An Experience and an Experiment

I walk at Ridley Creek State Park almost every morning, when I'm in town, with a very special friend of mine. Today she ditched me for golf with her husband. I wasn't a happy camper, but Bailey and I bit the bullet and walked ourselves. It became a walk in the woods instead of a chat with a friend where we solve all the problems of the world.

Ridley is a wonderful place and we are so lucky to have it in our backyard. Our walk is a 5 mile loop and it has been the inspiration for a few quilts over the years. Many people live it as much as we do. Since no leaves are on the trees yet, there's lots to see.

People like to decorate the trees. At Christmastime, one person puts an ornament on a tree and then others follow suit leading to a very festive tree and a nice surprise each morning to see the new addition.

The trees in wintertime are the perfect models for creating drawings or quilts of trees.

This is my favorite trees in the park. I can't wait each year for the colorful berries.

There are houses in the park. Don't you love this mailbox?

Speaking of houses, it used to be an estate of Mr. Jeffers, who lived in the mansion. I'm guessing the other houses in the park were where some of the workers lived. Some of the houses have been taken care of and some of them have not.

 

P

There are lots of old stone houses in this area. I love them and always wanted to own one until I realized the expense of the upkeep and the lack of modern conveniences. So a bunch of years ago, I created my own stone house/farm that I named Willoway- A Folk Art Farm.

It's as close as I will get, and that's OK.

So now to my experiment that has nothing to do with the park. I usually don't wet my silk dupioni quilts, but recently I needed to block one. It was seriously wonky. Unfortunately, some bleeding occurred. I wanted to find out which of the silks ran. I took a square of all of the colors that I own and fused them to a whole piece of cotton.

I wet it and let it dry. Nothing happened! Not one fugitive dye. I figured that was because it dried too quickly. With a quilt, it takes longer to dry because of the batting.

So the next time I wet it, I placed it on a wet towel so that it took a long time to dry. Voila! Bleeding. And it was interesting. It was the beautiful violets and the hot pink. Not the red. These would be fabrics where a red dye would be used along with another color dye. I'm not an expert dyer, but from what I know it could be attributed to striking, or which dye attached to the fabric first.

My next experiment will be to try and remove the excess red dye from the offending silks before I put it in a quilt.

 

Posted with Blogsy

It's Square! ish

A Mid Summer's Night Dream (MSND)

(50"x70")

After all the frustrating hours I have put in to fix this quilt, I decided to share it in it's finished state.  I love the shimmer of the silk and it's iridescence.  Folk Art is my favorite genre of art and to me this is the epitome of folk art. The design was influenced by Mexican and Jacobean art.  All of the fabric is silk dupioni and it was created using fusible applique and stitched with a machine blanket stitch. 

I quilted it with my home sewing machine.

Here are some close-ups:

Sequins were used for embellishment.

The innermost border is rick rack.  Sequins are in each hump, secured with a french knot.

 I used my Curvalicious tool to create the inner border.  I was very happy with the corners.

The coming out party for MSND will be Wednesday night. I will be giving my "Sensational Silk" presentation at the Moorestown Area Quilt Guild.  They meet at 7PM - Mount Laurel Fire House. 

 I hope to see you there.  You 'll be able to see it up close and personal.

A Quilt Show In Paradise

Such a perfect name for a quilt guild in The Keys - Paradise Quilters. 

They have a biennial quilt show in Big Pine Key at the end of February.  I was invited by the local quilt shop, The Seam Shoppe, to demo Curvalicious.  Yay!  

The show is Saturday and Sunday, February 21st and 22nd at the Sugarloaf HS. 

 I'll be there on Saturday.  My first demo is at 11:00AM. Come and see me if you are in the area.

I wanted to make another sample for the show in addition to Beachalicious and the Curvalicious Skinny quilt and I wanted it to be simple.  I made it in an afternoon.  I started with this adorable flamingo fabric that is available at The Seam Shoppe.

I combined it with 2 other fabrics to make the quickest baby size quilt ever, 

resulting in Flamingo Curvalicious.

And of course Bailey had to get in on the act.

As I am wrapping up my projects here in Key West, I decided that I needed to do something with my dupioni silk scraps - don't you think?

What a mess!

This always seems to happen to me, because I tend to shove stuff into bags.  I patiently separated the silk scraps apart which included getting rid of lots of stray threads.  I sorted and stacked by color.

It reduced the volume of the pile considerably,

and then to keep it neat, for a while at least, I put each color in a zip lock baggie.

Designing

Here are two more of my silk dupioni blocks that I have been working on. 

They measure 14 -1/2".  This brings the total so far to 9.  Although I feel like I have been working on them forever, it really has been about 1 month.

I have been asked to share my design process many times.  It is not fancy and it is not complicated.  

My first step after I come up with an idea is to do some sketching - some very rough sketching.  Usually this is done on a very small scale.  That seems to be the easiest for me.  

Then I enlarge the design to the finished size.  Sometimes it is technically done with something like an overhead projector or the copy machine at an office supply store.  

Other times I just redraw it free hand to scale. 

In this instance, I hadn't planned on creating this silk floral quilt when I packed up my supplies in Pennsylvania and didn't have any drafting paper, so I headed to the CVS that is a block away from our place to see if I could find some drawing paper.  I did not want to tape together the paper from the printer.  I came home with a roll of the plainest gift wrapping paper that I could find.

I cut it up into 14" squares.

For this project, once I had a few blocks designed, I started stitching.  This usually happens because to me, that's the fun stuff.  I can't wait to see my drawings stitched in fabric, but fabric can be a quirky medium.  It's not always predictable how my color selection will work. 

 Fabric value and hue are properties that affect the interaction, or lack thereof, of my color choices. The only way to find out if they are successful is by auditioning them or as I normally do - just plowing ahead.  Then I deal with the consequences. This happened with the second block.  I didn't take a photo right away when I realized my block needed something, so this is part way through the fixing step.  the block was dull and flat.
 The addition of the yellow dots on the petals gave it a pop and brought it to life. 

More Silk Blocks

A couple of weeks ago I shared some dupioni silk blocks that I was working on during our drive down to Florida.  You can see them in my post titled "Hitting The Road".

I finished one of them and have made a couple more.

The blocks measure 14" finished.  I fuse the silk down with a fusible applique called Soft Fuse, stitching a few pieces at a time.  My plan is to make a dozen of them, all different.  

I  design another one as I finish the last one.  The plan is for them all to have a Jacobean flavor.

They will surround a center square.  The design for the square is still percolating in my head.

 It's a bit slow going because I started the first block with hand stitching and so I will continue that until the quilt is done. 

The Top Is Done

In my previous post, I shared the beginnings of my silk dupioni Storm At Sea quilt.  I have been sewing away. I finished it today.  It has been an up and down journey - a love and hate affair.

It has taken me much longer than I expected.  Why is it when you are nearing the finish line, so many things can go wrong?

This layout was in my last post.  I took my time putting it together.  The paper makes it difficult to piece the blocks together.  They slip. To get the most precise points, I baste them together first with the longest machine stitch on my machine.  Then I go in and make adjustments, if necessary, by removing a section of the basting stitches.

This is how the main body turned out:

The patterns in the design really are starting to show now. Can you see the curved lines?

There are several options for finishing and I chose one that would accentuate one of the patterns:

I really love this layout.  It really accentuates the curved medallion,but OOPS!,  do you see my mistake in the upper left corner?  Ratz! So I ripped and fixed and added the outer borders. Some very naughty words came out of my mouth as I realized I put one border on wrong side out and then when I went to rip it out, I realized I took off the wrong border.  But finally the top is done.  Yay!

I added the skinny colored border using scraps.  It added just a little pop of color.
This is what tge back looked like when I was finished .  The papers are all a bit ragged at this point.

I shorten the stitch length when stitching to the newsprint paper foundation.  

This helps the paper to come off easily.

My set up here isn't conducive to quilting, so I will roll it up onto one of those swim noodles and try to come up with a plan to quilt it when I return to PA.

In the meantime, if you haven't done any paperpiecing and would like to try, I designed a simple little birdhouse quilt a bunch of years ago.  You can get the free pattern  HERE.

Hitting The Road

If you're an avid reader, you make sure that you always have a book to read - well at least one.  If you are going on vacation, you probably bring a bunch of books. If you're a quilter, you need a project to bring - a project that involves hand stitching.  I cannot rest easy until I have my project(s) ready for a trip.  I get it ready days before I leave.  I get it ready before I pack my clothes.  I get it ready before I clean my house.

For our 1,130 mile journey to Key West, my project needed to last me a while.  I made this dupioni  silk flower block using fusible applique a few weeks ago while I was stuck without a sewing machine.

 This is a close up of the handstitching

I originally created it for a friend's quilt show auction, but then I made another.

And then I thought, hmmmm, I like making them so much, maybe I have the start of a quilt. 

I did realize that I was committed to handstitching.

Here are the two blocks that I have prepped for the trip. 

 (Of course, I had to stitch a bit before I packed them into my travel bag.)

I'll add to them as we travel.

There's always an iron available at hotels along the way.

I think this is the start of a great quilt.  I'll keep you posted.

Twins

I shared my twins a couple of weeks ago.

 

I created two identical "Elegantly Amish" quilts (39"x39") to determine if silk dupioni quilts can be washed.  Up to this point I was telling my students that silk quilts needed to be dry cleaned.  Washing would ruin them.  Once a scientist, always a scientist, so I needed to do an experiment.  What would happen if I washed a silk quilt?  Would it lose its sheen? Would it get distorted?  Would it shrink?  Would it bleed?

But before I share the results of my experiment, I want to introduce Midnight Quilter aka Ashley Malinowski.  She quilted "The Twins".

Ashley is a young woman who recently graduated from college. She purchased a long arm at the end of her senior year of high school.  She put herself through college by quilting for others.  Although she graduated with a very employable degree, she decided she wanted to keep on longarming to keep in touch with her customers!  If you want to read more about her or get in touch to hire her, 

visit her website: www.MidnightQuilter.weebly.com

So what happened to The Twins when I gently washed one of the twins in a low suds detergent?

The quilt on the right was the one that was washed.  It shrunk 2.5%.  It did not lose its sheen, that is so important when sewing with silk dupioni.  It did not bleed.  What happened because of the shrinkage is that the colors became a bit more vibrant, which is hard to see in this photo.  I like the increase in vibrancy. Maybe I'll wash all of my silk quilts.  Maybe.

I have presented my newest lecture "Sensational Silk" a couple of times.  I am happy to share with other quilters my silk quilts and  my tips for  quilting with silk.  I can now tell them that the quilts can be washed. If you want to read my other tips, check out this LINK.

Where Do I Buy My Silk?

I am often asked where do I by my dupioni silk. Although Philadelphia has a fabric district, it is a mere shadow of what it used to be, so I hop on the bus and travel to the garment district of NYC. This is my shop:

It's called Butterfly Fabrics or Bazar Fabrics, located on 39th street. All the fabrics in the store are from India. Looking at all their beautiful fabrics, I wish I had a fancy event to attend because I would love a ball gown made from many of their them. This is their wall of silk dupioni:

If I won the lottery I would buy 1 yard of every single color. My favorite ones are those that are iridescent made using a different color silk thread for the warp and the weft. I was there shopping for my upcoming workshop at the Mid Appalachian Quilts education seminar.

There's construction everywhere in NY. This is outside of the shop.Lots of scaffolding.

I met my cousin who lives in Manhatten when I was done shopping. We visited the Hell's Kitchen Flea. I passed it walking to the Garment District from the bus stop and it looked irresistible. I don't know what came over me, but I couldn't resist these African masks.

And I bought one!

My cousin spoils me when we get together. She had a list of things we could do, but we ended up catching up and visiting with her dear, sweet dog. She did take me to the roof of her apartment building and what a treat that was.

And look at these views:

Empire State Building

The Chrysler Building. This is my favorite building in the city. I remember when I did a Wednesdays Wandering block about this building. You can see the post HERE.

And I love these old water cisterns.

And of course we had lunch at a wonderful deli. I had the most delicious matzah ball soup with half a summery egg salad sandwich on real rye bread - that's with carroway seeds. Yum!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy