Full of Soup

When I was a kid, I made simple friendship bracelets by braiding three strands of floss. I always envied the girls with thicker, more colorful bracelets and I remember trying to learn how to make them, but never meeting anyone with the patience to really teach me. I forgot about them until I saw this post about friendship bracelets on the Purl Bee. The link contains great photos and step-by-step instructions. Man, I wish I had the internet when I was coming up!

As usual, I think I messed up every single step possible.

Mistake 1.

I went to City Quilter to buy a few colors of embroidery floss and only saw these beautiful hand-dyed colors.

They are beautiful, made in America, and use environmentally friendly dyes, but they are also double the price of regular floss.

I am all about paying more for better quality and supporting smaller businesses, but not the first time I’m making a new project. If I looked six inches to the left, I would’ve seen drawers and drawers of cheaper floss which would’ve made much more sense to practice on. I wish I saved these fancy flosses for an actual friend.

Indy, as always, was helpful.

Mistake 2.

I have no idea how to tie a slip knot. I watched many a youtube video on it, but still had to do it four or five times until it was centered and small enough.

Mistake 3.

For some reason, I imagined it would take me 15 minutes to tie these knots and finish this bracelet. It took more than three hours mostly because of Mistake #4.

Mistake 4.

I tried to keep all the colors laid out flat and pulled tight as I made the knots, but somewhere along the line, I realized the entire right side of the bracelet was messed up and getting worse and worse with each row.

I had to pull out most of the bracelet and start again. This brings me back to Mistake 1. If I wasn’t using the designer label floss, I would’ve just started fresh. I literally cried.

Although the process was a rough first try, I am really happy with the final result.

I ended it with two braids that slip through the slipknot and tie in a bow.

The hand-dyed fabrics gave the final product a pretty interesting look. The green, for example became paler or deeper in different sections.

Although the inconsistent colors made the bracelet more interesting, the inconsistent knots are more YIKES than interesting.

On November 5th and 6th the Evening Star Quilters Guild of Mineola had their annual guild show. It was a small show, but there were many inspiring quilts.

If you look closely, you can see these are all batik fabrics. I think some quilts that use these fabrics become all about showcasing the prints, but her subtle use really lets the pattern shine through.

My camera was incapable of capturing this lovely tone of lavender, so enjoy this sub-par version.

I love the use of near-solids in this quilt. It’s so colorful without feeling like a rainbow.

Can’t go wrong with a scrappy log cabin.

Something modern! And beautiful quilting.

Double Irish Chain. Really perfect version of this classic pattern.

This woman purchased all of the handkerchiefs from eBay. I was thinking this would be a great way to zip up a simple quilt, but then she went ahead and intricately quilted each block.

I love this pattern.

Love. I think I’ll make something very similar someday soon.

Cathedral Windows.

This is sorcery to me.

Oh HANDS DOWN my favorite of the show.

Delilah’s Doll Shoppe!

Beads on the trees.

Apparently the bought the pattern at City Quilter. I hope it’s still there!

This was my take home from the show. I’m psyched.

I think “extravaganza” is actually fitting for what I witnessed at this show.

This was an enormous quilt. I felt like I was looking through a window and had to turn my head to see it all.

Love these colors.

This quilt, from Japan, was made up of 61,000 pieces. For reference, my Trip Around The World quilt was about 1,500.

These quilts, also from Japan, were incredibly intricate their effect was unlike anything I have ever seen before.

I love the way this one is framed. I love how it looks realistic, but not so much that you forget it’s a quilt.

This was a total show stopper for me. I love this painting and had just visited it at the MoMa the day before, so I really appreciate the startling accuracy.

Okay, this BLEW my mind. The next three quilts are made from the same pattern:

I forget where this one is from. I need to take notes.

I love this one. Can’t describe why.

This quilt is from South Africa.

This quilt was so stunning in person. It reminded me of the “crazy quilts” from the 20s.

Detailed fabric flowers were a recurring theme in this show.

Loved this! I can’t even figure out how this was done. And this is just one square!

On the right there is a 3-D spider crawling out of the quilt!

There was a section of the show that was for quilts that address racism. This artist feels that the current US flag is too clear cut for the layered history and the many different cultures represented in America.

This was her version.

This quilt was another stunner in person. It reminded me of Elizabeth’s “Touch this Quilt” piece. There white spaces are newspaper articles about racism in the US.

This one’s for my sister- these animals are felted!

This quilt really stretches the definition of quilt. I love seeing the unexpected at these shows.

This quilt, titled “Bathing in the Ganges,” won Best in Show. I really like it when more modern quilts make a nod to the traditional. The detailed log cabin blocks that border this piece really brings it all together for me.

And bling!!

I realize I didn’t take a picture of this whole quilt, but the embroidery on this one was off the hook.

What?

Again, really amazing details here.

There is no photo that can do this quilt justice. If you are still scrolling through all these pics, click on this twice to get the biggest image you can.  Please note that “white” is not a background fabric, but actually an embroidered pattern. Also, every flower, bee and butterfly is embroidered.

I hope this can give you more of an idea.

It took us 5 hours to get through this show and all the vendors and I took many, many more pics, but I think there’s only so many times I can use the word “love” in a single post. It was such a freaking blast. I also bought a bunch of fabric for my next project! I’m so inspired!

Quilting has taken a bit of a back seat to the rest of my life this summer. Anthony is working on a research project in Boston, and I’ve been running up there every weekend. This past weekend, Anthony had to make a last minute trip to Acadia National Park to look for some Digitadas Laminaria (kelp) for his research project.

Anthony contacted a farmer who harvests kelp to ask him for some nearby sources of this specific species, and he suggested the tip of the Schoodic Penninsula.

Last year Anthony traveled to Ireland where they have a lot of this kelp, but this year they are trying to do a smaller scale test.

The kelp thrives in deep water, so we headed to the shore at low tide.

The team might come back here with their instrument to test the prevalence of a compound the kelp gives off, so Anthony asked me to take a lot of pictures of the landscape with his body in it for scale.

He’s not in that one, but I think that is some evidence for why I am so sore today from running around those rocks.

There was so, so much seaweed and it was incredibly beautiful. I can’t believe I never noticed this stuff before.

It actually took us a while to find THE kelp:

We brought some kelp home on ice so Anthony could use it in the lab. He also found this guy among the seaweed:

I bought a few things at the Quilt Show.

At Somers, I got this animal print that I ‘d like to make something for my niece with. She has a play kitchen so I’ve been thinking about an apron or some hot mitts, but I’m not sure how much use she’d get out of that. I think she’d love a bag, but the print is pretty large and I’d like to use all of the animals. I’m just not sure what to do.

I also purchased these prints at the quilt show for myself:

These actually go well with what I have leftover from my Mug Rug project. I just wish I knew how to make clothes.

I like the bold colors in this print. I think it would make beautiful kitchen curtains.

The last weekend of April, the Northern Star Quilters Guild had there annual show in Somers, NY.

It was a beautiful, cold spring day.

The raffle quilt was a take-off on Kaffe’s Bounce Quilt. Instead of snowball borders, they used pinwheels. I loved the look in pastels. It still doesn’t make me want to go back to that project yet though.

The halls of the high school were lined with vendors and the library was transformed into a “boutique.”

The quilts made by the guild members were displayed in the gym.

I’m planning to make a quilt with a few mariner’s compass blocks next. I was inspired by this sampler of them. I think the bottom center one seems the most reasonable for me to try.

Applique!

I love this quilt! My big plan is to make a quilt with all the mariners flags, which this quilter used as one of her borders. There are 26 flags and I want to make the four corners of the quilt mariners compasses. This quilt made me want to start immediately.

These cranes were 3D. Ill!

This quilter and her friend make the same quilt together every year. This was her version of their 2009 quilt. I love the idea of doing a complex project like this with a friend. I’m sure doing something like that would help me keep pace. Or at least keep sanity.

The women with white gloves! For you non-quilters, you have to ask these ladies to show you the backs of the quilts.

Love these colors and the thin sashing.

I’m forever impressed by tiny piecing.

Yes, this is a quilt. All those tiny black lines are strings of fabric. Mind blowing!

The first Seven Days of Christmas!

The rest of the days of Christmas. I want this.

Stars! Reminded me of the quilts from the 70’s I saw at the Folk Art Museum.

I purchased one fabric to make something for my niece, but I haven’t decided what to make yet.

I’ve been jonesing to try a smaller project step away from Bounce and when I was invited to a bridal shower, I had the perfect reason to put away the quilt and try making something different. I was thinking of making coasters or oven mitts, but then I remembered seeing Nova post about a whole new category of household things: mug rugs.

Seriously, click that link and look at those photos. Mug rugs are bigger than coasters, but smaller than placemats. They are supposed to be sized for a mug and a snack.

I started at the fabric store.

Then I pulled out my personal stash.

After clicking through tons of examples of mug rugs, I started putting together my design.

I spent a day psyched about how quickly I finished the top.

I have very little experience machine quilting, so even though it was straightforward, it took me some time to get comfortable.

And of course the thin, blue binding wasn’t finished until I was on the train headed to the party, which made getting shots of the finished product difficult.

The quilt show in Somers, New York was beautiful.

I loved the examples of applique and embroidery and was inspired to give hand quilting another try.

The Winter Trees quilt was one of my favorite quilts. Trunks of three trees were embroidered on a pale blue fabric and white and blue iridescent beads made up the snow-covered branches.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of quilts with patches that look like cute wonky houses gathered to create a neighborhood and I’ve been thinking about what a quilt would look like to represent my neighborhood. Here is some of the shapes that have inspired me lately.

This weekend, the Quilters Guild of Brooklyn had a quilt show.