Tag Archives: wool

Holiday sewing

Just listed these items in my Etsy shop — clothcompany. I already have some wonderful balsam-filled sachets to list, so look for those – and there will be at least two Christmas Kitties next week, and — dare I say? — a batch of finished dolls.

We will be making these simple and yet charming tree ornaments in the December “Sewing for The Holidays” class at the New Art Center [Newton, Massachusetts]. Class meets for three successive Saturdays — Dec 1, 8, and 15 — from 12:30 until 2:30. There’s still time to sign up!

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?

puzzle quilting

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Scorpios are notoriously jealous, of others and others’ things and so the suggestion to ‘Open’ sits there like a playground mother intoning, “Share”. I plucked what was handy (calendar page, old scraps of cut-up quilts, wool bits, a page from a book on trusts, retrieved from a huge bin of recycling while working at the law firm last year) – initially to experiment for this week’s class, and then to puzzle this little piece together.

Nautical map is a phototransfer on linen.

Back reveals some of the wool inclusions and some of the stitching.

This little scrap is now about the size of a large Tarot card. I hate to pillage quilts that have been bound and sleeved, but I just hated this one, so pillage I did. Some of it landed in the Scorpio sketch. I have a few more pieces to use elsewhere. Given my recent sighting of a screech owl around the corner and my sister’s current near-obsession with the bird, I will keep this little piece intact… perhaps to hang with a satin ribbon somewhere.

When butting edges of quilt scraps together and zig-zagging, lo and behold, the pieces do not have to form lines – in fact, little promontories can be stitched readily. Because piecing otherwise requires making lines (or curves) as one goes, this felt more like putting a puzzle together than like quilting.

Back to Scorpio, and jealousy – I’ll admit to feeling a little envious of all the articulate, thoughtful, resolved, clear, energized statements and dedications many others are making about stepping into 2012. Maybe it’s because I had a cold all last week, and the new year came in on a headache, but I think I’ll wait til my birthday in February to reflect back on last year and pause to consider the coming year.

Chronicles of a Garbage-Picking Crafter, II

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See that beautiful poppy?

That was part of a cheesy jacket manufactured, oh, around 1972, I’d guess… you know the kind? Based on athletic wear, with knit cuffs and waist and zipper up the front and made of either polyester (the early gross type) or acetate? Truly awful, in other words.

But, look how pretty that poppy is cut out, stabilized, and partnered with quality quilting cottons.

If you have a local clothes depot, real gems are waiting for you, too.

Cambridge, Mass. offers “Clothes by the Pound”. These are the articles that local Salvation Armies have given up trying to sell. They are heaped in piles on the second floor of an old office building near Kendall Square. One fills a bag, it is weighed, and off you go with a trunk-load of fabric for about $9.00.

While I’ll admit it’s not for everyone (the smell takes some getting used to, for instance), I love it! One gets down on one’s knees and starts flinging garments around like a dog digging for a bone in the old cartoons. If I’m there with fellow-treasure-hunter B., we might toss items between us, with commentary such as, “ooooh, an Ann Taylor — I can see you in that!” The clothes piles invite a scrappy approach to acquisition that I seem to be more comfortable with than traditional shopping. In fact, I am more comfortable routing around through used crap than trying pants on in an upscale clothing store at the mall (an activity I hate so much that for years I didn’t wear pants, and No, I did not go around half-naked. I wore skirts. They can be bought off the rack and fit fairly well).

One problem with a place like Clothes by the Pound is that it spoils you. I’ve gotten so that I wait for SALES at my favorite thrift stores, because $5.00 for a man’s shirt, even a very cool vintage Hawaiian, seems like, well, too much.

And, actually, another problem with Clothes by the Pound is that even though I’m not looking for clothing to wear, I often find great pieces — like a gorgeous 100% wool J.Crew cable-knit sweater that was originally a Man’s Large, inadvertently shrunk — and now a perfect felted fit for a medium-sized woman.

I’ve learned to look for African fabrics, Indonesian batiks, and Indian madras. Also, anything from Hong Kong, because it tends to be hand-tailored and incredibly high-quality.

This quilt also features fabric from manufacturer’s headers (the green fish print). Those are fun because fabric companies create sample booklets with colorways, so you would have coordinating prints, or a particular print in five different colors. All swatches well-sized for a quilting patch.

Lastly, I recommend discovering a curtain maker or upholsterer in your area who would be willing to let you take some of their scraps. This has been absolutely invaluable to me. The real boon of a connection like this, especially if either of these sources work for upscale clients (and most people getting custom-made curtains and upholstery, are), is you avail yourself of very expensive linens and drapery weight polished cottons, for example, that you would NEVER pay for (many costing over $100/yard!!).

Happy Hunting!