Whimsey stick ribbon flowers

I don't watch Martha Pullen's show as much as I used to.  In fact, I hardly watch it at all these days, as I'm not sewing terminally cute little girl clothing nor am I doing much heirloom embroidery. 

However, I was surfing through the TV shows being aired recently and came across "Martha's Sewing Room" again.  I was finishing up a quilt and decided it would be a good background filler.

I was quickly sucked in when one of the segments featured Kari Mecca of "Kari Me Away" designs.  The segment featured how to make ribbon roses ... by sewing machine!

If you've ever tried to make ribbon roses the traditional way (folding, twisting, ad naseum), you'll know that such roses, while beautiful, are time-consuming and can be frustrating.  Kari has developed a technique to produce a similar looking rose in a much easier manner.

The episode featured is #3403,  titled "Whimsical Trims from a Stick" and was originally aired in 2011.  Kari's segment is 20 minutes in.  From 20 - 26 minutes is instruction on how to make a single loop flower; from 29 - 32 minutes is a demo on how to make the double loop trim and flower.  It is very, very easy!  Do a Google search on "whimsical trims from a stick" and you'll find lots of hits.  I couldn't find a site that would allow you to watch the episode for free.  You can, however, buy the episode.

Kari has also developed a tool she calls "Whimsy sticks" to help you make the flowers and trim.  But I don't have those specific sticks.  By watching her demo and seeing how it works, I determined that I could find some make-shift supplies and I did.

Her Whimsy sticks are acrylic bars, 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1-1/4" wide  and 17" long.  Well, I had some Celtic bias bars that would substitute.  I don't have the wider widths, but I do have a bar 1/2" wide.  I also had a clear ruler that was 2" wide.  I could, at the very least, experiment!

What I didn't have was the exact instructions of what width ribbon, how long to cut the ribbon and which width bar works with what width ribbon.  I imagine that information is included in the Whimsy stick packaging.  After all, why should she give away *all* the information?

From my ribbon stash, I picked out some 3/8" ribbon and used my 1/2" bar.  Following the Martha's Sewing Room demo, I made my own ribbon roses!  Dang, but they turned out so cute!

For the single-loop flowers:
You wrap the ribbon around the stick (tip from Kari: just hold the ribbon in one hand, secure one end of the ribbon at the top of the bar then turn THE BAR to wrap the ribbon around the bar.  That is much easier than physically wrapping *the ribbon*).  Then you secure the wraps with a strip of low-tack tape down the center of the wraps, on both sides of the stick.  She uses 1/4" Tiger Tape but I didn't have any of that.  What I did have was 1" low-tack blue painter's tape.  I simply cut 1/4" wide strips. 

Remove the tape at the top of the ribbon and slide the wrapped ribbon off the stick.  The low-tack tape will keep all the loops in place.  Then you edge-stitch very close to the fold of the ribbon.  Look closely at the picture on the left; at the bottom edge, you'll see a line of straight stitching (in white thread).  There is no stitching along the top edge.
 
Remove the low-tack tape. 



 

Voila .. a single loop strip!  Now, loosely wrap the strip around itself, while holding the base in your fingers.  Secure the base with some hand-stitches.  I backed my flowers with some leaves made with grosgrain ribbon, but you could just as easily put it on a pin-back or a button form or a circle of felt.






For double-loop flowers:
There is a very useful YouTube video from Kari to watch on this.    The basic technique is the same .. wrap a wider ribbon on a wider stick. (I used 1-1/2" ribbon with my 2" wide ruler.  I don't know what Kari used; she didn't say.) 

Instead of putting just one strip of low-tack tape down the center, you put *two* strips down the edges .. don't forget to tape each side of the stick! 

(oh a note ... this "silver" ribbon was originally a wired-edge ribbon. That won't work with this technique.  To use it, I simply removed the wire from the edge.  It slips out easily.)

Then, you stitch a line of straight stitches down the middle .. but slightly offset.  My ruler was 2" wide, so I stitched at 1-1/4" away from one side.

Remove the low-tack tape from one side of the ribbon and *fold* the ribbon on the line of stitching.  You will see two rows of loops, staggered.  Edge-stitch close to the fold, as with the single-loop flowers.

Now, make the flowers as before.  Since these flowers are bigger, Kari made a simple knot with a short length of ribbon as the center of the flower and wrapped the double-loop strip around it. 

Because I didn't have the specific information on exact ribbon width and stick width, my double-loop flower didn't turn out as loose as Kari's example. 

My result was a more tightly wrapped flower.  I think it still looks nice but it's not the same as Kari's.

 

You can also use the loop strips as trim.  Here I put a piping trim against the double-loop strip.  The blue fabric stands for the garment or sewn item.  I didn't have anything in mind when I made this trim, but wanted to "finish it off" to remind myself.  

I forget details so easily these days. :-)

 

 

These flowers are just terminally cute! 

Right now, I don't have a real purpose for them, but they sure do use up all those short lengths of ribbon that I just couldn't bear to throw away!  :-)

a signature Christmas tree

Way back in 2001, I got a wild hair in my bonnet and thought it would be a terrific idea to have a wall-hanging for Christmas that had the autographs of all my family members, both my side and Mr. Pirate's side.

I found a fantastic pattern (still available, too!) and went to work.  I even managed to get *all* of the family members' signatures, which was not that easy since we don't regularly get together with Mr. Pirate's side of the family.

I did encounter a bit of High Drama when I discovered that I had royally misread the pattern and left out a piece.  Of course, this was after the entire top had been pieced and there was no more of the green fabric to make corrections.   Yes, I did think of a solution.  :-)

I finished the wall-hanging and found a place to display it for the holidays.  It was all good ... for a while.

Then, as families often do, the family expanded.  Members became married.  Babies were born.  And the way the Christmas tree is designed, it is impossible to add more ornaments to it.

But, oldest Dear Daughter came up with a very clever work-around .... all I need to do is create some "presents" to go under the tree!   Now I am on a Quest to find a good-looking present image that I can work a signature onto in such a way that subsequently added presents will also look nice.  (But first, I suppose I really ought to rummage around the storage shed and see if I can discover where I put the wall-hanging!  :-) )

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the signature Christmas tree wall-hanging.

stained glass Christmas tree skirt

Here's another quilted Christmas project I did some time ago ... in 2001, in fact.

The synopsis: a friend of mine had recently had her living room painted.  She wanted a dramatic tree skirt for her Christmas tree.  I showed her the version in Brenda Henning's "Christmas Traditions in Stained Glass" (the same book I used for the stained glass Christmas stockings) and she just loved how it looked.

I made the tree skirt to reflect her new living room colors.  It's definitely NOT Christmas colors but does look wonderful in the room.   She was simply overjoyed with it, which made me feel great. :-)

You can find Brenda Henning's book on her website.

For all the gory details, please visit my web page for the stained glass Christmas tree skirt.

stained glass Christmas stockings

As part of my web page relocation project, I have revisited all of my pages.  It was a very nice trip down memory lane for me.

Since the Christmas season is now upon us and, as crafters, we STILL HAVE TIME :-) to make items in time for Christmas.  Nothing like the last minute to impose a deadline, huh?  :-)

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to share with you some of the Christmas-related quilted items I've made in the past.  Here, on the blog, I'll give a brief teaser but will also give you the link to the web page where you can see ALL the pictures and read ALL the verbage. :-)   I also have links where I can ... and if those links are still active.

So, without further ado ... today's item is "Stained Glass Christmas Stockings".

I have 6 Christmas stockings that I hang on the mantelpiece: 5 for our family members and 1 for my "new-ish" son-in-law.  (They've been married one year already, so I don't think he qualifies strictly as a "new" SIL. :-)  ).

I used the pattern from "Christmas Traditions in Stained Glass". a book by Brenda Henning, although I did a completely different, but entirely appropriate, design for my son-in-law. :-)

You might wonder why they don't all face the same direction.  That's a good thing to wonder about.  And I have an answer for you!  But you need to wander on over to the web page to find out why!  Yes, I'm such a tease. :-)

Those pictures are just teasers! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the stained glass Christmas stockings.

Ta Da! The Big Announcement!

Finally, oh finally!!   I'm pretty sure I've finished all the relocation of my webpages to the new site.  ::crossing fingers for luck::

Therefore .. the Big Announcment ... ::drumroll, please::

The Dread Pirate Rodgers website is now at PirateRodgers.com or www.PirateRodgers.com Either one .. makes no difference. They both go to the same website.

All of my pages are now at there ... the main index page, which will direct you to all the different topics:
* personal info,
* quilting (which includes the tutorials),
* machine embroidery,
* sewing,
* adventures,
* Corpus Delecti .... or tales of Sneaks, the Mighty Hunter. :-)

 If you are familiar with the way my pages looked at the previous sites, you'll feel reassured because they are the *same pages*, just relocated to one place.

All of my tutorials are still available (for a while) at the Freeservers site.  This is because there are a LOT of other websites that have linked to the Freeservers place. I don't want to turn away people who are finding my tutorials from those other websites.    I'm in the process of contacting as many as I can to request that they update their links to my new site.

On the new site at PirateRodgers.com,  you will find ALL of my tutorials available on the quilting page   They are the same web page tutorials as they have always been.  The PDFs to download are there also.

As I've gone through *each and every web page*, I've updated the info on some of them, as I saw prudent.

I was astonished to discover that I have 225 quilting pages, with projects dating from 1978 to current day.

There are 65 machine embroidery pages .. but that's because I got my embroidery machine in 2004 .... and honestly, I keep forgetting that I have some gorgeous designs to use, otherwise, I'd probably have more embroidery pages!  :-)

The sewing page is  more modest ... only 55 pages there.  I really only started keeping track of my sewing stuff from 2003 onwards.  All the really early stuff, the outfits I made for our 3 girls when they were infants and toddlers and young girls, don't have pages (yet).  Honest to goodness, computers weren't even INVENTED when I was sewing those outfits!  :-)  I've certainly *saved* them; they are in my cedar chests.  I do plan to do some archeological digs to unearth them.  :-)  Then I'll make the pages for those outfits.  It's on the list of Things To Do.  Really. :-)

I'm so pleased to finally have everything under one roof, so to speak.  I hope you'll wander on over to the new site, PirateRodgers.com and take a look.  There's LOTS of stuff to see and read about!  :-)

(and yes, please do email me if you find broken links or pictures that don't load.  I'm pretty sure that I've checked them all out but I think my eyeballs have become permanently crossed at this point. :-)  )

Progress continues; weather is fair :-)

I'm still trudging onwards with the web page relocation project.  Boy, it's just a whole lotta grunt work.  Original pages (written way back in the Dark Age)s had imbedded Java Scripts and pop-up windows for the pictures.  Further down the line, when I had more knowledge at my fingertips, I put in some CSS coding to simplify some aspects of maintenance.  But I didn't update the Dark Ages pages.  :-)   Now, thanks to my geeky Dear Daughter, I have server-side includes to further simplify maintenance.  :-) 

At this point, when I am doing the relocation, I am updating Every Single Page to remove the imbedded Java Script and the pop-up windows, include the CSS and SSI code snippets and make sure that external and internal links still work correctly.   Boy, am I stylin' now!  :-)

But, as I said, it's all grunt work.  My goal is to get everything moved to the new site by the end of the month.  Then I can make the Formal Announcement. :-)   [however, most of the pages are already moved over and working fine, I think.  References to the relocated pages are already in place.   I hope to see less traffic at the old sites and more traffic at the new site ... as I look at the statistics.   All of this should be transparent to the user.  So they say.  :-) ]

Although I haven't been working on Lizzie, due to the webpage project, I am still doing some handwork in the evenings, when Mr. Pirate & I keep each other company whilst watching "Bombing Germans".  (inside joke with us: I'm half German and Mr. Pirate likes to watch the Military Channel's World War II programs ... most of which are .. bombing Germans.  :-)  )

I've been working on my current Forever Project, which I am calling Vertical Diamonds.  As of right now, at 72" x 84", it's officially longer than my display space.  

Now that I can see the entire thing hanging, I also see some layout issues but they are going to stay exactly as they are.  It's one thing to rip out machine stitching but everything here is *hand stitched*  I am absolutely, positively NOT going to remove that stitching to fix any perceived problems.

Rather, I am going to maintain that any layout issues are simply part of the charm of the quilt. :-)

This quilt isn't finished being pieced yet.  There is another round of small diamonds, a narrow brown border, a slightly wider blue border and a final narrow brown border.  If all goes according to my calculations (HA!), it should finish around 86" x 113".

Next up for Vertical Diamonds ... working on the round of small diamonds.  Lots of them.  More than lots.  Tons of them.  And that's why it's called a "Forever Project".  :-)

Relocation: behind the curtains

I'm in the middle of some non-quilting, but necessary, activity.

When I first started making web pages as a virtual scrapbook/journal/diary for the stuff I quilted/sewed/embroidered, I got an account at Freeservers.com  It worked very nicely for a number of years.

Then I reached the point where I needed to get a paid account to obtain more webspace and it just irked me to do so.  I know businesses need to charge to make their profit but it just bugged me to need to pay to have the space to show off my pages.  I sure wasn't making any money with my stuff, so it was a net monetary drain for me.

About that time, I remembered/rediscovered that the ISP where my email is, offered free webspace with the email account!  Oh hallelujah!   So, I started filling up THAT space with the newer web pages.

It was starting to get tricky with the web page construction ... knowing where a specific page was and how to reference it properly.  I was trying to keep with relative referencing, instead of absolute, but sometimes that just wasn't possible.

Mr. Pirate became more involved with his (extended) family's business and needed webspace for that.  All of a sudden, the webspace at the ISP was running short.  Ooops.

So, this year, we bit the bullet; we registered for a domain and got a hosted webspace at Dreamhost.  I began the process ... the TEDIOUS process ... of reviewing  Every Single Webpage of mine to update it, not only with verbage corrections and additions but also some technical stuff.  My oh-so-clever geeky daughter wrote some server-side includes (SSI) for me so that common elements of HTML code could be put into a library and referenced that way.  Much, *much* easier for me, maintenance-wise.   All I can say is that it's a Very Good Thing that I used to be a programmer and am used to TEDIOUS, BORING coding and verifying because going through 125+ pages really *is* boring and tedious.  Mostly tedious.  Programming is one of those activities that you just can't multi-task; you gotta keep focused on the flow of the code otherwise Things Don't Work Right.

Once that was done, I started FTP-ing all the files over to the Dreamhost site.  Fortunately, that process was a snap.

I'm now down to the last bit of checking things out:  I need to make sure that the "final" version of the web page is what I want it to be AND to ensure that all the links work properly.

OY VEY .. the LINKS!  They may be the death of me.

Links to outside sites aren't a problem .. they either still exist or they don't.  It is a sad thing, indeed, when web sites go away.  Most of them were for sites where I got a particular pattern or embroidery design.  I would always try to link to my source so my reader could get the design too.  But ... sometimes those site have folded up their tents and have gone away.  Other links were for products that I used.  The page where I originally linked to was no longer the page where the product was ... the manufacturer had reorganized *their* website and moved things around.   And all without telling me!  Can you imagine that??  Harumph.  :-)

But the KILLER problems were my own internal links.  Oh. My. Gosh.  On my quilting web pages, I have 'back' and 'next' links at the bottom of the page.  Just shoot me now ... as I was *INCONSISTENT* with how I named the directories and how I referenced them.  Geez, Louise!  Where did all the good programmer training go to????

And then ... just to mess with me further ... my old sites were case insensitive, so I was rather sloppy about what words I capitalized and which ones I didn't.  Now that I'm at Dreamhost ... guess what?  Oh yeah .. they are case sensitive.  Just shoot me now (again).   So a file/picture named "Quilt front.jpg" is different from "Quilt Front.jpg" from "quilt Front.jpg" from "quilt front.jpg" from "Quilt front.JPG", etc, etc, ad naseum.   AAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!

So, that's how I'm spending my time right now .. going through All Those Links for accuracy.  If I had realized the case "problem" when I was originally going through the pages, I would have corrected them at that point ... which would have meant that I would have needed to go correct/update each page only *once*.  But no .. I didn't think of the case problem.  Now, I'm reaping the results of my sloppiness by needing to correct most of the pages AGAIN.

The lesson I learned?  From now on, ALL file names will ALWAYS be in lower case.

Eventually, eventually, most of my pages (adventures, quilting, sewing, embroidery, whatever) will be on the Dreamhost site and the Freeserver and ISP pages will go away.  Hopefully, this will be "transparent to the user"  (fingers crossed) so that the readers won't even realize the pages are on a new site.  I'll be putting a redirect on the various home pages at Freeservers so people who directly link to those pages will know where the pages have gone.

The only pages that I'll leave on the Freeservers site are my original tutorials.  There are direct links to them *all over the internet* and rather than ask everyone to please change their links, I'll just leave them where they are.  That's just simpler for everyone.

During the review process, I have (re)discovered that I have several quilts for which I never quite got around to making a web page for.  So, the final step in this relocation process will be to FINALLY make pages for those lonely quilts who deserve their 15 minutes of fame.  :-)

Now that I've had this little break from the tedium, it's back to the salt mines ... I have more internal links to verify and correct.  aaarrrggghhh.

Stuff that's going on

The things I've been doing since I last posted, in no particular order ......

1. I crocheted an edging on another (and final) fleece blanket.  This was another project that languished (or, more than likely, totally ignored) in middle DD's room.  I used a sparkly black yarn (Vanna's Glamour).  Why?  Because it was black, sparkly and cheap. :-)  The skein was 202 yards.  It looked to be enough for an edging, but what do I know?  Fortunately, it turned out to be *just* enough.  I probably have a couple or so yards leftover.  :-)
 
The edging is a simple picot.

2. Finished the quilting for Gone with the Wind.  Hallelujah!  That one was completed just in time for a customer quilt to arrive.   No pictures of the finished quilting yet.

3. Started & finished (woo hoo!) the aforementioned customer quilt.  The top is a delightful design of 4 columns of zig-zags in Christmas red.  Peeking out behind the red zig-zags are green triangles.  The result rather looks like rick-rack placed on top of each other.  Surrounding each of these columns is a "gold" frame.  All 4 columns are placed on top of a background of a wonderful poinsettia print.

So as not to ruin the lovely poinsettia flowers, I outlined each and every one of them in a "gold" Glide thread.  This was the first time I've used Glide and I think I'm in love. :-)

The red zig-zags got Carla Barrett's Curly-Swirly treatment and the green triangles got continuous curves.

No pictures, as the client hasn't even received the finished quilt yet.

4. Started preliminary design work on a commissioned quilt for one of Mr. Pirate's extended family members.  It's to be a queen-sized quilt to coordinate/match a hot-air balloon wall-hanging I had made for her.  This could be dicey, as all of YOU know how expensive just the supplies can be.  Once you add in the piecing labor and the quilting costs, all of a sudden you have a VERY expensive quilt.  You know that and I know that.  When we gift a quilt, we don't even consider all of those expenses because we are doing something that WE want to do for a person we love/like/admire.

But *this* quilt was requested.  I emailed 5 different, suggested layouts.  One was liked, so I was able to work out some *very* preliminary guesstimates on cost.  I kinda/sorta figured out how much fabric it would take (I'm not using a retail pattern).  I've figured out the amount for the backing, batting and binding.  I've figured out a range for the quilting costs (low to high).  I've even been able to grossly estimate what the piecing time might be.

So, the next time we email each other, I'll present this cost estimate. THEN I'll see how much she really wants this quilt.

EQ mock-up

5.  I've continued working on my hand-pieced Forever Project.  This is a series of columns made of squares on point.

It's coming together rather nicely and I'm pleased with it.  I may have found a quilting associate who might be willing to trade labor ... her to hand-quilt it in exchange for me machine piecing a top for her.   She LOVES to hand-quilt but really doesn't like the piecing part.  I know that I'm just NOT going to EVER hand-quilt a bed sized quilt but piecing a top is The Thing That I Do.  :-)   Definitely a win/win situation.
 

progress as of 11/2012

 I have all the columns sewn for the center area.  I'm now sewing the brown sashing onto those columns, then sewing THOSE units together.

Here's my supplies .... they are contained in a project box so I can always just "grab and go'.

 In the past, I've confined my work on a Forever Project to specifically when I was not at home.   I could always be assured that I'd have something to work on.  But as my previous Forever Projects became completed, I began to come up with other ideas for MORE Forever Projects.

Since I want to get to work on these other Forever Projects, I need to get the current Forever Project done!  To that end, I've been working on it at home also.  :-)

Now, to be fair, not only will I get this Forever Project finished BUT I am *not* machine piecing a NEW project.  Yes, yes, you could say that I am splitting hairs on the "piecing" part, but since I do have a LOT of pieced tops ready to be quilted, I don't want to add to THAT pile.  This hand-pieced Forever Project bypasses that pile because it's going to go to my quilting buddy for hand-quilting.  :-)

I could load one of those other tops on Lizzie, but I know as soon as I do, Mr. Pirate's relative will get back to me with the information I need to get started.  I don't want to be rushed on a quilting job, even if it's for me, so I'll just defer loading *anything* on Lizzie right now.
  

Look Ma! I'm crocheting!

Let me start out by stating, categorically, that I am NOT a crocheter.  With that disclaimer out of the way, I have recently become enamored of crocheted edgings.  When you start out with a craft, it's usually a good idea to create something on the large-scale side, so that you become familiar with the technique and you don't become frustrated when your small, delicate project doesn't turn out exactly as your mind's eye thought it should. :-)

I like fleece blankets.  Fleece is warm, it's lightweight, it's durable and launders easily.  It's also inexpensive to buy.  You can always use fleece yardage as it comes off the bolt, but it looks nicer if the edges are finished.

In the past, I bound the edges with double-fold bias binding,  just like I would do a quilt ... because I am a quilter and that's how we finish our quilts.  But that resulted in a rather bulky and rigid edge.  Who woulda thunk it?

Somewhere along the way, I rediscovered crocheted edgings.  I'm not quite sure where, but now I'm aware of them.  Crocheted edgings are soft, flexible and look soooooooooooooooooooooo pretty!  :-)  While they aren't as fast to apply as a double-fold bias binding, I think they are more appropriate to the soft, drapeability of the fleece.

I "found" a skip stitch rotary cutter (previously blogged about here) and having that tool has just been wonderful.  It creates regularly spaced holes/slits so you can crochet your foundation row easily.

Recently, I was rummaging through the unused bedroom/storage room of one of the Pirate daughters (she no longer lives at home, being independent and all that ... but we haven't quite gotten around to clearing out the room.  It still holds a number of her belongings that we are storing for her.  Besides, clearing out the room is so .... "final".  It means that she's never living here again; that when she does come to visit, she'd be sleeping in a "guest" room instead of her former bedroom.   That's just upsetting to me, so her room remains as it is.  :-)  ). 

Anyway, I was rummaging through the room, probably looking for something of hers to send to her and I came across two fleece blankets, still in yardage form.  I rather suspect that the yardage was purchased with the intent of Dear Daughter finishing them into blankets.   Obviously, this has never happened.  Oh, surprise, surprise. :-)

In a completely separate incident, our next-door neighbor recently moved away.  She gifted me with two LARGE bags of yarn ... some really nice stuff and some regular, ol' acrylic stuff.  My middle Dear Daughter who knits  is a yarn snob and refuses to use acrylic yarn because it "feels nasty and squeaks".  :-)   I have no such restrictions.

In another completely unrelated event, I have put myself on a self-imposed quilt piecing moratorium.  I have 17 completed quilt tops that need to be quilted.  I want to reduce that number to (1) so that I will be in the position of "piece a top, quilt a top".  A laudable goal, yes?  Oldest Dear Daughter asked when was the last time I was at such a stage.  A completely legitimate question!  The answer?  mmmmmm ... never?  :-)

So with the re-discovery of the fleece yardage, the gifted yarn, my newly acquired skip stitch rotary cutter and no piecing of quilt tops, I decided that I would spend my evening time with Mr. Pirate, while watching our TV shows, doing some crochet edgings on the fleece yardage.

The first one that I've finished is this wolf print.  Middle Dear Daughter likes wolves, hence this print.  See the multi-colored border around the edge?  I *think* those were intended to be cut apart for a fringe.  However, I really do NOT like fringe on blankets because they tickle.  Ick.

right side, corner detail

In the bag of gifted yard, I found a very nice balled yarn in a variegated green/brown mix.  It went very nicely with the colors in the wolf fleece.

So, I used the skip stitch rotary cutter to make the holes/slits for the foundation row, made the foundation row, then a row of double crochet and finished it off with a shell stitch.  Dang!!  I think I did a real nice job of it. :-)

However, there WAS an 'adventure' along the way.  This yarn didn't have a label.  I have NO idea of the fiber content.  It's a very fine-textured yarn.  I knew I should be using a smaller crochet hook, but I didn't have one.  I didn't want to BUY one because I wanted to do the edging NOW.  So, I used what I had, which was a crochet hook larger than I needed.

Eh ... my blanket, my decision. :-)

Not being a crocheter, I have absolutely no way of estimating how much yarn anything will take.  The yarn I was using looked like a big amount, so I simply started doing my foundation row then proceeded onto the next row of double crochet.  It was somewhere along the double crochet row that I began to suspect that I might run out of yarn before I reached the starting point.  Oops.

And that turned out to be exactly the case.  So, I went over to my local yarn shop (where middle Dear Daughter had worked at one point) to see if they had something compatible in yarn size and color.  Oh, happy, happy .. they did!  I also bought a crochet hook which was more suitable to the size of the yarn.

Oh unhappy, unhappy .... the yarn was $42.  Oh. My. Gosh.   Holey moley.  Cripes.  Geez, Louise.    This makeshift project that was "free" just became an Expensive Project.  :-(   But, I bought it anyway because it so perfectly matched the yarn I was using.   In retrospect, I suppose I *could* have ripped out the ENTIRE row of double crochet and re-stitched it with a row of single crochet (and thereby not requiring more yarn) but I was *almost done* with the double crochet.  I didn't want to rip out *everything*! 

And then, of course, now that I had more than enough yarn, I could finish the edging with a shell stitch.  Which I did. 

I have most of the new yarn left ... about 400 yards.  I have NO idea what I can do with that amount.    :-/  

wrong side, showing a straight edge and a corner

I used the larger crochet hook to finish the row of double crochet but switched to the smaller, more appropriate hook to do the shell stitch.  In any case, I am very happy with the results of my crochetting.  I think it looks very pretty.  

I have now dug out the  second piece of fleece yardage and am doing a different edging on it.  Gotta have something to do in the evenings!  :-)

GWTW: the 1 yard line

I was 16 hours and 44 minutes into quilting Gone With The Wind. 

[Aside: How do I know it was exactly that much time?  Well, I recently bought a nifty counter to keep track of the time I spend on projects.  This nifty timer is a "count-up" time, i.e. it counts elapsed time.  It's from CDN and is their Multi-Task Timer and Clock  Now I no longer need to keep a notebook of start and stop times ... I only need to remember to *start the timer* when I start quilting.   ::sigh:: That one little action is proving to be Very Difficult.  :-(  ]

There I was .. on the 1 yard line.  I had exactly ONE border of feathers do to and the quilt would be DONE.   I was about 2/3rds the way down the first pass of the feathers.    I could taste the accomplishment of being able to take the quilt off the frame.   ::feet doing an anticipatory Happy Dance::

I'd been having some trouble with the thread shredding at times so when I discovered that I had no top thread ... *again* ... I was annoyed but resigned.  I looked up at the threading path to grab the shredded thread ... and .. it wasn't there.  What?  I looked again.  There was NO top thread.  What?

Ever have a difficult time believing what your eyes are telling you?  That was me.  What do you MEAN there's no top thread??

Eventually, it occurred to me to look at the spool of thread.  Oh.  It was empty.

Dang, dang, dang.   ::stamp feet in utter annoyance::

Now, I need to WAIT until tomorrow to get another spool of thread from my LQS because, of course, I don't have an extra one.

aarrrgghhhhh.

 
The first photo above shows a shaded blue area with a yellow arrow at the end of the shaded part.  The blue shaded area is the part of the feather border that I had completed.  The yellow arrow shows where I ran out of top thread.

The yellow arrow in the picture to the left shows the same spot as above, but you can see some of the feather border that has been quilted.























And in the picture to the right, you can see the same yellow arrow pointing the same spot where the top thread ran out.

I had just THAT much left on the concave part of the spine to do to complete the first pass of the feather.  THAT MUCH.

Then, of course, I had the other side of the spine to do.

I suppose it would have been worse had the thread run out when I was THAT MUCH away from completing the second pass.  :-)  



[Addendum: you know what's really annoying about Blogspot?  No?  Well, I'll tell you.  Apparently there is NO WAY to absolutely format your post.  When I'm composing the entry, all the graphics look reasonably well place.  When I preview it,  I see there is lots of white space.  I means LOTS  of white space.  And I can't get rid of it.  Boy, that's annoying.

Yes, I know .. a First World Problem, huh?  Still .. annoying.  harumph.]

PIQF 2012 - part 3

Let me start out by saying that I am *not* a crocheter!  However, there are times when I do want to crochet an edging.  It's always amusing to see me look for my reference documents and fumble through those first few stitches so I can get to the part where I remember, 'Oh yeah .. this is how you do it!".  :-)

Lately, I've been wanting to crochet an edging around a fleece blanket.  Everything I've seen shows the yarn being poked through holes in the edge of the fleece.  How the heck did the HOLES get there?  Do you manually pierce the fleece hole by hole?  If so, how would you keep a regular distance between the holes so the edging looked nice?

Well, a solution presented itself.

One of the vendors had these interesting rotary cutter blades that produced skipped stitches.  Sadly, I don't remember which vendor it was and their name isn't on the register receipt.  The rotary blade is from Skip-Stitch (perforating rotary blade).  It's a standard rotary blade with notches punched along the edge.  These notches leave a regularly spaced cutting edge that makes the holes/slits.

*This* is the tool that makes life easier. :-)


The vendor had 3 different versions of the blade, each one producing holes/slits at a different distance apart.  I had absolutely NO idea which blade was appropriate for what application, so I chose the middle blade, a #2.  This blade produces a hole/slit about 1/4" apart; that seemed a reasonable spacing for fleece.  (I really didn't have any idea and the vendor wasn't able to give any advice.)

Back on the home front, I pulled out a scrap of fleece, ran the blade along the edge, about 1/4" away.  As no directions came with the blade, I had no idea how far away to place the holes/slits.  It did seem to me that the 1/4" distance from the cut edge might not be enough to hold the stitch from eventually pulling through .. but ... remember, I didn't have a clue.

Pulling out my reference pages, I happily put in a row of foundation stitches and then some picots on top of that.  Oh my!  Aren't we getting fancy??!  :-)

Sure enough, that 1/4" from the edge wasn't right.  I eventually found out that the correct distance is 3/4", which allows a fold-over amount that you crochet over.
 
THEN it  occurred to me ... hey ... maybe the labeling from the blade has a website URL!  By golly it did!  Capt Obvious, at your service.  :-)

www.skipstitch.com is the place! Thankfully, they have instructions on how to use the blade effectively  AND they have explanations for what each blade was designed for.  Turns out that my #2 blade is meant for lighter fabrics such as flannel and to accommodate lighter yarns and  smaller hooks.  Well, who knew?  (The #2 seems to work nicely on my fleece sample but I suppose the original blade makes the holes/slits a little further apart, which might be desirable for fleece.. but then, what do I know?  I'll be using what I have. :-)  )

 I also found a wonderful beginner's video using the skip-stitch blade to create the holes/slits in fleece and then to crochet an edging.  This video is done by the North & Central Chicagoland Chapter of Project Linus ... so thank you, ladies, for producing a video aimed at us beginners!

If you can't find a source for these blades locally, they can be ordered from the Skip-Stitch website.

Now I have another Forever Project lined up, once I finish the current one.  :-)

PIQF 2012 - part 2

There were 3 items that I was specifically looking for while I was at PIQF: 2 Sizzix die cuts (which I was not able to find) and a specialty ruler, "Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star", developed by Deb Tucker.

I'm not a big fan of specialty rulers.  While they obviously solved a problem that someone had at some point, I really think that most of them remain unused once purchased.  I think that most of the problems solved by them can also be resolved by careful cutting, sewing, pressing and use of the standard rulers that we all have.

That being said, I do have a few specialty rulers.  The "Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star" is now one of them. :-)  I first ran across this ruler whilst cruising You Tube.  Inventor Deb Tucker has two videos (part one and part two) that explain and demonstrate how to use her ruler.   The ruler can make the star in 5 different sizes, from a 3" block up to a 12" block.

Lemoyne Stars can be a challenge to sew correctly because not only are the star points diamonds, (which can be tricky to simply seam together) but 8 of them should come together in a perfectly FLAT center.  Also, the corner background pieces and side triangles usually feature that dreaded "Y" seam.  There are a lot of opportunities for errors but this ruler eliminates most of them (it can't compensate for bad pressing!).

I've never really had a lot of problems making Lemoyne Stars but I've also been very, very careful at each step along the way.  This ruler makes those steps a whole lot simpler.  One way is to start out with strip sets to create the diamonds, rather than cutting those shapes individually.  Another is to make each sub-unit slightly larger than necessary so that you can TRIM them to the correct size before you move onto the next step.  I know, from other blocks, that if you can make any block slightly larger then trim to size, you will generally get a more accurate block in the end.  The key to this ruler is being able to trim down the diamond units accurately, using the markings on the ruler.

I was intrigued by watching the videos and decided that, if possible, I would look for and buy it at PIQF.  As I was rounding the end of an aisle of vendors, I came across a gaggle of women, listening to a demo.  I stopped to see what was being promoted .. and much to my surprise, it looked like Deb Tucker herself!  When I saw that the demo was for the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler, I knew it really WAS Deb Tucker!

my autographed Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler!  woo hoo!

I will admit here, before everyone, that when the demo was over, I gushed just like a little fan girl about looking specifically for her ruler and here it was .. with her as well!  After I bought the ruler, I asked Deb to autograph it for me .. and she was very gracious about doing so. :-)  :-)

Back home, I gave the ruler a test drive.  It really, really does make creating the Lemoyne Star easier!  Deb has thought of an alternative sewing sequence that absolutely, positively eliminates the "Y" seams when sewing the background fabric to the star points.  The way this is possible is because Deb has *split* all the background pieces in half, creating a plain seam to sew instead of the "Y" seam.

Additionally, the ruler also allows you to fussy-cut fabric for individual diamonds, should you have fabric that needs to be used that way.

Here is the basic, vanilla-version Lemoyne Star. 

You'll note that the center is absolutely *flat* and that all the diamonds meet at exactly the center. 

If you use a solid or a fabric that reads as solid for the background, you'll have an easy time making this block. 

Because the block is constructed slightly oversized, the final trimming creates a block that is exactly the size it needs to be.

I tell ya, I was *really* impressed with myself at how the block turned out.

Then I got a wild idea to use a stripe for the background fabric.  You can get some interesting effects with stripes.

For this test block, I used an unevenly striped fabric.  The background strips were cut cross-wise.  You can see that it forms a miter at the corner seamlines.

With *this particular striped fabric*, even though the stripes do not match, for whatever reason, I don't find this exceedingly visually jarring.  I could live this this result.

However, if you had a different sort of stripe fabric, you might need to actually MATCH the stripes, which would be a terrifically difficult thing to achieve.

For grins and giggles, I decided to see what the result would be if I cut one background strip cross-wise (as above) and the other background strip lengthwise.  I had vague (*very vague*) ideas of being able to match up the stripes .. and wouldn't that look awesome???

As you can see, I was absolutely unable to do so.    Due to the way the strip sets are sewn and then cut to create the diamond subunits, it is virtually impossible to match any background fabric stripe or pattern.   Oh, maybe with more fabric to waste, I might have been able to find matching pieces, but it just wasn't worth my time.

*This* test block just jangles my eyeballs.  I could never live with this block at all.







Conclusion: best to stick with solid, tone on tone, mottled or overall prints for the background.  At the very least, no stripes!!!  Also, be aware if your background fabric has a DIRECTIONAL design.

There was one other tool that I purchased, that I used when making these blocks .. the Brooklyn Revolver.  This is a cutting mat on a Lazy Susan turntable.  It was invented by Pat Yarmin, who happens to *live* in Brooklyn, New York.  When she created it, it was her young son who came up with the name.    You see, not only do they live in Brooklyn, but that is where the Brooklyn Revolver is made and ... the item turns (revolves)!  It comes in two sizes: a 14" and a 9".

I had seen this spinning cutting mat in notion catalogues over the years.  Pat said there have been several imitations but they aren't as steady as hers.  On the competitors' versions, when you bear down with the rotary cutter out near the edge of the cutting mat, the whole thing tips over.  But with *her* version, it's rock-steady all the way to the outer edge.  This is due to the support structure they have on the underside.

I had a wonderful conversation with Pat and when I bought my own, I had her autograph it, too!  :-)

The main advantage that the Brooklyn Revolver gives you is that you don't need to MOVE the fabric when you are making multiple cuts.  Instead of moving the fabric (and introducing the potential for misalignment and a resultant error in cutting), you spin the revolver and the fabric spins with it.  You never, ever touch the fabric except to cut it.  This really eliminates cutting errors.

Using the Brooklyn Revolver in conjunction with the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler, produced very accurate blocks.

Going to PIQF 2012

Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) is a annual, big-deal quilt show here on the West Coast.  I try to attend every year and this year, I was happy to have been able to attend.

In year's past, I would take many, many, many pictures of the quilts .. both award winners and those that didn't.  I'm not sure why I always took those pictures, as I was never intending to replicate them myself nor did I ever find myself looking at them again.  Maybe I figured it was just the thing you did at a quilt show ... take pictures of the quilts!  To be sure, I'd share some of the pictures of the quilts with my friends so they could admire them also, but by and large, it was simply a one time admiration.

So this year, I decided that I would take pictures of specific things that I liked about a quilt.  Nowadays, I'm very much interested in the actual quilting designs (versus the piecing), therefore that is what the majority of my 2012 PIQF pictures are.

Here are some of the things that caught my eye.  I have to admit that I didn't always remember to take a picture of the info label for the quilt, so unfortunately, I can't give credit to the quilter in those cases.

I took pictures of just the quilting in this quilt.  In one of the vendor booths, a lovely quilt was hanging and the quilting replicated some of the appliqued designs.  I asked the vendor if I could take a picture of *just that part of the quilting* for my reference. 

She was skeptical but when I explained *precisely* what part of the quilting intrigued me, she was curious enough to let me show her.  I used my hands to frame the small part of the quilt and then she realized I really did mean a *small* part of the quilt.  Understandably, she was reluctant to have someone take a photo of the entire quilt when she was selling the pattern for it!  But when she understood what I wanted a picture of, she graciously agreed.

The quilt had an appliqued vine, leaves and flowers.  In addition to the outline quilting and echo quilting of those shapes, the quilter also quilted in some *imaginary* leaves in the spaces between the appliques.  I just loved this idea; I don't think I would have thought of a design element like this myself.  I hope I remember it in the future. :-)

This textural quilting design was incredibly subtle.  The entire border was done with it.  It was kinda like Baptist Fan in that there were echo'd arcs but they weren't necessarily always the same distance apart nor were there always the same number of arcs.  It was also like a clamshell in that the arcs were oriented in different directions and frequently different shaped arcs. 

In this picture, I've drawn some of the arcs in red so you can see them better.

This quilt was one of the many exquisite quilts from Japan.  The Japanese *always* do such exacting work; it's marvelous to see.   Each "rope" in this picture is made up of individual segments; I don't quite remember if they were pieced or appliqued.  What caught my interest was not the quilting nor the make-up of the ropes themselves but rather the overall design sense.  I just liked the squiggly nature of the lines. 

I would not even think about piecing those segments!  I have patience for many things, but not this! :-) 

However, I can see perhaps using bias strips to replicate this idea, although bias strips wouldn't come anywhere near the total impact of this quilt.  It's an idea that I might attempt at some point; then again, maybe not. :-)

"Kaleidoscope Weave".  Original design by Susan Lane of Vallejo, CA.

This quilt was unbelieveable.  The actual quilting was minimal straight lines but the PIECING was phenomenal.  My eye was first caught by the *bling!* of the gold lamé but upon a second .. and third .. and fourth, etc look, I realized there was a lot more going on.

Those lamé blocks seem to float over the background.  And what was the background???  Take a real close look ... although pieced, they appear to be woven bands of color.  Now, I've seen patterns available for this sort of optical illusion of woven bands; they are a fantastic design on their own.    But quilter Susan Lane has taken an extra step of PIECING the lamé bits into the pieced woven segments. 

In looking at the close-up pictures, I can almost see where the individual blocks are but in order to achieve that "floating" aspect of the lame, she needed to be *exacting* in fabric placement.

I just love the whole appearance of this quilt .. and the colors are awesome.

 Close-ups:

The quilter drafted her own Mariner's Compass for the center of this quilt.  I believe I've seen the outer arcs before .. maybe from Judy Mathieson?  What caught my eye about this quilt was the quilting done in the blue frame and outer edge of the circle.  Here is the entire quilt so you can see where the close-ups are coming from.

I've also drawn in the feathers in red so you can see them better, since in the quilt itself, they are low-key and subtle.

 This quilt is a pattern called "Rainbow Lollipops" and is from the talented mind of Kelli of "Don't Look Now!" 

The quilt was hanging in a vendor booth and the quilting was just delightful!  The pattern itself is so playful and the quilting in the vendor booth quilt was the same. 

I asked to take a picture of the quilting (before I realized it was a commercial pattern) and the vendor was very accommodating.  I bought the pattern when I realized she was selling it because I've been a fan of Kelli's designs since *forever*!  :-)

 Closer inspection of the background quilting revealed that this was an embellished meander with a 3-lobed flower.  I *KNEW* this design!  It comes from one of Darlene Epp's Freehanding books, *which I own*!  I was delighted because this is actually a quilting design that I've done before.  You just can't do this design incorrectly .... Darlene Epp shows you how to work up to this good-looking background design in easy steps.  I was just amazed at the quilting I was producing when I was working through her books. 

This is one pattern that I can honestly see myself making and replicating the quilting.  While I have all the confidence in the world when it comes to piecing tops, it's the chosing of the quilting designs that scares the dickens out of me.  I am paralyzed with all the choices that can be made, so having a design that I actually know I can do makes me think that when I get back to piecing, this quilt has a very good chance of getting done. :-)