Month: November 2022

New Fabric and Lobster Pots

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Cuts of Fabric

Yesterday my neighbourhood sewing/fabric shop was holding a 50% sale – how could I resist? I went in early to pick up a few notions I knew were there, but the shop was full of women buying fabric, so I left. I returned around 3:00 to see if there was anything left that might be interesting – not really thinking about buying fabric but the black “William Morris” like fabric caught my eye and I started looking for bolts to complement that fabric. This is the pallet I came up with. When I got home I pulled the beige with cranberry dots from my stash to add to the collection.

Now the question is – what do I do with this? Some kind of drunkard’s path assembly? Is seven fabrics enough to do that – I’ll have to see what I can come up with.

Saturday, the day before, I joined a couple of friends on their annual excursion up the eastern shore Christmas Craft excursion. We made a bunch of stops. We saw lots of well executed woodwork, pottery, sewing, quilting, jewellery, painting. The arts community is alive and well in that part of the province! I didn’t buy anything – I don’t bother with Christmas shopping, nobody needs anything.

Lobster Pots

It was tricky finding a reasonable location to get a photo of this row of old lobster pots without the cars, or the road, or the house. A bit of cropping and editing – this is the best I could come up with.

Socks

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This was an interesting yarn to work with – no repeats – just two complete socks in the ball. The break was identified by a length of white yarn separating the two socks – which I missed at first and thought it was where the second sock started! I got several inches into the second sock before I realized I hadn’t found the “beginning” of the second. I unravelled what I’d done and started the second sock to match the first.

I have another ball of that yarn in another colour. I’ll use it after I’ve finished the pair I’m working on at the moment. These were fun to work on since I had no idea how they were going to turn out. My colour placement was quite different than the image on the yarn wrapper. The yarn – Lang Twin Soxx.

Convergence 4 – Completed

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Quilt Front
Quilt Back
Quilting Detail

I finally finished the quilt yesterday. It’s taken days to decide what to do within the narrow turquoise border. It was just a tad too wide to leave unquilted but too narrow to mirror the quilt block embroidery. I finally set up a half block I thought would work and got it done. Adding the hidden binding took little time (including the mitred corners). I hand stitched it down last night.

With the two previous Convergence quilts in my collection I will have three possible quilts to show together next summer. I may not use all of them, that depends on what I manage to create between now and then.

I’m happy with the appliqué work – the edge stitching is barely noticeable, you have to look very closely to see it. I like how it extends the bright colours to the the bottom right of the quilt without hitting you in the face, leaving the upper right corner the unadorned turquoise.

Appliqué Detail

I’m also pleased that my extending the square into a rectangle worked. I might play with that again sometime.

Now onto a bunch of unfinished projects sitting in my studio needing attention. First the fleece pants for my friend Joan; next the Kantha jacket remodelling for my friend Marlene, third the stack of six unfinished zippered bags from nearly a year ago – I did two last week, I’ll finish the rest up in a few days. There’s an Heirloom sewing workshop on my calendar but I don’t think enough people have signed up for that – I still want to use the panel I made a month or so ago to complete a nightgown, so that’s also on my ToDo list.

When those projects are completed I want to move on to some new wall art – I’ve just lined up a second summer showing – this one in Truro – I’ll need six or so pieces to display. They won’t be hung, they have to be attached to something firm in order to “stand” on a wide shelf – either some foamcore board or thin plywood. I have no idea how I’ll do that yet, but I’ll figure something out.

Lots to get done. Better get moving.

Kantha to Jacket

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I’m getting organized to do a day long workshop in February on taking a Kantha bedspread and turning it into a jacket. I’ve probably explained what a Kantha is before but I’ll do it here again:

Kantha (meaning: “patched cloth”) refers both to the tradition of producing unique, quilted blankets (making something useful and beautiful out of discarded items), as well as the craft and stitch itself (a small, straight running stitch in Bengali embroidery). Here’s a link describing the work: https://www.shopdignify.com/pages/what-is-kantha

I got my inspiration from Meiko Mintz’s wonderful Kantha garments!

Here is my latest Kantha – a heavily embroidered pieced silk bedspread (with beading I’m going to have to watch carefully as I cut and sew the fabric):

A Silk Embroidered Kantha

The Meiko Mintz jackets are large and flowing

I’d love to wear something like that but I look better in a more tailored shape. In any case, I have pulled a bunch of jacket patterns from my pattern collection to share with the gals enrolled in the workshop.

Patterns For a Kantha Jacket

I wouldn’t make any of these jackets as they are, but they provide ideas (and sizes) for necklines, front openings, pocket placement, sleeve shape and fit that give us a place to start. I’ll be suggesting the gals check out the Peppermint “West End Jacket”– it doesn’t look like anything but the pattern has lots of potential. It’s actually free but you can make a donation to Peppermint (which I did). You can download an A0 version as well as the tape-together PDF download. I was able to have the A0 version printed on large paper. Much easier to work from.

Now I have to modify and trace the Peppermint pattern pieces. I intend making the collar wider and pointed, I will keep the front drop shoulder but delete the back yoke (keeping the placement of the shoulder seam), change the patch pockets to welt pockets, make the jacket a bit longer and compensate by adding a couple of extra inches to the front so the jacket hangs straight, add a bit of flare to the front (not the back – I want the back to hang straight). Next I will trace the modified pattern pieces in my size, cut them out and start to play with placement on the Kantha – I want to showcase as much of the elaborate embroidery as possible, avoiding beading where I can (removing beads if I can’t miss cutting or sewing into them).

I’ve sent the gals a blurb about supplies and other information they need so they’re prepared for our Feb 25th day. I’m looking forward to seeing what they end up creating!

Success?

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New Spikes On three Orchids

Middle of September I wrote about putting 20 Phalaenopsis out on my balcony to experience cooler nights. With the exception of the night I brought them inside to avoid damage from Hurricane Fiona, they were out a total of 15 nights where temperates were below 15°C – my hope was this would encourage these dormant plants to sent up shoots.

Looks like I may have succeeded. I was watering the plants yesterday, looking closely to see if there was any sign of spikes, although not expecting results yet, only to discover four plants have started a flower spike. Fingers crossed more will show signs of flowering over the next months or so.

There are several with new leaves and there are new aerial roots beginning on some, but definitely four have the start of a flower spike. I’m quite delighted. I have no idea what colour these blooms will be but I’m happy with whatever shows up. This is a slow process – there won’t be flowers for at least a couple of months as the spikes develop. It’s fun watching the new growth come along.