Tag Archives: “memory quilt”

sun in sun out

It is one of the those days where the sun and clouds cannot agree. A sunny morning turns dark at noon.  A dramatic spattering of rain dries to nothing, and the sun reappears.  Then it darkens at two, to the point of needing to turn on indoor lights, thunder threatens, and a half an hour later, it is over.

But I think it is a good day for a graduation, if for no other reason than it is the day that graduation is scheduled.

I am working on the former cardigan panel, quilting up a storm.

The areas that I had tucked and gathered to shrink the shoulder span of the cardigan cannot be untucked without significant reworking of the sky, so I am edging over the bumps and quilting more than I might otherwise to make the dimples of the surface somewhat uniform.

Here, a piece of the red and white Irish linen dish towel finds a place.  Because it was out.  Because I needed it.

The bottom denim edge I am contemplating leaving as a pocket, a place where prayers or ticket stubs could be housed.

There are lots of ways for cloth to be useful besides covering our bodies.

Once I determined that this panel would become a birthday gift for K., I consciously selected some clothing to represent his (our) family.  That grey paisley wool was a sweater I wore to work last year, which shrunk terribly during a less attentive laundry moment.  The blue and white checks were either D’s or C’s pajamas.  The denim cuff came from a rejected pair of jeans of K’s (pants which after I cut the cuff of, I tried on – and lo and behind they fit! I will be repairing them for me). A piece of C’s shirt is not yet there, in the mix, but will be.

Blankets in the sun

Jack did NOT know I was pointing a camera at him. This is from two days ago, when we had some warm temperatures and I put blankets out to air.

This is the commission that I just finished. I would not use variegated thread again in a project like this — I didn’t like it changing up on me when I didn’t expect it to.  Also, even though this is a blanket, meant to be sat under on a couch, I would NOT have rinsed the photos once they were transferred to fabric — the red shirts bled!  So, unlike most of the blankets I make, this one will have to be dry cleaned.  Lastly, I should have added another band of color on the right side.

For the inkjet phototransfers, I used pre-treated and pre-backed sheets of cotton available commercially — I like ‘Printed Treasures’.  They are pricey, but because it is so labor intensive to produce one’s own sheets, I consider them worth the cost.

I have gone the Bubble Jet Set route (which makes fabric more receptive to color), but by the time you’ve washed, dried and pressed the fabric, measured and cut it to just under 8.5 x 11″, then backed it with freezer paper, you’ve invested a LOT of time in something that has a very good chance of jamming in the printer.  Once I learned that you could skip the chemical bath and simply back the fabric with freezer paper and print on it, I tried that, too.  But again, the washing/pressing/cutting/backing and jamming are big headaches in my book.

So, while I wish the pretreated sheets were cheaper, I consider them worth it.