'm squeezing in time for sewing only after I've put in some time doing other things. The things I am really going to miss come September...the spontaneous walks, trips to the pool, and yes, even playing Barbies.

Old Windmill

But I have not forgotten about my Farmers Wife quilt. I am loving this long, meditative process. I love picking out random fabrics to combine in different ways for all of this crazy geometry. When I get a window of time, I put on some music, or a podcast (This American Life is perfect - an episode lasts just about as long as it takes me to make one block or two), and I get to cutting and sewing. 

Peace and Plenty

It's the most wonderful hobby. I reached a point this year when I thought I could take it beyond the realm of hobby into business, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I'm fortunate to be able to stay-at-home with Isabella, and each time I tend to speed away from that I find the need to put the brakes on. For me, it's not the moment yet.

Noon and Light

Because of this, I recently made a very difficult decision to turn down a place at a great university in London because it would compromise me a little too much and Isabella would need after-school day care. Though lots of parents do it, that was a sacrifice I had no real justification for. Like I said, just not the right moment.

Maple Leaf

 But I will be studying again, just online. We shall how that fits - I am optimistic and getting excited to start learning new things again. (It's interesting to see how those last few sentences reduced a weeks-long agonizing decision into such simplicity. I think that if my ego hadn't been party of it, it would have been very simple indeed.)

Mother's Dream

 In the meantime, there is no shortage of learning new things with this quilting process. Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy line makes these blocks come alive with whimsy and cheerfulness. And some blocks are downright frustrating.

Bat Wing

I think I've got nearly 60 blocks now, not all of which are pictured below. There are at least two blocks that I don't think I am going to do at all - both of which are flower baskets. The flower pots were stretching it, too. I think they may be a little bit too country-style for me. Maybe I will change my mind - we'll see!

Check out my Threadbias page for photos of all the blocks so far! 

Festival of Quilts

I am making this post happen, even though I am dog tired after walking around the Festival of Quilts all day. Apparently, it's the largest quilt exhibition in Europe. After today, I think I can believe that. It's held every year in Birmingham, England and this is my third visit, in the three years or so I've been sewing. Everything on display was wonderful to see, even the quilts that truly are not my style. The technical feats and artistry of so many quilts humbled me, as it has each  year I've gone. Here you can find quilts representing traditions of antiquity to protestations against war. Truly, textile arts should be given a better showing in the modern art world.

The lovely Amy Butler stall

 One thing that really stood out was the absence of so many modern quilts in the exhibition itself. There is a large section of the exhibit designated for "art quilts", and another for traditional quilts, but a lot of the sensibilities found in the online modern quilting scene weren't found here in abundance. In fact, I saw more of the modern quilts that I'm drawn to in the vendors' section, where you could find stalls from Amy Butler to the Japanese Echino and Kokka fabric lines.

Liberty - celebrating their new quilting cotton line

There was also very little attendance today from quilters under the age of 50, which surprised me this year. It seems like we are in the middle of a craft and sewing resurgence so I was expecting to see more people my age this year compared to the last time I went in 2010. The online sewing community is so vibrant and active that I keep hoping to see more of this in real life!

My old favorite - Japanese cotton and linen from the Eternal Maker shop

I came to the festival today with my friend Aneta, and three small children between us. It was a bit hectic with the crowd (and it was packed in there!), but our two girls absolutely loved it. They were talking about color, what shapes they could find...it was so great to see them interested. It does help that we found some Dora the Explorer, and then there were random unicorns and dragons to be found too. They never once got bored!

our girls, talking color and composition :)

Loved these colors somewhere near the Rowan booth

 There was just so much to see. If Birmingham wasn't an hour and a half away, I'd probably try to go again before the show ends on Sunday. But as it is, I have more motivation than ever to continue on with my Farmer's Wife quilt. I think I'm on block 60 now, which is more than halfway through!

New fabrics to come from Lotta Jansdotter - one of my beloved Scandinavian designers
plus, some patterns from the irreverent and cool Sublime Stitching!

 If all goes according to plan tomorrow, my day will be filled with quilting and scanning the pages of my online fabric shops for some of the sweet designs I spied today.

Lots of old and new with so much overlapping goodness to see

If you're the area, the Festival of Quilts is on until 19 August 2012 - check it out here!

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along

The Contrary Wife. Of course.

I have been working in a new direction with my quilting - a sort of crash course on traditional quilt block making. Inspired by some of the online quilt alongs for the Farmer's Wife quilting book (here), I was surprised to find myself drawn by the very traditional shapes that first repelled me from quilting in the first place. I guess it wasn't truly the shapes that drew me, but the use of modern, lively, and non-blah colors found in new fabric lines.

Century of Progress

So little by little, I have been knocking out 6" block by 6" block with the mad dream that eventually I will complete all 111 designs shown in the book. The tininess of the individual blocks magnifies the need for precision in piecing, and also creates loads of seams in the back of some of the more difficult blocks. If I'm honest, the examples made in the book don't really appeal to me - the author has used a lot of traditional country fabrics, with lots of brown. The intricacy of the piecing is often lost in those floral creams and mauves. So it's a challenge to re-imagine them all in my head. I think that by the time I get to block 50 I will be closer to mastering the art of color contrast in printed fabrics.

Yes! Look at those points! Cut Glass Dish

I'm also learning a lot about color work, which I have never had to pay too much attention to in the simpler patterns I have created quilts with before. This is important with really intricate blocks - you certainly don't want all of  your precise piecing to blend together if the contrasting colors don't contrast enough. I've already made this mistake a few times and only really could see it once the block was finished - and construction of one block can take up to an hour (update: It took me nearly 3 hours to do Corn and Beans and Cut Glass Dish today).

the back, full of seams

These blocks are inspired by those created by farm women of the 1920's. The book is filled with letters to a magazine calling for opinions on the tradition of family farming. Would farm mother's prefer their daughters to follow in their footsteps and become farmer's wives, living a tough but rewarding life? Or should they move on to the increasingly liberated lifestyles of women in the cities? Some of the stories are romantic, touching, and inspiring even if a bit anecdotal.

coming together

What I would have loved to find in this book is more history on the blocks themselves - some of these patterns were used by people in the Underground Railroad, and some were simply created to reduce waste with scraps of used fabric around the house. But where and how did they come up with these names!? Some of the block names are truly baffling to me - names like Century of Progress, Contrary Wife, or Broken Sugar Bowl. I stretched and I stretched my mind to work out the abstraction of the Broken Sugar Bowl. Why did they get these names and how can you create the block in a way that best reflects the name when you don't see any relation to it? 1920's farm wives or abstract expressionists? I found this link here, which seems to help a little. 

Corn and Beans

 To some, this process may seem extremely dull, but for me, it's only getting more interesting as I go on.

Folksy Chevron Quilt

I finally finished my chevron quilt! I'm so excited!

It was made to exactly fit the strange dimensions of our Ikea guest bed. The bottom drawers pull out to make a double bed, but the quilt I made is designed to just fit it as a single bed, mostly so the room looks good for the majority of the year when no one is staying in it.

Again, I didn't use a pattern for this quilt. I just made enough blocks to test the width and could then figure out how many I would need to fit the length. The pieced blocks are half squares, so the only real difficulty is making sure your points don't get cut off when you're attaching the rows of chevrons together. My new machine made this process much easier than it used to be with my reliable, yet basic, Brother machine.

I decided to quilt along the chevron pattern and I am happy with the end result. The quilting was really difficult to keep the lines straight in the center because the bulk of the rest of the quilt under the machine's arm required a little more pushing and pulling on my part. Had the lines been straight - side-to-side - this would have been easier. However, the zig-zag pattern added just enough difficulty to make me skew the lines so much that the stitching had to be ripped out of three rows. I then had to re-do the quilt sandwich and re-do all the safety pinning for more than half the quilt. Not a happy moment. 

I'm thrilled with it! The look is interesting and colorful, yet clean and modern. As I mentioned before, with the pocket pillow I completed first, the fabric is from a retro print Anthology line that I bought as a collection of around a dozen fat quarters.

The binding is a mix of two similar shades of Kona green from my stash that I alternated, mostly because I didn't want to go out and buy more fabric, and also for a little something different. I also hand-stitched the binding.

I knew I wanted a tangerine color for the back - something that would be bright, happy, and unexpected from the front. The fabric is Kona cotton in Cheddar. Mmmm....cheese - what's not to like there? I love how the uniform color really shows of the quilted lines on the back.

And that's it! Our guest room is another step closer to having better personality. My plan is to do one or two body pillows to set against the wall so the bed is more couch-like and we can sit in there for a little reading retreat.

Now, on to tackle the walls and the mis-matched furniture on the other side of the room!

We'll be enjoying the rest of our Sunday with a heap of kids books and some of the nice light that we've been getting late into the evening.

 Have a great rest of your weekend! 

Inspiration

 Where do you get your inspiration? For a long time, I think I got most of my inspiration from inspired people, rather than really being inspired myself. This is still partly true, of course - I read a lot of creative blogs, books, and follow creative people on Pinterest. But I’m finding myself a little changed from three years ago, when I first began sewing - changed at least in the personal creativity department.

Before full-time motherhood, I just didn’t have any extra time to take in the things in that I now can. I did what I could with my limited free time, but now that I have more of it - or rather, am able to better organize what I want to do in a week, I find that I am far more open to being inspired by things myself, rather than someone else’s interpretation. The setting of a room, the shadow of a tree on a sidewalk, the color of the the tiles in a public bathroom - I’m much more open to the subtle beauty of little things around me. Beauty in a public bathroom? Exactly.

I’ve been reading this blog lately, and have been truly moved to see things through a different lens. There is a quietness to her photography that I just love. This post in particular resonated hard with me. The point is, inspiration comes the more open you are to it - and for me, the quieter the moment, the clearer it is.

There is also nothing like a new place to make me notice things I would ordinarily walk right by. We were in Germany last month and I found so much inspiration - feeling foreign must surely heighten the experience. The color of a blooming tree against an apartment building, and even the backdrop of a drab gray sky gave me a fantastic idea for a quilt. The architecture in the zoo's botanical gardens...and the flowers, flowers, flowers. Flowers are probably pretty obvious inspiration, but I just had to include them here. They’re like gobs of fluffy whipped cream on the perfectly sweet cake that is SPRING.

This month, I am very inspired.

The only real downside to lots of inspiration...?

...That would probably be the realization that there just isn't enough time to do it all.

Pillow Projects

I've been busy doing lots of springy things - more light for longer during the day mean lots more motivation for me to get projects both started and finished! Aside for growing a proper vegetable garden for the first time in over six years, I've taken on our sad little guest room. Because we have a small house with no convenient storage space, the guest room tends to be the room we use to chuck unused suitcases and extra piles of seasonal clothes that are between our drawers and the attic.

Slowly, I found a better spot for our suitcases, which are actually in constant use with my husband's business travel. Then I began stocking my Pinterest boards with ideas I wanted to put to use for our new day bed. A new sized bed means a happy excuse to make another quilt! And perhaps even a pillow or two to liven things up.

I've been saving some retro print fabric I bought a few months ago from an Anthology fabric line. I was inspired by the modern lines in a few chevron patterned quilts I pinned from some of my favorite blogs and flickr members, so I decided to combine the folksy 70's prints with a stark white Kona cotton to get a fusion of folksy and minimalistic design.

This is the quilt top so far. I decided to order a solid tangerine fabric for the backing, and I plan to use a dark navy for the binding. My plan is to quilt along with the main chevron pattern to emphasize the lines.

And that brings me to the pillow I made with the leftover fabric scraps! The author of A Cuppa and a Catch Up had some great patterns, but the Pillow Pocket pattern really inspired me.  I happen to have a little girl who loves hiding little toys in any pocket she might find, so this just had to be - even if the pillow wasn't strictly for her.

The pattern was brilliant. Absolutely no hiccups, everything was well explained, and all measurements were perfect! The whole thing probably came together in 3-4 hours, all told. I machine stitched everything into place, including the appliquéd Dresden "flower", but added hand quilting around the flower itself, and just outside the yellow center (all done within a single Skype conversation with my inlaws - now there's multitasking!).  The only modification I made was to make the center of the flower 1/2" smaller than in the pattern because I wanted more of the petals to be exposed.

I really like the contrasting fabrics on the back and loved the simple and quick lined quilting of each piece. The fact that there is cotton batting in each layer of the pillow case means that the pillow has a nice stiff body to it, and the end result looks very professional. I'm thrilled with Nova's patterns and couldn't recommend this particular pattern more - her explanations were far simpler than many of my pattern books by more famous authors.

I'm so delighted with the success I've had on Pinterest. I think moderate pinning is the key to not feeling like an inadequate housewife in the face of amazing, yet unrealistic pins you may find on there. There are so many talented, creative people online - I'm constantly grateful for all of the tips and inspiration!

I decided to include another pillow I made a few months ago. My daughter made this sweet little drawing that I wanted to preserve in a unique way. I've seen blog posts on replicating children's artwork on textiles, but I feel like I haven't seen anything quite the same. I tell my husband that this is her "soul" drawing :).

I took her original drawing and darkened the lines with permanent marker so that I could trace the illustration onto the cream colored fabric. Using a washable tracing pen, I exactly traced the drawing onto the cotton, making sure to include all of the shaky wobbles made by her then three-year-old hand. Then, I embroidered over the pen marks using a thick split stitch, my favorite.  I usually keep this on the couch in my living room and I never get tired of looking at it.

Learning New Things

Source: handmadecathygaubert.blogspot.com via April on Pinterest

If I get a spare minute tomorrow, this will be my inspiration. Today, I made a mini-quilt (mug rug) to practice piecing pinwheels and working on my free-motion quilting. I have to say, free-motion quilting is way harder than it looks in all of the YouTube videos! The movement of the fabric under the quilting foot does not feel natural and getting the coordination between the fabric movement and the speed of the machine....let's just say my pacing needs work.

And I don't know about you, but doing a short, cute project always boosts my confidence enough to go back to the tougher thing I was fleeing from in the first place.