How the heck do I quilt this?

I have been quilting just under 3 years.  I have learned a lot in that time, but I still have  so far to go.  Piecing and appliqué skills are coming along nicely.  Figuring out the best backing is fine as is pin basting.  My quilting stitches are improving to the point I am not embarrassed anymore.  But when it comes to figuring out what motifs and fillers to use, I usually stall.  Sometimes for months.  It's rare that by the time I get the top finished, I know how I want to quilt it.  I am thinking of the quilting the entire time I am creating the top.  Often with dread.

I currently have a top that recently sort of happened and I have no clue how to quilt it.  My daughter brought me back some fabric from Rwanda.  It’s a gorgeous colorful swirly fabric with a 10 inch repeat that begged for me to make kaleidoscope style hexagons.  I have always wanted to try these.  The background is a gold that goes well with the fabric and brings it all together.  The rosettes themselves will be easy to quilt – the swirls themselves will establish where I stitch.  However, the gold area will be defined by the quilting.  I want something that continues the tribal flavor of the fabric, stands out but doesn’t compete.  ACK! 

Top made with fabric from Rwanda.  It's about 48"by 60"

Anyway, if anyone has some suggestions or can send me links to images of something to consider, I would be ever most grateful.  I’ll eventually figure something out, hopefully during this decade yet!

A Nasty Surpise

Today I was working on a block for a bee I am in.  The theme is “your neighborhood”, and so it’s like making a mini art quilt depicting where you live (or perhaps where you want to live).  I decided on a mountain scene with a tent, campfire, etc.  It’s the neighborhood I prefer.  Everything was going perfectly (rare).  I decided to use a decorative stitch and a green-brown variegated thread by Isacord to create a ragged tree line between some of my green pieces.  Even though I am using French fuse as a backing, there were a few very minor puckers that would iron out.  I have done this enough times to know this works well.  However, as soon as I touch the iron to the seams, imagine my horror as the thread disintegrates before my eyes!  I restitched the area and used a pressing cloth – and that was okay.  I was mystified and very upset, as I have used variegated thread on a number of projects, including things that have gone out on bees.  I certainly don’t want my work disintegrating because I used the wrong materials!

My block so far.

So I dug out all the synthetic threads I love to use for embellishing, thread sketching and quilting.  I use mostly Isacord but also quite a bit of Sulky and Mettler, especially the variegated threads.  I laid out several of each brand, both solid and variegated and touched the iron to them.  Whoa, Nellie!

Results of ironing various threads.

1) The 100% polyester variegated threads by Mettler and Isacord disintegrated immediately.  Mettler more quickly and more completely than Isacord. (top 2 threads in picture are Isacord, third one down is Mettler.  )

2) The Sulky variegated threads are made of rayon – the iron did not affect them.  These are threads 4 and 5 from the top in the picture.

3) All the polyester solids were affected a little – but you had to really iron the heck out of them to see any effect.  Threads 6 and 7 are Mettler and Isacord solids, respectively.

My iron was set its usual temperature: cotton, with steam.

I wonder why this difference?  Anyway, quilter beware!

Musings on Retirement

I just noticed it’s been almost 2 months since I last posted on my blog.  I have been busy quilting and doing other things, but nothing I felt needed blogging.  However, my life has changed and it will take time to digest the fact that I am no longer gainfully employed.

On June 22^nd, I retired from teaching forestry at a community college.  When I started my career, I had not ever thought I would teach, although some people early on thought I should.  I first worked as a forester: I fought fires, surveyed lines, cruised and marked timber, supervised logging sales.  All the normal stuff us foresters do.  However, the timber industry is a fickle one.  Recessions hit it harder than other professions and the growing anti-logging sentiment by the public didn’t help either.  (Just wait, however, when you run out of toilet paper…).  In 1979 I was working for a private company that was slowly circling the drain.  An adjunct teaching position came open and I took it to fill the gap until I could find something different.  However, I found that I loved teaching and the department liked me – so when the position came open as full time and tenured, I applied and got the job.  That was 33 years ago!  

But even the teaching environment has changed.  Students come less prepared for higher education, budgets have gotten continually tighter and decisions are made by administrators with no or extremely limited teaching experience, so that their decisions usually make the job harder without real benefits to students.  It was the growing feeling of frustration that told me it was time to go.  While I will miss the students and my colleagues, I will NOT miss the low morale and lousy atmosphere that has grown the past few years.

At 60, I am on the young side of retirement age, but there are some things I still want to do, that require a reasonably sound body.  My blog name is the Quilting Climber.  It’s the climbing part that I see as most perishable.  My hips and knees remind me of that every morning.  But it feeds my soul and provides the inspiration for my art quilts. My husband is 3 years older and we still have trips we want to take and climbs we want to complete. The weird part is that I have had summers off these past 33 years: our students are off doing their internships, so we do not offer summer courses.  It’s in the fall, when the teaching year starts again, that I will realize that I am truly gone. 

 However, I am already making adjustments.  I hope to finally not only get into shape, but I hope to quit the up and downs of it: I get into shape during summer, only to lose it slowly over the school year.  Even though we teach field classes that require a lot of bush travel, it’s just not the same.  I spent way too much time at my desk writing lesson plans, grading papers and dealing with the daily BS of administration.  I was a ski patroller and patrolling helped somewhat during winter, but I retired from that as well and have not skied nearly as much since (that will change, too!)  So now I am trying to build a regular workout schedule.  I also have a long list of things to do on the house and garden.  Of course, there’s all those quilts that need finishing or need to come out of my head and into fabric.

Where we camped last week - hope to have many more such mornings.  We climbed the mountain in the background.  Daughter of the Sun, Mission Mountains, Montana.  Photo by Fred Spicker July 26, 2012.

It is said that retirement is a stressful, life changing event akin to a death, marriage or similar.  While I am happy to finish that chapter in my life, I realize I am now much closer to the end than the beginning.  That’s the thing that has me pondering the most.  I intend to make the most of it!

“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave  with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!”

(Attributed to various people with various versions – I like this one best, apparently a Maxine cartoon.)

Crazy Geese

I am in several Flickr based quilting groups.  One of my favorites is Add-A-Border (the link button is on my links list).  It’s a low key group with no timelines.  You start by sending in a 6.5 inch (or 12.5 inch) block – either made specifically for this group or an orphan you’ve been wondering what to do with.  That block gets sent out to others who add a border.  Meanwhile Dustin, who is the “Bee Daddy”, sends you one or more blocks.  The sizes go 6.5 to 12.5 to 18.5 to 24.5 inches.  If you REALLY like a block you get, you can keep it.  Otherwise, at 24.5, the initiator has right of first refusal, otherwise it goes up for adoption by anyone who has completed a full set (24.5 inch) borders.   There is no time line on any of this.  Very time crunch friendly, cheap and none of the drama that seems to go with more formal bees.  No one is relying on you, so you can take a break whenever.  You are sewing from your stash and pay only for the postage (you send a SASE when you send in a block).  You have no idea what you are going to get and some of them have proven to be a challenge. Sometimes I know right away what to add, other times my reaction is more like WTF?  But with no time line, I can let a project stew a while until I get it figured out.  These blocks also give you permission to explore and experiment, as they as not part of someone’s project.  Each is as individual as the people who make it.  It's been great fun to see what people make of the starters I have sent in!

So it was with a block named Leftover Log Cabin. Adding more of what had been added would have been boring.  The more I looked at it, the more I thought about adding geese.  Then while cruising the web for ideas, I saw several instances of more wonky geese.  Since I am a fan of freezer paper piecing, I ended up designing a 2”by 6” panel of crazy geese plus a corner piece.  The corner piece has proven to be the biggest challenge.  Overall, I think the border came out okay and it was fun to do.  I have posted the PDF file of the patterns for your use.  Make sure to turn the scaling off, when you print the PDF!  Feel free to use this any way you like, including changing the size.  If you are interested in joining the group, do so.  There is no limit on the number of members.  The more the merrier!  I have no clue how Dustin keeps up with this all, but he does.  He rocks!

Crazy Geese Border added to Left Over Log Cabin.

Spiderweb Block

So I saw this cool looking block that one of my Flickr friends had made and which she blogged about. She had gotten the tutorial for the block from another site.

What I did not like is the use of a 12.5 inch square of fabric to use as the foundation.  That’s wasting some nice fabric, and if your star fabric is bright, the color might burn through the strips.  SO, I designed a paper piecing pattern for this block.  The problem with that is, most printers are limited in size, so my pattern will only make a 10.5 inch trimmed, 10 inch finished block.  Please note – you still have to add the ¼ inch seam allowance to the pattern when making the final trim.  I suggest you draw the cut lines in, so you won’t forget! 

It’s a lot like the block I blogged about last.  You start with the middle piece and then piece either side of it. 

Starting the quarter block.

  Trim each triangle with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  After making four, sew the triangles together on the short sides.

Finished Block

A few things to note: 

•  If you wanted the corners to have the same color way, then you would have to alternate on which side a particular color way goes on two of the blocks.  Realize, as you make more blocks and sew them together, it's those corner strip triangles that will form the spiderwebs!  See the mockup below (I only have made one block so far).

• You can make this go faster if you sew the strips to each side at a time, before pressing and getting the next strips ready.
• There’s nothing sacred about the lines for the strips – you can make as many or as few, as straight or as wonky as you want.  The only piece that has to be correct is the central one, labeled BG.
• As usual I used freezer paper, but any style of foundation piecing will work.

BTW, I recently discovered that there are wide format printers that will print on 13 inch wide and up to 44”long paper.  They cost no more than a regular printer.  I have already decided I am buying one.  Many are WiFi, so I can set it up in my studio, but print from any computer in the house.

Enjoy!