Plein Air treadling

Sorry for no posts last week. I was busy with work, life and mostly getting ready to have an artist's booth at a local arts festival. ARTsFEST, at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA, is an annual art and art education festival with tons of hands-on art activities for kids. They also have an artists' market, and artists are asked to demonstrate their work.

The wind kept blowing our display board down, so we rearranged.

So I spent last week finishing and framing several art quilts and hand-dying bandanas, gathered them up, plus some mixed media jewelry, fabric postcards and a few glasses cases and little drawstring bags, loaded them with a tent, table, sewing machine and cabinet, chairs, display board and all my sewing stuff. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

A beautiful day to sew outside

Other than the loading and unloading – and the sunburn – it was a blast. I worked on several small pieces, thread sketching and thread painting, as people stopped by. The reactions were so much fun. Some of the older visitors talked about learning to sew on a treadle or having a mother or grandmother who sewed on a treadle. Many had a family treadle tucked away at home and I gave them information on cleaning and taking care of them. A lot of the men were interested in the age of the machine, how it worked and sewing machine history. A number of women who do sew were interested in the actual sewing, as well as getting their own treadles to work. Since the university has a fashion design program I got a lot of interest from younger people who sew, or are learning to sew. And the kids were interested in how the machine worked.

I think the most common comment was that people had never seen anyone sew on  a treadle, or didn't know anyone still sewed on a treadle.

On the art side, I got lots of compliments on my quilts and many people said they'd never seen anything like them. It didn't seem to be much of a buying crowd, so I didn't sell any bigger works, but I did sell a few small items, at least enough to cover the cost of entering the show. My sister came along to help, and handled most of the sales and kept an eye on the merchandise, which let me concentrate on my demo and talking about sewing and machines.

It was great fun, I got some good exposure as an artist and saw a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while, since I worked in Statesboro for years. And I even got the basic quilting/thread sketching done on several pieces while I was there.

And I learned a lot about having an artist's booth. I need a better display, mine kept blowing over in the wind. I forgot to bring cards, next time bring cards and handouts with references on sewing machines and art quilting. And if I do ARTsFEST again, I'll bring along a handcrank sewing machine and let people try it.

Have a great week, more later.

Thread-painting and dimensional applique

I haven't posted many finishes lately, as I've been working on different components, rather than start to finish. But I have two new finishes to show, both variations on dimensional applique.

Palm rainbow, finished

I've been using dimensional applique, my term for creating and quilting individual components separately, then applying them on the body of the quilt, for a couple of years now. For larger pieces I like to stitch them right sides together, then turn and insert batting. But in making my dogwood pieces I discovered that technique isn't ideal for small pieces. Then I saw in a blog (sorry, I don't remember whose) a post on making leaves by layering several pieces of fabric with fusible interfacing between layers. You quilt the pieces first, then cut out and finish the edges.

Forget-me-not, finished

These are my first two finishes using this technique.

Palm Rainbow, detail

For Rainbow Palm, I used three layers of fabric, as I wanted  the leaves to be stiff. I thread-painted the leaves using my treadle sewing machine, then painted the edges. Then cut them out and painted again so they would be well sealed. I assembled the background, fused on the palm trunk and quilted

thread-painted palm leaves

and painted highlights on the base piece, then added the palm leaves, stitching them along the stem. The beach ball was also thread-painted separately, then stitched onto the base. The seaweed is thread trash, saved when washing new fabric. I stitched it, and the beads, by hand.

The second piece, Forget- Me-Not, also uses dimensional applique. I used only two layers of fabric, the print and a muslin, layered with MistyFuse, then thread-painted the petals, and the leaves. I layered the base and thread-painted all the background flowers and stems, then used a simple spiral to fill in all the background. Then I stitched the petals and leaves on, free-motion, on my machine. For the centers of the flowers I cut small circles of white felt, stitched on the beads by hand, then stitched them to the quilt by  hand.

I started off this year making journal quilts and trying new techniques, to help me find my way as an art quilter. I think it's paying off. I'm really excited about these techniques. They offer so many possibilities, and I feel I am getting closer and closer to creating in fabric the ideas in my head.

More later.

Forget-me-not petals

Forget-me-not detail

Crazy busy time

Well, spring has sprung in South Georgia, and since our business is at the beach, that means things are getting lively. That means more time working, including this past weekend and less time for sewing and art. And not as many blog posts.

I do have a lot going on, though. A while back I agreed to donate a small quilt to a non-profit in my home town and when I found out they have an event coming up I decided this was a good time. First I was going to pull out one of my recently completed pieces, then I came up with an idea just for the event, but didn't have the time, so it was back to a completed piece. I just printed the label out and will drop it at the post office this afternoon.

Heat-moldable stamp. I cut the design from card stock to produce a
positive stamp.

The out-of-time idea is about half done and I'll finish it up and add it to my stack of completed (or near-completed) pieces. I have about a half-dozen waiting for binding and labels that I need to finish. Those will be the start of inventory for a booth I've signed up for at ARTsFEST, which will be held April 2 at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro.

A requirement to have a booth at the festival is that you demonstrate art techniques, as well as have items to sell. I plan to bring one of my treadle sewing machines and demonstrate thread-sketching/thread-work/free-motion quilting. I got a great reaction to my demos at the quilt show, so I'm sure there will be some interest at the festival. ARTsFEST is directed mainly to children, but I hope there will be a lot of adults there buying things.

Fiber jewelry in progress

Of course a half-dozen art quilts won't be enough for my booth, so I'll bring along a large batch of fabric postcards, and I'm making some fiber jewelry as well. I hope I'll also have time to paint/dye some bandannas and silk handkerchiefs.

I got them in last week in an order from Dharma Trading, along with some Setacolor Transparent paints and Dy-na-flow paints. I also got some of the heat-moldable stamps. They are amazing! All this new stuff has kept me busy every free moment. I've created several stamps, and tested using the Setacolor to tie-dye a couple of samples of cloth.

Tie-dye trial, using diluted Setacolor. I didn't use enough to soak through,
so I painted the rest with a paintbrush.

Time to get back to my To Do list, more later.

A little piece of history

Since I use my vintage/antique sewing machines all the time, I don't usually think about their age and history while I'm using them. Rather than thinking about the fact that my favorite free motion machine was made during the Great Depression, I'm planning my next feather or spiral. And rather than pondering the Cold War that was in place when my Singer 500 was made, I'm deciding on which decorative stitch will best suit my project.

But this weekend I was making some simple Rail Fence blocks for the next Treadle On exchange, and was using my oldest machine, an American No. 1 from around 1875. I couldn't help thinking about history. The machine itself represents some interesting history. It was made by the American Buttonhole Overseaming and Sewing Machine Company, which was established in the 1860s. I've been researching this company for a while, which is an challenge, as it went out of business in the 1890s and original documents about the company are rare.

The original machine made by the company had different components which could be switched to make buttonholes, overseam or do regular sewing. It may well have been the first "serger" as well as the first machine buttonhole maker. The original design may have been too complicated, I've only heard of one still existing. But by the 1870s the company was making the American No. 1, which was a sewing only machine. Two things that made it very different from other machines of the era was the shuttle and bobbin, and the bobbin path, a vertical arc, instead of the straight line (transverse shuttle) or horizontal arc (vibrating shuttle) used by most machines of the time.

The driving force behind the company appears to have been a man named George Rehfuss, who held the patents on many of the components used by the company's machines. That included the unique shuttle, a small teardrop shape, which held a tiny round bobbin, one of, if not the first, to use a round bobbin.

Of course, after thinking about how different the machine is from later machines, I had to think about the woman who first owned this machine. Think how different life was for her. The Civil War was a recent memory. She probably had a family member, perhaps her husband, father or brother, who fought in the war. Ulysses S. Grant was still the president.

This was the first mechanical appliance to come into her home. There was no electricity, no telephone – Alexander Graham Bell made his first experimental voice transmission in the year 1875.

Heat and cooking most likely depended on a wood or coal stove and plumbing was probably minimal.

Her family was probably pretty comfortable. A sewing machine was still a premium item at the time, not something you could find in every home. I have a receipt for a different American No. 1, which was sold in 1874 for $65, to be paid in monthly installments of $5. That $65 is the equivalent of $1,218 today and the $5 payments equivalent to about $94.

Wouldn't it be fascinating to know the details of this machine's history, who owned it, did she leave it to a family member, how many hands it passed through before it was purchased by one of my friends, who sold her collection when she became ill. And now it's mine, to be treasured for itself, as a memory of my friend and for all the history behind it.

A zen of a quilt

I finished the zentangle quilt last night, while thinking about my DIY challenge. I wish all my quilts came to mind as easily as the zentangle. Usually I have a concept and let it bounce around in my head for a while, getting an idea here, an idea there and then I pull them all together. Sometimes it takes a while.

After finishing the zentangle quilt, I worked a while on another piece, which combines quilting, painting and dimensional applique. And I sewed together the bases for two more potential zentangles (or I might use them for something else.....)

I posted my zentangle quilt to the 3 Creative Studios challenge page. There are some beautiful works already posted, it's always inspiring to see what everyone else is doing.

 Here's the finished zentangle quilt and a couple of details. Time for me to get busy. More later.

First finishes of the year

Great day yesterday, despite the cold. I figured out how to set up the Treadlin' Bloggers webring, for bloggers who use and/or collect vintage or antique sewing machines. The first sites have been entered, though at the moment two are waiting for their code so they can be activated.

Then it was into the studio. Forget organization, I wanted to create. First project was to finish my painted quilt. I finished a last bit of quilting, then added a tiny binding matching the border, using my Davis VF to sew it on. The binding would have turned out nicely except that in a moment when my brain was turned off (only explanation) I tried to trim up the batting and backing and cut the binding at the corners. We just won't talk about what the corners look like on the back.

The second finish is a quilted purse. This was another of my demo pieces. I kept adding to the quilting, decided I liked it and then had to design the purse to use the piece at the size it happened to be. Fortunately I had more of the black and was able to quilt an additional piece for the back and flap of the purse so I could complete it.

I know I've talked about how these pieces were started before, but a quick recap. I used some random fabrics to set up sandwiches for my demo at our guild's quilt show back in October. I did free motion on my treadle sewing machine, with no particular pattern in mind, just showing people what you can do. I ended up with about a half-dozen similar pieces that I set aside. Some, which showed up better, had light thread on the dark background, some had used a bright pink, which didn't show up as well as I'd hoped.

Later I wanted to try out some multi-line quilting techniques, loosely based on Patsy Thompson's hyper-quilting (she uses stencils and is very precise, mine is more fluid).  I used a very small piece first, added quilting until I was happy, accented with Shiva paint sticks and was pleased with the result. So I started working on the next piece, which I ended up using in the purse. The painted quilt I did a little differently, because I started with just the demo quilting, then worked out the painting and additional quilting together. For that one I used Lumiere paint.

Now its on to the next projects. I have several ideas competing to be next.

 More later.

Treadlin' Bloggers webring

Calling all bloggers who use and/or collect antique and vintage sewing machines! If your blog focuses mainly on sewing adventures using your collection, or on the hunt, repairing or restoring vintage machines, you're invited to join the Treadlin' Bloggers. Users of treadles, handcranks and vintage e-machines are welcome.

Join here

The link takes you to a page to add your site (your blog) to the ring. Enter the name of your blog,  a brief description and the web address (URL) of your blog. Then give yourself a user name and password so you can log in to make changes to your membership. Be sure to include your name and email so I can let you know if there are any questions and when you are added to the ring.

Then the most important thing, copy the code that creates the "ring" box that goes on your blog, and copy it into your blog. On blogger you do this by clicking on Design in the top right corner, then clicking on "Add a Gadget" at the top of your sidebar. Choose HTML/JavaScript and hit the "+" sign. Don't put anything in the title bar, but copy the code into the Content box. Then hit save.

When I get a submission for a ring, I'll check for the code and approve your blog after I see the code is installed.

More later.

Fabulous day!

We had a great, great day for the first day of the High Cotton Quilt Show. Beautiful weather, all the last minute details came together smoothly. Great turnout of visitors, lots of compliments on the quilts, good media coverage. I don't think you could ask for a day to go much better.

I'm hoping today will be just as good. The only thing I'm dreading is taking down the show. We're all so tired that will be a challenge. But the great thing is by taking it down today, we don't have to worry tomorrow!

Personally, I'm pretty pleased. I got a second place in group quilts for Peacock Blues, a third in art quilts for Angel of the Garden and Honorable Mention in art quilts for Palm Puzzle. And I got lots of compliments on my quilts.

I did demonstrations of free motion quilting on one of my treadle machines. I was scheduled for a morning session and got started a little late as I was acting as media escort for the reporter from the television news. The demo went great. I had lots of questions about technique and the machine, and lots of stories about learning to sew on a treadle, or watching grandmother sew on a treadle. Then, just as I was about to finish, the photographer from the newspaper showed up and he wanted to take some pictures. Hope some of them came out!

Time to get ready for another day. More later!

Almost and almost

What a beautiful weekend. If I hadn't been on deadline for sewing I might have spent part of it out working in the yard.

Instead I just enjoyed the view from inside and made progress on my list of to-dos. I had hoped to finish quilting the Triple Star, but it's not quite there – almost. I'm over halfway done with the piano key border and just have a tiny outside border to finish. As I was quilting yesterday I started watching the thread and worrying – why didn't I buy another extra when I ordered this spool. But I think I'll have enough. I guess I'll know this evening.



Last week, while I was quilting the first sections, I got my sweetie to video me quilting one of the flowers. I had to convert it to a smaller format to post, so here it is.

My quilting design is winding vines with very simple leaves. The flowers have a spiral in the center and petals curved like the top of the heart. I think it looks great, and pretty complicated, but all of the components are simple.

Other progress, I got Boxy Stars laid out for pinning and am about half done with pinning. I need to decide how I will quilt this one quickly, as time before the show is getting short.

Changing gears yesterday, I pulled out the sewing machine that I hope to use for demonstrations at the quilt show. It's a Singer 15-30 with Tiffany decals that a friend gave me last year. It's a treadle machine, but had a motor and light added at some time. I started the cleanup by taking off the motor and light and wiping it down with a damp cloth to remove the loose dirt and spiderwebs. This picture is after wiping it. It was moving very stiff – probably not oiled in years – so I gave it a good oiling with Tri-Flow synthetic oil, and left it to sit and soak in.

With a little luck, I can put this together with a base and simple top to make a traveling treadle.

Time to get to work, more later.

Treadling on to another finish!

Busy day! I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so got busy on organizing everything for our quilt show program. After collecting and listing all the ads and items I still need, I was ready to start typing in descriptions to enter in the program. Fortunately our show chair had already organized and listed all the entries on a database, so I'm able to build on it and will copy and paste into the program. Thank goodness for computers! I had a dream (nightmare?) a few nights ago that it was the day before the show and I was trying to type up the program on an old electric typewriter. I guess it could have been worse, I could have been using the antique one I have for display.

As far as quilts, good news and good news. Last night I finished hand-stitching the binding on the Cool Jazz quilt and (I hope) finished burying threads. That means all it needs is a sleeve and label and it will be ready for the show. I love the colors in this one and think the quilting really plays it up. These pictures are the finished quilt and a detail shot of the quilting.

I'm also making good progress on the Triple Star. I had originally hoped to have my industrial Pfaff set up to quilt this one, since it's queen size, but I've really had less trouble than I expected using my Singer 15-30.  I guess it helps that I'm quilting a little more loosely than on some quilts, and that I'm quilting in smaller areas at each time. That makes it easier to "puddle" up the quilt to work on each section, then move on.


Enjoy! More later.

Scribbling on fabric

I'm still relatively new to free-motion quilting and there are days when I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it, and days when I wonder why I want to make such a mess. But as many people have said (not just about quilting) if you want to be good at it, practice, practice, practice.

One of the most useful things I do is do test swatches and warmup pieces. Test swatches are just what they sound like. I use a single piece of fabric and try out designs so I can see how they look and how easy/hard they are to do, without the distraction of pieced blocks behind them. The test swatches usually end up a major mess, as I'll try different things as long as there's room to squeeze them in, or designs will morph from one to another. Very frequently, I'll get an idea, try it out and decide I don't like it, or make changes to the design.

After picking out free-motion quilting in two huge sections of a quilt last year, because I decided I really didn't like the design, I've decided it's well worth the time to test in

advance.

The other thing I do is warm up blocks. When I want to do mindless sewing, I make crumb blocks. I trim these up to about eight inches square, then layer them with a double layer of batting and keep them near my machine. When I sit down to begin free-motion work, I pull one or two or these blocks out and warm up by doing the same design I'm planning for my quilt. This can really help to get the rhythm going if it's been a little while since I worked on the quilt. These quilted blocks become potholders, eyeglass cases, etc.

Once in a while I feel like I need to a little extra testing. For my Triple Star quilt I've been picturing a vine with flowers and leaves, in bright variegated thread. I looked through some quilting ideas and saw a flower, then did some scribbling on paper to decide I liked the flower with a spiral in the middle. During a break from finishing the Cool Jazz quilt I tried the design and decided I liked it. With Cool Jazz done, last night I threaded up the machine with the variegated thread I bought for Triple Star and tried it. I love it, just what I've been picturing. Now I need to decide on bobbin thread and do one final test, then I'll be ready to start quilting as soon as everything is pinned.

I'm looking forward to a good weekend of quilting. More later.

Just stitching away

Well, it's a good thing I'm almost finished with the bow tie quilt, because I'm running out of things to say about it. I worked for a while on quilting the border last night, but decided to spend most of my time on other projects.

The main was was starting to attach sashing to the Davis exchange blocks. I'm sashing in white muslin, with no cornerstones, so the blocks will appear to float in the white. I got the sashing attached, top and side of each block, last night and the next step will be to sew together the blocks.

I love the colors in this one, rich tones of blue, purple and green, with a bleached muslin background. It's like having a handful of emeralds, sapphires and amethysts, and who could complain about that? The only issue is that the whites have slight variations in color. I don't think it will be too noticeable when everything is put together, though.

To finish the night off, I got started sewing hanging sleeves on one of the quilts while I watched Project Runway. I have about a dozen quilts that need sleeves for the quilt show, so I'll probably be working on them every night.

That's it for now, more later.

A little bit of magic

My quilting friends say there are three ways to quilt, by hand, by machine, or by checkbook.

While I know there are many good reasons to have someone else quilt for you, I can't help feeling you must miss something.

Because, while I enjoy all (almost all) parts of making a quilt, there's a magic in the quilting, it's when a bundle of fabric is transformed into something completely new.

I love picking out fabric. So many colors, patterns and moods. Do I want something traditional, modern, wild and crazy, soothing and cheerful? What design am I going to use? A block that I will arrange to suit myself, or a quilt designed as a whole.

From there it's cutting the fabric and seeing how the colors start to mesh together, and seeing piles of strips, squares and triangles become blocks and sections, and a pattern starts to emerge.

Since I do a lot of block exchanges, arranging the blocks and assembling the top is creative, too. Which colors should be next to each other? If there are different block designs, like the one I'm laying out now, which designs should go where? Looking at it as a whole, does it balance and flow. And suddenly you have a quilt top, or flimsy.

I have to admit, I don't like pinning. It's a crucial part of the process, and can make the difference between a beautiful quilt and a hashed up mess, but it's physically tiring and tedious and I'm always glad when it's done.

And then, somewhere in the quilting process, there's a transformation. You start with this bundle of layered fabric and batting. It's stiff, it's unresponsive, it doesn't want to do what you want it to do.

At first I have to really think about the quilting, but as I go along, I find a flow. And with every tilt of the treadle, every stroke of the needle, I'm making my mark, literally, on every inch of the quilt. And somewhere about the middle of the quilting, the magic happens. I don't have a bundle of fabric anymore, I have a quilt. Suddenly it's a single unit that drapes instead of bunches, that moves smoothly and feels firm and soft at the same time, but no longer stiff and unresponsive.

Historically, alchemists tried to turn lead into gold. As a quilter, I get to turn a bunch of fabric into a quilt. I think I like my magic better.

As you might guess, I hit that magic point in my bow tie quilt last night. The quilting was going along smoothly and I suddenly realized it had made the transformation. It's always a thrill when it hits that point and I can envision the finished quilt.

Have a wonderful quilty day. More later!

A nine yard yellow snake

With polka dots!

That's what I ended up with after washing the fabric for backing my Triple Star quilt.

I knew I would need a lot of fabric, since the Triple Star is queen size, so I figured out what I needed – 8.5 yards – and checked to see how much I had on the bolt. I had enough, with about a yard to spare. So it's now cut, washed, folded and waiting for me to seam together to make the backing.

The Triple Star is from an exchange in 2004, and the top has been complete since 2005 or 2006. The backing fabric, on the right, has also been in my stash for a while, since the fabric store where I got it has been gone at least four years.

The big accomplishment for yesterday was finishing stitching all the wreaths on my bow tie quilt, and starting on the background stitching. It's slow work, as I needed to take frequent breaks, but I think it's coming along well.

I also finished going through the strings and have a big bin of strings to play with, as well as plenty of new strips in the strip and square drawers. And, it's one more thing moved off the hanging rack and out of the way of one of my sewing machines. Another baby step toward making my studio look less cluttered.

Speaking of clutter, what's the difference between having too much stuff and being a hoarder? There are now two shows on television about hoarding, and they have a scary fascination. On the one hand we look at them with relief, saying, no that's not me. I don't save trash and my stuff hasn't taken over the house. But on the other hand we know that we have things, like old cotton shirts, or the clear plastic containers some produce comes in, that we have a use for but others would consider trash.

As a quilter, fiber artist and collector of antique sewing machines, I know I have a lot of stuff. It's not just fabric, it's batting and yarn and beads and odd bits to use in art quilts and, yes, old cotton shirts to recycle into quilts. And rulers and scissors and spools of thread and on and on.

I guess the difference is being able to recognize if things are getting a little out of hand. We join Stashbusters for encouragement to use our fabric and finish our UFOs, instead of just accumulating it/them. We make up some things to donate to charity or contribute to our guild's sale. We haul old clothes to a favorite thrift store or hold a garage sale to get rid of some excess. And when we realize we have too much, we slow down on acquiring new stuff.

That's what I'm doing now, a little at a time. I like my stuff and will probably always have more than a person without hobbies would understand. But I want people to be able to come into my house without thinking I belong on one of those shows!

Some fortunate finds

Isn't it nice when you find just what you are looking for in your stash? And it's already cut to the right size?

One item on my list for yesterday was clearing out my project boxes. When I'm working on a set of blocks I keep them in project boxes (including pizza boxes and "cake takers" I found a couple of years ago). I usually leave the leftover fabric in the box until I send the blocks off for an exchange or put them together in a flimsy. So since my Boxy Stars flimsy is done, I sorted all the squares and strips into my scrap drawers, and went through the other boxes. In one I found leftover bleached muslin, including several two-inch strips. I was planning to use two-inch bleached muslin for the sashing of my next quilt, the Davis exchange, so put them with the Davis blocks, where I found more two-inch strips left over from making the blocks. I have enough for the sashing without having to cut anything.

Another "find" yesterday was a beautiful yellow with colorful dots on it. I had thought of it yesterday as the backing for my jewel tone quilt, and when I pulled it out I found it was perfect. This was a bolt I bought when a fabric store was going out of business several years ago. Since it's on the bolt it's among the few fabrics I haven't washed, so I guess today I'll figure how much I need for backing and get it washed and ready to piece.

My big project yesterday was continuing to work on the bow tie quilt. I got most of the loopy feather wreathes done, including the half and quarter ones on the sides and corners. There are just a few wreathes to go, then I'll start on the background quilting.

I worked on the organizing and sorting and finding during breaks from the quilting. One area I made pretty good progress was going through a big batch of strings from some scrap bags I got at Mary Jo's Cloth Store (in Gastonia, NC) this summer. A lot of the pieces are big enough to cut strips from, so I spent some time cutting strips from what I could, and putting the smaller pieces into my strings box. Or if I found something really special, into my applique bits box. I save batiks and other special fabrics there so I don't have to cut into yardage when I need just a bit.

I got through about half the strings and hope to finish them today. Then there are more organizing projects to get started. I love having lots of nice fabrics and other fun things to work with, but it's even better when they are organized and I can get to them.

Time to get sewing, more later!

Loopy feathered wreaths

Deciding how to quilt a new quilt is the hardest decision. Stitch-in-the-ditch or grid quilting? An all over free-motion design, or work within the block structure? Modern, casual or traditional looking?

That's been the decision lurking on my bow-tie quilt. This is a traditional block done in a non-traditional manner, an "origami" style block with a folded center that isn't attached around the edges. The blocks were done in patterns and colors evoking Civil War fabrics, though not necessarily repros. Actually the blocks in this quilt were my extras when we did an exchange of this block on Treadle On, using pre-1900 sewing machines. The block was so much fun I just made a lot of extras.

Anyway, the arrangement of the blocks, with bow ties running in diagonal lines, resulted in octagons of muslin at regular intervals. I knew I wanted the quilting to have a traditional mood, but not be so formal as some traditional quilting designs. Also, I do my free-motion free-hand, on my treadle machine, so it couldn't be too even and measured.

After trying several overall designs, I decided that I really wanted to do a motif in the octagons, and surround them with another design. I went back to several of my favorite free-motion design sites and was just floored when I looked at the main page of the Patsy Thompson Design site. There's this absolutely gorgeous feathered wreath done in multiple colors in a style she calls hyper-quilting. Hers uses stencils, but I decided I would do a more casual style wreath, and use the idea of multiple colors.

I started with a sketch pad and drew various styles of feathered wreathes, once I had one I liked I pulled out one of my practice pieces and tested it out. Yes, a winner. I pulled out the quilt, found a round plastic container with the right diameter and traced around it with a marking pencil to give me my base circle. I stitched it first, then free-hand quilted the feathers and loops around the outside of the circle, then the inside, spacing the inside loops so they filled the interior of the circle. I started these with a tan thread that I will use throughout the quilt, and will come back and echo quilt the wreathes with another color. I haven't decided what that color will be yet.

I got five wreathes done before I started getting tired – when my stitches start getting longer, it's time to take a break. I am excited with the start, and think it's going to be great.

For today, I have to do something for work, so I guess I'll get back to it tomorrow.

More later.

Experiments and decisions

I had another productive evening of sewing last night. I tried a quilting design that I'm thinking of adapting to use for my bow ties quilt. I like the flowing lines, I'm just not sure if it works with the Civil War repros and traditional pattern. I tried it out last night on a crumb block, which is destined to become a potholder. I found this design at Patsy Thompson Designs There's some beautiful work on that site.

Another experiment was trying some decorative chain-stitching on my Willcox & Gibbs. I just tried some gently flowing lines to decorate a couple of the little sewing kits I'm doing for our boutique. I'm learning that I can do gentle curves without stopping, but sharper corners require stopping and starting precisely right.

With the decorative stitching in place I finished a few more of the sewing kits, except for fasteners, then I moved on, back to my palm quilted piece. I got all the background quilting done and it's coming along pretty well. Now it just needs a bit more carefully placed stitching and some thought on embellishments I should be ready to share soon.

More later.

Lots of little stuff

Every quilter needs a helper, and my Pepper has been doing his job by guarding my studio whether I'm in there or not. Fortunately, he has moved his favorite perch from the middle of my cutting table, which was a bit of a problem, to the top of this treadle by the window. The machine he is sitting next to is badged Chapman, and it is a New Home Model K, which is based on a Singer model 15. It is a nice little machine, with beautiful decals of a peacock, and is in an Art Deco style parlor cabinet. Here I am using it, in a class last year taught by Bonnie Hunter, in a clip Bonnie originally posted on her blog.

Evenings after work aren't always the best time to work on big projects, like quilting the bow tie quilt, and I still haven't decided on my quilting design. But I'm keeping busy and have made some progress on items for our guild's boutique. Last night I finished two more pillowcases, for a total of five, and cut out and started stitching another six little sewing kits. With the others, that just need fasteners, that gives me 11 sewing kits. After all these are finished I'll decide whether to make more or do something else.

Of course, in addition to finishing my own quilts, I need to prep my finished quilts for the show, with rod pockets and labels, and I have a costume to make for an event that comes before our show, so I'm not getting too ambitious with boutique stuff.

Anyone in the southeast Georgia area? Details on our show is on the High Cotton Quilt Show blog, in my list of blogs.

More later.

New month, new start

September! There's something about September that makes me think of new starts. The beginning of the school year, of course, and the change in weather. It's been a little cooler at night the last few days, though it's still in the 90s during the day. And the sun has moved so the light "looks" like fall.

Since it's kind of a mini-New Year, I've decided to renew my efforts on a couple of things that have fallen aside during the heat of the summer – my effort to organize/clean up/clear out my house and to get in better shape through healthier eating and exercise.

I've also taken advantage of the back-to-school sales and bought new notebooks, paper, pens and pencils for my office and have been going around the house throwing out dried out pens. Who needs the aggravation of hunting for working pens when you need them?

One thing we seldom think of is office supplies in the sewing room or studio. Yesterday I dug out the decorative tape dispenser (shaped like a sewing machine) and put it out where I can get to it. I have a pair of scissors just for paper, some Sharpie pens in different colors, and a hand-held pencil sharpener. I just need to bring in some new pens (maybe the fun colored ones?), pencils and note paper, then set up a little area to keep all of them.

I'm still deciding on the quilting pattern to use for my bow tie quilt, so worked on some other projects last night. I did the applique for my palm tree – stitched the trunk using a handcrank and fused the leaves, then did the main decorative stitching. The palm leaves still need a little work but they are coming along. I can only work on intense projects for a while, so I moved on to the pillowcases I'm making for our guild boutique and got two more in progress. I would have finished them, but I misjudged while cutting and got the tip of my finger with the tip of the scissors. Ouch! When I start making painful mistakes, it's time for a break.

Thanks to Loreen Leedy for the instructions on her blog to put your own background on a blog. I followed her very good instructions yesterday to put the images from one of my works into the background of my blog. It's really nice to be able to make it personal, even when using a basic template.

More later.

The miracle of the sewing machine

One of the things that always amuses me (sometimes annoys) is the "experts" – usually self-proclaimed – who insist you have to have a fancy, new, usually expensive, sewing machine in order to quilt.

Last weekend at our guild workday everyone else had their new sewing machines. One person was using the computerized embroidery machine to embroider some Christmas motifs, another was using decorative stitches to finish a crazy quilt ornament. Everyone else was straight-stitching. So when someone said about my Featherweight, but all they do is straight-stitch, I just shrugged and said, that's all I really need to make a quilt.

And that's true enough. But the fact is that a woman of 1900 with her straight-stitch sewing machine and box of attachments could probably do more than most people today with their computerized machines. Think about the clothing of the day, tucks and ruffles and plackets and eyelets. And there was a way to do them all on the sewing machine.

Machines of the day came with a basic set of attachments, like the puzzle box I've shown, which would have come with a Singer 27. Basic attachments included a ruffler, tucker, various hemmers and a quilting foot. The angled wire piece in the top right corner is a quilting guide. Very handy when you want to make parallel lines of quilting, whether they are straight or curved. The machine's instruction manual would have information on how to use all these basic attachments.

The really fun thing, to me, is that this is just a start. All the modern ideas, free-motion quilting, thread painting, and so on, were done 100 years ago, using straight-stitch sewing machines.

I was recently looking for something online and found the1911 Singer Instructions for Art Embroidery at the Internet Archive site. This is a book I've wanted for years, but never had the money when one came up for sale. Thanks to the wonderful people who share resources online, I can now try it out.

While I was looking around, I found another treasure, the Domestic Handbook of Art Needlework, a similar book written even earlier, in 1896, by one of Singer's competitors.

These two books have some wonderful ideas and techniques, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

I thought this was a good day to share, as I didn't do a lot of sewing after work yesterday. I did decide on the thread I'll use to quilt the bow tie quilt and wound a half-dozen bobbins. And I started putting together a background for the little art piece I'm thinking about.

Now, time to get back to work, more later!