Rainbow Cloud Sushi Set

Posted on May 2, 2012 by dana

I took another pottery class. It’s a strange thing to try and learn in fits and starts, especially glazes, because so much of it is trial and error. And when you’re only trying a few times a year, you don’t move forward much.

HOWEVER, I just got a batch back from my most recent free class at the local community centers (bless you, local community centers!!) and I’m happy as a clam. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to take another class till July, so I’ll have to make the good feelings last.

I sorta copied this fellows adorable hand built cloud dishes to make this lopsided, cracked, but still dear to my heart sushi set (I feel bad for stealing ideas, but how else do we learn at incredibly early stages?) :

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How I Machine Sew Binding

Posted on May 1, 2012 by dana

I won’t bore you with a bunch of stuff about binding from start to finish. There a lot of great places to learn about binding, like from Jaybird Quilts or from Sew Happy Geek. I just have one thing to sort of add to the conversation.

I machine sew my binding on. Some people hand-sew it, and I’m sure that’s great, but eh, not for me. Generally, people say that when you machine sew your binding, you should sew it onto the back of the quilt, and then fold it over to the front.

Machine sewing Binding to the front

Here’s where I’ll toss out my opinion: Instead, I sew my binding onto the front of my quilt, and then fold it over to the back. I use binding clips to secure the binding every few inches.

Then, I insert in straight pins between the binding clips, double checking that the binding on the back is caught in the pin. I like the combination of the two more than one or the other. I usually only stick in 3-4 pins at a time as I go along.

This allows me to sew right along the binding, and the stitch on the front just fades into the seam. I generally use a 60 wt. thread (YLI Soft Touch currently), but sometimes I use a heavy thread, like Aurifil Lana Wool Thread, if I want the stitching to be part of the quilt design. You can probably also use an invisible thread if you like, though I have never done so.

The purple binding above is a 2.5 inch binding. I used the white thread on the top, and purple thread to match the binding in the bobbin.

Here is the front of a quilt I used red wool Aurifil thread on:

On this quilt (which I believe has 2.25 inch binding), I have sewn right along the edge of the binding with a light weight thread. After crinkling in the wash, you can’t hardly see it:

Here’s the back of the same corner of that quilt, you can see where the bottom thread is not 100% even with the edge of the binding, but it is pretty close.

Another note, before attaching binding, I usually do a long basting stitch all around the quilt to secure and flatten the edges, just under a quarter inch. When finished, the binding covers this stitch. In the top image with the purple binding, I played with doing this stitch a half inch from the edge so it was visible. I’m not crazy about the effect, but it’s not a dealbreaker…

My binding isn’t perfect (hahaha), but this is the best way I have found to efficiently create binding that gives me the look I prefer. Any other tips for doing binding? I’m pretty much self taught, so if I’m doing something horribly wrong here, let me know!

Posted in Free Pattern, Process Pledge, Product Placement/Reviews, Quilts, Tutorials | 3 Comments

Uh-Oh, OSU Quilts

Posted on April 25, 2012 by dana

At our last Columbus Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we swapped fabric and made each other wrist pincushions.

Look how cute! My partner gave me red and black fabric, which I thought was very fun and dramatic, but it was pointed out to me that they are OSU colors. And then, I accidentally made a pair of scarlet and gray quilts.

I say “accidentally” because I meant to make the quilt on the left as a backing for the quilt on the right. But I ended up liking the left quilt better, so I made two more backs. I really like those a lot too, but decided not to let this turn into four quilts.

And, I swear I liked scarlet and gray before I moved to Columbus.

Regardless, these quilts feature some fun Reunion fabric and lots and lots of gray scraps. Almost all of them, actually, the last slivers are in the binding.

Which I still need to put onto one of the quilts…

And then I will list them in my Etsy shop…

I used Auriful wool thread to add some detail to the quilting and to attach the binding. I really like how it pops! I am tearing through my free sample of this thread and thinking I might need to pick some up…It runs through the machine great, though I only used it in the top thread…have you seen the amazing deals on Aurifil on this website?

I also put a patch and shipped out this red and white quilt this week for a high school graduation. How sweet is that? I’m quite a good speller normally, but spelling into the embroidery machine terrifies me and I lose all perspective on letters. Hopefully this actually says something and isn’t just gibberish…

And now I am linking up to other quilters on Freshly Pieced!

Posted in Process Pledge, Quilts | 3 Comments

Roll On, Ohio!

Posted on April 16, 2012 by dana

Woody Guthrie wrote the song “Roll On, Columbia” in 1941 as an advertisement for hydroelectric power. As much as I don’t generally like product placement, it’s a fun song to sing about wherever you are.

This weekend I took an urban tour of Ohio, top to bottom, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland. Glancing at facebook this morning, I see that many of my friends were adventuring through dramatic woods, mountains, rock climbing. When did I start going to so many cities? When I was younger I was pretty terrified of cities, and the mix of exhilaration and exploration and “I AM HAVING AN EXPERIENCE HERE, RIGHT NOW” I got when I did nervously wander into Chicago or DC painted all those experiences with a dramatic brush. It was like those memories were put through a fancy cell phone app that makes them prettier and more dramatic than they probably really were, or maybe, a metaphor from the opposite end of the tech spectrum, painted by someone from the Hudson River School.

The other thing about that feeling of exploration, is I often worried if I was really HAVING AN EXPERIENCE and if there was something more definitely an EXPERIENCE that I should be doing so as to be fully experiencing things.

These days though, who can bother, traveling is just balancing my obligations and capacity and going places that have a few interesting things going on, run by busy people who all have their own things happening. And yet, there is a quiet beauty in exploring quiet pockets of places and meeting people who are excited about making things and making things happen.

I ran down to the International Quilt show in Cincinnati, stopping by a fabric lovers heaven at the Fabric Shack in Waynesville, OH. I had heard people rave about the Fabric Shack - which is epic – but I was equally charmed by this quiet little town on a river filled with small businesses. Say what, a healthy historic downtown in a rural area?~!? PLUS they have an annual Sauerkraut Festival. Boom!

Ok, then lots of quilts, meeting quilters, being the youngest person in the room…until I got to the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild meet up. I learned several new skills and techniques that I will use to make projects that I have had in my mind and not known quite how to do. Dunno if I can express to you how empowering that feeling is?

I hope I passed on a similar feeling of empowerment to at least a few of the folks I trained with in Cleveland at a Anti-Fracking action camp. Here I was among the oldest folks in the room. We talked about messaging, and visions, and solutions to the problems we see. I shared a few things that help me work smarter instead of harder, and they rolled off to do amazing things.

Then Matt and I helped build a few greenhouses in this crazy old church/urban blight spot that is being converted into a lovely 3 acre urban farm. How is this urban farm different from others I’ve been to?

1. You camp inside.

2. They are building up from asphalt instead of soil.

3. The whole thing looks like an apocalyptic fever dream…but the good kind. With nice friendly people who like healthy food and healthy communities.

Posted in Food, Garden, Other Stuff I Made, Politics, Quilts | Leave a comment

Things That I Will Make Happen!

Posted on April 10, 2012 by dana

Time for some goal setting. Basically a list of all the projects that I have on the burner for this quarter of quilting. I am joining up with this Finish A-Long. And while I’m at it, Freshly Pieced. This process reminds me of when I used to work for Americorps and had to put together quarterly reports on all our regional projects, except way less typing, nagging, and/or weeping over broken printers at 2 am is involved.

First, I need to finish this into something for my soon-to-be world’s cutest niece:

Matt’s sister is also expecting, but he wants to make quilt one “himself” (which actually he did make most of the quilt for his sister’s first amazing little champion, though he wasn’t in grad school then…).

I want to finish this thing:

And this thing:

These fabrics are fresh-dyed blue and gray, and I would like to at least get them ironed, maybe quilted….

I bought this fabric in December to make my friend Jenny a Christmas present. Dammit.

And promised to make this into a fundraiser quilt for awesome social justice group SOCM in January…

Aaaaaand, this signature quilt is for a high school graduation in May…so, it will probably need finished before May…

Posted in Process Pledge, Quilts | 3 Comments

Cathedral Window Block

Posted on April 9, 2012 by dana

I found – and finished ! – this block. Here I have photographed it in front of something that looks like barnwood, because I love Regretsy. I really love the colors!

As an obsessive process point – the windows are a little wonky because my squares I started with were not exactly, exactly square. I thought, eh, what’s a smidge here and there? It’s a lot, people. But not enough to scrap the block.

I am thinking of making it into something for my new little niece that will be born in June (!!!!). But that got me thinking that maybe having the little white Red Riding Hood in the front and center block isn’t the greatest, since my niece will not be white. Not that she will care, but I care that my very first gift to her doesn’t include a picture of a cute little girl who doesn’t look like her.

Does any know of any adorable designer fabric with little brown skinned girls? I imagine it’s not exactly something you can type into google search, without getting some distressing results… As a side note, not that it’s my business, but for the record, the designer of the fabric above is actually a woman of color.

Posted in Process Pledge, Product Placement/Reviews, Quilts | 7 Comments

How’s It Growing?

Posted on April 5, 2012 by dana

I want to obsess over my yard for a moment.

I have always lived in small towns or rural areas until I moved to Charleston, WV, which at around 50,000 people isn’t that powerful of a city. So, I was wondering if I’d be miserable moving to Columbus, which has over a million people in the metro area. But, I’m not! I love it! We have a tiny house with a south facing yard next to a river. Aaand we are within walking distance to a vegan bakery!

I often say though, you can take a girl out of the country, but you can’t take the trash out of her yard.

We have 11 4×8 foot food-related garden plots this year, separated by scrap wood for walking on. The cats love walking along the wood planks and it keeps them out of the seedlings, sometimes…Three beds are already planted with cold weather plants (lettuce, broccoli raab, garlic, peas, onions, etc.) plus our berries and hops are growing like it’s June. Which, weather-wise, it basically is.

We have 4 sorts of hops – Centennial, Cascade, and uh, two others. Who can remember this crap? We planted them last year. They grew lackluster but put out enough hops for one batch of beer. This year they are growing like crazy and chocking out the old rosebush that puts off one bloom per year.

In the meantime, there is 6 gallons of wine bubbling away in the kitchen. From a kit. We almost got grapes last year, but then we changed our minds. I’m not sad about it.

And our army of seedlings are growing, little by little. Most of these will go out in late April or so. We started them in the egg trays and cardboard tubes but the cardboard molded. And I was not overwatering! Blergh. Never messing with that again.

I transferred them into plastic pots till I ran out, then used mushroom containers till I ran out, then we remembered seeing a bunch of pots leftover from some University landscaping last summer by the river. They have been quite an eyesore by the river for the last year, but now they are full of seeds at my house.

We have a grow light (read: a shop light) inside but they are so much happier in the sun. I am not so happy dragging them in and out every day, but it’s just part of the routine. Whenever I get sick of it, I just imagine eating fresh greens…

Posted in Beer, Food, Garden | Leave a comment

Pretty Little Lost Projects

Posted on April 4, 2012 by dana

Sooo, I’m so excited to say that I won a fat quarter bundle of A Walk In the Woods courtesy of Happy Quilting Melissa (who has an adorable baby, among other amazing quilting talents) and the Fat Quarter Shop. Excited? Delirious? I don’t normally win things. This was basically better than that kabillion dollar lottery prize everyone is fussing about.

I have a whole list of quilting goals which are written on a whiteboard above my desk. HOWEVER, when this fabric arrived in the mail, what choice did I have but to cut straight into it, to prove that it was real, and really mine? I have been wanting to make a Cathedral Windows block since, umm, I think in 2002 I saw it in a book and put it on a quilting to-do list…So, better late than never!

It’s about half done…I wanted to get some better pictures of this, but I can’t find it now…no really, just looked for about 10 minutes…hilarious to lose a block that features Little Red Riding Hood, right? Ehhhh…my office/sewing room isn’t that big, I’m sure it will turn up…in the mean time, this is the only shot I have of it:

For the record, he is yawning, not threatening to bite me. If he was mad, you’d see a blur of white and pink paws.

I am also working out how to border my HST Seam Showing Quilt, to make it twin-ish sized. Thinking deep thoughts. I think I have a date with this project tomorrow.

As always (ok, sometimes) I am linking this up to Freshly Pieced Work In Progress Wednesday!

Posted in Process Pledge, Product Placement/Reviews, Quilts | 5 Comments

Rearranging Triangles

Posted on April 2, 2012 by dana

I love that stage in working with Half-Square Triangles (HST’s in quilt language) where you can totally change your design and make all kinds of crazy patterns.

Like diamonds!

Or some kind of flying geese/chevron hybrid!

Or maybe a more centered diamond. Yesss….

I wanted these to look like stained glass, or more quiltily – like when you hold an unfinished quilt top up to the light and you can see all the seams. I love the way that looks, and am trying to replicate it.

The problem with these lovely triangles is that it makes me want to make ALL THE QUILTS! Too many options can be a bit crippling?

My fabric is Moda Reunion line – which is very trendy, let me tell you! With good reason, because it is so nice. Lots of grays and mustards and chartreuses and bricks, which are the best colors as of the last year or so, don’t you agree?

I’m linking up to other people creations at Sew Modern Monday and Sew Happy Geek. I’d love if I can get this top finished by next week – not quilted or anything! So I am pledging it via One Thing One Week.

Posted in Process Pledge, Product Placement/Reviews, Quilts | 6 Comments

I Will Make a Fitted T-Shirt, Then Save a Bunch of Tigers…

Posted on March 29, 2012 by dana

I had a professor who told me that when he became a professor, he decided to never again wear shirts that said things. For various reasons, this made perfect sense to me, and as such I have very few shirts that have words of any sort on them (I even cut out the tags!) (though more because the tags itch my neck). If you want to know what I’m thinking, or where I attended school, or what races I have run in (none), etc. you’ll have to email me, because you won’t read it on my shirt! (Or I suppose if you must, you could come up and talk to me…)

HOWEVER, this blog is about a shirt that says something: I decided to take my Save the Sumatran Tiger t-shirt and make it from a very large to a slightly fitted t-shirt. I got this t-shirt from a charming young gentleman at a Greenpeace training camp last month. It’s his old shirt, so not the fanciest thing I ever got, but I have a sentimental attachment to it.

I generally work on environmental justice campaigns and so campaigns centered around the “charismatic mega-fauna” are intriguing to me. Saving tigers and whales and baby seals – it’s important work, and saving these animals includes saving the habitat they live in and sometimes some protection for the indigenous human communities that depend on these habitats. So I’m not knocking it. I just never really thought about it whatsoever until fairly recently.

I’ve never felt a lot of pull towards saving any animals, charismatic or not (maybe a soft spot for pollution indicator insect species…). Keeping kids from getting cancer from poisoned water, that’s what I stay up at night worrying about. Or, more realistically, how to hold companies accountable when they have polluted kids’ water and the sweet children already have terrible cancers (the naughty kids get cancer from bad water too, but neither sort deserve it). Did you know that mountaintop removal increases birth defects in nearby communities by 42%? That’s a lot of sick babies. So awful, umph.

Ok, but what were we talking about? Tigers! I love the tigers too, and I love all the energetic young people getting their start with Greenpeace and all other sorts of justice activism and that is why I want to wear my size large men’s Sumatran Tiger t-shirt. Except I am not a large man. So, time to sew!

So, I laid a smaller shirt on top of it, and traced around the edges with a sharpie. Note: it doesn’t matter what of marker/pen you use if you cut off the part you mark on. I gave myself some wiggle room, because I didn’t want the shirt to be too fitted. You can always make it smaller, if you go too big the first time.

Then I pinned it and sewed a long lazy basting stitch over my line.

Then I tried that sucker on. Hint: if you sew the shirt with a basting stitch, you can try it on without pins in it. This is much nicer than trying on a shirt with pins in, and if your stitch is in the wrong place, you can always pull those long stitches out pretty quick.

Boy it’s long. I’m mighty tall too, so I think I’ll leave it long for the novelty of having a shirt that won’t show my lower back when I lean forward. I like the width, so I cut the extra fabric off, and sew and extra, smaller stitch down each side to reinforce my stitches.

With taking pictures and writing the blog, including a long tangent about environmental justice, this took an hour.

I keep getting an urge to make clothing, summer dresses in particular, which I am really trying to resist, because clothes are so cheap, and I have not made a dress in 12 years, and really, I am not a fashion-y person, but we’ll see…

Posted in Other Stuff I Made, Politics | Leave a comment