4-patch pincushion

two weeks ago i was browsing in Barnes & Nobel and I picked up BHG's American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, June 2006. I usually don't buy American quilt mags, but so many of the quilts in this one called to me. I doubt I'll make any of them, but I bought it so I could, should I ever have the chance.
This pincushion was displayed on the editior's picks page, made by Susan Gower. There were no instructions, only information on how to buy them from the artist directly, so I made my own version.


and the side view


I made it with scraps from my stash, and it's stuffed with scraps of batting (making it rather lumpy, but i couldn't be bothered to go get my polyfil out of the attic). I wanted to make this because a) i thought it was cute, the size & shape were appealing, and b) there are so many pretty fabrics in my scrap tub and I never seem to find the right project to use them. c) i hate going back to work on Monday and feeling like I wasted the weekend when I could have made something.

anyway, it was super quick, I'll need to keep it in mind for presents in the future.

A bit of truth

Gamelan block
Originally uploaded by littleshika.

Sometimes I realize that I'm not the experienced quilter I like to think I am. Take for example, my Gamelan block:

Yesterday my copy of Kerr & Ringle's Modern Quilt Workshop came in the mail. I have been intrigued by all the talk and quilts that have been made for the Modern Quilt Along, and even tempted to join myself. I poured over the book for hours yesterday, and really liked the Gamelan quilt. I have pieced curves by hand before on japanese-style pouches, and I didn't think this would be such a big deal. So I chose my fabrics, and gave it a go.

Yikes! What happened? Well first of all, i read the instructions, but didn't exactly follow them. (My dad liked to tease my mother about this when I was younger. He'd say, "Did you read the directions?" "Yes." Mom replied. "Did you follow them?" was his retort. Why is it that i'm turning into my mother more and more all the time?)

The book clearly says that you need bilaterally symmetrical fabrics. They even give examples of "not quite bilaterally symmetrical" prints. I think my fabric may have actually been bilaterally symmetrical, but as I was cutting my pieces I noticed that the bands of the pattern didn't always match up. so.. i guess the individual bands were bilaterally symmetric, but the whole piece of striped fabric wasn't? anyway.. as i was putting it together, i realized that piecing curves, as I originally thought, isn't my weak point. BUT, precision cutting and piecing are skills that still elude me. If you want to see what I mean, and can't already from the small flickr photo, just view it in a larger size over at flickr, and share in my dissapointment.

Almost as good as going there myself

When I got back to work yesterday, Chris started showing me all the goodies he brought back from Japan.. 20+ pens, a new pencase, a doraemon stamp + ink pad, rolls of tape that had cute pictures and the letters of the Japanese alphabet (hiragana), his drawer was almost full of fun cute stuff. and then he said those words I love to hear, "this is for you."

yay!

Today Makiba brought for me one of the two things I had asked for... the latest edition of Quilts Japan. Sugoi deshou~

she had cute notepads for me too.. (the one on the left is from Chris, the other two are from Makiba).

I was so anxious to post about it that I couldn't wait for good lighting, or even be bothered to iron the background fabric! wee! Omiyage like these are almost as good as if I had been there myself. I loved Makiba & Chris before, but I adore them now, hehe.

(incase you're wondering, the other thing I asked for was a pair of house slippers, but she couldn't find any...)

instant gratification

All of this playing with fabric for the past 2 weeks has lead to much over-stimulation, and the need for some instant gratification, which has come in the form of Marble Magnets:

Some are from fabric, some from the most recent Paper Source catalog, and a few are from the index print that came with my latest Shutterfly order. Most will go in a birthday package to someone who doesn't read this blog (i don't think), but who loves giraffes. I think she's turning 25 on Wednesday.

In other news, my lemon tart was a hit at the Pascha party. Overall it was fun, but we ate too much. I didn't count any points yesterday ;)

and thanks to this post
here by A Bird in the Hand, I have discovered Jen Corace's work, and absolutly love it. Hmm, I just realized that this could be done as a trackback, but i have no idea how to do that... must investigate.

I had to take my car to the shop today and I didn't have any small projects ready to quilt while I waited, so I grabbed Ming-Dao Deng's 365 Tao off my bookshelf. I hadn't read it in years, but flipping through the entries for the last few days was really eye-opening for me. For example, yesterday's theme was "acceptance." Man, I wish I would have known that yesterday..

lemon tart

Yum.
I don't usually count "cooking" as one of my hobbies, but I do enjoy trying out a new recipe. This one came from the Weight Watchers cookbook great cooking everyday, ISBN 0-02-863530-2. I just started WW again last week, and it feels good to be paying more attention to food again. I like this cookbook because it gives the points for each serving (6 for 1/8th of the lemon tart, incase you were wondering..), and has a lot of recipies for dishes that seem complicated, but actually aren't that hard at all.

Tomorrow we're invited to Voula's house for Pascha (Greek Easter), and I wanted to bring something pretty, but that wouldn't cause me to blow my diet. The tart in the picture is only the trial run. After it sets I'll split it three ways= a taste for me & C, and taste for each of my two neighbors that are also doing WW. Then after I finish this post, it's back to Shaws to buy more lemons and I'll make another tonight before we go to church at 11.

The recipe can be found on my flickr page:

here

just click the button on the top to view it in the largest size.

Knitting vs. Quilting

how come it seems like there are more young knitters than young quilters? probably because there are, but anyway.

if i were a knitter, there would be tons of ways to get involved, meetings to go to, friends to make.. and i've tried to go undercover, pretend i want to knit, and attend functions just to meet people. they can tell i'm not one of them though.
i went a few times to the SNBProv meeting at a yarn shop in pawtucket. they were nice, fun people. they even let me quilt with them while they knitted. but it wasn't working. (and they stopped meeting on the night i had free). i remember going to a KnitWits meeting at Smith too, feighning interest but deep down wishing i could play with fabric instead.

today i went into Baker Books in N. Dartmouth, to see if they had Modern Quilt Workshop (they didn't), and there on the bulletin was a blurb about Knit Lit, the Baker Books knitting group. and just my luck, they meet tonight. 7 pm.

I wandered around the store a bit, mulling the idea over.. could I stay? should i stay? i didn't have any other plans for tonight. I'm sure i'd meet somebody I'd find interesting. Maybe make a friend to hang out with in the area.. But as I got into my car and drove off, I thought, I don't want to knit. I quilt. And I don't need a new hobby, just to make friends. Hell, that's why i started taking Greek classes and joined Weight Watchers. I do want crafty friends, but it would be so much more worth the effort and time if we liked the same crafts. Where are the Japanese-mag-influenced-DSQ-loving-young-hip-quilters on the south coast of Massachusetts? I'm here if you ever want to hang out~

I think I'll just wait til next month and try my luck at the closest quilt guild. They meet on the first Thursday of the month, at a school about 25 minutes north of here. The first (and last) time I went, last November, I felt a little overwhelmed and out of place. There were 60+ women there, they claim to have 100+ members. No one looked under 40 (i didn't look that closely), and most looked like they could be farmers' wives. Now, i have nothing against wives of farmers, or against quilters that are older than me. Actually, my two closest quilting friends/mentors are 50 and 65(?). I'll give it a shot though. I'm sure I'll get along with somebody eventually. I know it takes time for friendships to form (even in this lighting-fast world online), but that fact doesn't do much to console me when I'm feeling creative and alone.

I can't believe I'm so desparate I almost took up knitting...

The Wonderquilt: my current obsession and dilemma

"The Wonderquilt" is a project i started in January 2004, after coming home from a quilt guild meeting where Charlotta displayed her "orange quilt," which i can't really remember in detail at the moment, but at the time i was struck by it, by her, and completely inspired to make the quilt that would show who i was as a woman and a quilter. Man, to look back on it, it was pretty ambitious. After all, I was only 24 years old. But quilting was my #1 hobby, and I had a stash of fabrics that kept growing and a husband that was growing more impatient that I kept buying fabric and never made anything. Sure, i made a bunch of things, but most were little projects out of Japanese quilt magazines, and nearly all of them seemed quilt related (a pincushion, a sewing kit, a bag to hold my current projects in..).

I wanted to stick with a certain color pallet, and at the time I was very fond of the combination used here:

(notice, this coaster is still unfinished..)

So I rooted through my stash and pulled out all my blues, greens, beiges, browns, tans, creams, and a few pinks and yellows. then i washed them all, and ironed them all (well, i found one crumpled green this week in a rubbermaid bin and just ironed it today), and started about cutting up fabrics and piecing some blocks. I knew i wanted to make a sampler because there were tons of blocks i wanted to try, and i had been quite inspired by this issue of Quilts Japan , the quilt on the cover in particular.

here it is again, sorry the picture isn't better:

Anyway, so what I had planned to make, was from the start, a mess. But i poured myself into it for a good.. 6 weeks (did you notice I'm a sagittarius?), preparing 10+ applique blocks (two large, two medium, many more small), and playing around with some pieced blocks. When i set it aside, it was for a good reason; Nikos and Iota let us know when they were planning to have the baptism for Zoitsa, and as Costas would be the godfather, we planned our trip to Greece accordingly. Once the trip was planned, I set about making a baby quilt for her as our present. (you can see pics on my flickr page) That project had a deadline, and became my new obsession; the Wonderquilt was all but forgotten.

then we moved.

I pulled everything out again about this time last year, and went about it with new determination; appliqueing and piecing wholeheartedly. C and I had decided to try to start a family, and I felt this urge to try to finish the WQ before I had kids. (a completely unrealistic goal, I realize now, with hindsight). I finished the Hawaiian applique block, and thought that might make a good centerpiece, so i worked it all out on EQ5. Once I had it mapped out I felt accomplished that I had a plan, and overwhelmed, because the border I chose would require 48+ string-pieced 6" squares. Luckily, my dear friend and mentor Helen called from Atlanta and told me about a floral themed quilt show she was helping to organize for her town. Would I have something to submit by the middle of June? My interest in Hawaiian applique had been renewed (both by the one block for the WQ, and by my co-worker's asking me to teach her how to do them..), so I pulled a blue & white wall hanging from my UFO pile and got to work. (there's also a pic of this one before I finished it, on flickr). Again, a project with a deadline caused me to push the Wonderquilt away for a while..

After finishing the Hawaiian wall hanging, I had had enough quilting and needed to take a break for a while. Then we moved again.

Last month C went to Greece for 10 days, for spring break. That's when I took the time to unpack my sewing stuff, and started spending too much time on the internet again. I found flickr. I found a world of crafty blogs. I committed to "use what I have" for the month of April. And what better way to use what I have than to work on a bunch of old projects?

So I went at it again. Unfortunately I've lost a few blocks in the move (they must be in a box somewhere), including a very nice large strawberry leaves applique in blue and white. But I have been sewing like crazy during my spring break (I go back to work on Monday, after 2 weeks off, how lovely), and a lot has gotten accomplished. for one, i completely re-did the layout on EQ5. I tackled another corner of string-pieced blocks, and made some heavy decisions about fabric choices. I made myself a deadline= to have the whole thing pieced and basted before July 4th, when C comes home from his 5 week trip to Greece. At the rate I was working, that seemed completely reasonable. two days ago i felt confident. this is what it looked like:

Then yesterday and today I'm getting antsy. There just seems like so much more to do, and my creative interests are being pulled in so many other directions. like the DS Quiltalong, and the Modern Quiltalong... I feel the pull to get involved in something, to meet people, to make new friends. If i continue working on the WQ I won't have anything to show anyone for a long time it seems. then no body will comment, and no dialogs will get started.

So I'm torn. Push it aside again? What would you do?

finding a new home

i've had my online journal at livejournal for 5 years. i won't even call it a "blog" because (1) i find this to be a silly word that have trouble using, and (2) it has always been my "lj." I started it right before i left college, and a bunch of other women in our house got ljs then too. through the years we've been able to keep in touch even though ALL OF US had scattered around the globe, and moved multiple times since then. eventually, a lot of my family members got ljs too, and keeping in touch with them online has been so important to me.

why am i writing this?
well, recently i have found a lot of new crafty people through flickr.com, and all of their pictures have links to their blogs. these blogs are totally different than lj... people write totally different stuff, in a totally different style. and their pictures, blogs, and handmade everything truly inspire me. so i want to try it too.

thanks for stopping by.