Wee Wonderfuls

no class

My quilting class was cancelled yesterday because of all the snow. Very disappointing. But it gives me a chance to press open all my seams, which I think might just take forever.

I've been a busy quilting bee. First cutting out 200+ pieces. I think the cutting is the most difficult part. Even with my new awesome work space it is so hard to get the mat, rotary cutter and fabric to work in harmony. Then I chain pieced the quilt together. We learned that technique in class. Why don't I know of these things?! Such a time saver. Here's a definition I found online...  "Chain-Piecing is a technique that is commonly used to speed up the process of machine piecing. Chain-piecing is feeding pairs of fabric pieces through the sewing machine, one right after another, without stopping to cut the threads, creating a chain of sewn pieces. The pieces are cut apart once the chain is finished." Like I said, super handy. But I did have some trouble with my seams coming open a bit at the edge because there was no backstitching to anchor them in place. Maybe I did it wrong. See this is why I need class! Darn snow.

Now that I finished this top I want to start on a bazillion baby quilts. But since my fabric budget is bust, and my month of softies deadline is looming. It's kitty town for me.

a few more vintage things

Here are a few more vintage things I'd love to swap for crafty goodies. Check out my previous post if you're confused. A few more things I've thought of mentioning. Let's do one item per person for a bit to let anyone who's interested get a chance. And don't feel like you can't play if you haven't got a stash of vintage fabric and buttons, we'll come up with something! And don't worry about being not in the US. If you're up for the shipping charges so am I. And shipping. I haven't quite figured it all out yet. But it makes most sense for me to just pay shipping to you and then for you to pay shipping back.

ok....

just throwing this out there

I think I've mentioned before that I used to have a little online business selling vintage clothes. Well I still have a bunch of stuff in the basement and I want to clean house. So I thought I'd throw some things up here and see if anyone wanted to trade.  I don't really want to spend too much time describing, washing, prepping. I'm burnt out on the vintage business. I'm not even going to bring my mannequin up from the basement. I thought I'd offer just a brief description of each item and its condition with measurements. Some of the things I have left either need small repairs or dry cleaning. Some are in great shape. I'm thinking if anyone is interested they could email me (first come first serve). Then they could paypal me for shipping, wait til they get their item, check it out and then decide what to swap based on the condition. Make sense? I'm thinking a very informal friendly trusting sort of swap. I could put together a list of things I'm always looking for... vintage fabrics, buttons, patterns, yarn. I also need things like bamboo needles. And there's my wishlist on equilter. Stuff like that.

These are things I had no heart to send back to the thrift stores and no energy to try to ebay so they've been stuck in limbo in my basement. Maybe these things have a home out there somewhere.

This is the first armful I grabbed...

6 x 6

Here's my square for the Tsunami Quilt project. The yellow rose is from some feedsack fabric and the background is some Marimekko fabric I've been saving. I so struggled with this project. I really wanted to do something more elaborate and, I don't know, symbolic, evocative, meaningful? But I'm crap at embellishment. So here it is. Bright and simple. At least this way the Marimekko isn't all mucked up with my poor embroidery/embellishment skills!

cars and trucks

Oscar has figured out exactly which pages in all of his books have pictures of cars or trucks or tractors or anything with wheels on them. He opens the book, flips til he finds it and sticks there. Reading to himself .... creeughhhh (that's my best transcription of his car noise). I try to turn the page to go on with the story but then we get stuck in this page turning tug of war and he always wins. So I went looking through his bookshelves for a book with wheels on every page. I found this golden book that I got at a rummage sale I think, Cars and Trucks. Copyright 1976, 1959, 1951. It's illustrated by Richard Scarry and it is fantastic! Every page is better than the last, all cool 50s style!

The full service gas station!

Did kids in the 50s really wear aviator hats and goggles to school?!

The happy farmers waiting for kitties to cross the road

And then you turn the page and there's this! Total 1970s! Look at Dad's mustache, the huge wide white belts, Mom's Carol Brady hairdo! Same kitty though.

So what the heck happened here? Is Richard Scarry still the illustrator of this page? 20 years later?  Was there an original that was destroyed by the time they reprinted in 1976? Or were they trying to make it more current? Could they not find someone to more closely emulate Richard Scarry's illustrations? I'm so curious about this page.

I'm cooking with gas now!

My Dad came over yesterday to deliver my new crafting table that he made for me. It's so beautiful! So long and smooth and clean and uncluttered. This is a whole new world for me. It's just the right height for a work table and it even has a pencil tray on the side!

I was so inspired by my new organized, usable space that I jumped into my quilting last night and pieced together my "art" quilt (to be a wallhanging, not a used laundered everyday quilt). I cut the Nani Iro print in half and then pieced it together with the gray & red I had picked out and this cool dotted tan that I found yesterday. When I was trying to decide how to lay it all out I got the idea to make it look sort of like a kimono with an obi tied around the middle. And then it all clicked and came together. And I love it! I've bought high loft polyester batting for this one because I want it to be very puffy. I still have to work out how I'm going to quilt it. I'm thinking quilting around the designs in the print and just in stripes across the solids. We'll see what they say in class.

Now it's time to work on my functional quilt. It's amazing how a better space can change your outlook. Normally I'd dread untangling this mess, pressing it all out and then trying to find a free space to cut all the pieces. But not now. Now I'm looking forward to it!

Thank you Dad!

Fun!

My head has been swimming since Saturday afternoon when I had my first Basic Quiltmaking class taught by Weeks Ringle at Funquilts. I've been wanting to write about it from the minute I got home but I've been obsessing over colors and shopping for fabric nonstop ever since. I'm having such a hard time picking colors. Normally this is the easiest (and most fun) part for me. But I'm really struggling with what fabrics to use for my class projects.  Weeks stressed the importance of choosing high quality cottons, and being careful in every step of the construction so that you'll create a quilt of heirloom quality that you'll love forever. Unlike the quilts I hastily make where I cringe every time I look at the wobbly quilting. So because I want to make a really really nice quilt and also I'm trying to coordinate the projects with our redecoration efforts I'm having color stress. Also I'm trying to challenge myself not to go with a familiar palette for me. Whatever the reason, the result was many many hours in 3 different fabric shops yesterday.

I have two projects in mind for the class. The first is a very simple quilt using one of my Nani Iro prints from Japan. I bought this fantastic red from the collection of fabrics in the Funquilts studio. The color is dead on and I love the pattern. Then I found this excellent gray yesterday during the fabric search. Now I just need one more color. I'm not sure about the light pink. I also have a yellow and a blue that I'm considering.

My other project is a quilt of all solids from one of the patterns she gave us in class. The trick, as I understand it, is to get as many colors in there as you can to create visual interest. So this is what I have so far. I was inspired by a 1950s color palette I tore out from the December issue of Elle Decoration - gray, dark gray, mustard, lemon yellow, light blue and teal. I never thought I'd have any teal in my house (especially after years of driving the automo-teal) but I think it looks great with these other colors.

Here are some other neat finds from the fabric store... This fabric that looks like someone went crazy on it with a Spirograph and some bright blue wool felt for another robot. I've been working on a second robot and having technical difficulties. He's very wide. But I'm reinvigorated after seeing these cool robot quilts by Kathy Weaver this morning. Thanks Melanie for the link!

And I found these sweet little prints. Maybe for my vintage catwalk kitty.

And last but not least, the sweet dear Kate sent me some fantastic buttons, this neat duckie ribbon and a bit of beautiful asian fabric. I'm thinking the blue buttons for the kitty's eyes and the lovely pink ones for her dress. Thank you Kate!!

I'll write more about the class later this week but now I have to go and get the place ready for the imminent arrival of the birthday present my Dad made me! hooray!

odds and ends

I'm feeling like the Chicago weather these days. Day before yesterday there were inches and inches of snow still on the ground. Yesterday it poured rain and melted all the snow and then it was so warm Oscar and I walked downtown in just sweaters! Today, 30s and snowing again! I've been bouncing all over too. Crafty projects, organizing the craft room (playing with buttons), redecorating the apartment, reading baby books, trying to catch up on email. Oscar is in flux too, seems to be transitioning out of his 2 nap routine down to just 1 nap. I tried to show him in the books where it says that this shouldn't happen until 15 months but he doesn't seem to care.

I'm still getting sucked into the crochet. I think I'm going to use this new stitch on the side panels of that bag. It's front post double crochet. I like the back (the one on the right) better than the ribbed front (left) but I'm not sure it's different enough from the center panel.

That brown circle is the bottom of a crocheted cupcake I've now added to my crochet list thanks to craftlog. I also found this amazing site via Dioramarama, Small Cat Design. So many beautiful crocheted things including this scarf and this cloche...

My sister has been bugging me for a cloche ever since I made felted ones like this for sale on my old vintage site...

I told her I was done with the knitting and felting business but maybe I could make her a crocheted one. (for *next* Christmas Katie)

I'm working on another little robot now. Hee. They make me laugh. But really I should be working on my softies, just read that Loobylu has 10 kitties cut out! 10!

It's a Girl!

Congratulations to Jennifer and Satoshi on their cutie cute new little baby girl Emily!!

button tray

I have something very exciting on the horizon in the desk department, but for now, for official international desk day here are some pictures of my new button tray. I just got the best ebay score in the mail this week. I won a big lot of buttons for $10 and I'm so happy with what I got! So many great buttons, mod ones, simple ones, shiny ones. I love them! So I dug this printers drawer out from the basement and I set it up as my new button drawer. I'm going to keep it slid underneath my fabric shelves. Hopefully it won't be too hard to get at, it will definitely keep me motivated to keep my craft room tidy. Before this I had all my buttons in a bag and every time I needed one I'd have to dig through them all. Now it will be so easy to look at them all at once!

Here's what I've got so far. Most of my ebay buttons are in here and I still have a few odds and ends to dig out of various locations.

And I still have to go through this whole bag of clear buttons from that same ebay auction.

Here are some close ups..