Short Stack

Day 317: Depending on who's serving and how big they are, a "short stack" of pancakes is generally two or three. In this case, my "short stack" is 13, the last row (minus one already sewn on) of my second completely hand-stitched hexagon quilt. Not counting small quilts, they were the quickest quilts I've ever made due, I am certain, to the fact that I prefer hand-stitching to working on the sewing machine. The first took a mere two months to the day. The current one has taken a bit longer (not quite three months), and I will have it done by tomorrow evening. Then I can devote myself entirely to Ring Cycles (seen here as the backdrop). It is also going more quickly than expected, at least as far as piecing is concerned. However, once I am done assembling all those little one-inch squares, the quilt will need to be backed and batted, and then mounted on the frame for hand-quilting over the winter months.

Ring Cycles - Two Motifs

Day 312: Ring Cycles (a variation of Jack's Chain) is going more quickly than expected, especially considering the fact that I'm working on other projects as well. Admittedly, my fingers are a little sore, and my bum is kinda chair-shaped! There were two challenges in figuring out how to "grow" this design. The first was how to piece the outer edges so that it followed a gentle curve. That was relatively easy, given that I'd drawn the design out with PaintShop Pro and had shapes to play with. The second was more challenging: how to join the large motifs without having to stitch the apex of a triangle into a deep ditch. That proved to be a matter of assembly order, putting on all the "filler" triangles until the edges created the shape where the next hexagon would fit in. Already, if I stand back and look at the pattern slaunchwise, I can see the arcs of the optical-illusion rings beginning to form. Two down, and only 30 to go!

Faster And "Funner"

Day 173: After many years of making elaborate costumes and other clothing, I came to a conclusion: I hate machine sewing. However, I love to sew by hand. That said, I've pieced dozens of quilts with the machine, although I almost always finished them with hand-quilting. The machine-sewing phase has always been the part I least enjoyed, and by "least enjoyed," I mean asking myself over and over why I ever wanted to do this again. This new project is entirely hand-stitched, and what has come as the greatest surprise is the fact that it's going far more quickly toward the finished product, partly because each piece is fully completed once it's sewn in place...all backed, batted and quilted, done! In addition to these assembled pieces, I have an equal number done except for stitching them together. That part goes quickly, and I decided to do it that way in order to randomize the second half with hexagons identical to those in the first half. The photos show the front and the back of the quilt respectively. It's not only faster, it's "funner" to do it by hand!

Leather Thimble

Day 168: I am a small person. I have very, very tiny hands, and when I say "tiny," I mean that my wedding ring was a size 4. Eons ago, when I found a leather thimble which came reasonably close to fitting my middle finger, I should have bought half a dozen instead of just one. I used it for many years until it finally wore through, at which point I covered it with a piece of pigskin. Pigskin is notoriously tough for all of being thin and supple, but even so, it eventually wears out with repeated abrasion. The poor thing has stood me in good stead through countless quilts and other hand-sewing projects, but when I sat down to stitch the binding around the Double Wedding Ring, I realized I was on dangerous ground. Anyone who has ever driven the threaded eye of a needle into their finger will know what I mean! I was out of instant glue, so putting another layer of pigskin over the one covering the original leather thimble was out of the question. I did the nest best thing: just poked another piece inside and jammed it in with the tip of my finger until the thimble felt snug. It's not the best solution, but it's serviceable until I can get some glue. The leather thimbles they sell these days are so big and sloppy, they'd fall off my big toe!

Kitty Windows

Day 290: Handwork on the kitty quilt is proceeding much more quickly than I'd expected. By bedtime last night, I'd sewn a total of ten prints into their frames, a total of six for the day. The quilt has 72 "windows" to fill, so even if I only do four per day, I could be done in under a month. To me, this is the fun part of making a quilt: hand-sewing. I find machine work tedious and monotonous, words which I've heard many people use in reference to hand-stitching, ironically. A cozy, homey feeling accompanies sitting with a piece of fabric in your lap, meticulously placing each tiny stitch so that it is almost invisible. As you watch the project develop beneath your hands, a sense of pride in your workmanship wells up and you find yourself striving for perfection without being conscious that you are doing so. Memories rise: a patient grandmother teaching a four-year old to "go over four threads and back two" to form a perfect stem stitch on an embroidered handkerchief, or putting three winds around the needle for a neat French knot. The hours slip by, and the forty minutes it took to sew one print into its frame seems negligible when balanced against the prospect of your work becoming an heirloom to be passed down through generations, or hopefully so. I find myself wondering: have I done enough handwork that one piece will survive into the next century? Will something of my stitchery endure beyond my time on the earth? I'd like to think it will.

The Twenty-Year Quilt

Day 336: It's done! Well, I still have to create a "made by" tag for the back, but it's ready for the laundry. 60" x 68", it makes a nice topper for a full-size bed. They say that the skill of a quilter can be best seen on the back of their work, and while I'm not exactly proud of the machine piecing (I was working with "mistake cuts" for the print squares), I think the actual hand-quilting would pass muster. Each of the 72 blocks (pale blue center surrounded by 20 small squares) took approximately four hours. Hand-stitching is time-consuming! I feel a great sense of relief to have this one out of my "unfinished works" basket, but I've already started piecing another one.

Final Screen

Day 327 (bonus): This is it, folks! The last "screen," the last two blocks! The Twenty-Year Quilt is almost quilted! The next step will be adding a simple binding (machine sewing), and it will be DONE! DONE! DONE! For those who are curious, each of the 72 blocks consists of a four-inch center (light blue) surrounded by twenty 1" print squares. Blocks are joined squares to squares, making each "street" a double line of squares; an extra row of squares was added as a border around the entire quilt. Each small square is shadow-quilted. The plain centers are also shadow-quilted around the edge, plus a fleur-de-lys design in the middle. If you look at the back (bottom), you can see how each small square becomes a little "ravioli." Time spent in hand-quilting will be roughly 250-300 hours.