Latest Projects

From the Ellicott City Sew-Vac Sew Fair in November, I learned to make fabric bowls using the stiff and tough kind of interfacing.  The lady demonstrating these showed how you can use machine quilting to make the texture more interesting.  I thought it would be a good way for me to practice machine quilting.  They say if you practice machine quilting for even just ten minutes a day for six months you will acquire the desired control and skill.  Or begin to.

Here are some projects.  I did though I only quilted one and didn't get pictures of it after having quilted it.  Forgot.

It was fun piecing this together inside the bowl, cutting strips of different widths, fitting them together, finger pressing seams down before sewing, working the fabric, establishing rapport with it as I made it curve up and down the sides yet link to it's mates.  One of the fabric artists at the Sew Fair called this making the fabric "mind" like making children mind.  That was cute and we all laughed.  But I prefer to think of it in the win win model of establishing rapport.  More Zen-like for me.

So the basket above got quilted in the pebbles style but I forgot to take pictures and gave it to a friend, filled with examples of my first two batches of homemade soap each individually wrapped up with rustic brown bags and tied off with either twine or vintage fabric ribbons I'd bought at thrift stores over the last couple of years during my travels.

And the baskets below I haven't quilted yet.  This blue one in the picture below needs to be reworked before I quilt it.  The small circle on the bottom is a little off center.  I plan to pull those threads and re-attach it, then quilt it with the machine using wavy, swirly lines inspired by the fabric on the outside.

And this bowl, below, was the first one I did and actually probably turned out the best.  I liked it as it was and was afraid to ruin it by quilting it.  I didn't trust my beginner skills and this is ironic but probably not that uncommon among other budding artists, or any other new endeavors.  How do you learn if you don't try?  And the whole reason I started working on these fabric bowls was just that it would give me fun, small projects where I could practice machine quilting rather than just doing pieces of scraps in a quilt sandwich.

 This one I'm leaving in my friend's condo in Ocean City, MD.  I am putting some of my homemade soaps in it for her as well.  Over the next few years I hope to make more of these bowls and more different kinds of soaps.  They will all make nice gifts.  I have to stop worrying about whether people will like them, whether the soaps will just get thrown away unused and whether the bowls will end up in the trash or at a thrift shop.  I see so many homemade items in thrift shops.  Most deserve being there.  I keep telling myself not to worry.  My stuff may end up there too but I'm still on my journey of creation.  I am evolving.  My work is evolving.  What do I care what happens to the steps along the way? It's OK if they fall away after I've moved on.

Sew Fair

Three days of lectures and demonstrations at the Ellicott City Sew-Vac - that's a lot of education, a lot of exposure to techniques, machines and materials. Here's some pictures of the event, some of the finished creations and some of fabric artists.

I sat beside a lady, Lori, or Lauri, I'm not sure which, who taught me a lot just in her whispered comments during the presentations and explanations during the breaks.  She has seven machines but that includes a couple of vintage ones.  It seems most fabric artists have at least a couple of vintage machines.  I did too, when I had a house.  But then, I didn't have the time that I do now, to go exploring  in fabrics.  I wish Lori and I had exchanged contact information.  I think she could use a friend.  She lost her only child, a grown son, around this time last year.  She is having a tough time.  She asked me for a hug as she dropped tears when the story came out to me and a lady in her late 70's.  I was honored to be asked and delivered that hug with the warmth and empathy that I had in me, having experienced some losses of loved ones in the last few years.

But as our other conversational companion, the 70-some year old lady, commented, losing a child is the worst thing and thankfully I've not been through that hell.  She lost her husband a few years back and had a friend who'd lost both husband and child.  Losing a child is worse, she told her friend.  We all agreed there could be nothing worse.

Lori said she is pretty much a hermit except for work.  She owns an Indian motorcycle and occasionally rides with a group but hasn't ridden much in the last year.  I don't have my motorcycle anymore.  I gave my big Harley cruiser to my son and am living in an RV and travel the country, so that is part of why I didn't take the extra step to make contact with Lori.  Still, I come back to this area a lot. It is home to me.  We have kids here.  I should have reached out more permanently.

It was a good three days of education and exposure to the subculture of fabriholics.   

Taking Lessons

It's time for me to increase my skills in ways besides looking at You Tube and reading fabric arts books.  I bought my Baby Lock Tempo from the Ellicott City Sew-Vac and they have lessons on site.  I signed up after taking my machine in to get cleaned and serviced and to ask questions about why I was having troubles with the canvas and thread to make backpacks for a friend's church charity effort (sending school bags to children in Africa).  I learned so much just from the five minute discussion with the staff that I was convinced I needed to participate in some of their training events.  I'd looked on line trying to figure out why I was having trouble but didn't find the correct answer.  I spent more time researching this on line then the time it took me to drive to the Sew-Vac and talk to them.

So I signed up for the machine quilting beginner and intermediate sessions, each about two hours of time.

Here are my practice sessions.  The little circles are the "pebbles" and was taught in our first session. The swirling things are "Wonder Woman's Hair" but is called McTavishing.  Karen McTavish created this and it's now named after her but she called it Wonder Woman's Hair, from what our instructor said.  He said she reportedly got bored with the stippling, AKA the "wandering around" pattern.  I could see why someone would get bored with that.  I don't particularly care for it.  It seems to have no imagination.  Maybe it's just because I see it too much, and see it on quilts where there is little evidence of creativity, just following someone elses pattern as if they have no ideas of their own.

So below is more of my playing around with the McTavishing, which I think was better named Wonder Woman's Hair.

 Below is more fabric doodling from the other side of my quilted block. .

 I got bored with the McTavishing/Wonder Woman Hair and started making a sun burst but the instructor came by and apparently thought I was having trouble understanding what McTavishing looked like and how to do it.  He politely asked me if he could sit at my machine and demonstrate.  They he began patient reteaching me how to McTavish.

I get it that I need to work on my skills.  But I don't want to stay on topic for too long because I fear becoming one of those quilters who only does what they are told, who follow the rules, who don't think of quilting as art.  Or maybe they do but they like what we think of as "Annapolis Art" which to us is paintings of sailboats and beach scenes.  Not that those aren't nice.  They're real nice.  But I like what we think of as "Baltimore Art"  Edgy.  Creative.  Pushing the boundaries, breaking out across the borders.  Going rogue.

I bought machine quilting gloves.  Now I can channel Michael Jackson.  Ugh.  His musical talent evidenced genius but his predilection for little boys made me sick.  I can never get passed that.