Habitat Challenge

Last month our quilt guild did the Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge, and I have to say that this was the first time I actually "created" my own design so I was very nervous. Up to this point, I had only done quilt kits or patterns from books, so I started with a sketch of what I wanted and went from there.

Overall, it wasn't too bad, and there were some "oops" moments along the way, but I learned quite a bit and discovered how creative I can be. First, let me say, that I truly appreciated Jay's designs on Project Runway (which I am addicted to by the way), and I am glad that he won. However, these fabrics were the epitome of the word "challenge". I sat on these fabrics for awhile until it no longer pained me to stare at them and got to work. Don't get me wrong, they are certainly very interesting designs, and in the right context would be seriously awesome, but between the flashbacks from the 80's and the odd colors that went together (but not really); I was stumped for a bit.

Luckily, the month prior Quiltique had a carnival night where I was introduced to English Paper piecing in the form of manageable hexagons! I thought, okay, small pieces of this fabric against a bright background may do it the justice it deserves. I had been wanting to do a sewing machine cover anyway so I took my fat quarters and started waiving them over some solids to see what clicked. It ended up being this beautiful vibrant royal purple and I was finally on my way. My first step was taping the fabric pieces to my back sliding door to use a sort of light table to place my hexagon templates and fussy cut out my pieces.

Two things I learned during this part of the process: (1) painters tape works very well to put fabric up with as it does not stick to it or leave any sticky residue, and (2) during the day, my sliding glass door makes a fabulous backlit space for tracing templates (it's like a second design wall!). From there I moved to the paper piecing which were precut hexagons I purchased during the carnival and what is even better; they are reusable. I simply cut a 1/4" border around the pinned templates and then basted down the tucked edges.

 I have to say I really feel in love with this technique! Anything that involves my sitting and doing hand stitching is always a plus and this was so easy to pick up. Once I stitched down all my hexagons, I laid them out in the order I wanted and started stitching one side of each hexagon to the other, removed the paper templates, and then cut out my purple background. There are many tutorials on-line about how to measure your machine for a cover and there are a few types of covers as well. I decided just to make a simple slip over that covered the entire machine (since the desert out here is fairly dusty) I wanted it to cover the sides as well. The hexagon strip was appliqued on top of a strip of purple fabric and then I left a gap on each side to add the yellow borders.

Once I sewed the yellow strips in, I basted the layers together and quilted a diagonal-abstract design, including the side pieces as well.

Okay so not as haphazard as I anticipated since both sides kind of match, but overall I was pleased with the result. Finally, the last step was sewing down the hexagons along the edges of each one, sew the sides onto the main piece, and bind the bottom with the matching yellow fabric. The final result was...

I did try to do some piping as well, but another learning experience was involved in this process. Instead of a 1/4" seam allowance, I should have left at least a 1/2" allowance to leave room for all the layers to be sewn since some of the edges did not catch. With some resewing, fabric glue and hand stitching it came out, but it will be a little while before I attempt piping again.

Our quilt group came up with some really great projects; some making full size quilts and others making small projects like a purse and coasters. It was a great mix of ideas and in the end, I finally designed something on my own which actually prepared me for this month's pillow exchange which involved more creative design.

mm

I'm only dancing...

Hello fellow quilters and friends. So, an unrelated quilting blog for today...
I am belly dancing at my husband's group art showing this First Friday (today) downtown at the 1221 Gallery on Main Street near Charleston. There will be other dancers, artists, a BBQ (hosted by my cousins who are a biker gang), a fiddle player, and if that wasn't enough...a goat! It will be one hell of a party. Don't miss it! Come one, come all and drink for tomorrow we will be quilting.

A teaser of my head piece.

Can we talk?

Normally I try to reserve my blog for mainly quilting, crafts and family hyjinx, but this blog is about discrimination, judgement, and the dwindling life line of humanity. I would never attempt to turn this venue into a place to vent about social justice or the way people should be treated, but I feel that this just needs to be said.

My husband and I celebrated our 3rd year anniversary this weekend by going to Springdale, UT just outside of Zion National Park. One of our top two favorite places to visit. While we were there, the locals of Springdale were so genuine, and helpful, that we started some conversation with them about moving there in a bout a year or so after I have finished school. They welcomed us with open arms and gave us numerous towns and cities to explore for places to work/commute. Now, some of you may already know that I am being trained to become a mental health counselor (therapist) and have taken quite an interest in art therapy and especially therapy through quilting. While there has not been much research on the subject, I feel that there would be a great call for it and it would fill a gap in art therapy that exists. My husband and I were given several counseling centers to visit and since we were there on a Tuesday, I knew we could catch them in the office and get some much needed information. We were given both Cedar City and St. George and meccas for counseling centers.

We first went to Cedar City, but wasn't really what were looking for and proceeded to drive all the way south again toward St. George. After heading into the picturesque neighborhoods, with their adorable cottage houses and tree lined streets we were enthusiastic about my working there and commuting from Springdale. We pulled over to get our barrings and I whipped out the iPhone t locate any quilting shops in the area. I was curious to get an idea about what guilds were around and let them know who I was and we were thinking of moving. The first (and only) shop that we went into was Lazy Daisy Cottage http://lazydaisycottage.blogspot.com/ and it was packed with glorious fabrics, and other treasures. My husband and I ventured further back into the shop where a woman was sewing and there were a few others milling around the back "employees only" area. I started speaking with the lady sewing (she didn't offer her name) and was explaining to her my interests in moving and that I was a quilter. She said I should speak with the owner and summoned her out.

I offered my name, "Hello, my name is Mary and my husband and I were thinking of moving to Utah and I was just curious about the quilting community here. I am hoping to bring my therapy business to St. George and possibly start quilting therapy workshops." At this point the last not so much as offered her name, looked both my husband and I up and down to make her final assessment that we were not worth her time and common courtesy. She was rude, very curt with her answers and made the comment on several occasions that quilting is really quite conservative. I can imagine that my tattoos were partially to blame, but to treat another quilter like that was really quite hurtful. She kept briefly answering my questions, and also questioned everything I said, "what do you mean you want to do therapy?" and "I don't really know what to tell you but you can check the phone book for other shops." RUDE> So, we left the shop, after her husband questioned whether I had even quilted before and I was almost in tears. I have been discriminated against before, and it is quite possible that she was also feeling I would be a bit of competition, even though I explained that I was not opening up a quilt shop.

I don't believe in generalizations, I know that not all people in St. George or that quilting guild would be the same, but I have to say, I really don't want to go back and I feel that is exactly what she wanted to accomplish. It reminded me of that scene in Pretty Woman when she goes in with money to shop buy no one will help her and they tell her that she doesn't belong there. Maybe once I have my quilt therapy set up and I have made a great contribution to the St. George area, I can go back in and say "big mistake, big, huge mistake."

God bless her and what demons she might have to work through, but I am still licking my wounds on that one. Please send her some good energy to help her through her obstacles.

Take care quilters and take care of each other.

Oh Finally...

I have been so very busy the last month or so. Work, teaching, taking classes, etc. Recently I just gave a presentation to my freshmen class about time management and "how to eat an elephant -- one bite at a time." Well, I feel like I am eating my elephant on a buffet line with chopsticks (and I am pretty good with chopsticks). For every twenty bites, I was actually only getting 5 bites of food in my mouth and feeling like there was a line of people waiting to get at what I was trying to eat. So, I have decided to step off the buffet line this weekend and take some time from "eating". Since I have a numerous amount of W.I.P. projects to chose from, I decided to take my winter version single girl off the staircase railing and attack it with some river rock motif. Now, I have to say, that while I have been practicing on some quilting sandwiches, I was so nervous to get this started.

Here is my first attempt at free motion river rocks. For me, it is not an option for someone else to quilt my work, as I want to be able to look back or give it as a gift knowing that I have created the whole thing. Granted I am not designing my own patterns (yet!), but at least I know that every stitch was done by me. However, there is a higher level of frustration by quilting your own projects..which is why I am blogging after a shot of tequila instead of still working on my river rocks.

Here is another view.

I am really hoping to get some more quilting done in between my other responsibilities. There are two baby quilts waiting for me too...ugh. It will be so nice when all I have is "work" and my quilting. I say "work" because I know once I am doing full-time therapy it won't be work for me, but where I belong. Back to my single girl.

Abbey Bag...

Well after being ill with an invading virus of some sort for a week and a half, I was able to start quilting and doing some projects again. I decided to start small and finally make an Abbey Bag! Plus, it gave me something to do with my extra Tula Pink Neptune fabric! Here, she is, the first Abbey Bag (I am sure of many)...

And a top view...

The construction went fairly well, although I did change things up a bit on some of the directions. I didn't feel as confident using fabric glue for some of the connections so I went ahead and stitched it together, but still used glue in some places and was pleasantly surprised by how well the glue did! Now I have somewhere to put all my trimmings and threads from all the yos I am still making. The progress bar is getting higher and I managed to do quite a few while I was bed-ridden. Here is a little example of some yo accomplishments and humor while I was sick...

That's right! I made 22 in one morning/afternoon. It's amazing what you can get done when you don't have to go to work. Someday, I will have a studio/shop/private practice where I can quilt in between clients, hold workshops and quilt all weekend. Ah, the dream.

Yo Momma is so...

Okay, so the yo yos are making me kind of punchy now. I gathered up some more fabric and cut a whole new stack of 5.5" squares. Thanks to Sew Obsessed, Quiltique, and Joann's I was able to add some great colors to the project.

You might recognize some of the designers in here: Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Michael Miller, Kaffe Fasset, Joel Dewberry, and Anna Maria Horner. I figured if I average 12 yos a day, it will take me 28 days to finish the rest of my goal of 409! However, I pushed myself to get 15 done this evening (this really doesn't seem like an amount to brag about), but my basket is starting to fill up and the yos are multiplying!

Once I made a yo from all my new fabrics I decided to lay them out on my background fabric to make sure I didn't have too much of one color and not enough of another. I think I concluded that I need a little more pink, orange, and purple. The green and yellow is certainly covered.

What do you all think? I need some advice.

State of Yo....

For those of you who are too young or whose mother did not drag them to a Smother's Brothers concert when they were children, would not know about being in the "State of Yo" as the 'Yo-Yo Man' would get into prior to starting his yo-yo act. Well, I am in a state of yo with my new yo-yo maker and my new quilt adventure. I discovered this quilt on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting (June 2011, Issue 110) and just HAD to make it.

Between the turquoise background in batik and the bright, fun colors of the yo's I was practically salivating before I made it to the checkout to buy the magazine. Now, let's take a step back here: (1) Have I ever made yo-yo's? No. (2) Have I ever worked with a batik fabric? No. and (3) Was I aware that this cute 'little' quilt required 409 of those a fore mentioned, never having done, yo-yo's? Uh, No. So, here I am at my first attempt of making them, and yes, I went with Clover's 60mm Extra Large Yo-Yo Maker template/tool because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into.

After some trial and taking the first one apart, I finally got the hang of it. However I did consult a couple of tutorials and videos on-line prior to attempting this. As always, I decided to Mary Shelley (Frankenstein reference) a few of the tips together to form my own way of making them work. I took some from Heather Bailey's tutorial, some from Lazy Girl Designs, and some You Tube videos. Here is the finished product...

Now only 406 to go! (This is only a fourth of the stack that needs to be done)

I might have to recruit relatives with tequila to get this done (yes, mom I am talking to you).