Tag Archives: crafts

Lili’s Quilt

Lili quilt 12This is the front of Lili’s quilt.  This is one of the main things I’ve been working on this month.  I got it done in about one week from start to finish.  A record for me.  I did almost nothing else during that time.

Lili quilt 6This is the first quilt I’ve ever done machine quilting on.  I’ve been wanting to learn to do this for years.  Lili’s quilt is the biggest of the four quilts I’ve made.  The first three were baby quilts and this one is roughly twin sized.

Lili quilt 10I watched almost all of Alias and the first season of Arrow while making it.Lili quilt 1I had no real plan ahead of time.  I only knew that Lili (a four year old girl) likes pink, red, and purple.  Having found no good purple prints I decided to break up the red and pink with black.  It’s much bolder than I originally imagined, color-wise.  Kind of punches you in the face, but that’s okay because Lili is a girl with major moxie and some day she will have no problem punching people in the face who get in her way.

Lili quilt 3Ad-libbing a quilt allows for all kinds of weird stuff to happen as you go along.  Like stripes that don’t quite match up, not enough of one fabric or another, and good surprises like unexpected cool piecing.

Lili quilt 2This is the back side of the quilt.  It’s asymmetrical.  On purpose by surprise.  The irregularities in this quilt would shame my mom’s sister who is one of those precise quilters who follows patterns and makes every seam match up PERFECTLY because otherwise – THESHAMETHESHAMETHESHAME.

Having been a costumer and a professional seamstress I know how important it is to make things perfect if you’re selling them.  I will rip seams out until they’re just right when making things professionally.  But quilting, for me, is the one sewing project where I let myself just have fun and let things develop organically.  I start with an idea and then let it just unfold.  I do try to do a good job sewing it but I’m not taking seams out when points don’t match perfectly or my lines aren’t ruler straight (though they usually are anyway).  Quilting is my free-range sewing time.  I get to do whatever the hell I want with it.  There are no rules.

I’m really pleased with the way Lili’s quilt turned out.

Now I’m working on the quilt I started 6 years ago in McMinnville.  I broke my machine while machine quilting it.  I’m about half done.  So tonight I’m going to finish the quilting and tomorrow I go to my friend Chelsea’s house to get a lesson in binding.  Because I suck at binding quilts and while I could continue to suck at it I think I would get more satisfaction if I could learn to do it better.

If you don’t have many (or any) spare blankets in your house you should start making quilts.  I have only two spare blankets and only one of them is full sized and it’s shredded to the point of almost being useless.  I am appalled at this whole situation because what if there’s an emergency or an apocalypse and we need extra blankets?

One quilt down and many more to come!

Behold My Inspiration Doors!

My friend Sarah suggested that I start an inspiration board to help me keep my weight-loss goals in my mind.  I thought it was a great idea except for the fact that my office is nearly all windows (it’s a windowed-in porch) so I have nowhere to hang any boards.  An idea came to me, I’m not sure how, that I could make a free-standing board that could be decorated with fabric swatches and garments I love and want to wear again, and magazine pictures.  And then I realized that what I really needed was the equivalent of closet doors to hang outfits on for inspiration.

So I went on a quest to find a couple of old doors.  You might not be amazed to know how many hideous doors there are out there and how much the cool vintage ones cost but I was kind of surprised.  I ended up lucking out at a salvage place (and don’t think “junk”, this place has crazy cool and $$$$ stuff in it) in Petaluma called Heritage Salvage.  I saw an exquisite turquoise hobbit door with a metal grill in it for $600 but Philip said I wasn’t allowed to sell Max just to have a gorgeous door.  I did find two old doors that suited my purpose perfectly and paid a total of $40 for the pair.

Missing doorknobs, peeling paint, and dirt all included in the price.

Plus rusty paint-clogged broken hinges.  But the best part you will see in the last picture: two hooks for hanging things on!

One door was taller than the other so I had to cut it down with my banged up circular saw.  I did an alright job, not my best work, but it served.

Then I hinged the doors together.  This was easy to do but not easy to figure out.  I didn’t want to take the old hinges off because I like them but then I couldn’t use those sides of the doors for the new hinges and the hooks on the front of the one door made putting the hinges on so they wouldn’t be visible impossible.  So I just put them on the inside where they are all super shiny and ugly.  Who cares?  I might paint them later on.

I do have some wood that I plan to cut down and fashion into “feet” to stabilize the doors so that I can open them up all the way when I feel like it.  For now I’m fine just keeping the doors slightly bent.  I love them!

I spent (including the lumber I haven’t used yet) a total of $70.  I know a cork board is less than $30 but not nearly as cool as my old doors!