Category Archives: Journey

Mid-year check-in

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Wow, can you believe it s already July? There’s not much I can say about the year. I am doing things I could never have predicted I’d be doing. I never thought I would be working from home while helping a middle school remote learner, and maintaining a household. I never thought I would be leaving the house no more than once a week. And when I do leave the house wearing a mask.

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I feel that this is the time to listen and educate myself. I am a foreigner in the US and I had a lot to learn about the importance of Black Lives Matter and the history / events that has lead to this point. What I learn will help me be a better manager in my day job, a better mother to my child as I pass on and help him understand, and a better person.

Anxiety has gotten the better of me, some weeks. As I mentioned before, anxiety has only been an issue for me the last 3 years. There are days where I think I am dying from some pain or symptom that I feel, and I have to keep telling myself that if I wake up in the morning it is just a panic attack. It’s ok.

I am finding balance though, even though it is something I have to work on. I have started to exercise (walking to start), focused on eating better, enjoyed cooking and baking for us, and using quilting as my stress reliever. For quilting not to be a stressor, I did have to change my self imposed expectations. I had timelines, a book and projects that must be done. I decided none of these mattered. I would just work on whatever I felt like. Surprisingly, I am feeling more creative at the moment, I procrastinate less and I am enjoying being behind my machine.  I feel I accomplished a lot so far this year.

  1. Completed quilts for Baby Gifts for my employees (Squircle, Lines Drawn)
  2. Finished 3 Charity Quilts which I plan to Auction off on Instagram.
  3. Finished up these WiPs ranging all the way back to 2016 – Q3 2019 (Study no. 3, Home, Map of Mannheim, Isolation)
  4. Finished a couple of new quilt tops (Covid Mash-up, Ford & Son)
  5. Worked on progressing other WiPs (Tree-Lined Streets (hand appliqué), Snow (redoing quilting with hand quilting), Art Deco Medallion (piecing the top))
  6. Then other smaller sewing projects which include my second ever piece of clothing I made and a bjillon masks for family and friends.

I am really pleased I finished 12 projects so far and made progress on the others. Many still need to be blogged about (I am always behind). I have no thoughts yet on the rest of the year so let’s see what happens the second half of this year.

I hope you all have found a way to survive 2020 and are doing well. Thank you for letting me share. I’d love to see your projects, especially your favorite one, so feel free to include a link below.

Isolation {a finish}

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Idea

Have you ever felt left out, or just on the outside of a group or even cast out? I assume most people at one time or another have felt like that. I have at various times, more than once. This quilt was originally designed based on that feeling of being on the “outs” from a group.

Design

I started the design with an idea of a group people being represented by 10 lines; 9 black (representing the group), 1 red (representing me or the person who was feeling left out). The other big decision I made was on the placement of the red line. Originally, I had the red line to the right but still in alignment with the group of black lines.

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In the end, I moved the red line down 50% and decided to emphasize the mis alignment.

Create

The piecing was relatively simple. I did stitch the Width of Fabric (WOF) black and white strips together before I cut them to size to make it easier and more precise. I used Robert Kaufman Kona cottons for the piece; White, Black and Ruby.

Backing is Moda Fabrics Chicken Wire print. I choose this as it fit the theme of being in prisoned or cordoned off.

Quilt

Since COVID-19 isolation, I have been looking at this unfinished quilt top, and it speaks to me now of self-quarantine and the distance from our friends and family. As a person with Asthma, considered to be in a riskier group (if I catch COVID-19 my symptoms may be more severe), I am realizing I might be here in quarantine for a couple more months.

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These feelings of being into quarantined introduced the idea of ripples and how things effect other elements. I decided to show this effect by using overlapping circular designs around the two groups. The top negative space is then finished with vertical lines and the bottom with horizontal lines, again showing different forces with the direction. All the quilting is 1/2″ lines.

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Finishing this quilt did lift a weight off my shoulders, I did not know needed to be lifted. It was great being able to express yourself through art. The feedback from the community and how people have related has been so wonderful. Thank you all.

Details

Name : Isolation
Design: Original Design
Fabric: Robert Kaufman Kona Cottons White, Black, and Ruby
Backing: Moda Fabrics, Chicken wire
Binding: Carolyn Friedlander, Carkai
Dimensions: 34 x 41 in.
Quilted: 1/2″ Circular & Straight line quilting using Aurifil #2021

 

On the angle {a finish}

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Just before Christmas, I made a couple of mini quilts as gifts. I have not shared those makes with you yet. One of those quilts was a striking black and white minimal quilt.

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Idea

This quilt was inspired based on a drain cover discovered on our family walk around the neighborhood. I loved the diagonal pattern of lines.

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Design

During the design phase I used those 45 degree lines in the top part of the design. In the drain you have this bar 1/2 way across the lines, giving it a broken line feel. For me, that translated into this break a a random angle with the lines then being distorted back the opposite angle. fullsizeoutput_13c6

Create

The creation was relatively simple, using PBS White solid and black fabric at 1″ unfinished, I stitched 16 pieces together. Making sure the angles were at a 45 degrees I then cut an angle that closely matched the design above. The remaining fabric, I removed the excess lines and added a much larger white section to the stripes for the lower negative space.  I lined up and pined where the lines best connected. Once pinned, I cut the fabric at the appropriate angle and stitched the two pieces together. It was both liberating and a little scary as I did not measure or carefully planned these connections. Luckily, it turned out as expected.

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Quilting

As this was a small piece, I kept the quilting design simple. I stitched about 1/8″ from exhaustion of the stitched lines (both sides of the line). I did not bind the quilt to finish, as the final piece was framed and ready to be hung.

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I swapped this gift for 6 ginger pear galettes from a local baker, Meg. The family loved them. So amazing (including the extra banana pecan bundt cake that was added)!!

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Details

Name : On the Angle
Design: Original Design
Fabric: Black & White Painters Palette Solids, Paintbrush studios
Dimensions: 12 x 14 in.
Quilted: Straight line quilting using Aurifil #2021