Finished: Trip around Honshu

Before you read anything more about this quilt, you need to go and read this post. Go on. I'll make a cuppa while I wait for you to come back.



Read it? You sure? Great. You are now permitted to read on.




I finally finished my Japanese trip around the world quilt.  I called it "Trip around Honshu" because that's what I did last November during some of the happiest few weeks of my life. I tripped.  Around Honshu in Japan.  So cool.



I finished the quilt top in about August or September last year, around the time that my quiltjo went walkabout. I really didn't like this quilt at all. I'd just come off making a bright rainbow of a quilt, all my other UFOs were bright and loud and sassy, and then there was this beast just sulking in the corner, neither of really caring whether I got it quilted or not.



I take a lot of pride in quilting most of my quilts myself (because then they really feel like they are mine, and not a team effort), but the true beasts I tend to send out to a professional because I worked out long ago that professional quilting is cheaper that physiotherapy. I hadn't used the long-arm skills of my friend Gemma from Pretty Bobbins before, except for an emergency hug quilt our modern group had made that she kindly (and very beautifully) quilted, so I thought now was the time to get her help in working out what the heck to do with this monster. I was keen on something geometric but really couldn't decide, and then at the last minute she showed me a wavy edge-to-edge pattern and I was sold. It really is the perfect pattern for this quilt. The thread is King Tut, from memory. It's kind of a variegated dark pink to red colour and it's perfect for this quilt.



As I've already mentioned, I'd stopped caring about the quilt and just wanted it DONE, so rather than piece a back like I usually do, I bought a wideback fabric online and had it sent to Gemma's studio. It was perfect.

I got the quilt back home just before we left for Japan, but I took aged to trim it, then bind it. In the end I finished the hand binding in only 5 hours on the couch (with breaks). That's 8.5 metres of binding. Is that a world record or something? Totally should be.



I have a lot of favourite blocks. A couple of them have the fabric that my beautiful niece had in her wedding invitations - they remind me of her and her wedding day. I also have blocks that have scraps from skirts I'd made. And lots of blocks with fabrics I remember the exact shop in California that I bought them from. But my favourite block is the one made entirely of owls. I bought all the fabrics from Shuji and there are owl squares throughout the quilt, but I figured I had to have at least one entire owl block in there, right?



So there's my quilt, my Japanese scrappy trip around the world. I showed it to Shuji last weekend at the SCQuilters retreat and he loved it and could identify all his fabrics. People at the Canberra Quilters meeting last night loved it as well. From a distance it has a tendency to sparkle with the lighter creamy fabrics, which is what I think people love about it. It's definitely one of those quilts that is full of memories for me. and I am growing to love it, even though it's not really my style any more. But that's totally OK with me. It might even get a turn on the bed this summer.

Details 

Pattern: Scrappy Trip Around the World (tutorial by Quiltville)
Size: 84 " x 84 "

Fabric: FQs and F8s of Japanese and American Japanese fabrics, collected since 2003

Backing: Wideback from Widebacks.com.au

Quilting: An edge-to-edge pattern by Pretty Bobbins quilting.

Thread: pieced with Rasant, quilted with King Tut.

Batting: 100% bamboo

Started: January 2013

Finished: 4 July 2015

Finished: Maple leaf quilt

All the way back in 2011, there was a little exhibition in New York which displayed over 600 red and white quilts from the one private collection. The event lit up the online quilting world and all over were amazing visions of red and white vintage quilts in cabinets, and hanging from the very tall ceilings. It was just breathtaking (and I so wish I had been there to see it!).

So when The Quilters' Guild of NSW announced that would have a special category in 2015 for red and white quilts, I knew I had to make one and exhibit it! My original plan was for an improv art quilt inspired by a particular favourite work of mine by Piet Mondrian, but even though I sketched it out, bought all the fabric and made several blocks, it just wasn't coming together on the design wall so I scrapped the idea.

In the end I went for a simple design using the fabric and quilting to create the impact, and I am so glad I did. Friends, meet my red and white quilt, which I've named North-West.

No, I did not name it after a Kardashian baby. No, I did not even know who the Kardashians were until recently, and I certainly didn't know there was some poor child named North West or Drain Pipe or something.

(Seriously though, Drain Pipe would be a pretty cool Kardashian name)

I used a simple maple leaf block. Can I just say how much I love this block? I have no idea if there was a faster way of making it, but I worked it out in my head and then realised it needed a stem, so I just flew by the seat of my pants on that too. Everything was made too big and trimmed down to size using my Bloc-Loc ruler (the greatest tool ever invented for quilters).

Anyone who knows me will know that red is my favourite colour. So I thought I had quite a substantial red stash. Turns out I did not. I had red with other colours, but not enough reds that "read as red" which was one of the quilt show rules. So my good friend Bron allowed me to raid her stash one afternoon. I cut enough fabric for four blocks (thanks Bron) and then realised much later that I hadn't cut any stalks out. Wah! But I don't mind embracing the quirky in quilting, so I added some of my favourite ever text fabric by Kumiko Fujita so that each of Bron's leaf stems has a little message.

All 25 blocks of the top came together very quickly, and then my battle was how to quilt it. I've mentioned before that I had stupidly described the quilting as "swirling through the leaves" in the catalogue description, but in the end I didn't have it in my to do circular or curvy quilting. This quilt was screaming out for directional straight lines in a thicker thread, so I used Aurifil 28/2 weight thread in 2024 White.

I started from the middle edge of the quilt and turned the quilt 90 degrees at the middle point and made my way back to the other edge. I was after an arrow in the north-west direction. Sigh. You just can't take the geographer out of the geography department. I echoed this design every half inch. I wasn't intent on perfection and was happy for some wobbles here and there as it gives the leaves more movement, like they are about to blow away (I don't know where they'd blow. East South East perhaps? Down the Drain Pipe?)

This half inch quilting was going really well. It was mindless, I could meditate or listen to music ... and then I realised I was going to run out of thread. And I didn't have any way of getting more of that thread. And also I was really, really getting sick of the half inch thing. So in the last row of blocks at the North and West side, I quilted straight lines an inch apart, intersecting them within the furthest most north-west block (known to non-geographers as the top left hand block).

And the concept worked really well! It definitely prevented the quilt from looking too boring and this is where using the Aurifil thread in the heavier weight definitely paid off.

Here's the back. I don't know why I'm showing you. It's pretty boring but I like how you can see the shape of the blocks through the back.

The label however is not boring. It was provided by the Guild when I got my acceptance letter and I love it. It's based on Maree Blanchard's red and white quilt exhibited at the 2013 show. Maree sadly passed away earlier this year, but she and Bob James still had a beautiful red and white quilt in the show.

As for the show, well what can I say? It was spectacular. I managed to get laryngitis just before the show and I wish I'd been able to ask permission from the quilters there to show you more quilts ina  blog post.

I was lucky enough to do white glove duty in  the Red and White category section on the first day of the show. There were over 110 quilts in that category! I did not intend to dress to match the quilts but there you have it. It was really busy and everyone loved seeing the quilts. If you want to see more of the winning quilts, check them out here.

What else can I say about this quilt other than I absolutely love it? Even though it's been made with my usual simple block design, the fabric selections and the limits of a red and white palette make it quite different to my usual quilts which tend to be a cacophony of fabric and colour. Because of my general dislike of sashing, there is nowhere for the eye to rest, but you also get some interesting secondary patterns in there too. I don't think this maple leaf quilt will be my last, do you?

Details 

Pattern: Traditional maple leaf pattern
Size: 60 " by 60 " (12 inch blocks)

Fabric: Scrappy "reads as white" background, and fabrics from my stash and Bron's stash for the "reads as red" leaves

Quilting: Straight line quilting done by me

Thread: pieced with Rasant, quilted with Aurifil 28/2 Weight thread.

Batting: 100% white cotton

Started: January 2015

Finished: June 2015

That finishing feeling

In terms of deadlines, my life is pretty cruisy at the moment. One Canberra Quilters exhibition entry is done, and the other - a group quilt - is basted and waiting for me to quilt it. I also have a birthday quilt to co-sew with a friend by Spring. It was started a year ago but I can't find the pieces.  Actually, there is a lot of misplacement of good fabric and patterns going on here lately. You'd thing living in a bigger house this wouldn't be a problem. You'd be wrong.

In the process of searching for things I'm also unearthing long-forgotten projects. I have more than a few projects that are only a couple of hours from completion, and as I'm sick of them taking up space on the spare room floor, sewing room floor and study (floor) I'm aiming to complete them as I see them..



I had this Japanese fabric Trip around the World quilt top quilted by a commercial quilter last October before we left for Japan. I trimmed it for a show and tell lunch one day, and then it has sat folded neatly, with the backing trimmings piled on top so I could use them as binding, on the floor in the spare room ever since.  Yesterday I made the binding and attached it, and then spent a few hours last night stitching the binding down. 320 inches of binding in 5 hours - I was obviously on a mission! Photos to come soon.



In my searching I also found this Oakshott quilt which my husband has been nagging me for 18 months (that's how long since we finished renovating) to finish so he can put it on the study wall now that it's painted. I want to quilt it with a circular pattern, so I will do this before I quilt the group exhibition quilt (practice! The group quilt will be quilted the same way!).



I never had enough backing for the quilt, which is why it has festered for so long. So yesterday I also put together some of the Oakshott scraps to make up the difference. I really love how this fabric sparkles. I don't love how it frays.

In the meantime I still haven't found the lost birthday quilt project, but this morning after swimming I found the energy to clean up some of my fabric shelves. With the frantic stash- and scrap- busting that went on with my Sydney exhibition show quilts the shelves got into a right royal mess. Add some stash enhancement to that, and you have yourself a bit of an organisational disaster.



 I've finished seven of the sixteen shelves, but I seem to have run out of storage for all the greys I seem to have acquired.  Wish IKEA made a bigger Expedit. Not that my sewing room would be big enough to hold it.



A lot more work is required, so it's time to put the music back on and get back to it. I'm pretty pleased I finished one UFO this weekend - if I can finish the backing for the Oakshott and find the birthday project we'll know that I had a winning weekend!

The City Lights Dress and a little Canberra Frocktail

When a sewer loses her confidence in sewing after more than 24 years of doing it, it takes some serious real-talk and pepping to get her back to her former sparkling self. This is what happened to me a few weeks ago. I made an Astoria top and it was a disaster. All over the internet people were making Astorias that look fantastic, and I couldn't get a simple muslin to be even close to fitting. Seams were taken in, shoulders were raised, but it just didn't work. My body measurements have changed recently, and now the usual shape I expect to sew for just isn't there anymore. And with that one simple, stupid top, all confidence I had went out the window.

Silly isn't it? As a beginner sewer 24 years ago I was self-drafting pinafores and making crazy crushed velvet knit tops. Making boxy Chanel jackets from raw silk. Inserting pockets in everything and pleating like a boss. Anyway thanks to a few friends who talked me down (one even extending her friendship to going through the online Simplicity, Butterick and McCalls catalogues with me via email one morning. Bless you Siobhan) I found a dress I thought could give me my confidence back, and also double as a Canberra Frocktails dress.

It's Simplicity 1466, which on the packet photo has a top and skirt and pants, but over to the side in a teeny drawing, a dress.  A lovely, princess seamed, yoked, tabbed dress with a flared skirt and a certain vintage feel to it. No lining. No bodices. Plenty of seams to take in and take out if needed.

Due to some time pressures at home and work, and being away for a week prior to Frocktails, I knew I wouldn't be able to cut it out until the Saturday before Frocktails. What I wasn't counting on though was injuring my back quite badly (again) the week I was away, and coming down with a chest infection and asthma the moment I hopped on the plane to come home. The spirit to sew was there, but my body let me down big time. I managed to cut the dress out on Saturday afternoon when I was still feeling ok, but sewing was done in five minute blocks eveery few hours in between naps. I didn't expect to finish the dress, but I wasn't stressed about it at all mainly because I was feeling too sick to give a toss.

I finished stitching those buttons on at 10.20 pm on Friday night. It's a dress that could normally be cut and sewn within a few hours. 

Construction wise, this dress was a bit of a doddle. Contrary to instructions, I basted all the seams first and tried it on without the yoke attached. Immediately I knew I would have an issue with the neckline gaping - I seem to be about two sizes smaller in the upper bust than the actual bust, and I have narrow shoulders. There wasn't too much I could do about it as I had no fabric spare to redraft the yoke, so I forged on. It worked out ok on the night but could have been better. I also did away with the zip. It was stretch sateen, so didn't really need the zip, but I also had to be clever about how I spent the time I could at the machine, so the zipper went out the window.

The fabric was a cotton sateen I picked up in Spotlight on Anzac Day when I went shopping with Siobhan and Kirsty. They are fantastic enablers. It reminded me immediately of city lights, kind of like this:



That was my view from my apartment in Sydney last week. 

Unfortunately the fabric was a complete disaster from the get-go. When I pre-washed it, it lost all of the sateen finish of the fabric - and I was left with lumpy, flat, dull, dusty looking fabric. Then when ironing it before cutting it out, noticed a lot of faults - brown streaks going all the way through the fabric. It wasn't in the pattern as it was irregular, and definitely a fault. By this time I lost my temper at the fabric and at Spotlight, especially as I could have found a replacement fabric in Sydney the week before, and also I wasn't in any state (with a bad back and laryngitis) to go back to Spotlight and argue the point with them. So I cut the fabric out and hoped for the best, and ignored the fact I'd ever seen the faults. This self-brainwashing seemed to work, because when doing the final press I couldn't find them anymore.

Overall I'm really happy with this dress and I will make it again but I will also take in the upper chest seams and redraft the yoke in response. The tabs are a visual replacement for a bodice - bodices on me tend to sit mid bust, not below the bust, and these just provide enough of a break in the dress to give it interest. I used vintage buttons from my collection. The top patternin the envelope has a sleeveless version, so I can see this being a summer staple in my work wardrobe.



Photo by Myra.

Now, on to Frocktails. Some friends and I got together and decided to hold a Canberra Frocktails. For the uninitiated, Frocktails is where the online sewers of Australia get together to drink, eat and wear fabulous frocks they have sewn. There have been Frocktails held in Sydney and Melbourne before, but we thought hey, what would be great about holding a Frocktails in Canberra in the middle of winter?

Absoutely everything, we said. And we were right. It was a fantastic evening. We had 27 sewers from Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane join us last night at Hotel Hotel.

With Liz. She was also wearing Simplicity, although vintage. I'm sure she'll blog about it.

So the sewing confidence is back, but I've realised in the last week I have an enormous stash that is scattered across the house and I'm starting to misplace fabric, like the lovely black ponte I was going to make a jacket from. No idea where it is, but this afternoon, as a hangover cure, I'll be sorting the piles and giving everything a bit of a spring clean. And then I will start cutting out things and actually sewing them to wear. Winter here in Canberra is long and cold and I'm desperate for some more warm clothing. Stay tuned!

Marg's Star

I'm in Sydney for the quilt show this week, and I have a couple of hours spare this afternoon back at my apartment. It's pouring with rain outside and I can barely see the view of the city. I have a few packs of Marg's Star blocks and some fresh fabric from the show, plus some fresh juice from the guy in Llankelly Place which he swears will cure my laryngitis.

 

If I can work out how this beast comes together I may have a new addiction.

Also how cool is this fabric I found?

 

Posted with Blogsy

The "Stealth Pyjamas" Knit Skirt

A few weeks ago, just when we were starting to get a taste of what winter in Canberra was likely to be this year (answer: freaking cold and windy and OMG get me a hot toddy STAT) I rocked up to my local fabric store and spotted some gorgeous red faux quilted ponte stuff. Except it was snuggly in ways that ponte could never be. I resisted that day because all I could think to make was a self-drafted elastic-waisted straight skirt and that's just boring. So I bought some other fabric for other projects, and put the thought of the red quilted snuggly knit out of my mind.

Until a week later when I went back and bought half a metre of it because I couldn't get it out of my mind, like the insane woman I am.



I sat on the fabric for a couple of weeks while I quilted quilts, until my friend Amanda made and blogged her Moneta/Violet Frankenfrock from the same fabric (but in black) which she described as "stealth pyjamas". Are you kidding me? Get me on the PJ train!

The first day I had free from quilts (oh blessed day that was) I made this skirt. To be honest, it would have taken me less time to buy the Colette Mabel pattern, print it out, stick it together, cut out the fabric and sew it. Except I don't really like the Mabel pattern, and I'm a bit stubborn.

First I measured my hips, and sewed up a back seam using those measurements for a snug fit. I realised then that the bulk of the skirt with an elasticated waist would end up being mega bulky, so I created some side seams and shaped them to be less bulky at the waist.



My only problem with this method is that I should have switched the single back seam to a side seam and created another side seam on the other side. That would have done away with a back seam altogether instead of having a knit skirt with three seams. I can be such a sewing noob at times...



I constructed all the seams with my overlocker, and they bubbled like crazy to the point I couldn't even steam out the wonk. That's when I realised my new overlocker had a very close stitch. I lengthened the stitche length to 4, and redid the seams (no I didn't unpick them - I just took another run and made the skirt a little, ahem, slimmer.



I absolutely adore this skirt. It's comfortable, and it really does feel like I'm wearing stealth pyjamas. I can see me wearing this every single day through winter - it's warm and cosy and I'm not forever pulling my skirt up like I do with non-elasticated ones.



The fabric gets a lot of comments because it is quite unusual and begs touching. And did I mention comfortable? I can see me getting another half metre in the black and pulling another skirt out of the hat, except without a back seam next time, and maybe less waist again.



Because a girl can never be too comfortable when it's freezing cold outside.

Finishing

I finished my red and white quilt with just enough thread - there must be a Tardis of threads out there, because I can't work out how a 60 inch quilt quilted half an inch apart used less than 750 m of thick thread.

So for the last few days I've been doing the finishing - the binding, labels and sleeve, and of course burying the threads.

There is something quite exquisite about being so close to the end, but yet so far (hand sewing over 11 metres of binding will make you feel like that). But the slowness of binding, of threading 5 needles at once, of the rhythm of the stitching less than a centimetre apart lends itself to a calmness not usually seen in the way I sew quilts (usually fast, frenetically and a little bit maniacal, but always with a great deal of joy).

For the first time in my quilting life (almost 20 years) I followed the instructions on the exhibition pack and made a sleeve to specification. It didn't make an ounce of sense at first, but then that "a ha" moment happened and I'm wondering why I hadn't done it this way before.



And this year the Guild has provided labels for their special Red and White category. They are quite lovely.



Ever since they announced the special category for 2015 at the 2013 presentation ceremony, I've been looking forward to entering and seeing the display. Apparently 110 red and white quilts have been entered in the exhibition and I suspect it might be spectacular. I haven't entered the quilt I thought I would, but I've entered something I'm pretty proud of, and stepped outside my comfort zone a little bit (but not too much, because that would be, well, weird.)

Red and White

I showed a photo of my red and white quilt in progress over on the Book of Faces the other day and someone commented "cheer cheer the Red and the White" and I'm all "NO WAY José" (oh when the Saints go marching in...)

Anyway, this quilt.



This quilt was one. Big.  Mistake.

I meant to quilt straight lines one inch apart. Except the metal gauge on my walking foot is too long, sticks out into the throat space and just gets in the way so I decided to gauge it by the foot only and my foot only goes to half an inch. So I have stitch lines going this way and that. HALF AN INCH APART oh dear baby Jesus save me now.



Last night in a fit of shoulder pain, I switched it up a little and did something one inch apart and sod that bloody walking foot gauge. It looks good. Sloppy, but good.

In the meantime, the other 4/5 of the quilt is half an inch apart, and it's a 60 inch quilt.



Oh, and I should tell you that I went to the quilt shop yesterday to buy more thread because 750 metres of Aurifil 28 weight is never going to go very far. The quilt shop that is only open Tuesday to Saturday and I can only go on Saturdays because I don't have a car during the week. And I bought a shedload of fabric for a group quilt I am organising, and not one spool of thread. NOT ONE. By the time I realised it was 3.57 pm and I was 20 minutes away.

Yeah, so the quilting of this quilt is going really well.

On the other hand, the orange peels are looking fabulous.



Five days to finished quilting a 3/4 finished quilt; and trim, sleeve, bind and label both of them. Sir, can I get an extension please?*

* I know I should be quilting and not blogging, but I'm on a break, ok?