A weft yarn

Kaffe applique: Dolly quilt block

Date: March 2013

This dolly quilt was a kit from February 2011 and about that time Kaffe Fassett was visiting Australia, calling on the ladies at Material Obsession, and running all sorts of workshops. He was even in Canberra and there's a great story over on Buttontree Lane about her amazing experiences in colour, while at a workshop with Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett. I know, right.

The notes from this dolly kit tell us that:

In honour of Kaffe Fassett's visit to us this month, we bring you this beautiful miniature version of Kaffe's Folk Art quilt from his book "Kaffe Fasett's V&A Quilts" link here >  Kaffe Fassett's Museum Quilts published in 2005

If you are wondering what Kaffe's full sized quilt looks like, this blog, with the fabulous title of Fabadashery, gives a review in 2013 of a Kaffe Fassett quilt exhibition and features the Folk Art quilt. Another quilting blog has some fantastic photos of the same exhibition and also has a lovely story about Welsh quilting and its revival. I read a fascinating story in Selvedge volume 33 (March/April 2010), pages 39 onwards (if you have a subscription you can view it online) about welsh quilting from the early 20C (1920s or so). Worth a read if you love historical tidbits about textiles and women's lives and amazing embroidery skills.

Like 99% of the textile world, I love Kaffe's fabrics, and one of the fabrics that we'll use in the dolly quilt is from Kaffe's Folk Art line. We're using the orange one, though it comes in a full range including, blues and pinks and greens.

As part of my process, I laid out the templates on the fabrics and started experimenting to make my selection.

Kaffe drew his inspiration from this coverlet in the Victoria and Albert Museum - the story of which is quite interesting in its own right and seems to date from 1850s onwards. Given our modern sensibilities I'm always so interested to see how drab are the colours of the fabrics from the past...it takes some adjusting to get my eye in and to see the details and liveliness of the prints. I have the same reaction when I see the authentically reproduced Civil War quilts as well.

Me - I'm a girl of the Kaffe Fassett Glorious Colour brigade. Though I do love this story of inspiration, reinvention, and our links to the past. And, I'm thinking based on the details of the 1850s inspiration quilt that the meaning attributed to the images is potentially political (probably anti-slave trading) and certainly thoughtful. I told my daughter who was interested in the story of this dolly quilt, that these images: hearts, shoes, boots, teapots, jugs, vases, houses were everyday items that signified powerful love of domesticity and even material wealth, done by the folk of the time. So, not high art but material culture and its relevance and meaning to our lives.

Here's a copy of the template for Kaffe's full sized quilt, showing which of the images have been used on the dolly quilt version. I got this image from google books.

There's a lot of mess tools used in quilting and one of the more unexpected ones to me was the toothpick, of which 3 arrived with the kit. There's a prize if you can find it in the mess below.

 The instructions told us to:

trim your applique pieces to a scant 16th of an inch and clip curves and finger press. To position your shapes either tack, glue or pin in place. [I just pinned]. Revealing the toothpick mystery: use it to turn the fabric under as you are slip stitching (or blind stitching). Hold it in your mouth as the slight moisture makes it work even more effectively! Another tip learned from Becky Goldsmith last year.

It worked a treat and I loved hand appliqueing. It was funny though. I was kind of reluctant to hand sew the quilt because I do so much hand work through my needlepoint and embroidery. However, I loved this little project and it was my favourite quilt block.

In the photo below, I've managed to applique most of the images to the dolly quilt. This was 11 straight hours of hand sewing with no one home. They were all away and I spent the time sitting and sewing - Jane Austen by day, and Godfather by night. I'm really pleased with the progress on it, though somewhat worn out by the obsessive appliqueing. My technique has improved from the Ode to Susan but is still a long way off quilt show standard.

And if you are interested in other versions of this quilt, you might like the story over here from 2009 > at Fun with Barb where a couple of women use Kaffe's Folk Art quilt as inspiration.

My sampler dolly quilt blocks are done and now I just need to give each a border, trim to a standard size, sew them together with a plain inner border, and place the butterflies fabric around the outside as the outer border. So, yeah. Done. (snicker).

 

Previous Posts

 

Ode to Susan McCord: Dolly quilt block (March 2013) 

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block finished (March 2013)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block finished (March 2013)

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Ode to Susan McCord: Dolly quilt block started

Date: March 2013

With four blocks done, it is time to start one of the two blocks that has some hand sewing on it. This Material Obsession dolly quilt is a tribute to Susan McCord's Trailing Vines quilt. This was all new to me, so I was really keen to dive in and read the project notes.

Looking back at the women who have shaped our quilting destiny is a favourite activity for many. One amazing woman was Susan McCord (1829-1909). She was "an ordinary housewife with extraordinary quilting genius", Her quilts are featured in Quilts of the Henry Ford, which is a lovely book full of examples of stunning traditional style quilts.

The McCord Vine Quilt is my all time favourite quilt and is made of nearly 4,000 strip pieced leaves appliqued in 13 vine panels...by candle light and with five children... I have always wanted to make her quilt but a dolly version might have to suffice for now. So here is an achievable McCord Vine Quilt, minus about 3,970 leaves.

Wow. Love it, and off we go.....

It is a fantastic technique for using up scraps of fabric and as we know, you can become attached to favourite bits of fabric that hold special meaning. And you could just want to be resourceful and make sure you waste not. As this is a sampler project, I could see myself using this technique in future but for now the kit came with quite a collection of small bits of fabric off cuts. These we were instructed to cut into uniform widths, something that Susan did not do on her quilt, and then sew them together into four strips per mini block.

When I thought about the historical references for this quilt I was a bit curious that it had a reference to Henry Ford. Images of Model T Fords did not seem particularly resonant with quilting. And certainly, before I started this little project, I didn't know much about the Henry Ford Museum, but if you go to their blog you'll find this explanation.

Pretty cool stuff.

I then did a search on their blog for quilts and found an interesting article for quilt researchers. Not sure I'm as interested in diving into this form of textile research, as I'm spending so much of my time on 17C embroidery, but just in case, and for a future date, I'll add this mental note in here > the quilt index may be worth a look. On first glance, its a pretty serious tool for research, with detailed search fields intended for academics. But then if you roam around and look at the themed galleries Contemporary Massachusetts Quilts, Quilts and Mathematics in Education, Christmas quilts....its the usual rich diversity. A lifetime could be spent here. In the meantime, iron your little 4 strip patches.

Then make a little plastic template of a leaf, buy a silver gel pen, and trace the pattern onto your 4 strip patches.

Then do not absorb the information that tells you to leave a seam allowance. Cut out your leaves on the gel pen line and when trying to applique them, notice they are too small. Start again. This time, leave a seam allowance. Keep all the discard leaves in your note book to remind you (besides they are pretty). Again, I had plenty of fabric in the original kit to do this, and even though I do not quilt a lot, I already have a great scrap collection. So, then you sew the rick rack on and in the photo below I have placed the leaves, but not yet sewn them down. It isn't the final placement, rather just a see....this is what it will look like.

Before I show you my finished product, and just in case you are interested in seeing other wonderful tributes, back in 2011, there was a quilt-a-long for a version of Susan McCord's Trailing Vines quilt. There are some interesting links in the post, if this is your thing.  Here is another lovely tribute to the Vine quilt of Susan McCord's and finally, Barbara Brackman has an interesting article about Susan McCord on her blog. The article discusses a new quilt of Susan's that had just been discovered, as well as some interesting variations on Susan's technique.

As Barbara says " She seems to have invented the string-pieced applique vine....... Nobody else used it---until of course we all made our own."

Glad my cat likes it.

 

Previous Posts

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block finished (March 2013) 

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block finished (March 2013)

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

 

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block finished

Date: March 2013

I started this block in April 2012 and then packed it away. I pulled it out again in March 2013 and finished it on a weekend over two days. It was lots of fun watching the pattern come together and it was a family favourite as I sewed it. I received visits at the sewing machine and everyone, Nick, Tess and Tim all loved it and kept an eye on my progress, commenting as it went "oh that looks good".

The instructions provide you with all the cutting and piecing details. The cutting was reasonably straightforward, and certainly there was more than enough fabric so any mistakes were easily re-cut without any dramas.

The thing that I found complicated was sewing the little rectangles together so that they were 'square', if you get my meaning. When I was sewing the angled seam, in way too many of my little rectangles, I'd end up with one side slightly higher than the other. Eventually I worked out that if I aligned my two pieces with one side poking out by about 1/4 inch then it sewed perfectly. I made a little mental note on the whiteboard above my sewing machine.

Once I'd sorted that little technique out I was able to sew the rectangles together quite quickly, in a little string. In my notes, I recorded that I had to make 156 rectangles.

Then you place the rectangles together in a set pattern (one A, one AR, two B, two BR etc, etc). As I did that I noticed that I'd always cut my originals on an angle moving to the right but sometimes you need to cut on an angle moving to the left. So, back to the cutting and sewing, but as mentioned, I had plenty of fabric and ended up with some left over as well. No dramas.

You then sew the patterns into little 9 blocks. The 9 blocks are gathered into a 12 block pattern and then a 2 block top and bottom is added to that.

 Below are all the individual 9 blocks laid out ready to go. As in ready to be sewn into the final pattern. The photos taken without the flash given a better impression of the pale green colour that is the contrasting fabric.

 And in the photo below its all sewn together: mini fractured. I love it. I've spoken about my approach to quilting as one of learning and trying not to be too fussed. So I wasn't after perfection. I didn't need to lines to join exactly spot on, rather I wanted to enjoy myself, learn some quilting skills and put together something that I liked. I'm really happy with the outcome below.

 

And then I sewed the border of black and white polka dots and it really popped (snicker).

 

And finally added it to its companions. 4 of the 6 blocks done! You'll also notice my border fabric right next to the mini fractured block. It is an Australian print, Under the Australian sun 2, Butterflies on Charcoal. Leesa Chandler for Robert Kaufman. I bought one metre of it from Hobbysew on special and the rest from the quilt shop at Gold Creek. It feels like this Dolly quilt sampler is on its way.

 

Previous Posts

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block finished (March 2013)

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block finished

Date: March 2013

Ah, that's looking better. Last we saw this it was 'learning experience'. Now, it is nicely pressed and ready for show and tell. The missing white fabric was purchased from Hobbysew in Belconnen and cut and sewn together.

My notes on sewing it say "sewing was very easy. Went together quickly and without any dramas". Check out my seams. I'm really lifting my standards here. Neat. Flat. Much better than my first few attempts.

Did I mention that I love these fabrics? The colours are harmonious and the patterns are organic and yet there are bursts of sympathetic colour.

In life I am quite keen on randomness and on harmony. I think you can have both. When given the opportunity to do random things, like put wedges together to form a column, I just grabbed what came first, made some really minor adjustments (for harmony like) and then sewed them together. I think its because I work in statistics that I like to work with randomness. I love that patterns and repetition just happen accidentally. I love that something like artistic creation requires discipline, precision and control but within that, we can allow for accidents and intuition. Romance and Structure.

Making it neat. Nice.

Then finally, in the photo below you can see that I've completed three of the six blocks. Woo hoo. Loving this process of quilting.

 

Previous Posts

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Mini Fractured: Dolly quilt block started

Date: May 2012

Given the Tanglewood dolly quilt block has ground to a halt, I press on to the next block - the Mini Fractured. One of the things that drew me to Material Obsession was the quilts posted on the blog, and in the books, use colour in such a bold and fabulous way. And this quilt block is a perfect example of that. I love the bright pinks and orange and green of the main fabric. In the notes that come with the block, it says

"I selected them to have an extreme of light and dark variation with the light having little to no pattern so as to accentuate the contrast".

So the contrast fabric is a pale, very pale, mint green with a tiny, little, barely noticeable stripe in it.

At this stage, my dolly quilt mojo is starting to run thin and I spend a few hours cutting out the rectangles and begin to contemplate construction and then some life happens, the project gets bagged up and labelled and put away under the bed in the back room. Bye, Dolly quilt blocks.  Enjoy the peace. See you in the future.

Previous Posts

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started (May 2012)

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Tanglewood: Dolly quilt block started

Date: May 2012

I am working on a sampler quilt based on the Dolly quilts from Material Obsession. It will have six blocks  as the feature of the quilt with some sashing to pull it together. So far, I've managed the Zig Zag block and the Bush Rose block and here I've started the Tanglewood block.

The description for this block is:

Tanglewood is made in strips. It is super easy to make. While making this quilt up, think about borders on quilts or even sashing. We often fall into the habit of using a single fabric to be quick but a handy tool like the wedge/segment ruler makes short order of interesting border treatments or great active sashing strips between applique or pieced blocks. The point is to add interest where we can.

Now for this little mini-drama, the point is to question what exactly does "super easy" mean? Love the fabrics by the way - Arcadia by Sanae for Moda. Take a good look at them below....cause one of them isn't meant to be there. I accidentally cut up the binding strip and added it to the pattern. Sigh. No biggie. Press on.

Just as a distraction from my sorry tale, I thought you might like to know I'm using my knitting blocking board as a design wall. It has a black felt cover and works perfectly. It kind of stands on end next to my sewing machine, up against the bookshelf and I can stick the pieces on it as I cut them out in error. Just sayin'

So in the next moment of divine inspiration, I then cut the contrasting white fabric into thin strips...and I was thinking about what?

Here's me trying to 'rescue' or 'redesign' the pattern. I have sewn the wedges together into their strips and am trying to see if the incorrectly cut white fabric could just work. Never fear, sense prevailed and instead I packed it up and put it back under the bed - as you do. One mistake I could recover from – I wasn’t planning on binding the quilt but the second one was a road block.

I would need to buy some more white fabric. That's definitely for another day. It is a super easy pattern, its just that a girl's gotta learn.

Previous Posts

Bush Rose: Dolly quilt block: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

Zig Zag: Dolly Quilt: from Material Obsession (May 2012)

 

Cleopatra costume

Date: Halloween, 31st October 2012

Tess has friends in Grade 5 who really enjoy Halloween for all its dress-up potential. Not to mention themed party food and fun wandering around with your friends collecting chocolates and lollies. We're quite partial to making the children costumes for book parade, dress up parties, and now in late primary - Halloween.

This year, we went down to the Mall and managed to find an adult sized cleopatra costume in one of the one dollar stores. Tess immediately loved it and I thought 'I can do something with that'. 

I decided that rather than hem it I could just make her a wide belt or sash that would allow her to hitch up the dress and add some flair at the same time.

We bought some golden satin at Lincraft and I made a belt which was a bit like a Japanese Obi sash, which we are quite familiar with from our Japanese studies at school (and primary school Japanese dress up days)

I then made a wrap out of a diaphanous aqua fabric which I attached with snaps to the back of her dress and then made some wrist holds as well. It stayed out of her way while she walked around but it gave the whole outfit a bit of a dressier look.

She had a lot of fun modelling Cleopatra before we went to the party but she wasn't so distracted that she couldn't stop and give Sala a bit of attention.

He of course milked it for everything it was worth. Warm spring day, hanging out on the verandah, getting a nice pat - cat heaven.

All ready to go!

Hexaflexagons

  Date: October 2012

What are Hexaflexagons?

 

Hexaflexagons are really cool, particularly when you have a great maths teacher who loves to get you playing with geometry and tricky little mathematical puzzles. Tess came home from school and immediately wowed us with her Grade 5 maths teacher's stories of hexaflexagons. We had to check them out and then more importantly we felt obliged to give it a go with fabric. We decided to give the simpler, tri-hexaflexagon a go. And you'll note below we have a purple side, pink side and a floral yellow side.

 

We cut out the fabrics using our quilting rulers and following the template that our Maths teacher had provided.

Then we sewed them together and in seeming magic, as you turn the two-sided object inside out, it becomes a three-sided object.

We took it to school and had lots of fun in class and then on the way home, left it on the school bus and because there was sadness at its loss, and because it was so much fun, we made another one.

Pyjamas sewn - new look 6746

I had a few quiet hours on the weekend and managed to sew Tessy's pyjamas that I had cut out and were waiting in the cupboard. The pattern I used was New Look 6746 in size 8. It is up on the wall behind my sewing table. I kept the pattern instructions open behind the sewing machine and mostly this worked fairly well. I could follow along what I needed to do next and it only occasionally got awkward while I was sewing the larger bits of the PJs. In retrospect it was reasonably detailed sewing for a pair of bedroom attire. Still, I actually think that is rather brilliant - to learn to sew by making reasonably complicated pyjamas.

Tess had picked this pattern because she loved the headband. I liked the pattern because it was pretty. We recently bought the floral blue flannel in Sydney but I had the plain greeny-blue flannel in my stash.

 

The pyjama top closes with snaps and on the front you are meant to attach three ribbons but Tess didn't want to feel all buttoned down around the collar so we just put on two of the snaps and two ribbons. Ribbons were from the stash as well and were the choice of the pyjamee. I love the gathers around the bodice and the skirt-like effect of the top. I also like the little lace trims around collar and sleeves and cuffs. The collar is interfaced and the trimmed with bias binding on the inside of the neck. All these techiques were new to me and in the past I would probably have huffed and puffed and stressed my way through the sewing. I took a bit out of my hand sewing philosophy, which is, that time is not the measure of success. I think in the past, i've always rushed through, made mistakes, not done my research and reading. Anyhoo, I enjoyed the sewing and she loved the pyjamas - smile.

A few other details - cuff with lace and topstitching. Child with strange markings on her hand. She's often self marked but on this occasion it was the school teachers, as she ran around the oval in the cross country. She did three laps but didn't need a mark for the last lap. I wonder if teachers enjoy drawing on children? She certainly enjoys taking a pen to herself.

The pattern is a size 8 and Tess is 9 but it fits her well and has enough room for growth. She is still wearing some size 6's so I was pretty confident the size 8 would be fine. And it was. There's enough length in the pants to maybe get two seasons out of these. She's also wearing her little felt slippers purchased from the Nepalese felt stall at the Folk Festival. Cozy. I know. I have a pair as well.

Happy girl. She's asked for more versions but I've a feeling there are other sewing tasks queued up - aprons, soft toys, quilts....but I'm sold on the joys of garment construction and will return to the scene of my crimes.

Sewing pyjamas

I spent a very enjoyable March following along the talented folks who jumped into the Me-Made-March or in one case Mama-Made-March. It made me want to start sewing again. I was so impressed at how easy they made it seem (hehe ...groan). Anyway, I did my usual thing of spending a whole month trawling through the sewing books I own, making notes, organising my sewing patterns, making lists of supplies I had and those I needed...my usual long journey to the beginning of something. But, then, when I started, I felt reasonably comfortable, instead of the clothes sewing anxiety that sometimes strikes me. All that effort and what if it doesn't fit..blah blah. I also solved the biggest problem by deciding to do more the "mama" thing than the "me" thing. Though trust me, it's all part of the grand plan of moving on to skirts for me next.

Somewhere along the road, I read to iron the tissue paper pattern before cutting it out - that seemed weird but I did it anyway. It actually wasn't that hard. I just made sure the iron was on low and it pressed out heaps of really big wrinkles.

I then laid out my new cutting board which had come recommended by Buttontree Lane - and I too loved it. I could confidently cut without worrying about my dining room table top. (sorry about the gloom in the photos - it was an overcast afternoon)

I had remembered from my sewing adventures in the past that I hated the pinning and cutting phase, so, this time around, I decided to trace the sewing pattern onto the fabric using carbon paper and a tracing wheel. It is a multi-sized pattern and potentially it could be used again - though this is actually a bit of a furphy because the pattern I have goes from size 3-8 and my little one is at the top of the range. I still prefer it though. It did save me some fussy cutting of the tissue paper. Instead I did fussy tracing but then I found the cutting really easy cause I wasn't wrangling the tissue paper and the fabric and those sharp and pokey pins, all at the same time. I did lightly pin the tissue paper to the fabric while I traced with the wheel but I didn't pin as I cut. The fabric is flannel (PJs after all) so it stuck together quite nicely and had a nice weight to it as I cut. The tracing took me about an hour, and the cutting took 15 minutes. I was really happy with that balance.

 

 

My photos aren't super clear but if you look closely you'll see that there are little red dots that form the shape of the pattern, and that I've traced the pattern marks and then gone over them with yellow tailor's chalk.

In the photo below you can see the red carbon paper all dotty and lined from running the tracing wheel over it mutliple times. I'm reasonably frugal and I've put it back in the cupboard for another day...I think it still has some life left in the red carbon.

That was enough for a single sewing session, so, I took Built by Wendy's advice and bundled up the trim, the bias binding, the cut interfacing and the cut out pattern pieces, labelled it all and then put it back in the cupboard. Crossed fingers it comes out next week and is sewn together and that I don't find it when Tess moves out to University.