Chain-piecing with scraps to cope...

 

Those of you who think my quilt cave is never messy, here you go!  I have been doing some scrappy chain-piecing to distract me from the fact that Rome is burning.

There is just something so relaxing and mind numbing about running a constant stream of strips though the machine.  No measuring...just comforting, repetitive motion.

Since I save everything, the variety of bright fabrics has been entertaining and cheerful.

I started this little project of making 6-inch (finished) blocks a few years ago.  I decided it was one of those ongoing quilts that would develop over time, as the scraps (or the desire to cut strips from yardage) miraculously appeared.

I am using my tiniest pieces to make little strips of scraps to mix in with all the longer strips.  The chunky strips are all different widths.  

I just sorted by approximate sameness of size, sewed them in chunky strips, pressed, and rotary cut them as wide as I could, trimming to the narrowest piece.

I try to put thicker scraps on the ends so I don't end up with a seam train wreck when I sew the blocks and sashing together.

Ahhh...sweet escape.  I don't think there was a single thought in my head while the squirrels that live in my machine worked away for a few afternoons.

Sometimes a girl just needs to empty her head and chain-piece.

There will be sashing between the blocks, I think.  It is way too crazy and busy, to me, not to sash.  The eye needs to rest somewhere in all the madness.

I love the "Brooklyn Revolver" rotating cutting surface for trimming the blocks.  

I think I have about 200 blocks made.  I have not thought of how big a project it will be or anything about the setting.  "Just keep piecing, just keep piecing..."

I know I have not been around much since the first week of May.  It is mowing season.

And my friends, it is BLUEBERRY SEASON ON STEROIDS around here!

I wish you all lived close to me so you could come and pick yourself some blue Heaven.

One day they looked like this...

...then all of a sudden...

...the ripening berries are like blue popcorn; they just burst forth, seemingly overnight!  (That is not a child hand, but my big paw!)

It is so hot here recently that I have been getting up early to get outside by first light...that is about 5:15 CST.  Then I pick for 4-5 hours until the sun is dangerous.  I have quite a strange farmer's tan going, so I try to work on outside projects in the shade in the sunnier, hotter part of the day.  

Some days I pick 2-3 hours in the evening before dark as well...the fireflies are beautiful as I get my haul back to the house.  This is about what I get each time I pick...

It is completely crazy, huh?  Great time to listen to Podcasts or Morning Edition/BBC.  Lately I have just been listening to the birds wake up.

My three sisters came last weekend with their families and this is what we picked (the buckets and dumping containers barely fit on the pantry counter!)...

Here is one sister's haul...ready to put lids on for the 4.5 hour ride back home to Atlanta.

Sunny and hot...

(It is hard to get the longest row in one picture.)

Pre-dawn and cooler (from the other end)...

One of my sisters was picking with her son so they could fly some berries back to Pennsylvania.  My nephew ate just about everything he picked...

So did the other two.  They all had to show me the berries in their mouths in the first pic...

I thought one of my Atlanta sisters was going to have to leave a kid with me to be able to get all the berries in cars!

I have been picking since Memorial Day, and there are still berries.  Thank God they don't all get ripe at once or I'd be dead!

The freezer is full of flash-frozen berries, and now I am picking for jam.  The birds and wildlife will be gorging on the ones I don't get to (there are still some that aren't ripe yet...).

Seriously...come pick!

I have been working on some applique projects.  One project is a challenge that I can not reveal until after the guild meeting in a couple of weeks.  The challenge is called "Stitchin' the Blues" and we can only use fabrics that are blue and white.  I love blue!

I hope you are all having a great summer!

In stitches,

Teresa   :o)

Becoming an old geezer in my 50's...

 

I am beginning to want more light when I am sewing.  I'm not equating this with advancing age, mind you.  I just used to be stupid.

It seems like someone was always bugging me about reading and sewing in better light.  Now I need to take that advice.

Sewing machines, old or new, never have enough light.  Either my old Singer Featherweight or the newish Genome, it's still the same.  I like the LED lighting on the new machines, but there is too little of it and it never seems to illuminate what I am doing.

I have started rear lighting my sewing machine to illuminate my whole sewing platform table.  I love the extra work space at throat plate level, but the machine light only shines, barely, on the presser foot.

I usually end up placing my tabletop Ott light near my sewing machine.  I have tried a couple of those little lights that attach to the machine, but they are inadequate as well.

I have also stopped putting up with an inadequate light box.  I use this piece of equipment a lot, and it must be bright and must be flat...and must be larger.

I have found ...and love...the Huion brand, sold on Amazon.  Their price tends to fluctuate for some reason. 

My personal lighting solution is my Beam 'n' Read...a light that hangs around my neck.  Some come with 4 LED lights.  I like the one with 6 LED lights.

It allows me to hand stitch anywhere and not disturb the other people in the room.  I always have something to stitch with me while waiting for car maintenance or other long "public" waits away from home.

I also use it while repairing things or looking for something in a dark area.  Hands free light...just awesome. 

I look like a stupid, bobbing bird when I try to use one of those head lamps that fit like a sweat band.

I ordered my first one through the company (phone number above), but I have also found them on Amazon.  I love Amazon Prime free and fast shipping...so worth it when you live a long way from retail stores.

It seems like all the places that are convenient for a sewing area in this house are inconvenient for good lighting.  I have a number of table lamp options, and I need them!

Steve has been out of town for a couple of weeks, so naturally I have taken the opportunity to do weird things that I probably wouldn't do if he was here...things like just rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher without starting it, drinking out of a measuring cup (because all the glasses were rinsed and sitting in the dishwasher), sleeping with a Ginsu knife under the bed (for security, of course), and sometimes wearing my jammies all day (you can get away with that when you work from home).

But my best bit of quirkiness on his recent trip was sitting on the couch stitching, straddling my floor Ott light.  That way the light is totally focused on my work area.  I can easily adjust it to sitting back or sitting on the edge of the couch, whatever feels comfortable at the time..

And Steve was not here to snigger at me.

I can peek around it to watch TV.  Awesome.

I love the bendy neck and the long light...it really allows me to sit in any position and have the best light.  I do have to move it when I get up, but that is not a big deal.

Good lighting is required for hand stitching tiny potato chips.  Darkness is better for eating the larger ones...

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)

Around the World Blog Tour...

Welcome to the "Around the World Blog Tour!"  I was tagged by Karen of Quilts...Etc., who posted last Monday.  The idea of the tour is that featured blogs take turns posting and answering four main questions.

1)  What am I currently working on??  I have been a little distracted the last 5 months and my work is ALL OVER THE PLACE!  My design wall is cluttered with multiple projects, all wanting my attention.  

I always have multiple projects going so that I don't 'sit and spin' (sit idle while I am stumped...).  I simply jump to something else for a while.

Most recently, I have been working on "Miss Emilie's Garden" by Lori Smith.

I have just recently finished appliqueing the twenty-five 5-3/4 inch blocks and setting them with sashing and cornerstones.  So far, I have been a good girl and have not deviated from Lori's pattern.  

But now I am in a state of 'sitting and spinning' with this project as I decide to either finish it with her outer border design or come up with something original.

I have a bad habit of changing other people's patterns sometimes...bad, bad girl...

I call my blog Fabric Therapy because handling beautiful 100% cotton fabrics is therapy to me.  When I am in the most need of therapy (like the last 5 months), I like to use up scraps and do some mindless chain-piecing.

I have been fascinated watching the projects others have created using selvages and thought I would experiment a little myself.

The selvages from bright fabrics are so cheerful, and some of the fabric lines have fun names...I even got my name into the block below (thank you to Teresa Kogut, a fabric designer).

And thanks to Riley Blake, I got my daughter's name in the following block...

Some people use strictly the selvage edge with the little color dots, but these bright fabrics selvages are fun to use with a hint of the rest of the yardage...so colorful and happy...

SO much fun...

I am working on an outer border with even more selvages...CRAZY!  I am sewing them onto foundation paper to create my strippy borders and corner turn-arounds.

Another mindless scrappy, happy project involves some leftovers from a previous finished project (I save everything...).  I started with these leftover crazy-pieced strips...

Then I combined them with some leftover bright strips to make crazy 6-1/2 inch blocks.  I have not decided whether to sash between them yet, so while I am 'sitting and spinning' about that decision, I'm off to think about another project...

It never gets boring in the quilt cave...

I've got quite a nice stack of blocks finished, with the makings of a few more waiting patiently for their turn on my therapy merry-go-round way of working.

But as most of you know, hand applique is my favorite thing to do. Now that "Baltimore Rhapsody - Symphony" is finished and appearing around the country in shows, I have been thinking about other music blocks.  I'd like to make a smaller quilt containing four blocks employing music clefs and fermatas, the symbol for "hold."

Or maybe I want to make individual one-block projects with them...

The bottom two blocks, the F and G clefs,  are actually two of the first music blocks I finished.  Then I added the tenor (or alto) clef and the crocus block with fermatas.

I am at another 'sit and spin' point with this project as I contemplate whether to sash or not, and if so, how, or even decide if I like the four of them together after all.  Then there are outer borders to dream about...I hope my design mojo comes back SOON!  I miss it!

And "Belles and Blossoms" is still asking for the outer borders...

Yes, there is no shortage of things to work on...even some scratchings at something new...

2)  How does my work differ from others??  As I mostly work on hand applique, I would say the biggest difference in what I do centers around my chosen method of hand applique.  I use freezer paper on the right side of the fabric as a guide and the temporary use of glue to turn edges under and glue baste to backgrounds (which is soaked out later).

I find it much easier than needle turn and I get some great results. It is also portable at several stages of the process, which is important for me at this time.  This method also works great for me as I have started to design a lot of my own projects...it gives me a lot of freedom.

Here is some of the prep I did on the tuba block for my "Baltimore Rhapsody - Symphony" quilt...the "right" side...

The wrong side (with edges turned under and glued with a glue stick)...

Part of the assembly process...

These are some of my favorite tools for doing this method of applique...

Freezer paper, Elmer's disappearing purple glue stick, Elmer's washable school glue or Roxanne's Glue Baste, good Karen Kay Buckley scissors, a Clover stiletto, tweezers for handling tiny pieces of paper and fabric, pattern weights, and YLI silk thread and good needles for hand stitching.

If you are interested in more about this method, there is a 3-part tutorial accessible from my tool bar above.

3)  Why do I create??  I love quilts, especially antique applique quilts and I feel the call to make them.  I like doing things with my hands...I cannot stand to just sit or watch TV without DOING SOMETHING!  I love touching the 100% cotton fabrics and putting the colors and patterns together.

As I find it hard to make fabric decisions, I love to use a scrappy palette in my applique and piecing.  I like the way the scraps interact with each other and cause movement over the surface of the quilt, the eye darting back and forth, being distracted by this piece or that piece.

I also have OCD (Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder) so I get satisfaction out of using saved little scraps and working with fussy, hopelessly TINY pieces.

I sort some of my small scraps by color into small containers that are easily accessible when working on a project.

These little boxes are so much easier to deal with than getting out bigger boxes with really large pieces of folded fabrics.  I handle and sort through the scrappy giblets with my beading forceps, so my clumsy hands don't slow me down!

My Grandmother was a quilter, and I was a tomboy.  Even though I sewed, I never really thought to pay attention to what she was doing.  Then she asked me for some of my floral scraps when I was in college.  I thought I was just donating to the next quilt, not knowing it was for ME!  

She was dying of cancer, and she hand-pieced a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt for me, FROM MY SCRAPS, and the ladies in the community hand quilted it.  It was her last quilt.  I was 22 and I swore I would learn to quilt and carry on her tradition.  I've been quilting and creating for the 21 years since receiving that precious gift.

4)  How do I work??  Well, lately it seems like I work out of either a baggie of pieces or a small project box.  I have a fabulous quilt cave, in the basement, that calls to me, but I can't seem to spend much time in there ever since my parents' accident in early May.

Hand applique is so portable, and that has been great as I have been back and forth between Alabama and Michigan so much lately.  It has also allowed me to get things done as I have waited in the car for a teenage daughter.

When I get time to do some mindless machine piecing, I fill about a dozen bobbins and just let the machine go crazy!  I keep a "leader and ender" project by the machine (thank you, Bonnie Hunter!), which helps me reap better scrappy rewards for minimal time in the driver's seat of my sewing machine. 

Due to my OCD, I like things organized.  I hate spending quality sewing time looking for stuff...THAT makes me nuts and is super frustrating.

Because I flit around from project to project, I have to keep ongoing projects in boxes, labeled, and with a lot of details (like when I started it...).

And, I have to have the company of my constant quilting companion, Weasley.  He generally seeks out my warm chair when I stand up and sleeps...so I just roll him out of the way and grab another chair.

Next Monday (Oct 13) you are in for a treat, as Jill from the Happy 2 Sew blog will be posting on the "Around the World Blog Tour." She is always up to something interesting...piecing and hand quilting, costuming, knitting exciting golf club covers...you won't want to miss it!

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)