Tuffet Class Day 1

 The first day of tuffet class was devoted to making the eight pattern pieces and marking them with the sewing lines. I only managed to finih sewing one of the sections together in the class, but luckily that was our homework to finish before the next class session.

 The teacher of the class, Robin Koenig from West Coast Tuffets was so enthusiastic about making tuffets and teaching people how to do it themselves, which made her such a great teacher. She was so well-prepared and organized that it made all the technical stuff go very smoothly. Above are all the marked sections and the one foundation-pieced section I completed in class.

 So once I got home to sew together the rest of the sections, I had to plan carefully which fabric was going where, so that when all the sections were joined together there wouldn't be two orange fabrics next to each other, etc.

 I rearranged strip orders several times until I found the arrangement that I liked the  best, taking a photo so I'd remember the order of the strips once it was time to sew them onto the foundations.

 One by one, the sections were completed.

 I tried really hard not to do the colors in the same order every time.

 And then there were three.

 It really was a great variety of batiks in those jellyrolls.

 Half-way there.

 It's just fun to see them all appear one by one.

 The technique for doing the foundation sewing and trimming, etc. got easier with each one completed. But I still had some un-sewing to do a few times.

 The end is in sight, and now I'm wishing I'd gone with the wider strips as I'd have been done ages ago. Instead of eight strips per section, it's only four.

 So close!

Pshew, all eight of the sections done! Next up, assembly time...

Preparing for Tuffet Class

When the opportunity to take a tuffet making class came up, I jumped at the chance. I'd always loved the idea of tuffets and always wanted one of my own (and I love the word.) I think it all goes back to this illustration. When you're a little kid just learning to read, this particular nursery rhyme has a lot of words that don't make a lot of sense and need explanation from adults. I remember having a long discussion with my grandmother about tuffets, because the much older version of the Mother Goose rhymes she had at her house showed Miss Muffet sitting on a rock. Go here and see which one you recall from your childhood.

Anyway! Friend Jaye and I had seen a cool tuffet at a quilt shop in Arizona and then several on display at PIQF, so it was on our minds. So, when the LQS near her, Scruffy Quilts offered a two-day class we signed up.

There was an immediate decision to make to prep for the class, choosing which width of strip to use, 3" or 2. I chose the smaller one, which meant I got more variety in my tuffet but a lot more work.

 I bought a couple of jellyrolls of rainbow batik strips to have a head-start. It was fun to play around with the colors and see what was going to maybe look good in a tuffet. I discovered there weren't enough greens, so I cut some from my stash to add in to the mix.

I considered doing it all in red or another color, but decided rainbow would work better and look best in my studio. Because my plan was that this was going to be for putting my feet up when I'm hand-stitching something.

Something From Nothing

 My studio motto is now officially: Make Something from Nothing.
Still working on the same piece from the previous machine needle-felting post. I am now past the point where I'm using the tulle net to hold all the zillions of little pieces down. I'm adding one piece at a time and going over the whole surface to make sure all the bits are as secured as possible.

 Here's how the whole thing looks so far. It has a lot of dimension still, which is what I want, so that's good. I don't want the whole surface to be completely flat. You can see some sections have been more felted than others where the colors are more mixed and the separate pieces are less distinct.

 A lot more has been added to cover up the batting that's showing through, so I'll take more pictures as soon as I'm done with the needle-felting. And then there will definitely be some stitching added on top of the whole thing. I'm picturing a scenario where cutting the whole thing up into pieces and adding it to another piece will make sense.

Bombino!

My husband and I got to see Bombino in Santa Cruz recently. He's an amazing musician from Niger and I've been enjoying his music for a couple years. Even though I don't speak the languages he sings in, the emotions come through in his performance. The band had the whole crowd dancing with joy to the irresistible rhythms.

 The super-cool drum (with duct-tape).

He had a very joyful, calm stage presence and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole concert.
Here's an in-studio video of a song off of his most recent album:

Marvelous Midi

 Here's a really fun bag that I made recently. I took a class at Scruffy Quilts with friend Jaye to find out how to make it. It's the Midi Bag (affiliate link to Amazon) which is the smaller version of the Mondo Bag by QuiltSmart.

 I loved working on the QuiltSmart printed interfacing, what a great product idea. It gave nice body to the bag, but not stiffness, and was very easy to use and sew on.

 I will be honest though, I could not have figured out the pattern without the class. This was a 3-D kind of assembly that's very clever and that I needed to have demoed in front of me to get the hang of it.

I'm really happy with the fun fabric choice I went with, I chose a Neco jellyroll by Momo for Moda fabrics. I did some fussy cutting to make sure I had the parakeet's eye and the whole hedgehog or cat.

First Try at EPP

 I have been bitten by the EPP (English Paper Piecing) bug that's been going around lately. I got this freebie starter-kit when I was at the Modern Quilt Guild QuiltCon and it was sitting there taunting me. It had these cute little squares of fabrics and precut paper shapes. It looked easy, but I kept putting it off.

But then I kept seeing pictures of the La Passacaglia quilt that were calling to me. There was a good deal with the templates and papers on MassDrop that was expiring, so I gave myself a deadline. If I didn't finish this little teeny project, then I couldn't order the big package of papers and templates to make this very complicated EPP quilt. For the main reason that I have never ever even tried EPP.

So the night the deal was expiring, I sat down and did it, in like an hour. And to my total surprise, instead of being frustrated with fiddliness, I found it oddly relaxing. I get why people are into EPP now. And I can see myself doing an EPP project like the La Passacaglia. Oh let's be honest here: Long Term Project.

Santa Cruz FabMo

 I finally was able to get involved in some of the Santa Cruz Area FabMo happenings. First I helped assemble the give-aways for the Santa Cruz Mini-Maker Faire. The people that came to help were all super friendly and it was a small time commitment so I knew I could actually complete it. Plus we met in one of the new buildings that I've been curious about at the new Tannery Arts Center. It's a beautifully done live/work setup for local artists. They reused a lot of the Salz Tannery buildings and built all-new ones. We met in a communal room that had a dance floor and big windows overlooking the river. Just lovely.

It's so nice that they haul all this stuff over the hill for all the fiber folks here. There was a steady stream of very excited browsers pawing through all the stacks of fabrics. The big room at the Harvey West Park was perfect for this setup of tables.




































I couldn't resist this spaceship/blueprint/bandana cotton print, it's so cute. I think I might make napkins out of it.  And during my whole shift where I was working I kept rearranging and re-stacking the piles and these slick fabrics kept attracting my fingers. They were so different than everything else in the place. They're meant for outdoor use, so I'm going to make a pillow seat cover for our new deck bench.

Why did I choose these green/purple/brown velvets? A new living room pillow cover I think was the idea. Ours our wearing out and need replacing.

Colorful Kaffe

 I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Kaffe Fassett speak when he visited his exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textiles. I went with friend Jaye, and we got a chance to walk around the SOFA area and have coffee.




















The purple jacaranda (I think?) lining the streets were in bloom and just gorgeous against the blue sky.  I noticed an old Art Deco era movie theater had been converted over to a gym and took some pictures of the floor and ticket booth glass. Aren't those the loveliest, most luscious curves?

Kaffe was a great speaker, very charming and witty as you'd expect, and he was very inspiring of course. I loved seeing so many process pictures from him, the ones you don't normally see in his quilt books. There were a lot of travel photos too, which showed where he gets so much of inspiration for new fabric designs.  He talked a lot about inspiration and making a space to let it come in and dwell for a while, to let serendipity and oddments that attract your notice lead you to new places.  He encouraged us to stop the flow of negativity that's making you not believe in yourself.

He also had one great comment about white design walls and how they're like staring into a blinding snowstorm, and thus he uses a mid-grey one with a grid which is more neutral. Gosh that makes so much sense! When it's time to replace the white felt on mine, I'm definitely going for grey. I used to have a giant piece of grey polar fleece that I used as a background for quilt photography and that always worked so well. 

Several other artists' work from around the world were mentioned or shown in his slide show, one of which was an artist from Ghana, El Anatsui who makes amazing works out of bottles, wire, aluminum cans, and other found objects.

Two quotes that I wrote down during his talk that I'll leave you with: 

"Don't worry about how it looks on the back, you're not wearing it inside out."

"If you're worried about being "too creative" you're too grown-up"

Product Review: Steady Betty Bands

 I tried out a new product when I quilted my most recently made quilt, False Flag Sorbet. Usually I wear stretchy knit cotton garden gloves that have little rubber nubbins to help me get a good grip on the quilt sandwich. Those have worked pretty well for me, but they are a pain because I frequently have to take them off to re-thread the machine or remove pins. They also get pretty hot when you're really zooming through the free-motion quilting.

So when I saw these Steady Betty Bands in my local quilt store they looked like they might be a good solution. Plus they weren't terribly expensive, I think they were $16. I'd also had a great previous experience using the Steady Betty Pressing Pad.  The Bands are made with the same foam-grippy fabric surface that the pressing pad is made with.

 They come in two sizes, S/M (which are 1.5" wide) and M/ L (which are 2" wide). I chose the M/L as i have hands that are definitely on the large side. They fit very well and are adjustable with the velcro. The velcro is very well placed too so that the scratchy bits don't rub your skin.

The bands sit right on your palms, exactly where most of the weight and tension of your grip on the quilting sandwich should be. The grippy surface works like a charm to hold the quilt top and you don't have to tense up your fingers as much to hold on and move the quilt smoothly. I think they grip and hold much better than the gardening gloves and I found my hands were much less tired and cramps after an hour of quilting. Having them on made it all feel more secure and I just used my fingertips to guide the fabric.

I found that I didn't have to remove them to re-thread the machine or remove pins as I quilted which was great. And my hands didn't get hot because not much of your hand is covered when you're using them.

Two thumbs up from me, I'd definitely recommend these if you do much quilting.

Studio Cat on the Job

Spike takes his role as Studio Cat very very seriously. He's our one and only cat at the moment so he has the luxury to spread out and relax as much as possible.
This is why I have a pet-hair sticky roller in the studio.

Needle Felting Ho!

So I finally gave in and got myself a Janome Needle Felting Machine, the FM 275 model, and it's such a blast to use! I've done some small stuff with it and have already managed to break one of the 5 needles. At least I noticed and found the sharp point to toss safely instead of ending up with it in my foot or something...
It's really easy to use, and it's rather noisy, so it ends up being hypnotic in a way. You get in a groove and it's fun to do something kind of mildly violent yet controlled. I put on a podcast on my speakers and turn it up really loud to be able to hear it over the machine.

I've been using up the many bins of teeny fabric scraps and these small little pieces of fabric are kind of hard to corral. (or maybe it's just that I'm new to it!) They end up getting pierced up onto the needle. So my solution is to put a piece of tulle net over the top to hold it all down. The tulle doesn't get incorporated into the piece. It gets shredded up eventually. But it definitely helps.

This is the ultimate in "something from nothing" which has always been my focus.

As Seen on the Street

 Ok, I lied, one last post from my visit to the SJMQT, but this time, outside!  How about this yarn-bombing (as seen in front of my car)?

And then there was this hilarious sign plastered on the light pole also in front of the museum. This was on the day of Trump's visit to San Jose, the streets were being closed in preparation and we all know how that turned out :(
**Warning for politics ahead:  In case you don't get the joke on the sign, John Miller is one of the pseudonyms that Trump would sometimes adopt when calling reporters back in the 80's and 90's. He would talk to reporters about himself as if he was a PR person named John Miller. And he testified to this fact in a court case, but now claims to not remember anything about it... And the 'Who is John Miller?' is a play on the catchphrase of 'Who is John Galt?' from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." So kudos to you, unknown sign-maker.

Happy 4th of July!
Another year down in the history books for the American Experiment. Wonder how many more we'll have?

Vintage Yet Modern

 Okay, one last post about the SJMQT exhibit. Some random shots and closeups of details that I really enjoyed on the vintage quilts. The colors on this one block were great, the mourning purple vs. the red and the patterns of the fabric, so modern, right? But look at that nice binding treatment on the edge, and that teeny tiny crossed appliqué stitch.

 These two borders on the enormous hexagon quilt, so simple but wow do they pack a graphic punch even in those softer vintage prints.

 The graphic-ness of these fabric choices in this star block are really great. Again, very modern look to the block because of the colors.

 I've always loved the kaleidoscope block, never made one, but it's on my "someday" list. I love how all the red centers pull the whole thing together.

Another quilt that could easily be a modern one. For a quilt with so many stripes and red and contrast, I find this one very soothing for some reason. I think it's the rhythm that's achieved with the sizing of the columns..

Finally, here's a quilt made of rectangles of suit-weight wools, and tied with enormous knots. The texture of those knots doesn't come across too well in this photo, but it was very eye-catching. I enjoy the dark colors and imperfect piecing of this utilitarian but still beautiful quilt.

Stripes and Points

 I guess I took a lot of pictures at the vintage quilts at the SJMQT exhibit. But I'm sharing them here so I can remember them myself and why! And also in hopes that you might enjoy seeing them as well.  I have to say that it was really inspiring seeing these gorgeous pieces alongside Kaffe Fasset's wonderful work.

One of the most amazing things in the whole place was this beautiful quilt. First of all, the design is wonderful, the stripes and points and then the restful cream rectangles and squares.

But...can you guess what it's made with? Ribbon. The entire thing is ribbon. I believe it was all silk ribbon.

 All sorts of ribbon seamed together and arranged ever so artfully.

 Such a huge variety of ribbon all in one place.

 The center rectangle from far away just looked like a big piece of cream fabric, but no...it's all ribbon. And maybe there's some staining or dye migration but it makes it even more beautiful to me. I love it that someone had this thought so long ago of putting together all these scraps and making such a unique piece of art. It must have felt amazing to work with, all that silk, yum.

Maker's Hand

In the current SJMQT exhibit of vintage quilts along with Kaffe Fasett's companion pieces, there was this wonderful appliqué quilt. 

It was so quirky compared to all the other perfect appliqué quilts you usually see displayed. I don't always respond to those all that well, not being a big appliqué' fan myself. Nothing wrong with them, just not usually my thing. But I loved all the imperfect animal shapes like this carrot (or yam maybe?) beastie. Never did decide what animal it was actually "supposed" to be.

 Isn't this almost-a-Dresden plate flower great? I love the overlapping curvy shapes that makes the flower look more dimensional. This picture shows the fine edge embroidery stitch too.

The framing fabrics were really beautiful and complex East Indian prints that set off the simple appliqué shapes very well. I called this one "The Most Amazing Cow" block. The hovering diamonds just remind me of exclamation points somehow.a

Once I started thinking about it, seeing an imperfectly executed vintage quilt on display in the museum was rather extraordinary. I think we have gotten so used to the technical perfection and excellence, even of the vintage works that are normally chosen for exhibition. You could see "the maker's hand" in this exuberant quilt which is something that I feel is missing a lot of the time.