Quilt Fabric Closeouts--Review

         
          Since a package arrived in the mail today from an excellent online vendor, it is about time that I do a review of this  awesome establishment. I have been shopping there for a couple years and have always been satisfied with the merchandise and the customer service.

          Quilt Fabric Closeouts is a relatively new company based in Massachusetts. I placed an order very late Sunday evening online. It arrived at my doorstep in California by Wednesday. That gives you an idea of how fast Sarah, the proprietor, gets her orders out to her customers. They always arrive wrapped tightly in a clear protective bag, which is generally mailed inside a USPS Priority Mail bag or box, depending on the size of the order. Sarah’s shipping prices are very fair, and she doesn’t charge an additional handling fee.

          Sarah occasionally rewards her loyal customers with special discount codes that can be used on their next order.

          Now for the fabrics:



         Quilt Fabric Closeouts carries most of the brands that you would find in a higher end dedicated quilt shop: Hoffman, Timeless Treasures, In The Beginning, Marcus Brothers, Benartex, Fabri-Quilt, P & B Textiles, Henry Glass, and Studio E Fabrics, to name a few. Everything Sarah carries is first quality, with the exception of the recently added lines of Marshall Dry Goods fabrics which tend to be thinner and of a lesser print quality. Her prices are generally around $6.00 per yard, with some both in the lower and higher ranges. Fabric can be bought in half-yard cuts or larger.

          Stop by and check them out.

http://www.quiltfabriccloseouts.com/

Vivid Imagination Quilt

 

          With my eyes and fingers being understandably tired and sore from hand piecing my cube lattice blocks as of late, I decided to change up for a bit and do some machine quilting on this big creation:

          At least until my shoulders get sore.

          That’s one of the reasons I keep several projects going at once. When one part of my body gets tired, I move on to something else that requires the use of different muscles and senses. That way, I can keep on playing.

Hand Piecing Tiny Inset Seams

 

          This is what the cube lattice block looks like with about half of the piecing done. The task of stitching it together is both meticulous and soothing to me. Meticulous because of how exact every seam and corner must be; soothing because I am only working with four fabrics and I don’t have to make any design decisions.

          The corner lattice units are made first. Two parallelograms are stitched together, stopping a quarter inch short where the inside corner of the square fits in.

          With most hand pieced projects, I mark off the stitching line with disappearing ink. It takes a bit longer but takes much of the frustration of maintaining a straight seam and making sure the pieces meet up properly.

          After the two parallelograms are stitched together, I have found it much easier to get a sharp and perfectly matched corner if I begin my seam at the inside corner of the square, then stitch outward. Once that is done, I begin again at the same corner and stitch the other side of the 90 degree angle. If the pieces are much bigger it is possible to do this by machine, but I rarely do.

          Once my inset seam is the way I want it, I press the entire unit. The seams can be pressed either toward the square or away from it. I like the square to look as if it is standing out a bit, so I have been pressing the seams toward the square. Be sure and press after each seam. It saves many mistakes in the long run.

Rainy Day Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cube Lattice Blocks

 

          It’s amazing what turns up when I am looking for something else. Case in point: While I was out in my garage looking for goodness knows what, I found my flashlight. I also found some hand-pieced quilt blocks that I had temporarily set aside until I acquired enough patience and skill to forge on with the task. They had been completely forgotten. But there they were, neatly organized in a pizza box with all of the remaining fabric thoughtfully enclosed.

 

          The blocks are a traditional optical illusion pattern that I found on Quilter’s Cache called Cube Lattice.There are 10 pieces in each block that require inset seams. I believe I decreased the overall size of the block to 8 X 8 inches, which forced me to meticulously hand sew every tight and tiny seam. What was I thinking?

         This is a close-up of one block. I have decided to make only nine of them. I have been taking them with me to work and stitching a seam or two during lunch. It is amazing how much does get done that way. Interestingly enough, the blocks don’t seem quite so difficult now.

 

Still Auditioning Settings

 

I am still fiddling around with the settings and borders for these blocks. Please chime in if you have a favorite or a suggestion. I am not thrilled with any of them.

Ice Kachang

          Last time I posted my progress on this quilt, I was still undecided on a name. Then as good friends do, Barb said that it reminded her of ice cream or sherbet. Bazinga! I immediately had a name.


          Most of you probably don’t know that I lived in Singapore for a year when I was a teenager. My father was an accountant for an oil servicing company, and my mother was a language teacher. So, off we went.
          Needless to say, I was somewhat reluctantly immersed into the rich mixture of cultures—Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, and Japanese, as well as a dash of the Australian and British cultures brought overseas by ex-pats who called Singapore home. The arts, I embraced. Much of the food was full of heavenly spices and new ingredients--curry puffs, won ton soup, the British steak and kidney pie—not to mention the fresh pineapple and coconuts. There were occasional dishes that I avoided, like stir fries with tiny baby octopi and dried fish that had been hanging in the open air markets for months. My friend tried a bit of an infamous Chinese hundred year old egg, but I declined.
          Other dishes made me marvel at their beauty. Some I sampled with delight. Others looked beautiful like the pastel cakes in the bakery windows. However, when tasted, they had a surprising lack of sugar that we, as Westerners, expect in our desserts.
          One dish was an curious mixture of textures and colors. Ice Kachang is a small mountain of shaved ice served on a dish with colorful syrups drizzled over the top. Sometimes small cubes of slightly sweetened Jell-O are also added. But unlike our Western snow cones, ice kachang is also sprinkled with cooked vegetables like corn kernels and beans. After all, kachang means bean in the Malaysian language.
          I can honestly say that I never went as far as tasting one of those concoctions. But that didn’t keep me from associating them with my fond memories of a country half a world away. My ice kachang quilt will be a sweet reminder.


Ice Kachang - A Local Dessert

On the Road to Mineral King

          For many years an elderly friend of mine spoke often of the beauty and serenity of Three Rivers, California. When life became stressful and she felt a need to meditate and realign with her beloved Higher Power, she would make a solitary journey to what was most likely her heaven on earth and revel in it's glory for a day or two.
          Long after my dear friend had gone to meet her Heavenly Father, I never forgot her mentions of Three Rivers. I looked on the map and found it to be at the southern end of Sequoia National Park in Central California. This would be no surprise to those of you who follow my blog from Visalia. You have had this beautiful gem in your backyard since almost the beginning of time.
          By 2003, I was ready to go exploring. I was stressed, wanting to watercolor, and the owner of a new car.
          Three Rivers definitely did not disappoint. It was truly an artist’s haven. The only problem, though, was that I heard something big snorting around the base of my rented cabin the first night. Being a seasoned camper who has spent many a vacations in a tent, I still felt fairly secure in my warm bed.
          The next morning I asked the groundskeeper if there were bears about. She nodded and smiled. A co-worker of hers at a nearby motel recently had an unexpected meet-up with a bear when he went to dispose of the trash. Fortunately, the bear was just as surprised as he: It ran one way, and the worker, the other.
          That got me to thinking that I might need to give up my plans to sit on a rock and watercolor to my heart’s content for hours on end. Then when I spotted bear droppings just a few hundred feet from my cabin, I was convinced.
          Fortunately, I had brought my camera along. I decided to jump in my car, meander along the local curving mountain roads, and grab some snapshots that I could later translate into watercolors in the safety of my own home.



          Although that November day was drizzling and cold, the autumn leaves stood out like shards of fire. I turned onto a steep winding road that promised to end at Mineral King. The scenery was gorgeous, so I stopped every mile or so and took many pictures with my trusty 35mm Minolta. When I reached Kaweah Bridge, my senses were literally blown away by its impossible architecture and the severity of the rocky canyon that it miraculously spanned.


 
        I never did make it to Mineral King Valley. According to Wikipedia, it is a 25 mile winding drive that takes about 90 minutes to traverse. After an hour or so and only seven miles into the trip, I decided to turn around and head back to Three Rivers. I had what I thought to be a treasure trove of snapshots, and I wasn’t really believing that Mineral King Road was ever going to arrive at its destination.
          The photos definitely turned out to be ones that I could use as both a reference and inspiration to do art work. The interesting thing, however, was at that point in my life I had already started on another journey from water coloring to quilting. I was only at the beginning stages of learning to piece blocks but knew that someday I would possibly be able to translate some of the photographic images into art quilts. With no particular timeline in mind, I just began quietly collecting supplies—vibrant batiks, fabric paints, and spools of thread. Occasionally I would glance at my Mineral King stash and ponder how it would all ultimately come together. Yet something just seemed to be missing in regards to recreating the scene of the autumn tree by the side of the road.
 
         
Then I found this. The last lonely piece at the end of a bolt.



          I am normally not a fan of Indian batiks, but this one was of a higher quality fabric, and certainly, quite artful. As I pressed it today and thought about its future, it brought back all of the lovely memories of my friend who had urged me toward Three Rivers in the first place.
          I am still not exactly sure where I am going with this composition nor when it will be finished. I will just entrust my muses to carry my imagination where it needs to go.
          After all, it’s a long road to Mineral King.

Facings and Sleeves

 

          If I didn’t know better, I would think from the title of my post that I was back to making garments—something I began doing when I was about six years old. Did anyone else make clothing for Barbie dolls and trolls? I sure did. I didn’t care so much for the dolls but they did make great models for my creations. I even sold one of my Barbie skirts when a little friend thought it would look better on her doll than mine. It probably did.

          Well, back to the facings and sleeves. I have decided to face my art quilt and have been busy readying the fabric strips. I thought that I might as well do the sleeve at the same time. I am still not sure about what kind of label I want to make.

           My gardener is due in about a half hour to make sure we are in agreement about which trees need to be pruned. As soon as he leaves (no pun intended), I will get busy with squaring and trimming the quilt in preparation for the facings.

           My gardener has all kinds of tree trimming in his future. More about that later.

Feeling Better: My First Real Meal

          Sorry I have been absent for a bit. On Tuesday, I suddenly came down with the nasty stomach flu that is going around. That put me out of commission for awhile. Too much of a headache to even look at a computer screen—let alone a quilt. I am feeling much better today and had some real food for dinner: Chinese soup and fried rice. That always tastes so good when I am ill.

Winter Garden

 

          Stuff happens when you are not paying attention. While I have been quilting, my garden has been growing.

Winter Garden 2012-2013 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

To the Rescue: Sewing Supply Warehouse!

          Living in a city with two dedicated quilt shops and three craft stores that cater primarily to quilters and seamstresses, you would think that there would be no problem finding enough thread. Not. As I was just about to finish my free motion quilting the other day, I ran out of lavender Mettler Poly Sheen thread. I went to the only place here in town that sells it, and they were completely out of that. No buttercup thread, either. They could not tell me when their next order would arrive.

          My only option at that point was to hit the Internet. I found a place online that not only had the brand and colors I needed, but also carried them in larger quantities. Sewing Supply Warehouse also carries large cones of an identical thread called Isacord that conveniently is categorized under the same color names and numbers as the Mettler Poly Sheen. Talk about convenient! Their prices are very competitive as well.

          Since the business is in Port Charlotte, FL and I had placed my order late on New Years Day, I didn't have high hopes of receiving the merchandise any time soon. Wrong! It is already here, and in perfect order. I was especially thrilled with the jade thread. It is a beauty.

 

I will definitely be doing business with these folks again.

Taming Loose Threads On A Competition Quilt

          Have you ever been to a quilt show and a beautiful quilt caught your eye? You move in a little closer to get a better look. Oops! Too close. Now you see loose, dangling, unsightly threads.

         Several years ago, I attended a quilt show, which was sponsored by a medium-sized guild here in California. I will never forget a stately, glimmering quilt that had obviously been finished at the last minute. Although the choice of fabrics and the piecing was exquisite, the maker had left some very long loops of thread on the face of her quilt, right at eye level to most viewers. Since the competition wasn't particularly stiff, the judge had rightly awarded the quilt a ribbon. What I didn't understand, however, was why the quiltmaker's guild pals hadn't called her on the phone, congratulated her, and asked her to run down to the show with a tiny pair of scissors and touch her quilt up.

          Okay, I'm compulsive. But I also know what can make or break a quilt at a competition. So I just thought I would pass along a few tips to give you a little advantage.

          This is the back of my current soon to be finished work in progress. Notice the rat's nest of threads that has built up. Sometimes, I have to stop several times through the quilting process and clean things up just to be able to move on. This quilt wasn't too bad in that respect since there were lots and lots of places where I could quilt without stopping and cutting or changing the thread.

          Sorry the pictures are a little blurred in some places. The quilting makes this project very dimensional and difficult to photograph.
 

 

          The first tip is to try not to end a line of stitching out in the middle of nowhere. Try to wedge it in a seam, a ditch, or go full circle and retrace the first several stitches you made. I slow way down at that point and even try to get my stitches to match exactly, setting the needles down manually in the previous holes made by the needle. Besides looking more finished, this will provide a little insurance that your stitching does not unravel easily. This is particularly true if you are sewing with synthetic threads. They have an annoying habit of wanting to pop up.

 

 

          The next thing I am going to tell you to do is something that is not one of my favorite quilting activities, but the results are certainly worth it. I thread all those loose ends through a large-eyed needle and run the thread into the batting for several inches. If there is any thread left dangling from the needle when I bring it back up, I carefully snip it off right where it exited the quilt. Depending on the quilt, it can be easier going from the front or the back. On this particular quilt of mine, there is a lot of fusible applique on the front, and therefore, it is easier to gently pull the thread tails to the back and then tuck from there. I am still going to have to catch a few stray ones on the front.

 

          The most "painless" way to do this is put a movie on the TV, prop your feet up, and tuck threads. It really helps.

  

          This is the cleaned up version with all the threads nicely tucked and tamed. If you have any threads still threatening to escape, you can always put the tiniest dot of Fray Check on it to keep it from unraveling. Do this with a toothpick rather than with the applicator tip. Tips have been known to come off or drizzle too much liquid, and ultimately, spoil a project.

          Happy tucking!