Listening to a Little "Background Music" While I Work...

"Teresa's in, Teresa's out," this poor little blog is starving for attention!  

There has been sewing happening, often late into the wee hours after a full day of responsibilities.  There has been a growing list of unfinished projects, gifts due, babies born, graduations celebrated, actual early efforts toward Christmas gifts, and dreaming/plotting my next idea (which is a weird whopper tangled in another world). 

But enough yapping.  I went out on a style limb with this music-themed wall hanging for my daughter.  I've never designed such a large scale focus motif on so small a background!

I call it "Background Music" mostly because I made it for Riley to hang above her bed.  Sometimes, I think of walls above beds as the backgrounds of bedrooms.  Especially when an apartment has very little wall space.

The paragraph above sounds like I am dissing the space when it could go either way:

• nice way to anchor/balance the space
• focal point to establish a theme (pieced or appliqued) or establish/enhance a color scheme (not necessarily making something that just matches the room...)
• never done it, but I'd like to design something where the wall hanging, WH, is either the precursor or continuation of a theme to the bed quilt, BQ, or throw pillows (for example, depict a hot air balloon show theme where the WH contains an array of balloons, weather, birds, etc. and the BQ reveals what is going on at ground level, like people, trees, quilt display, balloons being blown up and such)
• a WH over a vintage or family BQ could just coordinate in a low key way, perhaps in a similar color scheme and a few of the same block components from the other quilt sprinkled in for continuity and a nod to the modern
• now that I've spelled it out, the creative juices are flowing.  Another type of project to put on the "to do?" list...
• just feature a favorite quilt whether it matches or not, LOL

Riley's an actress in Atlanta (double major in Theater and English), so of course there are Broadway show posters, programs, and an interesting array of theater ephemera on the available wall space.  It wasn't quite a shoe-horning ordeal of hanging it, but the surrounding wall items have yet to be rehung.

It seems like my daughter has always left the wall space over her bed blank, maybe secretly hoping mom would make something interesting to fill it...something that warms up the room and makes an apartment feel homey.  Hand-quilting with a surprisingly modern-looking Baptist fan motif bridges past and present for me.

I've always been fascinated with music modern art, especially the idea of instruments appearing to be explode out of a small celestial black hole in the middle of the canvas.

My "Baltimore Rhapsody" quilt is the complete opposite of this project.  With sixteen traditional 15-inch blocks of exactingly detailed representations of the instruments played in a symphony orchestra done in the Baltimore Album Quilt style, that quilt is completely over the top.

I wanted to include some instruments that she plays in the design.  She actually does have a blue ukelele!

After working with teeny-tiny applique pieces, typically individual flower petals and bird feathers, the instrument pieces were gigantic to work with!

It felt backwards to draw LESS detail on LARGER instrument pieces.

It was hard to draw instruments like a caveman!  No small details...I just made general instrument shapes, making up tubing and keys.

I drew crude instruments on vellum pieces (basically "onion skin" paper).  For the pattern background, I taped paper together to make a big rectangle on which to work.  I measured my big patchworked paper background to find the approximate center, where I penciled an "x."  

My pencil mark was the origin of my "big bang theory" of instruments appearing at high speed from the black hole!

The big rectangle was too big for my large light pad, so I had to float the paper over my light pad with the middle area and the "x" hovering over the center of the pad.

I did my usual technique of applique prep and and hand-stitching...just on a big scale.

The pattern weights are holding pieces together until the glue-baste dries.  It just takes more of them!

I hand-appliqued small chunks of the instrument motif together, which I joined with ther others into the whole motif.

Since I would be hand-appliqueing with a whole bunch of background fabric scrunched up in my hands, I only wanted to have to applique around the perimeter.

I really wanted a very simple border, so I used scraps randomly sewn on cash register tape and a simple continuation of the background fabric for outer border and binding.

I am obsessed with keeping and using every little scrap!  Fun for me!

(Still has her old college quilt on the bed...7 years old and washed 100 times I'm sure.  I need to put a new binding on...it's actually a little thread-bare.  The binding wore out before the hand-quilting!  Let's here it for us hand-quilting dinosaurs, whoop whoop!)

I promise to show you my vellum-background pattern designing technique.  You will see that you too can design your own applique.  My method feels like cheating, until I see the results!  Then I don't care...

Teresa - - - - - - - -

I'M GOING FOR IT!!!

 

I've made a decision about quilting the Queen Mary's Garden flimsy (I was belly-aching about it in the last post).

I just ordered a king-size Dream Cotton "Request" quilt batt.

I guess I'm going to see if my hands are up to hand-quilting it!  Hand quilting has always been such good 'fabric therapy' for me.

Now I need to make a list of watch-ables and Audibles to entertain me through the basting process!

Any suggestions?

Coming up in the next post, I want to survey all of you for if I should and how I should make this QMG behemoth quilt pattern available.  I have some ideas, options, etc.  Some have made inquiries in the past.  I have been so in and out about posting, and those who asked about the possibility may now be out in the ether somewhere else.

Anywho, I will post brain droppings in my next post and you can honestly weigh in...no judgin' on my part.

After that, I have some finished interim projects to share, retreat highlights, and I think I know what my next big, wacky project will be!  There's a lot of doodlin' going on!

I promise, historical figures, no history lessons from the 1600's, and any running diatribe will be all fun and most likely myth, legend, salty intoxicated bar room boastings, and total fantasy.  

YAHOO!  I need some distraction from the outside world, and something ridiculous is always totally inappropriately appropriate!

Stitch on, brave souls,

Teresa  :o)

A Cautionary Tale!

                                      

So the Queen Mary flimsy is done and temporarily parked on the pool table.  I catch it staring at me and making rude comments every time I'm downstairs.  

"Hey, c'mon, lets get going on quilting this thing!"

I've loved designing and making this quilt.  Normally I can't wait to get going with the hand-quilting and finishing.  

To get started with the quilt basting, I first make a list of things to stream on TV and find all the remotes (not a trivial pursuit).  I make sure I have new Audible book selections downloaded and ready to start.  I've bought unsalted peanuts, grapes, stick pretzels and other clean finger snacks.  Tea bags are plentiful.  Oh, and I check the 'fanny ribbon' supply in the downstairs bathroom...I mean, I try to think of everything that would interrupt me and hinder my progress.

(Hand-quilting the music quilt (2014) all those years ago!)

Once my creature comforts are in place, I gather my basting supplies.  The best part of that particular chore is deciding which color of  'naturally sun-variegated' polyester thread to use in my basting needle.  (My mom used to keep a large, clear jar of thread in a place that got direct sunlight.  It was never moved or disturbed...or dusted.  I saved a few spools because I thought it would be hilarious...and useful.)

My grandmother...and her posse...hand-quilted everything, their own and each others' projects.  They pieced their tops themselves at home, then got together weekly at the Beulah, AL Community Senior Center, where there was always a quilt on the quilt frame!

(My grandmother, Bertie Yielding, was my quilting idol!  She never met a fabric scrap she couldn't or wouldn't use.  She even used 100% polyester scraps (no need for batting with those tops) from dresses she made for herself, my aunt, and me.)

I'm procrastinating with this project because for the first time in my life I don't know how to proceed.  I've always thread-basted my quilts WAY more densely than ever needed.  Then I would get started with those hand quilting stitches!  

I only ever won hand-quilting ribbons when there was just one or two of us old-fashioned dinosaurs doing it in a show.  I just liked the peace I felt after a quilting session.  The thought of ten to twelve stitches per inch is a myth and harshens my buzz.

But I am coming to terms, as we all do, with worrying about whether my fingers can do it anymore.  When I have not hand-quilted for a while, there's always that period of getting up to speed, getting stitches consistent again...you know the drill.  I'd just start 'in-the-ditch' somewhere until things started to click.  

You can hide a multitude of sins 'in-the-ditch.'

But the tiny needle, the ability to actually keep grabbing it (plus knowing I'm holding it), and trying to get 3 to 4 stitches on the needle before pulling it through is getting harder and harder.  Then there's the start of arthritis and some neuropathy...  

When I taught hand quilting, I was always reassuring students that it's not the size of your stitches, but the consistency that is important.  I'd take their hoop a few feet away and get them to re-evaluate their efforts.  The distance of 12 to 16 inches (eyes to hoop/frame) is not the normal perspective of looking at hand-quilting stitches.  Just cruel!  So are the quilt police counting those stitches per inch, haha.

Once students get over that initial awkwardness, the serenity and peace of the repetitive movement is so sweet.  Then, there's the feeling of running a hand over the area just finished and delighting in the slight 3-D feel of the design...magical and joyful.  

The feeling makes me dream that my quilt has left the 2-D, flat sensation of earth to become something else.  Weird, huh.  Maybe that is why quilts are roped off in public...we all want to experience that feel, that connection.

("Contentment," our 25th anniversary quilt, in Houston in 2017.)

(Excessively echo-quilted!  Normally I echo between 1/4 to 1/2 inches.

Upside to echo quilting - no marking for quilting!)

I love the idea of hand-quilting a hand-applique project!  I am pretty simple about it...I strive to have an unassuming background pattern that showcases the applique designs, often just diagonal cross-hatching or echo-quilting.  I want the background quilting to stay in the background...not compete with the artistic elements.  I outline-quilt each motif to make it pop!  I most always quilt areas through each motif as well to emphasize petals, feathers, leaf veins, etc. 

I even hand-quilted my husband some 'six-pack abs' a few years ago!

(OK...I think some context is in order here.  Steve jokingly says "all quilts should be made from scraps and old clothes."  Well...it was time to replace his old, ratty boxer shorts.  I thought I'd show HIM!  It was a small wall hanging I called "Boxer Rebellion."  He's a good sport...he hung it in his computer cubicle at work until we moved down to Alabama 12 years ago!)

Here are a couple more pics of it...most 'cheeky' quilt I ever made!

'Butt' I diverge...

I have not ruled out quilting by checkbook.  I don't really know anyone who does this desired simple, minimal custom machine quilting.  And why would I try to find someone?  Custom quilters are artists, and I would feel so insulting and embarrassed asking for something so simple, but well done.  What's the fun of that for them to do?  

An all-over, row-by-row style is perfect for my level of machine piecing but is out of the question after all this hand-applique.

I think I am going to just go for it!  Longer stitches, a larger needle, snacks with more fiber, and as many magnifying glasses as I need is hopefully enough.  This old dinosaur will try to get it done!  

(I'll just leave an extra eight inches or so of backing all around so it can be put on a quilting machine, if necessary (and I'll start with the outline stitches around the motifs...the very edge is almost as forgiving as the ditch!)

Don't save your dream projects until you retire and 'have more time.'  The more time thing is just a myth anyway.  I just now turned 65 and never dreamed that some things would get harder this soon!

Don't stop stitching!

Teresa