Smoky River Quilt Top Finished

Smokey River Quilt Top

[Sorry for the bad lighting on this photo.  The top half is in shadow.]

This is one of my mom's unfinished quilt tops.  All I had to do was put on the borders.  She had that big center star square done, and even the 9-patch borders, though they were as yet unattached.  From the notes, it looks like she planned to enlarge it enough to be a king-size quilt to fit their bed.  I don't have a bed that big, nor can I easily work on a quilt that big.  So it's only a full-size now.

Somewhere I know I saw another set of the 2-1/2 inch strips, but I might have given those away already ... 

I love the Stone Henge textures, but it's strange to see them cut up and broken up into little pieces.  I'd rather look at the larger textures, I guess. 

Meanwhile, I am again amassing quite a pile of quilt tops--mine and my mothers.  It may be time to make some quilt sandwiches over the holidays!

DIY Lapis Lazuli Curtain

 

Lapis Lazuli painted surface design on thrift store curtain. 

 

Here is the original color of the drapes: Neutral. Boring.

  I did wash them before I began the surface treatments.

I picked up a set of drapes at St. Vinny's last week.  They were taupe / neutral colored, and I knew they'd still let in a lot of light.  It's drapery fabric with latex on the inside (dry-clean only) so I knew I couldn't dye them -- which would have been my first inclination.  So I turned to the internet and found this post from Bob Villa bout how to paint your curtains: Turns out you can use regular latex acrylic house paint with a textile medium added.

So I went down to the local hardware store, picked out the darkest blue they had in the 24 oz. can. Flat--no sheen or finish because that would interfere with it adhering to the curtain.

The lady mixed it up for me.  I told her my plan -- that I wanted to paint some drapery curtains blue, then splatter it with gold to make it look like Lapis Lazuli.  She thought it would not work very well -- even with the textile medium.  I still wanted to give it a try.  Even if it didn't work, I didn't have a lot invested in it, and it brought me back to my surface design roots.

It took 3 bottles of the  textile medium (24 oz total) with 12 oz. of latex acrylic pain to cover 1 drapery panel with 1 coat.  The textile medium directions recommend a 2:1 ratio with the paint.  Although the textile medium is white, it did not dilute the blue color at all.  Bob Villa recommends 2 coats, but I didn't have enough of the textile medium to go another round.  

I used both a pain roller and a regular flat paint brush to fill in the parts that the roller missed.

I kind of like the uneven finish that gives.  

Here's the back side. Like a summer blue sky with white clouds ...

 

  

Detail: Lapis Lazuli surface treatment: Blue with gold spatters.

Then I used some gold watercolor paint (no textile medium) that I had in my stash to splatter on the highlights.  Yes-- It's watercolor, but I'm not planning to wash these ever again.  And it's stuck to the paint layer, not the fabric, so I think it will be ok.

So far so good!  The fabric maintains it's flexibility.  The textile medium says I should heat-set the paint.  I'm not going to do that with an iron.  Would the dryer work?  Too much tumbling that might disturb the paint adherance ...What about the oven?  Would that melt the latex layer?  Do I even need to heat set if I'm not going to wash it?

This is where it will hang in the bedroom.

Pretty convincing!

Even my husband was impressed -- and he used to work in theater.  He said that was good enough for a stage set!  Do they use this textile medium in theater, or do they just go ahead and paint the muslin?

Weaving Shuttles and their Spindles

 

My basket of weaving shuttles -- including the brand new apple wood one in the middle. 

Pia Thadani commented on "Hand Made Boat Shuttles for Weaving"

Oct 26, 2021

I have recently come by some handmade shuttles but they don't have spindles in them - what do you use for a spindle and how do you attach it? Any ideas? They have little holes in them where a spindle wood go, just no spindle.

 

Dear Pia--

This is a great question!  In this post, I will show the spindles and methods for attaching them from my collection of weaving shuttles.  There are many ways to attach a spindle to a weaving shuttle.

This is one of my antique shuttles.  

It has a heavy gauge wire for the spindle that slips into the slots built into the spool space.  

Very simple solution.

  

 The brand new apple wood shuttle has a very simple spindle. Just a piece of wire, bent on one end.

The straight end slips into the whole on the right side, 

while the bent end slides into the slot on the left side, so that the spindle sits parallel to the shuttle body.

It's an ingeniously simple dot-and-slot solution:

 

Here's another one that uses just a straight piece of sturdy wire for the spindle:

 

 The ends of the wire sit in this little metal receptical, worked into the wood.  It has a little bit of spring to it, making it easy to get the wire in and out, but also holding the wire fast so the spool stays in place as it unwinds.   I think this is the Hammet shuttle that came with my Kessenich Loom.

 

Here's another one of the wire spindle types.  This time with a new twist!

 

The wire spindle is held in place with a small round magnet that has been inset into the wood at just the right depth.    In this Padouk wood shuttle, the magnets are on both sides, making it very simple to operate and reload the spindle with a spool of yarn.

 Here's one of my favorite sherry Shacht kayak shuttles.  It uses a different method to hold the spindle pin in place. 

 

One end is free to swing up, while the other end is help in place with a pin shot through the spindle.

There's a small hole with a pin perpendicular to the spindle, holding it in place on this one. 

Here's another shuttle from Handy Woman in Texas where she combines a lot of these ideas all together.

Here we have the small magnet on the "free" end of the pin ...

... while the anchor side has another pin stuck through the side allowing it to swing up and out.

Here's the hole on the side where the pin anchors the spindle.

 

Too many shuttles?  Maybe -- You don't figure out what you like to use until you try them. 

Different woods - Different feels - Different purposes - Different weights - holding different sized spools -- Different makers.  Easy to collect!

 

I leave you with a little fall color -- The Sumacs in the neighbor's yard.

Hand Warmers / Rice Cold Packs

So I made some of these hand warmers / cold packs filled with rice.

As a hand warmer, it only takes 30 seconds in the microwave.

Here are the instructions I followed.   In brief:

• Cut 5-inch squares out of flannel
• Cut matching 5-inch squares out of a lining fabric (I used cotton)
• Stitch right sides together, leaving an opening for turning. Clip corners and turn inside out.  
• Fill with 3/4 cup rice and sew the opening shut. I used the top of a plastic bottle from the recycling bin (cleaned).

Then you stitch the opening shut by machine -- and vio la! 

 

These will make nice stocking stuffers for Christmas, or small gifts for friends.

Bargello with a Twist - Voices of My Quilting Ancestors

Holly's Bargello with a Twist Block Quilt

In the latest round of clearing out my mom's sewing room, I found this quilt top, never finished.  I brought it home and hung it on my design wall ...  Now I recognize it from this book:

Bargello Quilts with a Twist by Maggie Ball

Years ago, my mom and Aunt Rosita had taken a class to learn to make some of these quilts.  I really liked them, but was not able to take the class.  

 

Rosita gave me her quilt top from the class, which I quilted and finished it in 2010.   It's the same as on the cover of the book.  I quilted it with a wavy corner-to-corner matrix pattern using my walking foot.

I never knew what happened to Ma's quilt from that class.  Apparently, it got stuffed into a corner of her sewing room for me to find after she died.  ;-)  It's ok -- I'll finish this one, too.    

Do I call it Holly's Bargello if it was apparently not one she liked enough to finish?   I would only add her name to the title so as to document the provenance -- It's not a quilt top I made.

Now I'm wondering why neither of them finished these Bargello Twist quilts?  Was it that big of a pain to make them?  The basic block looks simple enough, with so  many possibilities for the layouts--kind of like Huck Lace!    Was the book hard to follow?   Did they get dizzy looking at the blocks for so long?  Was the teacher not so great?   Bad classmates?  Did something happen in the class?  Are they cursed?   Yes-- I've turned the Speculator up to 10, but now it's time to let all that go ...  

I have a "new" quilt top to sandwich and finish up!

 Rosita - me - and  my Mom (Holly) back in the day ...