FABRIC STARS.....

"I am not a fabric hoarder. I am the curator of an extensive textile collection.." - All People Quilt

 So what does a quilter do when there's a crisis? Quilt.  Of course. Luckily I have my stash of  fabric. Spencer helped with the first one. It's called Rolling Star......They went rolling down the hill .

Pinwheel

 I 'm planning on making a couple of quilts. Using gold fabric in  gold pointed stars , like this. The next quilt will be  Civil War Vintage.

Fisherman's Reel

 Quilting is  good for planning, organizing, executing with the grey matter. Keeps the focus.

 And then there's the sari ( my fav)fabric blocks. Made from veils.....and trim, and a lot of bling.

Comet Star

 And always the gold pointed stars. I got a bolt of the stuff a couple of years ago. On sale. Saved it till now.  It will be in almost every block. Not every, most most....

 "I have all the fabric I need.....said no quilter ever...." -All People Quilt

 Then there's one of my fav star point patterns: Star in a Star. Close to the Trinity Star. Looks good in any fabric....

 The sari blocks  I will intersperse between the regular blocks.

 "May your sorrows be patched and your joys quilted.." 
                                          -All People Quilt

 And here is the Trinity Block. My fav upon fav. Two inner stars pulsating out to the rim. I plan on  doing more of these in gold. These were my trials. 16 inch Stars............

Party Hats

 My fav website to skulk through for patterns is patchworksquare.com. Lady who designs it  is phenomenal at  organizing each pattern in simple, easy forms, always precise, always wonderful. And she is accessible for questions and comments! Lovely person.

 My fav Sari block, made from veils......

 "Given enough fabric I could rule the world..." -All People Quilt

 Rolling Wheel, with the bolt of gold fabric that I'm using...and gold parachute material in others. I am on a roll. More to come. This is just a sneak peak.  With lots more  to come...........

 "When things are in pieces, stitch them together..." -All People Quilt

Photographs 2020

Days of Sewing...

 “Christmas is doing a little something extra .”   ― Charles M. Schulz

 A sneak peak at  some of the Christmas stuff I've been stitching the past couple of months. Never too early to start playing with fabric and thread and so forth....My mother would start in May to plan what she would sew. One year it was a Raggedy Ann Doll, another year it was Winnie the Pooh. All made out of fabric she had stuffed in the dresser. That dresser just overflowed. I used to pull it out, when she wasn't home and wrap myself in the silks and satins and parade around the house pretending I was royalty.

 "My mom taught me how to sew when I was 2 or 3, so I've been sewing for as long as I can remember." -Serena Williams

tea cozy....not a hat!

 First thing my mother taught me to sew was a bathing suit for my beat up Barbie doll. I liked to make Barbie go swimming in the tub. She was rather water logged.  And she needed a bathing suit.  So that was first.  Then a hat, and a cape. Later, came a short dress. Really hard getting her sticky legs and arms to slide into that tight dress, which promptly ripped and I decided to tape it with masking tape.                        
                       

"I have a sewing machine that I adore, and I spend a lot of time sitting in front of it... And any excuse to  do something artistic with my hands really gets me going. Definitely aspiring." - India de Beaufort

 I remember in Gr. 8 we all took sewing classes.  For Christmas we had to make a stuffed animal. I ended up making a lion with crooked eyes and lopsided ears that didn't quite fold over. I got a C on it. It was made with leftover satin from my mother's fabric stash and I thought it was pretty great. Some other girl made a bird of some sort. I'd like to say a buzzard. It had a yellow beak. She got an A .

 My mother had a  seamstress style super charged  Singer sewing machine that she would work on, till the wee hours of the morning. I loved hearing the loud whirrrrrr of the machine as it  reamed through fabric. At Christmas she always made a flannel nightgown, or  long dress in bright cotton.  I would hear her turn on the radio in her room as she sewed away into the night, trying to get it all ready . She would talk to the cat who would sit on the dresser beside her. 

 One year, I begged for some leopard print. So she turned me into a Leopard for halloween. How I LOVED that costume. I wore it two years running...maybe even tried for three, but I got too tall for it. It was something she made about a year after my dad died.  Again, she sewed till the early hours of the morning to get it done in time. My fav part was the tail....

 "My mother had a sewing machine. I was never allowed to use it, but I was so fascinated by this little needle going up and down joining fabric together that I'd use it when my mother went out...." - Philip Treacy

More tea cozies using recycled fabrics and beading.

 I got into quilting  back when we lived in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. My good friend, Judy gave me a beautiful music themed wall quilt that she designed and hand made........It was an incredible gift.

I still have it. . She inspired me to start quilting.  We moved to Fredericton right afterwards, and from then on I just couldn't get enough of learning to quilt, then learning to experiment with fabric, dyeing it in tea to make it old, adding beading, etc. Recycling fabrics.  Quilting was not something I had considered before this time. By the time I had done my first quilt I was hooked.

 “I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.”            ― Harlan Miller

 The year that Princess Diana married Prince Charles my mother made me  a black concert dress in black silk, with the same sleeves that were on Diana's dress. I wore that for every orchestra concert, every recital.  It always amazed me that my mother did it without a pattern. She just looked at the picture of Diana's dress, nodded her head, put her glasses on her nose and got to work. The silk crinkled and crumpled under her hands. It was beautiful.

When I graduated it was the dress we used for grad pics.  My mother hand stitched the gathers to make sure the silk did not tear. Most of it she made without a sewing machine. She told me that good fabric required extra patience extra time.
                               
 When she died I had to sell the old Singer. That huge old ancient machine. I had no room in the new house on the base to keep it in. We were going to be stationed at Petawawa, Ontario. Long ways away. The lady I sold it to was thrilled . I wasn't so thrilled at first. When I was a kid, I used to hang that soggy old Barbie upside down under the machine and pretend I was feeding her to the sharks below. Then I would pop off Barbie's head and toss it down to the waiting imaginary, gnashing teeth.....

 Those were  the good old days of sewing....................

 “There are some wonderful aspects to Christmas. It's magical. And each year, from at least November, well, September, well, if I'm honest, May, I look forward to it hugely.”     ― Miranda Hart, Is It Just Me?

One Stitch at a Time......

        "Never underestimate the power of someone with a sewing machine..." -Unknown

 When cutting out fabric, especially bags, make sure the straps are as long as the cat. Luckily, Bunny is a very good ruler. This summer I have been whipping up all sorts of things, fabric, yarn, thread. Life does not just revolve around flowers and gardening after all.....Life really revolves around fabric, and yarn, and more fabric, and ......you get the picture. I just cannot imagine a day where I am not making something. It's absolutely so wonderful...

 This summer I mended my antique table cloth. It was my grandmothers. She embroidered on it in the 50's ,my mother took it over years later, and I finished it when I was a teen. It was kept in an old box for many  years, till it was resurrected. Things that are special should never be shoved away.

It was always meant to be used with Mikado china. It's a shame to hide it in a box. So now it has free reign of my table....meant to be seen, and seen to be remembered.

 "The act of sewing is emotional repair..." -Faberwood

 And this summer it was Bags. Bags in the greenhouse. Bags hanging from the chimes. Lots of bags.

 Like lots of  bees and wasps covered in pollen. Lots of them. Lots of fabric things.

 Messenger bags with beads, sari strips, fringes, feathers, dangly things. Can't get enough of the dangly things.

 And furry helpers. Holding down fabric. No need for an iron...

 Bags stripped with second hand trims, ripped from saris, ripped from scarves. Being inventive. What to do with what you have.

 "Fabric only doesn't make exquisite bags, it is the stitches." -Mrs. H

 Chinese silk. Something I have never worked with. Spencer was very nice. He didn't play with the fringes.

 Bohemian hobos, sequins, ripped fabric, .,,,batting, linings, decor fabric.....sigh. SO much fabric . And shiny stuff. Did I say how much I like shiny things...

 "#Sewcialist: Someone who would rather be sewing." -Love Sewing

 Trying to find places to take pics of bags. Walls.....outside, inside....

 Tables.............jumbled and inviting.

 And don't forget the Crochet. Shawls. Bags. Yarn. Oh yarn.Lovely lovely yarn. Droooool.
 And Christmas just around the corner.  Yes. It is. Come on. Admit it. For making things, that is. ......

 Stockings.....netting, feathers, beads, coins, shiny things, dull things, all scrambled together.....

 "The desire to create  is one of the deepest longings of the soul." 
                     -Wallquote

 Then  Cathedral Windows......golden, warm. Perfect  in its ability to be so lovely to hand quilt.

 Beautiful fabric to work with, silk and cotton all working together.

 There is nothing like making something for someone  else.....that is the MOST bestest thing in the world. ( Yes, I know bestest is not a real word. But oh so fun to say...)

 Nothing like planning, figuring out, engineering  and then executing.

 So satisfying . And  then you just want to go and do it all over again. And again.... and again...

 "Beautiful things come together, one stitch at a time....." 
                                     -Household Words.