Breaking two of the rules

I have many rules in life. Personal rules, that apply to me only, that I work really hard to abide by. Be good to your family and friends. Show genuine respect to your elders. Pray. Always wear clean underwear. Don't blog about too-personal stuff. Don't grieve in public.

So here I go breaking the last two rules.

My friend and her husband died last week. Kathreen was big in the crafting world, influential, a massive inspiration to all who met - and didn't meet - her. Kathreen and Rob leave behind two amazing kids, and all our hearts are broken for both their, their families' and our own loss. Over the last few days I have thought a lot about the ties that bind us, those connections that can be shattered in an instant. About how everyone is entitled to grieve in their own way. How keeping busy and trying to be useful is helpful in grief, but sometimes you just have to cry. A lot. And then let time and God take control.

I first 'met' Kathreen many years ago when I cracked my rib and was stuck at home, on my back, for a week. I had some downloaded podcasts from Craftsanity to listen to in the hours of pain and boredom, and one of them was a conversation that Jennifer had with an amazing young Canberra woman who founded a crafting website called Whip Up. This girl Kathreen sounded really cool. And it felt like she was talking to me about inspiration and crafting communities from just next door. It was only years later that we realised we lived only three streets away from each other. I became an avid reader of Whip Up, and the inspiration and lessons I gained there helped me start my own craft business years later.

Kathreen and I only met in real life a year or so ago. She was a new friend. One of the happiest memories I have of last winter (which was a fairly awful winter for a number of reasons. See second-last rule) was sitting next to a sunny window in her house for what seemed like (and probably was) hours, drinking tea and eating scones and laughing with her and the kids. I'd just done some editing for her, and her attitude to getting things done impressed me so much I resolved to do better, be a better person and just get on with it, right there and then. I remember walking back home and I was buzzing. That was the effect Kath had on people, whether you knew her personally or not. I don't think Kath ever knew the massive impact she'd had on me that day - and I am sad I will never get to tell her that.

I will miss my friend. And I'm sad. I'm sad for my friends who knew her and Rob much better than I did. Everyone is sad - the world has lost two great forces in the art of living splendidly and in the present. But two young kids have also lost their parents. That sucks.You can help out Kath and Rob's son and daughter out by going here. And you can help honour their memory by making something. Anything. It's probably what Kath would have done.

An Esoteric Field Study

At the first Canberra Quilters meeting of each year, the teachers and shops show and tell the quilts and classes they will be teaching that year. This year, Jenny Bowker stood up and showed off her Shimmering Triangles quilt and said she would be teaching the class in May at Addicted to Fabric. My friend Angie was sitting next to me that night - we looked at each other as Jenny said this.  Sold!

This weekend finally rolled around, and as usual I was highly unprepared. I didn't know what fabric I would use, didn't know which version of the quilt I would make. I didn't want to use a whole line of fabric, but I did want to use up some of my stash. But nothing seemed to go and I was really stuck. By 10.30 on Friday night I grabbed the first bundle of fabric on my shelf, and popped it into my bag. It was a fat quarter bundle of Field Study by Anna Maria Horner. I really love this range, but I had never intended to use it all at the same time. Talk about lazy.



Jenny is not only a great quilter, but she's a great teacher and a wonderful enabler. It was she who had the idea to start a modern quilting group under the banner of Canberra Quilters. Twelve months on, that group regularly has 25-30 quilters who come along once a month to share, sew and be inspired. And as a teacher, Jenny allows you to work out for yourself what may or may not work, and then gently guides you to see how it can work better. And then while you're sewing she tells great stories of Egypt, and her time in Ramallah, and what happened when she was in Paducah last week. It's hard work being so constantly inspired in a Jenny Bowker class!



I'll admit - I was bamboozled by my fabrics. Normally I find it easy to put fabrics together, but this time I was in deep water and didn't know how to get out of the pool. I tried to find some solids to put against it, but nothing sang. So I thought "Dammit! Just use what you have and strive for a non-shimmering sparkly effect!".



This is where I stalled after lunch. I'd made a heap of half square triangle units, but I had no vertical design wall space, not much sewing space (entirely my own fault), my ruler was being used by someone else and I desperately needed a strong coffee. So I did what I should have done an hour earlier - I packed up and went home, and worked on my quilt from there. Massive design wall, comfortable chair to sit in, coffee. Check, check, and check. I laid the pieces I had already cut and sewn on my design wall.



Uh oh. All I could see was a big mess. The blocks I thought were lower value (bottom right and top right) were actually very busy and ruined the shimmering effect. But I figured if I could get more contrast in the other blocks, I might be OK so I lurched forward. That night I sewed some more HSTs, cut out all my squares and packed and sorted everything into ziploc bags. The next morning on the second day of quilt class I was much happier.  I had this.



And this - a design wall I set up by pinning some cotton batting onto the solids at the shop. MUCH BETTER!



I spent the day sewing my HSTs together into units, and then sewing some blocks together. I was really happy now with how the quilt was going now. Sure it wasn't all sparkling and shimmering like Jenny's quilts and the other quilts that were being made in the class, but I had something a little bit different - a very busy and very bold quilt which made you really look at what the fabric was actually doing. I like to think I set a challenge for myself out of my own laziness.



I still have a lot more HSTs to make (all those white spaces need to be filled, but I'm enjoying seeing where it is going. I especially love the shattered fabric effect from the HSTs.



This set might be my favourite.



And I love the little star blocks that appear all random-like in throughout the quilt.



I'll enjoy this quilt being on my wall for the next few days, but I won't be sewing anymore on it until my exhibition quilts are made. I'm looking forward to the day I get a chance to sew some more on it!

So thanks Jenny, and thanks Angie for encouraging me to do this class with you. I really did have a lot of fun, and sewing with others is somehow so much more satisfying than sewing by myself at home.

How do you solve a problem like Michelle?

Although not participating in Me Made May, I did document two of the five me-made outfits I wore in the last week - in the ladies' dunnies at the new job, no less.





Never let it be said that this blog doesn't just OOZE class.

In between parental visits and interstate visits of our own, I managed to squeeze in a little sewing. And, not skirts or dresses SURPRISE SURPRISE!!



I did a little patchworking, firstly on the seemingly never ending Japanese scrappy trip around the world. It frustrated me that I decided to work on this when I have three quilts to get into a photographable state by 7 June. But I think I just needed to get this sewn together into rows and then packed away so it is out of sight for the while. I will worry about it again when the guild exhibition quilts are done.

And now I can get stuck into this - my perfect circles quilt. ( It really needs another name. Everyone keeps seeing planets, and so do I.) It's been hanging in completed blocks on my design wall for a week now. I'll move things around each day, never entirely satisfied with it. But I've had to put my foot down - I needed to start sewing it together.



Which I did. Two rows stitched together already. Which only begs the question ... What took me so long?



So about those other two exhibition quilts. For one I've only made 4 blocks out of perhaps 36? I've never actually counted the number of blocks I'm supposed to make. The other quilt hasn't even been started yet, but I bought the fabric 6 weeks. Sigh. I would normally drop this third quilt, but originally it was the only quilt I was going to submit to the exhibition, and to drop it now would make me feel l like a quitter.

And I'm a quilter, not a quitter. And besides this is too much fun, finding scraps of time throughout a busy week to try to create something lovely. If I actually had a dedicated day to sew, I don't think I'd know what to do with myself.

Me Made May? May I make May mine?

For weeks now I've been agonising over whether to join in on Me Made May 2013. I haven't really sewn too many clothes lately and my wardrobe is actually looking a bit sparse and desperate.



These are some of the thoughts that were going through my tiny little brain the last few weeks:

* Perfect! I have about 2 skirts to wear to work, and I'm about to start a new job in a new building where everyone is young and fabulously dressed and this will be a great excuse to get some skirts and dresses suitable for work sewn up!

* Argh! I don't have time! I'm starting a new job and I also just joined the Canberra Quilters committee and my parents are visiting and I have something on, or am away for every weekend between now and June.

* I can do this! And I will even wear a new skirt on my first day at work on the 1st and my first quilt meeting as president on the 2nd and to a 50th wedding anniversary lunch in Brisbane on the 4th and and and ...

* I'm kidding myself. I can't do this. I don't WANT to do this. I've done it the last few years. And doing it in May in Canberra really sucks. And no one needs to see that many cardigans. Or that many different coloured pairs of tights.



* You have the most enormous dress fabric stash and you need to start sewing and wearing it!

* No way - you have three quilts to sew by the end of July.

* Some days I just want to wear trousers and I've never made a pair for myself. And I don't intend to either.

So you can see where and how I am conflicted. Even 5 minutes before writing this post I was still trying to decide! I love Me Made months and everything they stand for. I love the sharing and the amazing pieces people sew, and I get so inspired and want to sew all the things. But perhaps I need to stop being so tough on myself.

So this year I won't be taking part in Me Made May. I will still check out the Flickr group every day and cheer everyone on.

But yet I still need to make some clothes for winter, especially work clothes, and reduce my stash.



So instead of Me Made May, I think I will instead make the rest of 2013 the year of the dressmaking stash down. It's time.

Tutorial: How to applique perfect circles

I've been sharing a little bit of a new quilt project over on Instagram the last couple of weeks, and I've had a lot of people ask how I manage to applique the perfect circles I'm getting.  So here's a tutorial.

You'll need three nifty tools, but more on that during the tutorial.



First tool is this - a packet of Mylar circle templates. Yes, you can use your own cardboard templates, but they have to be perfectly cut with no jagged, uneven edges, and they may get a little bit warped and soggy by the end of a quilt, so be prepared for that..  For this project I'm using both the biggest circle in the Big packet, and the biggest circle in the little packet. I freaking LOVE circles so none of the other sizes in the packets will be wasted and you can use them again and again.



Select your template and trace the shape onto the back of fabric. Normally i use a pencil, but I'm out of leads so I'm using a white gel pen. It's on the inside of the fabric so no one will ever see it.



I do a few layers at a time - usually 4. I pin the layers together on the inside of the circle and trim to a suitable seam allowance. I probably make my seam allowance bigger than most - it's certainly over a 1/4 inch, but what you do is up to you.

Now it's time for a gather stitch. Make sure the tails of the gathering thread are on the right side of the fabric.You'll thank me later.

You can use the sewing machine on the largest stitch length if you like - I did the first part of my quilt that way but I found I was having too many thread breakages and frustrations with the 4 thread scenario. So now I hand baste. It takes me 2 minutes tops and I find it much faster when it comes to the next process.




I use a big long sashiko needle and ordinary Gutermann cotton sewing thread and take many stitches at once. I usually can get a quarter of the circle on the needle before I pull the thread through. Make sure you are inside the seam allowance. You don't want to have those threads inside the circle line.



Finish the last stitch just past the first stitch, so they overlap.



Now grab your template, put it on top of the wrong side of fabric.



Grab your gathering threads gently and pull (gently!) so the seam allowance comes over the side of the template.  See what I'm getting at here?

Now take  the whole shebang over to the ironing board. You can tie a single knot here if you like but it doesn't really matter, or make much of a difference. Not a double knot though - you need to be able to get that template out later and you won't want to cutting your gathering threads just yet.

Here's where tool number 2 comes into play.



Yes, it's just Crisp spray starch from my local IGA. Shake it up, and spray an amount into the lid. And grab either a little paintbrush or a cotton bud.



(I use a cotton bud because all my paintbrushes were sold at the trash and treasure a couple of months ago. Silly me.)



Hold onto the ends of your gathering thread tightly (but gently!) so the fabric is firm against the template, and start brushing on the starch. It doesn't matter if the foam has dissolved - just brush the liquid starch on to the edges until the fabric is soaked through, like so.



Then get your iron ready, but MAKE SURE YOUR IRON IS ONLY ON DRY MEDIUM HEAT.



DON'T USE STEAM. DON'T TURN IT UP TO HIGH. Ask me sometime how I already managed to ruin one template already because I didn't read the instructions on the packet.



Gently press the edges until just damp. Don't move the iron around too much - you don't want the seam allowance to move. Just press down, lift, and move to the next starched spot.



Flip the circle over and press on the other side, until the fabric on that side is dry.



Flip it over again and do the underside one more time.



Wait until the template and the fabric are both cool.  This is important. Then flick the gathering threads loose at the start (and end) of your stitching. And pull your template out gently.





With the template out, go back and give your gathering threads a very gentle tightening again, so the circle sits flat.  Too much tightening and you'll have a bulge in your applique. You should notice by now how lovely and stiff your edges are.

Go back and press it again, on top and under, until it is dry. You may notice a little watermarking and shine on your fabrics - don't be concerned. This is just the starch and will wash out.



Head back to your work space with your circle, and admire how bloody perfect it is.



Trim the gathering thread tails. You can leave the gathering thread in.

And now for tool number 3.



I use this basting glue because I couldn't get my applique pins to lay flat. Also this is a perfect portable project, and the less pins I have to deal with the better.



Dot a little teeny (TEENY!) bit of glue at periods around the circle, on the seam allowance.



And then lay it on your background piece. Press flat with your hands. The glue dries pretty quickly, and you can start appliqueing pretty much straight away, or go and make a lot more perfect circles at the ironing board.

Here's how I do applique so it's almost invisible.

When I first learned to needleturn applique, fine silk thread reels were recommended to me. They just sink straight into the fabric. A few years later and those silk threads are getting harder to find in Canberra. I experimented with a few different brands - Gutermann silk, Superior Bottom Line poly, Aurifil 50/2 cotton - but none of them really hid in the fabric, and they were a bother to pull through the different layers most of the time.



And then I discovered Superior Egyptian Cotton in the form of a Frosted Donut. Friends - this stuff is sensational to applique with! It sinks into the applique piece, is easy to pull through and comes in every imaginable colour.

Also. Donuts. And no, this is not a paid advert (I maintain an ad-free blog). I just really, really like this stuff.

So back to the invisible hand applique. Seriously, practice makes perfect. I can't emphasise this enough.



Knot your thread and start from the back. Catch only a couple of threads of the very outside of the circle. Pull your thread through.


Insert your needle directly behind where you just went, into the background fabric, and slightly under the applique piece. And then come back up through your applique piece again. Like the photo above.



Here's another perspective. See how I've just caught a couple of threads on the edge of the circle? And how the needle has gone behind and under, into the background fabric? (See how much I desperately need a manicure?)



This photo was taken in the sunlight so you could see the first inch of stitching to the right of the needle.  But you can't actually see the stitching.  Clever huh? Like I said - practice.



Here's a different perspective again to show that first inch of stitching. You can only really see it from the sideof the piece. Of course the colour matched thread helps. But I also used this purple thread on the yellow and blue edges of the block, and you know what?



Can hardly see it.



This is the back of the block. My stitches aren't too close together, and they aren't pulled super tight (otherwise you get puckering).

Each one of these blocks takes me 20 minutes tops. It's less than 10 minutes to cut out, do a gathering stitch by hand, starch and press, and attach to the background piece. Then it's another 10 minutes for the applique, but like I said I've been doing applique for a long time, and practice really does make perfect.



So what are you waiting for? Give it a go! And if you have any questions please ask in the comments and I'll answer there.

Right after I've given myself a manicure.