Harvest Season

It's been a month since I've checked in here, and I miss my blogging friends and readers.
But my posts are going to be few between now and May 1, 2013, which is my deadline for a top secret project that I have been sewing madly for since last January. It is hard not to share what I've been doing, but I hope you feel it will be worth the wait.
There are some big surprises in store!!!!

Meanwhile....
There has been a whole lot of gardening going on by my Food Supplier in Chief Robert, and harvest season is upon us....

The deal is, he grows it and I process it.  Pear sauce and tomato sauce have been cranked out in mass quantities, with more to come...

I don't add a thing to this sauce, and I don't peel those tomatoes, either!  They are simply terrific as is off the vine.

Thankfully, once the onions are cured we just store them in the basement.  It was a banner year for the onions!

Same goes for the winter squash.  For some reason (a pre-natal tendency is my opinion), my husband is compulsive about growing all sorts of winter squash: Delicata, Carnival, Ambercup, Marina de Chiogga.  We will be eating off these til next summer. (Shown is a fraction of the harvest, believe me.)

The potatoes are all stashed away downstairs...

But we are still waiting on the Bosc pears...

This is only a part of the tree...I'm amazed at how great a crop we have, considering the weather is so lousy while the trees flower in the spring, and the bees are down in numbers...These will go into the chutney, along with all those peppers we also have coming ripe.  I'd like to try drying some, too.

And after planting some Asian pear trees 18 years ago....we have our first decently sized crop of them.  They are incredible...and it's nice to know we didn't completely waste our time with those trees!
Here's Robert filling a bucket for us...

There are also some out-of-it apple trees that we don't harvest...but our neighbors here are waiting for me to chuck some windfalls over the fence.


That big cow with the horns gets first dibs on everything, that is for sure!


I will check back in with reports of some upcoming travels....off to Columbia, MO next week, and then Wichita, Kansas for the Victorian Stitchery Retreat in November (there are still openings in the classes by me, Judith Montano, and Candace Kling, so contact Valerie Bothell if you can come.)

But....a few more moons will pass before I can blog about my studio work....here is a little glimpse though...can you find the Big Dipper?

Happy Harvest to you all!

"Pretty Crazy" Class Sample Embroidered

I am home from my trip and my travel preparations of my 4 block class sample paid off...not a single bit of fraying occurred, my blocks stayed nicely sewn together, all was well for the embroidery.

I kept the stitching simple, as this is a sample for the Essential Crazy Quilt Stitches classes that I will be teaching in the next several months.  And you know what?  Sometimes, simple is great!  There is no "bling" on this project, just stitching like in the old days....of course, they didn't have the beautiful hand dyed variegated threads from all over the world to play with like we do....

What was also fun about this project was combining such disparate fabrics: feedsacks, 30's repros, silk brocade, quilters cotton...and of course, the various trims added so much to the mix.
And that is what crazy quilting is all about, for me...the mix.....

Preparing a CQ Project for Embroidery on the Road

Yes, it has been a traveling summer with more ahead!
I thought I'd quickly share how I prepare a 4 block, 18" X 18" crazy quilt project for a rough and tumble life being folded and unfolded, pulled in and out of a backpack, balanced on the fold down tray tables of airplanes, whisked aside in hotel rooms etc. 

It boils down to two things: interfacing and finishing those edges.

Immediately after trimming my blocks to square I sewed them together.  Then I pressed open the seams and interfaced the back.  Sometimes I interface the blocks individually first instead; sometimes I even  interface the muslin before piecing.  But this time I wanted those seam allowances nailed down, so to speak.

The only downside is the seam allowances make a little indentation as seen from the front...but that will loosen up as the block is worked, so I am not worried about it.

After the interfacing went on, I ran an overcast stitch with my machine around the perimeter of the piece.

Especially with that ravel-ish fabric like the woven brocade in the corner, you MUST stabilize the edge or it will shred on you.   Not good!

Here is the whole thing:

Cheerful, isn't it?  ;-)  All protected and ready to go.

This is a class sample for my Pretty Crazy class I'll be teaching in Columbia, MO this coming October.  It is based on my pattern that you can buy here.  (It is in the top row, second from the left.)

As I'll be teaching Essential Embroidery for Crazy Quilts also, I'll be adding that to this piece during my upcoming travels.  That will be very fun and I am looking forward to it.
I'll show you how it looks when I get back... ;-)

Checking In

Hello and thank you for stopping by!
I have not been posting much this summer so I've missed you.  It's been busy and productive with visitors and travel and there is still more of that to come before this fleeting summer ends.

But I wanted you to know I am thinking of you and will post again pretty soon...
xoxox  Allie

Summer Gardening and Sewing

This summer took a heck of a long time to get here.  While the rest of my friends were scorched through June and July, here in the Portland area it has been almost uniformly cool and rainy.  But since the 4th of July we have had some sun mixed in with the clouds at least!

And that means gardening around here.
My husband does almost all of it...I just take care of a few flowers here and there.
Have a look!

This front border is kind of wacky, as the plants are the wrong heights in the wrong places...but the colors are nice!

The dogwood in front has gotten so big since we moved here 20 years ago that I have a lot of shady places to fill...

Little blasts of hot color are nice in the shade.

But the real action this year is out in Robert's garden...

Here are the wildflowers, potatoes, and squash.  The potatoes are insanely good eating this year.

Here is part of his Tomato Plantation...the indeterminate varieties make long vines that he carefully suspends and supports.  This system took years to evolve but this year he has got it down.

The Sungold cherry tomatoes are almost ready....

This bed of brassicas--cauliflower and broccoli--is about done, the cauliflower all harvested and the broccoli flowering...it got away from us before we could harvest it all.  I love its yellow flowers, though.

This is the Fig Plantation.  Robert took cuttings off of our neighbor's fig tree this spring, and has nurtured those little sticks into the baby trees you see here.  It's been a whole lot of work...but he loves fresh figs.

He EVEN is talking about rebuilding our funky greenhouse--which I have been encouraging him to do for years--so that those figs will have a full time place to live in the winter....

I have mostly been sewing instead of gardening...and very happy at it too.

The only problem is, I can't blog about any of it.
This makes me sad...  ;-(  .....but it is for a nice reason.  So you won't be seeing too much of my current work here for awhile.
I of course will keep my teaching and workshop pages current just under my header up at the top of the blog.

Thanks for stopping by....and Happy Summer!

Easiest CQ Finish Ever...Herringbone Hearts

I finally got to finish this quilt!
I was most eager to see how that 38mm silk ribbon done in the herringbone around the perimeter of the quilt was going to look, acting as a visual "binding".  I mean, it is there where the binding should be, isn't really binding at all, but suggests it.

Because this quilt:
a) is not for competition
b) has no weighty embellishments on it
c) used a woven "batting"
d) is for the wall, so is therefore not functional
I chose to use a very simple finishing technique on it that went super fast.

Here are the steps I took to do it.....

This is the back of the quilt top.  You will notice the blocks have been interfaced before I embroidered them.  The silk edge fabric I used for those big honking ribbon stitches was interfaced too.

My "batting", which is actually cotton drapery lining, much like flannel only spongier with a looser weave, is draped over the quilt top.
I love this stuff for crazy quilts and use it all the time.  It is flat not puffy, and the weave gives a nice internal structural support to the quilt.  It is cheap and easy to work with too.  I get it at Fabric Depot in Portland.

For the backing I used some positively lovely shirting fabric that I got for $8/yard at a men's ties outlet store.  This is very, very smooth and finely woven cotton.  I pinned it all together with just a few safety pins.

You can see where I am going with this!  After the drapery lining was cut to size (to reach just to the edge of the brown ribbon herringbone stitching), I ironed the shirting fabric over the edge of the batting.
I folded the extra silk fabric beyond the stitching to the inside of the top.

Then I whipstitched the folded edges together.

On the back, I just sewed four buttons to keep the layers together, located at the four corners of the center block.  Here you can see that my button stitching is "in the ditch", through to the front at the intersection of the corners, and hence won't show.

Poking the needle back through to the back here.
Just four buttons, I told you this was fast!
I put a sleeve on it too...

Now the front edge looks like this:

It definitely has an unusual look to it!

I like it.  ;-)
And I am glad to cross this project off my "to do" list.

I'll be teaching this block at Road to California next January.  Registration begins July 8th!