Workshop in Progress - January 12

Welcome Back!

I am so glad to have all the returning and new folks back in the Workshop in Progress. This looks like it will be a good session.

Just a reminder to keep any of your comments constructive. It takes a lot for some people to put their process out there and ask for opinions, advice, and feedback. If you don't have anything nice to say then keep your mouth shut and your fingers down. If you genuinely see a spot for improvement, choose your words carefully and deliver the message kindly. Of course, if you love what you see or have a great answer to the question on deck then don't hesitate to share it.

If you've got a post for this week, feel free to add your link to the widget below. Every week you can add another post. I will, however, only keep the link widget open until Friday morning. And don't forget that you can add your photo and question to the Flickr group as well.

Please note that I've also updated the blogroll with participants new and old. If you are missing from this list, please let me know and I'll add you in.


Workshop in Progress January 12









(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)

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Hobo Quilts

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Every now and then a book completely grabs you, unexpectedly. You aren't sure why you are drawn to it, or what holds the appeal when it seems to obviously not your taste. Regardless of whether you think you should like it or not, you do. And you can't stop thinking about it. So you buy it, even when you aren't supposed to be spending any money.

Hobo Quilts is the most recent addition to my personal library. It's a book filled with over 50 block patterns and 20 quilt patterns from those blocks. It's more than that though. It is also filled with stories from people who rode the rails, fed them, entertained them, policed them, and more. Part oral history, part quilt book.

The patterns are based on a symbol glossary common to people who rode the rails. And the stories are all from archived collections and the author's family.

Each of the block patterns is accompanied by a story. The patterns themselves are quite simple. A life-size line drawing of the block with cutting instructions. That's it. It's up to the reader to put the block together. Some other reviews do caution that the cutting instructions and finished block do not correlate. For an experienced quilter, however, none of the blocks are so difficult that you couldn't adapt it for your own taste and size. There is a pretty good split between applique and pieced blocks. Here are some of my favourites - for the design or simply the name.





On first glance, these blocks may not appeal to the modern quilter. The history attached and the fabric choices in the book are not likely to appeal to someone used to working with large scale brights. But the simplicity and graphic nature of many of the blocks should not be overlooked. Combined en masse many of these blocks would make a striking, modern quilt. Your fabric choice and scale of the block could radically change from what you see in the book. It just takes some imagination.

Debra G. Henninger
2010
Krause Publications

Workshop in Progress Relaunch

It's time to welcome back the Workshop in Progress. We've had a long break now, but with the New Year brings new projects and new commitments. Part of my ongoing push to get more quilters to share their process means it is time to bring WIP back.

Starting next week I will host Workshop in Progress Wednesdays. On this day I invite you to post and share (through one of those clever linky thing-a-ma-bobs I'll put at the bottom of the post) your fabric selection challenges, design wall dilemmas, quilting struggles, and general questions.

We can't all be in the same studio space together (but wouldn't that be fun?) so let's use the power of the internet to create a studio environment. Ask for help, input, and constructive criticism. Share your works in progress and highlight how you got answers you wanted. Introduce others to your challenges and a ha moments. Nothing to share that week? Make sure you visit all the sites linked up throughout the week and offer an opinion.

If your site isn't on the link list to the right there and you would like it to be, leave a comment on this post or send me an email. I'll be happy to add you to the list. Feel free to link to a Flickr account as well. Remember we've got a group on Flickr too.

I'm looking forward to joining you all in the studio!
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2+2=4

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It's time to put 2010 behind me.

To be perfectly frank, it was one of the worst years I've ever had. As a couple, Hubby and I both agree that not much can get worse. (There was a lot to celebrate too.) We weathered long and frequent separations, there was the fall while skiing and the recovery that still continues, there were major life changes and serious adjustments for all, there were home renos that went no where, there was Hubby's painful battle with his own injuries, there were changes all around. And there was more.

This quilt came out of the more. In the last 6 months of the year I experienced two miscarriages. One was quite shocking and ended up with me in the hospital on our way home from a funeral. The other was more typical and certainly less traumatic, but hard to deal with because it happened while Hubby was out of town. I'd had a miscarriage before, in the months before The Monster was conceived. But after everything this year I found these two particularly rough to recover from - physically and emotionally.

This quilt was started this summer, shortly after my hospital experience. The image of the crayons in my hand was always in the back of my head, percolating with options and happiness over how they came to be. At that point I also started thinking about the questions nurses and midwives ask when you become pregnant. How many children do you have? How many pregnancies? 2+2=4

Some doodling, some planning on the computer, and I just started sewing. As December progressed there was no option but to finish this quilt. I needed to put it, and everything else behind me. It was a just because quilt, but it was also more. But I don't want to put a lot of meaning to it. Finishing it, however, is symbolic of putting the past behind me.

I tend to hold on to things, even when they are pulling me under the water. Some sort of sick self pity keeps me grasping to hang on when the surface is right there. If I just let go I can get to shore and walk ahead, drying off as I go, ready for the next adventure. Hubby always said that if we let everything that happens get to us we would never get out of bed in the morning. Well, I spent a lot of time trying not to get out of bed over the last 6 months. It's time to stop doing that, it's time to let go and swim for shore.
The quilt is done. It isn't a particularly pretty quilt, nor is it one of my best efforts. I was so anxious to finish that I didn't square it up and the edges are very wavy. The quilting is uneven. My points could have matched a bit better in spots. But its done. With the last stitches of the binding, finished with my girls helping me on New Year's Eve, I actually do feel ready for the next adventure.

Bring on 2011!