January Quiltlets

These are the little cheesy quiltlets I made in January. I finally broke down and took a snapshot of them on the ironing board...

Things Fons and Porter don't tell you

Yesterday IPTV showed an episode of F&P where they showed you how to do English paper-piecing with temporary spray adhesive instead of pasting around all the little shapes. They used pentagons to make a 3-D cupped shape instead of hexagons, but the beauty of technique shows is my ability to extrapolate...

So off I went to my LQS (as always, forgetting the envelope with my Iowa quilt shop punch cards...), and they had die-cut cardstock 1" hexagons, so I was able to try this out right away without cutting.

Now, when F&P did this, they had no problems at all.

When I did this, the temporary adhesive was too temporary--the papers did not stick to the fabric long enough for me to complete the outer layer of the Grandmother's Flower shape. It did, however, cause: my fingers to stick to paper, fabric, and each other; cat hair to stick to myself, the paper, the fabric, and the thread; paper and fabric to stick to The Cat.

Eventually I worked out a complicated system of adhesive and paper clips...the whole process still seems horribly time-consuming and not yet relaxing.




Oh, and the Grout Museum in Waterloo didn't call me for their annual "Treasured Quilts from Beloved Iowa Quilters" show AGAIN. *snicker*

Paisley

For school, I'm doing a little research on an early 19th-century wool shawl, patterned with unusual woven paisleys. The paisley shapes are not a stripey outline with a floral inside, as I usually think of the 70s-style paisley, but are composed of geometric leaves arranged in a shape that reminds me of a stylized blue whale.

Here's the shawl concept (shown in an 1817 fashion plate from the ISU University Archives), although this shawl's pattern looks absolutely nothing like the pattern on the one in the ISU Dept. of Textiles and Clothing collection.




I hate paisley, and the research has been very frustrating. Digging through the 1810-1825 fashions has been mildly interesting; I don't have much interest in fashion design but the ribbons, trims, and artificial flowers on the dresses and hats I viewed today were really over the top, and I feel a curious need to start sewing artificial flowers all over a hemline. Or a quilt binding. :)

Too much non-art going on around here...

Since my last post, I've learned that my quasi-boyfriend Ron has terminal cancer and expects to be dead by Christmas. We adopted an adorable sweet kitten named Mischief Maloo (we added the Mischief after she discovered a pan of oil in the garage, not three hours after I brought her home) to keep him company. He's also still the primary caretaker for his dad, even after starting chemo, so when I talk to him, he's completely exhausted. :(

And yet, he seems more worried about me than about himself. I'll be sad but I'll be OK.

I'm also losing a lot of time to general anxiety. Too much thinking and not enough sleeping, walking, journaling, etc.

Hexagons

Lately I've had a strange craving for hexagons. Like a Grandmother's Flower Garden. I actually went out looking for templates, but they were all too large or two small (also really expensive, yow!).

I got a piece of mylar template plastic; The Cat has already tried to wrestle it.

Speaking of, The Cat is in trouble. He's been flinging poo around the spare bedroom, which is where my art stuff lives. I cleaned his box and mopped the floor, but I'm concerned the fabrics are going to absorb his foul stench.

Heh. Tonight playing Scrabble I scored a bingo with ODORANT.

Goal for the week

I was asleep for four days straight. Usually I don't sleep much at all, I wonder if my brain finally blew under the electrical load and shut down.

I've located a flatbed scanner; now I just need to remember to take the quiltlets (holy cow, it's been two weeks already) to be scanned. I worked on a fourth quiltlet tonight, but I think I've carried the cheesy heart motif further than I really should. Certainly further than I ever wanted.

My goal for the week is to walk outside more. Somewhere I got out of the habit of setting and achieving goals...I'm starting soft and while I walk I'll think of a real goal for next week.

Blogslacking

What's the point of a blog that is never updated? Life got in the way, including babysitting my nephew and obsessing over historical dress research. OTOH, there's no point in updating a blog about textile arts when I haven't been creating any textile art, either.

Instead, I offer this picture of my fearless assistant, FUZZ, subduing a perle cotton insurgency.