Happy Progress

Posted on September 7, 2014September 7, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Design Work, Quilt Journal, Sewing Clothing / 2 Comments

Small evening clutch I purchased in Vienna Austria

Hooray! I have completed my fashion sewing project and everything fits pretty well. I still have to make a special belt to go with my dressy outfit, but that’s a small project I will do one day for a fun break. I made three vests, two slacks, one blouse, and did a bunch of repair on existing items. I also found two beautiful evening bags I had forgotten about, so I didn’t have to make one of those. I repaired three really nice everyday/tote bags I had made some time ago, and they are better than new. If I have time before I go to Houston, I might make one more pair of slacks and another bag, but it is not a necessity.

Silk clutch from Japan designed to wear with Kimonos. I got this in Kanazawa, Japan many years ago, but it is still in good shape.

My childcare responsibilities for my grandson have moved to after school only, which gives me a good part of the day and weekends to work on my quilting now. Sew I have been busy planning out my next phase of quilting projects. One is a small special request quilt that is due in the beginning of January and so I have to get going on that right away. I finally managed to work out a design for that quilt after many hours, and I’m ready to start that one. I will save the progress pictures and show them to you after its debut.

I haven’t decided on my other project yet. I usually like to work on two over a space of time. I’ll try to figure one out that I can share with you as I make it.

For the most part, I work without deadlines on my quilts. That is, I have determined there are enough excellent quilt shows across the year that whenever I finish a quilt there will be a show I can debut it in. However, there are a couple of shows that I particularly like to use for debuts of my show quilts. These have very early deadlines..months and months before the show. That’s what inspired my Quilting Show List I keep more or less up to date on my Website so I can keep track of all of this. It is not all inclusive, but it does include most of the shows I find of interest to me. I probably miss a few here and there that should be on this list.

It’s always kind of exciting when I get to this point…all my previous projects done and time to start new projects. I even have my studio in pretty good shape…just needs a small amount of pickup and vacuuming.

Sew happy everyone. Teach someone to appreciate the beauty of quilts…your father, yourself, your daughter, your son, your dog (who may be asleep on one right now).

A Shift in the Studio

Posted on August 24, 2014August 24, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Food for Thought, My Studio, Sewing Clothing, Teaching Kids, Tools / 6 Comments

Kevin

My handsome, brilliant, impish grandson Kevin enters middle school on 2 September and we decided as a family that his after school and summer day-care will be shifted to Grammy (that’s me) instead of his former care giver who has several new younger kids this year plus her own bunch to care for. I live only a couple of miles from his school and his home. I am truly happy to have him come here for the out-of-school work hour time. It does impact my time for fabric art substantially, however, so I will have to scale back some of my plans in that direction for a few years. I hope to share some wonderful time and create some great memories, as well as teach him some art among other things. It will not stop me from moving forward in my own art, though.

Part of the time, Kevin and I are taking the opportunity for him to learn more about quilting, and possibly bag making. He made a quilt top with me when he was 9, but sort of stopped working on quilting for the past couple of years. But he’s interested again. Last week he drafted a lemoyne star using Alex Anderson’s methods presented in a TQS show, and then decided to put together a small quilt and use the lemoyne star as a quilting design. It would be a straight stitch quilting design and so he can use my big Bernina with the dual feed to quilt it.

Technology can really help in teaching kids to sew. It is my personal belief that frustration and boredom are the chief barriers to kids learning to do high-level creative things like this. He worked out how he wanted it on my Electric Quilt 7 program, picked out the fabrics from my stash, and cut it out on my Go! cutter, and started sewing it on Friday. If you have kids you want to teach to quilt, I really recommend a die cutter, because it is safe, accurate, and fast. Fast means less boredom, accuracy makes for good results and less frustration, and a machine that works well means less boredom and less frustration. So here he is sewing together the 10 inch squares on my little B350 machine. I put a 57 foot, which is a 1/4 inch piecing foot with a seam guide, on the machine and slid the machine speed down to the middle so he doesn’t sew too fast. His seems so far are perfection.

We’ll see where this goes from here. It is my hope he will really enjoy it enough to want to do another one when this is finished, but if he only finishes this one, it will be a nice accomplishment for him.

Meanwhile, I still managed to get my black blouse and slacks cut out for my dressy outfit. Hopefully, I can complete this project this coming week. Kevin will be spending some of the week with his other grandparents next week, so I have several clear days next week before the after-school thing starts.

Sew happy everyone! Teach someone to sew–your grandkids, your BFF, yourself, your annoying neighbor, your cats, your dogs. LOL

Alex Anderson, A Bit of Progress, and Some Plans

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Fabrics, Food for Thought, Sewing Clothing / 2 Comments

Today I went to G Street in Falls Church, Virginia, to attend a lecture by Alex Anderson. I had a lot of fun. I got there early enough that I could get a seat close to the front just behind the chair Alex came and sat down in while waiting for the time to start, and we had a lovely conversation about Bernina sewing machines. A Bernina representative was sitting next to Alex and joined in. I never expected to have time to chat with her, so this was an added treat for me.

Her lecture was entirely fun and very inspiring. She told us about her life centered around quilting, family, and quilting friends, and how many times she had taken one step at a time to learn something new for her books, for her quilting, for her job as a show hostess. In all of that and in clear statements she encouraged us to try new things and take one step at a time no matter how difficult they seemed at first to accomplish, learn, improve, and experiment in quilting. I loved her speech, I enjoyed meeting her, and found myself wishing that we lived close so I could become a good friend of hers. Thank you Alex for such a fun time today and all the shows and teaching you have provided.

I have been slowly building a network of really fine quilting friends across the country and occasionally I meet them face to face. I hope to continue this as the years roll out in front of me.

Anyway, as to the progress on my clothing project. I have now finished making the black embroidered reversible vest and embroidered slacks. The vest fits nicely, but I’m not as happy with the slacks. I have one idea for improving the slacks, and will do that, but I think I’m going to have to improve my slacks pattern before I make the other two pairs.

I also finished the silk brocade vest and it fits to perfection. I will make the black blouse and slacks next, and hope I can improve the slacks pattern enough to be really happy with them. If I can, I have at least one more pair I will make, and I found a nice piece of Rayon Batik I had stashed in the closet that will make a great loose casual lightweight jacket. I’m going to make at least one bag and then I’m going to stop with the clothes for a while. Later on, I want to use one of my four nice pieces of heavy wool I have to make an overcoat. I even have all the specialized interfacing and lining for two of them and some faux fur to make cuffs and a collar. But I will do that closer to winter. I think I’ll blog the making of the overcoat when I do. It should be interesting.

I have two quilts I want to make. One has an end of the year deadline, and I will wait until early in the new year to tell you about it. The other one is a quilt based on some line drawings by the Wright Brothers of their planes that I found on The Wright Brothers organization site and obtained their permission to use for the quilt.

The Wright Plane quilt will be one in my line-drawing series. The first of that was Perspective in Threads, which has been juried into the Houston special architectural quilts exhibit this year, that will be traveling for a year. The second is Dad’s House Plan that will soon be in AQS Chattanooga.

Sew I’ll put in a few pictures of my clothes when I get them done.

Sew happy! Teach someone to sew or quilt…your BFF, your brother, your daughter, your pets.

Upgrading My Wardrobe from Dowdy to ??????

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Betty Jo's Blog / Posted in Sewing Clothing / 2 Comments

I have finished my show quilts. I still have to sew the labels on “Sky Horse” and my Chaucer quilt, which I have named “Canterbury Silk”, but I am ready to start an upgrade to my wardrobe. Like I said in my last post:

One of the things that has occurred to me is that my wardrobe is looking a little on the dowdy side. I managed to get to my retirement with a handful of slacks suits that have seen their better days and some blouses. I made a few summer clothes last year, but I have to do something about my wardrobe. It’s a very good thing I know how to sew and have a wonderful stash of fabrics fit for clothing, because my clothing funds are slim since I am going to Houston.

Sew I am starting my sewing plan for my wardrobe upgrade. I found a good basic sloper in my massive pattern collection (not the one pictured here), an out of print pattern in the approximate right size. (Definition: A custom-fitted basic pattern from which patterns for many different styles can be created). I’ll make one in muslin with wide seams and long stitches, and work it until I get it into a perfect fit, mark the sloper and take it carefully apart and fuse it to a woven interfacing. Once you have one of these treasures, you can use it to design your own fashions or flat-fit patterns with. It’s been many years since I have done one for myself. High time!

I have patterns for everything…not all the styles available but absolutely every type of thing…hats, bags, gloves, vests, coats, dresses, slacks, tops, tailored suits, intimates, swimsuits, special occasion, costumes, and retro garments. Some of them are a little dated, or not even approaching the right size, but often have good lines to use with my sloper and my own ideas in an update. I’ve usually dressed to my own drumbeat, and especially when it was not for my old workplace, which required mostly black, tan, or gray tailored suits with simple blouses. But now I’m free, free, free…I am retired and playing in the artist world. Though in truth, I am wondering how well I will be able to break away from that fashion environment as I upgrade my wardrobe. I do know I look best in blacks, teals, and wines, and I have a nice stash of fashion fabrics that I must draw from (this is a tiny expenditure upgrade). We’ll see what happens. 😎

Sew come along with me on this journey in my blog posts. I’ll try to post the journey with pics and interesting pointers.

Sew happy everyone! Teach someone to sew or quilt…yourself, your loved ones, your fur babies, your coach. 🙂