The Eggs Came First: Rubber Stamping a Quilted Chicken "Thank You"

A weird thing I've discovered living just ten miles from downtown LA is that loads of people keep backyard chickens! If you drive through some neighborhoods early in the morning, you can hear the cock-a-doodle doo's! 

The urban farmers include one of my DH's colleagues; he and his wife regularly gift us with a dozen beautiful eggs, in assorted sizes and colors. I truly never knew a plain old unseasoned egg could taste so good. 

This is my thank you gift to them. The message is one they included in a note that came with one of their kind deliveries. They adapted it from milk commercials. It reads, "Happy Chickens Lay Great Eggs." 

I rubber stamped the words onto vintage bias ribbon. Rubber stamping is incredibly easy to mess up, so it's a good idea to stamp out duplicates, just in case. Here's how they looked right after stamping. 

 

Both versions came out okay, except "chickens" in the third strip down has a shadowed "I", so I didn't use that one. To prevent ravelling at the ribbon ends, I dripped a bit of 'Fray Check' on each. Once it dried, I hand-sewed them in position with thin thread and a running stitch.

I also did a little hand-quilting with perle cotton, wending my way through the raw eggs (above) and the fried ones (below).

The chickadee on the right is from a vintage border fabric that I suspect is from the 1960s or 70s.

I used the ink pad below, "Crafter's Acid-Free Pigment Option Pad," by Color Box. In theory, after heat setting, it should be permanent. 

I've had the pad for  years; and I keep it stored in a sealed plastic bag - so most of the colors still stamp out quite well. (Can you buy the same thing today? I searched but couldn't find this particular configuration online - but I did find very similar pigment stamp pads from Color Box, one of them with the eight colors arranged like a flower.)

For the letters, I used these tiny, quarter-inch, adorable stamps. 

(I accidentally stamped the wrong end of the "E" into the pad, and it may never recover.) The brand is Studio G, and they still make these! 

The green chicken is from a fabulous African fabric gifted to me by my friend Alexandria (Thank you!) The back of the piece shows what it looked like before I surrounded it with eggs! 

So which came first, the chicken or the eggs? In life, the eggs came to us first, but in this wallhanging, I started with the chicken in the center, so I'd say the question is still up in the air!

Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 29 - 33: Flamingos and Hashtags and Adverbs, Oh My!

Day 29: Flamingo Carrom 

This was made in the early 2000's, when my kids, my fabric stash, and I were so young! Also, I was obsessed with Marilyn Doheney's wedge rulers. Despite the frenetic color, and, lordy, the gold lame in the center (what was I thinking?)....

...I still sort of love it. Flamingos and zebras and tigers, oh my! 

Day 30: Frankenquilt! 

The previous project left me a bunch of extra wedges, which I stuffed into my UFO cabinet. About 15 years later, I pulled them out and made the central circle and inner border of this quilt: 

 

The outer borders were more recent experiments in modern hashtag blocks.

I tried to come up with different ways to make hashtags.

This time, I had the sense not to put gold lame in the middle. Just a  nice soothing solid yellow. 

Read more about this quilt in my blog post here.

Day 31: New York State of Mind 

This was my first cityscape quilt, made in 2018, and it happened completely by accident. I was trying to make improv modern ladders. When I offset the tops, skyscrapers appeared! 

I used my trusty Doheney wedge ruler to make the top portion.  The circles and triangles over the wedges create something that looks like a group of diverse people. All happy accidents! The quilting was then inspired by NYC's iconic Chrysler Building. 

More photos in this blog post. The intentional city quilts that followed this quilt are blogged here.

Day 32: "The Road to Hell is Paved with Adverbs"

The quotation is from writer Stephen King, and it's so true! In researching this quilt, I plowed through (adverb) an exhausting yet non-comprehensive list of 3732 adverbs.  

I rubber stamped the adverbs I abuse most, onto pieces of fabric, before piecing and appliqueing everything together.  A closer look is in my earlier blog post, here. 

DAY #33: Seven Sisters Potential Wedding Canopy (Chuppah)

This quilt was made in the '90s, using the technique in the book "Magic Stack and Whack Quilts" by Bethany Reynolds, which was was all the rage - for good reason! Start with large scale print; stack layers, matching printed motifs precisely.

Then rotary cut diamonds - you wind up with multiple sets of 6 identical pieces. When you sew them together, they kaleidoscope, and non-quilting friends declare you a genius! You humbly say, "Aw, shucks," but you and your guild know the truth - even relative beginners can follow this book, have a blast with it, and come up with something spectacular.

The simple-looking bias tape border took MUCH longer (and more skill) than the center.

(There's a "Chai," the Hebrew word for "Life," quilted in gold thread in the corner, but it's hard to see.) I think this quilt would make an excellent, dignified wedding canopy, but no one has asked, so it's still a wedding virgin.

More porch show quilts coming soon!

Making Many Meaningful Moons

Did you see the blood moon last night? We couldn't see it from our house, but I caught up with this fabulous blog post with images from around the world. They cry out to be turned into quilts! (Write to the photographers for permission first, of course!)

It reminded of a wallhanging I made last year, which unwittingly prophesized the event:

I called this scrap project "Night Meeting," because of the two creatures at the bottom.

 Now I'm thinking of renaming it, Blood Moon! The orange moon was cut from a deliciously streaky orange-and-red batik fabric.

I used the same idea years before, for this matzoh cover. The four corner moons were cut from streaky batiks - purple, magenta, lavender, and orange - plus the central one, of course, from trompe l'oeil matzoh fabric (no financial affiliation).

 Detail:

Stamping is another way to make moody moons. These were stamped with fun foam, the thin foam that kids play with, cut into circles. By not refreshing the fabric paint with each consecutive stamping, you get an interesting gradation among the images. 

Thread painting is another way to go. Stitch heavily with metallic and holographic threads over an appliqued circle. (Pretend this is an orange moon instead of a blue/green batik sun. Close enough).

I am a huge fan of superstar quilter Carol Taylor, who has made both moon and eclipse-themed quilts, shown off on this page. Check out especially the quilt titled "Moonshadows" and "Eclipse #2."

Have you made meaningful moons?

Fiber Art Postcards Inspired by Tradition

Wishing you a healthy, happy, creative New Year! Jewish New Year, that is! Also known as Rosh Hashanah, it starts tonight.

This is the one time of the year that we dip apples in honey (Try it! You'll like it!). The challah bread is round for this occasion (like the year). We convey wishes to family and friends for a good year.

And one way we do this is with cards. A longstanding tradition, first in Europe, and then transplanted here, is to send pictorial Rosh Hashanah postcards to our loved ones. Here's one from Germany, dated 1908.

Here's one I found in my husband's family photo album, with a photograph  of unknown ancestors glued in the center: 

Here's an insanely great dozen more vintage cards. Warning: They're addictive and you can find plenty for sale on ebay. 

Several years back, I did a fabric postcard exchange with a Rosh Hashanah theme. Inspired by vintage postcards, I used rubber stamps for the lettering and lots of items cut from novelty fabric

First, Mr. Spock of blessed memory. I purchased the rubber stamp at a Star Trek convention in the 1990s. Sadly, this is my first Rosh Hashanah without Leonard Nimoy on Planet Earth.

I hope he's on an even better planet. He's about to blow the shofar (to the right of his head), the ram's horn whose intrusive blast shakes our deepest selves. The lettering reads "shanah tovah", a good new  year. On the left is a good luck hamsa hand; a metal hamsa charm is on the upper right. Spock's Vulcan salute is, of course, derived from Jewish tradition.

Like Leonard, Elvis Presley was technically Jewish. Really! Read this! And, like Leonard, Elvis was also a strong supporter of Jewish causes.

U.S. Presidents and Lady Liberty look worried about the future...Perhaps they were anticipating the 2016 Presidential election?

Two anonymous women convey best wishes for a year with more sewing and less cleaning:

The back: 

(I mailed it in an envelope so I didn't need room for an address). 

Fish is a traditional dish for Rosh Hashanah - this one was cut from an African fabric. (This tradition actually involves fish heads - or, if you don't have fish around, a nice juicy ram's head - oy vey!  Read all about Rosh Hashana food traditions here.)

Pure wackiness:

Also random, because mahjong is by now a Jewish (as well as Chinese) sport: 

Making and trading fabric postcards, for any occasion, is a blast! And very simple. And therapeutic. Here's a tutorial:

1. Cut a couple of pieces of stiff interfacing to postcard size, 4" x 6"  (Peltex, Peltex 72F, Inner Fuse, Fast-2-Fuse, in other words, stiff interfacing of any kind, ideally with fusible on both sides, but okay without.) 

You'll also need a couple of inches of paper-backed fusible web. 

2. Pick a background fabric for the featured side. Cut it to a little over 4" x 6".  Adhere it to one side of the stiff interfacing. Use fusible web if your interfacing doesn't have built-in fusible. Trim excess. Don't put fabric on the back yet.

3. Gather all the fabrics with images you want to include in the top. Cut them out from the fabric, with a half inch margin all the way around. Apply fusible web to the back of them, then cut out closely, and arrange them on the background fabric. 

4. Press, then stitch everything down. I often use invisible/clear nylon thread and a zig-zag stitch. 

5. Trim stray threads, especially from the back. Once everything is stitched to the front, turn to the back (the message side.)

6. Adhere a rectangle slightly larger than 4" x 6" to the back. It should be light-colored so writing will show.  Fuse it in place, and trim close around the edges. 

7. Zig zag all the way around the edges. For extra neatness, do a corded edging - my corded edging tutorial is at the bottom of this post.

 8. On the back (the message side), draw a vertical line 2/3rds of the way across toward the right. Write the address on one side, and your message on the other side of the line.  Take it to the post office to see how much postage they want you to pay (each post office is different!). Put a stamp on it and mail it to your loved ones. (Note: If it has 3D elements, like buttons or beads, you may have to send it in a padded envelope.) 

Rubber-Stamped Adverb Quilt for Better Blogging

Writing a quilt blog over the past three years has brought me so many non-monetary riches, including:

1. Quilty cyberfriends

2. Increased production. A lame finished quilt that I can photograph for my blog is better than a lame UFO* that I can't show anyone, crammed into my Scary Shelf.

3. Shorter prose. My first year of blog entries were long. Now they're relative semaphores. This may be due to increased practice, laziness, dementia, or all three.

While musing on #3 one day, I happened across a quotation by novelist Stephen King, whose scary books I can't read, but whose writing advice rocks:

"The road to hell," he said, "is paved with adverbs."

It struck such a chord that I decided to make it into a quilt:

So** TRUE! My spoken language is utterly full of words like utterly, completely, literally, practically, and the cliche of my adopted state, the California 'totally.' On my second and third blog edits, I've learned to slash 'em, not to mention the very's and deeply's.

In researching this quilt, I plowed through** an exhausting yet non-comprehensive list of 3732 adverbs, and used the ones I most hate to love (and vice versa), sometimes on related fabric.

 I scattered scissors, delete buttons, and backspace buttons.

The last adverb in the maze is "ultimately," on a background which appears to be burning. 

There's novelty fabric galore. The "All That" faces were from a  strange thrift shop shirt.

Now**, don't panic, like DH did when he saw this quilt. "What's wrong with adverbs?" he demanded defensively. "I use them all the time! Should I feel guilty**?"

No, honey, not exactly guilty, I said, understandingly soothingly. I'm just saying that basically, anyone's writing will vastly improve if they scrutinize each word closely to see whether they really need it. On a deadline, cut the adverbs first**.

As for the technicalities - the words are, of course, rubber-stamped. There were too many to embroider, or cut out and applique individually. Adverbs tend to be ridiculously long - "ridiculously" has 12 letters,  "understandably" has 14 and, although I love it, "unconditionally" has 15.  (Update: I'm also excited to report that "unenthusiastically" has 18.) Rubber stamping brings its own drama, with a personal 25% fail rate, so I always** prefer to** stamp the fabric pieces before the quilt top is assembled.  I used Staz-on ink for permanence.

I was torn about whether to add this little guy.

I finally put him on, on the upper right.

Let me reiterate that I don't actually believe that adverbs are Satan's spawn, and I doubt Stephen King does, either. While writing this blog entry, it occurred to me that adverbs are more like dandelions. A few are fun, but a ton are a nuisance. So the last thing I added was this dandelion, to the top panel.

I attributed the quotation along the bottom - it says "Quotation by Stephen King," followed by more favorites.

Which adverbs haunt you?  

*Unfinished Object
**Unusual adverb. Really. Which ones did I miss?