The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

The computer’s away and Jenny will play

I’m in computer hell this week and rather than try to “get something done”, I decided to roll with it. I really couldn’t do what I needed to do: record for an on-demand class, get my files and videos polished up for upcoming gigs and record more videos.

The memory on my laptop and desktop is shot. I have my tech guy help me with all of this and he’s had a lot going on in his life, so the whole timeline came to a halt for awhile. My new laptop is getting loaded and prepped; my desktop is next. It will need a new solid state drive and 4TB of external memory. Apparently I’ve been stupid in how I’ve been storing my videos so I will need to learn better housekeeping on that. In the meantime my desktop is doing annoying things like sometimes typing really s-l-o-w-l-y which makes for a difficult blog post.

Soooo, since I couldn’t do what I should have been doing, I played! And I got a lot of playing done this week:

First up, I took a local hike with my friend Donna. I’m not sure of the official name of the trail but it was the Salmon Falls Bridge area.

The weather was perfect for hiking and we were rewarded with some lovely vistas.

Hmmm, what’s that? It was an odd looking site.

Donna dubbed it “Cairn Hill”. There must have been 30 structures of various sizes and heights. I love to get outdoors and with such perfect weather and company, it was delightful.

This was an experiment – I was trying several things at once: I wanted to do a more freeform cutwork piece. Previous versions were more formal like “Back Story” (scroll down to see that here).I’d hoarded an interesting piece of hand dyed fabric for about a decade – it was time to use it. Unfortunately, I loaded it back facing so it wasn’t showing its beautiful vibrant color. I also wanted to play with some rulers from my friend, Iris White from Taiwan.

The rulers are very well designed, multiple templates in one and super easy to grip. Those Fu-Mei scissors are the bomb!

We were FB friends and met in person at Houston 2019. Iris brought some fabulous rulers she designed with her and gifted them to me! I have played with them a bit but hadn’t explored all their variety. The ovals on the outer edge were formed with her rulers.

She recently sent some scissors to me also and I was dying to try them out on a real project. Oh my – I don’t have a better pair of scissors than these! It’s hard to explain – they just feel fabulous in the hand and cut fabric with no effort. An excellent pair of scissors makes my heart sing!

“Bad” tension is a good thing if you want to rip something out.

In the end though, I did not like the way the project was going, so I ripped out my stitching and will save that fabric for another use. I do want to continue with this idea of cutwork + ruler work + beautiful color and, anything that lets me use those scissors!

Note that my tension was off – the bobbin was too tight. I did this deliberately. I knew that this project might not work and even if it did, I would layer it over batting and backing so those stitches would not show. I knew with the tension off like that it would be super easy to rip out. I finished in 30 min!

Stitching done, no cutting yet. I use Terial Magic to stiffen the fabric.

I also made another cutwork scarf, as I needed another class sample. I also wanted to try leaving A LOT of air space between the quilting. I knew this would make the scarf super drapey, perhaps even too much so.

There is a ton of air space in there, maybe even 50%?

Once washed, this super drapey rayon batik with lots of air space shrunk down to about 4 cups of fabric. That was because of the cutwork, not actual fabric shrink. It did take a little patience to iron it flat but my LAURASTAR conquered it easily.

It is divine to wear one of these!

SHAMELESS PROMOTION: I’m teaching cutwork as a 3-hour class to create a table topper on Th, Feb 25th at Mancuso’s Online Quilt Festival. This technique is so versatile – I’ll show you all kinds of clever ways to use this in class. Class sample:

I also pulled this UFO out of the heap, made a few more blocks, then sashed them together.

This is the Feathers pattern that I started 2 years ago. It’s adorable and I decided I may never finish the larger quilt. I opted to do a wall hanging instead. I think I may have to add some applique to a border maybe? My colors are not as vibrant as the photo shows. I love the soft, subdued look of this quilt.

And, I’m amassing supplies to work up one of Catherine Redford’s butterflies from her book:

Her designs are adorable and I’ve got a ton of wool in my stash. I sent off for some hand dyed thread to work with. I think this will be fun!

See what happens when I get off the computer? I will pay for it though. I pretty much need to be tied to the computer as soon as I get my laptop back, hopefully today. Don’t be surprised if these projects go fallow for a bit!

I’ll be linking up:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
and
Finished or Not Friday

 

Comments

  1. I still have the cutwork piece that I made in your class you gave to our guild in San Diego – such fun to make!

    Sorry to her about your computer – hope you get it back soon.

    Thanks for your post – it’s always fun to see what new thing you are doing next! – Peggy Martin

  4. Jenny, I had started a cutwork piece a couple years ago after seeing your QA segment. It’s been sitting in my sewing area waiting to be finished. I’ll check out that class. I’d love to finish it! Thanks for the inspiration.

    • Ah thank you Karen! I don’t do computerized quilting at all. I admire it but don’t do it. The whole cutwork thing is so forgiving that it’s a fun and low stress kind of project.

      • Thank you Margaret! Never occurred to me. I don’t think baby will have his own space for awhile though, they’re in a small one bedroom. It just might have to wait for awhile.

    • It seems to be calling out for applique, something I don’t normally do. I think I will gear up for that.