Hark! I Hear a Baby Boom! Be Prepared!

(Below, a brand-new human on a recently finished quilt. Eyes are covered to protect anonymity.) 

Is romance in the air? For whatever reason, in my world, babies are a-poppin! Fortunately, I am prepared! Here's my neonatal kit: An oversized shoebox full of maybe 200 4" squares, some of them sewn into 9-patch blocks.

Unpacked, below, you'll find stacks of squares, many tourniqueted with torn white fabric strips, and the category name scribbled in pencil on torn-paper labels, in handwriting so terrible (mine) that I can barely read them. 

In the photo above, the categories, starting on the top row left and going across, I discern piles of:

• Transportation; Ocean; Nature. 
• Middle row: Music; People; Creatures
• Bottom row: Science; Sports & Games; Food (that's garlic on top).

Not shown: Places; Black-and-White Prints; Rainbow Geometrics; Sky-Aerial Transportation-Flying Bugs (one category!) and the biggest pile of all, the sublimely descriptive "Stuff".

I periodically cut these squares from my novelty fabric stash, and then, when I hear rumors of a human emerging shortly, I sort the squares thematically into 9-patches, and organize those blocks into quilt tops. Here's the front the quilt upon which the baby above is laying.
  

Below is the back. 

The strips for the back didn't come from the shoebox; it came from a larger, more densely packed container (a pastel blue suitcase, circa 1965 -- no wheels!), which features scraps not only inside it, but also upon it, and surrounding it for a radius of several feet. 

(Especially when the cat tunnels into it, clawing out heaps to create a cave.)

(Below, the video evidence).

 

Next, a closer look at the back. It was wonderful to revisit scraps I hadn't seen in years. It was like greeting old friends! (I thoroughly washed this quilt after finishing it, to get out the kitty cooties.)

Below are some of the front's nine-patches. In the middle are science-related fabrics. 

Next, below, on the upper right are nine sky-themed fabrics (and you can see why bugs and transportation are part of the aeronautical category, along with UFO's and eagles.) 

(The hand is in a black-and-white border, and a "cats" nine-patch starts on bottom.)

Next, a meeting of two different nine-patches: Random Creatures on top, Places on bottom (the latter includes houses, a carnival, a map of Southeast Asia, and a Manhattan subway map). Black-and-white border squares are on the right. 

This one's People, real (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and imagined.

Below is the Food unit (lower right). Stuff squares are above it (pencils, erasers, computers, stamps, crayons, cellphones, laundry.) 

And this is the cat block. On bottom is more Stuff, including....

...directly above, a Featherweight sewing machine! Was I happy when I found that fabric!

This "random animals" nine-patch has one of my favorite fabrics, anteaters on pink.  Also note Elvis, top row center.

And sew forth! Keep in mind that it took me 30 years of minimal-impulse control to accrue this encyclopedic collection. 

If you're hanging around people capable of surprising themselves and you with a baby, you might want to get a head start now by cutting squares. I promise you'll have a lot of fun, laugh, and best of all, you will, as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared! 

For more photos of my baby quilts, click on the term in the word cloud on the right. I hope you will consider signing up for my occasional newsletter, at http://eepurl.com/idjomb

My First Tumbler Quilt! (Not Tumbling Blocks)

First, in case you are as confused as I was, a "Tumbler" quilt is  completely different from a "Tumbling Blocks" quilt! 

"Tumbling Blocks" are made from 60 degree triangles and diamonds, and wind up with a 3D effect. They're great fun to look at, but technically can be a bear to make. I don't even remember how I pulled off the blocks below, from a Tokyo-themed quilt I made in the 90s, called "Sushi in the Sky with Diamonds." 

I must have had a much higher tolerance for mitering in those days. On that same quilt, I also threw on some hollow tumbling blocks, carrying little passengers cut from Japanese fabric. 

But in three decades of quilting I never made a much easier-looking "Tumbler" quilt, whose patches are shaped like - guess what kind of glassware? 

Until now! Here it is. Made as part of my emergency response to the massive baby tsunami happening among my family and friends since the Covid era began.

What made this quilt possible was a wonderful craft thrift shop, Remainders, in Pasadena, California, which has every kind of fiber art notion from the past 50 years. Remainders sells them at such reasonable prices that if I don't like it, I just donate it back to them to sell again! It's like a lending library of sewing stuff!

Specifically, I found this:

It's Marti Michell's "One-derful One-Patch Templates" They're $23 new at Joanns, but half that price at other retailers (which makes the price only a few dollars more than I paid at Remainders.) 

You may ask, "Why would I need to buy a Tumbler template when I can perfectly well cut a tumbler shape out of a Cheerios Box?" And I asked myself the same question. Then I tried it, and my newly-educated answer is, "This template rocks!" 

First, it's thick acrylic, so unlike a cereal box, you won't trim it with each piece you cut. Second and more mysteriously compelling: The template has these two little jogs in the lower outer corners, on the wider end. Look closely at that bottom right edge in the photo above - the template is not quite straight there. 

When you cut the shape with these slight extra angles, they piece together much more cleanly than if they didn't have the extra angles. If you understand why, please explain it to me!

UPDATE! Several alert readers have explained it to me - Tumblers have strange little dog ears. Reader mary greene (who doesn't capitalize her name) sent me to this tutorial by Nancy Zieman. If you scroll down to the section titled "Construction," the third photo below that subtitle, you see the tiny dog ear on the bottom right that's created if you don't have a shaped template. Because Michell's template has you trim that first, the pieces' alignment is less confusing! By the way, mary has a hilarious blog, where her favorite post is "Two Dog Shirts for 50 Cents," here. 

I also found many of the fabrics for this quilt from Remainders,  of course supplemented them with pieces from my own exhaustive, exhausting, library of novelty prints.  

I debated whether to include popcorn (upper left in photo below), since it's a baby choking hazard, but hopefully by the time the baby is old enough to comprehend a picture of popcorn, they will be old enough to safely eat some. Also, the parents could lie and claim they're floating yellow teddy bears.

Every baby quilt should include mooses (above left).

Below, the back. I like putting fabrics that I don't have the heart to cut up into small pieces on the back.

I decided to give the back an astrophysics, fish and pet theme. 

My great debate with myself with this quilt was whether to leave the sides zig-zag, or cut the edges even, thereby losing half of each outer side row. And speaking of pets, my grand-cat assisted me in scrutinizing this important issue closely.

I finally decided to leave the zigzag sides. I cut the binding from bias. At the four corners, I turned the bias the exact same way as for a regular 90 degree corner. And for the gentle ins and outs on the sides, there was no need to take the quilt out of the machine. Just stop on each outermost and innermost point, needle down, and swivel to the next direction, turning the bias along with the rest of the quilt. It's surprisingly easy! 

Tumbler quilts do take a little more time than square-based baby quilts - but with a sturdy-yet-mysterious Marti Michell template, they're relatively fast and a lot of fun. (No financial affiliation). I'll hold onto my new favorite template for a while and see what babies come along next! 

Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 36-39: Airplanes, Civil War, Play Castle, Flower Power

Day 36: Airplane Blanket This family favorite was made for my kids, in the late 90s, from a delightful print of animals flying airplanes.

The border features consecutive yellow triangles, called "flying geese," made into giant arrows with the help of a multi-colored stripe serving as each arrow's shaft.  

Day 37: A Very Civil War

Our country survived the Civil War, and I hung this war-era quilt on November 3, just before the election, as a reminder to vote!

I found these blocks in a rural antique shop in upstate NY in the early 90s - there was a big stack, priced at $5 per block. To save money, I only bought 8, which of course, I later regretted - I should have bought the entire stack! I sewed them into this 26" x 50" wall hanging and quilted it.

These are the most traditional of what quilters call "log cabin" blocks, each with a red square in the center, representing hearth and home. In today's pandemic, I feel a little bit too stuck in my hearth and home - but with full knowledge that home is safer than the alternative, and grateful to the essential workers who are putting their lives on the line by leaving home every day.

The prints are fascinating. Even though it's a small quilt, you can look at the different fabrics for a long time.

Day 38: Interactive Castle Quilt I made this one for my kids also in the late 90s.

The animals dressed as royalty were fairly large, so I stuffed them as dolls, and made a pockets for each, with the same figure appliqued to the top of the pocket.

There's a castle on the back, plus one more pocket (red, on bottom) for the jester. The gold-trimmed piece on the very bottom can be buttoned off when the rest of the quilt needs laundering!

Day 39: "Flower Power." My newest large finished quilt. Yes, it's flower shaped!

A little closer: 

A lot closer: 

All of the blocks are equilateral triangles, most containing an upright "v". I learned from quilter Barbara Cline that when "v" triangles are organized by value, they can create the illusion of floating, gift-wrapped cubes. You can see the cubes flashing in and out of view in the center of the quilt, and also in the side hexagons, if you sit back and squint! My methods (but not this pattern) are in my book Modern Paper Pieced Log Cabin Triangle Quilts, in my etsy shop, CathyPStudio.  

The show will continue soon!

Hanukah Gift Ideas: Paper and Fabric Judaica to Make, Sell, or Fling

Is it a bird? Well, birds are involved....

Is it a plane? No, more like a Frisbee - if you fling it, it flies, but not well enough for a game of  Frisbee golf. Wait, I remember! It's one of the yarmulkes (little Jewish hats) I brought to last week's artisan fair at my nearest synagogue, Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center!

I rarely do fairs - it's nearly impossible for a fiber artist to charge enough for the hours we put in. Nobody wants to pay $60 for a potholder. But someone I adore asked me -  and here she is, Ellen Dinerman, my son's kindergarten teacher (two decades ago), and an accomplished artist who makes extraordinary sculptural jewelry (sold here. No financial affiliation!)

I hoped the event would be a good opportunity to downsize my stash of Judaica seeking forever homes. My table:

Closeup of the top matzoh cover:

Underneath were more matzoh covers. Some, like this one, can do double duty....

If you don't want to use it as a matzoh cover, you can stuff an 11" pillow form into the back...

(The fun fabric above, featuring Maneschewitz wine and other Passover props is sold at 1-800-dreidel.com. They also sell the trompe l'oeil matzoh fabric.) My pile also included challah (bread) covers and mats, like this one, stitched from kaleidoscopically pieced fabric....

....and miscellaneous fiber art, like this wall hanging (now in my Etsy shop.) The Hebrew letters spell "Chai" for "Life!"

 Yarmulke section:

I make them from whatever fabric is feeling spiritual to me - starting at 12 o'clock and moving clockwise in the photo above, there's Mighty Mouse and Hebrew alphabet hats; a Harry Potter Bukharan style kippah; Pikachu; a hat pieced made from necktie fabrics; chile pepper fabric,  and way in the back, chess fabric. Closer:

The perfect kippah for a bishop! For shoppers who look at my hats and say, "Ha! I could make those myself," I heartily agree, and point to strategically-placed copies of my yarmulke-making book (which I sell online in paperback and digital form.)

Ellen gave me a second table for a craft activity with the Sunday school kids.

The supplies are for making paper hats that can also do double-duty - turned over they make festive candy dishes, and if you fling them with a twist, they can fly much better than the fabric version - comparable to a decent paper airplane. Patterns for these hats are in my OTHER yarmulke-making book, "Yarmulke-gami: E-Z Paper Fold Jewish Art Hats."  

I brought a stack of hat patterns for kids to cut out and decorate, printed onto cardstock. 

I made the patterns in my graphics program.  The round hat folding pattern has the Temple's sisterhood logo in the middle. Underneath the hat pattern is a pyramid-folding pattern.

I made about 60 copies of this page. I also showed off a row of samples.

Closer: One of them is a sponge-painted hat, folded into what I call a "Simple Star."

Here's another sponge-painted hat, this one folded in my "Dimple Star" design. Can you see the difference? This star is rotated so it's points don't line up with the darts. 

This basic hat is made from an acrylic painting on a piece of cardstock. 

The next is napkin decoupage. 

Here's my 'Diamond Star' folding pattern, made from textured scrapbooking cardstock.

Below left is a hat made from a map, and on the right, one from a scientific paper. The latter is colored and folded into my "Chickens Over Mt. Sinai" design. (also looks like a hamantaschen.) I twirled a decorative rose from the same paper.

This page was from a wildlife charity catalog.

I channeled my inner third grader to make a sample for the day's project. (The sequins were a test of whether a temporary glue stick holds them well. It doesn't.) 

Along with glue sticks, I provided the kids with lots of multicolored paper, stickers, markers, crayons, and Chanukah paper with dreidels and stars. (No sequins.)

The most popular supply turned out to be these: 

And here's a terrific hat made by a 6th grader who used them well! 

Plus several kids made pyramid gift boxes from my folding pattern.  Here's one I made as a sample:  

Good for holding gelt. Or, they serve as handle-free dreidels - put a Hebrew letter on each side, then toss it in the air. Of course, this being a tetrahedron - aka a "triangular pyramid" - when it lands, you have to wonder - which letter wins?  Three of the four sides are up! Maybe the one facing down at the table? This particular pyramid was folded from a foil coffee bag, with stamped Hebrew letters glued to each side. (I LOVE polyhedra!)

And here's a pyramid made and decorated at the fair by an authentic 6th grader.

Of course, with the pyramid theme, they may fit in better for Passover. My original idea involved covering the outside with brick fabric, and putting a frog inside:

But back to the present(s). I gave each kid three chocolate kisses to insert before sealing the last fold.  I didn't think of bringing candy until the morning of the event - and then, the only kisses I could find at the drugstore were packaged for Christmas, in red and green as well as silver foil. So we all had a good laugh about that. I wished I'd thought this through earlier, in time to buy chocolate coins to put inside. 

Thank you, Ellen, for inviting me to this fun event! I downsized my Judaica stash a bit, and had a blast shmoozing with other artists, shoppers, and creative kids!

P.S. I just saw the following fabulous wrapping paper at my local independent bookstore - Vromans in Pasadena. Wouldn't this make great paper kippot?