Beware

A momentary break from the usual crafts for a public service announcement: There is a scam going around in which "grandchildren" call their grandparents asking for money quickly. My grandmother was just duped out of $3600 because someone claiming to be my cousin said she was in a car accident and needed money so that no one would need to know. Obviously there are holes in this story, but these scammers prey on older people who are ready to help their grandchildren. Read an AARP release here.

So please warn your grandparents or older people you know to pause if they get one of these calls. They should call the family member directly to see if that person needs help -- in other words, call the person back at their known phone number. In addition, report the call to the police; if they grab the number from caller ID, all the better. Finally if you or someone you know works at a place that sells money orders or does wire transfers, ask them to warn people. They may be able to stop this scam by asking their customer if they have simply called the grandchild back. If they recommend making the call and waiting for a call back, they could spare many grandparents from being scammed.

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Lego Chuppah, Part II

Today pictures are uploading, so I'll try again...my friends Jen and Claire created the above image as their vision for their chuppah and left it to me to translate it into a quilt.

After printing a copy of the design, I first traced it onto graph paper so I could figure out proportions and begin to think through how to cut and sew the fabric.


I took the picture above when I was in the middle of sewing. The writing beneath the image charts the size of each "lego piece" and the blue indicates sections I had already sewn. I broke the lego chain into smaller units in order to figure out how to piece it together. A more experienced quilter would probably have been able to figure out how to strip piece some of the blocks, but I stuck with the tried, true, and longer method of cutting out individual pieces and chain sewing them together.











I purposefully worked on the lego sections, which effectively serve as borders, first because I knew they would be more complicated and take more time than the middle. I made a few errors along the way, sewing pieces together incorrectly, but nothing was unfixable.















I ended up with 4 sections about 50 inches long, which was perfect for a chuppah that I wanted to be around 60 inches by 60 inches. (Again, more experienced folks would be able to ensure that their end quilt was precisely the size they intended it to be. In my case, being within a couple inches on a quilt pattern I've never made before, seems perfectly acceptable to me.)

When Jen, Claire, and I talked, they noted that while their design used an array of colors, they didn't want the chuppah to actually resemble the red, blue, green, and yellow legos of childhood fun. We agree that "cool" colors -- blues, purples, and greens -- would constitute the pieces, and I rummaged through my stash of fabric to find a wide variety of patterns to use. There are some fabrics that I only used once and others that I used multiple times. Given that most pieces were between 1x1.5 and 2.5x2.5, I would have felt I was wasting fabric if I had only cut one piece from most of them.

The middle of the quilt, per the design, is all white. In order to ensure the quilt would hang together and look like more than a white sheet with some fancy borders, I used 2 different white-on-white fabrics for the center snail's trail pattern. The center is one huge snail's trail block, which I like for this chuppah because it conveys the sense of intertwined lives. Here are some close-ups:
















I may or may not post full pictures of the chuppah before the wedding -- it will depend on whether Jen and Claire want to see it ahead of time or not. But rest assured, I will post pictures of the chuppah in its entirety as well as it being used.

Edited to add: see pictures of the entire chuppah here and here.

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Lego Chuppah, Part I

I've (finally) buckled down and made a lot of progress on Jen and Claire's chuppah. They created the design, which they call "the lego chuppah." I would show you a picture of their design if blogspot was working, but for some reason it will not allow me to upload any photos right now. I'll try again in the morning.

Suffice it to say that with three weeks left, I moved from very little progress to almost done (just need to bind the quilt) pretty quickly. As the term "lego chuppah" might suggest, this quilt involved a lot of little pieces of fabric. It's not my usual MO, but it's great to try new designs. I had a moment of massive uncertainty about this working out, but per usual, that feeling subsided and, now that the little pieces are all connected together, I can safely say that I think it's a pretty damn fine piece of work. This chuppah also has a ton of white fabric which is new for me -- nothing really different about the fabric except the more constant concern about markers magically losing their caps and staining it. Knock on wood, the white has been and will remain safe.

Let's hope the insert photos function actually works tomorrow so I can share some pictures.

Go here for part II and here for part III (both of which have pictures).

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Moving

I know it's been a while since I posted....moving will do that to you. I'm (finally) mostly moved in and started drafting a design for a new chuppah. Hopefully I'll cut the pieces tomorrow and start sewing such that I have something to show for it soon.

Thank you to those who have emailed me, and I hope most of you are figuring out the comments section which I know was a little messed up for a while. I believe its fixed now, so please comment away if you wish.

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First Bag

I expanded my craft repertoire into bags this summer, by which I mean I made one (left) and gave it to my sister for her birthday.

I had been scoping out tutorials online, and because I'm not good at looking at just one option, I combined several to make this bag (that may not be the most brilliant idea for a first time project, but it basically worked). Unfortunately because I did this a couple weeks ago, I can't remember exactly which tutorials I consulted. But I'm doing my best to recall some of the ones I looked at.

I remember checking out this basic tote tutorial (click the sidebar for the pdf), but I also sought out tutorials with more pictures such as this one from Creative Little Daisy and this one from Chocolate on my Cranium. I manipulated the size and interfacing materials based on what I had at home on a random weekday evening.

The Sew, Mama, Sew blog provided several helpful tutorials: Go here for a guide to various interfacing options. I used this lining tutorial (scroll down for the unstructured bag variety) and consulted this tutorial to learn more about making straps.

More than any other sewing project, bag-making has demonstrated to me that I need both written and pictorial instructions. Usually I can follow written directions quite well, but I really needed to be able to visualize how to attach the lining to the outside before doing it.

As it's my birthday today, I'm thinking about making a bag for myself as a treat. If I get up and extricate myself from the computer, that is.

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Brown and Blue

One of my college teammates and friends is getting married in September, but because I can't be on both coasts at the same time for two weddings (I know, my lack of superpowers is an annoyance), I unfortunately can't attend hers. After checking her registry and seeing that she selected these plates (called "West End" for those keeping track),

I decided to make Cristin and Mike a matching table runner, drawing on the ice blue, chocolate brown, and white in the plates. Here it is:

I thought the interlocking rings suited a wedding gift quite well, and I added a pieced backing that makes the table runner reversible. A view of both sides draped across my table:

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Summer Gift Making

My summer crafting tasks included making gifts for two people who did a lot for me in the past year. Having started, finished, and mailed/dropped off the presents, I think I can cross that item off the to-do list. One gift was this challah cover:


When I've never been to someone's house and therefore know little about their decor preferences, I usually work off colors I've seen the person wear. In this case, an orange t-shirt stuck in my mind, hence the heavy use of orange. I used a zig-zag stitch in between each border that makes up the bigger square, which made it a little more interesting than stitch-in-the-ditch quilting would have been.

Moving on to a completely different color palette, the other gift was this wall-hanging (or, table mat). Either way, it's the first time I've pieced something that was neither a quilt nor a challah cover.


Among the other tasks I set for myself this summer was designing projects around several fabrics that have resided in my stash for a while. The blue-ish gray print kept staring at me, asking me to use it, but I had a hard time figuring out what other fabric would work well with it. I like how it works with the intersecting pinwheels in part because I think it conveys a sense of motion in the background. And here's a closer view:

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Belts

It all started with a black belt, or rather the lack thereof. It is remarkably difficult to find a non-leather black belt. I searched and searched. When ribbon belts became fashionable a couple years ago, I thought that I would be able to find a black belt. I could find ribbon belts with black in them, but none that were primarily black. This winter I finally decided it was time to make my own black belt. I looked at the belts I own, and did my best to mentally unmake them to determine their component parts (why I didn't immediately look for a tutorial online is beyond me). Then I tried making one, and it worked pretty well:



I used a black-on-black fabric backed with black grosgrain ribbon. I like the pattern as the black (or dark gray) sunflowers give it a little texture without making it look like anything but a black belt from afar.

Since the experiment was successful, I played with other fabric and ribbon combinations, most of which I've given away as birthday presents.


As I continue to make belts, I'll also work on how to best photograph them. If you're interested in experimenting with belts, Creative Little Daisy offers a tutorial on patchwork belts while J Caroline Creative provides instruction for double-sided grosgrain belts. My first belts would have been much quicker to make had I followed these instructions! But trial and error has its value too.

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Community Books

Another peek into past crafty activities...


A couple months ago, my current roommate mused out loud that for someone who is not a baby person, I'm pretty good at making gifts for them when they are born and remembering to give something to the older siblings as well. As for the latter, I can thank my mom, as she was always good at remembering the other children (that may be a function of being the oldest, as I too remember wanting to open presents when my younger siblings got things they couldn't even unwrap themselves). As for the former, baby quilts are fun to make precisely because they are small and relatively quick. They are very doable quilting projects, ones for which the path does not seem to wind its way through never-never land.

Yet as grateful as I know new parents are for baby gifts, it has always seemed to me that the parents are left out. After all, it's their life that changes most dramatically the instant they have a live baby for whom to care. I wanted to find a way to give them a gift, one that would aid them with the transition and also (this is the selfish part) keep them planted in my friend-group as people who still have adult, childless/free friends.

My solution was something I call "community books." These books hold small cards that serve as IOUs for things like dinners delivered to their house, babysitting, movie night at their convenience, help with laundry or other household chores. They also contain gift certificates -- to movies, restaurants, and other outings as well as for a massage for the new mom. For the two I've created thus far, I rounded up about 15 other people to contribute one service and $10 per person.

I know it's hard to see in the pictures, but the second page includes a note that explains the book and the last page has an index with all of the services and gift certificates. The recipients of the first book asked if they had to give the IOU coupon back to the giver, and my answer was "of course not." The giver knows what he or she has donated, and all the recipients need to do is call or email. The book's coupons just facilitate the process.

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For My Mother

My mom, as I wrote on the label of this quilt, taught me how to read and how to sew. She retired this June after 39 years as a reading teacher, and I decided to make her a quilt as a gift. Now that she'll have time to do her own pleasure reading, she (and the cats) will have a quilt to use.

As she loves yellow, I knew I wanted to use yellow in her quilt (and as the very soft fleece backing). I chose the other colors by thinking about what colors she wears -- bright green, royal blue, turquoise, various shades of purple. In addition, I had a lighter blue fabric in my stash with flowers in green, blue, purple, and yellow, and I figured it would tie all the prints together (you can see it in the bottom picture). It's also the last border strip before the purple binding.

I've seen quilts that use this bento box pattern, often with light and dark shades of one color. I went with light and dark shades of 4 colors. I have to confess that along the way I got worried as the individual pieces didn't look as great as I expected. But my roommate's dad, who happened to be in town the weekend I pieced, backed, quilted, and bound the quilt, remained confident that it would look fantastic together. His confidence bore out, as I really like the big quilt (a good-sized lap quilt, about 60" x 70"). It may be hard to see in the pictures, but I free-motion-quilted the top, playing with the intersection of rolling curves.

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