You may remember that I was working on this old WIP this weekend called "Love Drops".  I believe this kind of quilt is called a "confetti" quilt - it's made from the tiniest oddments of scraps - in this case, all red ones, leftover from Saucy Divo.



In it, there are bits of chenille, lame, cotton, cotton batik, silk taffetta, everything that I put in that first, very textural quilt (I keep meaning to make another); all pieced together with strips of leftover white fabric scraps (and finally, two different lengths of white yardage, because, if you should make one of these quilts, be warned, it uses a LOT of yardage).


I used some white minky for the borders (so sooofffffttttt - and don't mind the pic - the wind was blowing, making the borders wonky) and a double layer of batting for warmth and comfort, as this queen sized quilt is intended for winter use in a Northern climate!

(I can't show you the back because I finished it in the wee hours of the morning last night, and haven't clipped the threads yet, but you may remember the unfinished back from my WIP post,





I'd like to make another one of these, using multi-coloured confetti, and a different background - perhaps a shot cotton background, or other, highly textural cloth.



(pics are clickable)
This quilt was a bit of a pain - all those seams and doubled batting made it a bear to quilt on my little Singer (I really need to look into getting one of those frame systems for my larger quilts) and it ate needles like some kind of needle-eating monster (in the end I used leather needles!); but I love that it used up so many of my scrap and I'm pleased with the end result. 

I can cross one WIP off my list - I'm finally finished Love Drops!

~ selah ~

On Saturday, I made one of my rather frequent visits to the Textile Museum.  There was an exhibition of antique quilts there - many of which were very special.  One of the quilts I saw incorporated what I think of as "modern" techniques - i.e. the maker, in 1862, had included in her quilt, photographs printed on silk.  Very advanced!

There was a whole room of log cabin quilts, which made me laugh - as I said to BSP, this room is my nightmare and Crystal's (of Modify Tradition) dream!  In another gallery (just past the appliqued quilts) there was a string quilt  that looked astonishingly contemporary,



and there was a room full of crazy quilts - which made me feel quite crazy, frankly, though one or two were quite beautiful.

Sadly, though I took nearly 70 pictures, not a single one isn't blurry - I wore my new graduated lenses (in contact form) and though the pictures looked sharp and in focus to me, they were not.  *grrr*  So I can't show you anything.

For weekend reading though, I picked up the book Quilting Art: Inspiration, Ideas & Innovative Works from 20 Contemporary Quilters by Spike Gillespie from the gift shop, (although I'm very sad to say I didn't purchase it for the advertised Amazon price of $27.71!) and read it nearly cover to cover on Saturday night.  I didn't love all of the artists and quilters that were included (two sections I had to skip altogether - the busyness of their work gave me an instant headache); but Spike's writing is engaging and informative,  the interviews are an inspiration, and the photographs will be study and inspiration pieces for me for some time to come.  I highly recommed it!

And how was YOUR weekend?


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P.S.  I guess I should acknowledge the new look of my blog, as well.  :)  I don't know if any of you noticed, but my prior template has been wonky ever since Blogger switched to XML, and last week, the modernist posey that used to live in the lower left hand side, slipped off the radar altogether.

I've long admired this layout on a couple of photography blogs I follow, and decided to try it here.  I'm finding it a bit dark, but I know that's only because my prior template was so very bright in contrast.  Overall, I'm very pleased with it - and think that it's reflective of the emotional and mental switch that has happened lately as I quilt and think about quilts - from my prior "Let's make this fresh and fun" attitude to "Hey, this is actually something I'm pretty serious about".  (Not that I won't continue to have fun!)  So, a new look for the blog to match the new attitude. 

Though I am now realizing that my latest pieces (in my head and in progress) are working "through" quilting rather than "making quilts" these days (as always, my abilities are not up to my expression!); never fear, I don't intend to become stuffy.  If I do, give me a metaphorical smack upside the head.  ;)

. Untitled, 2. Untitled, 3. Untitled, 4. handmade paper

Sometimes, the things that inspire me are not quilts at all. Sometimes, they are colours, or emphemera captured by a camera; sometimes its a piece of history; most often, it's a feeling.


All of these pictures evoke in me a feeling of calm, with a gentle (but strong) current, just below the surface.

a distinct lack of Wednesday WIP.



Well, the tragedy continued... lol After I was done pouting about the kitty incident, I pulled out Love Drops to quilt. You may remember that I need to rip out my original stitching, as I decided that I didn't like the "double" heart effect.

Although I made that quilt top this past spring, which is not that long ago, I've made about 15 quilts since then, so I've learned a (tremendous!) lot since then, including that reallllllllllly closely spaced stitches are not a good idea.    Especially when you're trying to pull them out later. *ahem*

After spending nearly three hours unpicking (and having only ten or so unpicked hyperquilted hearts to show for it - or not show for it, if you know what I mean) I decided that I would incorporate the hyperquilted hearts into my new quilting design and have done with it.

Alas and alack (lol) new problems developed. 




It's a confetti quilt, right?  With oh, roughly 1 billion seams.  And though I had many, many needles on hand, all of them were of the skinny size, not quilting size, and I went through 6 packages of needles and  hours and hours wasted by constant putting in a new needle, re-threading, coming across another seam that was just a little too thick ten minutes later, and *poof!* another broken needle.

The stores were closed so I couldn't buy more, and I had already decided that 30 needles was the limit I would waste on this quilt.  Two thirds of the way through I reached needle number 30, and when it broke, I threw in the towel.

I'm picking up some new needles at lunch today and hope that I will have something substantive to show you tomorrow!

Sheesh!

We agreed, but the fostering process turned out to be a disaster for us.  After bottle feeding those little babies, stroking their throats to make them swallow, teaching them how to go to the bathroom,  and generally, being their "mommies" - we fell deeply in love and couldn't give them back. 


And that's where the problems began.  Because they were fosters, we kept them separate from the other three cats for four months.  And though my old girl (Mitzie) likes them as well was she likes the other two girls, the two teenagers have never integrated the babies or accepted them although it's been years! 




So, during the day, "the babies" as we call them, live in the downstairs portion of our house, and "the three girls" live upstairs. At night however, we leave the doors open, close our bedroom doors, and let the wild rumpus begin!



One morning, I found the two babies trapped on top a dresser in my sewing room, with the teenagers staring them down from a sewing table across.  I scolded the teenagers, rescued the babies and didn't think much more of it, until I went to sew the binding on my quilt, which was sitting on top of that dresser.

It's full of pee!

Needless to say, I won't be working with THAT quilt today. 

So, I'm going to pull out another WIP and quilt that, and will have another quilt to show you later on today for my Wednesday WIP.  *le sigh*

My apologies, and stay tuned...

I have 't been spending as much time in my sewing room lately as I would like - it isn't that I haven't had the opportunity, only that I have been feeling strangely unmotivated.




I realized on Friday night as BSP and I discussed our weekend and the usual question came up "What will you work on this weekend?" that though I have a host of WIPs to be completed and approximately one thousand quilts in my head to be made, none of them were speaking to me.

So, it was with some reluctance that I approached my sewing room on Saturday morning.  I worked on my Wednesday WIP for a while, but apparently, as I was quilting, a plan was forming in my subconscious, against my conscious will.



When I finished (well  thought I finished but that's a story for Wednesday!); I pulled out a group of fabrics that I had set aside for several months now, fabrics I had been collecting for a certain quilt; pulled out my notebook to refresh my memory about layout and began to cut and prepare the fabric for sewing (again, this quilt is a mix of silk, satins and a silk cotton blend from Japan, so stablizing of some of the fabrics was necessary).

And then I began to sew.  And as I began to sew, I immediately began making something different than I had planned.  The process was a meditative one, and when I post the finished quilt, I'll explain what happened and why.

But in the meantime, here is the finished top.  When done, it will be called  "A Sparrow in the Rain".