Celtic Solstice: The Conclusion

I've finally finished Celtic Solstice - Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt for 2013.  Now, that might sound like I'm right up to date on quilting projects, but for full disclosure let me mention that I still have the mystery quilt top for 2012 waiting to be quilted as well as my Craftsy Block of the Month from last year.

We had a beautiful day today so I tried my hand at some outside photography:

I used a paper pattern to quilt this time.  On my last quilt I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't keep an even density on the stippling and I thought following a set pattern would be good practice to learn that.  I'm not so sure that I would do this again.  It seemed to make the whole process more complicated.  First of all I had to thread baste the sandwich since you can't have pins under paper and expect to be successful.  Secondly you have to tear off all that paper which is no small task.  There are still tiny pieces that I keep finding under the stitching.  And thirdly, when you are stitching over paper you can't really view your stitching too well making it difficult to get good stop and start places.  But, I did discover the answer to one of my nagging free motion quilting problems while finishing this quilt!  I've had trouble with the thread shredding and breaking when I move my quilt to the right during a free motion design.  After paying attention to the details of the problem I finally decided that it was my needle.  I've been using Superior topstitch needles which I love for everything, but apparently on my machine they are not the best for free motion.  The larger eye which is normally a plus allows my thread to rub against the last thread guide on the machine when moving in that particular direction.  The smaller eye on a regular Schmetz needle held the thread away from the guide.  Problem solved!  Yeah!!  I still love Superior topstitch needles but I guess when free motioning on my machine I need to give them a rest.

 

I also used one of my toys from last years travels and was much more impressed with it this time. The Fabulous Fabric Glide is made by The Gypsy Quilter.  The idea is that you put this around the area you are quilting and it helps you guide the fabric. It made the quilting process much kinder to my old arthritic hands and I'll probably give them another go without the paper this time.

I put flannel on the backing of this one just because I like it and I rounded the corners...same reason.

 So....that closes the book on this quilt.  On to the next project.

      

                                                                                                                                                                 



My Little Sashiko

This past Christmas my husband bought me a Baby Lock Sashiko machine.

 I've been sort of fascinated my this machine since I first became aware of it.  It's function is basically embellishment.  It's stitch is modeled after Japanese Sashiko embroidery.

Part of my fascination is due to the unusual way that it makes stitches.  It uses only a thread in the bobbin.  There is no top thread.  The thread somehow gets looped around itself to make the stitch.  On the front side there is actually two strands of thread in each stitch.  The back side of the stitch looks more like a standard machine stitch...no spaces between the stitches.  You can vary the size of the stitch and the size of the space between the stitches.  Both of these simple variations changes the visual impact of the finished stitching quite a lot. You can also vary the amount of pressure that the foot exerts on the fabric.  The looser hold is used to make the curved patterns.  You move the fabric during the time when the needle is up.  Traditionally a solid fabric is used with a thread that provides a big color contrast. 

Threading is...well, different than any machine I've ever used.  But it's not difficult, just different.  Finally after two projects, my Sashiko cover and my most recent quilt, I think I've got straight sewing under my belt.  That doesn't mean that I'm perfect.  I still break the thread more often than I'd like.  But I feel like I can make a nice finish with straight stitches.  Next I need to work on the curved patterns.  When I first tried this, right after getting the machine, I had a lot of trouble with thread jams and broken thread.  But now that I understand the machine better I think I should be able to make curved patterns work for me.  The curved patterns seem to deliver the most punch.

The machine is not computerized.  It comes with a bobbin winder and a compartment to hold some tools and extra needles and bobbins.  It uses a special needle to make the stitch work.  Baby Lock says that they make the only Sashiko machine in the industry.  The website has some great pictures of the features I've mentioned.

And, just to be clear.....I'm only sharing my experiences.  I'm not on the Baby Lock payroll in any way.  I am glad, though to answer any questions about my experience with the machine.

So, maybe I'll be able to create some items once my quilting backlog gets reduced.

Book #2: Palisades Park

Before the days of Disney World and Disney Land, before the days of Kings Dominion and Sea World and Cedar Point, there was Palisades Amusement Park.  It was just a few minutes from my childhood home on the top of a cliff on the Hudson River in New Jersey.  They had rides and carnival games, shows and a salt water pool that made waves.  This book, Palisades Park by Alan Brennert tells all about it.

The book starts way back in the 1920's and takes the reader through the entire life of the park until it closed in the 1970's.  I remember the closing of the park very well.  I don't think anyone ever thought the park would close.  There was actually a bit of community grieving over the closing.  The story is told through the eyes of the Stopka family.  They grew up as part of the family of amusement park workers.  The book mentions towns and streets very familiar to me from years ago.  Even many of the family names are historically accurate to that area.  Stores and hospitals are mentioned that I grew up around.  Telling the history of the park through the personal story of the family keeps the book from reading like a history book.

 

So, would I recommend it?  If you have any ties to this area - a definite YES.  If you like carnival stories or historical fiction - yes.  Otherwise....maybe.  I enjoyed it a lot, but I don't know if the fictional story would hold enough interest if one isn't particularly interested in the history of the park itself or the history of that area of New Jersey.  I thought my sister would also enjoy the book and indeed she did!  She had already finished it before I had the chance to share my discovery of it with her.  It's a fun historical look at local culture and the influences of more national issues (such as wars, integration, and local small town politics) on the everyday lives of Palisades Amusement Park.

Whisper Block #4

I guess I just have trouble thinking abstractly.  Because this month I received a block for our guild Whisper Challenge that looked like...well, like nothing.  I stared at it for a long time:

Then I turned it upside down (or maybe right side up?) and stared at it some more:

It looked like a rib cage with a lot of tumors and then it looked like an oak leaf with acorns, but mostly like those alien things from the TV show "Falling Skies" that were placed on the back of the kids to allow the aliens to control them.  But finally I saw a Christmas tree with candles and I just ran with that idea.  Here's the result:

I tried to keep the colors and the swirly nature of the design and the glitter.  I don't how the previous sewist accomplished the glitter but I went with metallic thread.  This was my first time using metallic thread and I was expecting it to be a bit of a challenge to sew with.  I was surprised at both how smoothly it sewed and how nice it looked!  I'm anxious to use it somewhere again.

Although it was never said, I sort of expected these blocks to become more abstract as the weeks went on.  But somehow I made this one less abstract I think.

So, next month we will get back the blocks created from the picture we provided and will have the challenge of combining them into one. 

Country Threads Block of the Month 2013: The Big Reveal!

Last year I participated in two "Block of the Month" projects.  One of them was organized by Country Threads.  I posted pictures each month of the finished blocks along with my ponderings on how to construct the finished top.  The original layout had the blocks next to each other but I decided on a bit of sashing to calm things down a bit.  Well...here it is:

I really like the sashing.  It also helped to even out my uneven block sizes.  Over the year my attention to detail improved and my block sizes became truer, but I still had a wide difference in the sizes of the blocks made at the start of the year.  The quilting is free motion on my home sewing machine and Sashiko around the borders.  This was only my second Sashiko project so my learning curve is still pretty broad.  I noticed that the stitching showed up nicely on the more solid border but was sort of lost on the border with more print.  Of course I decided to Sashiko after I had already chosen the fabrics and added the borders.  (And, to think that my boys  accused me of being an over-planner when they were younger!) Here are some close-ups to show you what I mean:

I used black thread for the quilting following a suggestion I read somewhere that using the same color as the sashing helps to reinforce the contrast.  It would not have been my first choice on some of the lighter areas, but overall, I'm pretty pleased with the result.  The backing (which I forgot to take a picture of) is a linen small scale plaid with one corner of black print because someone might have measured for the backing, bought the fabric and THEN decided to add the wide border leaving the yardage just a tiny bit short.

Here's a picture of the original layout.  You can see that I also changed up the border and a few of the filler blocks:

I also did the binding the traditional way: machine sew it to the front and then hand sew it onto the back.  I've always hated how long binding takes to put on, but this time I just planned for several evenings in front of the TV.  I had to learn the thread lesson yet again, though.  I thought that this hand sewing project would be a good time to use up some of my old thread.  But, alas, it isn't even good for sewing on binding by hand.  After becoming totally frustrated with thread tangles I went upstairs and came down with my good thread and the sewing went much smoother.

 

It really feels good to finally be able to say that I've finished a large project this year!!

2014: Book #1 - Proof of Heaven

I've gotten a good start on my 2014 books.  In fact I'm almost done with the second, so I need to catch up and report on the first.  It seems like each year I read a book that has something to do with the afterlife.  One year it was about dogs and heaven, last year I read about a young boy who had a near death experience and this year I read about a neurosurgeon who experienced heaven during a serious illness.  Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander MD adds a very interesting view to previous near death stories.  He is a practicing neurosurgeon, so his depth of knowledge about such things as thoughts, dreams, knowledge and memory is vast.  Prior to his own experience he rationalized stories about near death as occurring in various parts of the brain and didn't believe that the person actually had an encounter with anything divine.

But, the particular type of illness Dr. Alexander suffered rendered the parts of his brain that he previously believed created these near death experiences in others, useless.  So in addition to personally having such an experience he couldn't explain it away. 

The book is a bit medical at times - a characteristic that appealed to me, but could be a negative if medical information isn't something you want to read about.  The medical parts are not the yucky type details, just more the technical side of the workings of our brains.  The story is definitely thought provoking.  This is perhaps the most convincing book about an afterlife experience that I've read.  And, one of the very, very few books that I would give a second read.

2013: Book #6: Duck - an Outer Banks Village

Hopefully this is my last "look back" into 2013 and will bring me up to date on "things I sort of try to keep track of on my blog".   For the past two years I've set out to read six books/year.  I honestly do love to read and six sounds like such a pathetic number, but I seem to get sidetracked usually with other interests and six has become an attainable goal.

So for my last book of 2013 I choose an historical account of the little town in North Carolina where we like to vacation.  Duck - An Outer Banks Village by Judith D. Mercier.  This area grew from a small duck hunting location with a few local people and hunting clubs to a popular vacation spot in the 1980s (1980 seems like yesterday to me, but apparently it is now "history" and items from 1980 , being 25+ years old are vintage!!).  It is just north of the more frequented towns of Kitty Hawk (site of the Wright Brothers first flight) and Nags Head.  The barrier island is narrow at Duck with the main road, Route 12, running close to the Currituck sound side and about a mile from the Atlantic ocean.  We like it because it is much quieter and less commercial than Nags Head and their beach is 100% dog friendly.  Dogs can be off lead as long as you have verbal control of them.  This allows Seamus to frolic in the surf to his heart's content and roll in all those "yummy" smells in the sand. (I don't want to think about what created those great smells.)

I really feel like I have a better appreciation of the history of the place now.  It was much more isolated and quiet before all of us tourists found it.  I feel a bit sad for the people who enjoyed being away from everything.  But, I'm sure many, many people made a killing on real estate when the area started to become developed.  And the duck hunting was starting to become constrained by laws to protect the species from become hunted out about the time as tourism increased.  So the tourist trade has both hurt and helped this little area.

Wrapping up 2013- book reading goal: met!  On to 2014.