Quilting Myths Debunked

I think there's this myth out there that in quilting, 90% of your time is spent sewing- probably because that's the obvious outcome of all your work. Depending on the quilt, this amount varies a little, but I would say only 35% of your time is actually sewing patchwork together. Another 30% is quilting. That's really all the sewing.

Besides that, I would estimate 2% of the time is washing, 25% of your time is ironing, 15% of your time is pinning, and 15% of your time is cutting. Oh, and don't forget 8% of your time spent scratching your head, staring at instructions.

And I know that adds up to 130%. That's because it always takes longer than you'd expect.

Quilt Canada

Last Thursday (a week ago) my wonderful grandmother and her quilting crew took me to Quilt Canada, a large quilt show that sets up in a different chosen city each year. The last time it was in Calgary was 1988, joined by the winter Olympics. The show included a judged section, auction, displays, shops, and an antique quilt area (our favorite part).

One thing that stood out to me when wandering through the professional judging section was the purposed usage of quilting. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology, the pieces of fabric are "pieced" together, and the "quilting" is the stitches that join the front and back of the quilt. Its main purpose is to keep the "batting" (white fluffy stuff in the middle) in place, and to flatten out the quilt. Otherwise, it's more of an air-filled pillow) In my last quilt, I did quilted "in the ditch" (along seams) and diagonally, as well as some free loops on the border. The quilts I saw usually didn't have straight quilting seams. Sometimes, the quilting was used to add to the picture. It was all very fascinating, and hard to explain.

There was a good deal of inspiration. I am interested in doing some applique, (where pieces of fabric are hand-sewn onto another, background fabric, as opposed to joined to it) and hand quilting (as opposed to machine quilting). Here are some of my favorite pieces from the show.

The most incredible quilt- all hand quilted!

Close up:

New Year's Resolutions

Don't worry. I'm doing something better tonight than blogging, probably involving fondu. Happy New Year everyone!

I don't take New Year's resolutions as seriously as some. I think many people feel they can change their life cold turkey. I like to think of myself as more reflective and gradual, though that may be inaccurate. I don't know. In any case, I always have trouble coming up with goals worthy of the title, "resolution." But here it goes- Resolutions for 2010:

1) Be more consistent in my blogging and journaling. It seems that area of my life has gone on a bit of a hiatus the last few months, but I do miss it and appreciate the insight it gives myself and some others into my life. Also, I'm still not taking an English class, so some writing will do me good.

2) Memorize more. I have been working on this a little with the Westminster Shorter Catechism, but I want to work on my memory more. Again, math doesn't lend itself to this area of my development because it is more important to understand than just memorize, but I think it's an important part of learning. Maybe memorize a passage or a poem every now and again.

3) Vary my reading. As I have mentioned before, I feel like I've been reading a lot of theology and math, which is all well and good, but I want to change things up a bit. Maybe throw in some Jane Austen or Tolken, and the book my uncle got me for Christmas that seems to fit in the sci-fi category (he agrees I need to vary my reading).

4) Establish myself as a geocacher. I think I made the impression from my last post that I am wary of this geocaching thing or reluctant about my commitment. Not at all. I'm all in. I really enjoy this sport/activity/thing and would like to do more. Right now, I've found 14 caches, and I think if I put some effort into it, I could get 50 more by next year. It will just take some time, and hopefully the company of people who would like to join me.

5) Finish my double wedding ring quilt. This will be the only resolution that is pass/fail. I would really like to get it done this summer, but it's going to be the most challenging and large (king) quilt I've done. It's got twists and curves, where all I've really done before is straight lines. Eeek! But I should probably get a good start on it soon. I starting the washing and ironing with Grandma last week, and it's going to be pretty once it's finished!

"New" Friends and New Additions

Yesterday Grandma's quilting group went to go see the Canadian cultural quilt. Mom, Courtney, and I joined them. It is beautiful! They had a representative of each ethnic group make a quilt patch, and then they embroidered the country's name in its native language on the left, and in English on the right. The background for the patches is stripes of fabric organized like the rainbow. It's something like 147 feet long. Quite a piece of work.

I also re-found a friend! I met Rebecca last summer when she toured Courtney and I around U of C, but she came with her mom to the Glenbow museum as well. Unfortunately, she's going to Scotland for three years to teach in Edenbourough, but there's always email. We had lots of fun yesterday, roaming around the exhibits. She reminds me a lot of Ankita :)
Last but not least, *sigh* my mom gave in to my sisters begging (not that I'm complaining...) and we have a new addition to the family. Meet Kiki.

A Stitch in Time...

The point of this quilt was to have a list of potential memory verses in an artistic design. I was looking through one of the many books in Grandma's quilting library, when this pattern was drawn to me. The different colored squares are called, in the quilting world, "stars," but because of the dark green, they looked like crosses to me. I figured it would be suitable.

First, I had to find fabric, searching through Grandma's many bins. We ended up going to a quilting store to hand-pick the golden for the verse squares, but other than that I was able to find everything in these beautiful, packed, color-sorted bins.

Next, all the cutting. This has taken me over a year, between me living in Houston, and the fact that this is my least favorite part of quilting. Give me a sewing machine any day, and someone else can mess with the rotary cutter, pins, and felt board. Part of the dilemma was that my quilt takes up more room than Grandma's felt board can handle (she usually has larger patches, so she can rotate through). We had to expand that. Then we tried to rearrange the stars and realized the pesky triangles were just too much to mess with, so I had to draw up a pattern with materials coded, and transfer the triangles to a table (they look like squares because they have not been cut diagonally).

I picked out verses and started embroidering them last summer, and they look like this:

The blocks are one of the following: gold with embroidery, solid colors, or diamonds with dark green diamonds and small colored triangles. Here's what it looks like so far:

Living and Learning

My general Internet-grounding is up, although facebook is still on. Although it hasn't been a burden, it is sometimes difficult to remember not to get on the computer- it seems when you spend an abundance of time on there per day, it is habit to get on. I've had to learn to turn to other activities, which was the point of this portion of my punishment. Here is what I have done in the last week or so:

I read The Magician's Nephew, by C.S. Lewis. My grandmother tried reading them to me when I was about 7, but we got half way through and I couldn't let her continue because I was too scared. Of course, now that I look back on that section of the book, it describes a world that is corrupt, trampled by sin for thousands of years. We didn't get to the refreshing part, that describes the creation of a new world, where sin is distant and still runs from God. It is an amazing perspective of Creation, and showed me some of God's great love for our corrupt world.

I played the piano more than I have in years. I took lessons from grade 2 till 5, and hadn't played much since then. Just after we moved here, I found one of my favorite hymns on sheet music in one of my mom's old books, so I struggled through it. For the last week or so, I have gone through a classical music book that I bought back in May. I'm starting to realize that, although my sight reading has improved to the point where I'm pleased with it, I need to work on the patience and endurance of perfecting a piece, working on the tempo and volumes. My favorites to play are Sheep May Safely Graze (Bach); Fur Elise (Beethoven); Minuet in G (Bach); Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (Bach); and Chorale (Schumann). I started with pieces I recognize (hence all the Bach) and I'm starting to spread out to other pieces, now that I'm back to feeling more comfortable with it.

I worked on my quilt! Oh, it's coming along so well! I hope to get some pictures up here. It will (hopefully, if the calculations are correct) a queen-size when it is finished. I finished cutting ALL the fabric the other day (which I have slowly been working on since last summer) and I'm currently working on sewing the blocks. I only have 4 more of the embroidered blocks to do, but I am out of embroidery floss so I'll have to get some more. Then I have around 96 diamond blocks to do- that's what I started the other day. I hope to finish all the blocks before school starts, have the top sewn by November, and finished completely by the time school is up. I'm about to head over to Grandma's as soon as I'm finished this post to work on it more.

I found my camera, so I can take a picture of it.

I also read more of Anne of Avonlea, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Charming story. I have 44 pages left. I wanted to finish both it and Michael O'Halloran before I pick up another book. I would like to leave you with a quote I found very insightful:

" 'Now my name just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores.'
'Oh, I don't think so,' said Diana. 'Anne seems to me real stately and like
a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be your name. I think
people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves. I can't
bear Josie or Gertie for names now, but before I knew they Pye girls I thought
them real pretty.'
'That's a lovely idea, Diana,' said Anne enthusiastically. 'Living so that
you beautify your name, even i it wasn't beautiful to begin with...making it
stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never
think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana' "