Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 11- 12: A Batik Chandelier and a Millenium Quilt

Day #11: "Chandelier, Shaken"

This quilt is improv paper pieced, using batik fabrics.

Closer: 

Much closer:

A little to the left: 

Finally, from the back - I like the way the light creates a stained glass effect!

It was pure fun, with minimal measuring. The techniques I used (though not this actual pattern) are in my booklet, "Modern Paper Piece Log Cabin Triangles," in my etsy shop, CathyPstudio, here.

UPDATE: This quilt was just awarded Best Use of Color in the Innovative category, in Mancuso's Visuals #2 Pacific International Quilt Festival. All the winners are here.

Day #12: A Millenium Quilt

This large quilt (74" x 93", it almost hit the ceiling) is made of 2,000 squares, cut 2.5".

A little closer:

Center: 

Backstory: In the late 90s, a huge fad emerged among online quilters: Millenium quilts, to be made from 2000 different pieces of fabric. People set up swaps, and packs of squares were also sold online. 

When I first read about this fad, I thought, "What a terrible idea!" But after a couple of days, possessed by the audacity and community of it, I jumped in. 

I'd been quilting for almost a decade, so I had a significant fabric stash. I chopped 2.5" squares out of everything. Then I went to my upholstery sample books; old clothing; and basically, any fabric I could scrounge anywhere. 

Even then, I was still about 500 fabrics short. So I gave up on my dream of not repeating fabrics, and filled the corners in with squares cut from two different fabrics that were printed with millenium-related words in different languages. These are the mostly black fabric and the white-and-black fabric below. 

I was well into the project when I started reading that some quilters were using this project to affirm their Christian faith, which makes a great deal of sense. But since I'm not Christian, and I didn't want to leave my descendants wondering, I put the Hebrew calendar year - 5760 - along the bottom, and stitched into it an essay explaining the quilt and the millennium mishegoss that was taking place at that time! 

You can't lay out 2000 squares this size on any design wall smaller than the side of a barn. So I (and pretty much everyone who made one of these), constructed the quilt in blocks. Each of my blocks are 5 squares x 5 squares, totaling about 10 inches after stitching. Within each block, I placed the lightest square in one corner, moving to the darkest in the diagonally-opposite corner. To honor the traditional log cabin arrangement, I placed a red square in every center. I set the blocks in rows of 8 across, and columns 10 down -  that's 80 blocks, times 25 squares, gives you a 2000-square quilt that measured 72" x 93"!

The back features a whole lot of weird stuff, including this inexplicable M&M millenium fabric....

...which posed the profound question, "Is it Over Yet?" There are also a couple of delightful commemorative tea towels, from a trip we'd recently taken to London:

...and a tea towel from a sweet little amusement park we'd brought our little boy to in England, Paulton's Park. 

Plus this flea market find, curtains showing movie stars of the mid-20th century.

Until my pandemic porch quilt show, I had never photographed  this quilt flat before. The most I've ever seen of it at one time is on a full-size bed. Seeing the entire thing gave me a completely different sense of what it looks like! That's one more reason you should consider hosting your own porch quilt show! 

[The first installment of my porch quilt show, Days 1-5 is here. 

Days 6-10 are here.

The next installment is here. 

If you'd like to keep up with the show in real time, I'm posting it on Instagram, at https://www.instagram.com/cathy.perlmutter/] 

Textile Hugs: Star Ornaments for Pittsburgh

Handcrafted tokens of love appeared on bushes, trees, lamp posts, statuary, street signs and benches in Pittsburgh last week - more than 2,000 six-pointed Jewish stars. Each incorporated a heart, and they were made from: twigs, or popsicle sticks, or yarn, or felt, or other stuff.  They were crocheted, knitted, stitched and/or glued, by people of all ages, from elementary school classes up. My contribution was made from quilting fabric and a large button. (OK, maybe the button is too large, but I liked that it's transparent).

The back is felt: 

Two articles about the project were just published; one in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, here, and another in the Jerusalem Post, here. The Pittsburgh paper explained the origins:  

" ...[T]he stars were the inspiration of Hinda Mandell, an associate professor of communications at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. A former Boston Globe journalist, she is editing an anthology titled 'Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats.'

"Ms. Mandell’s determined, energetic handmaiden is Ellen Dominus Broude, a dedicated crafter and saleswoman who lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. After Ms. Broude saw an online post by Ms. Mandell, the two women set up a Facebook group on Oct. 30 called Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh. That was just three days after 11 people died when a gunman opened fire before Shabbat services at Tree of Life/or L’Simcha. Ms. Broude set up a post office box to accept the handmade stars. Soon, contributions arrived from 12 countries, including New Zealand and Qatar. " 

The newspaper photos, and those on the group's Facebook page, may put you in the mood to make a star heart ornament. The project is continuing; and it's adding  another dimension, inviting participants to make visual representations of community (get details when you join the Facebook page ).

Or, you just might want to make one as a gift for someone who needs a textile hug for whatever difficulties they're enduring. After I posted my star on the group's FB page, several people asked me how I made it. I steered them to a blog post from 2015 that explained how I used a specialized kite-shaped acrylic template, which not every quilter owns. 

But a simpler method that doesn't require a specialized template, is English Paper Piecing.  

All you need is a regular diamond-shape (two equilateral triangles base to base), which you can draft yourself. Print or trace six of them on cardstock or paper, and then trace it one more time onto translucent template plastic.

When planning the star, maximize fun by sliding a double-sided hinged mirror (an inexpensive sewing notion), opened to about 60 degrees, around on the print fabric until you find a location you like. Here's an example of how it looked on my star fabric. (You don't HAVE to have the mirrors to do this project, but it is the most fun part!)

The hypothetical fabric below is much simpler, for demonstration purposes. Once you like the location, place the plastic template there, and with a  pencil (erasable!), trace a few lines from the printed motif onto the plastic. You don't have to trace every line, just enough so you can find the same location again. 

 Cut out six pieces, 1/2" bigger than the template all the way around (the red line above). 

Place a paper or cardstock template on the back of each fabric piece, center it, and baste the raw edges inward.

In English Paper Piecing, "basting" means folding each edge inward, being consistent about which side you fold in first. (Move clockwise or counterclockwise, and stick with that decision for all six pieces.) Some people like to baste with long stitches on the back (and an extra tacking stitch at each fold). I find it's easier and faster to use a glue stick and an iron to turn and hold edges, at the ironing board. Tip tip: my favorite way to baste diamonds is to fold the sharp ends inward first. (no need to do this with the two remaining non-acute angles.)

Then go clockwise, or counter clockwise, to fold in the four edges. I went counter-clockwise in this example.

(Other people prefer not to turn in the sharp points first; they will have dog ears at each acute angle, which they can turn under later.) 

Sew the points together in groups of three. By hand, whipstitch the edges; by machine, sew from the good side, with a zigzag stitch and matching or invisible thread. I start with a middle piece, then attach a diamond to its right and its left side.  

Once you have two groups of three, stitch them together along the midline. 

Now you can remove all the templates. Lay the star on top of a piece of felt. Then straight stitch, 1/8th inch from the edges, most of the way around, leaving a gap along one edge. If there are "dog ears" sticking out from the outer angles, tuck them in just before your needle reaches them.

Cut out the felt carefully, just beyond the edges of the star. Stuff, and hand- or machine-sew the gap closed. 

To learn more about the ongoing Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh project, see photos of many more stars, and sign up, join their Facebook group, here. 

Stuffed Pomegranate Recipe, High Fiber (Don't Eat Them)

Have you ever looked at a large-scale fabric and been tempted to cut out and stuff one of the motifs? That's what happened to me when I first saw this fabric.

It was designed by Alex Anderson for RJR Fabrics. For the last two posts, (1, 2), as part of a Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework challenge, I've been playing with a yard of it.

The pomegranates are so juicy - 3 1/2" high by about 2 1/2" wide - that I had an overwhelming urge to stuff them!

So I did.

 I needed gifts for the guild's convention in May, so I made a bunch: 

I cut them out just slightly beyond their borders; sewed them wrong sides together against navy or scrap fabric; left a gap at the top; then turned them right-sides-out. Stuffed 'em, stuck an embroidered ribbon loop in the opening, hand-stitched the opening shut, and sewed a vintage red plastic button on top.

Added gold ball chain through the loops, and a gold safety pin, just in case. That makes them multipurpose! Key chains/luggage markers/pincushions!? Fluffy pendants? Beadable!? If I put a bell and some catnip in them, they could be a cat toy!?

I cut a sixth one a little bigger, to incorporate foliage. Poked in extra polyester stuffing, and hand-quilted around the fruit, so it popped forward.

 

Scraps on the back: 

Next, as special gifts for two of our many guild members who deserve medals - I made medals! 

Back: 

(The base is stiff fusible interfacing, Peltex 72F in this case.) 

Even after these projects, plus my earlier 2 stars and 3 hexagonal mats, I still had about a quarter yard of my yard left....More to come! 

More English Paper Piecing Hexie Adventures with Pomegranate Fabric

Last week, I showed you the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework's latest creative challenge: To make a project using one yard of this gorgeous print from Alex Anderson's "Mirage" Collection, generously donated to the Guild by RJR Fabrics:

That post had a tutorial for making kaleidoscopic stars using English Paper Piecing (EPP). After finishing those, I made the following. 

Closer:

They're also English Paper Pieced, of course. It dawned on me that the main motif on the fabric would fit a traditional grandmother's flower garden quilt block. I figured out how big the shape would have to be and drafted it in my computer program (CorelDraw). 

I cut one copy out as a solid piece (from an old file folder). 

And cut a window: 

I traced the outside of the window to freezer paper and cut that out. 

 The window helped me figure out where to cut.

Slipped that away, put in the freezer paper, and ironed it down. Trimmed the fabric about a half-inch outside the paper edges, all the way around.

Treated this like needle-turn applique. I clipped into the concave curves to 1/8" from each inner angle.

Dripped fray-check on the innies. 

Pressed and glue sticked the seam allowance on top of the freezer paper. Two or 3 threads of the fabric should roll to the back.

 Glued all the way around.

 Front:

In the same computer program, I made a sheet with as many component-sized hexagons as I could fit. (The component size turned out to be 2.586". Argh! If you're working with the same fabric, you can  get away with 2.5" or 2.75".)

Printed that out onto cardstock. For three blocks, I needed 12 x 3 = 36 cardstock templates. Here's how many fit on an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock.

Cut those apart, then glue-basted solid fabrics onto them. Back:

Front:

Now to stitch those guys around the motif. Some are attached  on only one side; and some are attached on two sides, like the lighter orange piece in the picture below. EPP makes these kind of y-seams easy.  I sewed the first seam in place (above and parallel to the white arrow drawn in the picture below...

(The arrow is pointing at the actual needle taking the penultimate stitch). Took an extra stitch at the center. Then realigned. Below, the second side is being moved into position so its right upper edge lines up with the underlying dark edge. 

Stitched them together, open it up, and there it is, neat as can be, attached on two sides! The next hexagon will be attached on only one edge, and the hexagon after that will be attached with a y seam again.

Now that I have three of these, I can't decide whether to finish them separately, and gift them as festive wallhangings/ potholders?  Or stitch all three together to make one holiday table runner? (Maybe with some dark blue hexagons in the spaces in-between?) Your vote counts! 

Interested in learning more about Judaic needlework, including quilting, embroidery, needlepoint, knitting and beyond? Check out the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework's webpage here. To learn more about Alex Anderson's Mirage collection, scroll to the bottom of my previous post, here.