Flashback Friday

I had always wanted to have a Flashback Friday feature for posting the projects of yesteryear, but it's hard enough to carve out time to stay current, when would I dig out the old stuff? Motivation arrived in an email from Webshots earlier this month that the site was closing and converting to a paid site, so you had to download your photos prior to December 1st if you wanted them. Fortunately it came with a nifty link that made it simple.

 

I've had lots of fun perusing photos of the beading I used to do and quilts I've given away that I forgot about. So here we arrive at the first installment of Flashback Friday!

Caterpillar Bracelets

I am a bracelet person and I loved, loved making and wearing this bracelet. It has since broken from overuse and the beads have been recycled into various projects by my daughter.

 

I think I made this one for one of my nieces?

 

These are my one-and-only commissioned pieces. A dear friend was getting married and presented these to her flower girls. How time flies! The same friend just had a baby this week, her second darling little girl!

 

 

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Sewing Class

I had the opportunity to attend a special sewing class last night with many of my quilting friends. A teacher was in town for another class and offered to put together kits to make a wool pumpkin pin cushion. Yes, please!

 

So this is me getting over my compulsion to assign a purpose to everything. Such as, I'll only spend time and money making a quilt because it's for a gift. Or, I'm only taking this class because I'm learning a new skill that will improve my technique.

I have one friend in particular that has been unknowingly helping to liberate me. She taught me tatting. I mean, tell me, who NEEDS the product of tatting? Who needs 12 inches handmade lace made of knots and loops that took a week to make? But it's beautiful and you can finally use the hand-dyed thread you made yourself (that has also been languishing without purpose)! This friend is also a master of freehand embroidery. A couple of years ago she was working on.... something - maybe we'd call it a doodle cloth - couching down amazing fibers, attaching metal keys and zipper parts, applying appliqué. It was beautiful! Scrumptious and soft and buttery yellow with bursts of color trailing across the surface. I asked her, "What is that for?" She said, "I don't know."

What she really didn't know was how her answer stopped my brain in its tracks. I was thinking, 'How can you not know?' How can you work on something *without a purpose*? Because if I am not being a mother to my children or entertaining my husband or working at my job or doing something that will benefit others, then what is the *purpose* of that activity?

I have passed up so many opportunities to engage because I would think, 'How many craft items can I frame and hang on a wall anyway?' or 'How many things do I just need to move around to dust?' or 'I already know how to sew and stuff a pillow, why do I need to pay to take that class?'

I'm learning new answers to those questions that include, 'because it's pretty' and 'because it brings me joy.'

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On a quilting spree

I finished quilting "Alexander's Christmas Quilt" (he called dibs) and am working on the binding. I took advantage of the weekend, though, and pinned the next quilt to be quilted, another one by Bonnie Hunter. This one I made using all of her original colors, and I love it.

 

 

I'm not sure when I'll have another block of time to quilt it, but I'm ready! I loved glancing at the hundreds of fabrics in it when I was pinning it, and it'll be fun to see each one as I quilt it.

 

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Quilter's elf

The family was gone this weekend, so I set up my workshop in the dining room and spent the day blissfully quilting. I'm not sure when I started this Christmas quilt. It may be from a combination of classes I took when I was a guild member. I put all the pieces together sometime earlier this year and it's been sitting, waiting for me to get batting.

I quilt my quilts myself, and I pin them by taping the backing to the dining room floor, then layering the batting and top.

 

 

My fantasy is to have a Christmas quilt on every bed in the house someday. We'll see who calls dibs on this one.


 

 

Although I know that this is the busy season for elves, really, I do not need a four-legged one to help me with my quilting.

 

 

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Seasonless

All around the blogosphere people are rejoicing in the first lit fires of the season, the patter of acorns dropping around them, the abundance of gourds finding their way to the farmer's market and the emergence of scarves into their wardrobes.

What does fall mean here on the border by the sea? Only two more months of hurricane season. Temps drop 10 degrees to the low 90s. Friday night football games = a sweat bath in the bleachers with the heat of the direct setting sun ruining any chance of enjoying a hot and spicy Frito Pie. The browned front lawn taking a final gasp after the drought of the summer.

It also means: gloriously unpopulated beaches, lingering evenings on the patio, the will to bike and walk outside again

A bay as smooth as glass

A glorious fall day on the beach

 

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Note to self: review checklist carefully

Back in the old days, I used to be much more involved in my local quilt guild. I actually belonged to the guild, number one, and I would participate in swaps, retreats, activities, etc. Then life interfered, and my free time became completely unpredictable. All my crafting and quilting took place at home in whatever snatches of time I could carve out. But over the past year or so I've made an effort to reconnect. While I wish I could still attend guild meetings and retreats and Saturday sew-ins, I've at least committing to joining "Wooley Bee."

Wooley Bee is like my "Cheers". When you walk in, everyone looks up from their projects and exclaims "Hello!" "So good to see you!" "Can't wait to see what you're working on!" We're allowed to complain about work, commiserate over family issues, share our triumphs, oogle handiwork, show off purchases that receive appropriate levels of appreciation, and give into peer pressure to start yet another project. Oh yes, and we also sew. And sometimes we actually sew wool projects at Wooley Bee.

At last night's particular meeting, I was planning to work on my hexi project (not a scrap of wool in site), but, as I mentioned, I have good momentum going that I want to keep. It's also super portable and I knew I could crank out some rows of hexis while chatting and catching up with everyone. Too bad I didn't bring thread. Really. And none of my buddies had any regular sewing thread, because they were using fancy thread for their wool projects: wool thread, sparkly thread, beading thread, pearl cotton thread... No cotton sewing thread to be found. And the quilt store next door was closed. Aaaaarg.

But maybe it was a blessing in disguise because I did bring my own pearl cotton, and was forced to embroider my next sea creature: the dolphin. I had used a chain stitch for the outline on the birds because I wanted it to look full and feathery. I wanted a smoother effect for the dolphin. The stem stitch wasn't working out with the pearl cotton, so I used a backstitch. The problem was that a single backstitch wasn't bold enough on the dark background. A second line of backstitch gave it the width it needed, and kept the primitive style I was looking for. And going around the dolphin a second time was much more palatable surrounded by excellent company that it would have been in front of the TV at home.

 

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New Hexi Project

August was kind of a lost month. We took a family vacation, which meant we were gone for about 10 days. As soon as we returned, the kids were off and running to their extracurricular activities that were beginning several weeks before their classes began. August is also one of my busiest times at work.

So of course I started a new project!


I had a baggie full of 5" batik squares from an online swap I was in a million years ago... or maybe 5 or 6 years ago. They were so pretty that I really couldn't bear to cut into them. But my unofficial resolution this year has been to use the pretty stuff. What am I doing just keeping it folded up in storage bins?

I was looking through this book recently for a wool pattern when I ran across a great hexagon pattern that featured primitave embroidered chickens. Inspired by my batiks and our recent family vacation, I decided to remake with an ocean theme.


It calls for more than 625 hexagons. But I've had help.

I've been alternating between making hexagons and embroidering, so I had to see how the hexis might frame some of my shorebirds...

I chose to use a darker background for the embroidery, as the original pattern called for. I really like it. I want to do more embroidery on prints too. But I've been working steadily on this project for a few weeks, so I'm going to try to keep my up monmentum on a single project.

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