This blog records my experiments and successes with fabric and fibers, surface design, stitching, weaving, photography and whatever else strikes my fancy. Enjoy ...
Yes, I already know how to quilt, but there is always more to learn! And this is a group of more advanced sewers. I did order Quilter's Academy Book #4 by Harriet Hargrave, which is the text we're using in the class.
This week, I was sewing together the Morningstar as a trial run for the Lonestar. It took me most of the morning to sew all the pieces together. We used the Lemoyen Star method which uses a painless way to do Y-seams. You work from the outside into the middle of the star to finish it -- which seams a little counter intuitive. It worked, and subsequent stars should go faster.
The points are all nice and sharp--and they match. Hurray!
Near the end of the class, Liz showed us the electric AccuCut tool that the Senior Center has, and helped us cut out fabric for a Hunter's Star block. She wanted us to experience a much easier star than the lone stars we'd been working on this month.
She ran the fabric through the machine over the die cut, and we had our accurate and fully cut fabric pieces in about 3 seconds! It was remarkably fast! And the electric version is so much easier than the the manual cranking it through by hand.
Left block is the correct way to sew the quarters of the Hunters Star.
The right side is the WRONG way to put them together.
When I got home, I sewed the pieces together ... If there is a way to do it WRONG, I will do it wrong until I have a model to follow. It should not have taken all afternoon, but it did! By the forth quarter, I finally had it figured out! Put it down to learning something new ...
I am nearing the end of knitting another pair of socks, and looking ahead to the next project -- and it occurred to me that I needed to dye some more wool yarn for that.
What colors? Blue and Grape? Black Cherry and Red Wine (Merlot)? Evergreen?
All staple colors for me. but I went with sky blue and evergreen this time.
I am using Procion Dye. You can't use the activator because it will damage the wool, so instead, I use vinegar and heat to make the dye colorfast. Dharma has instructions on their website.
I started with 4 balls of yarn, tied into old onion skin net bags so they will stay a little compacted (not too tight). The bags also keep them from unravelling in the pot and becoming a giant tangle. A trouser sock or nylon sock would also work to hold the ball together, and also act as a partial resist to help with thaqt gradient effect.
I am using my favorite sock yarn wool for dying: Chic Sheep merino wool yarn from my stash. I don't think it's available anymore for purchase, so I'll have to find a substitute in future. These are all the same white / lace colore to start with, even though the lighting and net bags make them all look different in the photo above.
I soaked the white balls of yarn in water ahead of time, as the pots of water were warming up to just below a simmer. This helps the balls to take up the dye more evenly. In actuality, I was looking for a more mottled / gradient look, with some variation through the ball. In that case, I should have just prepared the dye bath and tossed in the dry balls of netted yarn.
To prepare the dye bath:
Heat a pot of water to just below simmering. Because this is wool, you don't want it to boil or you'll have felt.
I was using old Procion dyes. Using Dharma's
instructions for Procion Dye on wool (no soda ash, as it can destroy the
protein fibers). I sized it for roughly 1/2 pound of fiber, or 2
balls of merino wool yarn, each at 100 grams.
In the Dye Pot,
1-1/2 T salt
1/3 cup white vinegar
Enough water to cover / submerge the balls of yarn.
Heat this until it gets just ready to simmer.
For the dye concentrates, I mixed up
1 tsp dye powder with
about 2 cups warm water.
1 put that in a plastic bottle with a tight-fitting cap, so I could shake it up until the dye powder was completely dissolved.
Once the dye pot was hot enough (just ready to simmer, not boil), I removed the yarn balls, I
added the salt and vinegar, then the dye concentrate. Stir that up.
Then add the balls of yarn. Let them simmer until the dye has moved from the water into the yarn.
For the blue, you may need to add more vinegar as that encourages the uptake of the blue dye.
I let them simmer for about 2 hours. Then then turn off the heat, and let
them cool completely. Then I dumped the dye water, squeezed out the balls and
rinsed them in new water, letting them soak overnight. I repeated this
rinse process until the water ran clear.
Then I squeezed out the balls (still in the net bags) and hung them by the fire to dry for a few days. From past experience, it's difficult to unravel a wet ball of yarn, so be patient and let them dry. It may take a few days, but that's ok.
The dry dyed yarn balls -- un-netted.
The next step is to wind the dyed balls onto a niddy-noddy to make skeins.
This allows you to see what you have as far as color gradients, etc.
Notes: Again, it's been a long time since I dyed yarn, so I forgot -- the measurements for dye were a little less because I wanted the mottling. But I forgot that tiny detail, and added a bit more dye,, and dumped in the entire 2 cup bottles, which gave more even coverage of the dye all through the balls of yarn.
I tied this quilt with a big fluffy wool batt from my friend Laura. I got it done in record time -- I think it only took about 2 hours with the right equipment. It will be a wonderfully warm comforter this winter!
This is the disappearing hour glass 2 pattern that was so much fun to make.
Earlier in the summer, I was watching a quilt frame on FB Marketplace selling for about $25. I was waiting until after July 4th to ask about it ... But then it completely disappeared, not sold, just removed. Perhaps the seller had an arbitrary date in mind to sell it, or they put it in a local rummage sale? Or they trashed it, because no one appeared to be interested. I'm not sure ...
Then I remembered my friend Nancy had one like this in her basement that she said she would never use again. It was made by her ex-husband. She made 2 quilts on it and decided that was enough, so it's been sitting unused ever since. She was willing to give it to me because she knew I'd actually use it. ;-)
The design is very much like the one I was watching on Marketplace. So I asked her if I could have it -- since I have about a dozen quilts waiting to be sandwiched and finished. This will be good for tying quilts with too thick a batt to get under the sewing machine. It will also help to pin baste other quilts.
I used to tie quilts sitting up in bed, but that was fraught because it was always hard to get the done parts out of the way. This is a much better set-up for tying a quilt!
Bonus that you get to see some of my weaving samples hung up on the wall behind me!
I used sturdy T-pins to attach the edges of the quilt to the rails. Then it can be rolled on the rail as you progress through the quilt.
I used wool yarn to tie this quilt. Apparently, though, you can use just about anything -- acrylic, cotton, whatever you have.
I was remembering Oliver's Little Blankie baby quilt made by his Great Aunty Marge. It had wool ties on it that would felt down ... He used to work them off and chew on them. I guess they had a nice mouth feel? Better to go with natural fibers than plastic in that case!
Here are the basic tools:
Needle with a nice big eye to allow the yarn to be threaded. Darning needles don't work so well for this as the points are unbelievably dull. You need a point sharp enough to get through the cotton and wool batting layers. I broke the eye off of 1 needle (I never even knew that was possible!) and had to run to town to buy some more suitable needles.
embroidery scissors
Shelf liner for gription
pliers to pull the needle through when it gets tough
It took me a little while to get started on this one, because I wasn't quite sure where in the pattern of blocks to place the ties, but it just took a little time studying the pattern to figure it out.
In the phot above, I am nearing the end of the quilt. About 2/3 of it is rolled up on the rail, and still isn't too bulky -- even though it's a puffy wool batt.
Still--as I got closer to the other end, it was easier to flip the rails so that the rail with the finished ties was on the far side from me.
I tied them with a surgeon's knot, which is common in weaving, and famous for not easily coming undone -- until you want it to.
Here's the back side, where you can see the puckers of the ties.
How to tie a quilt - I found this old video by Donna Jordan. I kinda wish I'd done it this way, especially for closing the opening for turning. The tying is easy enough.
There were over 600 2-1/2 inch squares to make the chips of color. I used a batik layer cake and still had a few left over. I got this far using my little Singer Featherweight from 1941. It worked like a champ!
Now to figure out how to quilt it!
Will I do it again? Maybe ... Will I make a bigger bed-size quilt? Maybe ...
I love that creamy background batik. It makes me think it's full of fossils, and sand dollars. ;-)
It was a good day on the Free Table at Quilt Guild last week!
I picked up these rag balls as I can use them for making rugs some day.
I gave them to my friend Karla who has other rag balls to go with her own rug loom.
Someone was also giving away these baby food jars of ribbons. Nice ones!
Also -- Laura is helping me re-stock the blues in my stash.
These are from Dee S., a founding mother of the guild. She is in her 90s now, and giving away some of her stash. I am happy to help out!
Meanwhile, I've been getting kits ready for Quilt Camp next week. Cutting and cutting because you don't want to make a mistake at that while someone is talking to you ...
This was a double set of precut log cabin logs by Jordan Quilts. It did not take long to come together, especially if you use the chain piecing technique in Donna Jordan's video.
Now that I have all 24 blocks, it's time to audition layouts to determine how they will be sewn together.
This diamond pattern is the one I decided to keep.
And here it is again with the borders.
If you look closely at the printed fabric, you can see humpback whales.
I gave the red one away to my friend, Laura. This time, I wanted to make one in blue.
Yes, I still have a lot of blue in my stash. And all the fabric is from my stash.
I picked up that lighter blue flower print on the Free Table at the Quilt Guild a
while back. It's not officially cotton quilt fabric, but something
lighter. Someone made a blouse out of it, but then changed their
mind. It looks nice as part of this project!
Here are the fabrics cut to size, ready for assembly.
Here I made the half-square triangles.
It didn't seem to take as long to cut out and sew the half-square
triangles as it did at Quilt Camp that year. Maybe because I split up
the work into multiple days.
Then I laid all the pieces out in the 4 star blocks, so it would be easy to assemble them.
Here is the finished top, not yet sandwiched or quilted.
Here it is finished and "fulled" as we say in weaving.
I used some scraps of a Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting, in part because I wanted the crinkled antique look that batt gives to new quilts.
Quilting was simply a straight stitch ever half inch, except for the middle bars with got a stitch-in-the-ditch treatment.
This is how it looks from the back.
Here's a detail shot of that blouse fabric.
Is it too early to give this to my husband as a Christmas present?
