Meet Ted
Ted was created last Friday when I was in a grumpy mood. I had dreamed up the idea of Ted quite some time ago and took the opportunity of this dreary Friday to get going on the little guy. I had the blue plaid fabric on hand from back in the day when the Swain's downtown carried a really random assortment of cut-ends of fabric. This particular blue made a couple of sassy "comfy pants" (hand-sewn pull-on pants with an elastic waist) for the boys when that is the only type of pants they wanted to wear.

Ted's fringe of a hairdo is from a silly little acrylic boucle that also graces the bottom of a nifty A-line skirt I made for myself out of black...polar fleece! Ted's grimace is a scrap of truly lovely bark cloth I zig-zagged on. Now, after a week of tough-love, Ted's grimace has frayed quite a bit-- it's a mere shadow of a grimace.

I'm totally satisfied with Ted's dimensions, he seems just puffy enough-- with a totally huggable, throw-able body that the boys' enjoyed. The next day i started in on Sylvia,* a girl doll with a red plaid skirt and curly red hair. Alas, I ran out of stuffing part-way through and she remains unfinished. I'm afraid her dimensions, face, hair and everything else will not please, she may truly end up as One Fugly Stuffy.

I'm somewhat chagrined that I now live in a town which carries no 'utility' fabric, and no Stuffy stuffing! It's an outrage I tell you!

*Both Ted and Sylvia's name's were picked out by Hayden, who, as he is only in second grade, did NOT name them after Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, or for that matter, after a dear friend's spouse who is also named Ted.

Important Lessons Learned

Big doings here at Naptime HQ. Went to Target this week. Mecca of stuff. Place you go to buy the things you'll ultimately curse and rue the minute you have to pack up and go somewhere else. Stuff accretion HQ. Anyway, got a groovy new ironing board cover. They actually had upwards of 6 different options. Michael Graves personally designed a couple of them.

Lying on top of said new ironing board cover is part of a "square" for the current quilt. The Important Lesson I've Learned this week is to press, rather than iron, these curvy pieces. Makes everything the much better. And also, the going slowly and using lots of pins is also good for the curvy pieces.

The Learning Curve

I am finding that I simply love Mondays and Tuesdays. Selfishly, those are the days I typically don't work, don't volunteer at school, and have the most time to myself. I've been rather frenzied these last Mondays and Tuesdays -- going for sinfully delicious bike rides, tank top and shorts hikes on the beach and through the Fort (it's been hot this week!), sampling some crazy Steve Ross TV yoga workouts, with bursts of house-cleaning, laundry and of course...sewing.

This past Monday, I finally started grabbing some fabric out of the closet to give curved piecing a try. At first, I was going to pick some gunky old fabric just to see how it would work, but I compromised and used some mostly inexpensive fabric I picked up a while ago at *gasp* JoAnn's! Here are the results:

I'm going to give this basic pattern a try for a refreshing aqua/blue number. I'm a few cuts into some of my yardage, and my rotary skills are a little rusty - I've got wonky-edges! Sounds like I need to focus on better ironing and more aabeisance to Goddess Just-So.

UFO Thursday

What was I thinking? That's what I've been wondering about all afternoon after I pulled this unfinished KING-SIZED quilt top out of a UFO pile. For the life of me, I can't remember why I decided to make this quilt top so big. I think this was my 3rd quilt project - which means I probably made this in 2002. I know we didn't have a King-sized bed back then -- we were still 2 years away from welcoming Graham into the world, and still lived in our small Uptown house with bedrooms far too small for a bed that big.



I do know that I followed the directions for this "Roman Square" from my much-loved copy of Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! by McClun/Nownes. I imagine I must have bought all my fabric downtown at the now-defunct Quilter's Cove, but I must have used a lot of fat quarters, as I don't have too many of these fabrics left in my stash. Perhaps it was the blissful idiot-joy of strip piecing which grew this top so big - whirrr, whirrr, whirrr goes the sewing machine, endlessly, endlessly. I had to iron out a few wrinkles before I took the picture, and came away kind of impressed with my fabric choices, I used a lot of small scale, old-fashioned fabrics - a look I've never really repeated. Perhaps I got it out of my system?


I've still got a King-sized hunk of wool batting lurking in the garage, and even some green gingham backing fabric to finish this up. Now that I've machine-quilted a Queen size, would I be able to tackle a quilt this big? More decisions.

One thing this trip back down the memory (or lack thereof) trail has put into focus is one of the shames of my parenting career so far...an almost complete lack of written recollections of what/who/where the boys were as they were growing up. I comforted myself with the notion that I really was living mindfully, and loving/cherishing/honoring each stage, but as this quilt top shows, one forgets.

And so, without further ado - a Summer 2009 recap!

I remember looking forward to summer beak with happy anticipation - I had grown weary of the grind of getting the boys off to school, picking Graham up at 1:00; then driving back to school to pick up Hayden at 3:30. I calculated I made around 700 trips in my green station wagon for this just-over-a-mile journey. Boo! to dreary routnine! Boo! to finding shoes and jackets and packing lunches in a hurry! Boo! to cajoling Hayden to do his homework or practice his violin!

One of the first things we did that vacation was go out to Graysmarsh Farm to pick strawberries. The boys were so cooperative and pleasant and fun to be with, I remember thinking "huh, this parenting gig is certainly getting easier - where's the drama? the tantrums? the changing of poopy diapers on the ground between the rows? Where are the tears?" Alas, there was none. We picked 20 pounds of strawberries that day!

My joke was that the boys were 'homeschooling' that summer, as I hadn't signed them up for a lot of camps or activities, but after all, they were kept pretty busy. Hayden went to Centrum's Fiddle Tunes camp for a week, we took swimming lessons for two weeks (blissfully, both boys lessons were at the same time!) and at the end of the summer, Hayden did a week long a.m. soccer camp.

In past summers' one of my biggest issues was the feeling of being trapped at home, either due to infancy and frequent napping, to a highly labile toddler, or to post partum depression (THAT was a fun summer!) My strategy for bypassing this this year was to go running in the morning before John went to work. It worked blissfully and brilliantly. The early summer weather was delightful and dry, and the scenic jaw-dropping wonderment of my runs through Fort Worden, and it's nearby neighborhoods was reliably delightful. Crows, crows, crows, raven, deer, bunnies (!) and coyote scat were nearly daily sightings. My wintertime-spring walking regimen found me in pretty good shape, so the uptick to not feeling horrid each time I ran was not too long. Plus, I had what I began to think of as my "moral superiority" to keep me warm the rest of the day knowing that I had already worked out and been a good fitness gal before even eating breakfast. Sadly, at the end of July, I injured my hamstring - a boo-boo I still haven't really fixed.

Another key to the enjoyment of this summer was the boys' delightful and nearly constant, good-natured and easy relationship with one another. For hours they would build and re-build and role-play with their Legos and the various contraptions they built. I was left to a puttering presence, wandering about the house doing laundry, cleaning, cooking, baking and sewing.

Usually by the mid-afternoon we would rally and go to the beach, or a park, or a playdate. We were low-tech at the beach this year, almost always riding bikes down there, with Graham and our gear in the bike trailer. We had a couple of nice plastic shovels and some old buckets at the beginning of the season, but after that...sticks, hands and sheer exuberance carried the day. Moms and occasionally a dad or a nanny stretched out on blankets and discussed gender spectrum issues, the sad fate of local teenagers or the many uses of supermarket rotisserie chicken.

Other events for the summer included our first County Fair -- with pony rides, giant slides, a bouncy castle, kettle corn and Pepsi's. The boys' first drive-inn movie - Up! which Hayden and Graham both proclaimed was "ok," some 60 pounds of fresh-picked fruit and a total of zero sunburns. By the end of each day I was pretty calm and happy, and although I was rarely in the mood to cook, somehow we all got fed.

Next summer? Hopefully a lot like this one. Maybe Graham will really want to learn to ride a bike, maybe Hayden will get over his vehement opposition to a bike ride longer than three blocks, and hopefully they'll both continue to play together so cooperatively and harmoniously.

Mini Quilt Monday

I've been dithering and a-dithering over finishing up the queen-sized nine-patch, first, trying to come up with suitable backing fabric in the right quantities, and then agonizing over border quilting styles and finally, fretting about choosing the perfect binding fabric. Enough already! Just finish the darn thing!

As part of my dithering, I sewed up this little darlin' - a lovely maquette made to not only test out the quilting I intended to do on the nine-patch, but also to see how my aqua, blue and green fabrics for my next quilt were going to get along. Quite delightfully, I'd say. This little quilt 18-1/2" x 20-1/2" reminds me of clean laundry on the line on a hot summer's day, or a freshly ironed white cotton shirt right after you've put it on, and before you've spilled a commuter cup of coffee down the front of it on your way to work.

Oh, I also pieced the back of it a little, and was pleased to see that my quilting came out right in the center of the squares - hard to plan, but I tried! Today marks my first full Monday with both adorable boys in school. I've got vacuuming and laundry and yoga and cooking and bike-riding on the agenda, as well as plenty of sewing, stay tuned!

U.F.O.* Thursday

Today I am going to feature a photo of a *U.F.O., or Un-Finished Object, something I have quite a lot of. This one hangs in the sewing room/computer room and enjoys a choice little spot on a big white wall. I'm actually not really that interested in 'finishing' it, I think it makes a nice little wall hanging just as it is. It was created in an Improvisational Quilting class offered by Esther's Fabrics. Only the second quilt class I've ever taken, it was quite delightful! I liked that the instructor gave us each a big bag of fabric to work with; we were encouraged to not color coordinate, and to, of course, be spontaneous.



It has been a miserably rainy week here in PT, not so good for getting outside with the boys, but excellent for staying inside and getting some sewing done after our two-week sewing-machine free vacation. I was thrilled to finally finish the nine-patch top today. I sewed together 328 individual 2.5" squares to make a double border, plus added another white border on to that. Phew! The next step is one I balk at, putting together the backing. I think I find it difficult, as it sort of boggles my brain to do the math to make the thing come out correctly. I'm pleased that I have the backing fabric in hand (a bright Michael Miller stripe), but am feeling like I should piece the back a little bit, since that seems to be all the rage these days. How about a really, really big nine patch of alternating stripes? Hmmm?

Behold, Most of the Nine-Patch Quilt Top!
My goodness, was this a tasky little number. Sewing the sashing strips took a bit longer than I expected, all that pinning, tugging, and praying that things would line up was a bear. But, thanks to some dreary foggy mornings around here, I found the time to get it done.

I'm not in love with the way it looks so far, but think it will look better once I add a double border of 2.5" squares, another white row, and then some funky binding. My sweet quilt-holder-upper (that would be John,) is probably counting the minutes right now before he gets off work for two weeks at the Lake! I may go into sewing-machine withdrawal, whilst we are gone, but I just moments ago finished sewing the binding on the Blue Monster (which doesn't seem so horrible as I have been feeling about it,) so I can take it with and hand whip-stitch it to while away the many spare minutes.

I am excited about the big pile of mostly aqua, brown and light blue fabrics I have stacked up on my cutting table right now, they will be the next big project I am going to work on once I get back (oh, after I quilt Mr. Nine-Patch!) I almost want to take them with me to give me inspiration in thinking of a design, but I'm afraid they would get all smokey smelling from the many campfires at the Lake. Fare thee well!

O.K., Now There's 90

I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone, and thought that I should stretch that nine-patch quilt top into (maybe) a queen size, so I rustled up 40 more fabrics to create twenty more blocks! There was a bad photo of them all laid out in the spare room - but having just looked for it, right now, it appears to have vanished. Curious.

I tried not to dither too much on the layout as the colors are so confusing and confused I couldn't really see the point. I came up with various "systems" for the lay out, and finally opted for a loose Roy G. Biv (the acronym for the colors of the rainbow, don't you know,) and just let it lay. I think I only swapped a couple of blocks. I did try to put the 'uglier' blocks to the outside, and my favorites toward the middle.

I like sewing the blocks together, it's a satisfying and progress-evident part of the process. I discovered some really lovely white fabric in my stash for the sashing, which after some internet sleuthing I figured out was the white cotton "Quilter's Dream Sateen" from Dharma Trading. I was nervous I'd run out midway through putting it together, so of course had to buy some more! It came in the mail today, and at first I thought it was the wrong stuff, it looked so stiff and shiny, but after washing, it's the same lovely stuff and I am good to go.

I've been meaning to post some pics of the second in my Blue Quilt Series (that makes it sound so purposeful, instead of the somewhat random event it was,) but I have been busy taking the boys to parks and swim lessons and obsessively playing Bejeweled on Facebook. Oh, the shame. More quilting after the weekend, with some photos to come.

70 Nine-Patch Squares, By Golly!

I finally finished all 70 squares for crazy mom quilts quilt-along! I think the suggestion was that one was to make these squares out of scraps only. Well I dutifully tried that, and scrambled around in my various shoeboxes, baskets and bags for coordinating scraps. That only lasted until about square thirty or so...and then I gave up and started pulling fabric off the shelves, ironing the edge and cutting off 2.5" hunks.



But still? Phew, what a time-consuming project! Probably made all the more time-consuming as I set a rule for myself that I would not repeat a fabric. Yes, for those of you doing the math at home, that's 140 different fabrics! I inadvertently goofed by using an orange polka dot fabric twice, and also gave up on finding a coordinating fabric for another square and re-used a peach-colored paisley twice. I'm kind of impressed with how long I would dither on each fabric choice - each square a dilemma.

This quilt top will be sashed in white, which I think will set off the myriad of different colors nicely. I'm looking forward to using white fabric as I NEVER have! Still curious as to how all the squares will get along - stay tuned.

There's a New Quilter in Town!

On Thursday, Hayden and I finally got around to putting together his fabric for a quilt we cut out a while ago. He successfully wrenched me away from my project (grid quilting the all-blue monster) while I had enough patience and calm to teach him a few basics. He learned how to thread the machine, pull up the bobbin thread, and sew a straight seam. We both agreed that for now, I would be the one to do the rotary cutting, and the ironing.

It was a lot of fun! I'm normally not the most patient when it comes to kid projects (a horrible admission for a full-time mom!) but Hayden listened very patiently and accepted his inability to do everything perfectly. The best part about the whole eneavor was his enthusiasm, demonstrated by his patented "happy jump" -- the pogo-like vertical two-foot hop he does on the soccer field, and at the carnival, whenever he is really excited and happy.

Yesterday he finished the quilting and sewed on the binding. The next step will be to teach him how to blind stitch the binding to the back side. He was a little resistant to hand-sewing, but I think it will be a good skill for him to learn -- and will also free up the sewing machine...for me!

Order Up!

The boys and I toted a crate full of quilts down to Jeanine's store today. And I was so glad to get them out of the house I felt like shouting "order up!" as I did when I was a breakfast cook.

I've had them mostly done for over a month now but have been dithering on tags, labels and signange. I finally beat Macintosh Pages into submission and created a "look" I really like. I bought a font ("Deviant Plain" dontcha know) and floated my text over a puffy white cloud in a beautiful blue sky. Sharon "got" the dreamy, peaceful concept I was going for when I showed her a tag today, so there's my positive reinforcement.

Jeanine had a scarf rack already hanging in the store where she decided to hang the quilts. I'd love to be a fly on the wall as people are looking at them...hopefully they'll say nice things, and even more, I hope they'll bring them home and find a cuddly baby to enjoy them.

I don't reckon I will really make what one would call a profit on these, but I did get the satisfaction of creating some wonderfully well made little works of art.

So, if you're looking for a special shower or baby gift, head on down to About Time Clothing at 839 Water Street in lovely Port Townsend and pick yourself up one of my creations.

Mini Quilt Monday

Over on a stitch in dye is a feature called Mini Quilt Monday. I' pretty sure this doll quilt I made for Harper's fifth birthday qualifies: at 17"X14" it's a wee little gem.

I was pretty random in constructing it - I'll call it a "disintegrating three strip," as I simply grabbed some strips of fabric off of my sewing table and sewed them together, then cut them up into 4" blocks, sewed those together, and then cut them apart a la the disappearing nine patch technique. Eureka! orderly, yet random, just as the disappearing nine patch is.

Harper's birthday party was yesterday, and the whole afternoon was a delight. Graham and I walked the four blocks to her house with me in heaven because he held my hand the entire way. I swoon every time I get to hold his hand. Harper's folks have a lovely big house, with an epic yard. After being physically attached to me for a good solid hour, Graham finally got up enough gumption to run and play and join in on the birthday fun. It was a "parent's stay" kind of party and I enjoyed a couple of glasses of white wine while having lovely conversations with the assorted moms and the few dads. Oh, and the weather was gorgeous! Sunny and warm enough to wear a skirt and sandals! My idea of the perfect temperature.

At present opening time I was trying to get a cute picture of Harper and her new quilt, but as I was using the little Canon camera which is dreadfully slow, my cutest pic has another child's head in the middle of the frame! I'm pretty sure Harper loved her gift as after the presents were all opened, she was carrying it around the lawn, clutched tightly in her little hand.

What an absolute treat to know adorable five year olds who love doll quilts!

A Big Hunk of Swirly Blue Fabric

What does six yards of 90" wide unbleached muslin look like after it's been low-immersion dyed in three different colors of procion blue? Like this:

In my quest to a) use up some of my fabric stash, and b) finish up some UFO's, I found this big hunk of fabric (purchased when?) and soaked it for 24 hours in the aformentioned blue. I sure hope I successfully rinsed out all of the dye, because now it is the bottom layer of a quilt sandwich laid out in the spare bedroom. Just one to two-hundred safety pins later, and I'll be ready to quilt!

The quilt began as a project for Graham, who was in need of a full-size quilt. He specified "blue" when asked for his preference, and lo and behold I found over 40 different blue fabrics in the mighty cabinet o' stash. It wasn't until after I had gotten nearly all of the fabric cut that he capriciously changed his mind, and declared that he wanted his new quilt to be 'green.' Oh well.

The pattern for the quilt top is called "Anvil Star" and turned out rather nicely, I think. Midway through the dyeing process I realized that I had been down the all-blue quilt top with low-immersion dyed backing fabric road before: for the "Making Waves" patterned quilt that currently graces the guest room. It may not be a ground-breaking innovation for me, but if I ever get it all quilted, I bet Hayden, the new recipient, will enjoy it. Perhaps he'll even dream swirly blue dreams while lying underneath it.

Manly, Yes, But I like It Too!

And behold, here is a manly little quilt I made for a friend's store. She specified "four girl quilts and two boy quilts" - roughly the same proportion of girl:boy clothing available at Gymboree!



I stole the colorway from a previously completed quilt made in a different pattern (which, try as I might, I cannot find in my pattern drawer!) - it features Kaffee Fassett's "Targets" fabric, which I loved the moment I saw it in the store. I've subsequently bought a little piece of "Targets" in the blue/pink/lime/ orange colorway. I'm sure it will leap out of my stash cabinet right quick.

For the pattern on this little darlin' I tried the currently popular "Disappearing Nine Patch" that has been taking the inter-blogs by storm. I made big beefy 5" squares and really enjoyed the orderly, yet random way this went together. As you can see, this quilt has a manly backing fabric, and I tried diamond quilting for the first time, simply chalking one 60 degree line down the middle of the quilt and using my stitch guide to keep the lines roughly 2.5" apart. The whole thing reminds me of men's ties and haberdashery.

I'm curious to see how this will be received - black and brown for a baby quilt? What do you think?

My First (Completed) Quilt

With late-life motherhood came an abundance of...free time! Well, not *free* exactly, but no longer was I working 40-60 hours a week teaching high school english or writing copy to promote music festivals, or raising money to put on said music festivals, etc. So, round about the time Hayden was 6 months old, I got the notion to start sewing. I had my grandma's Singer Featherweight, but no manual and no parts. Those had somehow been lost in the transfer between my mom, my sister and myself. Although I could find out the exact date of birth of my machine on the internet, I couldn't find a manual, and since I didn't know how to thread the machine - I was stuck! Stuck until I wrote some nice lady in Texas (whose address I did get from the internet) and she sent me a xeroxed copy of the manual. I was off and running!

My very fist quilt was an unlovely fence rail which annoyed me to no end once I got it done. There was an olive green in a paisley print that I could not overlook. Plus, this first quill suffered from numerous misaligned seams and so was relegated to the bottom of a drawer.

For this, my second quilt, I chose the fabrics with care, and settled quickly on a scrappy nine patch pattern. I learned how to set my blocks on point, and machine-quilted it all myself. I actually love the way it came out. Although I had intended it for a crib quilt for Hayden, it never quite made it there. Now, it still hangs on the wall of my second lil' darling's baby room - a room we still have yet to find a use for (except for storing the dozen or so finished quilts and quilt tops!)

BAD MOOD HOT MITT

Today dawned with a sore throat (for me) and the thought of making my mother a lovely little mini-quilt for Mother's Day. I thought; bright Amy Butler prints, some reds, some pinks, maybe even some applique. Once the kids were dropped off, the mood to create said lovely item had waned. Instead I spied the brown and green and orange fabric scraps from the two "boy" quilts I'm working on, and thought, "hot mitt."

Well, it was a slicing and dicing affair. I suffered not one, not two, but three rotary cutter injuries (!) and scrapped this thing together. i had to drag the young one downtown after school to take it to the little mail shop to get it in the mail in time. At any rate, it will probably keep my mom's hands protected. Tomorrow's bound to be a better day, right?

QUILT-A-LONG

Who knew? There's a vast global cadre of blogs about quilting? Mine is just the 4 millionth outcry from an overeducated woman sublimating her intelligence by cutting up beautiful fabric and sewing it back together again. One fine and robust example is "crazy mom quilts" a sparky sounding gal named Amanda Jean who is wondrously productive. Her blog has great stuff, and tutorials, too!

Last week she announced a "quilt-a-long" of a scrappy nine-patch. I, and over 250 other people announced their willingness to participate. The call was simply to create a nine-patch square once a day for 70 days, periodically post a picture of your results, use up a bunch of one's carefully saved fabric scraps, and soon; enough squares to make a delightful quilt.

I'm liking it, because a) it has caused me to actually organize some of my carefully saved scraps, and b) I am having fun making tiny color decisions and going through the manuevers of tiny assemblage. Quilt project writ small.

Anyway, here are my results (I'm a bit ahead of schedule: the thing started on Monday, April 27) - I'm two days ahead!

At first, I was randomly pulling scraps out of baskets and then I thought it better to curate and select my scraps. Have you noticed the pink theme?

In other news I did not get the somewhat career-esque position I applied for, and have been subsequently examing my navel and my place on Planet Earth.

San Diego Purse

In February, on my last foray as a traveler, I accompanied a friend on a buying trip to...Las Vegas! I took my big old Coach bucket bag as I figured it would make a good carry on, one that would hold snacks and water, sunglasses and mints, vodka and Kleenex. Well, it did all that, but was a big brown weight on my shoulder. Ouch.

So, for our Spring Break trip to San Diego (o.k., lets get real...to LEGOLAND!) I knew I’d want a big ‘ol bag to again carry the aforementioned stuff, but with room for sunscreen, granola bars, fruit leather, maps and hats. Clearly, what needed to happen in the week before we left, was to make -- and quilt, a purse!

I was limited to fabric on hand and had a choice of red or green corduroy for the outside, with a tasty selection of big-patterned juiciness for the inside. After dithering, red won out.

The pattern is from a great little book called Hip Handbags. Great directions, lovely diagrams, lots of great sample photos. I keep on making the same style from it, the “Tuck”, but that’s o.k., it has a pleasing trapezoidal shape and works well as a shoulder bag, even when I bump up the size a little.



I first started quilting the linings of my purses this Christmas, when I made small “Tucks” for my nieces. I hadn’t been liking the prescribed fusible interfacing (it just kind of gave a wan stiffness, with no body) that the book described, so I simply quilted some batting directly to the lining fabric. I ended up with a just right amount of stiffness and body, with of course, the added delight of quilty goodness.

I like my finish project, but now back from our trip, I think I would have liked a slightly smaller bag, one with a shorter strap that would hug in closer to my body, giving me freer motion to pick up children, cocktails or a People magazine at the airport newsstand.

Streak of Lightning


This big (96’ x69’) quilt was certainly a long time in the making. I started it in 2002 and just finished it last month. I found the pattern in the wonderful book 101 Fabulous Rotary Cut Quilts, a highly useful compendium with full page color photos and easy directions. One of the first books I bought as a novice quilter, I’ve since made about six quilts from it!

What I liked most about this quilt from the beginning was simply the fact that I chose the fabrics because they appealed to me. I mixed juvenile prints with batik, hearts with flowers, with no audience in mind. The Michael Miller “Font” fabric was a draw - and I like the way the zig zags pop out from the black and white. I’ve since gone on to collect even more fabric with text on it, enough so that when it came time to finding a binding I already had the fabric -- committing the cardinal sin of mixing a serif and sans serif font together.


This quilt also reminds me of the splendor that was Quilter’s Cove, the now long gone quilt fabric store, that used to be on Water Street here. Back before I was a quilter, I remember walking in and being sorely intimidated by the sheer vastness of the array of neatly arranged fabrics, and the somewhat stern-looking employees. Despite that, with Hayden in tow, or on a run downtown on the weekends during his naptime, I came to be quite good friends with the owner, who was good at helping me with sewing and fabric selection problems. The brick walled shop had great natural light, and some 40’ tall ceilings (the loft upstairs was reserved for sale fabrics and classes) - to me the place was like a combination of candy store, liquor store and shoe store, definitely a zone of temptation. My shameful stash is mostly due to buying just a little of this and a little of that, and from spending liberally at the twice-yearly sales.

Anyway, Streak of Lighting has been through many revolutions in my life, and has been shuffled out of the sewing room and out to the garage and back again. Since I started trying to machine quilt it, I’ve gained a lot of confidence -- moving from stitching in the ditch, to unmarked, unplanned zig-zagging. Originally just made to please myself, it now graces Graham’s bed, where hopefully, the five-years-old and one day young man will learn to identify the rest of the letters in the alphabet (at his teacher conference this week, we learned he can identify exactly half of his uppercase letters.) Maybe through osmosis?

The Rule of 10

Here it is, another freshly finished little quilt top. It caused me just a little bit of fabric selection consternation - but I found out that the more fabrics I added in, the better I liked it. The final number of fabrics came in at 10, and like many a quilter, I figured I'd make a rule about it - thus, the Rule of 10! Follow it and be wonderful.

It's not a truly "scrappy" little quilt, as I mostly stuck to some of the wonderful Amy Butler fabrics which have been biding their time in my somewhat shamefully large stash. Oh, and it includes the crucial bit of Kaffe Fasset, in this case "Paisley Jungle." Sigh, I think I could use Paisley Jungle in every quilt. Or at least some Kaffe Fasset fabric in every quilt.

I did have some key help with the photographing of this quilt, a certain someone who is turning FIVE next Wednesday. He opined that he liked the quilt top, and said it was pretty.