What a Blockhead, Charlie Brown

Yesterday I would have been thrilled to report that Lida the moonbird is finally attached to her quilt, Lida Luna.

Today I'm a little less thrilled, because it hit me this morning that I did not block the quilt before attaching her.

Holy crap.

In the manifesto under my blog profile, I mention the fun, the challenges, and the 'aha moments' of landscape quilting. This will be one of the challenges.

I always block landscape quilts. Or at least I did until now. As any teacher of this particular quilting genre will tell you, it is a necessary step in getting the final piece to hang square, straight and flat against the wall. Blocking in this case means laying the quilt flat (or hanging it) against a firm, heat-resistant surface, pinning it down square, and steaming the holy heck out of it. After that, it sits, sometimes for a couple of days, untouched and unmoved (very important to prevent warping or uneven stretching) until it's completely dry.

I'll admit to being a bit distracted these days, with the studio move just completed and two trips in the offing (where the h*ll did my two bathing suits go???). Add to that the nagging feeling that Lida Luna has been, for various reasons, taking more time than I ever dreamed it would--hence the rush. It's not that I have a deadline; I don't (although Moore's Sewing & Learning Center has very kindly offered to exhibit it as soon as it's done). It's just that there are so many unmade quilts in my head, and ever since my 60th birthday last year, there seems to be some internal pressure that can almost qualify as a deadline--though one of my own making. The good news is, the same thing happened when I turned 50 (only then it was writing books instead of quilting), and after a couple of years I finally got past that time-crunch illusion. I'm looking forward to that downshift again this time around. What is it about decennial birthdays? The years in between never bother me, and it's never about 'growing old' for me, either. It's just the time thing. Grrrr.

Back to the quilt. Some might ask, why not steam it even though Lida is already attached? Answer: Lida would most likely wrinkle in a few places. Right now she's smooth and nicely rounded, puffed out with a couple of thin layers of batting between her and the quilt. There's also a good chance the acrylic yarn on her feathers would be affected (like, melted--or at least wilted), although you never touch the iron directly to the surface, and I would certainly test a yarn sample first. (It took 6 hours to attach those 30 or so little knitted lengths of yarn--you bet your booty I'd test it first!)

Ok, what about taking Lida off the quilt, steaming it, then re-attaching her? Answer: Are you crazy? Just kidding, and yes, this may sound stubborn, but after the long hours spent and the eyestrain and sore fingers endured to secure Lida firmly to the quilt, I'd sooner put the whole project on a shelf than detach her now. And it's so close to being finished...

Which leaves at least one more option, and it's the one I'm considering. Would it be possible to steam carefully around Lida without causing her to draw up and wrinkle? And even if she didn't, would the quilt then warp in her area because of the uneven shrinkage overall? Something tells me it might. Then again, would that matter, if the quilt hasn't yet been trimmed and squared?

This all boils down to the lesser of two evils. If I don't block the quilt, it may start out hanging flat and square but eventually stretch out of shape while hanging on the wall. If I do manage to block most of the quilt without crinkling Lida in the least, it may still be impossible to square. Remember, there is a lake in this quilt. One cardinal rule with landscape quilts portraying a water line or a horizon line is that the top and bottom of the quilt must be parallel to that line--and hence to each other. From there, you square your sides. This is sometimes trickier than it would seem and, with an unblocked area in the quilt, could be downright impossible. The result, as in the first scenario, is that the water line could look all wonky or the whole quilt could hang unevenly. Who wants a crooked or saggy quilt hanging on the wall?

Then again, any distortion after blocking could (crossing my fingers here) end up being so minimal that it's nearly unnoticeable after all's said and done. Considering that Lida is 16 inches long, that might be a stretch. No pun intended.

I'm trying to look at it this way: whichever way this goes, it will be a learning experience. (Gulp.)

Wish me luck...

Update, June 7:  I spent yesterday afternoon carefully blocking the areas around Lida. It might not be perfectly flat, but if I do a little bit of easing in a couple of areas, I think it will hang fine. Whew!! So since I have a little something to whoop-whoop about after all, I'm hooking up here with Whoop Whoop Fridays. Sarah has just finished a quilt that makes me happy just looking at it. Remember to also look below her post to see what her readers are working on. Lots of inspiration there! Also hooking up with Leah Day at FMQ Fridays. She's mulling over the importance (or lack thereof) of the occasional renegade stitch on her AMAZING quilt, Duchess Reigns. Check it out, and check out her hookups, too.

Linda

Lida-Loony

At last, some progress in the new quilting studio. Lida the bird has decided to (mostly) drop her diva-ish ways this week and cooperate. Between Floriani thread and plenty of little alcohol pads to periodically clean the fusible-web goo off the needle (always taking the needle out first), she's been transformed from view A to view B:

View A

View B

She has no eyes yet, and won't have until after she's attached to her free-motion quilt, Lida Luna--untrimmed and waiting on the design board (we don't have the new design wall finished, but my very versatile handy husband--VVHH from now on--is working on it):

Lida's beak will probably be painted either silver or a pearlescent white; otherwise it won't show up all that well against the sky.

The transformation wasn't exactly a cakewalk. There were hitches. The first issue was hand-tying knots in Floriani thread, which I'd never tried before. (I couldn't trust the lockstitches at the beginning and end of each row, most of them being right at the edges of Lida's body, which will soon be closely trimmed away from the stabilizer.) I used my usual hand-tying process, a reef (square) knot, the same configuration you use to keep your shoelaces from coming untied. A knot you can count on.

The joke was on me. While I was working on the second knot,
I literally watched the first knot come loose. I couldn't believe it! Square knots have never failed me with Isacord, Superior and YLI poly, Invisifil, or good ol' Coats & Clark--or my shoelaces. Not ever. However, Floriani embroidery thread is the most slippery thread I've ever used other than mono-poly. (UPDATE: I've since discovered that I may have all along been tying the 'reef' or 'square' knot wrong--oops--still, this thread is slippery enough that, as I said, it is the first to have made knots that I've ever actually watched come untied. END OF UPDATE.) Vexed (and somewhat indignant), I re-tightened the errant knot and then pulled out one of my favorite weapons--Fray Check. Oh yeah...take that, Floriani!! From then on, every knot got saturated with the stuff. And so far, they're all staying put. The great thing about Fray Check, besides checking (stopping) fraying, is that it's totally undetectable after it dries.

The second hitch was something already mentioned above, which is having to trim Lida away from the stabilizer. That's because in my anxiousness to get started, I accidentally pulled out a scrap of medium-weight Pellon interfacing instead of the scrap of tear-away stabilizer I'd meant to use. When the sinking feeling dawned on me halfway through these lines and rows that the stabilizer was handling more like interfacing, I tested a corner of it. Sure enough, it tore somewhat easily in one direction, but not in the other. At that point, Lida was beginning to make me loony. But I wasn't about to rip stitches and start over. Plugging away was the only option. So a close and cautious trim with the scissors will have to do. Once Lida is satin-stitched onto the quilt (over some batting to puff her out a bit), her edges should be invisible; otherwise, fabric markers can be used to touch up any white areas that might show through. Lesson learned, however. From now on I'll check the tear-ability first to make sure it's the right stabilizer. Duh.

Hooking up to Whoop Whoop Fridays, where Sarah has just finished a really cool project with the kids at her church. Be sure to look at some work by the folks who've hooked up below her post, too.

Also hooking up with Leah Day's FMQ Friday. Today Leah was in jail---no, not for real! Just read it. Very entertaining and encouraging.

And happy (almost) June!

Linda

Breaking the Ice

After posting photos of the new quilting studio last week, I was anxious to get up there and start work. However, I'd forgotten one 'minor' detail: the bedroom from which much of this equipment and all these supplies came was now a disaster. Granted, it was a disaster with a lot more space, but it was still a disaster. There were areas that had been so blocked in before, that dusting and vacuuming had become difficult if not impossible. Also, there were things I had modified for quilting and storage that could now go back to their original purpose. Until this old space got cleaned and reorganized (not nearly as fun as prepping the new space), it would be an unpleasant sight to go to bed to and especially to wake up to (pardon the prepositional ending). So mostly, that's what's been happening this week.
 
The bedroom went from these two views...

...back to this (minus the curtains I still need to wash and re-hang):

Ok, yay. I mean, YAY, "whoop whoop!" as Sarah would say! (And I've gotta paint that old chair something other than blue.) But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so even before any of that happened, I thought, all right, I'll just do one little thing in the new studio and then I'll get to work in the old bedroom. I trotted upstairs, sat down at the sewing machine and looked around--and realized that after all of this anticipation, work, and reorganization, I was feeling intimidated by the new space. What?? This was unexpected, a splash of cold water in my face. It was as if the new studio was saying, "Ok, kiddo, let's see what you can do, now that you've got me!" Yikes. So, pretending to be unconcerned, I pulled Lida the bird out to work on--and then remembered that, in all the hubbub with moving, I hadn't gotten around to buying the shiny black thread needed to outline her feathers. Crap. Back Lida went, into her plastic bag.

Nor did I feel ready to unroll the lizard mandala quilt-top or the lake quilt-top (and I know better than to force myself to work on something that isn't jiving with me at the moment). Looking around, my eyes lit on a box I hadn't opened since it was purchased over a year ago--the circular sewing attachment for my machine. Immediately, I thought of the fat quarter I had used a while back to experiment with Shiva Paintstiks. It had rubbings of sycamore and dogwood leaves from my front yard AND a circular design in the middle--a rubbing from a ceramic, Zodiac ash tray given to me in my smoking days of the 1970s. Circular...perfect! I used a variegated YLI thread in the top, and a solid Isacord in the bobbin. They stitched beautifully together.

 It's hard to tell without clicking on the photo, but the attachment worked great. It's not free-motion stitching, of course, but the rest of the piece will be.

 

The main thing is, this simple exercise not only taught me something new, it also broke the ice. No more intimidation!

 

In the meantime, my husband has been busy adding some things to the room. (I'm starting to think this should be his blog. :) First is the little table he made to fill in the space to the left of the sewing table:  

 





 

It turned out perfectly flush with the sewing table and the big maple table behind it. His measures are never off; he is amazingly thorough and precise. I know, I'm very fortunate! The next thing he did was frame a piece of pegboard and hang it above the cutting table. Here's the weird thing: just like the fat-quarter shelves, the yardage shelves and the thread shelves, the pegboard turned out to be exactly the size that was needed, just large enough for everything to fit. We had no way of knowing this beforehand. It just worked out, like the proverbial pieces of a puzzle falling into place. Then again, I don't believe in coincidence.

 

 

Then he hung the wall gecko that my son and daughter-in-law gave me for Mother's Day. As I mentioned in my last post, lizard is my totem animal. It symbolizes The Dreamer in some Native American folklore, so it seems very appropriate to have her mounted over the drawing table, where dreams becomes designs and designs eventually become quilts.

 

 

All that's left to do now is put up a design wall. We're working on putting materials together on the cheap for that--styrofoam insulation panels, corrugated board backing, and flannel covering. Meanwhile, I bought my shiny black thread and will resume work on Lida Luna, so there should be some actual free-motion quilting to show next time--it's been too long.

 

Hooking up here with Leah Day's new blog entry on FMQ Friday, 'Stitch for Fun, Not Perfection.' Good advice for me and I'm sure for many other quilters, as well. When you finish reading that (and viewing her amazing Duchess Reigns), be sure to look at the other quilters who are hooked up there; you'll see some amazing work. They never fail to inspire me. As do the hookups at Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday blog. Sarah has just reorganized her quilting studio, too, and judging from everything she's quilted this week, she was not intimidated by it AT ALL. (I'm following her example from now on.) Check it out!

 

Linda









Everything Old Is New Again

The new quilting studio is (except for a design wall and some pegboard and a little table my husband is building) FINISHED! After 5 grueling but oh-so-fun days of arranging and organizing this wonderful space my very talented and hardworking husband has labored so hard to refurbish, I can actually start working up there tomorrow (between washing the loads of laundry I ignored all week). Maybe Lida the (Diva) Moonbird will finally get some feathers! Anyway, for those of you who expressed your congratulations (thank you!) and for everyone who saw the old studio (bedroom) photo, here are some shots I took this morning of the new studio (including the adjoining bathroom :). But first, the 'before' shot, on the left:

 

 

 

What strikes me most about this room is that probably 95% of what's in it was given to us over the years, bought at thrift stores, or has been repurposed from its original use years ago.

Our younger son's old CD shelves are now my fat quarter shelves. (And I adopted the old boom box he abandoned.) The Singer cabinet holds my late mother-in-law's pride and joy, her 1962 Singer Slant-o-Matic 503, which is now Machine #2 in the room. The Martha Washington sewing cabinet was my grandma's and then my mom's.

This next shelf unit was the toy cubby that my husband Mark made for our sons when they were babies. The computer desk was my aunt's and then my mom's. The wooden wine box holding the quilting magazines is from our older son's wedding reception last year.

 



And here we have our younger son's old Hot Wheels shelves, also made years ago by my husband Mark:

 

 



And remember this little guy? I picked him up at Habitat Restore, and who woulda thunk it...he wound up fitting right in the corner between the bathroom door and the attic door! Not only that, but he holds all of my larger yardage--every single piece I had. Tell me he wasn't meant to come home with me...



 

(The little 6-drawer cabinet on top of him was a thrift store find for $5. And it's green!! As is the old paint paddle I used to shim the bottom of the shelf unit and make it lean against the wall instead of leaning outward--which it started to do after I loaded it with fabric :).

 

The next photo is the cutting and pressing station. The rulers will eventually hang on a piece of pegboard, and I can use my thread rack for thread again. I've had the cutting table since 1986 and the chiffarobe was our younger son's dresser as he grew up. The cutting table extends another two feet on the left, but is in its convenient drop-down position here.

 

 

 

This shows a part of Machine #1. Mark is building a table that will fit in the space to the left of the white sewing table. My aunt gave me the maple table in 1972, and Mark refinished it. The chair was $20 at Habitat Restore, the basket on the table was $2. The pie basket on the floor holds batting and flannel scraps, and cost $5 at an estate auction 30 years ago. The magazine rack, which holds books on stitching and the machine manual, once belonged to Mark's grandparents.

 Machine Number 3 fills in the corner at the top of the stairs, the only area where everything is fairly new. This one is used mostly for piecing and embroidery/thread painting (Machine #1 is generally tied up with quilting and Machine #2 is reserved for clothing and more industrial work). That's another $20 chair from Habitat Restore. They had about 30 of them.

 







I enlarge sketches and paint fabric on this drafting table, made by Mark for our older son during his high school years. My old cutting mat fits perfectly! Due to the new carpet and the proximity of a bathroom up here, I'll probaby rig a painting setup over the tub from now on, where, as mentioned in my last post, I can just rinse the whole mess down the drain.

The bathroom is a bathroom, what can you say, but Mark worked very hard to restore the tile and repaint the walls and woodwork. The cabinet and tank-top shelf was built by him years ago. The pitcher and platter and the candle holder are recent thrift store finds. All I need is a candle.





 In the niche near the bottom of the stairs I've put one of my Mother's Day gifts from our older son and his wife. Lizard is my animal totem, and this wall gecko is just beautiful. This may not be her permanent home, but it will do for now.

Which is a good segue into what may be the project that follows Lida Luna. I started a lizard mandala quilt almost two years ago and then put it away. Re-inspired by seeing Suzanne's serpent quilt at her Gardener-Quilter blog, I pulled it back out of my stash, along with another unfinished quilt top (a lake scene), and am hoping to get both of these sandwiched and free-motion quilted shortly.

Leah Day, my favorite blogger, is asking what we've been up to this week, so I'm hooking up to her newest blog entry along with several of her talented readers. Also hooking up to Whoop-whoop Friday on another very fun blog I just recently discovered, where Sarah has been doing some amazing organizing of her own this week!

Holy cow, it's way past my bedtime. Goodnight, and happy quilting (or organizing)!

Linda

p.s. A shout-out to the great songwriter Peter Allen for his composition, Everything Old Is New Again, from All That Jazz