pandora pocket

Weekend Sewing - part ii

A weekend of sewing turned into a whole week of sewing. Curtains, 3 quilts, a duvet set for Joseph, a matching birthday set for brother and sister and a black and white soft book for Merlin...

 

I am on fire (or maybe I just need to get out more).

 

Although despite having made a sizeable dent in the pile of things to do, there are still some big piles of stuff in the kitchen which need to disappear.

If you are inspired by other people's houses Design Sponge is doing a whole week of sneak peeks, although this one from a month ago is still one of my favourites.

David's Quilt

In celebration of an impending visit from some Buffalo buddies, I am beginning to think about stationery at Muji and lunch at Liberty and fantastic museum visits.

All this excitement is exhausting, so I might have a little nap under David's Christmas present - a quilt made from lots of his old favourite shirts, boxer shorts, pyjamas and even a sarong (two sarongs don't make a right). He gave me permission to hack them to pieces - in fact before he throws anything away these days, he offers it up to the sewing god first - but his very own quilt was a happy surprise for him. Tends to be me more than him wrapped under it of an evening at the moment though, because a. It's cold and b. He's out climbing, swimming, running or cycling most evenings (if he's not on the phone to the police about his stolen burnt out car that is).

   

Liberty Fabrics

Liberty Tana lawn fabrics are one of my favourite things in the world. Until about five minutes ago, I had always wondered why it was called Tana lawn. According to The Worshipful Company of Weavers, tana lawn is  'A fine linen cloth used for clerical garments woven in Laon, northern France.  This fine sheer cloth is now woven in cotton and although crisper than voile is not as crisp as organdie.  There are many types of lawn including Indian lawn, Victoria lawn, Persian lawn, Egyptian lawn and bishop's lawn.  Liberty of London made famous their Tana lawn which began manufacture in the 1920s.  Tana lawn is named after Lake Tana in Sudan where the raw cotton was grown.'

I love the handle of the fabric and how it can be applied to any project. More importantly, I love the prints which make up a biannual collection and are never reprinted. This quilt was based on a 1950s cotton scarf with poodles on that I bought on Portobello road, surrounded by various vintage fabrics, an old pair of pyjamas and several Liberty prints.

     

Each new season as the bolts of fabric arrive in the store, I get very excited to go and see which is my favourite. Each time I tell myself I shouldn't buy any more but I always come away with something. The new Autumn/Winter 2008 collection didn't initially fill me with as much joy as I had anticipated, although it is definitely growing on me:

   

Sadly for my wallet, that bottom right fabric jumped out as an immediate favourite and within a week I had already cut into it to make a new cushion:

 

Lucky for me I get to go to the Liberty shop in person; otherwise I like to buy Liberty fabrics from this ebay shop and of course there is a good selection at the purl soho store in New York. All very well buying them (or receiving kind donations from a certain friend) - I am going to have to pluck up the courage to use them with a bit more freedom. One day I hope to make another quilt using Liberty fabrics as the actual starting point, as Josie does so beautifully here and here.

 

stitch and bitch

How to have a stitch and bitch:

1. Invite a bunch of friends to your house and get them each to bring a piece of fabric (good idea to pick a colour theme) and a bottle of wine. 2. Give each person two squares of tracing paper. On the first draw a design for a patchwork square, on the second trace the same design but this time cut it into sections - number the sections in the order they have to sew them together on both patterns. 3. Use the sections as a pattern to cut out fabrics from the big pile of fabrics in the middle of the room. 4. Sew the pieces together so that each person has their own finished square. 5. Arrange the squares on the floor to make one big patchwork quilt top. 6. Get Claire to sew them all together and then make it into a quilt. 7. Have a mini auction so that the highest bidder gets to keep the quilt and donates the money they bid to a selected charity 8. Drink wine.

 

Stitch and bitch 2005

 

Paula's square, based on the Seychelles flag

 

Caroline's square, based on her ample breasts

 

Stitch and bitch 2007: Denyse Schmidt, What a Bunch of Squares

 

Stitch and bitch 2008, Tooting, 11th October: anyone?

new year's resolution quilt

Every year I set myself a project as a New Year's Resolution. Sometimes I kind of cheat - 2007 was 'redo our kitchen' or 2006 was 'arrange our wedding'. But 2005 was 'take a photo of every tube station on the London Underground' (yet to be completed), 2004 was 'take a photo every day' (before I ever got a digital camera) and 2002 was 'read an author for each letter of the alphabet' (Margaret Atwood to Emile Zola). 2003 was 'make a quilt'.

My mum had an old hexagon template knocking around and one night she helped me cut out hundreds of sugar paper hexagons onto which I sewed fabrics from wherever I could find them. I remember buying the navy blue star fabric in Pakistan and the plain cream base fabric from Singapore and the rest came from old shirts, ties, Liberty, jumble sales, napkins, vintage scraps, remnants I bought in Japan, San Francisco and Cairo especially for the project and even some of the fabric I had woven in college. It took me several attempts to find a pattern I liked - and that was by sewing bits together and then unpicking them. Once I found my way, I took it away with me on trips and ended up by the pool in Cape Town sewing together the entire stack of 'flowers' in my bikini. I backed it in Marimekko (a present from Astrid) and hand quilted around the hexagons in Hong Kong.

This quilt says a lot about the year it was made - it came with me all around the world and when I started it David and I were just moving in together for the first time; he said when I finished it we would have to get married and we did. He even helped sew a little part of it. I like this quilt whichever side up it is and probably like it all the more because I will never make another hand-stitched English Patchwork again. 

       

I need to start thinking about a New Year's Resolution for 2009.

vintage quilts

       

In the theme of show and tell for quilt September, here are the only two vintage quilts that I own.

The first is a baby quilt that I bought at a car boot sale for £7. The hexagons are only an inch at their widest point which must have made it quite a fiddly project. I love the fabrics - especially the way the stitcher has used a big spot in the centre of some patch pieces. I hope some of the baby quilts I have made will someday be as worn and loved and cherished as this one. And this one.

The second is a quilt I bought a long time ago. When I was in my first year at university, a man came to give us a talk on vintage textiles from around the world. His job in fact was to travel the world collecting items to talk about and sell; I remember being very inspired and wanting a job like that. So inspired that I spent probably a whole weekend's wages (£50) on this vintage quilt from Pakistan. The birght colours and ethnicity were a phase I was going through but I have recently begun to reappreciate this quilt. The soft hand blocked paisley on the reverse is a complete contrast to the tribal geometric pattern on the front and I love the detail in the hand stitching and little stitched loops at the peak of each zig zag. It's massive and heavy and since I had it dry cleaned a little less smelly and most important of all it has a history. I don't know what that history is, but as withall handmade quilts there was someone who sat and sewed this. I like to think it was probably a woman and she probably had kids and she probably sat by a fire.

more vintage textiles and useful resource books.

quilt september

Josie has declared september to be quilt month, which might give me the inspiration to finish some of the abandoned projects piled up around this house.

My first ever quilt was a wedding gift for the Stotts back in 2002 and has since led to wedding quilts for both Allens and McGovernagates. My second quilt was also for a Stott - Floyd - in 2004 and has since led to baby quilts (including commissions) for Ella, Sari, Lilly, William, Louis, Rory, Lottie, Tabatha, Brodie, George, Toby, Henry, Thalia and Mia. 

This one was for George:

I like making quilts for kids because a) I have a short attention span and they make up in a couple of days b) they are smaller and therefore easier to manage in the machine (the big ones make my arms hurt) and c) it's fun to put robots and tractors and flamingos on a quilt.

It's also lovely to see how the parent of the recipient treats the quilt. There are pretty much two schools here - the quilt will either be hung on the wall in the bedroom or used on car journeys to keep the child's knees warm and mop up sick. From the feedback I have received, both methods display equal terms of affection for the much cherished gift.

Lovely children's quilts from a stitch in dye (her blog) and nettiepete. Inspirational ideas about quilted embroidery from melmelmel and bug jars from Lake E.

ruby

It was my mum and dad's ruby wedding anniversary the weekend before last and my sisters and I had been working on a secret project for them...

In addition to the surprise hog roast we organised - attended by nearly 100 friends from every stage of their lives - we made a quilt. We cobbled together all sorts of fabrics including scraps from dad's garage used to protect his beloved motorbikes, offcuts from mum's dressmaking days, fabrics she printed whilst at art college, something from each of us and a print that reminds all of us of our old brown hillman imp (mum covered the inside of our car with yellow flowery wallpaper to cover up the crappy door panels).

They loved it.

Now I have time for a new list of projects...

1. I am feeling the need to replace my broken Canon - the disposable camera just isn't cutting it (thanks AJ for these quilt photos).

2. Having just had a most fantastic and sociable week (photos to follow once the disposable camera has been developed) - including a sewing day yesterday making trousers for boys - I realise my fabric stack is missing some vital fabrics: boy fabrics. Saturday in New York may include a trip to Purl Soho and Tuesday in Chicago may involve a bus ride to Joann. Lucky I haven't made any kind of ridiculous promises to myself like josie about not buying any more fabrics.

3. I'm having pancakes for lunch.

wriggle on

I've got to get a wriggle on. I have a day off work to go and get my new ID and I haven't left yet. I'm in the zone - the craft zone. Josie this ones for you:

becomes:

still not sure if I like it, especially after a)particularly unenthusiatic response from husband, b)inspiration from amandajean who brought my attention to this quilt at the tokyo international quilt festival, d)what happened to c).

anyway, I've got to get a wriggle on so it will probably be left in a pile next to other piles until at least next year.

sewing

 

I managed to get some sewing done yesterday for a commission I'm working on. the 'I is for igloo' is ready for framing...

and the 'T is for tigers' is sketched out ready to be stitched.

   

I can also finally post this picture of a recent quilt commission which has found its way to the loving home for which it was intended.

Still loving those ABCs.