Quilt Your "To Do" List, Rediscover School Glue

There is so much that I should be doing, but instead, I am just having a ridiculous amount of fun cutting up old jeans to make "to do" lists. Here's a piece on a pants leg:

(Same piece, with added waistbands at top and bottom, to turn it into a pennant:)

The polka dot denim is from a jeans skirt.

The other shades came from family, thrift shop, or yard sale jeans - I buy the largest sizes I can find.

OK, it's true, my fibrous to-do lists don't include activities that are more than six letters and/or tedious, like: shop for groceries (18 letters) or clean the refrigerator (uncountable) or...what's that word...twerk...shirk...oh yeah! Work!

Here's another more succinct and heavily-illustrated priority list:

That's a coffee filter on top, FYI.
And here's my new BFF, who makes these creations easy:

The quilt world is having a love affair with white glue, especially (but not always) Elmer's washable white school glue. You can hardly turn around in quilty quarters of cyberspace without bumping into someone doing something mindblowing with simple, cheap glue. For example:

• Several people demonstrate how to BASTE large quilts with a drizzle or a spray of school glue, sometimes watered.
• Legendary quilter Sharon Schamber offers a three-part Youtube series on how to BIND quilts with Elmer's school glue, starting here. She also does a technique she invented called Paperless Paper Piecing with it. 
• Sharon's daughter Cristy Fincher uses school glue for accurate piecing and appliqué, here.  She uses a fine point tip (more on this below).
• What finally sent me over to the glue side: Reading my quilting hero Susan Carlson's courageous confession to the centrality of Aleene's tacky glue to her collage process, here. 

It's so easy to make your own priority list wallhanging with old jeans and glue. Feel free to borrow my list (send pictures).

The appliqué needs to be very flat. Gluing at the ironing board is a good idea, to flatten as you go, and the heat also dries the glue. Drip glue on the back outer edge of the appliqué, and use the tip to shmear it around. Aim to cover a more-or-less continuous line next to the outer edges, without any significant gaps.(The inner part of the appliqué does not need glue).

 If you're using thick denim, the not-so-tiny opening that comes with the orange nozzle on the school bottle is fine.

However, if you're using a thinner fabric than denim - like quilter's cotton -  I suggest buying  fine point tips. Sharon Schamber sells plastic nozzles that fit directly on glue bottles, here. (No affiliation).  I used  metal nozzles that I bought years ago, can't remember where - they don't fit on the Elmer's bottle, but they do fit onto the small empty bottles they came with. These are widely available on the web (for example, here at Dharma Trading, one of my favorite companies.)

The metal nozzle simply screws into position. You fill the bottle with the glue.

Stitching the appliqués down is optional. If you do this project with kids, you can use a permanent non-toxic glue - Aleene's tacky, for example - and you won't need to stitch them down at all. Of course, the piece is no longer washable.

If you use school glue, like I did, and you want it to last, then of course you should stitch everything down. (School glue is not very strong, especially on denim.)  I went for "invisible" monofilament thread, zig-zagging over every edge, with most of the stitch on the appliqué, zagging to just beyond the border.

Stitching inevitably causes some fraying - denim is a relatively loose weave - but it's much less fraying (I discovered through trial and error) than simply doing a straight stitch just inside each appliqué, or a multi-stitch zig-zag, both of which raise a ruckus on the raw edges.

Adding a batting and backing is optional. They're sturdy and hangable just as they are if you used a pants-denim background. Just for the fun of it, I did glue and then stitch grey felt to the back of each piece, to give it more weight and dimension. No batting whatsoever. It's a fast and fun project that can be done with children of all ages!

What would you glue onto your fantasy "to do" list?

(Brief commercial message: If you want coffee-related shapes suitable for tracing, consider my extremely cheap 'Quilts for Coffee Lovers' booklet on my pattern page. Along with these shapes,

...there's also a percolator.)

The Tarot of Fabric Selection: Six Games for Ultra-Serendipity Quilts:

There are a lot of quilters out there who talk about serendipity, but really, they have elaborate plans.

For example, Susan Carlson, one of my quilt idols, wrote two fantastic books called Freestyle Quilts and Serendipity Quilts. But her projects start with a beautiful, intricate sketch (she has a degree in illustration). Here's a part of one of her drawings:

I made several complex fish from her patterns, and anyone who knows Carlson's work would immediately recognize my guys as her offspring:

There were many serendipitous moments - choosing fabrics was a gas - but I was definitely following a  plan.

Similarly, Sarah Nephew, another longtime inspiration, has a couple of quilt books with "serendipity" in the title. Her gorgeous quilts require a ton of careful planning and cutting before you get from the serene to the dipity. (No Y seams, though, which is great!)

You can see and buy Sara Nephew's terrific books here. I totally love this book and am going to make something from it. 

I, by contrast, practice a radical form of serendipity quilting that is closely associated with, and in fact, virtually identical to, extreme laziness.

Here's how it works: A pile of unrelated fabrics accretes like stalagmites in a conspicuous area of my sewing room, for whatever reason (I auditioned them for different projects; my overstuffed cabinets exploded; I bought them seven weeks ago and am too lazy to put them away; I am a hoarder in denial; etc.)

After a while, I start to see connections. The universe appears to be sending a complex message - like Tarot cards, runes, or tea leaves - important dispatches that I must not ignore.

For example on a recent Hawaiian vacation, (blog entry), I bought a half-dozen new, mostly unrelated fabrics, including dupioni silks, cotton batiks, and a half-yard of this elegant, high-quality gold-flecked Asian print;

And, from a different store, two yards of this flimsy, low-quality, wacky fabric poking fun at Tokyo's pop culture:

Once home, I procrastinated putting them away, because I so enjoyed looking at them. Eventually, it came to me that these two totally go together. If you've visited Japan, you know that the juxtapositions of ancient and edgy - in the streets, the clothes, the packaging, the hearts and minds - are enthralling.

So I went for it!

 I patched up the turning hole in the back and added a hanging loop.

The back took almost as much time than the front. If I were into ultra-radical serendipity, I would hang it backwards. A friend of mind admired it (the front), and I was thrilled to give it to her!

Want to experience authentic serendipity for yourself? Here are five highly-disciplined exercises to force you to be lazy (or crazy) enough to make a very serendipitous quilt:

1. The Random Number Method: Use a family member or online random number generator (like this one) to generate three numbers between 1 and 25. Go to your fabric stash, pick a pile, count down from the top, and pull out three fabrics that correspond to those numbers. Make it work. (If your stash is small, you can do this at the fabric store. See #4).
2. The Project Runway Method. Set the timer for 10 minutes, race to your fabric stash and randomly pull five fabrics. Splay them on the kitchen table and leave them there until a concept comes to you. When your spouse asks why you can't clear the table, explain that you are channeling messages from the universe.
3. The Pet Method: Similar to #2, but lay six fabrics on the floor, and then use ONLY the two that your dog, cat, rodent, etc. first lie upon. Same thing works with small children. (The pet can also help with decorative stitch selection...(although there is a danger it will gnaw on the spool pin.)
4. The Method for People Who are Mediocre at Darts: Acquire darts. Print out a color wheel from the Internet. Thumb tack it to a bathroom door. Knock on the door to make sure no one is inside. Stand far back and yell loudly to make sure none of your family members or pets are approaching. Throw 3 darts toward the wheel. (If the darts land on the door or the floor, those count as colors, too.)
5. The Blindfold Shopping Method. Put a blindfold in your purse. On your next visit to a quilt shop, approach a sales clerk, introduce yourself, blindfold yourself, and ask politely if she can steer you towards the fat quarters section. There, use your hands to feel out 3 fabrics. No peeking! Warning: The salespeople will whisper that you are kinky/bonkers.
6. The Relationship Buster. This next approach works best if your spouse or #1 best friend is NOT a quilter or visual artist. Set the timer for 20 minutes. Ask him or her to pick 3 fabrics. Refrain from making suggestions or faces. Find a way to make it work. You may be stunned by how beautifully it all goes together; or, just plain stunned. Vengeance will be yours! Give it to them when you're done!

Whatever you make, keep it small, just in case it's a disaster. My bet is that you, or someone you care about, or your pet, will love it! (Send me a picture, I will strive to love it too!)

Ginny was very particular about stitch selection. 

My Wedding Canopy Article in Machine Quilting Unlimited Magazine

Extreme excitement: My 7-page article about making a commissioned wedding canopy is in the new January 2016 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine.  Here's the cover of the issue, with a glorious animal portrait quilt by Susan Carlson, on of my quilting idols.

Here's the first page of my article: 

It's a step-by-step description of my collaboration with the bride, and the technicalities of making this kind of medallion quilt (way easier than it looks.) 

MQU is a beautiful magazine that I only became aware of recently.  By "machine quilter", they don't just mean longarmers - the articles are for anyone who does any part of any quilt with any kind of machine. You could be a hand worker and still love the editorial. 

The same issue has an article about one of my quilt heroes, Susan Carlson, who makes intoxicating animal portraits; Lisa Walton's insanely intricate wholecloth painted quilts inspired by Spanish tiles; a stupendous labyrinth quilt by Sarah Ann Smith; exquisite new versions of antique Baltimore Album quilts; and so much more. It covers the broad territory from traditional to cutting-edge art quilts, and they make it all look gorgeous!

 If your LQS doesn't carry this magazine, they should - tell them about it! Meanwhile, you can buy the January 2016 issue, or back issues, here.