Dyeing and Killing (a sink)

As many of you know, I went to Ricky Tims' quilt retreat back in September and began working on a very large quilt that I would like to enter into the AQS show at Paducah.  Unfortunately, Paducah's deadline is January 2nd, so if I do get it done, it will be done about twenty minutes before the deadline.  If I miss Paducah, I'll try for MQS or MQX later on in the year, or possibly the AQS show in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
In any case, the major obstacle to me working on my quilt (besides a baby and a business :), has been the fact that I needed to hand-dye all my fabric.  In the summer, this is not such a big deal for me because I use my greenhouse where I can slop dye around, wear my skivvies and generally not worry about making a mess.  However, dyeing requires it to be warm enough for the chemical reaction between the dye and cotton to take place.  My greenhouse is not heated and not insulated, so I haven't been able to get it done.

Luckily, my dear husband has been pushing me to get to work, so he said I could take over our laundry room.  This is actually ideal.  It's tile, has a drain in the floor, the washing machine is right there, and there's a nice big utility sink.  So I moved the cat food to another room, finished our laundry, and closed the doors for a Sunday of dyeing mania while dear husband watched little man.  I had already pre-washed my fabric, not so much for the washing, but to dry it on high and shrink it.  I don't want any shrinkage in the finished product because it has LOTS of curved seams, but also because I'm mixing 100% cotton with Robert Kaufman's Radiance, 55% cotton/45% silk, so there was a high potential for uneven shrinkage.

Then I soaked my huge piles of fabric in soda ash and lukewarm water.  How much you ask? A few scoops of soda ash and a big bucket of water.  That's how precise this step needs to be.  I used a fun tote/bucket that's all flexible and fun that I got at Target. 

I let that soak for pretty close to an hour.  It doesn't necessarily need to soak that long, but then I'm sure it's all saturated.  You should wear gloves for this stage and I highly recommend (with very blue fingers) that you purchase a nice, elbow length pair of heavy duty rubber gloves.  I used vinyl disposable gloves and they are terrible, and also tearable.  Hence the blue fingers.  

 

This is the result of about five hours of really messy, very physically intense work.  Before pre-washing my fabric, I measured individual pieces out for their places in the quilt, I tagged a corner with a sharpie and a number corresponding with the piece.  I then planned out (while my fabric soaked) exactly what color I wanted for each piece and how saturated (vibrant) I wanted the color to be and whether I wanted cotton or Radiance.  Ultimately the flaw in this plan is that once dyed, I can no longer see the numbers, making it a bit more challenging to assemble my quilt. In the future I will paint the number on the corner with white acrylic paint.  No matter, I dyed a significant amount of extra pieces so I would have some wiggle room as I pieced it together.  I also have plans for some related quilts, so having extra is a big fat bonus.  

As you can see from the picture above, I don't vat dye, per se, but I don't squeezy bottle dye either.  I mix my dye in some form of Tupperware, Gladware, Ziplocware, other random plastic containers that are cheap and disposable.  DO NOT USE metal.  The dye will react with the metal.  Ask me how I know. Luckily that disaster was early in my dyeing career, so I know better now.  I like disposable plastic because if I can't get it clean, I'm not out a bunch of money, but non-disposable Rubbermaid food containers seem the most stain resistant, so I'll let you be the judge. Anyway, I mix my dyes in these tubs, then I sqump (the technical term) my fabric around in the tub until I'm satisfied with the level of absorption, and then I let it sit in the extra.  Once I squeezed these pieces out, I put more fabric in to soak up more of the dye, but these pieces will always come out less vibrant because the little dye molecules have mostly bonded with the original piece. I also use a salt, perhaps Glauber's salt, whose name I can't remember, but is available from Dharma Trading Company.  This salt and dye do not get along.  This is exactly what I want for really vibrant, rich, saturated colors.  The salt pushes the dye into the fabric and out of the water since the dye wants to get away from the salt.  I have had the best luck mixing the dye, then adding the salt.  I found when I added liquid to the salt it crystallized into razor like chunks that guaranteed blue fingers.

 And some of the beautiful finished product!  They are very lightly mottled, some more dramatically than others.  This is the first batch I put through the wash.  I washed a total of about 20 yards of fabric at once, using Synthrapol detergent.  I washed this batch 5 times and then the water was clear (although it's hard to tell with that much blue fabric in a white washer if the water is clear or not).  The next batch had closer to 30 yds and I washed it about 6 before taking half out, washing the first half another 3 times before it was clear.  My last pile is still in the wash, and I will probably wash it 2-3 more times before I dry it. 

I'll post more once I have the fabric ironed and sorted so you can see the difference between the Radiance and the cotton.  I'm very happy so far.  I have a few flubs that I'll have to overdye or cut new pieces entirely, but mostly I got a lot of exactly what I was going for which is always a satisfying feeling.  I'll be bringing the whole lot to show and tell at LTQ's Block of the Month on Saturday, December 8th, if you'd like to see them and I'll be talking a little more in depth about my process.

The downside, and the Killing, of the dyeing process was that when I was getting ready to clean up Sunday evening, the drain and drain pipe of my laundry room sink, disintegrated, dumping blue dye and a whole lot of water all over my laundry floor, splattering me, my washer & dryer and generally creating a blue-sposion of staining power.  The sink died.  Then I got to spend a whole day contending with some very poor plumbing choices and trying to put the sink back together so I could clean up the room.  The plumbing took longer than the dyeing and was considerably less fun.

Happy Quilting!

Well, it's not exactly a book or product review, but since I so recently completed Starr Fabrics' Summer Solstice, I felt like I should start re-blogging with commentary on this fabulous, intricate paper-pieced beauty.  I started this in earnest in April.  I had done the cutting back in October, a couple of weeks before my baby was born, but that was as far as got until my spring quilt retreat.  It's done in a block of the month format, which in general irritates me because I like to chain, but for these particular blocks, it is a necessary and merciful way of doing this quilt.  For one thing, while many blocks are similar (there are four two-star blocks, six big 18" star blocks, four four-small-star blocks, and two long two-star sashing blocks), no two are exactly the same and chaining could get disastrous.  These blocks are also an accomplishment, and doing them one at a time keeps a person feeling capable.

The only error I found was in block #10, and there was plenty of scrap fabric to fix it.  The pieces went together beautiful and sharply, as paper-piecing should and the fabric, all hand-dyed by Starr Fabrics, was gorgeous.  It has a nice hand and prior to discovering Deb Karasik's seam roller, I finger-pressed everything and that worked great.

Now on to the pictures!  While I have significantly more hours in piecing, I feel that my quilting is what makes this quilt really mine.  This quilt is not a difficult quilt, per se, it is a long quilt.  It's kind of like getting a PhD in paper-piecing--you put in the work and you can do it and you'll be really good at paper-piecing by the time you finish.

 Here is the first row in these two photos.  I have a sort of stream-of-consciousness way of quilting that is hard for me to explain.  This is my biggest difficulty when teaching machine quilting.  I never know what exactly I'm going to put on any given quilt, often even as I go I'm not sure.  But occasionally I come up with one thing and wing every other element.  For this particular quilt, I was on a very tight deadline (I had three days to quilt & bind it), so I kind of had to gun it and not look back.  It took me about 30 hours over the course of those three days. The two things I decided on before I started quilting (and I'm talking 15 minutes before) were my border, which I did in large fluffy feathers in a rainbow of colors and unicorn horns.  The five outer big stars have different unicorn horns radiating out from them, you can kind of see the neon orange one in the top picture above.  The other one is the completed first row.  I chose to add a lot of loosey-goosey (that's the technical term) freeform feathers between stars.  I did this with matching blue So Fine thread.  Then I put Box O' Hair filler in around everything in matching blue thread. 

 This is the halfway point  The thread color of the border feathers is more dramatic in person, but not as pronounced as I'd hoped.  I used washable wool batting for this quilt and the wool quilts so beautifully.  I also put solid minkee on the back which looks awesome!

 Here you can see a little bit of the Box O' Hair which is kind of like McTavishing, but I'm just not very good at McTavishing, so it sort of morphed into its own thing.  You can also kind of see in this one, in each star, I picked one color (here, the orange) to do some sort of dense, intricate quilting.  Each big and medium star was different.  This gives it a really cool 3D effect.  The small stars just got the same swirly pattern in each one in a matching thread.

 Almost finished!

 More unicorn horns (in lime green) and some of the freeform filler feathers.

 The last row!  You can see the colors of the border feathers a little bit better.  You can also see the scale.  Since the border was very large and blended with the background combined with the 18" size of the big stars, I felt big and bold feathers were appropriate.

 On the table, pre-trim.  Note that my feathers all kind of flow down the quilt.  This is because I didn't mark anything, but also because of the summer sky aura, I wanted a flow-y, cloudy feel.

 Me in my booth that I busted my butt to finish this quilt so I could hang it!  Can you tell that paper-piecing is one of my things?  This was at the Missoula quilt guild's show.

 Another shot of some of the quilting and the complete kit in the foreground.

Freeform feathers in the center.  I tried to have them pass through the stars.

Next month I'll be reviewing Atkinson Designs new book, Graphic Mixx.  I've started, but I want to get through more before I release my thoughts!  I do have the complete kit at Little Timber Quilts and I will get it put up at www.ltquilts.com!  Don't forget to like Little Timber Quilts & Candy on Facebook!  Thanks for reading!  I'll see you next month on the 15th (I know I'm a day late and a dollar short this month)!  Happy quilting!

Been a long time....

Well, I won't say that I'm going to be back to blogging on a regular basis just yet, because I've got a bit more traveling to do before that will happen. I'm sorry to my readers that I fell off the map, but when Michael was killed in December, some part of me died too, and for whatever reason, I found it particularly hard to face a blank screen, to stare at the opening into the internet and put out my thoughts and musings on quilting at that time. For a time, everything in my life seemed so trivial and pointless and everytime I sat down to write about some quilting thing, all I could think of was him.
Here I am, six months later, and I am moving forward, albeit slowly, and while I manage my cheerful facade most days, the trouble with grief for me seems to be that it's sneaky, waiting for some seemingly innocent thing to remind me of the permanence of loss.
Many of you know, from my main website, www.ltquilts.com, that I have recently returned from a trip to Kenya with my mom and my husband. My mom and I have wanted to go on photo safari since I could utter the word cheetah, and we just never had. Michael's death made us decide that if you want to do something, and it really matters, sometimes you just do it, because life really is short, and you really never know how short until it's too late.
Kenya was magical and seeing such amazing creatures and such beauty was good for my soul. I could write for days and days about everything we saw and experienced, but I won't make anyone endure that.
So here are a few of my favorite pictures and a brief explanation of each.

These elephants were kind enough to stroll in front of the acacia trees and Kiliminjaro...More importantly, Kiliminjaro was showing her peak, a rare thing, apparently, and we got to see her both days when we were in Amboseli Park in southeast Kenya. We saw lots of beautiful creatures there, but the most memorable were the large herds of elephants.
This is another elephant from Amboseli. This was one of a very large herd that we happened upon around dusk on the road. They were all in good spirits and didn't mind us quietly sitting in our Landcruiser snapping photos...This female seemed to keep her eye on me, and she was "right-handed" though you can't see in the photo. Elephants have a dominant "hand" like humans, which you can tell because one tusk is almost always more worn than the other. They also curl their trunks that direction.
Hyenas get a bad rap, but I love them. This beauty just melted away into the grass at Amboseli, but she was kind enough to give me a couple good shots. Kenya has had horrible drought the past five years and last year they lost more than 85% of their livestock and vast numbers of wild animals as well. Many herds haven't recovered, and we were told that we were lucky to see as much as we did in Amboseli, one of the hardest hit areas. Predators suffered as much as grazers, so we saw very few hyenas, lions, and cheetahs, and we didn't see any leopards.

This is a pair of white rhino males fighting at our second camp, Lewa Downs. Lewa is a privately owned ranch that has almost single-handedly brought back both species of African rhino, the white and the black. It was my favorite camp. Our guide, Mungai (sp?!) was fantastic, the lodgings were wonderful, and the rest of the staff were great fun and so knowledgeable. The owners even eat meals with you! I will definitely be going back there someday! They have a marathon to raise money for their foundation (which in addition to conservation of wildlife, builds schools, clinics, and helps with all different resource management, including water). It's the only thing that has made me want to run another marathon. We saw tons of rhinos as they have excellent security and have been able to combat poaching more effectively that some of the national parks.
This is four of a group of six black rhinos we saw two days in a row at Lewa. Look at the horn on that mama! Black rhinos are aggressively anti-social and will charge just about anything (including cars and horses) and it is very, very rare to see them in any kind of group, so we saw something that the camp people said almost no one has ever seen. Lewa had horseback riding and our last morning, Erik and I went for a ride and came across the mother and calf on the right in the photo. They always either charge or run, and it looked as if she was going to charge, but if you hold your ground, often, they turn away, but if you run, they try to gore you. So, our guide on horseback, Romano, says to Erik, who is right behind him, "Don't let your horse run if she charges", to which Erik said, "This is my third time on a horse!" and started laughing. Luckily, she didn't charge.

These male cheetahs are Lewa's other claim to fame. My mom and I recently watched the discovery series "Life" (narrated by Oprah), and for those of you who watched it, you may recall the rare phenomenon of cheetahs hunting together and they had great footage of three male cheetahs bringing down and ostrich. These are two of the now quite famous "Three Brothers". Mungai tracked these guys ceaselessly because if I could only see one animal in Africa, I wanted to see a cheetah, and so he found me their famous boys. They were never nice enough to get all three together for one closeup, but I got some great shots of them (see below). One was hurt, but they said that in the past, the other two have always taken care of the injured one, allowing him to survive. Seeing these beauties was worth the whole trip.
Sleepy boy.

They just look like they're built for speed.
Looking for their next meal.
Our last day in Lewa, we were on our way to the air strip (a bit of flat land with a bit of gravel)
when we happened to see some very wary zebra. Wary zebra are usually a good reason to look around. So, upon close inspection and some creative driving by Mungai, we found a mama lion (not in the picture) catching her breath after taking down a warthog for her cubs. It was the best farewell (except for the warthog, too bad for him).
Finally, our last stop, the Maasai Mara. Our first morning on the Mara, our poor guide is driving us around, and he's new, only 2 years on the job, and we've seen a lot already, so there's less new stuff to tell us, and we're in grass that's thigh high and he gets a flat tire. No problem, one of the vehicles from one of the conservation groups comes along and helps because tourists are not allowed on foot in the parks primarily because with that grass, there can be a lion two feet away, and unless he wants you to know he's there, you don't. So, we continue on, and stumble upon a group of eighteen lions that we could see, feasting on a rather rotten dead hippo. Amongst those eighteen were the two beauties above, and believe it or not, there are two males behind them in the shrubs. Four big males. We're driving around to get a better look, and I feel a thump, lean out of the car and see yet another flat tire. My mom is ecstatic, because if we have to wait forty-five minutes for a car from our camp to bring us another tire (some vehicles are equipped with two spares, and now we know why) why not wait where we can look at lions. After quite a bit of chatter, she realizes that we are stranded amongst eighteen lions who can disappear at will, popping up somewhere else entirely, the soft breeze hiding their every movement. When the tire finally arrived, we had armed guards and a ring of other guide vehicles to protect our poor guide while he changed the tire. It's easy to forget, when you can drive right near wild, dangerous carnivores, that they are in fact killing machines. And lions are notorious for killing for fun. But we survived, hooray!
The coolest thing about our stay on the Mara was our camp, Olananna, is situated right on the Mara river. And I mean right on it. We had eight-strand, heart-attack voltage hot fence two feet off our tent's deck (yeah, our 'tent' had a deck, and a flush toilet--not quite roughing it) and we woke up to the grumpy harumphing of hippos as they got back in the water every morning. I love hippos! Here's one of the only shots I got of them out of the water as they are mostly nocturnal, coming on land to feed at night and staying in the water and resting and making noise all day.

Yeah, that is me feeding a baby elephant at an elephant orphanage in Nairobi on our last afternoon in Kenya. Go ahead, be jealous! They raise the survivors of poaching, and increasingly, babies that fall into wells and their mom's have to abandon them. They can guzzle a bottle in a few seconds, so it was hard to get a picture, but I got to play with them a little too, and one threw dirt at me with her trunk. One grabbed my hand with her trunk. It was really a phenomenal experience, and you can see that I am one happy camper.

And lastly, I can now die happy. I have been kissed, and thoroughly licked, by a giraffe. In Nairobi, there's a giraffe center that's for education, but also to breed the rare Rothschild giraffe and reintroduce them to the wild. This one, Laura, really likes pellets, and will eat out of your hand. They have tongues like boas--they are big, blue, muscular, rough, and always searching for food--I think our guide said their tongues can be up to 50lbs. Many a tourist seemed to find giraffe spit on their hand quite repulsive, but all the while, I was thinking to myself, "If I put a pellet between my lips, will she lick my face?" and sure enough, the guy working there sees my giraffe loving brain at work and says, "You want giraffe french kiss?" and sticks a pellet between his lips, getting a big ol' kiss. Needless to say, this is just one of about forty giraffe kisses I received, much to the horrified fascination of many other tourists, who might bravely turn their cheek for one. Interestingly, giraffe spit is anti-microbial because they eat so many sharp things--big gashes in their mouth can heal in fifteen minutes, so apparently, as dirty as I was, Laura was cleaning me up. Honestly, put this one on your bucket list.

So that is the brief overview of my trip. Hope you enjoyed, I might put up some more pictures as I go through all of them.
And as always, happy quilting!

Our puppy kindergarten graduate.

Look at those ears, looks like she's prepping for takeoff. Find her a mouse friend and call her Dumbo. She's mastered sit and stay, hates down, but does lie down, will roll over with treat enticement, bows like it's her job, and is learning to army crawl. Next we will train her to flap her ears on command. She also clocked in at just under 60 pounds at 4 months of age.
Happy new year, happy quilting!

Many thanks...

I wanted to thank everyone out there for all the sympathy and support in this very sad time in my life. I once again realize how fortunate I am to live in such a caring community, but also to be a part of the larger and nurturing quilting community. I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Thank you all again.

Sad news.

Well, dear quilters and friends, I'm making this post primarily because I can't bear to give this news to so many people individually. My younger brother was stabbed to death outside his apartment last night at barely 22 years old. We don't know the details except that he's gone and it's not quite real to me yet.

Sorry for the absence.

I've been battling with some sort of flu, though methinks not swine flu, on top of having a puppy, for the better part of four weeks. I thought I was finally getting back on the horse, but last night I had a pretty good cough fest and have the wretched tickles in my throat that have plagued me throughout.
Anyway, the long and short is that I haven't sewn anything more exciting than a dog coat (Nova is naked, for all intents and purposes. I have more hair on my body than she does, and I'm basically hairless), which, while cute, doesn't seem to warm her up quite as much as I'd hoped.
I have many projects planned, some even cut, and glorious dreams of finishing a few things prior to Xmas, but alas, reality has set in and I know that I'll be longarming practically every waking hour until Christmas eve and I'll be pretty stoked if I even eat a sit down meal in that period.
I will try to get back on some sort of blogging schedule, but between puppy, work, and illness, I've just been overrun.
Hope all of you are happily quilting!

Miss Nova!

Here is our little darling, who is still having a little trouble with her leg (hence the wrap on her leg in some pictures). She's such a sweet girl and very smart (she already sits and will lay down with coaxing). The leash is her nemesis, but she's very good off leash. We've been to work a little, but I have some nasty, dry hacking cough accompanied by sore throat, so I'm mainly trying to avoid people so they don't come down with it.
She is quite the little lap dog, here she is, curled up in my lap our first morning together.

Kisses for me at grandma's house.
She is a bit of a mama's girl, and pretty relaxed with her favorite rope.
She gets her wrassle on with the rope.
We're in and out of the shop this week, but we'll be in next week unless I croak because of this wretched cough.
Happy quilting (and puppy playing!)!

Puppy day is at last at hand!

Hello all, I finally found out that I get to pick my little pooch up tomorrow night, late, but better late than never! I'm about to jump out of my skin I'm so excited--it was starting to seem like it wouldn't really happen. In the meantime, here are some photos of my retreat projects. One of my latest quilting kicks is that since I don't decorate my house for any holidays (or have any company for that matter, but just in case), so I thought I would make a little throw for our upstairs couch (I also don't have a throw for my upstairs couch that's in my sewing room and is probably more properly called a scratching post as that's the reason we brought it from North Carolina--it was $30). Anyway, so I got the center (no borders) of my Valentine's Day (which I only made a quilt for because it had lime green) and my Fall/Halloween center done... Ultimately I will probably have separate Fall and Halloween quilts because Halloween is far and away my favorite holiday (it practically celebrates candy, how could it not be?).
Anywho, and the last one, the black one, is our current block of the month, but done in Lily's own personal colorway. I haven't done the border on that one either, it's a cool pieced number, so that may be a little while in coming.
Yeah, in case you can't tell, that is iridescent snake-skin fabric as setting triangles. This was done with a layer cake and used "Jelly Roll, Layer Cake, and Charm Quilts" a great book for those of us who are addicted to pre-cuts. This was also possibly one of the fast quilts I've ever done. I think it was like five hours start to finish simply because it's just huge blocks, but I dig the interlocking lime and red rings around the blocks.

Another easy fast one. This is from "Stop, Drop, and Roll", one of Anka's Treasures' latest books. Also a jelly roll. I like to work on semi-mindless projects at retreat so I can BS more effectively.
And last but not least, the not-so-mindless project. I love how this turned out and I'm so excited to get the border pieced and on so I can figure out how to quilt this bad boy.
You can look forward to some puppy pics, probably more puppy pics than you were ever interested in seeing, so I'm giving you fair warning.
Happy quilting!

Long time no blog.

Sorry for my long absence. Between puppy distraction and retreat and working by myself most of the previous three weeks, I just didn't have anything to write about. I still have nothing to say, and while I got lots of stuff done at retreat I haven't taken any pictures yet. In sad news, poor Nova is sick, so she couldn't fly today, so we're hoping she is better by Monday, but I won't really know when she's coming until Sunday. I am one depressed puppy-mama. Anyway, I just hope she's feeling better and ready to come to her new home on Monday.
Anyway, hopefully I can get something done this weekend and post some pics on Tuesday (hopefully including puppy pics).
Happy quilting!

Exploding brains and disks.

Well, I'm back from South Dakota, and stuffed full of new ideas, inspiration and of course, not nearly enough time to implement and practice all these things. I always wish when I take a class bursting with information that I could go to class, pause life, quilt for a couple hours, go back to class, pause, etc... Well, wish in one hand, as they say.

It was a very different experience to take classes with a group (there were 6-7 of us, depending on the day, 2 machines) versus my one on one lessons. I'm hoping between Myrna Ficken (teacher of my classes this weekend) and Karen Parker(the gal I took lessons from) and I can get a cycle of longarm classes going here at the shop for those of you who rent my machine or own one of your own. They have different styles and teaching flavors and they're both so much fun, I'd love to have both of them come to teach, so I'm getting that in the works.

Unfortunately, driving for 7+ hours twice in one weekend wreaked some serious havoc on my back. I have a slipped disk and sitting for that long just irritates the crap out of it. By Saturday evening I was finally feeling a little better, but then I got to get back in my car Sunday afternoon, and now I'm in agony again. Ibuprofen and I are becoming very good, frequent friends.

Meanwhile, I've been reading copious amounts of dog training literature, though I did drag my sewing machine along to SD and did quite a bit of sewing while watching HGTV, to which I'm now addicted, but fortunately do not have cable or satellite, or I would quickly atrophy into a Jabba-the-Hut-like-blob.

I did find out that I'll actually get my new pooch on October 16th. She's growing like a weed and in my latest pictures looks about twice the size of the one I posted last week. I confess that I can barely stand the wait and my every thought is consumed by puppiness. My mom keeps asking me what I'm going to do when I get pregnant since three weeks is a significantly shorter wait than the 9 months of anticipation I'll have to endure then. Maybe people who thrive on instant gratification shouldn't have babies. I don't know, I guess maybe someday I'll find out. But for right now I'm just trying to distract myself for three weeks of puppy countdown. Great Dane proofing the house is going to be an ongoing process as she will be much more capable of getting into trouble than a smaller pooch.
She's already bigger than my brother's full grown beagle.


I do have my fall quilt retreat coming up (YAY!) next weekend, so that will keep me occupied most of next week, and then only one week after that. Quilting seems like a distant thing that I might be able to do someday if things in the shop ever calm down and I stop running around all the time. It seems like I'm home so infrequently I can't even find my way around the house and my husband and I need pictures just to remember what the other one looks like.

Someday, hopefully, I will go back to happy quilting!

Who's a quilter?

Not this girl. All I've managed is binding, but I have, in my defense, bound three quilts in the last week. I'm getting ready to go to three days of long-arm lessons in Hill City, South Dakota this weekend and things have been pretty hectic as one of my employees is also gone for three weeks. Tonight is also the convening of the first meeting of Big Timber's newly formed quilt club and we're meeting at the shop.
The other bit of excitement is that my hubby and I are preparing for a new arrival at our house! But not a baby! Gotcha! We're getting a puppy!
Poor miss Elli, our "borrowed" black lab (my mom's dog) is just not adjusting to her shop-dog lifestyle despite us trying for over a year. For whatever reason, she has been unable to conquer her fears in the shop (she's started barking at random people, with no discernible pattern or reason and has even growled at a few) and she destroys stuff if we leave her home alone. So she's going back to my mom's house where she has a huge fenced in yard and two other doggies to play with. The upside is that I still get to see her and play with her and she'll still be joining me for some of our old routine.

Our little girl should get here mid to late October and I will be taking a week of "maternity" puppy leave. She's a Great Dane from Illinois and this is her latest photo:
She's exactly a month old today and we get her at 8 weeks, so we're pretty excited but also trying to get the house ready for a puppy that might weigh more than me by the time she's full grown.
For Friday I'm off to South Dakota, but I'll be back next week with details.
Happy quilting (eventually!)!

Just kidding!

Ha, you thought that I might actually quilt something? Well, you were wrong. I've been trying to get our house in some sort of liveable condition and our yard and extensive landscaping that had gone to ruin before we moved here is badly in need of attention so I've been trying to get that under control before the snow flies. It just seems as though the months are flying by waaaay to fast. As a wise magnet on my mom's fridge says: "Life isn't passing me by, it's running me over."
Happy quilting!

#&@^*%*

Yes, that's what I spent my afternoon yesterday doing. I got new wheels for my longarm that are supposed to much smoother and easier to roll. Well, that they may be, but that's about the only thing about them that's easy. I spent three or four hours yesterday and three this morning trying to get the damn things on and while I finally did manage, I was near madness, my back was a throbbing nest of slipped disk pain, and really just pissed off.
Enough about that though, just wanted to apologize for the lack of bloggery yesterday. I'm hoping to quilt at least a table runner or something for instructional purposes before Friday, but life has been quite chaotic.
Happy quilting!

The crappiest blogger.

Well, I won't pretend I have a good excuse for not blogging on Tuesday, because I just forgot due to Labor Day "what-day-of-the-week-is-it?" confusion. Husband and I are still running up to Bozeman on Tuesdays to enjoy the last few blissful days of warm enough to play soccer weather and then I had a meeting on Wednesday night that was longer than I'd planned. All in all, I just had one of those weeks where I didn't get anything done in the evenings.
I've also been on a binding tear--yes, yes, screech in confusion, gasp with disbelief, I know I do. With the help of my wonderful staff, I've been making a couple "magical binding trees"--which are actually just empty fabric bolts which we wrap the binding for my quilts around. This is helpful for two reasons: the first is that having them piece and iron my binding means that I can spend more time quilting and piecing in the evenings to keep my shop bedecked in lovely quilts and I can continue doing the work thing at work and it makes a great thing for them to do while it's slow. The second reason is that piped binding (sew all by machine) which I like to put on my quilts, never seems to happen for me if it isn't made prior to quilt finishing. The piecing and ironing is a very minor step as you have to put in the piping and then attach the piping to main binding. So, with my magic binding tree in hand, I've been working to create the piped binding so that it's rarin' and ready to go when the quilt is quilted.
I'm finding that if the binding is ready to go, I'm not only WAY more likely to finish my top, but I also don't hate it, which is a big step for me.
Anyway, someday I'll get back to pictures, lessons, etc...but right now I'm in all sorts of frenzies. We've had soooo much new fabric coming in it seems like I can't even keep up putting it online. The binding is also a frenzy. Then there is the "I-only-have-free-use-of-my-longarm-for-a-little-while" frenzy. That one is probably more along the "panic" lines as I so desperately want to be caught up and free of an endless stream of unfinished tops. The goal is noble, though not to be achieved, if I could even put a good healthy dent in my numbers, that would greatly improve my stress level.
Happy quilting!

Thread, glorious thread!

You've got your top. You've got batting. You've got backing. You have one last product to choose to continue your quilting journey: thread! Now, many people just use some boring neutral cotton to quilt so it either blends away or stands out in all its blandness, but this quilter, she is a THREAD JUNKY! Most people make a quilt just for a fabric or a pattern--I make a quilt just for the thread. I have an enormous stash of thread which probably will be passed down to my great grandchildren because even if I quilt every day for the rest of my life and never buy another cone or spool, I'll still have leftovers. I should have insurance for my thread collection.
So, now that you know who's talking to you, you will probably understand my passionate pleas for consideration of thread type, color, weight, etc...The first thing I will say is this: you have spent a lot of money already on fabric, pattern, sewing machine, batting, backing, etc...Do not cheat yourself with cheap quilting thread. It will be linty, ugly, break more often, and look, well, cheap. For light quilting, you'll rarely use more than one spool. One good spool costs in the range of $8, one cheap costs in the range of $3. You're saving yourself $5 and making your life miserable.
Okay, onward. The main factors to consider with thread are: material, weight, color, and any processing that the thread has undergone.

Let's start with material. Cotton is the most common material used for thread, but there is also polyester, nylon, rayon, silk, and blends thereof. I will say that in general, threads that are a blend of materials are blended to be cheap, not to create any quality. I'll start by addressing the qualities of each material, pros and cons, etc...

Cotton will be duller in sheen than say, poly, rayon, or nylon, and because it's spun cotton fibers, will necessarily have lint. The amount of sheen and lint will be related to the quality of cotton. Extra long staple is the best type of cotton--don't be fooled by labels like "Egyptian" or a lack of staple length. If it's ELS, it will say so, if it isn't, it will not say anything. Extra long staples mean that the thread will be stronger, smoother (lumps on thread are called "slubs"), and less linty. Other terms you will see on cotton thread are "gassed", "mercerised", "waxed", "double-gassed", or "lint-free". Gassing and mercerising are both standard procedures for almost all cotton, not just thread. Gassing is the process of passing thread over flames to burn off stray fibers and make the thread look smoother. Almost all cotton threads undergo this process and it's nothing to brag about. Mercerising is a chemical treatment that causes cotton fibers to swell, be more receptive to dye, and unfortunately to be a little lintier. It also prevents decay in the fibers. Again, standard for cotton, nothing to brag about on your label. Double gassed just means their thread was so fuzzy and lumpy they had to burn off stray fibers twice, again, really not a bragging point. Waxed or lint-free should both be huge red flags to the machine quilter. Lint-free cotton is an impossibility without coating it with something, and if you coat it with something and put it through your machine, it will leave residue in your machine, and your machine will be sad. Do not use any COTTON labeled "lint-free", "waxed", or "glazed" through your sewing machine. These threads are designed for HAND quilting. Glazing (or waxing) makes thread stronger and slicker to hold up and be easier for pulling through the quilt over and over as you do with hand-quilting. Therefore, you should also never put anything labeled "hand-quilting thread" through your machine, it is undoubtedly covered in something.

Cotton is grabby so it will sink into your quilt a little more than some threads and create nice texture, the dull nature of the fibers also gives a more subtle, sometimes old-fashioned look. A variegated (ie changing colors at regular intervals) cotton that matches your quilt top can virtually disappear. Cotton is very soft and supple and fairly easy to machine or hand quilt with, the downside is the lint that it produces and that it can be weak, depending on the brand. Overall though, cotton is a great choice, two of my favorite cottons are Superior's King Tut, and Sulky's blendables. Sulky's tend to be a little weaker and harder to work with, but they have alternating lengths of color rather than regular intervals. Cottons tend to be the #1 choice of hand quilters because they don't fray.

Polyester is my other favorite quilting fiber--but let me be clear: you should only quilt with HIGH quality polyester thread. If you get bargain bin poly, it's fit to garrote someone with and nothing more. Using a cheap poly that wasn't designed for quilting is liable to tear your quilt. High quality polyester isn't going to tear your quilt. Polyester comes in two main forms: spun poly, which is designed to look like cotton but be stronger and lint free, or extruded poly, where the fibers are long polyester fibers spun together, which has a high sheen and no lint. Extruded poly is often referred to as "trilobal" because the strands are triangular in shape, giving them the lovely sheen they exhibit. If you want a little shine without going to metallic (which are also poly), a trilobal is very nice. So Fine! the thread I like to piece with is also a poly, but a spun poly and it's fantastic for the bobbin when quilting because it just blends away and you can fit a ton on the bobbin. A very fine poly will also be stronger than a very fine cotton, and is perfect for getting a hand-quilted look on your machine. My favorite polys are: Superior's So Fine!, Rainbows, Lava, and Brytes, Mettler's Poly Sheen, and Signature's Pixelles. The advantage is the sheen, they tend to break less than cotton, and they have no lint. The cons are the sheen (if you don't want sheen) and that they will melt if exposed to an extremely hot iron. They also fray easily when over handled so they are not necessarily the best choice for hand-quilting, but they are very slick.

Rayon and nylon are not suitable for quilting, even if they are pretty. Some invisible threads (clear monofilaments) are nylon, but they do not age well and you're better off getting a poly monofilament. Rayon is very soft and shiny, but very very weak and designed for machine embroidery. I've quilted with rayon in the past and it breaks often and my quilting didn't hold up well.

Silk, while more expensive, is available in finer weights than other thread because of how strong silk fibers are. 100 weight silk is common and very strong. Silk has a beautiful lustre, but can also melt away into a quilt. 100 weight silk is extremely fine and perfect for doing extremely dense background quilting. Silk has no lint either and is very strong. If you want your stitching to really show, you should use something heavier as most silk is very fine.

This brings us to weight. Thread weight is counter intuitive, the lower the weight, the fatter the thread--a 30 weight is very heavy, a 50 average, and 100 is extremely fine. There are multiple ways to express a thread's diameter, but the most common is weight, which is often combined with ply (the number of strands twisted together)--eg 50/3 is a common sight on cotton piecing thread and it means 50 weight, three ply. There is one simple rule with quilting thread: heavy to show, light to blend. If you want your actual stitches to disappear, leaving only texture, use a 50, 60, or 100 weight thread. If you really want the actual stitches to show, use a 40, 30, 12, or even 8 (8 weight will only go in your bobbin, which requires quilting upside down). 12 is about as fat as you can go through a needle. Don't be afraid to use more than one weight on a quilt. Say you're going to do a fancy motif--birds, feathers, vases, boa constrictors, who cares--you may want to do those in a big fat 30 and then do some dense fill to pop them up, using a 100. That's not to say you can't use a heavyweight for a background, it's just a different look.

My ultimate advice for choosing a thread is that if you have doubts, take some of your scraps from your quilt, a little extra backing and batting, make a wee sandwich, and practice quilting using different thread candidates, choose the ones you like and then you can rest assured that you like the effect on the fabrics of your quilt. Test squares are a common part of many a famous quilter's repertoire (I'd never thought to do such a thing until Ricky Tims told me to).

Get your thread and get ready, next time we're basting and discussing design possibilities.

Happy quilting!

More finishing!

Well, I finished a quilt that I have never been very fond of, was horrible constructed (both problems with pattern and piecer were involved) and vastly improved by quilting in my opinion. I'm not sure if anyone can get a feel for the flavor of this one, as the beauty of it is really the sparkly white fabric post-quilting is fabulous. I enjoyed the challenge of the odd shapes in this and I avoided quilting the stars because they were so puffy I just thought I'd let them live in all their puffy glory. I also used alpaca batting which I have been eager to try. It quilts beautifully--my tension is fantastic. And holy buckets, it is SOOOO warm. I have been sitting under it in my basement while stitching the binding on and my basement is pretty cool and I've been roasting. I think we may be able to skip the heat in our bedroom if we put this puppy on the bed. It's a 60% alpaca 40% wool and when I washed a sample it neither felted, nor shrunk, but the fibers which have no scrim, resin or needle-punching, did drift pretty badly. I think one of the problems with alpaca batting may be that alpaca wool is extremely fine fibers (part of the reason it's so soft and warm) and they just squib right out of the weave of even fine quality quilting fabric. The batting packaging recommended only hand-washing, but I had to do my own little experiment. So now I know, I should listen to the packaging. I have a few other brands to investigate, as well as a paca/cotton blend, so I will keep everyone posted.
Now, onto the pics! (Don't worry beginning quilters--I haven't forgotten you--thread lessons on Friday)
Here's the whole monster--I bought the fabric to do this years ago, when I first started quilting. Well, I should say my mom bought it for me. I only made it about a year ago though and now, finally, it's quilted and even has three sides of binding on--one more movie and it'll truly be finished--I've even embroidered a label. I called it "Fiery Stars" because of the colors, but also because I did flames coming out of the stars on the yellow (variegated thread made it just subtle texture). I used my leftover red to create a chunked up, random border, which seems to deeply offend some quilters, but I liked it and was happy to use up all the fabric. I think I had about 10" of leftover fabric. It's about 93"x100", hehe, depending on where you measure. Like I said, not my best work, finished, hands washed, etc...
Here's a chunk of the border (my favorite chunk--I love that fabric). I used a ruler to make the curly spine of this feather and really botched the corners, but I was quilting like that machine was a Harley and I had a death wish, so that's what I get for speed. I used a vari red/yellow thread and I love the peekaboo effect it has of really showing in some spots and not in others.
Here's the curly wurly freehand feather contraption I did in these weird white shapes. The picture really doesn't do it justice. The sparkly fabric just came to life once quilted. I used a very soft yellow variegated and I just loved how it turned out. Initially I was going to micro-stipple around the feathers, but I loved the negative space that they created, so I left that. I think half of quilting for me is not just where and how one quilts, but what one leaves unquilted. There, that was my deep thought of the day, but I really do think that sometimes the texture of quilted/unquilted is the real beauty of quilting.
And finally a little close-up. It's not even close to perfect, nor would I feel comfortable doing it on someone else's quilt yet, but I love the effect and I think I've improved so much just in the past two quilts. My little tiny circles (which are harder than you'd think moving that big machine around) are gradually improving if I remember that I'm at a quilting machine, not on the interstate (this is a very hard thing for me to remember--I'm very impatient and I like me some instant gratification). You can sort of see the glitz a little in this photo.

Anyway, I'll get back on track with my lessons on Friday. Last Friday I was helping someone literally all day and just didn't have the will power (or brain power) to say anything productive on a blog.

Happy quilting!

Mini-dahlia done!

Woohoo! I got one of my very own quilts done this weekend. I even sewed on the binding and put on a sleeve. All I have left is the hand-stitching (which I've even started!). I've had the center of this top done since 2007. I got the borders put on in May. And now, finally, at the end of August '09, I'm going to get the bloody thing finished. I'm still up in the air as to whether I'm going to sell this one or keep it. I really like how the quilting turned out (except the border-blech).
Here's the whole thing (well, almost, my wonky photography is what it is):
Here's a large shot of the corner quilting, which you can vaguely see in the shot of the whole thing:
And a close-up of my corner/dahlia edge motif:

I did it using Superior Metallic antique silver thread and I really like the texture it added. I didn't do a fill around the feather because I didn't want to detract from the feathers and I liked the texture just the way they were.

My border on the other hand was a different story. I chose to do a long, wrap-around feather with fronds going in opposite directions. It didn't work out as planned :( Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I used 100 weight silk for the border and centers and was intrigued at how it melted away.
My favorite thing about quilting for myself is that when something doesn't look nice, if I don't want to, I don't have to rip it! I found ultimately that I didn't see the border, so it definitely wasn't worth tearing out :) Hooray for not ripping! I also don't worry about my minor mistakes like I have to when quilting for others.

Anyway, I'm happy with it and already onto my next quilt.

Happy quilting!

Backing and batting, thread to follow

First, let's consider backing. The back of your quilt is really what will be touching you the most, so it's important that it's soft and nice to touch. This is particularly true of a lap or snuggle quilt when you won't have a sheet separating your skin from the back. There are several options for backing, the first is to use regular fabric and piece it together--this works fine and then you can usually find a fabric that matches your quilt and that has the hand (feel) you like.
Another option that you'll see at some shops is extra-wide backing, usually 108", but some are 120". There is a more limited palette to choose from, and often the extra-wide is a lower quality fabric that the top which can lead to uneven wear and shrinkage if you wash your quilts. I'm not a huge fan of extra wide backing, but I don't mind piecing my backing either. Like everything in your quilt, it will be your choice ultimately, so if you can't stand to piece your back, extra-wide works great. One exception to my I-don't-like-extra-wide is the cotton sateen extra wide. Very soft and has a nicer weave than most.

Also be aware that you don't have to use the same fabric on the top as on the bottom. When I first started quilting, I put flannel on the backs of my quilts because I liked the softness of it. Later (and still) if I want a soft back, I use a product that is known widely as minkee and its cousins. Minkee is 100% polyester and it's furry. It's not polar fleece, which pills up fairly quickly with washing. It's much softer, stays cleaner and feels fantastic. In some circles, it's referred to it as naked skin fabric. Minkee comes in a variety of textures and colors and is wider than regular fabric; it's 60" wide. Now obviously for a lightweight summer quilt you aren't going to want it, but if you're making something snuggly, it really is fantastic and it quilts beautiful. It's pricey (usually about $20/yd) but it is so durable and often on large or small quilts, minkee ends up being cheaper because it's 60 wide. Go to your local quilt shop and ask to feel some if they carry it. You'll see why I love it so much.

The only caveat any time you use two very different fabrics on top and bottom (say, flannel top, minkee back) is that polyester (minkee) won't shrink at all and flannel will shrink a pretty decent amount. Rather than prewash my fabric (blech!), in this situation, if I'm concerned about uneven shrinkage (which to be frank, I rarely worry about stuff like that, which will undoubtedly haunt me at some point, but hasn't yet) then you can wet the top and dry it however you plan to dry your quilted quilt. I have washed a top in my washing machine before quilting it before, and dried it in the drier, and it came out fine, but I'm not going to recommend that to anyone without seeing the construction and materials. One thing is for sure, if you're going to do that, make sure you stay-stitch around the whole top (a line of stitching about 1/4" all the way around the edge of the top).

If you choose cotton top, batik back, or some variation thereof, you really don't have to worry about uneven shrinkage. Even cotton on minkee is not worth a bit of worry. Another way to alay any fears of unevenness is to use a puffy batt. Flannel is really the only cotton fabric that shrinks significantly. Now, go out and pet fabric until you find the perfect back.

One last note on backing, one thing I really don't recommend for backing and in general hate quilting on is sheets. A lot of people go out and buy a nice big sheet to use as their back, again, so they don't have to piece, so it's cheaper, the list goes on. I'm sure they have their reasons, but sheets are a pain to quilt. They tend to be a denser weave than regular quilting fabric (even cheap sheets), the grain is rarely straight, and they're hard on the needle leading to burrs, crappy tension, and just lots of headaches in general. If you're going to quilt it yourself, you can try a sheet, but make sure you change your needle often and watch your tension.

Onward to batting then!

There are several considerations when choosing a batting (the stuff that goes in between your quilt top and your backing and then you "quilt" the three layers together). Warmth, loft, shrinkage, drape, and how it looks quilted are all factors. There are so many battings on the market that I dare not try to cover them all. I'll mention some that I work with regularly and really like and you can go from there.

Let's start with warmth. If you want a really warm quilt, there are several batts available, but also bear in mind that you can use more than one layer (and even more than one type) of batting in a quilt. The warmest batting that I've worked with is wool, and I've only used Dream Wool by Quilter's Dream. It's very light, but warm, and quilts beautiful. Their wool is a washable wool, which means you can wash it on cold and dry it with no heat. Otherwise it reeeeeally shrinks. Wool is very breatable so it's perfect for warm winter bed quilts or snuggly quilts. You can layer wool too, sometimes dark minkee beards (fiber from the back pulls up through the stitching holes and leaves little 'beards' on the front) and a great way to deal with that is to put a layer of poly (I like Dream Puff) and then a layer of wool. That seems to catch the beards before they make it to the front. Dream Puff (also by quilter's dream) is a really great, warm, cheap alternative to wool. It's got a nice loft (puffiness) to it and works great with minkee to pop out your quilting design.

A more traditional batt would be 100% cotton which will shrink up a little, is moderately warm, and hangs a little stiffer than either wool or dream puff. Cotton is also a very thin batt with hardly any loft. Cotton batts are great for "heirloom" looking quilts that you want to loook old-fashioned. If you quilt a quilt with cotton batt and wash it, it shrivels up just enough to give it that rumpled antique look. I have used cotton batts a great deal on my own and other people's quilts, and while I like it okay, I find that I prefer some of the newer more environmentally and people friendly batts. Cotton (for those of you who care) is extremely water intensive and cotton cultivation has been causing water shortages for people in some parts of the world. Batting uses a huge amount of cotton compared to fabric, so I try not to use it anymore. I like to save most of my cotton consumption for fabric.

The most recent alternatives to cotton still contain some cotton, but they're moving away from that. Two of the main cotton alternatives are soy and bamboo. Soy batting is made from the leavings after soy beans have been processed into various food products. It has the same shrinkage as cotton, is quite a bit softer and has a softer drape. It's low loft, like cotton, too.
Bamboo, another cotton alternative is great because it grows extremely fast, about 2 feet a day, and is therefore very renewable. It requires little to no watering or fertilizer and the processing is pretty earth friendly. It has a very silky feel and soft drape. I carry a new product called Dream Orient from Quilter's Dream that's a blend of silk, bamboo, tencel and a little bit of cotton. It's heavenly and silk breathes really well, while being warm and light, but not smothering you either. MMMmmmm, silk batting is nice :)

I'm still researching alpaca batts for the wool allergy crowd (or even just the wool itchy crowd). Most are blends at the moment, so I'm pushing my favorite company, Quilter's Dream, to make a 100% alpaca wool batt. Any phone calls to them requesting this would be greatly appreciated. Alpaca hair is one of the warmest natural fibers in the world, extremely soft, light, and hypo-allergenic, so it will definitely make an awesome batting, I just need to get someone on the manufacturing end.

There are also a lot of poly-cotton blends on the market, none of which I'm particularly fond of. I do like 100% poly, but I'm picky. Cheap poly is extremely unpleasant to work with because it's scratchy, smells funny, and can be a nightmare to quilt. My current favorite light poly (Dream Puff is 100% poly, but many folks don't like the loft) is called Dream Green and is 100% recycled plastic bottles so it has a soft green tint because they keep the processing to a minimum to keep it "Green". It has a bit of stretch to it, which can be tricky, but it's really soft and smooth and quilts beautifully. I love it's drape too, and it's very thin so it's perfect for a lightweight summer quilt.

So that's a highlight of some battings, but like I said, there are so many different types and brands out there, you should just go out and experiment, touch, and look at quilts with different batts. If you want to order from me, click here.

Next time, we'll talk thread and design.

Happy quilting!

Quilts on the lawn

Ack, I've failed another week. Last week was extremely crazy as one of my employees got very sick and so I worked a stretch of 10 days, which is not ideal for my brain or slipped disk (we have a very hard tile floor in the shop), and by Friday, I just needed a day off and one of my other employees gave me the much needed time. Then this week we've got the scramble of getting ready for the rush of quilters who come through for the big quilt show in Bozeman (Quilts on the Lawn) and on top of all that I'm teaching a class tomorrow (I thought I was teaching it last Wednesday...as it turns out, calendars serve a purpose). So, hopefully Friday I'll have my wits about me enough to discuss, batting, basting, backing, and of course, my favorite topic of all: thread!
In the mean time, I'm back to the rush and grind of primping the shop, prepping the inner teacher, and tackling the more tedious aspects of life as a small business owner.
Happy quilting!