Other than my family, the passion of my life is quilting. An eclectic, I love a wide variety of styles and techniques encompassing both machine and hand work. I am a longarm quilter who can work for you. I enjoy any style, from pantographs to all-over to full custom, ranging from traditional to modern. I love
bringing vintage tops to life and am willing to work with a challenging quilt top. Instagram: lyncc_quilts
Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project
so they don't stall out in UFO-land!
(Linky at the bottom.)
I have been working myself too much the past three weeks and needed some serious down time today. So all I did in the BOM realm was to cut the neutrals out for my Journey's End kit.
It's a project that is divided into 6 "intervals" of work. I saw the quilt from this kit when I went to the quilt shop for some backing, and something about the particular color saturation in the repro-style fabrics, combined with the super-cool pieced border called to me.
It will look like this:
Call me crazy for bringing it home - but I know I won't regret it.
How is BOM work going at your place?
~*~*~
Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,
and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.
Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project
so they don't stall out in UFO-land!
(Linky at the bottom.)
I apologize for being so late with this week's link-up! Taxes. Big changes in the nature of our personal income last year, as well as a new business. Need I say more?
I didn't do any BOM work last weekend, either, as I was helping my daughter finish the baby quilt she was making. Zipped Dolly's quilt off the frame Saturday and got Heather going with her first longarm job. She's fearless, so I knew she'd be pretty much fine.
And she was. This finished at 38 x 50 inches. She liked the idea of doing the kaleidoscope blocks to evoke the hot air balloons that visit our area in the springtime and go with the fabric they were cut from.
It even has a minky background for the blocks, but that didn't deter her! It was chosen to make a sky-like field around the blocks and to tone the brightness down a wee bit for the baby. Plus be super awesome for tactile interest. We have extra kaleidoscope blocks that we'll put with a different background to let them pop. Sometime in the future. :)
Heather stitched-in-the-ditch around each kaleidoscope "balloon" before adding a couple free-hand circles inside each one.
Then she wanted meandering zig-zags between the rows and clouds in the spaces of the 3-block rows.
Backing was the fabric the blocks were cut from, supplemented with minky.
We did a flanged binging using both fabrics, with the minky on the outside. When I do a minky binding, I just cut each fabric 1/8 inch wider than I normally do. Works like a charm to accomodate the plushness.
Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project
so they don't stall out in UFO-land!
(Linky at the bottom.)
My BOM time was mostly spent helping Heather with the project below this, but I did manage to trace, fuse, and cut out all the non-kitten pieces for the left half of the lower row for Wind in the Whiskers. Just one more block to make pieces for, then I can get this BOM top fully assembled!
These 25 kaleidoscope blocks took up most of the time, though. We're making a baby quilt together for her preceptor. I had a few yards of hot air balloon fabric, so we thought we'd use this technique to make some blocks that should look like hot air balloons from the top. We couldn't find a background piece we liked in my stash, so I'll go shopping with these after the repair person comes and goes today, and the backing will be the fabric these were cut from.
Don't they look great?! When I was cutting the wedges out, I remember thinking the fabric didn't seem to yield as much variety as it would be nice to see. But once you start sewing them, the differences really stand out! We'll only use part of these, so there will be others for fun in the future. On the hand stitching front, I'm almost finished with the applique on the first nutcracker. He should be ready for a share next week. But first I need to make the teeth units. I made some units of lines I could print out and start the process of paper piecing strips that can be sliced and supplemented to get the 12 units for the whole set. I don't want to fuss with all this more than once. Each tooth is almost 1/8 inch, or about 1.5 mm. Except for the outer ones, I'm working with 1/2" strips. Yes, it's a little tricky.
How is BOM work going at your place?
~*~*~
Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,
and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.
Welcome to the Elm Street Quilts Postcard Exchange Blog Hop!
Links to the other hop participants are at the end of this post.
I had the BEST time making this 3D Wonder Woman postcard quilt for Sabrina. I hope you enjoy learning about its coming-to-be story. Lots of extras below for Wonder Woman fans!
This is 6 x 4 inches, has 3D work at the belt buckle, and a double backing so that I could include a printed postcard note. (I'm also linking to TGIFF at Celtic Thistle this week since I hadn't done a proper finish post for it before.)
Before I get into the details of Wonder Woman, I also want to share the fantastic postcard quilt I got - all the way from Australia! Check it out!
Dione of Clever Chameleon - and the producer of the Color Bears BOM that I'm doing - got my name with my cue word, "Bird." You can read her Postcard Exchange post here: https://www.cleverchameleon.com.au/postcard-parade-2018/ She got the awesome idea of making a Blackbelt Toucan because I train in Taekwondo with my family, and three of us got our Blackbelts this past October. She even made the dobok the same color as mine! This tickles me to no end, and keeps me company at my longarm, pinned at eye level close to where I stand. Even funnier is the fact that the mailman handed this to us as Marissa and I pulled into the driveway after being at Taekwondo training. :D Too completely perfect in every way!
Back to Wonder Woman:
I was matched with Sabrina in Texas, and when I read
her prompt of “Feminism,” I had a bit of an “oh, no!” moment. Not because I don't like beneficial feminism, but because it
seemed such an abstract concept to me to render in an art form, and I am not
good at executing abstract ideas. But then we went to see the Black Panther film. In
my absolute enjoyment of the marvelous women in this film, particularly the
beautiful, powerful guards, I knew I wanted to represent my love of how far
women have come in action movies, specifically super-hero films.
And here's the trail my mind traveled: I grew up in
the ‘70s and '80s. Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman, while leaving much to be desired in
terms of female equality in action figures, was a shiny hero for us young women in an
era when virtually every single female on TV squealed in paralysis for a
male to save them. Women in action shows were sorely lacking
in real power, effectiveness, and legitimacy - even Wonder Woman was limited in what they'd let her be, compared to male superheroes. But, oh, how we loved her!
More recently, when Black
Widow appeared in this generation's string of action films, I was completely
enchanted and 100% in love with her! So strong, beautiful, alluring, and yet a
full-fledged member of the team - powerful, and not sluttified. I thought about
figuring out a way to make a Black Widow postcard, but found that extremely
difficult to work up.
So I mulled over the path between her and the Black Panther women – who I also found too difficult to render. Fortunately for me, we have a marvelous character rebirth and directorship between those two points.
When I first
found out about the new Wonder Woman film and saw the initial releases of her
appearance, I despised it all. It was ruined, she was nothing like our beloved
Wonder Woman! Where were her red and blue colors? Her All-American-ness? I hated
it, because she wasn’t “our” Wonder Woman from our youth.
But I let my
son-in-law drag me to the movie when it came out, and: OH MY GOSH!!!
She’s glorious! She’s Black Widow and even
more under Patty Jenkins’s directing! She’s a stinkin’ goddess - larger than
life, larger than All-American - worthy of, but larger than romance - and her
outfits are amazing. Sexy, but not slutty. Even Josh Whedon’s subsequent
handling of her can’t ruin her for me. Patty Jenkins gave us an undeniably
fabulous action figure.
In itself, Jenkins' directorship of Wonder Woman was a humongous step forward for feminism
in the film and superhero industries. Her “No Man’s Land” scene is one of the
most powerful theater experiences I’ve ever felt. I saw that scene right away
as a feminist rendering of all the shots women have to fend off, and Wonder
Woman does it with iconic strength, determination, beauty, purity, and absolute
unwavering faith in herself and those she is protecting.
So Wonder
Woman definitely needed to be rendered for my postcard to Sabrina. In fact, I made a batch of them so I could keep one, give one to my daughter, and have a couple of special Thank You's. Wonder Woman is bigger than a single mini quilt. I had to do her justice.
And here's how I did it, if you'd like ideas for your own play-time creativeness: Construction: It is difficult for me to draw things out, and it took at least two hours for me to make the pattern after studying lots of images online and choosing a representative focal point.
Luckily, I had the PERFECT fabrics in my stash, so I didn't have to wait for an opportunity to go into the city.
First, I sandwiched the blue and red backgrounds, using fusible fleece for stiffness, and did all the detail quilting, followed by a squaring-up as I trimmed them out. It was really nice having those pieces fused down before I started that intricate quilting, as they didn't shift on me at all. Then I fused the gold and silver belt strap pieces onto these bases and zig-zagged their edges and put in quilting lines. I had gutted the fusible out from the inside of the larger pieces like I normally do with fusible applique. After all this, I zig-zagged the postcard edges with dark monofilament thread. For the buckles, I traced the W and V pieces directly onto their fabrics, then fused them onto the fleece. It was easier to do their inner stitching before they were cut out. I did not use a backing on these.
After I cut them out from the fleece, I zig-zagged their edges with the gold thread. The Vs were too small to handle - they'd get punched down into the hole, so I put them on a piece of water-soluble stabilizer that I soaked off afterward.
I sewed the Vs onto the Ws before I sewed the Ws onto the bases, all by machine.
Last, I printed a back on a fabric printer sheet with an outline around it about 1/2" bigger than the postcard so I would have a way to center it. Can you see here how I did that?
I could see that outline through the backside, letting me place the postcard squarely over it so I could edgestitch it down from the front, about 1/8 inch in from the sides. I used monofilament thread in the top and a cream bobbin thread, and for trimming it out, I found it best to fold the sheet back and slip long scissors into the fold to cut in line with the sheet's sides so I would get nice and close without hanging over the postcard's edge, but not snick the thread anywhere. Worked perfectly!
On Sabrina's postcard, I left one edge open when I sewed on the printed backing. That let me tuck a letter in that shared this mini quilt's story. It had come to mean quite a lot to me. Perhaps it has touched a chord that resonates with you, or even just entertained you for a moment in time. :)
Thank you for letting me share my love of Wonder Woman and the pleasure of making this postcard quilt for Sabrina. Here are the other stories in Patty's Postcard Exchange Blog Hop, which goes live April 7:
When you break your hook assembly, you use the down time to do your Q2 list a few days ahead of time and get some decent housework done. . . heh! The 2018 Finish-a-Long program, combined with 18 in 2018, worked tremendously well for me during the first quarter - I made a list that was purposefully over-ambitious, thinking I'd be happy with 4 finishes, but I actually finished 8 of them! So I'm doing the same thing, with a ridiculously long list. First, so you have a tiny bit of eye-candy, here are the current views at my piecing and quilting machines: Tulip Garden - A kit that has been in my storage probably since 2010ish, I just need to add the borders to finish this flannel quilt top that I've been working on here and there the past few weeks.
Dolly's Vintage Dresden Plates - A customer quilt that should have had a good start from yesterday afternoon to share today, but I broke my hook assembly, so it's in limbo until Laura The Magnificent can come over to replace the machinery and set the timing. . . Itching to get to work on this!
~*~*~*~
And
now, here's my Q2 LIST OF QUILTS for the complete finish by
June 30th:
(I'd be truly flabbergasted if all of
these were checked off, and very happy with 6.)
1. Snowy Owls –a pretty panel that was quilted onto
some minky on Valentine’s Day. Still needs binding
3. Raven's Throne - Row quilt 2 of 6 requested by Scott for
his office
4. Hands 2 Help Quilt – because community service warms
the heart
5. The April UFO Challenge #5,
"Devon's Quilt" –Queen size double wedding ring started beginning of 2015 or end of 2014, last worked on Dec 2017.
Need quilting of the wide applique borders.
6. Baby quilt for Heather's
preceptor - to use
some of the hot air balloon fabric
7. Borealis Ridge -Row quilt 3 of 6 requested by
Scott for his office
8. The May UFO Challenge, #? –to be drawn from my challenge list on May 1
9. Caribou Crossing -Row quilt 4 of 6 requested by
Scott for his office
10. Dear Jane –stitched from Aug 2011 to Aug
2013, it has 5,139 pieces and an ambitious quilting plan!
11. The June UFO Challenge, #? –to be drawn from my challenge list on June 1
12. Morning Stroll -Row quilt 5 of 6 requested by
Scott for his office
13. Daisy Days - my own quilt that I want for my reading
chair, pieced in January and constantly bumped off the longarm list for
customers or UFOs
14. Hearts or Modernology - the first top pieced in May 2010, the
second from Dec 2013-August 2014
15. Quilted Valance - need
something pretty to coordinate with Dancing Hearts Longarm Quilting
16. Bicycle Art Quilt - need a good sample for my studio wall
17.
Star Study - another sample wanted for my studio 18. Dear Jane - just to get this one on a list - there is no way on earth it will be finished in Q2 :)
My OMG for April is a very, very special quilt, and while I have a wonderful customer quilt on the frame for a couple of weeks, I can't wait for this one's turn to come up.
Do you know about The 70,273 Project? Conceived by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers, it is now a global movement to make quilts representing the number of people murdered by the NAZIs because their physical or mental disabilities rendered them "unfit to eat," even "unfit to live," in their minds. Each block with a pair of Xs represents a person who was taken from their family and killed. These were any families - German or otherwise. So you can see how insipid the evil of campaigning against "others" becomes: Soon, even your own segment of society is targeted. I have been frustrated for a couple of years at the rapid increase in animosity against "others" in our own society. I often feel helpless to do anything about this - being nice in my own sphere and doing what little I can to spread positive living and respect for every being is good, but can only reach so far. This made a movement that has become larger than life very appealing to me. Years ago, I took our youngest daughter to New York City for spring break, and we just happened to get to see the Red & White Exhibit at The Armory. You cannot imagine how emotionally powerful that exhibit was in person. And those were "just" normal quilts from antique to modern!!
So I can well imagine the intensity of the emotional impact these quilts would have on exhibit in cathedrals and other sites. The ones that have been finished so far have already been displayed. I hope to be able to attend a special exhibit in person.
People all around the world contribute to the construction of the blocks for these quilts, even if they are not quilters. I volunteered to quilt some tops up, and number 392 was mailed to me. It was assembled by a woman in North Carolina. All of the blocks and tops are meticulously labeled and catalogued so that each finished quilt has a chart of which blocks and work were made by whom.
I admit that I completely burst into tears when I opened the package and held that material representation of several wronged individuals in my hands.
I also immediately appreciated the eclectic assembly of blocks, as different as the people represented undoubtedly were. These fabrics are quite varied, as are the material and techniques used to make the Xs.
We have cottons, blends, damasks for backgrounds. . .and ribbons, markers, paints, applique, prefab patches, hand embroidery, even a bead for Xs.
The most powerful one for me has velvet Xs that you know should be beautiful and lovely to touch, but they are hidden away under a white semi-opaque organdy, taked away from us as the person was taken away from their family. But memory remains. And souls whisper.
Have you experienced Quilter's Serendipity? If you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's difficult to explain what I mean by it. It amazes me sometimes, like when this 70,273 quilt top arrived, and later THE VERY SAME DAY I met for the first time with a customer who has a bonanza of WW2 vintage tops she wants rescued, she gave me a top she doesn't care for. It was foundation pieced on newspaper. Dolly opened it up, and the very first visible newsprint had headlines about Hitler and other war happenings. It was a powerful moment of affirmation that I was doing what I needed to be doing.
Spiritual projects are good for the soul. I am glad I found this movement, and I will do more for it over time until the project is fulfilled.
