Agathe - October Morning Make Finished

Agathe

66” x 74”

Agathe is a German women. She grew up running the fields of her family farm, hands trailing in the grasses as she eyed the woods ahead. She wasn’t allowed in the woods, bad people could be there. The same bad people that loaded the trains they sometimes saw. The same people who knocked on their door at night demanding food. Agathe was still allowed in the fields though, even if her parents insisted she be in their sight at all times. Not until she’d moved to Canada did she really understand their fear. By then she also understood that they gave her freedom from fear by still letting her run the fields on sunny days. All her life she knew to take pleasures in the feel of flowing grass under her hand, of good pastry, of daily sunshine. Even if life isn’t good around you, to look for the simple pleasures.

October 2020 Morning Make is finished. I named her Agathe.

One improv block a day for the month of October. Composing as I went, playing the entire time. Some days the block related to the day before, some days the connections were harder. Each day was about finding a bit of joy, a respite from the daily slog of life in 2020. And at the end of the month I had a finished quilt top!

Fast forward a few months, one afternoon with my girls helping me baste and 8 spools of thread later and I have a finished quilt.

To quilt her I used my walking foot and creating a map of parallel lines. In spots I followed the lines of piecing, in others I went against the flow. There was a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of threads to bury. (This time I was smarter and buried them in spurts as I went while we watched Brooklyn 99.)

It is no secret that I love a contrasting binding, but this time it didn’t feel right. She got the same black binding used in piecing. It’s actually a tone on tone from my Tag Fabric collection. The other two fabrics are a cream solid that I think came from my Baba’s stash because it smelled like her when I pressed it, and a random white solid I found in the closet. The cream is actually more like a pale yellow, which I didn’t realize until the whole top was done. That’s what happens when you do all the sewing in the dark of morning.

Making this quilt really was an escape. From the piecing to the quilting to the binding. It was a respite from daily life, a moment to give myself where the rest of the world melts away. The grass isn’t green here yet, but the hares are giving us smiles. I even had one check things out as I was snapping pics. Life goes on. Life is beautiful. Finding the simple pleasures.

Mask Scraps

It’s time to make another batch of masks. Between constant wear and loss the mask basket by the front door needs replenishment. That means extra safety for the family as we ride this third wave of Covid AND more scraps.

Not sure why, but from the get go last year I kept the mask scraps as we sewed for ourselves, family, and friends. Part of me wanted to keep things together, as a form of documentation of this time. I figured I would keep them together and could always recirculate them back into general population of the scraps if I changed my mind. It would be harder to locate them again after the fact though.

Then, at one point in the summer we succumbed to the tie dye lockdown trend. I bought the good fabric dyes and we spent an afternoon dying sheets with the kids. I threw in some solid whites I had with the leftover dye. As a result, I have a whole bunch of red fabric that fits the rage mood of a lot to do with Covid. A match made in creative conscious heaven.

You can learn how to make these sweet blocks in the latest Quilters’ Playcation Playdate.

Snowballs Playdate

Announcing the next Playdate on your Quilters’ Playcation!

SNOWBALLS!

Winter isn’t quite over yet here. After a bought of fake spring we had a few inches of snow the other night. As a winter lover I am not quite ready to let go. Needless to say, these blocks are the perfect inspiration!

Quilters’ Playcation Playdates are live Zoom events where I demo an improv technique then we hang out. Bring your beverage of choice, an open heart, and get ready to laugh. You can even bring your fabric and sew along with me. Each event lasts 60-90 minutes. And now, thanks to a number of polite requests, I am happy to offer a Friday night and Saturday morning option. This will allow friends to join one or the other event (or both) from around the world.

On our first Playdate we had a friend join us from Saudi Arabia where it was 3 am!

For my sample blocks I dug into my overflowing solids scrap bins to make the corners and my endless low volume stash. Together they make some magic! Kind of like the energy of a snowball fight. Generally, as a quilt teacher I end up with a lot of class samples that never make it to a finished quilt. These blocks definitely will, I am so in love with the combo and I have a few more ideas for playing with them. That’s just how play works: you get an idea, try it out, and sometimes it works (and sometimes it doesn’t). No matter what it was time well spent because you were playing!

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Snowballs Playdates

April 9 at 5 PM MDT

OR

April 10 at 10 AM MDT

Morning Make February 2021

Phew!

That was a bit of a doozy. In a good way, of course, but still an incredible amount of stitching. That right there is one crumb block for each day in February.

What is a crumb block? That is a block sewn together with little scraps, the crumbs of your previous quilting. I think of them as mini slab blocks, the often used technique from my book Sunday Morning Quilts. What counts as a crumb is a personal definition.

In my case, crumbs are as small as 3/4” and as big as 2”. They might be skinny and long or so small you wonder why I bother. All of it is precious and valuable. This really is sewing with every last bit.

The month started with a basket of scraps that had accumulated over time. I sorted them one evening, pulling out the bigger bits and setting them aside. A few days in I remembered a half full IKEA bag of various scraps. Sigh. That’s a lot of scraps. But a zoom call with girlfriends in another city got me through most of those. Sorting scraps can be daunting but I find it is easier to do when I am multitasking with conversation or viewing something. It was those two sources that fed the crumbs. Yes, there are still some left.

That’s alright, because I am not done making these blocks!

I actually had a handful from previous sew days already. And with my upcoming Crumb Blocks Playdate on the Quilters’ Playcation I have more sewing on the agenda.

I have no idea how I am going to put these all together. You may be shocked to hear this, but I am debating using sashing! All the blocks are different sizes - they finish when I feel like stopping sewing. It would be very enjoyable to puzzle it all together, filling in the gaps with more crumbs. Indeed, that is my favourite part of making a quilt. However, I already have one large quilt made in a similar fashion. Slightly bigger crumbs and the addition of a word, but still very similar. I think I will challenge myself to do something different, I’m just not sure what that will be. In the meantime, there will always be more crumbs.