The DMC Crazy Quilt Commission--Part 1

DMC has commissioned me to make a small crazy quilt commemorating the trip to France that I won in their recent Stitching Memory contest.  It is to be about my memories and impressions from the trip...and
what a pleasure this project is already!

When I was in Houston I found some perfect reproduction French border fabric at Lancaster Traditional Fabric's booth.  (If you love unusual repro fabrics check out their site.  Their booth was awesome.)

I laid out the border fabric to gauge the size the center would be.  There is the famous DMC horse, (the picture taken at the factory in Mulhouse, France) which will be printed on fabric and put in the place of honor in the center.

Next I created the background piecing for that center space.

The blues say "France" to me, and will contrast nicely with the border.
Once they were pinned, I sewed them all down.

It was such a pleasure to use a variety of DMC's threads to lay down my seam treatments.

It's been too long since I did work like this!!!!

So now the background is finished and I am ready to add the next layer.

It is going to look very different!

A project from my first book, the "Sister's Scrapbook Page", will give you an indication of where this is headed....

My sister is going to be in this one, too!

More soon.....

530 Buttons Later....

This step in finishing my "Go Crazy" quilt took a wee bit longer than I thought it would!

First I had to source the backing fabric, which I found at the Pendelton outlet store in my home town of Washougal, WA., a beautiful orangey-red melton wool for $5.95/yard.

Then I had to find some buttons for the back. I planned on sewing my yellow pearl buttons on the front, while securing them to the back of the quilt with a mix of multi-colored 2 hole buttons.  I found those in an antique store in my nearby town of Camas, WA called A Twist on Time.

I love my Pendleton store.

They have beautiful clothes at a serious discount, 2 miles from my house.  I rarely shop anywhere else.  They also have a nifty selection of woolen fabrics, woven on site there at the mill, that for some indiscernible reason are deemed "seconds" so are very cheap.

Beautiful woolens, the selection always changing at the Pendleton store. 

And great buttons at A Twist on Time in Camas.  The owner, Belle, let me dig through the bin and pick out just the 2 hole buttons I wanted, which was very gracious and helpful of her!  A baggie of all I needed cost me $4.00.

So then I got to work....

I used the intersections of the blocks to space the larger buttons, and a ruler to find the center of the black diagonal shapes for the smaller buttons.  I sewed the yellow ones to the colored ones, front to back, and then hid the knots.  I did this 265 times...   ;-)

These buttons' function is not only decorative, but also to hold the quilt together quite securely, so no quilting is needed.

Here is the quilt pinned up on my design wall.  It measures about 62" X 62".

I am very tickled by how the back turned out, I must admit.

I have fantasies of some future grandchild toddler sitting on this quilt and carefully exploring all the different colored buttons on the back...

The final question of course is how to handle the binding.  I've thought of lots of ideas, and will settle on one so that I can have this finished by New Year's...I hope!

New Project

After spending the winter months experimenting and doing many small projects, I decided it was time to work on a larger scale and in a longer time frame...
Plus, I miss working on a large crazy quilt...
So here goes on a project inspired by my Home in the Garden "warm-up". (And thank you, everyone, for your very nice comments on that!)
As usual, I have lots of amorphous ideas and a general thrust for the design, but most of it will happen as I go. I hope to be done with this by the end of July. That's the goal anyway!

At the moment, this is 50" X 50", but it will shrink to about 42" X 42".
So off we go!

Fan Seam Treatments

Happy Easter, Everyone!
My husband is off flying (he's a pilot, for those of you who don't know). He has missed almost each and every holiday for the last 15 years. And of course he is missing this one too. But hopefully this will be the last year of all that, and he can retire soon. Gosh it will be such a blessing to have him home on Easter, and the 4th of July, and Labor Day, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas....
I tell him it is a good thing I love my needlework so much; it really has gotten me through sometimes!

So, to the fans.
Or more accurately, to that new camera. I have studied the manual but I think the best way to get a feel for it is the way my son Max, computer genius that he is, began learning all those Microsoft programs at age 9. Just start clicking everything and see what happens. That kid was so incredibly fluent in Word, Excel, all of it....way before he could compose a cogent sentence. I would watch his fingers fly across his keyboard in a blur and say, "I sure wish you could play the piano keyboard like you can play this one!" But I digress..
I plan on just using all the different settings and options on this strange new beast, firing away, until I can start to get a feel for my new camera.
I will say, with it set on Fine image/10 megapixel, the image (when I can get it in focus) is downright scary it is so detailed.

Putting that Knotted Cretan stitch to work in evil rayon...thank you, Take A Stitch Tuesday!

Sometimes I just have to keep adding stuff until it works....!

"H"...Sewn On

Thank you so much for your sweet comments about the slide show....!!!

Well, as carefully as I could with respect to keeping everything straight, square, and properly centered, I finished attaching the center block with my "H" in it to the Fan Quilt. I am so happy with the results...it looks to me like it was truly meant to be there all along.

H himself would love this!

Black Fan Seam Treatments

Using some more of the goodies that Freda sent me, I created a couple of black fan-like seam treatments on the Fan Quilt. I am starting to think that the more fans there are the better!

Those little black beads are pretty old...they would make such great ant bodies....

The black chain stitches look a little like eyelashes here!

Take A Stitch Tuesday...Knotted Cretan

This should catch me up on the TASTs I have missed. I've used the knotted cretan stitch as yet another base for a seam treatment on my Fan Quilt.

I like these knotted stitches; they are so satisfying somehow.....

Take A Stitch Tuesday...Up and Down Buttonhole

Another quick TAST exercise, this time trying out the up and down buttonhole stitch. Again, I used the featured stitch of the week as the base of two seam treatments on my Fan Quilt.

The up and down buttonhole has two interior fly stitches, using cotton floss, silk buttonhole twist, and unspun silk.

Same thing here...this time I used bamboo floss, silk buttonhole twist, and rayon thread, hoping for just a hint of contrast visually. I hate rushing through TAST...but it's even worse to be behind!

Take A Stitch Tuesday...Barred Chain

I am having to multi-task here, combining my TAST with ongoing work on my Fan Quilt. I have created a seam treatment with the barred chain as its base.
This is not "pushing the envelope" with what this stitch can do, which is the goal of TAST. But it is getting the barred chain moving through my fingers at least.

Those infinitely cool little buttons came to me in the mail from my generous friend, Freda Butler. They are vintage, from Czechoslovakia. Thank you so much, Freda!

I am finding that on this quilt I am wanting to repeat seam treatments around the center section. I think it is a unifying element....so here is another version of the barred chain, sequins, beads, and awesome buttons. They are so odd!

Gilding the Lily and Frosting the Cake

My friend Kathy from Out of the Basement used that phrase to describe what I am doing at this point on the Fan Quilt, and I'd say that is quite apt!
Another analogy is that the quilt is just getting more finely focused as it gets filled in...but I like the frosting better........


The chenille and ribbon trim which I augmented a little bit on the right is not supposed to stand out...but, oh look who showed up below it, more little fan like creatures! ...I tried to tie in their colors to that veiney fabric below them...helps move the eye and integrate these very disparate color schemes I have going in this quilt.



More fans! Oh boy, I love 'em...and that stitching below them is Detail #1 from the 100 Details in 100 Days, way last June. Ah, fond memories....weren't those Details the greatest?

Fan Quilt Progress

It may be a little hard to see the additions with an overall view like this.
I'm adding my initial seam treatments in batches...I've realized that I need to repeat the embellishments by using them around this center section. So I have squiggles and fans etc that will balance each other out as the eye moves around the quilt.
As I go along I expect things to get progressively more complex, and that this is just early days still. But I have gotten a feel for how the work should flow....finally!

So here are some primary squiggles and a little lace...



That fan thing again...sort of...



And sometimes I find I don't want to emphasize the line, so I use colors that blend in rather than stand out...

I am trying so hard not to go too heavy on the beads. I really want the stitching to predominate. I wonder how long I'll be able to hold out!