"Union Station" quilt complete

I'm very happy with this quilt!  The fabric is all hand-dyed by me (dyeing discussed here).  The pattern is "Union Station" by Janine Burke, published in Colorful Quilts, by Amy Walsh and Janine Burke.  The back is one large piece of hand-dyed fabric.

Here's a close-up of the quilting.  I chose a dark charcoal thread; I like how the design disappears in the black stripes.

I came up with the quilting pattern, a meander with mostly sharp corners but some curves thrown in.  My sample is on the left below (beige fabric).  I gave this sample to Mary Walck, my go-to long-arm quilter.  She did a great job with the quilting, but it's also interesting to me that even while she was following my design, it has her own "signature"--quilting is like hand-writing that way.

For the binding, I did a machine-stitched binding, sewn first onto the back and then flipped to the front.  I used a "faux-piped binding" method that involves piecing two binding strips together, resulting in a small flange on the front of the binding.  

The method is designed for having the flange in a contrasting color, but if you do both strips the same color, it still has the advantage of giving you a very clear line to follow when doing the top-stitching on the front, and the stitching gets buried in the seam.  This was my first try at using all one color--I like it!  Thanks to fellow Galesburg quilt guild member, Ron Bishop, for telling us about this method, and for suggesting doing it with all one color.  The next photo shows how the binding looks on the front of the quilt (lower horizontal) and how it looks on the back (upper).  One does end up with a line of straight stitching around the edge of the back.  I forgot to put thread in the bobbin to match the green of the background fabric, which would have made it less noticeable.  But being the same color as the rest of the quilting, it still looks OK.

Organizing the wet studio

The wet studio (for dyeing/painting/printing fabric) is definitely not as pleasant an environment as the sewing studio upstairs.  Nonetheless, I'm lucky to have a basement with plenty of space, a concrete floor, convenient electricity, and a large, deep double sink.  This is the main table I work on, here covered with an array of stuff I've been accumulating since starting to take classes on screen printing, stamping, discharge, etc.  Working further with the new techniques was being hampered by the difficulty of finding what I needed, so it was time to get organized.  I laid it all out on the table, and then organized things in plastic or cardboard containers.  Multi-use tools that could be used for more than one technique (like cotton twine and sponges) got their own box.  Here are a couple of the newly organized shelves:

And on another shelf, I have most of what I need for regular dyeing and painting.

The plastic shelving is from Walmart--much easier to put together than the metal shelving I've used for decades, and it won't rust.

I've got a new project in mind that will involve both printing and discharge, so this was a necessary first step.  I've got a week or two of work to do on "Regret" to get it ready for quilting.  Once that is all prepared, I'll move on to the next project.  The deadline is related to the weather--discharge needs to be done when it's warm enough to work outside. . .

Four-Patch Stacked Posie quilts

It seems I haven't posted photos of this quilt, one of my favorites, made about a year ago.  It's about 40" square, and I've it hung in a place where I see it every day.   This is about the 7th quilt I've made from the "Four-Patch Stacked Posie" pattern, which is basically a method of cutting up one central fabric so that each block is made from four identical segments of the fabric.  Most people do this quilt from floral fabrics, and I've done some like that, but I also like what happens with a geometric or other kinds of abstract prints.  Here's a close-up, so that you can see how the block is constructed.  I am very happy with the quilting I did on this piece--in-the-ditch quilting around and through the center lines of each block, and then loose, overlapping squares in the white sashing.  The black border was left unquilted, to emphasize its role as a frame.  I think the narrow striped binding also works well; it was cut from an unevenly-striped fabric. (As always, click on the photo for a larger view.)

Here's the fabric, before it was cut up:

Added July 21--This was actually the second 4-patch quilt I made with the red/white/black fabric.  Here's another, which I also like, but not as much as the one with white sashing.  Some of the individual blocks are especially nice; my favorites are the bottom right corner and the left hand column, two center blocks.

And here are some other 4-patch quilts I've made.  I think the multi-color sashing is a big plus in this one, which went to my sister.

I made this one for my friend Kay.  There's a photo of the fabric before cutting at the end of this post.

The next one won a prize in the local quilt show a few years ago.  I was surprised, because it's a pretty straightforward rendering of a simple pattern.  I think the judge had seen so many of these in floral prints, that she rewarded the use of a different type of fabric.  And I do think the black and white sashing was a good choice.  I originally tried out various bright colors, but the predominantly white fabric works well with the multi-color blocks.

Here's a photo of the original fabric (on the right) and some of the blocks:

Here's one from a more traditional fabric.  I like this color combination very much--it introduced me to the pleasure of magenta.  This quilt is on our bed.

The next one was made as a high school graduation present for a good friend.  The sashing is some of my hand-dyed fabric.

And here's the first one I made, as a wedding present for another young friend.  This one was done without the narrow frame around each block, as I was aiming for a more overall look to the pattern.

Using African and South Asian fabrics

A good friend of mine has travelled a good deal in Africa and South Asia, bringing back fabric from each trip.  She has used much of it, but a large pile has been sitting in the attic for years, and she decided to give it away.  I was the lucky recipient!  Some is in large flat pieces, other is clothing that I have cut up.

I talked with my friend about what I could make for her from the fabrics, and we decided on placemats.  While each fabric is beautiful, I found it a challenge to combine them.  I've made three placemats so far; I will show them to her, and then make 3 more, according to her preference.  

On the left--using the largest variety of fabric, including some solids.
In the middle--using the most closely-related selection of fabric
On the right--tighter range than the first, but wider than the second; detail of this one below.

Giveaway winner

Congratulations to Barb, who won the pillowcase giveaway!  Barb, I'll send you a separate note about choosing a fabric.

Thanks to all who sent in a comment.  I know from the stats on blogger that there are more of you out there--I guess pillowcases are not as popular as I thought they would be. . .

Can't leave you without a photo.  Here's a preview of a detail from a piece I'm currently finishing up, more before long:

Pillowcases--including a giveaway!

I've been out of the studio for a few weeks, both because of travel, and because of having some work done in both the sewing studio upstairs and the wet (dyeing) studio in the basement.  I was finally able to uncover the machine again to do some sewing, but needed something small to help me get in gear;  I had finished up a couple of larger quilts just before the work was done, and didn't feel I could jump right into the next big project.  So I decided to make up some more pillowcases for my bed.  The ones on the right are duplicates of a pair I made out of the fabric used for the 4-patch stacked posie quilt below, which is on my bed.  (The blocks are all made from the fabric used for the main body of the pillowcase.)

I had also recently gotten a bit of some lovely Kaffe Fassett "shirt stripes" fabric for a couple of napkins, and had liked it so much that I ordered more for pillowcases, as I think these will look nice on the bed also-- the cases on the left.  Here's a detail that shows the fabrics better:

These pillowcases are fun to make.  They would seem like a nice gift for friends, but I don't usually know anyone's bed linen decor, or whether they would like pillowcases that contrast with their sheets.  So, here's my giveaway deal--write a comment for this post (can be as simple as "I'd love two pillowcases"), include your e-mail address (can be spelled with "at" instead of @ if you want to avoid spam possibilities) and I'll figure a way to choose an entry at random.  I'll get to hear from readers who don't usually comment, and one of you will get two pillowcases with a fabric of your choice--my treat!  (Details of fabric choice will be worked out with whoever wins the draw.)  You have until 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 30 to leave a comment.

A week with Dorothy Caldwell

I spent a week earlier this month in a workshop with Dorothy Caldwell at Nancy Crow's Barn.  The name of the workshop was "Human Marks," and we spent the week making a variety of marks on paper and fabric, with all sorts of implements/methods.  The final project was to make a small book with the products of some of these exercises, plus anything else we wanted to add, and to do that we also learned a simple book-binding method.  The workshop was both stimulating and fun, and it was a great group of people--more diverse than most workshops, as it drew people from a variety of backgrounds, including people whose main work was in weaving, collage, installation, dyeing, quilting, and more.

The small pieces on the left (the shorter ones, about 4x13") were done by putting soy wax as a resist on fabric and then discharging color with bleach.  The four smaller pieces all started out as black fabric (top two on a black that discharged to tan, and the bottom two on a black that discharged to yellow, the lighter background from leaving the bleach on longer.  The long piece on the right started out as orange, discharging to black.  My favorites are the top two on the left.  Upper left done by stamping wax on with a stamp I made by glueing string to a wooden block; upper center done by brushing on wax.

 This is a small segment (about 8x10") of a piece done by putting a very large piece of paper on the ground, taping a brush to a 3-foot long stick, dipping it in India ink, and painting.  The big piece then got cut up to make a book.

We spent a day learning about kantha embroidery stitching, and the rest of the week worked on small pieces.  I've wanted to learn this, so was glad for the opportunity, but the intensive work was hard on my hand, so I didn't get too far.  Dorothy has spent time with women who do this work in Bihar, India, and had a number of pieces to show us--quite amazing.  You can see some examples here.

 Here are a number of the small books that students made as a test of the binding technique, made by cutting up the paper we'd used as a desk-protection when doing various exercises.  (Double-click for a larger view.)  The two with lovely black and white covers are Dorothy's own samples.  Mine is towards the center with the turquoise spine. I really loved making this little book.  I used to study medieval books, so I've long known what a "signature" is in bookbinding.  But I'd never made one myself.  Something very appealing about putting the signatures together and weaving the threads for the spine.  I may be looking for things to put together into little books. . .

Much of the week was spent in alternation between working very carefully (bookbinding, kantha) and working without control (painting with a long stick).  One of the most interesting exercises in working with less control was in blind stitching:

We cleared our tables, threaded up five needles and laid them to the right of the fabric.  Then we each put on a blind-fold.  Dorothy would read out a word related in some way to design, and we were to make a row of stitches with that word in mind.  I love what happened in my second row, where the word was "dialogue."  My intention was to make two stitches close together, but sometimes I couldn't remember if I'd done one stitch or two, hence some triplets as well as the pairs (detail below).

I can imagine working with this stitching motif in some way in future projects.  It will be interesting to see if I can make the stitches with this combination of order and casualness if I have my eyes open. . .

One of the major lessons I took away from the workshop was reinforcement of the idea to slow down and look carefully.  To be open to accidental beauty.  To look for serendipitous adjacencies/relationships (this last most in play when we were making our books, looking to arrange pages with interesting juxtapositions).  For example, on one of my cloth-book pages, I sewed a trapezoidal piece of fabric I had brought with me.  But when I turned the page, I found I was more enchanted with the line of stitches that showed on the back:

Thank you Dorothy, and thanks to all my wonderful classmates!