Reading or Sewing?

I love my sewing magazines.  They are a source of information, ideas and colorful pictures of other peoples' art.  I get three that lean mostly toward art quilting where I get to see what the supremely talented sewers are creating.  They are my creative stimulation.  I also get some other magazines that provide intellectual stimulation. "Archeology" has many designs from ancient cultures as will as great articles about them.  Mosaics are just quilts in stone.   Love them all.

Unfortunately I don't have room to store them and I have found that when I keep the whole magazine I never know where to find the article for which I am looking.  Sometimes I read a magazine and keep it for two or three months, then go through it again.  Ultimately they are all destined for the recycling bin, but not before I cannibalize them, pulling out articles that I believe I will at least look at again.  I staple an article together in one corner and slip it into a plastic sleeve that goes into a three ring binder.  They are readily available when I am in need of instruction or inspiration.

I also keep a library of books, but rarely buy a new one.  I try to read through a potentially helpful or interesting-sounding book from the library before I buy it.  I have been very glad I did on several occasions when the title was tempting, but the contents did not live up its promise.  Actually, I have donated quite a few of mine to the local library for their book sale.  Some techniques no longer interest me or have gone out of date with the arrival of new methods and tools.

TIP:  There is no point cluttering up your space with things you never use anymore, especially when you work in limited space.

What did we do without the Internet?  There is so much out there to admire and learn.  I have paid for a few Craftsy classes and am not averse to viewing some of the many YouTube productions.  I have learned a lot, incorporated some and discarded others.

A favorite, which I have watched often without cluttering up my sewing room.

So, which do you prefer:  sewing or reading?  For me it is no contest.  I love to read for pleasure and education.  I love to sew just about anything.  I learned to do both in first grade.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you the opportunity to read about something new to you.

Quilting as Therapy

I have been swamped with year end stuff and the birthdays of several family members.  I always write my annual letter in January to avoid the confusion of the holidays.  This year I am rushed even more to get it done before my daughter's knee surgery.  I MUST get all this stuff done and my week already has two out-of-house days.

I am really finding out what my daily quilting does for me because I am not doing any right now.  What do you gain from quilting?  These are the things I treasure:

**The challenge.  There is always something to challenge our capabilities.  There is something     new to learn.  There is something new to try.  There is something to think about and puzzle out.

**I love the opportunity to be creative.  Design a quilt.  Design a quilting pattern.  Choose colors. Figure out how to put a quilt together both design-wise and technical-wise.

**Many quilting tasks require repetition where you have to pay attention with some intensity.  Even monotonus tasks leave me more relaxed when I finish.  The satisfaction of progress is a real upper.  As you go over the same thing time and time again your mind has time to wander and think about things in your life to the music of the motor.  

**There is pleasure and happiness in finishing a task or completing a quilt.  I love to go back to look at what I have done.  Sometimes I see things that need fixing, but mostly it is gratifying to see something accomplished and looking pretty.

After a session of quilting I am ready to quit for awhile - until the next day anyhow!  It somehow leaves me feeling a little like I do after good exercise session.  I find that the little worries of life go away for awhile, leaving me more willing to face and deal with them.

You have heard it before:  Work on a quilt and say goodbye you your therapist.  Works for me!

The quilt below is sitting on my machine waiting for attention.  I turned it over and the light from the window highlighted the texture of the quilting.  The other side has color, but the back is different sort of vision.  On the front some of the quilting doesn't show much, but the back says it all.

Quilting from the back.

Sew a happy seam this week.  I wish you joy in your quilting.

How Fierce is Your Bulldog?

All kinds of people make quilts.  Some are more motivated than others about different parts of the process.  The vast majority of us make quilts for pleasure and the amount of time and care spent meets individual needs and goals.  What about quilting gives you pleasure?

I know a person who decided she didn't want to spend time being really careful.  She said, "I am not going to worry about points anymore."  So she doesn't worry about the tip of a point that gets a little clipped.  Her quilts are beautiful.  She makes quilts to be used and washed frequently and we all love them.  They do not have to be perfect in every detail.  That's OK.

Some make quilts for charity using donated fabrics.  The perfection seen in these quilts runs the gamut from quick to time consuming.  One lady told me that this allows her to do the sewing she loves without having to spend her money on fabric.  The important aspect of this kind of quilting is the potential to sell and raise funds for charity and from that is derived additional pleasure and accomplishment.

There are many talented quilters who make a business of quilting.  Those with longarm machines see tremendous variation in the quality of their customers' quilts.  Some clearly have no knowledge of "proper" techniques and their blocks don't even meet at the seams, but they love doing it or they are doing it for love.  Other customers pay to have beautifully constructed quilts quilted by a professional.  Still others prefer to do it all themselves, not wanting to share the glory, so to speak.  Pattern-makers transpose their quilts onto paper that others can make the same quilt.

I have one daughter who wanted to join the family enclave of quilters.  She made the attempt, but came to me one day to say, "Mom, I'm sorry, but I just don't enjoy quilting."  I am sorry she put that pressure on herself, but her considerable, artistic talents show in every other area of her life.  She just doesn't like to sew.

There are some of us who have fierce inner bulldogs and go above and beyond to achieve perfection. This can be frustrating because it is an unattainable goal.  So goes my quilting with a lot of ripping last week.  Why?:

• I wasn't satisfied with what I had done.
• I tried a new idea on the actual quilt because I didn't have a suitable tester on which to work (quilting the spiral).  I saw a portion of it that could turn into a more interesting sub-design.  Satisfied now and glad I re-did it.
• I stitched a bunch of motifs with the wrong color thread.  Just plain careless.  

I have an insatiable bulldog in me, but I still can't achieve perfection.  It's the same when playing piano.  There are some small glitches here and there that I consider too small to bother with considering the time it takes to rip carefully.  I have been known to use permanent marker to hide a small defect where possible. However, if a glitch bothers me I leave it overnight, and if it still bothers me by the next afternoon I pull out my ripper and redo it.

Ripping is really time consuming because you have to pull out enough loose thread beyond the defect  to tie off the ends on both sides.  Then more ends to tie in after you re-stitch the affected area.  Sometimes it is worth it and other times it is not.  How do I rip?  It depends.

• For quick and easy (not much danger of damage) I use the seam ripper to cut about every third stitch, top or bottom.  Then I yank the uncut thread from the other side and all comes undone.  The downside is a lot of tiny pieces of thread from the cut side.

Pretty obvious right?

• If you need to preserve enough thread to tie off the ends, use the seam ripper to cut one stitch on top and one on the bottom and then carefully pull the thread out of every stitch.  Sometimes you can pull two or three stitches out at a time without breaking the thread.  When you have enough out to tie a knot, do so and bury it.

• For really touchy spots where there may be other thread in the way such as SID work or tiny stitches I do one stitch at a time, using the top thread to pull the bobbin thread loop to the top , then slip the top thread out of the loop.  This can be done from the back if  you choose.  This is slow, but very safe.

Once the loop is up (red), pull the green thread free of the loop.
Do the same for each stitch.

Sew a happy seam this week.  I wish you no reverse sewing.