novamade

regarding wedding quilts

 
A long time ago (more than a decade) I started quilting.  Most novice quilters latch onto the concept of miniature quilts fairly early on.  Though impractical (I mean really, who is going to be kept warm with a 13-inch quilt?), miniature quilts give quilters an opportunity to play with design, quilt a smaller area on machine or by hand (as opposed to a huge quilt), and offers a chance to practice quilt binding techniques.  But mostly, due to its size, a miniature quilt is doable. 

 
To be perfectly honest, miniature quilts no longer appeal to me.  Since my goals are usually to produce something pretty and functional, that's where I throw my time.  But eleven years ago, shortly after I got married and relatively shortly after I learned to quilt, I became fascinated with wedding ring quilts.  At the time, I did not have the skill to make a pieced wedding ring quilt, so I opted to try a miniature one, with the rings fused onto the quilt using fusible interfacing (my first time working with that too).  I found the pattern in an old issue of Miniature Quilts Magazine (no longer published--print run 1990-2000/2001) that I picked up at a yard sale somewhere in Maine (where I was living at the time).  In any case, the mini-quilt top got "lost" which, is pretty understandable considering it was, basically, a 13-inch square of fabric.  I found it during our move and decided to finish it, because, well, it was a quilt eleven years in the making.

 
It's a miniature quilt, not terribly useful, but there you are. 

 
Speaking of wedding ring quilts, I am in the process of making a wedding quilt for Little Sir's teacher from pre-school.  She got married last month and, not surprisingly, I am running a little behind.  While I now have the skill to make a wedding ring quilt (at least I think I do...), honestly, I lack the patience for it.  I designed something more modern but the project has become the bane of my existence lately, but I need to cross it off the slate and move on, so you'll likely see that sooner rather than later.  No really, I am basting the quilt tonight...so that's something, right?

on reading and projects from the past

 
While I had all sorts of goals for summertime craftiness, I rang the death knell on all creative productivity without assistance from anyone else.  I was well-intentioned, to be sure; but, the next time I decide to register for two classes (during a truncated session, no less), I will endeavor to ensure that neither of them is text heavy.  I spent a lot of time reading over the past few months (there was also all that other stuff that I do, you know: the wife-ing, the mothering, the librarining/archiving...yes, all of that).  I was photographing as well, but there was a lot of reading.  Which is fine, considering the day job, I guess.

 
When I wasn't reading about photography and its history, I was reading about canning.  I have moved past the obsession stage to sickness, it's true.

 
I have been working on things too (crafty things, not the sugary or salty canned things), lots of things actually.  It recently occurred to me that I have a tendency to start things (many things) when I have no time to do anything at all.  Funny how that works out.  Let me pull together my notes (read: organize myself), and then I can start telling you about the crafty doings around these parts.

 
In lieu of anything recent, how about something forgotten? 

 
 As I was going through some old photos, I realized that I made something last year that never made it to the blog.  It was a re-knit for me (this doesn't happen often), but it was a fun experience all the same.

Swallowtail Shawl knit in Zephyr wool/silk.   Its the first shawl I ever knit.  When I knit it the first time, there were a few flaws.  So I knew I would knit it again one day.  So last fall I knit the pattern again after my friend, Lorelei, asked me to make her a shawl after she saw the Percy shawl I knit for myself.  Not like I was going to knit that again.

 
So, yes.  A forgotten knit, posted.  It occurs to me that I never put a gallery up for 2010 or 2011 on this blog either--which, I have to tell you, has made re-visiting my past endeavors sort of difficult, I will get around to fixing that eventually (really, I will).  Okay, back to organizing...