15 Finishes for February

I spent the holiday weekend (Louis Riel Day in Manitoba)

making a dozen of these needle books

I used up scraps and sewing prints and little bits of patchwork

to make each one slightly different.

I use wool felt for the inside pages.

I love the saturation of colour in the wool.

I used to make them from selvage dots like the one at the left,

but now I make mini quilts. 

The one at the top used leftover blades from a Dresden project

on a Westminster Liberty Art fabric.

That one had flown off to QuiltCon as a gift for someone

before I got the picture of all 12 together.

I also said goodbye to this little guy,

who didn't mind sitting in the snow in his new track suit.

He is now fully clothed and has a new home.

I started this quilt at a retreat in January and finished it two weeks later.

It has a pink Eden print by Tula Pink on the back.

Here's the front, made from one and a half charm packs and hourglass blocks in two colours.

It is a really simple quilt with a great visual effect. 

The two grey colours make on point squares around the charm squares,

making the quilt look like it was set on point.

Here you can see the beginnings on my design wall.

I spent 45 minutes quilting this top which had sat in a drawer for two years.

I used a Warm and Natural batting and a micro fleece for the backing.

I'm donating it to an organization outfitting people affected by recent apartment building fires.

I figure there's some little kid out there that will have fun driving on these roads.

And my last finish:

A Valentine placemat for my mom, made from a set of charms with love and heart themes.

Here she is with it and her birthday roses.

She turned 82 on Valentine's Day.

A woolly Christmas story

If you love fabric like I do, 

you already know this story,

or one like it.

It starts like this: Someone gave me a box of fabric.

In my case, it was a friend of a friend of a friend's mother

who was moving to a smaller home

and didn't need years of stockpiled fabric.

I took some vintage cotton prints, each carefully folded and marked with the yardage,

as well as an Eaton's department store box marked

"Wool patches for blanket or quilt:"

Fast forward a year of not doing anything with it

until the time came earlier this month to open it.

I found a newspaper from 1962 on the top of the box,

and neatly stacked piles of wool patches

as well as off cuts from men's wool pants.

This woman was a saver, 

and she had carefully collected wool for several years.

The newspaper on the bottom of the box was from June 1957.

Even after 60 years in a box, none of the fabric

had moth holes in it.

My longtime blog readers know I can't resist someone else's scraps

and this box of possibilities held beautiful Harris tweeds and double faced wool 

and many checks and twills.

Meanwhile, I was also asked to provide the children's story at my church during Advent,

which in this case works out to three Sundays because one was taken by the children's pageant.

The script called for a woodworker to talk about the process of  building fine furniture,

but since the woodworkers of the church had declined,

someone decided maybe a quilter or sewer could modify the script.

Cue the box of possibilites!

So within a week of showing the children the carefully packaged box,

I had a quilt top!

I squared all the pieces to 8 inches wide,

and only cut up the dark navy and black pieces

to use as contrast between the mostly browns and camels and greys.

Here you can see a closeup of some of the lovely textures and weaves.

So on the second Sunday of Advent, I brought a mostly finished top

and asked the littles to help me sew the final seam.

They drove my 1956 Singer Featherweight 222K

while I steered.

They were so engrossed with the job that we kept sewing

during the choir song following the story.

This week my job is to baste and quilt it

in time for Sunday's story.

I decided not to include the double-faced wool samples,

since they were much thicker than the rest of the fashion fabrics,

and I rolled them through the die cutter

to make these double heart ornaments.

The red ones are made from felted boiled wool passed on by a friend.

Each of my little sewing friends got a heart ornament for their Christmas tree

and my quilt guild took the rest,

so this box of possibilities is already part of many homes right now.

I think there's lots of lessons in this box:

1. I remembered how much I like working with wool because of its texture and hand

2. Someone else's cast offs can become your treasures

3. Children are fascinated by sewing machines, and it is not hard to get them engaged,

especially if you let them touch the machinery

4. Lots of people can enjoy what's inside a long-hoarded box of wool patches

5. Improv piecing looks great with wool

6. and there's no time like now to get to that long planned project.

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network

and WIPs on Wednesday.

Wild and Wooly Blooms

I've repurposed a wool zipper case with broken zip

into the outside of a needle or sewing case

inspired by Wendy Williams book.

I'm still on the road

and yesterday I hit the local JoAnn's

with a coupon to buy a book to inspire and enjoy.

Heading home soon with 20 yards of fabric

crammed into my suitcase!

I'm hooking up with The Needle and Thread Network.

Making another scene on the design wall

Over the weekend I finished hand stitching down the shapes on this wool scene.

My mother took a workshop many years ago--maybe even decades--

and cut out and pinned this scene to a base fabric.

 

I took ownership of it over the holidays

and tweaked it a bit,

removing a building in one corner

and adding a few more hills.

I'd like to make it significantly bigger by adding borders of wool suiting.

And then I will extend the lines of the hills into the background

with hand and machine stitches.

 

I haven't ruled out cutting up the scene and sewing it back together.

So far, I'm just thinking about it.

 

I'm linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times.

A little patchwork to carry with me

 

Finally, I carried through on a long thought out plan

to applique squares of felted wool on this purse made from wool suits.

Now I can carry patchwork with me wherever I go.

 

I'm off to a quilt retreat to sew and laugh and eat chocolate.

Wish you were all coming too!

Keep moving!

Here's my word for the year: Move.

Move my body, move my life,

and move more fabric out of my sewing room

instead of in.

I made it as part of the word challenge over at 15 minutes play.

So I decided to take my own advice,

and move some bits and pieces out of the drawer and onto the design wall.

These are silk noile blocks that I strip pieced onto foundations.

I have a tutorial for this curved strip piecing technique under my tutorial tab here.

 

I pinned them on a purple silk background.

Remembering my mother's wool scene from last week, I tried a horizontal approach.

I think this has the beginnings of a landscape portrait.

 

Even better if it is cropped.

 

I'm linking up with TNTN WIP Wednesdays.