wienerdog tricks.

Old Quilt Explodes Into Three Pieces: Film at 11

I'm just trying to be competitve with bigger breaking stories. You know how it is.

Here's the story: An old, tattered quilt--that anybody else would have chucked into the garbage and said a little eulogy standing over the can--has stayed Out of the Can. And I've told you about a bit of it, but I wanted to share the amazing explosion [she alludes to the title so as to justify its overblown, even misleading dramatic nature] of projects that issued forth just from the decision to Not Chuck It.

Not Chucked Old Quilt Project #1: Baby Quilt.

I showed you this one already. I handed it over to the baby his-self last night and he seemed quite pleased. Looked at me, farted a little, then closed his eyes. I feel sure it will get lots of love and good use over at his house. 

Not Chucked Old Quilt Project #2: Long Terrific Pillow.

It was a puzzle-like activity, really--an absolute stance against trash.

And then I just pieced it all together, trimmed the heck out of the uber wonkfulness of it all 

And I used a wonderfully soft and slinky, tight linen-ish tablecloth for the back. And then I ended up with this.  

There's even a bit of strange monogram at the left edge there you might see.

Solid.

Not Chucked Old Quilt Project #3: Baby Quilt for the BabyPumpkinhead.

First, I'd like to report that she loves it. "Thank you, Mommy, for making me this quilt." C'mon, she actually said this. C'mon.

The top is actually pink and gray and white with tiny, tiny, tiny little alphabet letters in the pink.

 The main panels are the the four best I could scrap from the original. All the white panels are either the backside of an unusable front one (with the faint hint of the old, tattered pink peeking through when when it's held up to the light) or salvaged pieces of the back. I was even able to grab some usable pieces of edging. Love that edging.

The enormous amount of handstitching here is staggering and I didn't want to mess with it in any way, so I quilted in the ditch of each panel and then around the stars and even around the little arches on the edge pieces.

The back is a vintage piece of embroidered cotton from my great grandmother Mer.

And then I did the binding with pink gingham. Because now I know how. And the answer to the question, "Should I use gingham?" is always yes here at my house.

My conviction as of late: there's no such thing as an unusable quilt. 

Old Man Jack's Shears

I got Old Man Jack's upholstery shears, the ones he used in his shop. They are big and heavy and beautiful and still sharp. And they arrived via my Grandma's luggage from Tampa swathed in cotton and tinfoil and still whizzingly sharp.

Old Man Jack was my Great Grandmother Maisy's second huband and he got her by leaving a six-pack of RC cola and a small boquet of flowers he'd grown right there on her doorstop every day. For a year.

My mom says she visited my Granny once and heard her bragging about the piled-up sodas in her pantry and she knew Granny would eventually marry him.

They're crazy big and so dangerous that my Man Spouse has made me promise to hang them at least six feet up on the wall. Got it.

Those are my standard sized cutting shears up there to give you a sense of their mega jumbo size.

Seems like I feel sure I have everything I need to go about Making and then something nifty like these shows up.

Hope you're well. Hope you're sewing. Hope you're making what you need.

 

I Gave in and Stopped Fighting: A Binding Tale

If Elizabeth Hartman were here, I'd hug her.

But I'm ahead of myself. From the beginning:

When I envisioned this, it had a lovely dark brown binding. I put the baby blue gingham up next to it and it screamed Too Cute right at me, and I knew I was right about the brown.

But I didn't have brown binding. And, as you already know about me (and which I've just recently set out to explain for those of you who don't), I use what I've got. No running out to the Brown Binding Store to get what I need.

I had gray, though, so I tried that. It was skinny, but whatever, I'll just swing it, I said.

Then I went out of town and was stubborn enough to take this little baby with me. I tried hand sewing the binding into place. You'll never believe it but: it didn't work.

You already knew it wouldn't.

Then I came home and sewed the first seam down with the machine and set into hand sewing it closed, but it was just Too Blasted Skinny.

Plus I just knew it was just truly not what I wanted. And I just love this little quilt. It's scrapped together with the Highly Discardable pieces of a quilt my Great Grandmother Mer used until it was literally translucent and holey in places.

So, in summary: I had envisioned something better. I settled for something not as good. It didn't work and I pushed to make it work. But it didn't. 

So I gave up.

And I found myself digging in my srap bin. And then I remembered PAGE FORTY of this book (which I bought for myself even though I never buy books with directions and which I really like) and its Wonderfully Unfussy explanation for how to use (non-complex) scraps for binding strips. 

And I actually read the directions and they didn't make my eyes itch from unnecessary detail. And I morphed them into this: A Binding Buffet. Four different scraps for four different edges.

If you want to pull it off sometime, just follow the Very Clear directions in the book and add 1/2" to the length of each edge and sew your pieces right together and they'll line up just like you hope they will to the corners of your quilt. It's particularly nifty for this white quilt and helps the vintage sheet back sort of wake up and come to the party that this little quilt is throwing. 

And I think it's just fantabulous. Wonktabulous. Super swell. 

And I know my friend who is over forty like me and crazy enough to have another baby is going to love it for her Samuel. 

Where I Stop Talking and Actually Make Something

Just wanted to make sure that you know that I'm not all Post-Capitalism and Imperfection and the Pursuit of a Life of Making Blahbeddy Blah Blah.

Sometimes I actually sew.

Lately, though, my sewing has bee more about cutting (as in the cutting up of old quilts). 

Here's what's coming from all that cutting:

A little baby quiltish playmat-sized thing. It's a complete scrap cobble--my very favorite sort of project that keeps scraps off the floor and out of the bin and sends them off into the world to be Used. Love it. The binding on this little bugger is giving me a time of it since I've been traveling. I gave a shot at hand sewing it but it's too wonky--even for ME. And you know that must be quite wonky.

 
About finished, though. I'll tack this binding tape down with a sewn stitch and then hand sew it closed on the other side. That's the best means I've found. It's old quilt scraps on one side and a vintage sheet on the other. 

And it needed the darker binding, I think. I wanted dark brown but didn't have it so went for gray. It works nicely to calm it in a nice way.

Beginning to piece together Baby Pumpkinhead's quilt (she saw it and declared it as hers before I even had the chance to give a Moving Mom Speech about how it was made from the scraps of her Great Great Grandmother's quilt.) She saw the pink and the deal was done.

Not sure what I'll bind this with yet. Might go gray again. Depends on what's in that big trunk of notions I've scavenged. Came across wonderfully clear instructions in this book about how to make straight grained binding out of Whatever Fabric that I may use. (Am liking the book, by the way. I'm not a fan of patterns and directions, but this is a lovely book.) 

Re-connecting the good panels makes for a mushed-to-the-edge design, but I find that if that look is consistent then it looks like it happened on purpose.

Have another quilt top pinned and ready to go (the lavender one that's going to give All of America a reason why I have a purple couch, once it's finished and draped demurely across the thing like it was Always There and it's not Deeply Strange to have a purple velveteen couch in an otherwise very UnPurple house. The true reason for the purple couch being that it was given to us and therefore otherwise Just Right.)

And two more quilt tops just arrived today.

I know: don't hate me because I have so many quilt tops. I can't help it. It has to do with my gene pool.

I'm off now to give my friend Sunshine this:

It's another one of these (such a good 79 minute project).

No pithy ending today, friends. Gotta get dressed to go out with the girls. xo