Leroy's Cloud

It all started here. I had read the 15 minutes play blog and decided to start making blocks. I had an 8.5 inch square ruler and thought 8-inch blocks would be just fine. I made a block here and there, but one day, I don't exactly remember when, I believe it was last fall after I came back from Spain, I could not have those blocks hanging around anymore. I had to make more and finish a quilt. So I opened my scraps box, which was packed with scraps and started stitching them together with no selection of colors or patterns, just the way they came out of the box as long as their size was good.

While working on this project, our beloved cat Leroy passed away. He was 18 years old and his life had not been pleasant for some time, so we decided to give him rest. With much sorrow, we buried him in our backyard up on the hill, so he is still close to us. We miss him every day. I wanted to dedicate this quilt to him, as he has been very present in my thoughts while I was sewing.

The number of blocks kept growing and I put them on my design board. At some point, I had to think about the final size of the quilt and decided I would make 54 blocks with an off-white sash and a border consisting of the same off-white and smaller squares. One day, I was looking at my design board with the composition and Jerry said it looked like clouds. I believe he was talking about those small squares on the border because they seem to be somehow floating on the white. Whatever the case might be, the name of the quilt was set that very moment: Leroy's Cloud.

There is a mystery that I do not understand with this quilt. (Of course, if I understood, it would not be a mystery.) Here is the thing: all the top of the quilt is made of scraps, and it is a large quilt, there are a few yards of fabric there, but my scraps box is still full! I just cannot imagine how this can be. I look at that box and think that I will not need any more fabric for the rest of my life, all the fabric I need is there, as it looks like the more I use, the more is left. Do not worry, though, that is not preventing me from buying more fabric, that would be silly.

This quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted. The quilting part of it has given me more problems than I want to remember, so let's not go there. The main thing is that the quilt is finished.

I hope that Leroy is happy resting on his soft, cheerful cloud.

UFO

When I first started quilting and joined the Black Hills Quilters Guild, there was this acronym that I kept hearing, UFO. I was familiar with it, but I could not figure out how Unidentified Flying Objects would pertain to the quilting subject. At that time, I had only been in the United States for one year or so, and I was trying very hard to make sense of all I saw and heard and learned. This UFO was beyond me, I just could not get it! I asked, then, and the light was shed: UnFinished Object. There you go!

Over time, I learned that UFO were some sort of a nightmare for most quilters. They started a lot of projects but at some point they did not feel like finishing them. Maybe they ran out of inspiration, maybe what they were so excited about that particular project was not there anymore, maybe something very appealing crossed their way and had to follow it, a variety of reasons were preventing them from finishing their projects. And they did not seem to be very happy about it.

Recently, one of my customers, a lady who purchased a gorgeous piece of fabric from my shop, told me that she really liked the fabric and did not know what she would make with it. From her words, I could gather that same UFO sense of guilt, that same feeling that there is something wrong in not finishing that what has already been started. That was the seed for this post.

Why is it that quilters feel wrong when they do not finish their projects right away? Where is it written that there is a schedule to finish a project? Who sets the rules about the right time to complete it? Isn't quilting something to enjoy? Where is so deeply rooted the idea that there is a moral obligation to finish everything we start? And why is it so very well spread across different cultures?

I do not have any UFO. I work on different projects that sometimes share a specific period of time. Some take longer than others. There are projects that will take years to be finished, and meanwhile shorter and faster ones will be completed. I have a box full of stripes already sewn for a project that I started some years ago. Is that a UFO? No, it is a project in progress. When will it be completed? I have no idea. Did I give up with it? Absolutely not. What is the project waiting for to be finished? Its own time. Some day, all those pieces will tell me where they want to go, how they want to be together.

Why would I force them to stay together in a way that they do not like? Just because I am in a rush to finish? No, I refuse to work that way. My brain is not a straight narrow line where only one idea can happen at a time. Just look at a neuron and you will know what I am talking about.

Drawing of Purkinje cells (A) and granule cells (B) from pigeon cerebellum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 1899. Instituto Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain.

Calendars

When I place an order,  Vlisco sends me a couple of calendars made with their fabric. As I do not own a fabric and mortar store, I have no room to display them, so I keep them as just fabric. I got two calendars in 2011, and they have been sleeping on a shelf for two years now, waiting for their opportunity to make an appearance to the world.

A few days back, I had an epiphany. Duh!, if they are fabric, why don't I use them as fabric. Said and done, here is the first actor in this show.

And as luck as you have, it is available here!
Thank you for your visit.

Back in the Mood

Yes, it has been a while since I posted here. I have been really busy trying to revamp my Etsy shop. I have had that shop for some time now, but the truth is that I was not paying attention to it as I should have. Why, I wonder. Well, maybe it had to do with some other life events that took my attention. Last February, my granddaughter Marina was born and I made some quilts for her. I spent some time in Spain, too. Then, Máximo, my grandson, was born in October. A quilt for him, too, and a comforter sham for the bed he will use when he grows up (not far from now, though, the boy outgrows his little pajamas at a fast pace). I spent some time in Spain for that event, too. There is also the work, let us not forget that important part of life. Geez, I am a busy bee!

However...

During the last part of 2012, I started looking at my Etsy shop differently. I have spent many hours taking new pictures of my products, listing new fabrics, learning about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), improving my descriptions, networking within Etsy, translating my shop into Spanish (this is a work in progress), thinking of new ways of doing things and new ideas for products.

Are you exhausted at this point?

I am not, I am exhilarated. I must be doing something right, my efforts are getting some results. The views have increased significantly, the sales are still slow, but they are coming. And most important, I am having fun and a sense of purpose. I think I know where I want to go, the direction I want my business to take. In other words, I think I know what I want to be when I grow up (still more).

So...

I am introducing a new line of products designed and handmade by me. Here is the first member, its name is Victoria and you can find it here. I am back in the mood!

Seeds from Norway III

During all the time that took me to finish the nine big hexagons (let´s remember that there are 549 small hexagons and 1,080 triangles), I kept thinking of how to put them together. I decided they should have an off white background. However, I found a technical problem very difficult to solve for somebody as bad as myself with geometry. Yes, I know, it is insane to make these things if you are not good at geometry, but if there were no insane people, there would not be a way to distinguish the sane.

After going around it for a while, I could not help but giving up: instead of piecing the white fabric between the hexagons, I would hand applique them on a big piece of fabric, which I did with much thread and patience. I also appliqued big diamonds made with one hexagon and two triangles, to fill the blanks between the big hexagons. I liked the idea of working with two different scales to give dynamism to the whole.

Once the general picture was finished, I had to frame it, that is, make a decision on the borders. I wanted something simple, something that would not bother, but at the same time would enhance the principal motif, the picture itself. With the leftovers of all the fabrics I had used, I made two stripes of different width. These stripes are machine sewn, as I did not see any point in hand sewing them, moreover taking into account that I had all the hand quilting work ahead of me.

I did not feel like basting the three layers, as it is a very hard work that, lacking the room to do it differently, makes me spend long periods of time in difficult positions that hurt. So I purchased a frame with three rollers. It is big and putting it together is also a lot of work. Anyway, I put the quilt in the frame and started quilting. I decided a simple but dense quilting work, straight lines a quarter of an inch apart in the white areas and the diamonds. The small hexagons are outline quilted.

The end result has many technical flaws, but I inscribe myself within the Japanese aesthetic tradition of wabi-sabi based on the acceptance of impermanence, imperfection and incompleteness. I discovered this tradition not so long ago and find it tailored to my needs. In other words, it is very convenient.

In any case, despite those many imperfections, I am satisfied. I like the quilt, it is cheerful, it transmits energy to me, and it gives me a feeling of achievement. I have been able to dedicate four years of my life to it, without giving up, putting it aside for awhile to make other things, but getting back to it over and over again. Slowly, with patience, enjoying it, meditating, enduring.

Here is the fruit borne by the Seeds from Norway.

THE END

Seeds from Norway II

Here are the pictures of the two big hexagons I was talking about yesterday.

Like I said, by the time I had finished these two, I had come to the conclusion that this was going to be a big quilt, so I figured I would need nine big hexagons. At that time, I was already back in Rapid City. I looked for the fabrics needed to continue. Some, I had in my little closet, either because they were left from some other projects or because they had not found their place yet. Others, I purchased them for this specific purpose, always following the vegetable criterion I had set. I kept drawing and cutting little hexagons and triangles, one by one, and hand sewing them.

Here are the rest of the big hexagons with their detail.

To be continued...

Seeds from Norway

In the Fall of 2008, when I went to my home country, Spain, to visit my family and friends, I received two half yards of fabric from my youngest son and his wife. They had gone to Norway that summer and found a quilt shop in Bergen. What better could they bring me as a souvenir? Here are two pictures where the little hexagons are made of those two fabrics: the first has little acorns with oak leaves and the second has brown leaves on a lighter background.

I had no sewing notions with me at all, so I thought I would wait to get back to start the quilt. Of course, I could not, so I purchased needles, thimble, scissors, thread, a set of templates and a couple of fat quarters to combine. I wanted to do something simple to showcase those beautiful fabrics. I did not know what the project was going to be. I had no plans at all, I just felt the need to start sewing and make something with those fabrics. I could not see them laying around while my hands were idle.

I decided to make these hexagons and triangles. The sides of them measure 1 1/4 inch, so they are pretty tiny.

With the templates, I drew the hexagons on  the acorns fabric and cut them with my new scissors, one at a time. Then, I drew the triangles on the yellow fabric (which, by the way is a Christmas fabric, but you cannot tell. I liked it because it has a bit of shine that casts some light to the rather dark value of the acorns fabric) and cut them. I hand pieced all the shapes together to form a big hexagon that has 61 small hexagons and 120 triangles.

Making that first big hexagon I had enough time to think about the different possibilities of this project. When I finished the second big hexagon, I knew the project was going to be a big quilt and I had decided that all the fabrics for the small hexagons would have leaves.

Although at the moment I always referred to this project as "the hexagons", the Seeds from Norway had already been sown.

To be continued...

El tiovivo de Marina - Marina's Carousel

Here are the pictures of the quilt I made for Marina, my first granddaughter.
Aquí están las fotos de la colcha que hice para Marina, mi primera nieta.

For little Marina - Para la pequeña Marina

These are two quilts that I made for my first granddaughter, who has just been born. They are for daily use.
Estas son dos colchas que he hecho para mi primera nieta, que acaba de nacer. Son para uso diario.

Secrets - Secretos

I cannot post what I have been doing for the last weeks, as it is a quilt for my first grand-daughter who will be born in February. I made the commitment that she will be the first to see it. (Well, my husband doesn´t count, as he cannot walk around without seeing it.) So I just want to say that I finished it and like it. Pictures will be posted after the baby gives her approval. I cannot wait.
However, I also made a changing pad for her, and that is already in Spain, as part of the changing table that her uncle made for her. Here is a partial picture of the pad.

I love those fabrics. I made the inner pad with four layers of headliner covered by cotton batting and all of it in a case made with baby dry fabric, so it can be wiped out. Then, I made the pad case with the squares that are shown in the picture in the front and a solid vanilla cotton and some leftover squares in the back, and a zipper in one of the ends, so the case can be washed. There is a lot to talk about in these squares! I hope she will want me to tell her all the stories.

No puedo poner lo que he estado haciendo las últimas semanas, pues es una colcha para mi primera nieta, que nacerá en febrero. Me he comprometido a que sea ella la primera en verla (mi marido no cuenta, ya que él no puede andar por casa sin verla). Así que solo quiero decir que la he terminado y que me gusta. Pondré fotos cuando la niña dé su aprobación. No veo el momento.
Sin embargo, también he hecho una colchonetita para su cambiador. Esa ya está en España, puesta en el cambiador que le ha hecho su tío. Esta es una foto parcial de la colchoneta.
Me encantan esas telas. Hice la parte interior con cuatro capas de espuma, cubiertas con muletón de algodón y todo ello forrado con una tela impermeable al efecto, para que se pueda limpiar con un paño húmedo. Luego hice la funda con los cuadrados que se ven en la foto para la delantera y una tela de algodón color vainilla con algunos de los mismos cuadros sobrantes para la trasera y le puse una cremallera en uno de los extremos, para poder lavar la funda. ¡Hay mucho de lo que hablar en esos cuadrados! Espero que la niña quiera que yo la cuente todas las historias.