FABRIC THERAPY

I think I am officially back now...thank you to everyone who has been so kind and patient towards me following the death of my mother on February 20.  I really have appreciated all the calls, cards, emails, prayers, and fabric/scrap intervention that I have received.  My mom was in a state of decline for so long that I am surprised at how all this has affected me.  I've pretty much lost interest in everything for the past 3-4 weeks.  I came back from Alabama with a calendar of things that were impossible to avoid, which I managed to stumble through, but other than that I have just been enjoying solitude, fabric, music and Jane Austen movies.

I spent time hand quilting and mindlessly piecing scraps together.  This blog is called 'fabric therapy' for a reason...it is my favorite escape.  This poor pineapple log cabin quilt has been on the shelf for a while, and it was just the project for mindless needling around...outline quilting with no marking required.  Ahhh...mindless fabric therapy.

I opened my scrap boxes containing bright, cheerful strips, chunks and bits and just started chain-piecing like crazy.  I made 160 of my 8.5 inch "X Marks the Block" squares, which I turned into two large quilts, one for my daughter and one for her best friend.  They are being quilted, then I will post them, along with a complete tutorial on how I made them, in anticipation of teaching a class in this technique in a couple of weeks.  They were very satisfying to complete, and since they were completely free-pieced without instructions, rules or rigidity, they were very easy and therapeutic to make.  This is what the blocks looked like.  I used brights and novelties, so it is really a kind of "I Spy" quilt.

With the narrow left-overs from that project, I added some MORE small brite bits and made these free-pieced and trimmed strips, or "sticks."

I used these freezer paper circles in multiple sizes to cut out and glue under edges to make the "stones" from even the tiniest bright little saved bits.

"Stick and Stones" is simmering on the back burner, awaiting some hand applique and border inspiration.  Here's a block or so.

 Do you see the little flower-looking pin in the top left-hand corner?

You can see the bead a little better in the close up.  I forget when I bought them and who makes them, but they are super!  They are alphabet beads that came with the large safety pins and they are for marking blocks so that I am assured to get them back in the right order after the circles have been appliqued and before I sew them together.

The beads are cool, but the following is one of my favorite methods to label blocks in progress.  I came up with this when doing a complicated project several years ago.  They are freezer paper squares labeled with row and block number.  I just place them on the block, press lightly, then peel them off (and save them to reuse another day!) when I am through piecing the blocks together.  They really work!  And the freezer paper is a great way to label pieces in kits that you purchase, then bury in your quilt cave until motivation hits you.

I really believe in "leaders and enders" (thank you Bonnie Hunter!), and have been putting together these random, sort-of-triangular-shaped scraps with the ultimate goal of a whole lot of scrappy HST's.  I keep a container by my machine, and piece a light and dark one together every time I start and stop sewing a chain of piecing.

When I get a pile sewn, I press them toward the darker triangle and put them in a project box, where I have been storing them until I have enough.

Ahhh...fabric therapy...I will square them up later.

And I have been joyfully contemplating THESE LOVELIES...
I see a scrappy quilt with white in the near future!

I've also been writing a weekly quilt shop newsletter, coordinating classes at the same shop, and teaching hand quilting and glue stick hand applique...maybe it was good that I couldn't clear my calendar.  The scheduled events kept me around people to a certain degree.

I am finding that the rest of the world doesn't stop, even when I want it to.

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)