To be a bit cliché, this shoemaker is a professional Web Developer and her child is this blog, but it was past time to launch what I have of a new design. All the content is still here, everything else is a work in progress (kind of like most of my sewing projects)!
Have you ever done needle felting? The Mohawk Valley Quilt Club had a women give us a lesson on it at this month’s meeting. From my 45 min. introduction to it, it seems the basic premise is to take wool rovings and poke them with a very sharp, burred needle while shaping the fibers (sometimes against a block of sturdy foam) to eventually give you the shape you want (you can also poke them into fabric, like to decorate a sweater). The poking causes the wool to felt—that is, to stick the fibers to each other. Certain ladies at my table used some very colorful words to describe their opinion of it, but it was an interesting event, I think.
The muse stopped by for a cup of tea last night, which is surprising, based on the mood I was in (it was foul).
I worked on quilting the Tula leftover quilt until I ran through all three bobbins I had wound of the right color. And, I figured out what to do for the Flock Challenge. Then it was almost 1am, so I managed to pull myself away. Plus, I’d exhausted my Hulu queue.
So, tonight’s goal is to actually work on the challenge project.
But, first, I have to put in a 9-10 hour day at work.
Maybe after that, I’ll remember to come edit this with a photo of the apple I needle felted at the MVQC meeting last night. Interesting craft, though not one I think I’ll pick up any time soon.
またね! (My inner child thinks in simple Japanese on occasion. True story.)
Is it just me, or has March flown by? Although I had two projects on my WIP list from last summer that I wanted to finish up by now, I haven’t even touched them, and probably won’t any time soon. I do have a short list for the next week (month?) or two, though—so this is about my madness, not anything else, if you were hoping for me to wax poetic about basketball or something.
How do you keep your blocks organized when sewing together rows?
I’m working on a patchwork quilt of leftover fabric from Tula Does Up the Walls in Pah-ree—just a simple grid of 8″ squares and leftover kaleidoscope blocks. I can’t stand the idea of not chain piecing things like this… it’s so slow otherwise.
But, after going to all the work of organizing the blocks in a specific way, I don’t want them to get out of order.
This accidentally ended up in my feed a few days ago, sans images. Here’s the full post!
Did you ever hear about the Kiwi couple that named their daughter “Talulah Does The Hula In Hawaii” (or possibly ‘Tula…’)? I ask, not to vilify them, but to explain the title of this quilt. See, I’d heard about that well before I found out about Tula Pink, and every time I hear the name ‘Tula’, that other name comes to mind. So, an imitative name seemed perfect for this quilt (seeing as the focus fabrics are Tula’s Parisville prints). Thus, “Tula Does Up the Walls in Paris” where ‘Paris’ is pronounced en Français, of course, to get that nice “ee” sound at the end. Yes, yes, enough talk, more photos:
The Great Lakes Seaway Trail 1812 Quilt show was this weekend, and it seemed to be a resounding success. We went up today and enjoyed the quilts, the speaker, some of Sacket’s Harbor’s delicious food, and absolutely beautiful weather.
There were so many amazing quilts and talented quilters represented. I gave up voting in the viewer’s choice, because there were at least five quilts that I just couldn’t choose between. I hope they all end up in the selection that is traveling around the country in the next year so that more people will have a chance to see them.
I spent my National Sewing Day taking advantage of the lovely weather to do some much-needed leaf raking, then sat on the porch and made progress on my Tula quilt’s binding. I still haven’t photographed my underpinnings and gown (show is tomorrow), but here’s a few of my shoes.
After deciding against the American Duchess shoes, and Moof chewing my half-finished pink attempt, I still found myself in need of shoes for the show. Target no longer had the pink ones, so I couldn’t continue in that vein. I finally decided to go back to my original plan of gussying up a pair of black flats I purchased a few years ago and have practically worn out (I stopped wearing them a while ago, but never got around to throwing them out). Some of the wear will be hidden by the decoration anyway, so it’s a good compromise.
After making proper drawstring channels for my gown and sewing my petticoat straps on (they were pinned on TV), I decided that my outfit needs one more addition: a reticule. After all, I need a way to hide my very un-period keys and cell phone.
All that is left on my Tula quilt is hand-sewing the binding—I’ve been working on quilting it this week instead of fixing some of my Regency outfit shortcuts. Bad me. But, having something to hand sew on the trip up to Sacket’s Harbor sounded smart, so I decided to get the quilt to the point of needed the binding sewn on. Plus, our class wrapped up last week, with the goal of finishing the quilting this month before we start our next project.
It has its share of imperfections. I was a bit careless when trimming the applique down, and had to do a couple creative patches:
This morning, Lynette (Quilt Show Manager) and I appeared on the Bridge Street Show in Syracuse. I got a sneak peek at five of the quilts and am in awe of the talent and vision of the quilters (one has 5000 pieces in it, and the woman managed to finish it within 3 months!). I can’t wait to see the rest.
Shh, don’t tell anyone, but in the clip, my dress hems are seam-taped, my petticoat straps were pinned on, and my corset and chemise have lots of unfinished edges.
Now that I have the outfit complete, though (well, aside from the above-mentioned issues), I might actually have time to blog about the bits and pieces. I wasn’t very good about photographing as I made them, though, but I’ll try.
Before I do finish them, I need to clean up my sewing room a bit. It looks like a natural disaster hit. Totally messing up my chi.
Then it’ll be back to quilting! I have one that I want to finish by mid-April, if at all possible.