Vacation Day!!

My oldest daughter and housemate has been on vacation this week and we decided to go visit a park in Summit County (Ohio) that we have been hearing about over the past year.  Bobwhite Quail (which were common in central Ohio were wiped out during some harsh winters in the late 70's) have been introduced to this park and are reported to be having some success getting established.

I'd been told not to expect to see the quail at this time of year (a bit late in the season) but the prairie is thriving and we enjoyed our first visit to Springfield Bog (east of Akron, Ohio).  The park is over 250 acres with 1.8 mile grass trail around the perimeter of the prairie which is about 4 years old.

If you never visited a prairie park, it changes as the seasons progress and during early September, golden rod reigns supreme.  They are an interesting family of plants and I've read there are 22 species in Ohio.  This is common goldenrod and was the most abundant.  It was the first time all summer I've seen such an abundance of honey bees any place. 

We both enjoy birding and goldfinches were everywhere but they competed unsuccessfully for our attention with the butterflies and insects.  This is another goldenrod, one of my favorites called stiff goldenrod.

I lost track of how many monarch butterflies we saw but it was well over 20 and this butterfly which is a monarch look-alike, the viceroy.  We saw at least six of them and at one point, two of them appeared to be playing leapfrog -- flying over and under one another in circles. 

The New England asters were beginning to bloom -- the red-violet ones seem to come first followed by purple ones in a week or so.

A smaller pale one was less common but quite pretty -- unfortunately, I didn't investigate the finer points of foliage, etc to be able to give it a name.  This is a link to a blogger who discusses wild Ohio asters in some depth -- you may not care, but now that I've found it, I want to be able to find it again!! Asters are an important source of nectar for butterflies and other insects during September and October.

 

The Canada thistle which tends to overwhelm fields left to go wild wasn't present, but this larger one was just beginning to bloom and what a beauty!!

I'm slowly learning more about prairie grasses but the only one we saw that I feel confident to identify publically is turkey foot -- standing taller than me, it stood out among the surrounding vegetation. 

 We spotted several clusters of pokeberry in fruit and I just love the color of the stems -- the nearly black berries have mostly been eaten off of this one.

 There were several stands of rattlesnake master -- those will increase as the prairie matures.  The flowers don't look much different than the prickly looking seed heads.

Besides an abundance of butterflies, there were more dragonflies than I could believe.  Everytime we put our binoculars up to look across the prairie at a flying bird, a half dozen dragonflies were in view hunting smaller flying insects over the blooming flowers.

 A small pond in the center of the prairie attracted dozens of these delicate blue damselflies -- some hovering over the water, others courting and breeding on the cattail stems.   It took some patience to grab this picture of two forming this heart as part of the mating ritual.

 Not far away was this conga line of four more.  Since I was straining my camera's telephoto ability to get these pictures, they are a bit fuzzy.

On the way home, we stopped for another walk at one of my favorite spots -- Tinkers Creek State Nature Preserve on Old Mill Rd. southwest of Aurora, Ohio.  It's a 750 acre complex of wetlands. 

My main objective was to see the bottle gentians in bloom and they did not disappoint.

We also had the extra thrill of finding several of these little frogs -- Northern Leopards -- they were common when I was young (and catching frogs regularly) but I rarely see them anymore.

It was such a pleasant day -- very refreshing to be out walking and noticing and wondering.

Tomorrow, it's back to quilting -- I'm making good progress on my daughter's applique quilt and perhaps I'll finish it this weekend -- only the final border to go before it's ready to bind!

 

Hope your weekend includes pleasant activities that will refresh you as we begin the month of September!!

 

Mary Huey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion of August -- Tidy Up Month

Ahhh, September at last!!  

I can quit tidying up my studio (I gave it a pretty good month) and stitch guilt-free! 

There has been progress!  I can now walk up to the color palette without tripping over piles of fabric.  That's good!! 

And the "sacred stacks" that live across the top shelf have had a straighten up and a bit of culling to eliminate some of the visual clutter at that end of the room. 

Now I want to attack getting my show ribbons hung back up across the top of this wall -- they were up for a time, but my hanging technique turned out to be inadequate. 

This is one of the piles of fabric I thinned out of the shelves -- I'll sell off some and donate some -- I'll begin de-stashing on my Instagram feed tomorrow -- it's @hueymary if you want to do a bit of armchair shopping!!

Two weeks ago, I couldn't walk around this side of the room -- my box stash was piled at the end of the cutting table.

Today it's stacked neatly and tucked into a corner.  Don't you just hate to let go of a sturdy box that might be a storage space for something?!? 

Once the cutting table was somewhat clear . . . .

I caved into several small stitching projects.  Nothing big, just a little stress release. 

I did get the work wall clear of papers -- the bulletin board on the left will work out well!

And I designated this small foam core board for "storage" of projects I don't want to put away quite yet.  It will be like a fermenting space.

We had our annual house guest over the weekend, so the pile of quilts that lives on the guest bed was rolled up and moved into the studio -- must get it back out of there tomorrow.

The sewing machine table has stayed fairly clear -- the only thing wrong with that is it encourages stitching over tidying?!?

One major decision has emerged -- the "tub" storage system for my style groups of fabric needs to be modified.  I stack all the fabric neatly in them, sorted by colors -- this is the polka dot/plaid/funky brights tub -- when I work from one, I pull it all apart but don't put it back together because it's time consuming to do.  Next thing I know there are piles of fabric all over the floor that just need to be put away. 

Must think about this -- can I pack the fabric into them in such a way to avoid the searching chaos or do I replace them with more shelving?  Not sure.

 

In the meantime, I hope to continue to improve the studio's appearance by letting go of some of the excess and finishing up more UFO's. 

It's definitely much more pleasant to work in there when it's tidier.

 

Let's stitch!!!

 

Mary Huey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rather Piece than Quilt?

I'm home and unpacked from my teaching trip to the Remembrance Quilt Guild in Springfield, Ohio where I taught Set-In Piecing Simplified and the gals started scrappy tumbling blocks quilts.  We had a good time on Tuesday!

 

But now it's time to get back to the third quarter list for the 2015 Finish Along -- eight on the list, two finished, one in progress (hand quilting), and if I stay focused I can get this one quilted and back to my daughter when I see her next weekend!! 

 

(That will leave only four to finish in September?)

 

So I auditioned threads, wound bobbins, changed the needle, oiled my machine, made a cuppa', found my gloves and started!!

I layered this quilt before leaving (so I could get right to it) and have been trying to think about how to quilt it.  I've done some finger sketching on the flower motifs and still haven't come up with the simplest path though I do have a germ of a design idea.

I plunged in by starting with some continuous curve work through the 9-patch blocks.  I am working across them diagonally, coming down the right side of the center patches and out into the right corner.

When I reach the end of that diagonal row, I head back up the left side of the blocks.

Before leaving the last corner of the center patch,

I am retracing another series of curves inside the first set to give it an extra detail.

I like the impact and it reminds me a bit of a "god's-eye".

I expect to finish this part of the quilting quickly and will have to face the next set of design decisions.  One of the gals in the workshop Tuesday asked me how I stay focused on quilting when piecing is so much more fun?  Her question was in the forefront of my mind as I began to work on this piece.  I've been trying out several answers while I stitch and I think I've settled on the basic issue for me.

 

When I piece a quilt top, I know what it will look like before I start -- I have a diagram of some sort that satisfies my need to see where I'm going. 

 

But when I begin to quilt a piece, I very seldom can see what it will look like when it's finished.  The exception is when I'm making a quilt for the second or third time -- then I've quilted that design once before and know what the finished product will look like. 

 

So I waffle and demure and procrastinate and go piece another quilt top to add to my "to-be-quilted" piles.

 

What about you?  What keeps you from quilting as many tops as you piece?

 

Mary Huey

A Value and Spontaneity Exercise to do with Friends

This week, I'll be teaching in Springfield, Ohio for the Remembrance Quilt Guild.  It's a Set-In Piecing Simplified workshop using a scrappy tumbling blocks quilt as the project.  As I was packing my workshop samples, I got to thinking about how much easier making a spontaneous, scrappy quilt is for me since teaching the spontaneity and value workshops based on Gai Perry's classic book, Color From the Heart.

 

 

Earlier this year, Joanne over at Everyone Deserves a Quilt asked how I organize that exercise and this is what I shared with her.  I'm sharing it with you today because I think it would be a  good warm up for your fall quilt making activities.  Invite a few quilting friends, a minimum of 5 to 6 people is best -- more is fine, to join you.  Here's how I set it up.

 

Everyone cuts 4" squares into triangles -- usually two squares each from 50 fabrics so there are 200 triangles.  When the group gets together, everyone trades 50 triangles -- easiest, fastest way to do that is to count out 5 stacks of 10 triangles then trade each stack with a different person. 

The amount of time for the session determines whether or not the group does any sewing. 

For a half-day session, there is no sewing.  After the trading, put all the triangles into a brown paper bag.  Have a piece of flannel or cotton batting set up for a "work wall".   Pull two triangles out of the bag, decide which is the darker of the two and then position them on the flannel depending on the overall layout being used. 

For an all-day session, after the trading is done everyone sits down with their bags, pulls out two triangles out of the bag lottery style and stitches them together -- no cheating -- chain piecing should get most quilters through this step in a hour to an hour and a half. 

 

Press the seams towards the darker triangle.  Then back into the bags they go again.  Now begin to draw out the HST's, one at a time, and place them onto the "work wall" in the correct position for the design.  Expect to whine a lot at this point but just keep pushing through!!

Everyone starts at the upper left corner and works across the top row until there are 10 HST's in place.  Then begin the second row at the left end and just keep going until the piece is 10 across by 10 down.  Once everything is laid up on the work wall, it's best to take a break. 

After about 5 minutes, participants should then come back to their work and they can make minor adjustments.  First though it's important to identify what they like about the spontaneous layout.  An important part of the exercise is to experience the spontaneity and see that when you are working with fabric you enjoy, it works well.  An example of a minor adjustments might be something like there are only 5 aqua triangles in the entire piece and they are all clustered in the same area -- then it's good to scatter them around so they don't draw the eye to that area but rather serve as a "bit of sparkle" here and there. 

It's helpful to the group to make part of the exercise walking around and looking at each participants work wall, talking about each piece, identifying things that work, and paying attention to how they feel about each other's pieces.  Doing this quadruples the effectiveness of the exercise.

 

It's easy to overwork these pieces by switching so much around that the piece loses it's spontaneity and becomes too controlled to be interesting.  The unexpected is what makes a quilt interesting!!  The two fabrics in each HST don't have to be coordinated or match -- the light vs. dark positioning carries the design.

There are lots of options for the overall layout.  Usually I have everyone do the same simple arrangement but it might be fun to have several arrangements and randomly assign different ones to each participant?  I've never tried that.

 

This is the last one I did.  They are fun to make and the final border really brings them to life.

And they make cheerful charity quilts as well. 

 

My charity group just had some books donated to us to sell off to raise money for our batting.  There is a copy of Color From the Heart available if you are interested!!  $10 plus shipping -- just leave me a comment!!

 

Hope your week is off to a good start!!

 

Mary Huey

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A really, really, really old UFO!?!

Once upon a time (long, long ago), there was a quiltmaker who decided to make her oldest daughter a scrappy basket quilt.  Her daughter was in high school and so the quiltmaker started the blocks for a double size quilt knowing that she would have several years to make the quilt before her daughter would need such a large quilt.

And then there was this long pause . . . . . . . . . . . . my daughter graduated from high school in 1990. 

 

Every time I come across these blocks in one of my studio tidy-ups, I think "I love these blocks, I have to finish this quilt".  So this year, I put it on my list of 12 UFO's (there are more than 12 up there) for the APQ Resolution challenge -- and it's number came up for July (yes, I know this is August).

 

One of the reasons I didn't finish it was that I needed one more block for "the plan".   I know from prior experience that making one more block the same size would be a challenge -- you see, these blocks were made in the days before 1/4" presser feet -- so I've never tried to make one more.

 

 Now lest you think my daughter is quilt-less, no worries -- she has at least a dozen finished ones!!  And one more large one isn't really necessary.  So to facilitate this finish, I repurposed the blocks and divided them up into 3 sets to make lap size quilt tops for my charity work.

 

Years ago, I taught "settings" workshops based on Sharyn Craig's terrific book, Setting Solutions.  I go back to her creative ideas frequently and framing all of the blocks to create faux sashing addressed several issues. It's been out of print but is again available currently as an e-book.  You can connect to it HERE.  I recommend it highly!!

 

I sashed all the blocks, some in a variety of prints and some with the background fabric.  Then I trimmed them to the same size to camouflage the inconsistencies. 

The center blocks have background sashing around them.

The setting triangles were created with 4 triangles from the leftovers I had (wisely) kept with the blocks.  I "sashed" two edges with the same width strips I used for the basket blocks but doubled the width for the outside edge to gain some "float" between the corners of the blocks and the final borders.

 

The corner triangles presented a bit of a challenge -- there were a couple trial and error stitching and trimming sessions but in the end they work!  In the picture above, the upper left corner blue triangle doesn't quite align with the triangles in the side setting triangle and it bothered me.  The right corner is better and the third try.

 

As I was contemplating border fabric, I realized that I should tidy up my workwall.  Usually there are several unrelated projects on the wall (so I don't lose track of them?) and as you can see in this picture, that can be distracting.

So I tidied things up to eliminate the distractions. 

I think it will be a good change and make decision making easier!!

I brought one of my portable work walls that I take to workshops up to the studio to use for keeping those few projects "in sight" (and off the work wall) and installed a bulletin board that has been malingering in a corner for keeping track of schedules and notices.

 

Still one week of tidying to go though I have to admit, I'm currently doing more stitching than tidying.  I must refocus so this weekend, I'll target the messiest areas and strive to be zealous next week!!

 

There's been lots of comments about the tidying over the past month -- isn't it nice to know we are all in good company!!

 

Mary Huey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just for my Grands!!



Nothing like a (sort of) tidy sewing table to set off my urge to stitch. 

That is likely the real reason the studio never gets a complete do-over -- as soon as I get some open space on the tables, I take a break and stitch!! 

I'm part of one of Alison's Stash Bee groups -- the awesome Hive #7 -- and during July everyone made me funky birds based on this tutorial over at Block Lotto (tutorial is HERE)!  

 

I've made quite a few of them myself and with a camping trip on the horizon with my two grandchildren, I decided to use two of my blocks to make each of them a drawstring backpack. 

I enjoy all the tutorials that are shared over at Sew Can She and it didn't take long to find one for the bags.  You can find the full tutorial HERE.

I picked a bird for each, trimmed them up, and read through the instructions. 

First step was to frame up the blocks to the size needed for the bags.

I scaled the size of the bags down to fit my grands -- my beginning rectangles were 14" by 12".

I happen to be a long-time birder myself and have studied how American birds were named at one point.  So part of creating these birds has been "naming" them!!

This one is for my granddaughter and the bird's wing has a scrap from an outfit I made for her a couple years ago.

The Bashful Catbird is for my grandson who insists he "hates" catbirds (they rob the berry bushes in his yard).  And our native gray catbird is NOT bashful at all!

I'm always thankful for my years of experience making garments -- like turning the corner with a couple diagonal stitches to help make a sharper corner when the bag is turned.

And this is a trick I learned to helped guide the seams allowances into an "opening"  when it's turned to the inside making stitching the opening closed easier after it's turned. 

I was not looking forward to making the straps but the photos in the tutorial reminded me that I might have a bias trim maker tool.  Sure enough, there it was in the bottom drawer of the sewing table -- my designated storage spot for all seldom used tools!!

Of course, the instructions have disappeared so it took a bit of experimenting to remember that cutting the end of the strips on the diagonal and using a big corsage pin to encourage the strip into the tool works quite well. 

Once it's the strip is threaded into the tool, the pressing goes well and soon I was ready to stitch!!

Here are the results of a happy afternoon in a tidier studio!!

 I packed them with small journals and pencils to use during our 3-day camping break!

They were both delighted with the results and wore them for every hike and outing that the three of us enjoyed together.

This is one of my favorite pictures -- of course I want everyone to be a birder, too!!

The instructions and photos in the tutorial for the backpack are clear and easy to follow.  I loved working out of my fabric stash to create them and they just make me smile every time I look at them.  I'll be making more of these -- there are some moms and aunts with "backpack envy"!!

 

Mary Huey

 

Linking up over at MAIN CRUSH MONDAY!!