Tag Archives: “waxed linen”

two-sided postcard quilts

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When BOTH sides of a piece warrant viewing, here’s one way to create a hanger – if you have used wool felt.  The same treatment could be adapted to employ a rivet or a button for a more traditional, three-layer cloth quilt.

Who doesn’t love wool felt?  Especially slightly THICK wool felt?  I could use an awl to poke a hole, confident that the hole would not enlarge.  This allowed me to create a simple, single crochet hanger, right into the quilt.

Waxed linen offers the nice benefit of being a cohesive thread… here, the snipped-off end can be twisted once or twice around existing strand and MASHED into pretty permanent place.  No need for clear nail polish, or fray off, or to worry about unthreading.

Here, a little clock gear serves as a doorknob.

These stitched landscapes were appealing on the ‘wrong sides’, which is part of why I wanted a ‘side neutral’ hanger – so both sides can readily be viewed with a flick of the wrist.

When I stitched the grey one, a piece of fabric got caught in the threads and I decided to cover it with a moon and add a window, being conscious of where my hand stitches would land on the other side.  Here are both the purple and grey felt postcards, with fronts and backs:

And a couple close ups.

And the other:
So, when the ‘wrong side’ is worth showing, consider a hanging method that can flip from side to side.

One wedding commission that I made ended up sandwiched between two pieces of glass and hung where both sides could be seen.  I don’t love putting fabric under glass, but I thought that was a great idea on their part.

Has anyone else found that they love the wrong side of their fiber creation? Or found another way to showcase both sides with a hanging method different from this?

All tied up

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I  happily work on six, seven pieces at a time and then ALL OF A SUDDEN, the need to finish something becomes urgent.

I am the same way with housework… looking with neutral disregard at piles of clutter everywhere until one day, I CAN’T STAND THEM ANYMORE.

This piece was a dream-sketch quilt and it is taking waaaaaaaaaay too long to complete — as are my three Easter Cross quilts, a poppy piece, and a pillow commission.  So forget about the torture depicted in the piece.  The thing torturing me right now is the unfinished state of things.

(but I have been all tied up — kids on break, garden attention-grabbing — just in the last few days I removed the dead inkberry, attended two track meets,

potted up a bunch of sedum, raked the side beds, planted some basil seeds, used garbage-snagged pieces of glass (– someone’s old fridge components picked up yesterday –) to make a casual cold frame,  swept the side porch and readied it for summer morning reading, swept the bluestone, got the houseplants outdoors, grocery shopped twice, cleared up the south bed, made the garage passable again by moving shit around, started a new compost heap)…

During the construction of this quilt, which I am calling “Witness”, the artist Barron Storey — whose work I really love — started a “women and ropes” series.  My “ropes” look more like threads, and lack the paralyzing tension that I had hoped to depict, but this quilt is, nevertheless of a “woman and ropes”. The cloaked witness is partially shown here:

On a lighter note, I am finding this business of having middle-aged eyes is adding a new dimension to design — the looking with glasses on, the looking with glasses off — something I never knew about because I had never worn glasses until middle age.  Last night I noticed that the batik of the Witness’s face, if you blur your eyes, really looks like a face.  I like it when things like that happen.

edges

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In spite of earlier declarations, I spent some time machine-stitching the Script Quilt today.  Went gingerly, so as not to break any more needles.  The gessoed section was bowing.  I wanted it more flush with edges, even if raised, due to variety of layers.  The edges are begging for attention.  The edges are where we come undone.  The edges are where we meet the world.  I am tired today.  Very very tired.  Feels like a soul-tired, not a body-tired.