I Found My Underwear!

Woo-Hoo! I found my underwear. Woo-Hoo! Fifteen months later. Twenty-five miles from home.

A couple of friends told me they'd seen my underwear. And they told me where they'd seen it. So I decided to find it myself.

And here it is.



It's hard to see in this photo (more about that adventure later), but this is the beaded bra I made and donated for an auction that raised money for mammograms for uninsured or under-insured women. The bra cups are covered with flower, leaf and butterfly beads. The sides and back are covered with pink fabric. I named the bra "Garden of Hope."

It's hanging in the fitting room of Dockside Clothing in Grand Haven, Michigan. I believe the store owner must have purchased it at the auction.

Taking the picture was itself an adventure. I walked into the store and told the clerk that I understood there was a beaded bra in the fitting room and that I was the person who made the bra. She did a double take. I guess I don't look like the highly embellished undergarment type.

At lunch a friend had shown me how to take a picture with my relatively new phone. (See what happened to the old one here.) So I took the photo with my phone. Then the issue was what to do with it. Apparently my $20 not-very-smart phone and my $5 a month plan do not permit me to send email or to download info from the phone. So I texted it to my daughter-in-law's smart phone and she emailed it back to me. I think I should be able to take better photos with the phone, but the instruction book is not too clear. I'll have to experiment.

But when I get back to Grand Haven next month, I'll take a real camera and get a better picture.

Fabric In Its Prime

I just finished the lap quilt to keep my legs and feet warm while I do hand stitching, read, or watch TV. It's 60 inches long by 40 1/2 inches wide. My plan, as it developed, was to finish the layering and quilting and machine stitch the binding on by last Sunday afternoon so I could hand stitch the binding on to the back during the Super Bowl. I did that, but it took till this morning to get all the hand stitching completed, due to numerous distractions along the way.

Because this is an item that will be washed frequently, I used polyester batting. For the quilting, smoke polyester mono-filament thread was used on the top and brown Gutermann polyester thread was used in the bobbin. I thought the quilt was busy enough with the variety of fabrics and blocks so I machine quilted in the ditch. I used a 75/11 quilting needle and a walking foot.

I wanted to limit my starts and stops in each block and the retracing of any stitching so I consulted the local topologist for the best way to plan the quilting. He referred me to Eulerian Paths and the Bridges of Konigsberg problem.

Aha! Or it would have been Aha!, except that I was distracted by two things. First, I realized we had had this discussion before. More than once. In fact, if I recall correctly, the Bridges of Konigsberg problem was used as a pick-up line some 40 years ago. (It worked.) Second, there was a loud Whooshing noise. The Whoosh was the sound of all that information going right over my head.

Now I know you're not hearing that Whooshing sound because you read and fully comprehended those Wikipedia references. But this is what I took away from the detailed explanation: Sometimes you can quilt all around all the pieces without stopping. Sometimes you can't. I can usually figure it out by eyeballing it. That's because it's Ayrt, not mathematics.

Because this little quilt will not be treated gently, I decided to use a French (double fold) bias binding. Being a book-larnin' kind of a person, I did a little research about how wide to cut my bias strips. What I found was a range of recommended widths. After auditioning the various widths, I went with the Sally Collins recommendation of 1 7/8 inches wide. This worked very well. (For your information, Fons and Porter recommend 2", 2 1/4", or 2 1/2" and Nancy Johnson-Srebro recommends 2".)

I named this quilt "Fabric in its Prime." Shortly after my mother died in 2002, my dad gave me some money for my birthday. I decided to spend it on something both my mother and I both enjoyed--fabric. Most of this fabric in the blocks came from a bundle of quarter yards I bought at that time. I think my dad was pleased to see that I spent it that way. The fabric brings me happy memories of both my parents.

This is the label. You can see the backing fabric in the photo. The dark brown sashing and border fabric is used as a frame for the label. I did have to purchase the backing and border/sashing fabric from our favorite, locally-owned fabric store.



If you want to see the individual blocks, scroll down to earlier posts.

Starting The New Year Right!

My January 2011 Bead Journal Project is Starting The New Year Right. For me, starting the new year right means using my favorite color for beading. I really like all shades of blue, but this periwinkle blue is my all time favorite. It makes me happy, happy, happy!

When I was very little, my sister and I would help my mother bake Christmas cookies. My sister, 14 months older, decided that red was her favorite color and so the cookies with the red sugar were hers. I can remember my mother telling me that green was my color and the cookies with the green sugar were mine. For a long time green was my favorite color. I still like green, but I love blue.

I've used blue in other Bead Journal pages. I used blue to show Abundance here and Tranquility here and to remember Morocco here.

Technical Details:

The foundation is Lacy's Stiff Stuff painted with watered down blue Dye-na-Flow.

This page contains the usual combination of 15/0s, 11/0s, 8/0s, and 6/0s plus some hexes, cubes, and charlottes. There are also some flat teardrop shaped beads and some flat round beads.

I used the backstitch and the stop stitch.

The page is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. That's the same size as my 2010 Bead Journal pages.

The thread is blue Nymo D.

What I Was Thinking:

Happy thoughts! I love working with blue. This page has a very small range of color and value, and it was interesting to see myself continue to try to limit that range. And I wondered whether I could really do all twelve pages for 2011 in different shades of blue.

Issues that Came Up:

The most challenging thing about this page was trying to get it balanced. The three "wallpaper motifs" above the row of bugles went on early. The three "eyebrows" (that's the way I think of them--call them what you want) of 6/0 beads seemed so heavy. I didn't have any more of the 6/0 beads to use elsewhere on the page. In the end, I think the teardrop beads and the three smaller "wallpaper motifs" above the "eyebrows" helped to balance the page. Ripping was not required.

And now, can I really do all twelve pages for 2011 in different shades of blue? No need to decide till tomorrow, when February starts.

The Satisfaction of Working Without a Plan

Here's the final--fifteenth--block for my small lap quilt. It's called Eddystone Light. I always thought this block had a pretty cool name, but I had no idea what it meant. For more information, I went to The Real Source Of All True Knowledge, Wikipedia. You can read about the Eddystone Lighthouse here. If you want to hear the song about the Eddystone Light, go here.

My next step in this project is to add sashing and borders. This will be the perfect project for our expected snow day(s) Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday.

I made each block (see previous posts for the others) one at a time. I either picked out a block pattern and chose the fabric, or chose the fabric and picked the block. Then I cut the fabric and sewed the block. As I got most of the blocks finished, I started thinking about balancing the shapes of the blocks and the fabrics in the blocks. As far as I can recall, I have not made any of these blocks before, except possibly Ohio Star.

I really enjoyed working this way because of the variety in activity. The figuring, planning, cutting and sewing were spread out so I did some of each with all the blocks. It was always interesting.

Of course, there can be pitfalls in not planning ahead--a design that veers off to an unsuitable side, no unity in design, running out of fabric, the constant mess of having everything out all the time (so that one doesn't bother me at all). But for a sampler quilt, the no-plan method worked well.

I'm anticipating an attack of quilt block withdrawal. This project was so much fun that I need to start thinking of the next one I can do the same way.

And right now I don't think it will be my traditional January/February project, trying to perfect a pants pattern. Although I do need to adjust my pants pattern (lost 4 pounds--woo-hoo!), I'm in the mood for more fun. If you want to find out about my adventures in fitting pants, go here and here and here

Some More Blocks And A Non-Block

A few more blocks:

Darting Minnows:



Gentleman’s Fancy:



Beacon Lights:



Westland: This was an interesting block because the corner squares had to be inserted with a Y-seam. I hadn’t done this in quite a while, so I needed the directions. There was a minor disconnect between the directions on the block page and the directions on page 223-224 about how to stitch that Y-seam. However, no ripping was required, and I think the corners match pretty well.



For the next block, ripping was required. It is Review:

This is Not Review: As was mentioned elsewhere, it is a perfectly good block--even an attractive one. But I decided it was too similar to Birds in the Air (lower left in final picture) for me. And it was not what I had set out to make!



This is Review:



I chose Review because I needed a block with larger pieces to show the design in the fabric. It was an easy block to make wrong and an easy block to make right. It doesn’t matter how fabulous the diagrams are if a person doesn’t look at them. And I didn’t.


Here are all fourteen blocks I’ve finished:



I’ll make one more block. I’m leaning toward Eddystone Light, as suggested by Cathy. It has such a cool name. The first Eddystone Lighthouse began functioning in 1698. It is off the coast of England near Devon. I’ve tried several color schemes, but I haven’t found the right one yet.

The target size for this little quilt is 41 inches by 63 inches. I don’t want to piece the backing. I don’t know what color(s) I will use for sashing and borders, but perhaps this weekend another Crackpot and I can arrange for a fabric store session.

A Few More Blocks

I’m continuing to work on my small quilt. I was going to say lap robe, but that sounds so old ladyish. Anyway, here are the next blocks, in the order I made them.

Goose Tracks (as opposed to Turkey Tracks or Duck Paddle):


Birds In The Air:


Free Trade:


Grandmother’s Favorite (although I have three favorites):


Big T (not Capital T):


Memory Lane:


And here are all but Memory Lane together:


The more discerning viewer will note that there is now a fourth light colored background fabric. It came from our favorite, locally owned fabric store. After a horrible block mishap that had the possibility of causing seizures in vulnerable individuals, it was clear that I needed at least one more quiet fabric. So I got some. You will note also that I have resorted to some fussy cutting, in particular with Grandmother’s Favorite and Big T. I have also strayed off the no smaller than 1/8 inch measurements with Grandmother’s Favorite.

Just a few technical details:
-I’m using my 1/4 inch with guide foot. This foot lets me run the fabric right along the guide for a perfect scant 1/4 inch seam. And it works spectacularly well ever since I asked the repair man to move the needle position slightly to the right so the needle goes exactly through the center of the hole (even though he said it wasn’t supposed to be there).
-I’m using a #11 quilting needle.
-I’ve only broken one needle. To use the 1/4 inch food with guide, the needle needs to be in the center position. When I turn the machine off, the needle defaults to the left position. I forgot that once.
-I’m using Gutermann polyester (gasp!) thread. It’s a medium tan.
-I’ve been quite determined to use a fabric scrap at the beginning and end of each batch of chain stitching pieces. Fons and Porter emphasize this, and it has worked well. I knew that, but I didn’t always do it.
-The only times I’ve pinned pieces together are when I sew the large sections of each block together. So far, not using many pins is working well.

This little project has shown again what a great book Marsha McCloskey’s Block Party is. The directions are clear and complete, and there are several diagrams for each block. Even info about which direction to press the seams is included. I was feeling a little rusty, and I haven’t made any major errors (well, except for the broken needle and the horrible block mishap which didn’t have anything to do with the book or the instructions).

The Plan, Should There Happen To Be One,

is to make a new lap quilt. The old one is dated 1984, and it’s getting a little grubby.

This is the fabric I’m using:



Most of it is a collection of quarter yards purchased in a bundle at Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd, Virginia, in 2002. Yep. This is fabric in its prime.

Since I can’t decide on one block, er, am flexible in my choices, er, prefer to be spontaneous, er, like variety, er, am a Crackpot, er, don’t have a plan, it will be a sampler quilt.

I haven’t done any serious piecing in a while so I decided to go back to the old standby–Marsha McCloskey’s Block Party. This means that however many blocks get done will be nine-inch blocks. To make it easy to get started, I decided to group my fabric into sets of three, with varying colors and values. Then I looked for blocks that used just three colors. I eliminated all the blocks that called for measurements of 1/16 inch (indicated in the book as +) because my rulers don’t have that marking.

My first block was Ohio Star, and here it is:



The second block was Perpetual Motion, and here it is:



My third block is Weather Vane, and here it is:



So now you can see the three light pieces of “background” fabric I have. They’re not extremely light, and the value differences within this set of fabrics is somewhat limited. Because of that and because each fabric has either more than one color or a variety of values, the divisions between the pieces in each block don’t stand out. I like it that way. It’s mellow.

Now, what shall I make for the next one? Get out your Block Party book (I know you have one) and make some suggestions.