Turn Random Quilted Strips Into Containers

I love shopping at craft fairs. But vending my own stuff ? Sooner or later, most fiber artists learn that craft fairs are an exercise in masochism. Most shoppers won't pay quilters anything close to what our time and materials costs.

On the other hand, even after a half-dozen craft fair financial failures (but social wins), I still love the idea of doing a craft fair. Whenever I'm invited, I enjoy a few days of fantasizing about best-case scenarios - especially the camaraderie! I love talking to other artists! And civilians! And best of all, being forced to support the bake sale!  I think of all those things, before experience reminds me to sadly say "no." 
This year, while deciding not to do a super-fun sounding community holiday craft sale, I gave myself an extra 72 hours to brainstorm the alluring but frustrating question: What have I made, or could I possibly make that could earn me a minimum of $4/hour + materials + show entry fee (@$50)?

That sent me to my box of "quiltlets" - quilted and/or embellished strips that were intended as wrist cuffs, coffee cuffs, and/or bookmarks. I made a nice stack of them about five years ago, and kept in a  well-sealed box in my sewing room. Here's a favorite. My tutorial for this strip was in a 2013 blog post, here.

Curled into a cuff: 

Back to the present - I decided to try making it more practical/appealing by turning it into a container. I covered a stiff interfacing circle with fabric, then hand sewed it in the bottom with strong beading thread. 

Voila, a cute little container. (The flap is sewn shut.)

It can hold lightweight items by itself; or slip in a small glass to hold fresh flowers.

Then I gave it a decorative yarn topping. (former tzitzit.)

Counting all the hours, past and present, at a hypothetical craft fair, I would generously price it at only $50. Craft fair shoppers, I know what you're thinking: $8. I gave it to my cousins, (free),  who loved it.

Next, I plucked out this 9" x 6" denim, burlap, silk and lace cuff, with a vintage brass button and navy loopy trim all the way around. That was one of the best old lace fragments in my collection.

 Installed a base, and here's the vase! (hey that rhymes!).

At a craft fair, I would want to charge a Justice in the Universe Price of $60, which, again, no one would pay. Last week, I was delighted to sell it to a visiting friend for $15. No entry fee, no booth to set up, she got a bargain, and I received the satisfaction of knowing I'd gotten a small reward for it, and it went to an appreciative home - win-win, in a non-profit sort of way.

Next up is a confetti strip. It was created with a superfun technique. (Strew colorful scraps on a long strip of stiff fusible interfacing with fabric on both sides. Cover with a layer of tulle, then freemotion quilt on top.) Getting this far only took a couple of hours.

I set in a covered interfacing circle in the bottom. It looks really cute with a plant inside. 

The vintage plastic button is priceless,

For extra fun, I used a hot tool to melt holes in old juice/milk carton lids, then stitched them to the bottom as feet. 

This will be a present for a friend who is environmentally-oriented. 

Here are two more denim cuffs that needed a new purpose in life. As bracelets....

...they were pretty darn clunky...

But sewn shut, with a base installed....

They're actually kind of useful and cute, for paper clips or plants! The art deco button on the lower left is one of my absolute all time favorites. It deserves an appreciative home!

Next, one was one of my favorite quiltlets: It features 12 chunky delicious vintage plastic buttons, the cream of my collection. (The plaid fabric button on the upper right was later replaced with a brighter, red plastic one.)

But it was SO stiff and unwieldy as a bracelet. So I went overboard. I stitched a round base in the bottom, made a top lid from fusible interfacing covered with fabric. Onto the lid, I hot-glued an old plastic thread-spool covered with polka-dot fabric. I added two milk-lid pincushions, one decorated with a tassle trim, the other circled with a black-and-white ribbon. 

Let's summarize: 12 of the best buttons from a lifelong collection; fascinating vintage trim and ribbon; 4 hours of work; new double-sided fusible interfacing and new quilting fabric; 25 years of experience as an artist. In The Fair Universe, this item would be valued at $18,843. 

So I sent it to a dear friend who is herself an artisan and loves this color combination. She was thrilled, a priceless reward.  

But I do hope she attempts to insure it for $18,000. And I am happy in the knowledge that even if, heaven forbid, burglars invade her home, they will leave this behind (unless she puts jewelry in it). 

In sum: No matter how many ways I try to talk myself into doing a craft fair, the right answer for my style of labor-intensive fiber art is to gift it to family and friends who will appreciate it. And, of course, I'm continuing to sell my art  quilts on commission to people who appreciate quilts and a fair price. Private sales to art/quilt collectors don't provide the socialization, excitement, or bake sale of a holiday craft fair; but it is potentially a way to be a working artist.

Homage to Fragonard, or, Fun & Learning with your Favorite Museum Snapshots

Need a fast holiday gift? How about turning your favorite Museum art photos into mini-quilts?

 Before:

After: 

Backstory:

Do you take a ton of photos at art museums? I sure do, because I see so many art lessons, about color, composition, creativity, and courage.

These photos are fun to revisit from time to time, but not much happens with them. 

Until a couple of  weeks ago, when the Notre Dame Cathedral was reopened, five years after the horrific fire. 

Days before that fire, we were visiting Paris, including Notre Dame. (I blogged about that experience here.)  

We also went to the Louvre. We had no plan, but wound up spending a lot of time in the 15th-19th century French painting galleries (blogged here.)

One of the dozens of photos I took was this. Titled "Rinaldo in the Garden of the Palace of Armida," it was painted by Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard, circa 1763. 

It's an over-the-top decadent scene, which is the point of Rococo. On the right, nubile, pale women are escorting a soldier (You can tell by his massive golden helmet, apparently adorned with...feathers? Do the feathers make the enemy laugh so hard that they're immobilized?)

On the far left, another tantalizing pale  women emerges from a cave to look on. 

At first sight, I admired the pastel palette, which I almost always avoid. Pinks! Yellows! So not my thing, but, WOW! I also loved the  fluffiness. And the artistic skill here is fantastic; so few strokes convey so much, especially semi-transparent drapery. Fragonard is the man! 

So thinking about Notre Dame two weeks ago got me looking at my photo of this painting, again, and that got me doing a little research. 

The soldier -- Rinaldo -- was a Crusader, and his troops were about to invade Jerusalem. But a witch named Armida (I assume that's the gal on the far left?) wanted to stop the invasion, so she kidnapped him. She took him in her chariot to her magic garden where she planned to kill him; instead, she fell in love with him; he never returned to war and they lived happily ever after.

This ostensible history was told in an epic poem called "Jerusalem Delivered," by Italian writer Torquato Tasso, published in 1581. 

The story was performed as an opera in Paris in 1761. Historians postulate that Fragonard either attended or heard about it there. 

I decided to celebrate this piece, and learn from it, without stressing myself out. I did a cross between copying and riffing. 

Step 1. I started out with a 9" x 7" piece of stiff interfacing (I like Peltex) with the fusible side up (or use two-sided fusible interfacing and put parchment paper on bottom when pressing). 

Step 2. Start cutting triangle-ish pieces -- I was going for a "low poly" look so I picked triangles. (You could choose rectangles, ovals, hexagons, or anything). I used batiks for a painterly effect, and tried to approximate colors and shades, and location. Studying the painting closely in order to do this is where I learned the most, including understanding the artist's composition and how he created the two focal points, with the white-skinned people and Rinaldo's sash. 

Step 3. Keep adding fabric until all the interfacing is covered. Fabric pieces will overlap. If the fabric isn't touching the fusible on the interfacing, use a glue stick to adhere it.

Step 4. Press everything in place. The hot iron will also dry any glue. 

Step 5. I first machine-stitched about 13 diagonal straight lines across the scene, at 3/4" intervals. This held everything in place a little better than just glue and fusible. These are light-colored lines of stitching that you can barely see in the photos.

Step 6.  The most fun part: hand stitching. I used embroidery floss and added long stitches to mirror the implied or actual detail lines and brush strokes of the original. Since this is a small piece, I think I did all the stitching in about 2-3 hours while watching tv. 

I used a lot of variegated embroidery thread skeins. On Rinaldo's gold sash, the browns and golds are from just one thread. (The white thread on the pale people is not variegated). 

Step 7. I glued/fused a piece of fabric to cover the back. 

Step 8. Trim all the edges even and straight. Then I did a corded edging, something close to a satin stitch all the way around, with metallic gold thread on top and in the bobbin, enclosing a gold embroidery thread as "cord". (If you look up "corded edging" you'll find it's easy to do and helps make raw edges like this neater than just doing a satin stitch without a "cord.")

Then I went back to my original picture to study the frame. The painting's golden frame is almost as over-the-top as the painting. I figured I could get that effect with lace.  First I auditioned white lace....

Definitely not -- the frame is now competing with the white figures, who are the focus of the painting. So I decided to paint that lace gold, same as the actual frame. 

I used acrylic Lumiere paint, mixed with a bit of fabric medium. (Any acrylic paint should work, and if you add fabric medium it will thin it a bit.) I first let it dry bumpy like this, and basted it in place, but I didn't like the look; The ruffles drew too much attention. 

So I undid the basting, pressed the lace as flat as I could, and resewed it in place. I like it much better this way. 

And that's my happy-ish ending! True, now I think my figures look like Halloween ghosts (or, much worse, KKK refugees? Oh no!!! Too late for me to fix that!) But it's still a relatively happy ending, compared to that of Fragonard, who, in hindsight, had picked the wrong clientele. Along came the French Revolution, and most of them were executed. His work was ignored for years, before he was rediscovered. I hope he's looking on and forgives me for my lazy, yet respectful tribute to his work. He opened my eyes to new composition, focus, and color ideas! Merci, Jean-Honore! 

 

A UFO Cabinet Collaboration, for a Good Cause

I just finished this quilt, featuring the work of an artist who died almost 20 years ago.

Debbie Sichel, z"h (Hebrew acronym for "may her memory be a blessing"), was a hugely talented artist, and a kind, modest person. If you're a user of Electric Quilt (EQ) design software, her name may ring a bell -- she designed the Foundation Paper Pieced Hebrew alphabet that comes with that program. I met her only once, through a Jewish quilting group. 

Sadly, Debbie died, too young, in 2006. Her husband mailed her fabrics and UFOs to other quilters, including those in my group. 

I received three incredible tree blocks. All these leaves --  55+ on each of the first two trees below -- were immaculately hand-appliqued, with turned edges. Each leaf is only about an inch long. Here's the tree with a blue background, 

The white,

...Plus, one on a red background, which had no leaves. For this one, I made the leaves, and machine-stitched them in place, because I don't have Debbie's hand-applique skills. I also used a lot fewer leaves because (1) it represents autumn, many leaves have fallen off (that's an excuse), and (2) really, because I failed to see how I could cram 30 more in there, like Debbie did.

Also above, I love how Debbie used a realistic tree trunk print in the middle, and fun novelty prints for three of the branches! Maybe these blocks were her exercising for an even more ambitious project.

The box I received from her family also included hand-pieced,  purple-and-black "Crown of Thorns" blocks.  Here's a photo of the perfect hand stitching on the back.

And here's the front (after I added quilting designs to the center):

All these components sat in my UFO cabinet for 18 years. I never could come up with the right way to use them. 

Then I heard about a call for quilts to go to the Kibbutz Be'eri survivors of the October 7 massacre, in which 100+ members were killed, and 30 more were kidnapped. This seemed like an appropriate place to use Debbie's work.

I sewed the tree blocks together vertically, added leaves to the bottom one, created borders from my stash, and quilted it. Now it's ready to go. It was a privilege to do this. I am happy that Debbie's memory, and her work, will continue to be a tactile blessing. 

P.S. There were only 9 of the star blocks, and I needed one more. Fortunately, also in my UFO cabinet, I found a lovely floral block given to me years ago by my dear friend Kay Mackenzie, the queen of applique (and of kindness, and of foster kittens.) 

It's perfectly raw-edge machine appliqued. If you aspire to do work like this, check out Kay's books, here. 

Entertaining the Latest Baby! (Not Mine)

Welcome to the world, Declan! (FYI, your name is pronounced DECK-lan, which I didn't know until your grandma, my friend Lynn, told me about you!) 

I made you one of my "Everything in the World" quilts, though sadly some of this stuff is no longer in this world (like Freddy Mercury, RBG and dinosaurs), and some stuff  has never been in the world, depending how you define reality (Mighty Mouse, unicorns, the Golden Snitch.) 

In case you take an interest in quilting some day, here's how I made this. 

First, I spent 30 years collecting random novelty fabrics that tickled my fancy. I spent free time fussy-cutting 4" squares from them. Organize those by topic into nine-patches. Below, the science-themed nine-patch is on the lower right, and the people-themed one is on the left (with RBG, Mercury, and others.)

Below, find Mighty, anteaters, monkeys, Laurel Burch parrots, pandas, and butterflies so large that I cut them to size of two squares sewn together (7.5" long by 4" high). That technically makes this nine-patch an eight-patch.

Below is the sports and games nine-patch, featuring soccer players, dominos, bikes, skiers, and Harry Potter playing Quidditch. (Here, I cut two patches from the same fabric for the best possible view.)

I've lately been making my backings from scrap strips, and they've come out so fun and unruly that I like them more than the fronts! I hope babies and parents will spend hours speculating about what they're seeing!

At the top, in black-and-white (which infants love), there are fried eggs as well as foliage, musical notation, and plenty of dots. 

Below, I love the fabric that looks like measuring tapes (in the middle, with long red and yellow areas) but I do wish that these tapes started at 1 and went to 36. The numbers start in the teens, then jump around, which is artistic but annoying. It would be great if a child could more easily measure things against it.

Below, you can see leftovers of some fabrics that are also on the front -- finding the matches is another game kids can play with this quilt.

Making these is just too much fun! So thank you for being born, Declan, and giving me the opportunity to play this into your reality.

And other readers, if, you want to see more baby quilts like this, click "baby quilt" in the word cloud on the right. 

Better than Catnip

How did I ever finish a quilt before my grandcat moved in last year?

Here, while preparing to audition different bindings on a gift baby quilt, Cleo helpfully provides aeration. Certainly, the extra movement and fur will make my binding more accurate.

 

For Cleo, quilts in progress provide a far better high than catnip. 

Next, the finished quilt, which I had to bring outside in order to get a picture of it flat.

It's one of my "everything in the world" baby quilts, made of topical 4" squares, organized by subject. (Click "baby quilts" in the word balloon on the right to see more of these.) A few more details:

Note the Featherweight sewing machine, in the photo below. Under it, a fabric featuring vinyl records. On the far lower left, old-fashioned clocks with "hands". My stash totally dates me. (There's also a dinosaur on the upper left.) I want this baby to understand HISTORY!

And speaking of ancients, I'm particularly proud of the back, made from strips foraged from my scrap suitcase! Finally using up some scraps! If I make 200 more backings like this, I might bring that suitcase down near empty!

A few back details:

I can only pray that the intended recipient, who will be born any minute now, won't have cat allergies. 

(But seriously, I machine-wash and dry the quilt, then wrap it up in plastic so my cat doesn't nap on it before I can deliver it!)