Treehouse 2

When Bad Dad and I were shopping for our first home, we nicknamed the houses. We called the house we eventually bought in California 'the treehouse' because of the several large trees on the north, east and south sides of the home.

I bought another treehouse in Boulder.

Poang chairs with Lack table and my hand-knitted bolsters.

This condo is in downtown Boulder, with a walkscore of 91/100.  Yet, I look out through trees towards the mountains on the north and west sides and across trees and a creek on the east side.  The shuttle to work stops two blocks from here.

We installed mirrors against one wall to amplify the view.

We have two architects.  One architect/general contractor (GC), and an hourly architectural consultant who is a retired architect.  The consultant came up with the idea of cutting the mirror into pieces about the same size as the windows and then sizing a chair rail the same depth as the windowsill and kitchen countertop.

The line continues across the kitchen countertop, with glass-fronted kitchen cabinets and a window along the rest of that wall.  The effect is all light and line.

The GC primarily builds gorgeous (and large) custom homes.  The consultant primarily built 'not so big' homes that are modest in scale, but with many thoughtful extra touches.  Are you interested in seeing some of the other details they designed?

It's starting to feel like home as I unpack and put my hand-made items out.  I intended to tie-dye these IKEA Poang chair cushions.  But, I love the tone-on-tone creaminess of my hand-knitted bolsters layered on top of the natural unbleached and undyed cotton canvas.  I may leave them in that state for now.  Do you recognize the patchwork Valentine pillow I made for Bad Dad?

The quilters' snow gauge

Whirlwind Saturday

Bad Dad flew to Colorado last weekend and I can't believe we packed so much into 2 days. This is just some of what we did on Saturday.

We started out at the Research Aviation Facility Open House.  The NASA P-3 was airborne, but we saw NSF/NCAR's Gulf Stream 5

and the huge C-130 nicknamed "Snowflake".

They were in the middle of FRAPPE, the Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment campaign, and trying to make up for schedule slips during the 3 days of steady rain earlier in the week.  My interior photos were kind of dark and blurry, so go to the the FRAPPE website to see better photos of these airborne laboratories.

After that, we were famished.  RAF is near many Vietnamese grocery stores and restaurants.  Yelp pointed us to Pho Bay, where I enjoyed gumbo.  I'd read about Vietnamese Cajun.  Sadly, I forgot to take photos.

After nourishment, we headed over to Denver Art Museum and saw a fantastic collection of 20th Century Japanese prints.  I need to go back and spend more time in that gallery.

Of course, we had to swing by the quilt gallery and see the rotating display of selections from the DAM's extensive permanent collection of quilts.

We then tried to go to the Denver Botanic Gardens, but the parking lots were at capacity and the garden looked jammed.  It was also hot, so we cooled our heels at nearby Tattered Cover Bookstore, where I purchased the August issue of Burda (the UK, not American edition).

5-9 PM, the botanic garden offers 2 for 1 admission to DAM members (our LACMA reciprocal membership qualified us for the discount).

I love walking through gardens in the evening and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells. Look at the contrast in textures and scale in this gate

and in these flowers gone to seed.

The Chihuly sculptures added to the ambiance. Does this orange column remind you of desert dodder?

#oldpeoplearegoodateverything

I watched the conclusion of The Great British Sewing Bee tonight and I have only one thing to say: #oldpeoplearegoodateverything.

Ann deserved to win the competition and all of the participants were worthy competitors.

The epilogue confused me.  It said that Ann had recently taken up quilting.  That's not true.

Look at Ann Rowley's Flickr stream, particularly the Patchwork and Quilting sets. There are examples of her quiltwork going back several years.  Check out the label on her Stars in the Garden quilt.  The quilt was started in 2005 and finished in 2007, years before The Great British Sewing Bee.

Exploring Ann's Flickr photostream, you can learn that she knits, crochets, quilts and makes garments.  She can pretty much do anything well.  Is this among the neatest and best executed tubular cast-ons you have ever seen?

#oldpeoplearegoodateverything and may we all live to make it true!

Whale Story

The stuff diet is complicated.

Iris found this stuffed whale in a recent toy roundup. I thought it would make a fine starting point for another read me a quilt. Unbelievably, I didn't have any whale fabric in my stash collection and Hancock's of Paducah was offering a free shipping promotion.  Therefore, this whale batik leapt into my virtual shopping cart.

How did a stuff diet lead to purchasing more fabric?

Moreover, the READ part of read me a quilt required a whale-themed book.

How did a stuff diet lead to book shopping?

I couldn't find anything suitable.  Fortunately, a non-quilter that attended our guild's quilt show donated Down to the Sea with Mr Magee to our guild for the program.

Near the end of the book, the whales wave bye-bye with their tails.  A Google image search for whale flukes turned up this iconic image and the quilt designed itself.

I got the idea after lunch one day, found the image, designed the layout and selected fabrics by 3 PM, and finished binding it at 2:30 AM that night.  There was a 2-3 hour break to prepare, eat and clean up dinner, but otherwise the creative fever wouldn't let me quit.

The stuff diet will take forever if I put this much effort into every little stuffed animal.  On the bright side, I only used one yard of newly-purchased fabric and found a good use for yards of fabric, batting and thread cluttering up my sewing room.

• Finished size 41" by 52.5".
• Imagery courtesy The Smithsonian Institution. which acknowledged NOAA for exhibit materials.  I infer that the image originated from NOAA.  (In my prior job, I interviewed the NOAA historian and he said that the NOAA photo library is free for public use.  I should send him a link to this post.)
• 2010 read me a quilt
• 2011 read me a quilt
• the first 2012 read me a quilt
• It had been my habit to make only one read me a quilt per year, but CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) had appealed for more gifts and clothing.  During this recession, they are seeing an increase in children entering the foster care system because of parental drug addiction.  Please consider donating cash and time to help CASA.
• Is anyone interested in posts about digital object preservation such as my notes from interviews with NOAA and NASA archivists and historians?

S.A.B.L.E. Solution

Have you reached S.A.B.L.E. (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy)?  If so, you are not alone.  The South Bay Quilters' Guild receives hundreds of yards of fabric donations per month from heirs who don't know what to do with their loved ones' fabric stashes.

Quilting fabrics are cut up into 6.5 inch squares and turned into baby quilts.  We make 80 quilts a month, using over 160 yards, and the fabric keeps piling up.  And that's just the quilting fabrics.  The apparel fabrics are separated and sent out to other organizations that teach sewing or sew for charity.

Judging by the quality of the fabrics, our local stashers/fabric collectors have good taste in fabrics.  Here is a trio of quilts I pieced last month from pre-cut kits put together by our community services volunteers.  (Please follow the link and contact them if you would like to help make the quilts or donate materials.  We are swimming in fabric, but always need more batting and good quality thread.)

Surfing themes are popular by the beach.

 Making these quilts is like fabric archeology; the fabrics span different eras and styles.   Check out the mix of 1960s and 1970s orange prints, mixed with today's Indonesian batiks and machine-printed fabric made to mimic the mottled look of hand dyes.

Occasionally, the pre-cut kits come with extra scraps to use for the backings.  I pull scraps from my scrap bin and piece coordinating quilt backs for those.

I hope my heirs don't have to contend with my stash.  I plan to use up all my fabric.  Which means I either have to live a long, long, long time, I have to sew faster, or I need to collect fewer fabrics.  ;-)

Most of us who are already sewing and collecting fabric have been over-consuming--purchasing more fabric than we can sew.  We can't afford the space to collect more fabric, yet we can't afford to let the remaining shops go out of business.  (In our local area, we have already lost the nationally famous Treadle Art and Florence Fabrics stores, regionally famous The Cotton Shop, and the excellent Luella's and Sew Fun quilt shops.)

The only thing to do is to spread the sewing and fabric buying habit among more participants.  Does that make me a fabric proselytizer or a pusher?

Community Service

One of the goals for my time off is to help out more with the South Bay Quilters' Guild, both by making more charity quilts and by helping out with guild social media.

IMHO, we are a great bunch of people, united by our love of quilts and quilting. We also take our 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization status very seriously, participating in myriad community services projects. (We are famous among quilt guilds for the quantity of charitable work we do considering our membership size.)

Check out these four Quilts for Wounded Soldiers that were turned in by SBQG members in April 2012. They are already enroute to Afganistan.

The quilts are shipped to combat hospitals in Afghanistan and given to soldiers in Intensive Care Units. These troops are often sent home in unheated cargo planes, so the quilts are functional for warmth in addition to showing that we care and thank them for their sacrifices.

The quilts needed are ”quick quilts” with just 3 requirements:

• Size is 4 ft x 6 ft 6 in, or 48 inches by 78 inches (the size of stretchers and gurneys)
• All cotton; no synthetics, including the batting
• Red/white/blue or appropriate patriotic theme (no cartoon characters)

You need not be a member of our guild to make and donate quilts.

Don't miss the SBQG Quilt Show

If you are in the SoCal area, consider yourself invited to the South Bay Quilters' Guild 2012 Quilt show. It will be held in the Torrance Cultural Arts Center February 18-19, 2012. Even if you can't attend, consider buying a raffle ticket to win our gorgeous 2012 opportunity quilt, Floral Fantasy.

Members' quilts will be on view. In addition to the raffle quilt, there will be dozens of smaller auction quilts. The proceeds all go towards our philanthropic activities.

Consider combining your visit with sight-seeing and/or shopping in Torrance. Torrance has so much cachet in Tokyo, this t-shirt is sold out in all but one size.

Actually, this is not completely tongue in cheek. Torrance-Gardena is home to the largest Japanese-American community in the US and the town has a distinctly Pacific Rim flavor. You can get food and goods in Torrance that isn't generally available outside of Japan. Add the beach and surf culture and more Japanese kids have heard of Torrance than kids that live as few as 50 miles away.

We once hosted an international scientist of Japanese descent at work. We asked him what he wanted to see. He took out a map and said, "I understand you are very close to Torrance."

Call of the wild: read me a quilt 2012

When cleaning out Iris' room, we found a copy of Call of the wild and this stuffed dog that barks when you squeeze it. It begged for a delectable mountains quilt for the read me a quilt program. (The book+quilt combos are given to children in the LA County foster care program with the help of Court Appointed Special Advocates, CASA.)

I started with this fabric sample donated by Robert Kaufman, when the fabric was discontinued.

I made three delectable mountains blocks by sewing two roughly 18" square pieces of fabric into half square blocks. Then I sliced them vertically in three places, reversed their order and sewed them up into liberated delectable mountains blocks. I used my ruler strictly as a straight edge and did not look at the markings.

I used two fabric samples, 5 purchased 1/2 yard fabrics (I lacked suitable sky fabric), 1.5 yards of yardage from my collection for the mountains and then improvisationally pieced the rest using fabric from my scrap bin. Inspired by Completely Cauchy's, Scraptacularity, Part I, in which she pieced straight strips into log cabins and then cut them up as fabric, I pieced my backing log cabin style. Can you see how the backing was constructed?

The pieces ranged in size from fat quarters to this tiny triangle.

While piecing the quilt, I relived memories of past projects. Many of the blue/green fabrics were leftover from a baby quilt from pre-blog days; that baby is now in 7th grade. The gray faux bois were also used in the gray tiered skirts in Hello Goth!

The blue shirting with green stripes came from one of Bad Dad's thrifted shirt. When the collar & cuffs became too frayed to be presentable, I cut the body up to make a blue tiered skirt shown in Blue. The sleeves were cut up and used for this quilt.

Piecing scraps into fabric is labor intensive. In analyzing why I am drawn to quilts that are traditionally associated with African American quilt communities, I realized that I appreciate both the visual texture derived from the worn nature of the old fabrics and the labor-intensive and miraculous act of making something from nothing.

The process is part of the quality of the quilt, the inherent thingness of the thingy that Robert Pirsig wrote about in Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

This is my entry for the Scrap Attack Quilt Along.

Past read me a quilts:
2011: Treasure Island
2010: Cat in a hat
Artful resourcefulness from fiber artist Abigail Doan

Improvisational Quilt

Is this the "right side"?
Or is this the "right side"?
I had intended the orderly one as the right side and improvisationally-pieced side as the backing, but I think that I like the "wrong" side better.

It all started when the Santa Monica and South Bay Quilters' guilds got together last Spring to sell everyone's bits and bobs as a joint fundraiser. I walked away with three shopping bags full of fabric, yarn, patterns and oddities that I thought I might have a use for. Bad Dad thought the point was for me to unload my own surplus. Silly man.

Anyway, I saw the two skull fabrics and thought that my girly goth girl might want a quilt made out of these scraps. She didn't like them.
Plan B had me making a "Read me a quilt" to accompany the book, Treasure Island. I challenged myself to use only what I already had in my collection, which meant that I had to piece some fabrics like the reds below.
For the backing, I sewed scraps into blocks and then sewed the blocks together. (I promised in Zero Waste Goal to show an example of scraps sewn into fabric and here it is.) I added a black and white striped shirt from Goodwill. I call it the "Big Kahuna" shirt because it measured 70" in circumference. I harvested the buttons for a future shirt and cut up the body for the backing. Notice the triangular patches in the holes left by the armscythe of the shirt.
There were other triangles, too. I had barely enough fabric to pull this off.
The solid red is a Kona cotton leftover from another quilt. The red/white and yellow/white prints are pre-consumer waste from SAS. The black/white geometric is a remnant from Joann's premium cotton section.

[ I was surprised that the selvage says 2005 and they are selling it as current fabric. But, if you look closely, their premium fabrics are often old stock that the independent fabric stores cleared out years ago. I guess that's how they can mark it up to $10/yard and then mark it down to $5/yard and still turn a profit.]

The red/white pindot is a fabric second. The dye is spread unevenly where it became jammed in the machinery. I like the visual texture that the mistake provides.
I pieced this before I read Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking I and II. The seams were so crooked, I was thinking more Gees Bend than Liberated.

Anyway, Read me a quilt was started by a SBQG member 10 years ago. Working with Court Appointed Special Advocates (for children in foster care), CASA, we try to provide each child with a book and a quilt that goes with the book. If your quilt group would like to join our effort, drop me a line. You need not be a member of SBQG, or any guild, to help out.

I chose Treasure Island to go with the pirate theme. I couldn't decide between the unabridged one with beautiful illustrations, but archaic language, or the modernized and simplified version. I decided to buy both. I figure the child can read the simple one on his/her own, and an adult can read and explain the unabridged one to him/her. This quilt is about 55"x67"; there should be plenty of room for two under this quilt.

Iris was sorting out her unused toys and we thought this pirate bear should go in the care package. Aargh!
We found this puppy (squeeze it and it barks!) and Jack London's The Call of the Wild in her giveaway pile. I already know what next year's quilt will look like. I think I just might have the fabric I need already in my collection.
The South Bay Quilters' Guild takes the philanthropy aspect of our 503c nonprofit status very seriously. We provide hundreds of quilts each year (nearly a thousand) for local charities and college scholarships to students studying for the garment trades. Our community services chair takes fabric donations. She says that we use 160 yards per month from the donation stash for our charity quilts. Yet, the stash never seems to get smaller. I wonder how many sewists can relate. ;-)

See my 2010 Read me a quilt, another improvisational piece.

The maker's dilemma

I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have acquired for making stuff. It's really quite scary. But, occasionally, I am really happy that, when the urge to create strikes, we have enough to do just about anything.

Iris used to play imaginative games with another girl in first grade and her teacher suggested that I invite the girl over to our house to play. She mentioned that the play dates should always take place at our house because things at the other girl's house were quite rough*.

During one play date, I suggested the girls paint. Iris has two craft carts full of supplies--one for painting, another for scrap booking. We set up the paints and papers and I let the girls at it. When I walked by again, the guest asked if she could have another sheet of paper.

I pointed to the stack and told her to help herself. She painted another and then another. Iris got bored and read a book while her friend painted. I overheard them talking.

The guest asked Iris what happens when she uses up her supplies. Iris told her that I buy some more. The other girl was stunned.

I was reminded of this incident when I came home with this skort from the Lands' End clearance rack. Iris said that it fit, but she would not wear it so plain. She wanted an asymmetrical motif on the front.

I got out my stencil books and paints. None of them were what she had in mind. Then I remembered a Japanese pattern book that had some simple, but bold embroidery motifs. She found the perfect one immediately.

All I had to do was scan the motif and display it with Picasa. I moved the size slider bar until it was enlarged to just the right size. Then I traced it onto a piece of printer paper using the computer screen as a lightbox. I transferred the motif to the skirt using carbon tracing paper and a plastic Hera marker while Iris rummaged around in my tin of embroidery floss, looking for the perfect shade of blue.

I showed Iris how to do a back stitch and she went at it with surprising perseverance. When she got tired and went to bed, I finished the last ~20% for her. The project was conceived and executed in one evening because I had all the supplies on hand.

Another morning, I decided to make the Star Fragments quilt out of the book, Flying Colors. I've been dragging this poster from one home to another since 1983. I saw the George Costakis collection at Lousiana.dk and was completely blown away by the saturated colors and composition. The poster is faded now, and I wanted to put something really bright in its place. I found everything needed to complete the project in the sewing room.

I thought about cropping out the clutter, but then decided against it. There are so many commercial images of clutter-free perfection, I felt like it would be a public service to show what an actual house with children looks like.

(Lest you remark that I only have one child, have you met my husband yet? Yes, that is the Lego NXT set I wrote about in What Do Automobiles and Spacecraft Have in Common? while guest blogging for the Atlantic Technology site. Iris made that Duplo rainbow when she learned the colors of the rainbow--and their order--in kindergarten. We keep that around to remind us that red goes on the outside and violet goes in the middle. The rainbow sits on a set of nesting boxes that she used to play with as a baby. No, the stuff diet is not going well. Why do you ask?)

After I bound the quilt, I put it through the washer and dryer. While I was waiting for that to finish, I made this charity quilt top. Sometimes, I just want a brainless project that is ready to go. I always keep a few 7-minute quilt top kits stored in Ziploc bags in the sewing room. It took considerably longer than 7 minutes.

In other news, I finally recovered my ironing table. The old cover was so stained and ripped. The padding also needed new augmentation as it had compressed to the point where you can see the impressions of the metal grill underneath. I was really happy to find the perfect fabric, this sturdy African printed cotton, in my collection.

20 years ago, I had a heat-sensitive mahogany dining table that required a cotton insulator pad under the table cloth. I got rid of the table, but saved the pad--for 20 years. I must have known that I would need to recover an ironing board someday.

Using the old cover as a pattern, I cut and hemmed the replacement cover. I tried to thread a piece of string around the edge the same way as on the old cover, but I used the only thin string I had, crochet cotton. It lacks the tensile strength to allow me to gather up the cover taut. It snapped immediately, sending me to the fabric store to buy some polyester cord. I found polyester cord, but some more fabric also came home with me.

I did take a trunk full of stuff to Goodwill and another trunk load went to Iris' cousin. While we cleaned up her room, Iris found some neglected but well-loved toys. While I was taking the boxes downstairs, she built an assemblage, complete with Snap Circuit sound effects.

So her floor was clear for like, 10 seconds.

* I had previously mentioned that we moved into what realtors euphemistically call a "neighborhood in transition". The other girl was an old timer family that people like us are pushing out. She lived with her grandmother, who couldn't afford the rents here any longer. A few months later, they moved a mile to the east, where rents are lower, but the homicide rate is 10 times higher and the elementary school has a ~90% poverty rate (vs ~20% here).

Our neighborhood school was full up and she was unable to get an inter-district transfer. She attended another school for one year before she was able to get readmitted to our neighborhood school.

By then, she had completely changed. She became very quiet, didn't play imaginative games any more and had become obese. The changes occurred in just one year.

People in that neighborhood are scared to let their children play outside. Several children have been shot in gang cross-fire in recent years. Check out the excellent LA Times interactive homicide map to see the disparities. We live sandwiched between gang warfare on one side and a resort-like beach community where homes sell for $2-20 Million.

Meanwhile, we are cozy inside our home, but we are up to our eyeballs in tools for creating.

Read me a quilt

I mentioned this quilt in the seven minute quilt top post. Our quilt guild also makes quilts for children in the LA county foster care system. Many of these kids were removed from neglectful or dangerous homes. They don't have many things that are theirs alone. We endeavor to give the kids a book and a quilt that matches the theme of the book.

Can you guess which book I bought to go with this quilt?

I received a bundle (one of about 10 given to our guild) of Dr Suess-themed fabric from the line put out by Robert Kaufman. They were scraps from their cutting room. Once I started assembling the strips, I realized that there was nearly enough to make a twin-sized quilt. I went through my quilting cotton collection and pulled some candidates.
I added borders around each edge. until it was large enough.
Then I ran out of time and passed the quilt top and some backing material from my fabric collection to our guild's "Read me a quilt" coordinator. She will finish it and present it to a child at this weekend's party for LA county foster children. Many quilt guilds throughout the region work on this project, so each child gets something special made just for them.

If you would like to help give time or materials for our community services quilts, contact me.

Aside:
This year, I kept track of fabric in and out of my collection. I thought I was showing restraint and selectivity. I used 80, gave away 25, but my collection still grew by 20 yards. How is that possible?

The seven minute quilt top

Not.

The Community Services chairwoman of the South Bay Quilters' Guild claims that her pre-cut charity quilt kits can be sewn in 6:49. I think that means she can sew them that fast. I couldn't meet her par.

The strippy quilt below was sewn that quickly, if you don't count pressing time.
I think that she means that, if the squares are stacked in piecing order, and you don't press until AFTER the entire top is pieced, she can sew the top in under 7 minutes. While I can't sew as fast as she can, I could have sewn this really fast, if I hadn't mixed up two of the squares. Rip and redo took longer than the initial piecing session.
The rest of them went well.
I think Bad Dad would have liked a bicycle-themed quilt.
This one is my favorite; if I could keep it, I would.
Anyway, these five lap-quilts (36"x36" or 36"x42") are destined for our local battered women and children's shelter. When children arrive at the shelter, they are often very scared and have nothing but the clothes on their backs. The kids are led to the "quilt closet' where they are allowed to select any quilt there as their own. When they leave the shelter, they take the quilts with them.

(We also provide bags of toiletries that guild members collect from hotels. Before TSA took our shampoo away, I used to bring home a bunch of those little toiletry bottles home from every business trip. Some of the champion business travelers in our quilt guild bring in a lot.)

Our guild makes over 500 of these quilts a year and there is never enough.

I didn't make the seven minute par, but I did make 5 of these quilt tops and half of a twin-sized quilt for a LA county foster child last weekend. I didn't get to sew this weekend at all for reasons I will explain later.

X

I never did show a picture of the completed first quilt.

A 3x3 Irish chain quilt forms a giant X. The parents have already decided to nickname this boy "X". Fitting quilt for him, non?

Iris ran out of sewing steam after piecing the blocks.  So I sashed and completed the quilt top while she did her homework.  Then we sandwiched the quilt together.  I did the quilting.  The Bernina walking foot did a fantastic job on the straight areas.  I am still learning how to free-motion quilt using the BSR attachment.  I think that the irregular jags are due to operator error.  The fourth side looks much better than the first.  ;-)

This is supposed to be a feather.

Oops, I need to run off to his mommy's farewell lunch.  She starts maternity leave next week.

[In CA, new mothers can get up to 4 weeks off before their due date and 6 or 8 weeks after the birth (depending upon whether it was a vaginal or c-section delivery) and collect disability pay. Many employers, mine included, supplement the disability to the full salary. Fathers collect state disability to take the mothers or new baby to doctors' appointments and such.  When people complain about CA's high tax rates, this is because we are paying for family-friendly policies like this.  It takes money.  You don't get something for nothing.]