Missives from Quilt Camp at Lake Lucerne - October 2024

Although I didn't finish anything at Quilt Camp this year, I did make good progress on 2 big projects.

Quilt-as-You-Go Crumb Quilt from The Sewing Channel

Laundry Basket Quilts fat quarter set, plus a few extra fat quarters

 

I cut these into the strips of the recommended widths, and then reconstituted them into fat quarter strip sets, which need to be cut up again into the recommended widths. 

First Block QAYG

I only cut up enough reconstituted fat quarters to try putting together one of the actual QAYG blocks--Just to see how it would work: Proof of concept.  That process proved to be enormously satisfying, and I look forward to working on the other blocks at home.   

The method: Basically, you choose a suitable center block from your strips (in this case, the red flowers with red wheat t the center), then cut off the rest of the strip.  Turn the quilt block sandwich 90 degrees, and add another segment along that side and cut off the rest to use later ...  You just keep working around that center block, building the rows (sort of potato chip fashion) until you've filled up the rectangle.  Just make sure that the patches and seams in the latest row don't match / clash with the previous row.

The quilting seems almost invisible -- or maybe more like quilt-in-the-ditch.  You don't see that layer of top stitching as you do in other quilts.  It is melded with sewing the patches together.   You can see it on the back (sort of).  It's not pretty -- pretty "blocky" and functional.  But then, how much time do you spend looking at the back of a quilt?   I am using an old sheet for the backing because I liked the pattern.

The great part about QAYG is that the bulk of the quilting is done in bite-sized pieces. Once you get the blocks together, you're almost done!

The other project I worked on ...

The Watermelon Quilt

These blocks have been done for a while.   I just haven't wanted to do the next step of squaring them up, pressing them (yet again), laying them out on a design wall and sewing them together--until now.

At camp this year, I brought a cheap flannel-backed table cloth for a design wall.  Laura helped me tape it over the fireplace, where I could lay out the blocks and re-arrange them until I was happy with the layout.  Mostly distributing the pinks and the black watermelon seeds.  You can't really go wrong with a jelly roll, though I did add a few other colors to round it out (reds and greens).

Yes -- watermelons do have this much variety in their red to pink flesh, and the green rinds too.  Some are even yellow and orange flesh but I did not want to introduce those colors too.  In the lighter borders around each block, you can see the lighter melon rind. And of course the black seeds.  I am old enough to remember when watermelons had many more seeds than you see today.

There was some wind on Saturday evening, and it caused the fireplace to "breathe" in and out, so my design wall had some life to it.  I had to pin most of the blocks on it or they would fall off as the fireplace took a breath in and out. 

Sewing them together went faster than it does at home where I am up and down to pull and press each pair of blocks individually.  At camp, I pinned a row together so they would stay in order, and I sewed them all together at the machine, pressed the seams, put it back up on the design wall and went on to the next row.  This seemed to go faster, and I will try this workflow at home for the next quilt top that needs to come together. 

This one still needs the borders -- so there is still some work to be done before I can call it a finished quilt top.

 

Laura's Tea Cozy

At one point, Laura pulled out a box of 1-1/2 in squares cut from scraps.  I was aghast and told her to throw those away!  They were too small to work with.  Ugh!  Too small for ME to work with.  She does just fine with them.  Last year, she gifted me a postage stamp tea cozy made from such bits and scraps, for which I am very grateful to have some of Laura's handywork at home.  ;-) It is on display in the dining room, awaiting pots of tea to keep warm.

 

Sheila, Laura and Me - October 2024

Sheila learned several new skills this year: 

1. How to put on a binding by machine, and 
2. How to pin-baste a quilt sandwich and then tie a quilt with a thicker batting.
   

One of the great things about Quilt Camp is that there are veteran quilters there who will be able to help you with anything you don't know how to do yourself.  She was able to finish several quilts that have been in the works for the past few years.  She says she only quilts at this retreat, and doesn't get around to it the rest of the year.  Too busy with work and kids. 

Speaking of kids:  There was a cub scout (actually he was a Webelo, the group BEFORE cub scouts) there who asked Sheila for help in sewing his patches onto his shirt.  The iron-on method wasn't working.  He looked a lot like one of Sheila's own kids, so he must have felt comfortable asking her initially.  She pointed him to Laura who actually did the work of stitching down his patches as he watched.  That was delightful!  There was a lot of grandmother goodwill energy in that room--and we all knew how to sew.  He'd come to the right place!

Pat Schneider and her daughter Trish even came for a few hours to do handwork on Saturday, though they did not stay for the whole weekend.  It was nice to catch up with them.

Lake View from the lodge where we were working.  No Fall color yet -- not with the California weather we had in September.  I did see some of the Sumac turning red on the way home on Sunday, so it is starting ...  Also saw multiple dust devils swirling, as it has been very dry.

Ribbon on jeans - Fall Flair

 

I'd better get this posted.  Laura has been wondering if she missed it!

Navajo (Chain) Plying

Chain (Navajo) Plied Yarn 

This is my first try, so it looks a little rough -- but certainly better than the layers underneath when I first started!  It's definitely something I'll get better at with practice. 

I wanted to give this a try.  Previously when I saw it demonstrated, I was just too confused to figure it out.  But it is essentially sort of hand-crocheting.  You can ply a single strand of yarn into a 3-ply with this method.

With this method, you can chain ply an art bat and match the colors without creating a barber pole effect. And you work with what you have, so there's no running out of one bobbin. 

 

 

Here is the single strand of yarn I started with.  This was one of the bobbins that came with the Matchless Spinning Wheel.  Because it wasn't mine (ie I wasn't attached to it), I felt I could use it to practice chain plying.   It looks similar to the yarn from the art batt I spun up last week.  Hopefully, I will get better at it so that my own yarn will look good enough to be used for a future project.  

A few notes:

• Turn up the tension on your wheel, and use a larger whorl.  You want the yarn to pull onto the bobbin.
• Spin counter-clockwise for plying. 
• You may want to treadle a little slower than usual for plying.
  
• Start with a slip knot as the first loop.
  
• Think of chain plying as making giant hand crochet loops.
• Use right hand to make the loops.
• Left hand holds the top and will slide up and down, and push the plied yarn onto the bobbin.
• Watch the tension as you ply: All 3 strands should be under even tension as you ply.
  

 

For reference:

Classy Squid Fiber Co's excellent video on chain plying.

Spinning an Art Bat

 

Spun on the new-to-me Matchless Spinning Wheel.

A few years ago, I wanted to spin up some fancy art yarns.  So I purchased some lovely fibers and carded them up into a beautiful art batt ready to be spun into yarn, but I never quite got around to it ... until now!

 

 I think I will try to chain-ply this spool of yarn.  That will be a new skill ...

  

Squash Blossom Baskets: 3 Sweet Tiny Tool Baskets

For the new Matchless spinning wheel, I needed a little tool basket for oil, grease, oriface hook, etc.  It was easy enough to make them, so I made 3.  I'd done it before ...  Instructions for how to make it are here from The Crafty House.

This one is made from a 12-inch square of fabric,  cut from a woven-style skirt from the 90s.  I love this fabric so much, I've gotten several projects out of it since it became too worn out to wear anymore.

 

From the top, it looks like a flower! 

The buttons are made by a potter at a craft show a few years ago.  I liked the glaze on them, and thought I could use them for button closures on journals.  But they work here, too! 

 The open view.

 

Here it is open, but empty. 

 

What goes into the Tiny Tool Basket?  

Oil / lube to keep the metal parts in good working order.  

The oriface hook.

In total, I made 3 Tiny Tool Boxes, because I couldn't decide on a particular fabric combination.

The others will probably be gifted.

Schacht Matchless Spinning Wheel: My "New" Spin Baby

 

Schacht Matchless Spinning Wheel (circa 2001)

I always thought if I needed to replace my Louett S90 Spinning Wheel (circa 1998), that the closest thing available would be a Schacht Matchless.  They are both castle wheels, both elegant in design.  

This week, someone nearby posted a used Schacht Matchless Spinning Wheel on Facebook Marketplace for what I considered a reasonable price for a used wheel of this caliber.   New ones sell for about $1800.  It needed a little little love and attention -- not too much.  Just a good cleaning and oiling, and a minor adjustment to the treadles, and it is back in working order again!

 

On the back is a serial number so you can figure out how old the wheel is.  It's more precise than the serial numbers on the old Singer sewing machines.  The number above tells me that it was made on August 29, 2001 and it was the 6th Matchless spinning wheel of the day. 

I may need to replace the treadle brackets underneath the wheel.  They are a bit worn.  One of the treadles popped off as I was spinning the initial test yarns.  Plastic parts don't last forever.  It's too bad these wheels are not outfitted with speedometers, so you can tell how many miles are on it -- How many miles of yarn spun!

 

I pulled a variety of fibers from my stash to "give it a whirl" and see how she spins.  To my utter delight, she spins like a dream!  I tried various fibers in my stash, and they all come out pretty nice on this wheel!    In the photo is some old wool fleece (some of the first I bought in 1998 from Patty Reedy at Rainbow Fleece Farm -- It sparkles!), and some newer alpaca.  It all looks pretty good!

What I really want to spin on this wheel is fancy art batts, and sparkle yarn.  ;-). The Louett is reserved for plying these days, although I can spin pretty much anything on it.  ;-)  The Schacht-Reeves Wheel (aka the sleeping beauty wheel) seems to be optimized for alpaca.  A few weeks ago, I grabbed some white fiber to continue spinning, and it was coming out so wiry and crinkly -- I felt like I was a brand new spinner again, like I had to start over and learn it all over again.  It was pretty bad yarn--until I realized it was merino, not alpaca.  When I realized the fiber didn't feel so nice and silky as alpaca, and went back to the alpaca, the spinning looked normal again.  It's kind of a touchy / finicky wheel.  Beautiful to look at, though!

I am so pleased with this Matchless!  Also to know that I still know how to spin!  And equipment makes a difference.

The Schacht Matchless has 2 treadles, rather than the 1 treadle I've been used to for the past 26 years on other spinning wheels.  I thought that might be harder to get used to than it has been.  Not a problem!

I asked the seller if she had named this wheel.  She didn't even  an bat an eye at the question.  She said she got it from a woman in Chicago named Ekaterina, so she called it Katya.  It sounds like this lady got old and couldn't do it anymore, and her family didn't know what to do with the wheel.  Lacey, the seller, hasn't been able to give it the love and attention it needs.  Life got in the way, and she had no time for it.  Although she did take the time to outfit it with the bulky flier -- She sent it back to Schacht in Colorado to have it fitted to this particular wheel.  That's cool!  

There are bobbins with yarn spun by both women, plus 2 by me.  Some of it is quite nice!  Some of it I may use to practice chain plying ...  But that will be a separate post!

The seller also outfitted it with the bulky flier and sent it back to the Schacht factory in Boulder, CO, for it to be perfectly fitted to this wheel.  That was an investment!    

 

Last but not least, I also purchased this Vera Bradley backpack used on MarketPlace for only $15.  I will use it to hold the extra bobbins, fiber, manual and other supplies together for this wheel.  It also makes it easy to take-it-on-the-road if I want to take it somewhere else ...

In the photo above, hanging from the mother-of-all is the tiny tool box I made for oil, lube, oriface hooks, and whatever else might be required to keep such a machine in running order.  I will make a separate post on that little project. 

I was watching a number of videos to prepare for owning a Matchless -- Where to oil it, how to use the various tensionning options, etc.  That may be a separate post in and of itself.  I am used to the Irish tension on the Louet, which is easy to manage.  The double drive is a little trickier.  I have not used the Scotch tension.  Each one has it's uses!

 

For now, I'll leave you with a shot of the old fleece from Patty Reedy's Rainbow Fleece Farm.  It's a good looking single!  I love her fleeces because they just sparkle naturally.  They have such a lovely luster.  With the new wheel, I am committed to finally spinning up those old fleeces.

I made the realization that I can use singles as the pattern yarn in coverlets.  So there's no need to ply them, as they can be used without the additional processing.

More to come ...

Wandering Vine Coverlet: Panel 1 of 2 Complete and Lessons Learned So Far

I finished the first panel of The Wandering Vine Coverlet.  20 repeats of the pattern filled about 100 inches, plus 3 inches for hems at the top and bottom.  1 more to go!

Once again, I kept track of my progress with a run of adding machine tape, so that I can try to match it block-for-block on Panel 2.  I also used a tape measure to track the whole panel.

 

Lessons Learned:

For the 1 panel, I used 16 bobbins of red wool yarn and 6 large bobbins of 10/2 cotton for the tabby.

1 red bobbin weaves about 5 inches of cloth.    1 bobbin of 10/2 cotton weaves about 14 inches of fabric.

The sectional warp took a long time to set up (about 2 months of Sundays), but it seems to be working as promised.  No tension issues!   The only thing is that I need to be careful when unwinding the warp, or winding the warp forward.  Sometimes the strings like to get hooked around one of the separators, and then they break because they are not where they should be, and the tension gets tight.  Now I check to make sure all the strings are in the right lane before I tighten the warp.

It look like some of the warp hank flipped or twisted when I installed them onto the sectional beam.  Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be causing any problems for the warp.  Whew!

The shuttles on the left side like to fall down through the loom, so I have not been able to use the little side table on the left side.  The solution is to set them on a stool instead.  

I should have enough warp left (12 yards total) to make some towels once the 2nd panel is finished.

Resizing a King to a Twin-size Quilt

Dad's King-size quilt resized to a twin.

I knew this day was coming ...  when my Dad would move into assisted living, and I'd have to small-ify the king-size quilt he's been sleeping under to make it fit his new twin-size bed.

This is the quilt my mom and I made for their 50th wedding anniversary in 2019.  The pattern is Sonia's Windows.  It was so big, I couldn't even get it all in this photo!

The photo at the top of this post is how it turned out after my re-working it last weekend.

How did I do it?  I was entertaining several options to make it smaller.

Option 1) Fold it in half and sew a seam down the open edge.  I did NOT wind up doing this because as big as a king-size quilt it, it doesn't quite cover a twin bed when folded in half.  This method also messes with the borders, and makes it look like a quilt folded in half.

Option 2) Take it in down the middle, and fold the extra so that the mid section has a double layer.  This preserves the borders.  I did not use this method either.

Option 3) Cut part of it off, and add a binding, but this messes with the borders, and would make it look like an amputated quilt.

Option 4) What I ended up doing was to take it in on the border edges.  I folded 2 rows of blocks under the borders on both the right and left sides and stitched 2 seams to hold the overage.  This "hid" 4 rows of blocks -- half the quilt, while preserving the border treatments.  This also preserved the patterning of the blocks, and the diagonal colors running through the quilt.  The added weight at the edges makes the borders heavier -- This should be okay because the borders will hang over the edges of the bed, and won't make the center heavier or too warm.  If it's too long, we can always tuck it under the end of the bed.

Wooden Basket for Weaving Bobbins

I claimed this wooden basket from my Dad's house, before the auction later this month.  My Dad was so fond of the woods and wood products, I couldn't let this slip away ...  and it reminds me of some of those neat rustic bowls Li ZiQi used in her videos. 

At present, it sits next to my "big" loom, holding the bobbins and yarn for the current coverlet project.  Very handy!

Report from the 2024 EAA Quilt Show

At the EAA Quilt Show yesterday, my Cathedral Windows ("Stars in My Eyes") quilt won a people's choice 2nd-place ribbon in the long wall hangings category.  Thank to everyone who voted for it!

I heard a few people comment that they liked the idea of stuffing the colored patches with a little batting / fluff to make them puff out.  Normally, Cathedral Window quilts have no batting layer, and are heavy and flat.

If you want to try making a Cathedral Windows quilt yourself, there are lots of tutorials out there.  This is the tutorial I used -- mostly by machine. 

I love that quilt because all the patches are leftover scraps from other projects, so it's kind of like a trip down memory lane for me.

 

Mary G., one of the guild members made the ribbons on her embroidery machine.  It's neat that the ribbons are also made and not just generic / purchased ribbons.  Every year is different.

I also bought a new bag from my fellow Guild member, Pat Schneider.  She does excellent work!  This is not the first bag I purchased from her.  And saves me oodles of time in struggling to make one myself. 

 

I also got a little bling-y quilted heart from the Boutique to dress it up a bit. 

And YES, the registrations, keeping track of everyone's quilts and returning them at the end of the day all went very well.  Just a few glitches which we will prevent next year.