The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Reparing the Christmas Quilt

I made this quilt for my parents while I was in college.  I was sharing a house with some people, I had a sewing machine, and I'd made a couple of other quilts before this and didn't really know what to get for my parents that year.  I thought they'd appreciate something homemade.  

The pattern is some kind of pinwheel pattern and is supposed to bring to mind poinsettias.  I cut out triangles and squares and diamonds (well, technically they're really just parallelograms, aren't they, since they aren't perfectly symmetrical like a diamond shape) from cardboard, bought all my fabric, traced and cut out all the pieces - and then realized that I'd done half of the diamonds (parallelograms) backwards. (If they'd been true diamond shapes it wouldn't have mattered, but all the parallelograms "lean" in the same direction, so the backwards ones would have messed up the overall look of the piece.  So I had to get more fabric and re-cut more poinsettia leaves.

Anyway, once I'd corrected that mistake, I assembled the pieces into rectangles and squares and then bigger squares and then bigger rectangles and finally, the top was done.  I have a feeling I cranked this out on the machine as fast as possible, because the corners aren't always squared off properly and because I know I tend to procrastinate, so I probably finally put the layers together and tied it off pretty close to December 25th.  

I was pretty happy with the quilt.  And at the time I'd convinced myself that my parents would be overcome with appreciation and admiration and there would even be tears of joy.  I'd put together quite the Hallmark commercial in my head.  So, of course, when my mother opened the box and pulled it out and said "Oh, that's nice, thank you," in just her regular "thank you for the gift" voice and no angels sang or music swelled to tug at heartstrings I was stunned and devastated.

Lesson learned.  Life is not a greeting card commercial.  Especially if you try to force it.  And gift giving should be about the recipient, not about my ego.  Got it.  Usually.

The quilt covered their bed every winter.  

Three years ago, after Dad had passed away and my sister and I were struggling to clean out the house, I realized I hadn't yet seen that quilt - it wasn't with the Christmas stuff or the sheets and blankets - and I suddenly HAD to find it.  I finally did - out in the shed.  I think Dad had used it to line the little trailer behind his ride-on mower when he was giving the grandkids rides around the yard one year.  The quilt must have been in there for several years, and mice had chewed through the fabric to make little cozy beds with some of the batting.  I took it home anyway, washed it well, and put it away to fix some day.

I've looked at it a few times over these past years, and finally I decided I needed to do something about all the quilts that are packed away for me to repair Some Day.  

So I made a list of unfinished projects, and there are five quilts that need repairs, plus one that needs to be finished.  The repair projects were all made by family - two by me, two by my grandmother, and one by Bill's mom.

The time of year made the first choice for me.  

Now, I don't have any of that fabric any more.  I decided to use fabrics that were close in color and pattern, and rather than try to blend them in, I chose to make the patched pieces obvious.

I also decided to just use the diamond/parallelogram shape, regardless of the location of the holes.  And I decided to use a freezer paper applique method to create the patches.  

First I made a template of the parallelogram, making sure to indicate which side - and therefore which direction the finished patch would be pointing - was up.  Next, I traced it a bunch of times on the non-waxed side of some freezer paper. The paper side is the correct shape for the final piece of fabric.

Then I cut out the freezer paper pieces, flipped them over, and pinned them to the WRONG side of the fabrics I was going to use.  Then I cut around the paper pattern, leaving about a quarter of an inch, maybe a little bit less, for the seam allowance.

Next step - fired up my iron and ironed the seam allowance over onto the waxy side of the paper.  The wax holds the fabric in place so I can create that nice sharp edge.

And...

A few minutes later I had a bunch of patches almost ready to go.

I pulled out the pins and carefully unstuck the fabric edges from the paper.  Then I flipped the patch over and pinned it over the hole I needed to cover.

Next, I blind stitched the patch to the original fabric, removing the pins as I went along.

And pin, stitch, repeat until all the holes are patched.

Fortunately I had a supervisor throughout all of this.  Otherwise I'm sure I would have failed miserably.

The project took me a day or two.  I worked at my ironing board, with the bulk of the quilt draped over the back of the couch.  And I listened to all three seasons of The Crown as I stitched.

Ta da!  Otis supervised, Scratchy approved.  On to the next quilt.

 

 

Unfinished Business

I bought a new sewing machine back in February or March; one I could use for heavy-duty projects involving denim or leather or the like.  I found it a place on my work table - actually on my Dad's old desk - and I unpacked all the accessories into a drawer - and there it sat.  

This is a silly habit of mine sometimes.  I get a new thing and then set it aside until I get used to having it around, and only then will I start acquainting myself with its features.  It is really silly.

Anyway, the other day I finally wound a bobbin and threaded the needle and stitched some fabric together.

The project in the above picture is the pieces of a double wedding ring quilt I decided to tackle within a year or so  after Bill and I were married.  At the time I just worked, and we had no children.  I had time.  And then we went and had children, and all my pieces of fabric took a back seat.  And then a spot in my mental attic.  Under luggage and old furniture and dust.  And eventually the carpal tunnel business started bothering me and holding a needle and stitching all those little pieces by hand (because that was the other thing - I was going to do it all by hand) wasn't a lot of fun.  And I got interested in other things, and so on and so on.  Life.

But I kept all the bits and pieces, intending - some day - to finish it.

After the surgery on my hands almost a year ago, I discovered I could hold a skinny needle and work pins and it didn't bother me at all!!  I was EXTREMELY happy.  I set to work piecing the small "ring" pieces together and it was wonderful to be doing something I'd loved to do years ago.  Like Dorothy walking out of her sepia-toned house and into technicolor OZ, 

But you know what?  No matter how great my hands are now (and they are), it's still a LOT of stitching and I still don't have all the time in the world any more.  I just want to get it done.  So - to the sewing machine!

And I have to say, it's really fun to work up the pieces.  I pin a batch, sew them up, pull the pins, and iron them flat.  Hard to explain how joyful this makes me.  But it does.  I love the smell of damp, hot fabric as I iron down the seams. I even like ironing clothes, but making a quilt is way more fun.

This morning I opened a big Rubbermaid tote and dug in.  I was looking for another old sewing project in particular (which I didn't find) but I found a whole bunch of others.  On one hand, it's overwhelming.  I don't even remember what my game plan was for some of these patterns and fabrics.  But on the other hand, I'm excited.  Where to start???  (I know, I know.  I'm working on the double wedding ring quilt.  Maybe I should start - and finish - there?)

Here are a few pictures of some of the chaos...

Okay, well this is not unfinished.  This is an embroidered picture on a pair of my shorts that I did back in junior high or high school, I imagine.  That person on top of the front mountain is a tiny little Scotsman playing the bagpipes.  I'm pretty sure I was pleased with my work, otherwise I wouldn't have saved them all these years.

This is a sample piece from a workshop I attended one summer weekend in Maine.  There was a class I took in trapunto, which is a sort of filled stitching - you use bits of stuffing or pieces of yarn or cording to add dimension to the quilted stitches.  Pretty cool stuff.

I also learned to do applique using freezer paper, a process I loved and utilized in a lot of projects after that class. 

I concocted these squares with the intent, I think, of turning them into big pillows.  the stars and the letters are all applique.

So were the tulips on this apron...no, wait, never mind that, I guess I didn't take a picture, or I deleted it.  

And this.  It's hard to see, but this is a blend of trapunto and applique, and it's also copied from the cover of the Broadway soundtrack album for Evita.  It was meant to be (and still is!) part of a quilt for a great friend of mine in college and after who HATED the music and suffered a lot at my hands and my record player.  I do not apologize.  It was educational.

Anyway, here are a couple of other squares meant for the same quilt:

Here we have a log cabin variation with denim and flannel on one half, taffeta (I think) and velvet on the other half.  The story involves this dear friend and a middle of the night trip to the grocery store with him in denim and flannel and me in a gorgeous dress with a black velvet strapless bodice and a shimmery blue skirt (that flared out thanks to the layers of tulle underneath).  I wore heels, and my hair was up in a bun and my makeup was over the top.  We put our groceries (we shared a house with another friend, so grocery shopping together was not unusual) in our cart and strolled up and down the aisles (well, I tottered around on my heels, which I very rarely wore) and acted as though we looked perfectly normal.  And I guess "we" is incorrect - I'm the one who had to pretend.  

And this is a game of cribbage. I think we both learned as kids. In my house it was a Sunday afternoon event - various cribbage games between my sister and I and our parents, with some sort of sport playing on the tv and cheddar cheese and Saltines and glasses of ginger ale.  Ginger ale for us kids.  I don't know what my parents had. So anyway, my friend, Ralph, and I played go-for-the-jugular cribbage games way back when, and if you look closely at the faux wooden board above you can see the word "blaze" - something we'd say when one of us, usually me, ahem, scored a lot of points in a hand and blazed past the other person's marker.  

I have a few other squares but these three are my favorites.

And that's enough for now - time to sew some fabric together before the rest of the day gets away from me.

 

The Same And Different

I’m finally getting around to making window quilts for the two windows in Bill’s and my room. 

Last year I made them for the two bathrooms and the kids’ rooms, but I ran out of steam, motivation, time, cold weather and didn’t get to ours.

I’m still kind of late.  It might have been better if I’d done these in the fall, so as to be better prepared for the actual winter temperatures, but…well, you do what you can do.

Anyway, last year I wanted to create these pretty stained glass window sort of quilts, and I had sketched them out and everything.

This year, I don’t have the same enthusiasm for them.  I needed something simpler.  Something I could get done.

So I chose plaids and stripes.  I dug through all my fabric and pulled out pieces from lots of Bill’s old shirts, things the kids have worn, miscellaneous scraps from who knows where.  And I threw in a fabric that doesn’t have stripes or plaid at all, just to be wild and crazy.

And then, to be even more wild and crazy, I decided that each quilt would have exactly the same fabrics – same number of pieces of each fabric, in fact – but they would be designed differently. 

So here they are.  Well, not finished yet, but the tops are put together and all I need to do is attach filling and backing and bind them off. 

 

 

 

I showed them both to Bill, and he likes the first one better, while I prefer the second one.  Mostly, though, I like the fact that they’ve got all the same pieces, but they’re so different.

I hope to have them completely put together and hanging on our windows by the end of the week.  I’ll post final pictures then.

So, just curious.  Do you prefer one over the other (if you like them at all, and if you have a preference)?  Which one?  Why?

Catching Up

It’s been so long, I don’t even know where to begin.  In fact, that’s what’s taken me so long to write a post – so much to write about and where to begin?

Quilting Blogs

When I recently fell back in love with quilting (not that I ever fell out of it…but we had kind of a parting of the ways and now we realize we are meant to be together forever), I figured there must be a gazillion quilting blogs out there, and I was curious to see what people were doing.  So I think I typed in a search like “quilting blogs” or something, and landed on this page. 

If you scroll down, there is a HUGE list of quilting blogs.  I’ve been clicking on one or two of them whenever I get some time to explore.  Some are defunct (the list went up in 2010), some have moved, but a lot of them are still there and it’s fun – and inspiring – to look at all the quilts people have made.

Go take a look.  So much talent and passion and artistry out there!

Random Stuff

So the other day at dinner Julia said, out of the blue, “I don’t like eating raisins because it’s like eating tiny old people.”

I have no explanation. 

~~~

The baby quilt I’ve been working on has conjured up memories of other baby quilts I’ve made, especially one of the first ones.  Not sure if I’ve told this story before, but here goes…

This was back when ALLLLLL my quilting was hand-sewn.  Piecing AND quilting.  Everything.  I loved it.  And I still do, though too much of it bothers my hands.  But this was a while ago.

Anyway, one of my sister’s friends, Betsy, was having a baby – I believe she was the first of their group to do so, and I was invited to the baby shower, and so I decided to make a quilt.  I kind of blended aspects of the styles of Monet and Seurat, with colors from Monet’s Water Lilies.  So I used soft greens and pinks and blues, and all the pieces were hexagons.  I can’t describe it better, and I don’t have pictures, but I remember loving the creation of it…the artists, their styles, the colors…and yay – a baby!

Anyway, because I was a card-carrying member of Procrastinators Anonymous (still am, but not as bad), soon it was the night before the shower and I still hadn’t finished the quilt.

But I DO finish things.  And the shower was at something like eleven o’clock the following morning (a Saturday, I assume), so, hey, I’d just stay up kind of late and get it done.

I was up all night.  All.  Night.  I had the tv on, I was in the living room with my quilt on a table, and I was stitching my fingers off.

And yes, dammit, I finished that quilt.

I don’t remember if I took any sort of nap that morning, before the shower.  I kind of don’t think I did.

Anyway, to make it even better, I had to drive, because my mom, who was also invited, had had surgery on the bottom of her foot and it was still in a cast or boot or something. 

The shower was half an hour or so from where we were both living (and my sister wasn’t even able to come to the shower for some reason…she was living up in Boston at the time, so maybe it was because of work or something?) (and, as yet another side note, I now live just minutes from the church basement where that baby shower took place) …where was I?  Oh yeah, half hour drive.  So here we go, my limping mother and me with most of my brain wrapped in fuzz.

We put our gifts with the others and found seats sort of near the back.  I propped my eyes open with paper clips.  And the shower was under way.

While other gifts are being opened in the story, I’ll take a moment to explain the weirdness going on in my head during the shower.

I was big.

I felt, as I willed myself to remain upright on that folding chair in that church basement, with all the many sweet church member ladies and family members and friends, like I was twice the size – at least – of my usual self.  Not fat.  Big.  A giant.  That’s how sleep deprivation was distorting my world.  I tried not to move so I wouldn’t frighten anyone with my big-ness.

And eventually Betsy got to the baby quilt.  She pulled it from the bag (or unwrapped it – I don’t remember) and held it up for all to see, (as I tried to shrink down so I was normal-sized) and said, loudly, “JAYNE W MADE THIS!”

And the word loudly doesn’t do it justice.  Her voice THUNDERED the words, and as she said them I seemed to grow bigger and all the little old ladies and moms and cousins and friends turned, as one, to look at me as I was contorting into something that might pass for normal-sized in my metal folding chair.

I hope I smiled politely.

No one ran away screaming, so I guess I looked harmless.

And the shower proceeded normally, with the rest of the gifts opened, lots of oohs and aaahs and smiles at all the adorable baby things…lots of thank-yous from Betsy, and then, of course, food.

That is my best baby quilt story.

I made baby quilts for my sister’s two kids, both of which were late.  Not sure how late my nephew’s quilt was, but my niece didn’t get hers til she turned two.  Hey, there were a lot of appliquéd flowers on that one.  That sort of detail takes TIME.

Anyway, so that’s the baby quilt stuff.

~~~

Like I said in my previous post, all this quilting has resulted in a resurgence of my love of designing and sewing.  So naturally I had to rearrange my sewing/jewelry-making/other stuff-making area.  (For some reason I can’t stand the term “crafting” or anything “craft-“ related.  I can’t use it.  Ick.)

So that’s what I did yesterday.  I’m still not completely done, but that’s today’s job. 

Both pictures were taken in bad light and with my phone, so please excuse the poor image quality….

Before:

After:

The biggest change I wanted to make was to have that tall work table sticking out from the wall so that I could walk around it and work on big projects.  It’s a bit of a tight fit back there, but I made it work and I’m SO happy about it.  There are still areas that need to be tidied up or reorganized, but that’s the easy part.

The hardest part was moving the rolltop desk.  Now, it does come apart, so that helps, and I remove all the drawers, of course, but still – it’s heavy, even broken down into sections.  But I did it.  I’ve done it so many times over the years, I’m actually pretty good at reassembling it, which is tricky because the center writing part has to slide in between the two drawer portions, so those things have to be just the right distance apart, and that middle writing section is HEA-VY because it’s got a huge piece of some sort of stone inlay as the writing surface.  And, of course, there’s maneuvering the whole roll-top section – which is one enormous unwieldy piece – and fitting it onto the pegs that hold it in place (the pegs jut up from the corners of the two main drawer-holding parts of the desk).  Anyway, putting that together successfully is always cause for high-fiving oneself.  Not that I did, of course, because that would be weird.

And that’s about all the writing I have time for.  I’ve got some laundry to hang outside, and some reorganizing to finish downstairs. 

And, of course, that baby quilt isn’t finished yet….

So what have you been up to lately? 

Seeking Imperfection

I have spent too much time (or wasted, probably) not doing things because I was afraid I’d do them wrong.  If I didn’t think I could do something perfectly, I just wouldn’t do it.  So many roads not taken.

But that’s okay – I’m in a good spot at this time in my life.

Maybe that’s why I actually finished window quilt #4 today. 

One Bathroom Window Quilt Completed

Just hung this a few minutes ago.  So what do you think?

Window Quilt Update

I figured I should post a picture of Softie since Scratchy’s been getting more face time lately.

Here she is, sitting on one of the quilts, which is on my ironing board.  I’d been tying the layers together and went upstairs to check on the bread in the oven.  When I came back down, Softie had claimed the spot.

The Next Pair of Window Quilts

He has nothing to do with window quilts.  He just likes hanging out up on this shelf while I do the sewing and the birds outside torture him with their freedom.

Softie is Not Amused

“What the heck are you doing to my playground?”

Yesterday I needed to MOVE stuff. 

I go through periods of LOVING the kitchen, loving food, loving experimenting with cooking and baking, and writing about it and photographing it…

And then I hate it.

Okay, not hate.  That’s too strong a word.  But I get burnt out a bit and need to do something ELSE.

Day 3 – Girls’ Day Out

After a day of lounging around on the couch, reading and napping, I was very happy to hit the road with Julia the following day.

Julia and Quilting

A couple of weeks ago I picked up some sewing equipment for Julia.  I got her a pair of scissors that are super sharp and much easier for her small hands to manage than my big, heavy Ginghers.  And I got her a little pin cushion (pink, of course) and a box of very pretty pins.

First Stitches By Hand

My friend Judith commented on this post that when she was taught to sew by hand, her mother gave her gingham to use, so she could use the little squares to space her stitches. 

What a great idea.

Julia’s First Quilt - Completed

Here’s Julia, “Slippers,” the kitten, and the quilt Julia made for Slippers.

We finished it last night. 

The Next Quilter in the Family

Yesterday Bill took Alex ice fishing.  It’s cold up here in the northeast right now, –1 F this morning, for example, so the ice on the local ponds is pretty thick.  The menfolk dressed warmly and brought an extra pair of gloves each, and off they went.  Julia and I wisely stayed home and, more importantly, indoors.

I started working on Bill’s quilt, and Julia wanted to help, but there wasn’t really anything she could do to help…so I asked her if she wanted to make a quilt of her own, maybe for her dolls, or her 25,769 Barbies….

Update on Bill’s Quilt

I figured I’d start out with some of the easier repairs first.  There are a few spots where just a single piece of fabric is frayed or torn, with nothing going on nearby.  Like the square above.  There was a long tear where the fabric had just worn out, right along the seam.  No good way to repair it directly, so I’d cut a square of fabric to cover the original square.

Next Project to Finish: Repairing the Quilt Bill’s Mom Made

(That sentence should read “Learning how to type “repair” correctly, as for some reason it took me many tries to do it right.)

My late mother-in-law, Elsa, made this quilt for my husband, her youngest son, long before he and I ever met. 

It’s the next quilt in my Finishing project.

Quilt by Emma Jane

My whole sewing area needed some straightening up, so I decided to tackle that earlier today.  I moved and sorted and rearranged and consolidated, and now I feel much better about things.

While I was going through everything, I came across a white plastic trash bag with what I’d thought was a quilt in progress.  Something my grandmother had started at some point but never finished.  So, since Finishing Stuff is my project for the year, I figured I’d take a look to see what needed to be done.

A Look at Past (Long Past) Quilting Projects

Years ago (around twenty, actually) (wow) I did a lot of quilting.  I’d learned to sew when I was a kid, and I made my first quilt when I was in high school.  It was for my grandfather, who’d had a heart attack, and when I said I was going to make it for him for Christmas, someone (don’t remember who) said I wouldn’t have enough time.

HA.

I did it.

Finished – The Quilt Bill’s Grandmother Made

As I said in my post a few days ago, there wasn’t really a lot that needed to be done to this quilt.

Finishing the Hat: Repairs to the Quilt Bill’s Grandmother Made

Perhaps that should read “Repairs to A Quilt Bill’s Grandmother Made,” rather than “the” – I’m pretty sure she made a lot more than one.