BQF: Spring 2011

I think the blogger outage felled a lot of posting plans over the past 24 hours. I had hoped to get a Bloggers' Quilt Festival post up this morning, before I left for a weekend away, but was thwarted by technology. I'm back on my college campus for a swim/dive team reunion (I was a diver), and I'm snagging some internet time in the library before meeting up with former teammates for drinks and such.

My BQF choice may be familiar to regular blog readers and DQS10 participants, but I think it's the piece that best exemplifies my learning over the past 6 months. One of the things I love most about quilting is that I can always learn something new, and I've been pushing myself to tackle new techniques as well as tasks that intimidate me (circles!). In fact, I think it's safe to say that my 2011 mantra and goal has been "try new things." And DQS10 offered me the chance to make a pojagi panel for my partner.

I first encountered Pojagi through Victoria's lovely panels and followed her tutorial for making pojagi seams. This piece also represents my first use of shot cottons and cross weaves, which I fell for hard. I love the extra texture and interest the different warp and woof threads give, and I think these textiles really make the intentional simplicity of pojagi shine.

To me, this image conveys both softness and roughness. Pojagi was developed as a means of sewing work cloth -- cloth that would be used to wrap items, to carry things. As such, it should display a certain roughness, a testament akin to calloused hands or well-worn boots. But it also protects its contents from the elements or harm, and in that sense should exude softness as well. I like that even a hanging panel can speak to these qualities simultaneously, and I'm thinking of developing some challah covers using this method as I think it would convey the multiple purposes of of a challah cover, which covers and protects as well as beautifies and sacralizes.

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Pojagi Complete!

I finished up "Bom," my pojagi panel for DQS10. I finally decided to approach the binding as a rolled hem. I realized that I couldn't iron a quarter-inch seam, but I could iron a half-inch seam. As a result, I ironed the half-inch and then folded the edge into the fold and ironed again -- the same way I make handles for bags. This worked well and will be my new go-to method.

The picture makes the two shot cottons look more starkly different than they do in person. What's neat in person is that, depending on the light, the panel can look like it contains 4 different fabrics. Because the warp and weft of the fabric use different colors, the orientation of the piece of fabric alters which thread color looks stronger. The lighter green therefore sometimes looks more blue or more yellow, while the darker green looks more bright green or more gray-green.

As the picture shows, it's cherry blossom season in DC. Since my partner loves Japanese fabrics, this seems like perfect timing. It also means that spring is truly about to arrive, and I look forward to the realization of the weatherman's prediction of mid-60s and sun today and mid-70s tomorrow on Friday. Now I will be inside most of the day at the archives, but I'm hoping to duck outside for lunch at the very least. While spring is not my favorite season, it is DC's finest season, and I will enjoy the advent of what I like to call "chaco weather" earlier than it arrives in the Midwest.

The cherry trees were, of course, a gift from Japan to the United States. For those looking for a way to help Japan as it recovers from the recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, google is helping coordinate donations to reputable groups as well as help people locate loved ones.

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Spring Ahead

It's a good thing that NPR informed me that we're springing ahead, time-wise, tonight because I might not have realized it otherwise. Clock-switching also wreaks a touch of havoc on my sleep patterns as I'm one of those people for whom light is the best alarm clock. Actually I'm pretty good at setting and responding to mental alarm clocks (my ability to wake up 3 minutes before my alarm goes off is both a blessing and a curse), but light is the key factor in my rising. In a dark room, I can sleep in. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. Now this doesn't mean I pop out of bed immediately, because I don't; rather, I lie in bed, semi-awake listening to Morning/Weekend Edition, thinking, or, if more awake, reading (a decadent treat). So whenever the time switches, it takes me about a week to get used to the new light situation (more or less) after which my circadian rhythms adapt to the slight day-by-day changes quite easily.

But speaking of spring, I've also made progress on my pojagi DQS10 quilt. It's almost done. I need to decide how I'm going to add a label, which is a DQS requirement, in a way that doesn't detract from the design. I also need to decide how to finish the quilt -- whether I want to add a more traditional quilt binding or whether I'll fold the edges in and sew, sort of like a hem, but also more in line with the pojagi technique. I think the latter would be more fitting but I'm not sure I trust my ability to iron and sew the edges in a straight line. I might practice first and see how it goes.

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Bom: Pojagi Progress

According to trusty Google translate, "bom" is the phonetic version of "spring" in Korean. I'm not really clear on whether "bom" refers to the season spring, to a fresh water spring, to springing up from the ground, or perhaps all of the above. Perhaps one of my readers will enlighten me. I looked up the Korean word for spring because my current project (for DQS10) evokes spring, with its green colors. As previously noted, my partner really likes Asian prints, motifs, and craftwork, and I decided to make a pojagi wall-hanging. I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the new technique I've learned (I'm using the first option described here) or with the shot cottons I picked up for this quilt. Shot cottons are special in that the warp and weft use two different colored yarns which result in a piece of cloth that can look multicolored or more textured. I opted for 2 greens: the darker green uses green and blue threads while the lighter one is actually a composite of yellow and blue (which appear green, per the color wheel I first encountered in elementary school art class).

This image, which highlights how the seams help make the art, also gives a glimpse at the shot cottons work. You can see the grain-like pattern in each rectangle, which is created by the different colored threads. (The darker part of the rectangle at the top is the most recent fabric attached but not yet finished.) I chose to sew with gray thread because I didn't like how any of the green thread I owned looked with both of the colors. I also like the gray for its sturdy-work quality, as pojagi was originally a utilitarian wrapping cloth used by workers or the commoners in feudal kingdoms.

It took me a few tries to get the seams correct and even more rounds to feel comfortable with the technique (and not need to refer to the tutorial on my computer each time I ironed a seam). But once I got going, it moved pretty quickly. I still have plenty of work to go, but I like how it's shaping up.

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