Greetings from Montevideo, from Alison Schwabe, Aussie quiltmaker

This is a section, a little less than life-size, of a small quilt I made this year experimenting with leather cut-outs. It was recently displayed at a small local craft fair where there was considerable positive feed back - enough to encourage me to consider making a larger one or taking this idea further.

There are holes punched from the leather, and what looks like little bits of leather is stitchery in the same colour on the black. One comment was that it looked like the squares were rusting and disintegrating. Exactly what I had in mind , so, with some amount of time on my hands just now, that will be an avenue to explore further.

Labels: punched leather

The past ten days have been a bit of a whirl up in the US, and flying is still as unpredicatable as ever - or should I say the rules for what you can carry and how things go or don't go at checkin and security points seem arbitrarily different place to place. The TSA and your airline websites carry the latest rules re what you can actually take on board and that should be it. But that's only the beginning, and things can go any way here.

A bouquet for the security company employee here who handled my hand luggage search at checking in Montevideo. I produced a very small collection of liquids - moisturiser, mascara, lippy, eye drops, nasal spray and toothpaste, all in containers of under 30 ml - small, very small - and the whole little group happened to be in a ziploc bag occupying the lower 1/4 of the bag which is some larger size, 2 pints? half gallon? nothing on the bag, but clearly was a very small collection of liquids pastes or gels. This guy said, "Ah, good to see you've done your homework" and waived me on my way after inspection.

The exact same, very small collection in the exact same bag, which is apparently twice the size it should have been, but had the gooods only occupying the lower 1/4 of it - sent a woman employee of a security company at Washington Dulles airport into some kind of frenzy about how my bag was too big and how it should have been a quart bag, I was in danger of having the whole lot confiscated, blah blahdey blah ... I saw people with lots more stuff crammed into a quart bag go right on through while she ranted about the wrong size of my bag. (The plastic ziplocked bag is meant to be able to be photographed out flat, closed, with all items showing.) Brickbat to you lady ! She didn't know it, but as a last resort I did have another small bag of the size she was focused on in my carry on bag, it had tablets in it, but it would have been easy to do a quick swap right there, while waiting to speak to her supervisor - but her bag of steam finally blew out, she huffed and let me through after all, and I felt sad that she seemed to be having a very bad day. Or still getting over the night before....

Still it does point to the arbitrariness of security inspections even as the rules are published, and even though overall I along with most flyers really appreciate the painstaking work these people do with often very trying or stupid customers. But, I'm grounded a while, post abdominal surgery, and all the family are heading this way for christmas new year. Travel Well!

Labels: airline travel

Phew - he loved it, and used it a couple of nights before I got the hand sewing on the binding finished, but it is all done now.

The next project is a kingsize quilt for DD, for which I have the various exotic and jungly tropical type fabrics in rich dark colours. I might start to cut soon, but considering how the rest of this year looks it probably won't get under way until february. I also have fabric for picnic quilts for the three families....counting ourselves as one of course. One or two juried exhibition dates are coming up, and of course, Quilt National weekend in may, and I plan to provide one of the 12 inch squares or whatever the mini-size quilts are to be, for the SAQA auction at that time.

Meanwhile, I just arrived back in Montevideo a few hours ago, have actually unpacked one case and put stuff away, one smaller one to do and then I will feeel 'settled' again.

Labels: grandson quilt

Well, actually the binding is attached but not yet handsewn down, but I can do that while we are all talking and catching up in N. Colorado when I get there early tomorrow afternoon. The binding I decided eventually to do in the leopard print, and it looks really good.

When I looked again at the pieced top on sunday morning, after posting about one wrongly aligned block, I found (with fresh non-tired eyes I guess ) there were actually three in a row. One kind friend said she didn't think anyone would notice - shi might have been right - I unpicked them and resewed all threee into the right alignment anyway because I would always notice. And then, darnit, after the quilting and all that, yesterday I noticed another one out on one side - and it will be there for ever.

The stars , 55, freee mchine quilted, are in all the plain tan blocks, since IMHO a 6" square is too large to leave unquilted despite what any batting manufacturers might say. On all the striped blocks I wrote grandson #2's name, in free machine quilting, snipped the ends to about half inch and leaving them hanging, on the front, but will snip and darn in on the back as necessary .

Right now the main focus is to get the gear into the case and get to the airport on time with a couple of little errands to run in between.
All do-able provided I don't linger too long over this!

Labels: grandson quilt

I found this really nice altar cloth pictured in a church in the San Telmo district of buenos Aires when we were over there a few weeks ago.

The lace is a version of the paraguayan nanduti lace I picture on the blog back in march/april. And what a lovely foil the pretty design is to the rather plainer finish on the altar and surrounding wood panelling.

Labels: lace textile, ñanduti

Well it's late saturday night and at last I am all clear to go to bed since the piecing is finished. tomorrow I will layer and machine quilt this, and at least attach the binding, if possible, so that if I run out of time I can finish the hand sewing in Colorado later in the week.

I quite like the effect of half the blocks in this design having no piecing at all on them - hugely speeds up the peicing time of course, a useful thing to know in a hurry, and although this is not an art quilt, but a more a contemporary scrap quilt, there are several possibilities here I can go forward with some time.

If I had known more about polyester fabric before I started piecing the job would have been quicker. I was fully aware this lovely tan fabric was part or entirely polyester, confirmed by the feel and that tell-tale odour when ironing. But, with a simple design like this, carefully cut squares and very gently curved or straight lines pieced into some of the blocks, I thought "no worries luv" Boing.

I should have, but didn't iron the whole piece of tan polyester first. I had already cut maybe 20 x 6" squares when I noticed some of them had crush lines on them, and ironed those. With some dismay I observed a one-direction shrinkage that was not restored when the heat of the iron faded - and measuring discovered the loss of 1/4 inch from the 6" side - by my reckoning over a 42"width of fabric this represents approx 6% shrinkage - as I said, selvedge to selvedge only, so I think that is over the weft - but significant when we are talking about piecing meticulously cut squares! So, as I pieced the whole thing every tan piece had to be turned and checked, and about 20 of them needed a piece added along one side. It all took time to rectify. I am not saying 'never use polyester' but I am saying - beware!

And finally, I have put up this pic and now see one of the bright blue patches is wrongly aligned - well, I will sleep on the need to unpick and resew - will the blind man on a galloping horse actually notice ? I think not. Doubt a little 8 year old will, either.

Labels: grandson quilt

Thank goodness halloween madness is over for another year. I do understand the origins of the festival and how it is part of the north american culture, but it has no relevance here in Uruguay, or back in Australia either where it rages this time of year - and I imagine these are not the only countries which have been subjected to the idiocy of north american marketing of masks, costumes, junk decorations of all kinds and those other must-haves for halloween - masses of wrapped sweets and silly bags, all kinds of totes and containers to put these offerings into - at least one pillow case was seen by yours truly here this year.

Last year I diligently answered every doorbell not realising just how many callers we'd have - we nearly went mad with them, and just after dark at the end, I'd have thought, of the exercise, I said "No - sorry" to one caller, who promptly threw an egg at the house. That panel had to re-painted, easy enough, but the ugliness of that little shit loose on the streets vandalising under the guise of trick or treating really made me mad. So this year we resolved to just not be at home, but I was still nervous about the odd frustrated vandal who might still lob one at the house anyway. DD's suggestion was to put a dish out with lollies in it, and a sign suggesting please just take one - making the point that even if someone came along and found it empty they would know at least you tried and did enter the spirit of the night. It did seem to work - I watched from behind the curtains as the earliest kids read the sign and seemed to take one or two only. And when we did leave around 7pm, the box, only half full in this pic, was quite full - and by the time we returned long after any kids were about, it was empty, of course, but there were no signs of vandalism and no eggs on the front of the house.

The related Dia de los Muertos, today, is the festival that really counts here. Schools banlks and most offices are closed, many shops, probably the post office, and since this year it is on a thursday, many who can are addiing tomorrow and making a long weekend of it. Not having kids in school I'm not sure, but that they have made tomorrow a school holiday too might be recognition of the inevitable low attendance. Amazing, with senior and other vital finals coming up.

Labels: halloween madness

During the workshop I held here a couple of weekends ago, I found myself using offcuts from a quilt I made last year- including a few blocks I abandoned from the final piece, for one reason and another. Showing cut-throughs and getting the really fine slivers in they were helpful - I pinned them up during the class, and over the past week or so these two have been calling to me.

Firstly with a reminder to take a few such things with me next tuesday when I leave to lecture and teach for the Arapahoe County Quilters, where it all started for me way back in jan. 1988 when I attended my first ACQ meeting with a then new neighbour in Denver. I am really looking forward to seeing some old familiar faces besides the several I have kept in touch down the years and am combining this trip with brief family visits to the offsprings in N. Colorado and over in E. Maryland.

Secondly, though I would like to be fiddling along the lines suggested to me in these pinned up little snippets, I really need to focus on completing the single bed quilt for grandson #2 who now qualifies for it having overcome the hurdle of sleeping all night in his own bed. Of course this has not snuck up on me, I have just been procrastinating, but the block construction is well underway, perhaps 25%, and I plan to knock the rest over, today, if I can stand it... but might be forced to include some arrangement of plain blocks without any piecing in them to more quickly build the top!

Labels: cut throughs, slivers