Sweet Sixteen: Needle, thread meets fabric. News at 11.

 

Thanks to one of my quilting friends, I got a little boost on this project... She invited me over to view her quilt, which was gorgeous. After admiring a bunch of her other quilts and discussing misc tips on the Sweet 16, she then generously loaned me her Laundry Basket Quilts stencils and all 16 block patterns already blown up to full-size!

I ended up using my iPad as a light box to trace the pattern onto the background - worked pretty well! Had to hit the quilt shops and resupply myself with appliqué needles and thread (...and a few new swatches of cloth)... And voilá! Needle and thread finally made it through some fabric. Sweet Sixteen has lost her virginity.

New Fabric & Old Letters...

 New Fabric...

 I say "recovering" fabric hoarder - and I'm pretty good generally, but I have my moments of weakness...


I bravely bought 4 yards of this great vintage postcard backing - probably going to use with the Christmas Twist kit I bought a few years ago... Also bought a couple more yards of the primitive gatherings background thinking it was a new, lighter color. NOPE. It's the same one I already have four yards of for the Sweet 16 quilt. arrrgh. so annoying. But it's a great color and I will be able to use this for my Jane's Addicted quilt or any number of others.

I'm always on the hunt for great shirtings... Shirtings often seem to have dark red, navy or black prints which make them too harsh a lot of times - you don't want high contrast in a background... you just want shirtings to chill - which these all do - love 'em. The stack above includes:

• Pam Buda's "Heart of the Prairie" shirtings #4996, #4994, etc. by Marcus Bros. These are so great with the mottled background, ivory tones and soft color prints. Keep it coming, Pam!
• Paula Barnes' "Bonnie Blue Basics" #3380 by Marcus Bros.
• Nancy Gere's "Women of Courage" #34107B by Windham
• Jo Morton's #5688 by Andover

picked up a few homespuns on clearance...

and a small set of batiks...

 ... and Old Letters

The photos below are of correspondence between Fred Jones and my grandmother, Telsa Edmunds. These are special not just because they're completely charming old letters, but his handwriting - both the script and the incredible 1920s style print - are just amazing. I suspect Mr. Jones must have been an artist of some kind. I hope he didn't waste that penmanship clerking like Bob Cratchett for some cold banker... Plus, you can tell he was sweet on her, although as it turned out, my grandfather won out in the end, not poor Mr. Jones.

Jones' father emigrated from Wales to America with Telsa's father (my great grandfather)... The senior Jones returned to Wales but my great grandfather stayed here - and the rest is history. I would L O V E to go to Wales and see the sights. My mom and dad, aunt and uncle have gone there and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

 

"THREE HALF PENCE"

St. Louis, MO - Jan 19 - 5:30pm - 1925

 

 

 

Edyta Sitar Meets Becky Sharp.

So... Sweet Sixteen phase II. I guess Phase I was that I acquired the kit, pattern, fabric, etc... Already traced and cut out most of the templates to freezer paper (wondering now if that was a wasted step...)

Phase TWO, I've decided, is that I have cut into fabric. Not only did I boldly cut out a 17x17" square of background fabric, but later that same day I also (still boldly) cut into a lovely green batik, and then a blue, and then a blue print -- and before you know it I was tearing into pinks and buying (ahem) more reds... I put my new "perfect circles" to the test and voila! a delightful little pile of perfect circles... If only this whole quilt was made of circles instead of a bunch of complicated pointy objects... Oh, I also enlarged the first block. Starting with #15. Ummm. I know this will be a dumb ? to applique-ers, but how are you supposed to enlarge those layout patterns? Setting the "copy" feature on my printer to 150% (which, btw, despite this being a pretty high tech printer, i have to manually hit the button on the screen 50x to get it up to 150 - it does not allow you to just enter the number. It holds your customized setting for a couple minutes only so if you're not quick about it, you have to hit it 50x (nee nee nee nee nee) each and every time you reposition the pattern to enlarge it - about 6x per block times 16 blocks. Calgon. Take me away! Kinkos? How is this accomplished? And then there's the pattern transfer. Light table? You can tell this is all new to me. I so co-fused.

While working on this I was watching Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon. I've seen other versions of the story, never read the book... Took me all those viewings though, and 'til the next morning to realize the Crawleys are creepy crawl-y, Stayne is a stain, and Miss Rebecca Sharp is sharp as a tack. Call me oblivious, but there it is. The production design was awesome - the vivid colors and Indian influences brought things around full circle with this beautiful project.

My little set up. Starch-in-a-cap, raw-cut
circles, my purple whoseywhatsit thingy, etc.

yoyo-ating around the disc.

Cinch it, starch it and press it.

Let it dry, then pry out the disc.

Push the mangled pleats back down and press.

fini.

a wee collection of circles and the perfect
circle discs on a handy ring.

Prep-a-Rama

Dear Jane Bee today... tried to get some prep work done ahead of time so I can just crank while I'm there... It was more of a challenge than I anticipated. I am not just in a muddle, I am a muddle. Ringing affirmative: I am Muddle. Hear me roar.




Also worked on prep for Edyta Sitar's "Sweet Sixteen." I had traced the appliqué patterns onto freezer paper a week or two ago and cut them all out yesterday. Between the tracing (with some duplicates) and the cutting out, it was a 3-4 hour project. Still need to enlarge the layout grid to 150% before I can do anything else. I must say that's a little annoying. I think a pattern should come with what you need - ready to go. But I'm new to appliqué so maybe this is standard. Anyway, felt good to get this done...  I don't really mind cutting small pieces out of things. Especially while watching EAT PRAY LOVE. <3 Smile also with your liver. <3 This photo doesn't do anything for this gorgeous stack of Edyta Sitar's gorgeous fabric. Did I mention it was gorgeous. The kit I bought, oddly, comes with different colors that what is listed on the back of the pattern (e.g., calls for 7 reds, but there are only 4, etc.) - so I'm not sure how you're supposed to interpret that. But I am just going to follow the colors as closely to the pattern example as possible since that looks so beautiful, and if that means I am F O R C E D to find some additional fabric well then, that's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make. I am trying in vain to find the blue border used here. I figured out it's from Edyta Sitar's Bon Voyage line but haven't gotten any closer than that. I decided it's the punch of that dark teal against the beige, punctuated with those deep pinks that really sings to me so I gotta find that somewhere.

Over and out til next time...

Sweet 16