This is Halloween

Welcome!

If you were to visit me this month (or last month and a good part of next month), Slither Eek Boo would be the first thing you'd see.  I actually don't have a good place to display a large wall quilt here, not since I put up my design wall instead.

Caution, here be spiders:

 

I love having most of my Halloween decorations here (more are in storage - sigh)

The buttons from repurposed shirts, plus a few eyeballs and spiders:

Bad to the Bone:

My shelves no longer look this tidy. I need to figure out something creepy to hang from the rod here. I tried a ghost, but it just disappeared into the wall. Blooming Horrors amongst a couple of crusties:

Pokey and Cranky Witch:

And that's not even all the Halloween quilts I've made. Definitely my favorite quilty holiday.

I got incredibly distracted while writing this post. First I wanted to find a video of This is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas. I stumbled across this version by Panic! at the disco, which I like much better than the original:

unfortunately you can't buy just the song, it comes as part of an entire album. I don't like it that much. But the search for the song got me looking at Halloween compilations at iTunes. There are all sorts of songs I'd never even heard. Usually it's just Monster Mash... Anyway, now I'm looking for songs to add to my own mix. What's your favorite song(s) that would work for Halloween?

Since this is a Halloweeny post, you need a picture of a black kitty. Howler enjoying the cooler weather we've been having (woohoo!) and the fresh air:

Of course today it's hot and muggy and cloudy again, drat.

Wool Utility Quilt

I love this wool utility quilt, made in New York state around 1900. It is so amazing and dynamic:

close-up:

 

The quilt appears in the book Living with Quilts by Phyllis George. The book shows 50 different quilts--running the entire gamut--in household settings. The book never shows the whole quilt except for small wallhangings which makes me nuts but on the other hand: great quilts, fun settings. (you can get the book used really inexpensively - I do recommend it despite the quibble).

Back to the wool utility quilt. I LOVE it. Try and figure out how it was made and keep in mind: no rotary cutters were used. I'm sharing this quilt today because I've been thinking about it when I visit the 15 Minutes Play blog, where a bee is working together to create this wondrousness. V explained how to make the blocks here.

On the subject of utility quilts, ComicBookLady had a great opportunity to meet several of the quilters from Gee's Bend AND see some amazing quilt. Read about it here.

Lily is waiting for me to get back to work so she can jump on the cutting table - although sometimes she does stay in the cat tree that I've airlifted her to.

take care!

Buglies

Bugly is a term that stands for really ugly or "b--- ugly." Ugly fabric helps a quilt, lifting it out of the expected. I'm all for that, but I think these particular buglies would overwhelm my current quilt:

Smaller pieces than I'm showing here wouldn't be so overwhelming

but would lose their zing! I got these in an exchange with Nifty Quilts, whose blog I absolutely adore. Nifty sent me these buglies:

and in exchange all she got was bright plaid fabrics--positively boring in comparison--and labels. Anyway, I love looking at Nifty's quilts, such as this one, and this one and these ones (Heck, just go read her whole blog.) made with lots of uglies. So I want to do something big scale with the buglies she sent me, and not just use slivers...

Meanwhile, making slow progress on the hope and stars quilt, as you can see in the top pic. I've auditioned backgrounds. I thought this yellow check would work:

 

but it looks boring, especially in comparison to this:

Speaking of string stars... Years ago I started a string lone star, but bogged down after completing the big pieces. V aka Bumble Beans, who is a crazy woman and loves sewing Y-seams, took it home with her along with some fabric. She's pieced some amazing giant crumb blocks to be the star background. It looks so awesome, go check the star in progress. That link will take you over to 15 Minutes Play, a great blog with lots of fun going on - everyone is welcome to join in.

 

Sujata posted a pic of her current project there and it's amazing! Sujata, V, and Nifty--as well as several other fun quilters--post pics of their work to the Rebels! blog, which I also recommend. Great stuff out there in blogland.

Complete change of topic. This is such a great season of Project Runway. Without getting into any spoilers, I was sooo happy last week at who went home, but this week I would have gone with the other choice. Meanwhile, love Mondo and the fabric pattern he made this week totally rocks.

Cat photo time. I remember the days when I would put down fabric and instantly attract kitty attention. Now, Habibi would rather sleep:

And just because I'm afraid of rebellion (from you lot - not her) if I don't include Pokey too:

that's all for me today. take care!

More Diamonds, More Shirts

I haven't sewn many more of my diamonds but I have enough for a blog post, if not a quilt.

I used one fabric with just one other on the tip to see how it would work, taking my inspiration from a string star utility quilt shown in Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts. Anyway, don't really love it, but leaving it in at least for now:

I'm including a few hints of the shirt fabrics that Bonnie sent me (ooh, way back when I lived in Paris ages ago) so I have something other than just stripes, plaids and solidish.

I know I need to buy more of the dark shirts, but it's hard to force myself when there are such amazing, gorgeous wonderful light colors. It wasn't an arm twist to get the fabulous dark purple plaid but I don't find enough wondrousness like that. I figure the pink paisley will work as a dark too - that one fits in the ugly category for me, but I know quilts need ugly fabrics to be fun.

One of these days I won't be living in Florida, so I gotta buy Florida shirts while I can. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I couldn't resist the fabulous iridescent purple even at a higher price (I'll just consider that a donation to Hospice) and look hot pink stripes!

It's so hard to find light blue shirts (just like the quilting fabric in that color is so scarce) and I don't understand why. I don't care that they're not "in." Look how great this shirt looks with Pokey's eyes.

Walking around the mall it was pretty obvious what colors are "in" for fall clothing. Lots of grays and purple/magenta. Can I just have a rant now about standardization?

I asked my branch library about donating new quilting books. Gorgeous books they don't already have - I want them on the shelf, not just sold for a dollar. Nope, not possible. They only put books, CDs, DVDs etc into circulation that have been purchased by someone at HQ, in bulk. All purchasing decisions are made at main. There's no head librarian at each branch making selections.

And you can't have something at this branch that the others don't have? what??? Yes it's a branch library system but that should mean a bigger variety of books, not fewer. I'm not going to be jealous that another branch has it - I'm going to request it and read it!

It costs too much money to catalog an individual book??? A FREE high quality book? grr argh. Get a volunteer to do it - can't be that difficult.

I worked at a city library and later a branch library for years in my hometown. The donations were carefully sifted and high quality books were put on the shelves either as new or as replacements for worn copies. The head librarian at the branch got to order new books herself (I know - I did the typing!). Man, I hope it still works that way there and this horribleness hasn't happened at all libraries.

Sigh. At least my hold request for Justin Cronin's The Passage finally came through...

Avoiding the Dreaded Ys

Here's a little string star I made on Monday:

Can I say again how I love the shirts? The block just has a softer look to it than it would with typical fabric. loving it. Anyway, I played with triangles to piece this puppy so that I could avoid the dreaded Y-seams. I made the triangles oversized so that the star floats in what will probably be an 11" finished block. The final verdict: easier to piece but definitely more time consuming. I do like how the plaids look mismatched. I suspect I'll get better at it with practice.

Speaking of Y-seams, check out the quilt on the front of American Jane's Quilts for All Seasons

I think it's a beauty but eek, Y-seams. I'd have to come up with a different way of making it. I love Sandy Klop's use of color and fabric. This (mosaic tile???) quilt is my favorite in the book:

It looks like an antique but a bright and happy one that never faded. I haven't tried making any of the patterns or following the directions, but I love her technique for putting this one together. I'd never have thought of it - I'd have been sewing these things together in looong rows.

And for the Scottie lovers out there, I think this is my favorite quilted version of the dog ever:

See, I don't just blog about cats! Okay, I actually do. Speaking of kitties...

I told you about my allergy ordeal last post. Well, d'oh, I'm an idiot (you'll have to imagine the accompanying slap on the forehead).  I hadn't considered when was the last time I changed the filters in my air purifier. So I ordered new ones and Pokey found the box I'd casually tossed aside:

I love how she managed to get in the box at that angle - and have it stay that way. You'll notice shirt bits waiting for further dismantling in the foreground and Halloween quilts in the background (woohoo!).

Of course Lily had to come over - she's sitting on my cutting table that isn't long for this world (the cats managed to break the screws so the foldy table bit on the other side came off.)

This is just inevitable: