Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

The Crackpot Quilters again completed a quilt top for charity during the All Together Week. Although the final destination has not yet been determined, it will likely go to an agency that provides supervised visits for foster children with their non-custodial parents.

This year we used a pattern from Quiltmaker magazine. (Someone will have to add the specific details about the issue and the name of the pattern.)

This year we took more time planning before taking the rotary cutters in hand. What does that say about our evolution as crackpots????

Here is the audition of the fabrics:

We decided to have a star fabric theme to match the pattern. The yellow fabric is the sashing. It was left over from Grandson #1’s quilt.

Here are the blocks with the sashing between:

The light blue on the right side will be the border.

The blocks are now sewn together. Oops! A slight sewing variation led to a new arrangement of the blocks. Hey, we’re open to new creative options!

The dark blue will be the backing. We were pleased with our day’s work.

This is where the experimentation takes place. If you can’t identify something in the background, that’s probably a good thing.

If you can identify something in the background, I’d advise you to forget it for your own personal safety. I do have an associate who is prepared to arrive with a fully loaded super soaker.

Below is the green to blue color movement series using Jacquard Textile Paint. The Apple Green is yellower than a Kelly green. The Sky Blue is not as dark as a royal blue. It took a lot of dipping steps for the blue to show up.

And here is the yellow to green to blue using Setacolor paints. Only the final two samples have blue added.

So far, the alchemist has discovered the following:
1. Have about twice as many fabric pieces as needed. There’s always glop left over. And if it’s all the same kind of fabric, that’s even better for the scientific research.
2. Dilute as little as possible. That reduces the amount of paint needed and the amount of glop left over.
3. Put old newspapers under everything. Squeezing out the dipped fabric causes splatters no matter how careful an alchemist is. (See workroom photos.)
4. Using colors that have a recognizable, named color between them (red and blue with purple between as in the previous post) make a more dramatic color movement series than colors that are right next to each other on the color wheel ( the green and blue series).

And for those who have inquired about the current hostage situation, three of the hostage brats have been, well, eliminated. And more hostage brats are in danger.

It’s done, it’s done, it’s done, Done, DONE!!!! And a full 96 hours before the deadline!!

“It”, of course, is the quilt for our first Hungarian grandchild, little Blanka, whom we will be visiting next week. We leave for the airport around noon on Monday, so that was the hard and fast deadline.

True to form, I managed to make considerable work for myself by deciding after I had outline-quilted the hot-air balloons, that the ideal quilting pattern for the cloud fabric surrounding the balloons was clam shell quilting, now know to Crackpots as cloud quilting. I was correct – the quilting really enhances the clouds, at least in my opinion, but cloud quilting involves curves, lots and lots and lots of them as can be seen in the following photos.

But it was not as bad as I had feared, and I finished the quilting on Monday, a full week before departure. On Tues. around noon, I put in the last machine stitch. That evening, I hand stitched half the binding to the backing, and I stitched the other half on Wed. evening. Thursday morning I washed and dried it, and it was totally finished by noon. As I write this, it is packed in a large plastic baggie along with the wedding quilt for Judy, our Hungarian daughter, and appropriate wrapping materials in the carry-on bag that I will use to transport it to Hungary.

YAY!!! HOORAY!!!!!

When we get back from the trip, I will start on the quilt for Judy and Peter’s little boy, due in the summer, and for which I have already purchased fabric.

A small, but enthusiastic, group from the Fiber Arts Guild met here on Wednesday night. This is what caused the most comment.

Pretty cool that the artistic folks appreciate the chairs we love! OK, one of them grew up in Norway…

It’s been a while, but I finally finished two more projects for the online class. Both of these are made of paper towel fabric. First, the vase, which followed the directions for the class project. (Except for a minor measurement error. Duh! Don’t use rulers after 8:30 p.m.)

Damp paper towels are dyed/painted, and then left to dry. After they are dry, the dyed towels are torn and the torn bits are fused to muslin. The muslin is then fused to a felt base. Then it is stitched in a grid to make sure everything holds together and to add some texture. A cotton lining is fused to a heavy-duty interfacing (Pellon 72), and the paper towel fabric is lightly fused to the other side of the interfacing. The edges of the vase sides are covered with a satin stitch. Each of the sides is stitched to the triangular base with a wide zigzag. Then the vase sides are hand stitched together. The last step is adding the beads. Deciding exactly what I wanted to do about the beads was what took the longest. I had to put some marbles in the bottom of the vase so the weight of the beads wouldn’t pull the it over.

This paper towel fabric has quite an interesting texture so I decided to try to make a box of my own design. After determining the shape, I followed the same procedure as with the orange vase and created the outer box.

This is the outside of the box before I stitched the sides together.

This is the inside of the box before I stitched the sides together.

I wanted to have an inner tray so I glued some supports on the corners after I stitched the sides together. Here is a view of all the pieces from the top.

Showing the tray:

From the side:

Another fun project!

For the past month I have been taking an online class through www.joggles.com. It is Mixed Media Surface Design for the Textile Artist. Sue Bleiweiss is the instructor for this class (www.suebleiweiss.com, www.fibreandstitch.com). It has been way too much fun!

The class focuses on using fabric, paper, paint, and all sorts of embellishments to create fabric for other projects. We’ve used tissue paper, pattern paper, paper towels, mulberry bark, paper bags, and silk hankies (unspun silk) to make fabric to use for a vase, little books, a box, and a portfolio. The class has given me the confidence to try some materials I have read about.

I wasn’t sure how I would like the online format, but I am very pleased. Class members are sent a new lesson to download each week. The directions are quite clear, and there are lots of pictures. Sue Bleiweiss is available to answer email questions for the most part of every day. I’ve also enjoyed the online forum where class members share their experiences and post photos of their work, but this is optional, and not everyone participates. The written lessons work well for me because I’m a “read the directions to learn” person. If you were a “watch the demonstration” person, I’m not sure it would work as well. I also like the extended time to ponder my options. I can spend time rooting around in my stash (or perpetrating an Economic Stimulus Package at one of the local craft or fabric stores) to find exactly what I want to use.

I’m pretty sure I’m not an artist, but some of the people in the class are. It has been fun to look at their blogs and websites.