Lessons Learned

Sometime around now (give or take a month) is the nebulous second anniversary of when I started quilting and sewing again in earnest. I think I have a ton more to learn, although I know I’ve learned a great deal in the intervening months.

While finishing up another stuffed animal last night, I was really amazed at the difference a little experience with hand-sewing binding and closing up stuffies can do for hiding the stuffing hole seam. Compare the first one I made a little more than two years ago, when I really only knew how to whip stitch (poorly, at that)…

… to this latest one (which I’ll post about after it’s delivered to the recipient’s father once he’s back at work):

I think the stitch is called the ladder stitch, if you want to look it up. My actual stitch is some sort of hack I figured out when starting to bind quilts and not wanting the thread to show, so it’s probably not precisely the ladder stitch.

But, sometimes the lessons are a little harder. When I set out to start quilting by making a baby quilt for my oldest friend’s son, I knew absolutely nothing about quilting. Sure, I’d been sewing on and off for about fifteen years, which is why some of my choices probably didn’t faze me at all, but it’s really not very smart quilt production. It has faux-Minky, flannel, silk, eyelet, linen-textured cotton and cheap quilter’s cotton all thrown together.

It’s also incredibly well loved—to an extent that I only hope the rest of my quilts can ever match, possibly all together. As a result, I got a message from my friend showing that the silk is starting to completely wear away.

I think the only solution is to applique a better-lasting fabric over the top of those pieces, correct? (Short of completely deconstructing the quilt and re-piecing, which is not an option.) I would love any advice you have about fixing damage like this.

Two years into my journey, I still don’t think that you can’t use non-quilting cotton in quilts, but there are disadvantages, and I feel pretty safe in saying don’t use silk in a baby quilt.

What have you learned over the years? Have you encountered bad choices that you’ve had to compensate for down the road?

Indecision Killed the Craft Project

Posted in Crafting

I’ve been procrastinating on larger projects (quilts, the Steampunk costume) by making small crafty things. The problem is, I’m now at a stand still, because I can’t decide whether to continue embellishing or just stuff them and sew ’em up.

One is for a class. It’s supposed to be either a table mat or a pillow. I don’t know what I want it to be. Probably a pillow, as it’s not all that flat. It is also supposed to have a ton of beading. I started the beads, but I’m just not feeling them.

What do you think. Beads or no beads?

The other is yet another stuffed animal from Simplicity 2613.

I’m trying to modify it to look like a dog. In doing so, I decided it needed an eye spot, and maybe one on its back. But, I can’t decide if it actually needs the one on its back or if that is overkill. It really looks a bit more like a pig than a dog at this point, I think. I’m leaning toward no spot on the back (it’s just sitting on the back piece in the photo, not actually attached).

Most of the time when I hit this point, the project ends up in the unfinished and forgotten pile, but I need to finish both of these up in the next couple of weeks—the former for a discount at the next class, the latter for a gift. Maybe inspiration will hit between now and when I get off work this evening.

Any suggestions while I’m ruminating?

Of Revolution and History

Posted in Quilting

This past weekend, we went on a rather last-minute spontaneous trip to Boston to celebrate five years together (and to embrace our love of traveling, which we haven’t been doing quite so often lately). It was a lovely break from the usual, with great food, wonderful tours, and a bit of biking around the city (the idea of having rentable bikes stationed throughout the city that you can just grab and return at any location may be the best thing since sliced bread).

Sometimes I think I should have studied history in college instead of computer science. I mean, I totally geek out about things like this headstone, with its pre-standardized spellings, type ligatures, Roman capitals and half years (a period of time where both the Julian and Gregorian calendars were used).

And, though I don’t have a photo of it, our guide’s historical costume was top-notch; the hand-stitching was beautiful and the linen looked sumptuous, yet well-worn (we took a Freedom Trail guided tour).

On the way home on Sunday, we went to Old Sturbridge Village. It was kismet—it happened to be Textile Weekend with a focus on early New England quilting. They had a lovely mix of original quilts and faithful reproductions on display throughout the village, and a small show of quilts by their members. We stopped into the member quilt show, and I was a bit disheartened when the woman soliciting votes for their viewer’s choice picks mentioned that some visitors had adamantly voiced that they were only voting for hand-quilted entries, or only machine-quilted entries, etc. Can’t we all just get along? All of the entries had admirable qualities.

This was my favorite quilt in the village itself. It’s just such quintessential early 19th century patchwork:

Photo by me, featuring quilt by Susannah A.A. Howard c. 1840 in the collection of Old Sturbridge Village

It was wonderful to hear about early quilting without being fed one single mostly mythological tidbit passed off as absolute fact (like humility blocks, making thirteen quilts before she wed, etc).

And, since I can’t go on vacation these days with buying some sort of fabric, I came home with a pair of reproduction FQs from the Village (haven’t a clue how I’ll use them, but these particular two really caught my eye), and some yardage of a print from IKEA that I love. It will likely be a quilt back. I joked that I only agreed to go to Boston because there’s a nearby IKEA. There may be a bit more truth to that statement than I want to admit. 😉

What historical places do you love?

Foto Friday

Posted in Quilting

I was a little “bleh” about this as the arcs were coming together. I’m a little more psyched now that I can see how the rings will look.

I hope the saying that you can “quilt out an A-cup” is true, because this one might need it. 😉

Double Oven Mitt

Posted in Crafting

Here’s another quick project from a Viking class earlier this week. It’s a two-hand pot holder mitt. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure how well it would work out (especially since it’s overkill for anything we can fit into our toaster oven, being oven-less and all). I keep thinking I’d manage to burn myself somehow, or drop the pan, or something. It could make an interesting trivet, perhaps?

But, it was nice to get out and sew with some other ladies for an evening.

I’d forgotten I was on the waiting list for the class, so I hadn’t planned out fabrics or anything. I got a call rather last minute, so I ran home after work, grabbed what coordinating fabrics I could, and headed to class. The leftover strips are from the Designer Roll I used on the recent baby quilt and the background fabric is the closest coordinating fabric I had a half-yard of. Luckily, I had a strip of Insulbright the right width left over from some project I don’t even recall at the moment. It doesn’t match any of my decor. I think it may be destined for the club’s quilt show’s boutique next year.

Oh my, did the free motion part send everyone into a tizzy. Most of them were new to the concept (even the long-arm quilter in the class was scared of doing it on a domestic!) I tried to explain to them that mine only looked ok because that is the absolute one design I actually know how to FMQ, since it’s what I do on anything that I FMQ, but I don’t think they believed me.

Have you ever used one of these double-handed mitts? Do you like them?

A Ruffled Baby Quilt

Posted in Quilting

I have the need to make a couple of baby quilts for friends and family in the coming months. This is the first, which started as me wanting to play with a few new things and ended up as a finished quilt that I’m pretty happy with. It was also very quick—the binding took longer than the rest of the quilt, I think.

I started with a designer roll of Wrenly (Valorie Wells), but ended up only using nine strips in the quilt itself. The marbled fabrics are flannels, the thin border is Minky, and the outer border is something I picked up from the sale bin at the LQS.
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Foto Freitag

Posted in Quilting

We’re starting Double Wedding Ring in Sew You Want to Quilt. Here’s my background fabric and two pieced arcs. If anyone is interested, we’re mostly using this free pattern from Free Spirit.

Momentum slowed a bit, as the handouts from class were printed smaller than my printer printed yesterday. Now I have to figure out the scaling factor before I can continue piecing.

What I’ll Never Tell You

Posted in Quilting

There’s one bit of information that I can guarantee I’m never going to tell you on this blog: that I’m a Traditional quilter. Or a Modern quilter. Or an Art quilter. Or a Contemporary quilter. Or even a modern quilter (at least without qualifying it with “mostly” or “lean towards”).

I’m just a Quilter.

I make things that I like. Sometimes they are distinctly one thing or another—an 1812 reproduction is pretty Traditional in my book. Most of the time, I say “I lean mostly toward little-‘m’ modern”, because I make things out of mostly current fabric in styles that are mostly current to the more-or-less generic 2010s aesthetic in design, fashion, and home furnishing. In other words, modern because it’s made in the current era.

I think that makes me “just a Quilter” just like all the men and women of the past who were making things out of what fabrics and patterns they could buy at the time.

But, there seems to be a push for labels in our global quilting community. Multiple times in the past week alone, I’ve (or we’ve) been asked what kind of quilter I am (we are). So, why do I have to label myself as little-‘m’ modern to get the point across? I doubt the woman making a double wedding ring out of bleached muslin and pastel calicoes in 1930s called herself modern, even though she was by my definition.

So, I’m just a Quilter.

I might make modern quilts sometimes. I’m sure I’ll make a Modern quilt, if I haven’t already. Some day, I want to make a Civil War repro. And one of those crazy-intricate applique quilts full of flowers and vines and birds. Mostly, I just want to try things. I want to try new techniques in old ways and new ways and in whatever way I find myself leaning toward at the time.

There’s no label for my quilting, it’s just Quilting.

I don’t think that means that I don’t have a voice, either. Everything I make is something that is me expressing myself at that point in time. And I have themes that appear in most of my projects. For instance, almost all of my quilts have a non-quilting cotton thrown in (or more). I’m in a grey period right now where I’m really into pairing colors with greys of various shades.

I don’t mean to say that there aren’t quilters out there who don’t deserve a label if they want to claim it. And that they aren’t happy with it. But personally, I’m just a quilter, and I think I’ll always be just a quilter (well, and costumer, and sewer, and sewist, and fiber artist, and crafter, and any other number of things because I don’t just quilt, but I am a Quilter).

What are you? Are you something? Are you many things?

(A lot of this was inspired by Lynne from Lily’s Quilts asking about guild membership and modern vs. traditional. We’re a varied bunch in the quilting community!)

Foto Freitag

Posted in Quilting

This is the top of a doll quilt version of a simple project I’ve been working on between larger, brain-power–requiring projects. Or maybe it’s a pillow sham. I haven’t yet decided. Mostly I wanted to play with my ruffler foot.

Blog Etiquette: Giving Proper Attribution

Posted in Learning

First off, a little fan-girl squee: one of my quilts appeared on a blog run by a famous quilt historian/author/designer. Whee! That said, I was surprised to see my quilt appear on the blog, only finding out out because I subscribe to it.

Some are quick to blame Pinterest and other plug-ins and bookmarklets that make it simple to cross-post content from one part of the Web to another for muddying the waters of IP and making us bloggers turn into rude content thieves.

But, stealing content without attribution or request started long before those technologies and services came about, and I’m certain they weren’t in use in this situation.

I’ve covered asking for stolen content to be removed, but what if you don’t mind that it was taken, you just want proper attribution?

That’s a question I’ve been struggling with since I saw the post—especially since the only method of contact I could find for the author was to comment on the post—they didn’t have an email address posted or a contact page.

So, ideal world time: we, as responsible bloggers, should endeavor to always give proper attribution and get proper permission to use other’s content. And, we should provide a way for others to easily contact us so that they can do the same.

It’s the second part that’s really bothersome in this situation. My only recourse is to comment on the post—a public forum. I’m not angry that content was stolen, I just want to request—privately—that they give proper attribution.

So, what should you do in this situation?

Since the photo in question actually belongs to someone else, (it was taken by the newspaper, not me) I contacted the photographer so that they can handle it in the way that they see fit. I can’t speak for them, but I can (and should) alert them. I did leave a comment thanking the author for the mention, and gently correcting the spelling of my name.

I kept getting hung up on “this person is famous, and it’s just little old me!”. Objectively, they should be even more aware of these types of issues—to cover their own famous bums and to set an example of how they want their own IP to be treated. So, while I am completely honored to have my quilt appear, ultimately, I deserve the same respect of IP and attribution that I would give them. In other words, feeling honored doesn’t mean you shouldn’t request your due rights.

I’ve come up with a stock message in case this happens in the future, that I hope is polite but firm about adding a notice that the photo is mine. It mentions that my policy is, as clearly stated on my blog, that they’re welcome to use my images so long as I’m credited. Hopefully, it only ever needs be sent in private, but perhaps if it must be put in a comment, it will encourage others to take another step toward that ideal world of asking, attributing, and inviting contact. I say stock, because while I’ll likely modify it in each situation, it removes the temptation of fan-girl spinelessness—I have the message, I will send it in every instance.

If you haven’t already, make sure you have information about your own copyright stance somewhere on your blog, be it a separate page or in your sidebar. If it is on its own page, make sure a link appears on all pages of your blog. While you’re at it, make sure that you provide a way to contact you. Yes, we all worry about spam (and yes, there are readers who think they should give unsolicited advice about your life), but people do need to contact you on occasion, and that should outweigh your other worries. Plus, there’s a delete button in your email client.

Think about your own stock message so that a response can be automatic without you having to stew over it.

And in the end, really? It seems like a published author should know better than to take images from various places on the Web without attribution of some kind…

What would you do in this situation? Is it something you’ve dealt with before? I admit, sometimes I’m not perfect about proper attribution, but I try to make it clear where all content and images come from.