Getting past quilter's block

There are times when I want to sew, but can't quite figure out what to work on. That's where I had been the last couple of weeks and it was driving me crazy. I was still picking out stitches in the black and red quilt, so I couldn't finish quilting it, and I have a rule, only one "quilt" being quilted at a time - I'll squeeze in a small item, but I just don't have working space for more than one layered and pinned quilt in progress. I had stopped working on the Shakespeare in the Park (SITP) while I worked on Christmas items, and wasn't ready to get back to it, and I had finished all the Christmas sewing - just a few small items.

Fortunately, I finally got back to work. Last Wednesday night I pulled out the SITP. After the first round of triangles the Snail's Trail blocks were a tiny bit undersized. I had debated remaking them, but decided instead to make the rest of the rounds a bit larger to make up for it. Since then I have managed to cut and sew the rest of the rounds for the Snail's Trail block, except the last triangle on the last round.

I got most of this done yesterday, while watching "Tin Man" and "Alice" on Syfy. For anyone who hasn't seen these re-tellings of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Alice in Wonderland," they are well worth the time to watch.

I'm doing SITP with a cream background and scrappy blues and purples in the Snail's Trail blocks. The star blocks have some pinks in them, too. I think it's going to be beautiful, but it is quite a challenge with all the pieces!

I'm also making progress on the red and black quilt. On a couple of evenings when it was too cold to really work in my studio, I sat in the living room unpicking stitches and finally have it down to the last few to pull out. Yesterday I re-pinned the two sections I'd picked out, and quilted one more section. The quilting was a bit of a challenge since my Pepper cat decided he had to sit on the quilt as I quilted it. So now I have two sections and the border to go. I'd like to finish this one up before Christmas, so I can move on to some other projects.

Another reason to love my Davis VF treadle

I do all my sewing on my vintage and antique sewing machines. From piecing to assembling blocks to quilting and binding to other types of sewing. In fact, the newest sewing machines I have are a 1988 Singer and an early 1990s serger. The serger gets a little use once in a while, but since I don't make many clothes these days, not often.

My Davis Vertical Feed treadle is one of my top favorites. It's like a walking foot but is better termed a needle feed. There are no feed dogs. Instead, each time the needle comes up, it and the presser foot move forward, then move backward on the downstroke, bringing the fabric with it.

It's wonderful for straight line quilting because there is no worry about the fabric creeping along at different rates and ending up with pleats and folds in the backing. So I use it for any straight quilting, like stitching in the ditch, or echo quilting, anything other than free motion. Even if I never used it for quilting, it pulls its weight when it comes to applying bindings. Before I started using this machine my bindings would always try to twist but with the Davis, it's smooth and straight all the way.

Well, this weekend I discovered another use for the Davis, sewing fleece! I'm making some Christmas projects that required hemming fleece, and, remembering how it always stretches, I decided to try the Davis. Perfect! No stretch, no overlap, no uneven edges.

Just another example of how my oldies get the job done.

Quilting and un-quilting

I'm starting to really love doing little wall hangings. It's so easy to try out new ideas and techniques, finish them up and move on to something else. Great for art quilts, but doesn't do much to keep you warm, of course.

I wrote a few days ago about the Treadle On list doing a group quilt-along, based on the Hundreds of Triangles pattern. I hadn't planned to start another quilt, but I tend to avoid triangles, so thought it would be a good exercise. Then it occurred to me that it would make a great background for an applique, so my "Hundreds of Turtles" was born. I did the triangles in various shades of blue, quilted it, crazy-pieced and quilted one turtle and cut out three more for shadows, then appliqued the turtles to the background. I used lots of quilting motifs and various threads. I thought about adding some embellishments, but decided to keep this one simple.

My other sewing right now is finishing up a few small Christmas gifts, and picking out the quilting from a twin-size quilt that I wasn't happy with. This quilt has a large pieced center section, set on point and quilted in the ditch. I had started the quilting on the four large corner sections a couple of weekends ago and got two sections done, but wasn't really happy with the quilting. The following weekend I tried a slightly different approach on the third section and liked it so much better. So, I'm removing the quilting in the first two sections. Wow, does it take a long time. But I think I'll be much happier with the result and fortunately I'm not on a deadline.

Time flying and good things and sad

You know it's been too long between posts when you have to look up your password to get into your blog! I have been sewing and "creating" but haven't been in the mood for posting. In August I wrote that my dear, sweet, Merry dog was going downhill. A few days after that post, on August 26, I lost her. It has been difficult to adjust to the huge, doggy-shaped hole in my life. But I was fortunate that until her last week or so she was comfortable and happy to just keep me company as I worked in my office, sewed or sat in the living room. Some of us are lucky to have a once-in-a-lifetime dog, and I was double blessed to have her for almost 17 years.

Back to sewing topics! My Tybee Fireworks II went to the Houston show as part of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative and sold. I was very pleased. A friend of a friend was going to take a picture of it hanging but by the time he got there it had sold. TFII was one of a series of four similar works, one I'm keeping and the other two are in progress and will be put up for sale when I decide what direction I want to go, online or shows or both.

Right now I'm working on a different, but similar project. Recently on the Treadle On list our fearless leader proposed a triangle quilt as a group project. I don' t need any more projects (who does) but realized that I have avoided working with equilateral triangles. Bias and points and all that. So I decided I'd challenge myself to do a small piece, to get more comfortable with the shape. Once I started thinking I realized the triangles would be a great background for a small appliqued wall hanging, so that's where I'm going now. I've found that starch is your friend when doing these triangles. I like the Dryel Starch Alternative, but am having a terrible time finding it, it's no longer in the local stores and is hard to find online.

Progress is pretty good, with the background assembled – 45 3.5 inch triangles – and the applique in progress. I'll post more when it's closer to a finish.

from photo to quilt

A couple of weeks ago I did some exercises with Photoshop, and came up with some interesting images, as I previously posted. Over the past few days I've tried some ideas for translating one of them, the palm tree in a bubble, to fabric. The first try was a 15x18 quilt that used a lot of free motion quilting and thread work. I think it's a pretty good start, except my bubble was too dark so there wasn't enough contrast for the palm leaves. The second effort was a postcard and I used scraps of batiks to create the background. Once again, the contrast could be improved, but I had fun stitching the palm leaves.

fun with Photoshop

A couple of days ago someone on the quiltart list posted a link to a site where two people had done some Photoshop image swaps. One created an image and sent it to the other, who took some element and created a new image then sent it back. Kind of a photographic round-robin. I didn't save the site or I'd post a link. But the work was fascinating and after looking at only one series I decided to play in Photoshop myself.

I found that pictures of my quilts offered great opportunities to play. Here's a picture of my "Peacock Blues" and the image, "Rose Window" that came from it.

To do this one I selected a portion of the center of the quilt and copied it to a new layer. Then I used Polar Coordinates, Glowing Edges and finally Plastic Wrap filters on it. The actual image is much brighter than it appears here, and reminds me of a stained glass window.

A second set I did is a little different. It is a photo of a palm tree I took on Tybee Island, Ga, and an alien version of it. For this one, I selected the area

around the top of the palm tree and then selected inverse. In the inverse area I did Solarize, then used Image Hue/Saturation to adjust the colors until I liked them. Then I inversed the selection again to get the top of the palm. I used Hue/Saturation to adjust the color there, used Lens Flare to add the lights, then used Spherize. Hope this inspires someone else!

A little bitty quilt completed

I had hoped for lots of sewing time this weekend, but that didn't work out too well. But I did get a few things accomplished, most important being finishing a 9x12-inch quilt to donate to the Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative. 

This was a challenge on one of my email lists, to create at least one small quilt to donate, as there is a goal of 1,000 quilts to take to the Houston show to auction to raise money for Alzheimer's research. This is a great effort and I had an idea I wanted to try, so I started work a couple of weeks ago on two little quiltlets.

Tybee Fireworks 1 is a combin

ation of pieced nine-patches, bias-pieced waves and an appliqued lighthouse. It is heavily quilted/free-motion embroidered to

 create the shading on the lighthouse, the fireworks and the ocean waves, with just a few beads to add some sparkle. 

Tybee Fireworks II, which is very similar, is almost finished, just need to add the beads.

Other than that, my quilty activities this weekend included finishing washing and folding the fabric I bought the previous weekend; selecting fabric and pre-cutting for a Twisted Bargello class I'm taking with my guild next weekend; making a few blocks for a Split Nine-Patch and working on some exchange blocks. 

I had hoped to do more, but my very elderly dog 

had a bad weekend. I was up most of the night Saturday night with her, and spent a lot of time helping her get in and out of the house, etc., all weekend. It's very difficult for me to see her declining, as she's been my constant companion since she and her sisters were adopted as puppies in fall 1992. We've always considered October 1st as her birthday, which makes her 16 years, 10 and a half months old. She had surgery last year in October to remove a tumor on her neck. That gave us a good 10 months more together, but it's still difficult. This is a picture of her shortly after her surgery last year.