Binding Confession

What my binding used to look like.

I hate sewing binding on quilts. I really hate it. It's my least favorite part of the whole process and one I constantly have to remind myself "do it right or pay the price"*. It is normal for me to have a stack of quilts laying around waiting to be bound. If I was rich, I would pay someone to sew the bindings. One of my many mental blocks, as evident in the picture above, it the thickness of the binding. Up until about 2 months ago, I was making really thick binding. I don't know why. Maybe I was worried that it wouldn't wrap all the way around the quilt? Who knows. It looks fine, there's just a wide strip of binding on the back of all my quilts.

This is what my binding looks line now.

 So, then I realized I could make my binding thinner and it would take less fabric and look much cleaner on the back of the quilt. But I still hated sewing binding. It all has to be done by hand, and I was using a slip stitch, which takes forever and shows tiny little stitches.
It reached a point yesterday where I did something that I wish I hadn't. I machine sewed a binding. Ugh. As I was doing it, I thought two things: 1. This is going so fast. Yay! and 2. This feels wrong. I shouldn't be doing this.

Machine sewn binding (front of the quilt).

 But then, last night at quilt guild, I learned something that may change my life forever. Our president Jacquie (of Tallgrass Prairie Studio) showed us how she sews bindings that are invisible and much faster than the slip stitch. It's called the "Invisible Ladder Stitch". There is a great tutorial at Turning*Turning with pictures and instructions. This weekend I plan to tackle my stack of quilts and see how I do with the magic ladder stitch. 

*I just finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and started my own happiness project that I call "Kim's grow the f*** up project" and one of my personal commandments is "Do it right or pay the price" (which really means don't take shortcuts). If you don't know the book, go buy it or check it out at the library. I was a little put off by it at first because I feel like I already know everything she recommends doing. The hard part is actually doing everything. Once I stopped judging and being negative about it, I realized that I could definitely benefit from a lot of her ideas. One of my other commandments is "Don't be negative. Ever. About anything.".

Pillows!

A couple of weeks ago I made three pillows with some of my shibori fabric that had been sitting around. The fabric was originally meant to be used in quilts, but none of them came out quite right and I was feeling less than enthusiastic about making the quilts. I was still excited about the fabric and decided pillows were the answer.

 They are each 16" x 16" and are lined and quilted in a pattern that compliments the shibori pattern.

There is an envelope style closure on the back so the covers can be removed and washed if they get icky (you know, spilled on or used as a cat bed).

Aren't they cute? I think so. It was a fun project and while I was making them I kept thinking "I could make a ton of these" but so far there are only the three.

new quilt in the making

I started a new quilt today on a whim. I went to my studio with a list of things to accomplish and instead, dyed the fabric for this quilt:

It's going to be a crib size quilt, 40" x 50", like most of my other quilts, but I did take good notes so it could be made in any size.  The color is a bit off in this photo and the top hasn't been ironed yet. It just felt so good to dye the fabric and get it all trimmed and sewn in one day that I had to share. Hopefully tomorrow I will make the quilt sandwich and start quilting this thing...in addition to the list of things I meant to accomplish today.

And this photo is just for fun. I always think the piles of scraps from trimming are so pretty. So this time I took a picture. This picture also shows the color a bit better. The light gray has a slight purplish cast to it and the greens aren't quite so acid.

Arrowmont = permagrin

My class and myself demonstrating effective use of a dust mask. 

I spent last week at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN and it was supremely awesome. In 2007/2008 I was an Artist in Residence at Arrowmont, which means I lived there for a year with four other "emerging artists". As part of the residency, each person gets their own bedroom and bathroom in a shared house, their own private studio, and loads of opportunities to learn, network, and teach. Gatlinburg is a crazy tourist town complete with airbrushed t-shirts, fudge and funnel cakes, haunted houses, and something like 5 Thomas Kinkade galleries (shudder). It is also at the entrance to Smoky Mountain National Park.  It was one of the best years of my life (even though I was away from my husband and that part was difficult) and last week felt like going home.

Arrowmont is mostly known as a sort of art camp for grown ups. People from all over come to take week long art and craft workshops. I was there teaching a workshop on screen printing repeat designs on fabric. My students were all fabulous and blew me away with their enthusiasm and the amazing work they did.

Jennifer invited me to teach a workshop in Columbia, MO last fall for MOFA (Missouri Fiber Artists). She just couldn't get enough of me so she signed up for my class at Arrowmont. This is her on the last day of the workshop, showing off all of the fabric she made.

Sarah is a studio assistant this summer at Arrowmont. She had never dyed or printed fabric before and decided to tackle a complicated 3 color print. Her work was fabulous and she says she will make sun dresses out of all of the fabric she printed.

This is something I was working on during the week. One of the techniques I taught was using hand cut stencils made out of tyvek as an easy way to screen print. This interpretation of a Ralli Quilt was printed with dye from three separate hand cut stencils. I'm nerdy excited about the idea of printing traditional quilt blocks and instead of piecing a quilt top, printing it. I have at least two of these that I think will almost definitely be made into quilts in the near future. Maybe. We'll see. I might need to think about it some more.

Go to Arrowmont!!!

quilts on beds (gasp!)

Quilts go on beds, right? Those of you who know me, know that up until a year ago I firmly believed that my quilts were only for walls. Now, after making quilts specifically to be used for a year, I finally have a picture of one of my quilts on a bed. Tammy, in Iowa, commissioned my purple/yellow skyscape quilt in queen size earlier this spring. It is finally (almost) finished. I feel a bit guilty posting pictures of it here, when I should be getting it ready to ship, but I just couldn't hold in my excitement.

 

 I am not a stylist. And I only have my own bed to use as a model. Taking photos of artwork is difficult enough, but taking these photos made me really appreciate how much work goes into styling a product (I feel a little sick for saying those words). If anyone at Crate and Barrel or Anthropologie or Dwell wants to be my friend I will trade them a quilt for help taking awesome pictures.

And now to show off my new summer quilt. The top was purchased at an estate sale or antique store by my mother in law ages ago. She had it quilted by a friend who also added the black and white border. It is fabulous. The first night it was on my bed, Owen the big fat cat jumped up for her nightly cuddles and immediately freaked out. She thinks the colors are alive. Poor Owen needs order.

ps. my new sewing room is evolving. it is almost ready to be shared.

pineapples!

I have been working on so many different things lately and haven't posted in so long that it's quite difficult for me to decide what to share first. So...Pineapples!! Ever since going to the Textile Society of America conference this Fall and seeing the amazing International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, I have been freaking out about traditional quilt patterns. Specifically Amish patterns and the Ralli quilts of Pakistan. Well, not freaking out so much as really really excited. In both of these quilt traditions solid colors (vs. patterned fabrics) and simple geometric shapes are the focus. 

I'm trying to figure out how to express something new in traditional patterns. If not something new, then at least something "Kim". Sometimes I feel like it's impossible to improve on what has already been made because there have been so many amazing quilters and quilts around the world for hundreds of years. But I keep trying to remind myself that all I can do is try to express myself and make something honest and "Kim-ish" and hope that I can add to the history, not just repeat it.

So - here are my attempts at Kim-izing the traditional Pineapple quilt. I'm playing around with my own hand dyed gradations, piecing and then simulating different quilts in Photoshop.
The blocks:

 The patterns:

the quilt that was supposed to be first but wasn't (or was it?)

Which came first?

#1

 

or #1?

Number 1 the first came first if an idea counts as existence. But number 1 the second came first if physical form counts as existence.

Number 1 the first was the vision I had in my brain. Number 1 the second was how the vision manifested itself in the real world (after my tricky brain reconsidered her original idea and those pesky hands got in the way). Number 1 the first is the quilt that my brain wouldn't forget and wouldn't forget and wouldn't forget. So I had to make it eight long months after attempt #1. Sometimes you just have to make something. again.

A new look

So you might have noticed that I spruced things up around here. In the spring I get the decorating bug and right now it is manifesting itself as a desire to paint my living room Martha Stewart's "Salt Glaze" and possibly paint the kitchen cabinets (oh boy do I hate my cabinets. and my counters).  Instead of doing all of that, I decided to update how my blog and website look. Did you notice the new banner up top? Did you notice that it matches the banner in my Etsy shop? Of course you did. You are very observant today.

This is the updated website. It is much less dark than before. I'm pretty pleased with myself. You might also notice that the quilt on the front page is one of my new small landscape quilts. They are slowly making their way onto Etsy and all four in finished form are posted on my website here. I am not a big fan of shameless self promotion, so this blog post feels a bit...er...awkward to me. But. I am trying to put into practice some of the things I learned in my Artist, Inc. class and through the helpful etsy blog about continuity and (gasp!) branding.

Quilt guild is tonight and my Robert Kaufman Kona Solids quilt is officially finished. Or it will be once it comes out of the wash.

I've been dreaming about big striped quilts lately. Like rugby shirts, but quilts. Hm...

What if I was einsy weinsy?

And Iowa was the quilt I pulled up over myself at night. Would it look like these?

Maybe.

(mini Iowa quilts in progress. finished mini Iowas coming soon)

three tops in three days

Oh boy. I am rich in quilt tops. There are currently six tops waiting patiently for me to quilt them (plus one that still needs binding). That means that this week (Spring Break!) should be spent quilting said tops. For some reason I am not looking forward to quilting them. Dyeing the backing fabric and binding, putting together the quilt sandwich, quilting, and binding are my least favorite steps. They're really not that bad and go relatively quickly, but they are just not as exciting as planning, dyeing the fabric, and piecing the tops. 

Here is what's what:

You might remember my plan to make a cmyk quilt? The photoshop sketch is on the bottom, the quilt top on the top. This quilt top was completed last night while watching Jersey Shore with my husband. I know you're jealous of my very exciting Saturday night. This quilt top is nerdy because cmyk are pure colors but to create the dye colors for the quilt I had to mix 8 different dyes. While I was dyeing the fabric I kept cracking myself up becasue I had to create my own primary colors by mixing them. Yes, I am a nerd. And very easily amused.

These are two sister quilts. The one on the bottom I made a while ago and is available in my etsy shop. I had left over fabric from this quilt (it was supposed to be twin sized but honestly, I got lazy) and I was inspired by my quilt guild to try some improvisational piecing. The new quilt top was made on Friday.

And this is my Robert Kaufman Kona Solids challenge quilt for quilt guild. From my charm pack of 43 "darks", I used 36 for the top in a very basic rainbow gradation. The remaining 7 colors will be included in the back of the quilt but didn't fit in my rainbow. This was my first attempt at using only commercially dyed fabric in a quilt and my first attempt at using block construction. It was finished just in time for me to brush my teeth and jump in the car to rush to quilt guild. I'm pretty happy with it.