Crazy Quilting as a group

Crazy quilts are one of the easiest kinds of quilts to do as a group, especially a group with mixed skills and preferences, because it allows the maximum variety of skills and approaches if done with a few simple guidelines in mind:

--Crazy quilts aren't for "control freaks": you can visualize the quilt and expect it to come out just like that, but you can come up with something beautiful and wonderful with a token amount of planning.

--Pick a theme and/or color scheme as a base concept.  The possibilities are endless but the group all needs to start in the same direction if the thing is going to look like a single entity in the end.

----The themes can be almost anything that might show up in a patterned quilt: zoo, a city, little yellow duckies, a base printed fabric (I'm currently working on a crazy quilt with a space fabric and space as the base theme).

----Colors should be limited in some minimal fashion, at least to choosing jewel tones or country colors.  Picking one or two colors as the dominant colors, or providing a base fabric works as well.  To allow maximum freedom (as for a project intended to help people use up their stash), a base color can provide the defining element with the rest of the colors left up to users choice.  If the color is highly variable, such as brown or red, and quilters are going to be working at home, encourage the use of more than one brown, more than one red, to maximize the ability to blend the pieces.

--If the results are to be combined by piecing, pick a size for at least one direction.  This makes it possible to sew everyone's pieces together into rows or one long row, and to then sew the rows together with a minimum of additional chopping and piecing.  Be prepared to need to trim down or add a strip to one side.

----For a more formal look, a block size can be specified, but make it large (9" minimum for a full sized quilt) and be prepared to trim or add strips to two sides (don't try to center the original block) as even a group of skilled sewers will end up with squares a fraction too large or small.

----If contributions are to be appliqued to a backing or backing batting combination, chunks do not have to be square or rectangular and a large variety of sizes should be encouraged to maximize ease of fitting and to minimize the amount of piecing that needs to be trimmed or hidden under other pieces.

--Encourage creativity.  The more different ways a theme is incorporated, the less any one individual piece will stand out as odd.

----Allow those who can pull something unique together to do so: encourage them to make several of any distinct style so that they can be spread throughout the quilt.

----For those willing to try, provide some instruction in making their own patterns.

----Encourage fabric swapping to spread fabrics throughout the quilt.

----For those who haven't previously made a crazy quilt, it may be useful to have a few patterns available: pieced, paper pieced: some patterns for crazy-quilt style blocks are available free on line.

---- Beginners and paper-pieces especially may prefer to use a pattern for a traditional block but insist that they mix up the fabrics so that the pattern is not obvious, else use them to advance the theme of the quilt.  For example, for a Quilt of Valor for wounded soldiers, patriotic themes are highly encouraged: have them make one each of several star or eagle patterns that can be mixed in among the crazy blocks.   They can also be asked to make any pattern they like in the required color theme, but have them make blocks that are smaller than the final block and then pass their blocks to other quilter to include the small blocks as part of the large crazy block, preferably at odd angles.
---- My personal rule of thumb is not to replicate a pattern or layout more than four times.  (Allowing four repetitions makes it convenient to rotate in four different directions, or to do a four-color hack-slash stack, where the same pattern is used with four different color combinations)

--The biggest fear is what will happen when all the pieces are brought together, but the group can aply the same concepts to the whole as they did to their squares, treating the whole quilt as one big crazy square or considering it an informal pattern.  There is no one right way: use the group's creativity and judgement.

---- For maximum craziness, it is usually most effective to distribute each person's contributions throughout the quilt.

---- For ease on the eye when colors clash, clustering may be the answer, for example, to have a slow shift from light or yellow browns in one corner toward darker or redder browns in the opposite, with swirls of medium, greener, or muddier browns in between, especially if there are sufficient in-betweens that one color doesn't stand out from the rest as odd.

---- If certain blocks stand out as particularly different from the rest, it may be appropriate to use them at the center or in the corners to give the craziness a sense of structure.

---- The purpose for having a color theme is typically to aide in blending the pieces into a unified whole.  In the classic crazy quilt, the blocks are not intended to be obvious, an overall continuity being preferred.  To minimize the internal blockiness, look for opportunities to put similar colors adjacent, and minimize the joining of sharply contrasting colors on assembly.  This can be especially effective when sharp contrasts are used within some of the blocks.

-- As with all quilts, the quilting can aide or defeat the intent.  To help given a continuous crazy look and decrease the focus on individual blocks, quilting should not follow the blocks but criss-cross them, following the colors or not, following the theme or not.  An overall pattern independent of block size or layout is probably best. 

-- Quilting can also ignore the piecing altogether and be used to form a pattern or picture that enhances the back, instead,

---- Many people think of Victorian crazy quilts as the ultimate classical crazy quilt, with embroidered embellishments.  Embroidery patterns may work well if the colors chosen are the strong, simple colors they used, the individual pieces fairly large, and the embroidery is providing most of the texture, but typically will disappear and be wasted effort if other themes are in play or printed fabrics or batiks are in use.  Also, the embroidery was often used as the means of appliqueing rather than as embellishments on pieced quilt blocks.  There is no requirement, in other words, than embroidery be used and its use should be considered in the context of the quilt at hand, not merely to comply with an old tradition related to a particular style of crazy quilt.

---- Embroidery as quilting works best if lots of sharp contrasts between small pieces have been avoided: if high contrasts, focus the embroidery on the lighter side or use a light colored thread on the darker side.

---- Embroidered pictures or other decorations within a piece should probably be done either before fabric is incorporated into a square or at least before the block is incorporated into the quilt.

---- If embroidery is planned, and sufficient of the quilters are able to embroider by hand or with embroidery-capable sewing machines, it might be best to make all three layers of the quilt together (provide everyone with pre-cut blocks of backing and batting, or use a thick fleece or flannel backing and no batting).  Blocks can then be assembled using embroidered applique or they can be pieced, then embroidered prior to assembly.  Again, to avoid undesirable blockyness, don't embroider the square seam lines, try to line up like colors to the degree feasible, and use extra-large blocks.  One way to enhance the craziness with this kind of assembly is to not require that the fronts be square: instead, use extra bits sticking out and small gaps when appliqueing the fronts together, to merge the blocks into a continuous surface.  This will definitely be aided by involving several people in the assembly

Shop hop fun

I participated in a shop hop for quilt shops this weekend. It was fun for different reasons than we expected. We were expecting more sales, easier-to-enter drawings, and more shopping time. What we got was a multi-level hide-and-seek. The first seek was for the stores--they obviously participate in the shop hop as a means of encouraging potential customers to find their well-hidden, inadequately signed, tucked-in-odd corners of the malls shops.

The second seek was for the baskets for the drawing: one ticket, three or four potential prizes, and one basket for each hidden around each store. The hide-and-seek gave us quite the chance to see the area--well over a hundred miles of driving even not counting missing the stores for a pass or two and having to wind our way back through horrible street layouts and interchanges--and the hunts around the stores gave us a good chance to see what kind of selection the stores had. Some weren't different enough to notice, but we made notes about a few, one that specialized in batiks, one that had a better selection than most of multi-colored fabric (as opposed to color-on-same-color patterns and visual textures).

A couple wouldn't sell less than a yard off the bolt, which definitely got on our don't-go-back list, since the prices were too high to make bulk purchases worthwhile, AND they didn't have pre-cut half yards for any of the fabrics we were interested in, nor fat quarters at all. For base fabrics, we go for cheap fabrics, seeing not enough difference in most of the color-on-color patterns with rare exception to be worth the extra price (and the exceptions aren't always expensive), though we will buy small pieces of a specialty fabrics, multi-colors, picture-fabrics, or special themes (water, leaves, space) as accent fabrics and for fussy-cutting. The Batik one now... we're willing to buy a little specialty fabric and so are most quilters we know, so I expect they get enough business even if it's a quarter yard at a time. Thy just need a few more multi-color batiks to fill out the selection.

Anyway, if you spot an opportunity to participate in a shop hop, don the buny ears and go. Its an educational experience. Can't find one in your area? Create your own: find the stores that have something to do with your favorite hobby, map them out, grab some money and a note pad, and learn something new about your town.

Crazy Quilt tips

Crazy Quilts have somewhat lost their meaning over time, but a certain essential core remains in most understandings of the craft form, the most basic being that the quilt or sections of the quilt (a largely patterned quilt can have a crazy border or other sections) don't follow a symetric or even semi-symetric pattern and typically don't have even a non-symetric pattern with repeating colors or fabrics. In the most limited form of a crazy quilt, it can be made with repeating patterns which are "crazy" within each block and randomly mixed fabrics for each block. While this gives the look of a crazy quilt for observers, it is as repetitive for the maker as any pattern quilt, although by its very nature, precision is not required.

I suppose, ultimately, that's why I like crazy quilts. Precision is not required, which makes the sewing a little less demanding, but I especially like more truly crazy quilts, where nothing is repetitive, except maybe the use of set of core fabrics that serve as a theme, a unifying factor in the overall presentation of the quilt. Traditionally, that would be a single color that unifies the quilt: the classic Victorian quilts used black velvet and red satin and a mix of other bright colors. In some modern crazy quilts, the opposite tack has been taken, with more garish results: take a print with a wide range of colors to use throughout, and add in any and all the colors that might match, either solids, color-on-color, or prints and batiques with their own mix for even more wild effects.

I prefer a little less chaos. I usually go with a single theme color and use fabrics that have the right color in them: whole or in part. Alternatively, I might go with a mix of colors on a single spectrum, such as country/fall colors, two or three jewel tones, or pastels. I rarely limit myself to "quilting cottons" because I will use anything in my fabric "stash" that has the right color, so long as it is something with the right color(s). While I have a lot of cottons in the collection, I also have a lot of old clothes, remnants from all kinds of projects, and stuff that was cool and on sale. (The use of mixed fabrics is often associated with crazy quilts, but it's really just an extreme sort of "scrappy" and mixed fabrics can be used in patterns, too.)

There are many ways to achieve crazy effects without going overboard or getting bored with patterns. The easiest way, in some respects, is applique. Scraps of just about any shape will work. The base can be almost anything form an old blanket, a selection of old towels, or a backing and batting, whole or in sections. Of course, applique has it's own challenges and not everyone likes it as a way to sew, even though it can replace both the piecing and quilting stages. This way is most commonly used when the sewing is to be visible and may include embroidery. Doing block sections allows multiple contributors and machine stitching. The backing and batting should be neat squares but the top pieces can hang over or leave gaps that can be stitched down and filled in with a little hand applique after the backs are pieced together. This will make the blocks disappear and blend the crazy pieces for a more continuous effect.

Another way is to do one-time or stack-and-hack patterns to piece blocks that are then attached together. Precision is not required so long as they are trimmed to the width of bars to allow a reasonable fit. They can be pieced like any other pattern or like paper pieced patterns. So long as all the internal pieces are made of strait lines and not too many interior-only pieces, almost any combination of pieces will work. The outside may need to be trimmed down to a square afterwards. Hack and slash just takes the one pattern, cut several fabrics in the same pattern, then mix-and-match the resulting pieces to get different combinations. Using many of the same fabrics throughout the quilt will pull it together into a whole regardless of how inconsistent the size and style of patterns, making this a good way for a group to make a crazy quilt. Pick a compatible set of block sizes to aim for, such as 41/2, 8 1/2 and 12 1/2 or 6 1/2, 9 1/2, 12 1/2, and 15 1/2. They can be formed into squares or into long stripes for assembly. The use of several fabrics throughout and allowing like fabrics to be adjacent will cause the squares to disappear, or they can be pieced in bordered sections to frame, shape, and add a little structure to the final results. Mixing in fussy-cut print blocks or embroidered blocks can also add texture and a sense of structure or theme.

Fitting more-or-less random scraps together (on a color theme or not) can be done but should probably not be tried by a beginner. Prior experience with bars and complex patterns helps. Sew together along only straight seams. Attach pieces of similar size in the shared direction, iron, and trim to straight edges and work up to larger composite pieces to keep the quilt top flat and avoid rippling and bulging. The trimming will result in a large number of scraps: ones of modest size can be used but trimmings will eventually be too small for use in the quilt; they can be used for toy stuffing, bird nest material, and mulching.

However you do it, a true crazy quilt allows the most creative and technical freedom of any quilting form. But the informality that results will also encourage freedom of use, so don't expect these beauties to hang on a wall or be folded up for long term preservation if they are big enough to use for lap, shoulder, or bed!

Quilting notes continued

I'm still working on the wedding quilt top. Breaking up sections of mixed fall colors with a band of pale fabric worked nicely, then great big blocks with simple triangle dags. They wouldn't make a great border because they are so much bigger than the patterns and blocks in the center section, but they should make a reasonable edge around the top of the bed, and then the last layer, with another light border before and after, will be smaller pieces in bars on the sides and top and bottom. Those small pieces and mixed colors will be more like the center section again and pull the whole together inside and out. At least that's the theory. The smaller pieces also allow me to mix in more fabrics in small quantities without the uniqueness of them being obvious and making them out of place. Because it's a wedding quilt, that outer border will have some satin and some baby flannels with little footprints and rubber duckies besides more fall colors.

The story in the quilt

Whether as a way to pass the time as I do the most tedious bits of quilting, or as a way to help me decide on all the elements as I go (I'm not one for doing an overall, repeating pattern and often do scrappy, which is to say mix-and-match colors and patterns rather than the same fabrics throughout for each part of a pattern), I often have a meaning, a message, or just my own idea of a "story" in almost every quilt I've done, even if most of the time the message is not one I expect anyone to even know or guess.

For Quilts of Valor, the basic message is usually obvious and well known - I appreciate the soldiers wounded for their country enough to make a quilt for them and show that they are a hero by using the colors of the flag or some variation thereon (it might be pastels or country colors (indigo, rose, and cream) rather than the heraldic bright red, white, and blue). Still, there might be other less obvious elements as well, less than symetric stars to represented the wounded hero, pieces large and small as representative of family members, symbols of the military forces or a particular military force. And sometimes I'll use fabric with words expressive of the soldier's assumed qualities, like courage and patriotism, or messages of my wishes for them, such a hope, joy, peace, and comfort. If I can't find a fabric that does the trick, I might use the words or associated symbols as part of the quilting pattern, never expecting them to be noticed but wanting them to be there none-the-less.

Currently I'm working on a wedding quilt and it will be filled with messages and story's, too, though I expect virtually none but the most obvious symbols of hearts and rings for love and commitment to be noticed. The colors are generally darker than I might otherwise have chosen but they have picked a fall wedding and fall colors tend toward the darker and I went with that. It includes new and older fabrics (from the store and the stash, respectively). I don't know the couple well (she is family but not often seen in her youth) so the story isn't about them but about marriage life: bright colors and patterns for pleasant times and parties, and a few dark squares, even black because marriage and life is never without its sorrows. There will be a few patches from baby quilts as representative of the wish for fertility and a next generation. The inner section includes a wide rings of simple (but colorful squares), then a border of cream, then a new pattern of bigger blocks of triangles, at least according to the current plan, the whole representing the changes through which relationships pass, the challenges and pleasures, and so on, with many messages and elements of the story yet to be decided. I may add a pocket in the center or on each side for love notes, a house, figures in quilting or embroidery though probably not pieced unless I find myself with an unexpected lot of extra time--I've gotten early start but know my time disappears fast!

Many quilts convey other messages through block names (isolated stars, yellow flower blocks, and mixes of beach blue, sand yellow, and streams of black might together be representative of Texas--lone star state, yellow roses, beaches and desserts and crude oil--for example). the closest I've come to that sort was in the quilting, when I drew pictures on the back of a blue crazy quilt that were representative of my life to that point - place I'd been, holidays, family members, hobbies, each topic gathered in a section of the quilt. These days, ti might be expected to be in color and more visible, perhaps embroidered, but at the time white was the favored color of quilting thread so they are all white on light blue and take a little study. With the colorful side up they are invisible, but the story is still there for the finding on some chilly evening fit for remmenising.

Most. though are more subtle, with colors that might mean something to the maker but no one else, a scrap from a past project that recalls memories of that project and why it was made, or left undone, a complex pattern that reminded the maker of something from their shared past with the recipient, a pinwheel to represent a company logo, a dancer to remind of shared adventures or classes or dates, a flower to represent spring or summer, joy or romance, gardening or art. Only the maker might ever know.

Nest time you plan a craft project, or receive one, take a closer look at the design and the making. What message has the maker offered with each stitch?

Some observations on quilting

I haven't so much studied the history of quilting as been exposed to it by my efforts to find ideas for quilts to make. Also, some of my quilt group are quite active in shows and all (I'm just a diletante), so I've become aware of the continuing changes in the art and craft of quilting. Mostly I've noticed that through it's history, it's had two very distinct pieces which have developed independently as well as together and have come into conflict as their paths have become more intertwined.

Quilting came long before piecing (patch-working multiple fabrics together), a way of creating padding for under armor in the middle ages, elaborate and decorative stitching on white or other solid-colored fabric.

Patchwork blankets and such seem to have come along later and from a much different direction, literally patching on existing blankets, or simple blocks tied to other layers with stitching only around the edges. Somewhere in the 19th century, the two came together into stitched, colorful quilts in any number of patterns and colors, or crazy unpatterned mixes blended together with underlying color themes or embroidery.

The quilting part of the mixed quilts, though, still remained a thing of it's own, sometimes playing a dominant role in simple pieced quilts, sometimes a minor role, doing barely more than hold top and bottom and batting together. In most cases it seems, the top was pieces and the whole quilted by the same person, sometimes with the very same stitches (certain kinds of applique), but often separate, with no one ever perfectly satisfied on how much the piecing and quilting should be related, whether the quilting can be an overall pattern independent of the colors and shapes of the top, whether the stitching should follow the piecing exactly or in echo, or to what degree a bit of both might apply as space filler, to decorate the back, or as a different art sharing the space.

It's not always a craft for one, however, and some quilters prefer one part and some the other and some think the two should be inter-related in a way hardly possible without a single vision by a single artist. Early and late and places in between, the roles have been separated. Quilting bees, for example, were almost always about one person's top being put together by a group of quilters. These days, with machine quilting available with large and very expensive machines, many top-makers have someone else do the quilting. With it again comes the potential for conflict, as the top maker and the quilter have different visions of the end product. And these days, quilting threads come in a lot more colors, and multiple colors. There is no set tradition of blending with the colors of the fabric, back or front, and a often as not a contrasting color might be chosen to make the quilting stitches and their patterns more visible. With machine quilting, there's also more ease involved in using lots more quilting than is needed to put the top, batting, and backing together than when quilts are hand quilted.

And at the same time, sewing techniques possible only with a machine allow much more complex piecing, too. Can both the piecing and the quilting be strong and complex without causing chaos? Should the quilting enhance the piecing, or can the piecing, however difficult and complex and artfully created be little more than a colorful canvas for the complex and artfully contrasting colors of an elaborate quilting design? If the quilter wants to do elaborate patterns, couldn't they jut go back to the beginning and use a single-color fabric? What about the two crafts draws them ever back to each other like the proverbial opposites?

Scrapbook as info resource?

I have stacks of stuff I've decided to keep "as reference" - articles on healthy foods, articles for what to do in various kinds of emergencies, home health, lots of bits of information that I think could be useful in some story or another - not just the biomes but heraldry, horses, falconing, technology tid bits, culture and psychology. A bunch of clippings with mostly textual information, some sketches or pictures, not the pretty scrap book of today's craft and art, and yet it could be done in a decorative way. Pictures related to the topic at hand, pictures to help find the topic quickly... And like the pictures, they don't have to hand straight. The variety of text fonts, styles, and sizes would add visual interest, just like notes and sketches in the classic travel journal and research journal in days before computers and cheap cameras.

Of course, the sorting is more difficult than any trip or family scrapbook: information on a thousand topics is not easily sorted. The computer has made sorting so easy - alphabetize one minute, categorize and sort again in a few steps, date order or priority order or something else more mechanical but drop and drag and done. Sheets can be sorted in most scrapbook albums, but deciding is challenging, and getting it right manually, one page at a time leaves lots of room for error. Two sided pages adds another challenge unless every little grouping takes an even number of sides.

If it's more focused--a hobby, a more specific interest--maybe the order doesn't matter so much. A small press published a book on dragons that looked like the classic researchers journal with sketches, folded maps, notes about the clippings and sketches as well as observations. It was a cool looking book, fun to page through, very tactile, and the sequence didn't matter at all. Stop and read at any point, page through forward and back, add your own notes and clippings from magazines and newspapers... That's a real journal, and a wonderful sort of scrapbook that we sometimes forget with all the decorative borders and stickers. The stickers with the quotes are more the thing, but clippings from catalogs, newspapers and magazines and short commentary thereon (my historic heart says date it) or personally selected quotes, hand copied or transcribed is more the thing, and ideally with a dip pen and ink (okay, that's a personal preference, my favorite way to write though not all papers can handle the liquid ink). Paging through that to find information I personally found and selected, that's a feeling that no amount of computer queries can provide. And as historian, i can imagine the sense of personal history than even a primarily informational collection can provide, spiced as it were with opinions as much as choices, observations and experience as well as the information that was available to the person at the time. All the queries of resources, even date indexed, won't give that, and touching that collection, seeing the flourishes in the writing, or stiff printing with an awkward hand, even a finely detailed blog or on line journal can't quite capture that personal touch, that sense of presence that lingers in things that people have touched.

Scrapbook as history, too.

the scrapbook as journal

I didn't actual go where I was originally aiming with the last blog on scrapbooking, and I ended up changing the title to fit. This time, I'm hoping to keep the title where it's at since I got all that background out of the way. Part of what I intended was the bit on Biomes - capturing images of my story settings as a guide for writing and revising and to share with readers the sources of my inspiration if I could offer it to them in some medium. But more, it was my image of a scrapbook that captured me in something more visual than words.

My journal is already something of a classic scrapbook, with a few ticket stubs, comic and newspaper clip-outs to which I've added comments or help me capture the themes and focus of the day, even a few stickers, though not typically the type used in modern "scrap books" that have everything but actual scraps in them. But I've had dreams of something more visual than that. For example, last night I envisioned a three-D picture that I might capture as a somewhat less 3-D scrapbook page: a thousand printed words cut out and carefully selected, then a bunch of them pushed aside to open space for "a few more words". It would, at the least, convey my interest in words (and it's something you can't do with he words on a Kindle or Nook, that tactile sense of book, pages, and words with physical as well as mental texture. (I'm one of those people that wants to finger all the pieces of a kit rather than just study the diagrams in the instructions; I want to feel the keyboard, not see where the letters are).

I envision a scrap book that has pages that express me, express parts of my life (hence the shift in the last blog off into art) like a journal more than like a photo album. Because I write, it would have pages reflective of writing, maybe some calligraphy and a little painting, but also the content of the stories (hence the ultimate connection to biomes that I was actually aiming for). I might find a science-and -technology sort of catalog to capture the essence of my science fiction writing, along with a few sketches and just a few words or space ship posters and space program headlines. I might have a page of family (though most will land in a whole scrapbook of their own before I get as far as a journal scrapbook). It might have a page or two representative of all the places I've been.

Scrap-book as journal is easier to share, more quickly scanned, and less deeply understood (perhaps just as well--see that other aspect of sharing, the giving instead of the viewing, less easy, often to the point of prevention for some, lacking in confidence or too often too harsh a response to what they have boldly revealed). It can be more akin to art in that regard (I see the careful, decorate pages around one or two pictures not so much art as elaborate framing, whereas my full page collages are like those simplest of frames, relying primarily on some edge that might remain uncovered, or on the journal cover as the only frame, capturing the whole but less so the individual pages and their contents, much like a written journal, especially one with little or no margin to the page.

Scrapbook journal, though, like all scrapbooking, is harder to fill than the written page, in its way. When I write, I select, but it is a selection of thought and sequence, not boundaries. I don't use a daily diary with sizes and dates but a large notebook and an entry might be half a page or many, then end and the beginning less defined than on a scrapbook page, whose edges aren't readily crossed. And my words are whatever I select, limited only by my knowledge, creativity and cursive skills. For scrapbooking, unless it is to be a sketchbook, it depends on the materials at hand, the physical limits of each picture or sticker or clipping, the selection gathered at stores or from magazines and photographic efforts of the past. This is a vastly different selection process and editing and revision is best done on the spot, before the tape or glue or stickers set and revision becomes destruction with no replacement supplies.

It will come in time, I think, but for now, it is an exercise mostly of the mind, unless as I create my trip scrapbooks, I set aside one eah for my journal, or spend a few extra minutes with the scraps to place a few visual "notes" on a "journal" page.

the scrapbook as art

I'm not much of a scrapbooker. I don't buy anything that I can't get on sale. Half my stickers and background designs are magazine pages I liked, and so far my scrapbooks are mostly just collage-y substitutes for trip photo albums because the photo album pages they make these days are cheap crap, no matter how fancy and expensive the cover they put on them. (Don't dare try to look at the notes on the back of a picture because the barely-attached slip-cover will pull up or off or tear, they're so pitifully cheap. So we had a quilters and scrap-bookers joint retreat and I saw what a scrapbook could be like, and went with it. I never use my den so it's now the place where I gather scrapbooking supplies, enough for years to come, probably (though even with cut-out, collaged photos from my trips and just a few backgrounds and stickers I can fill forty pages with one longer trip or a couple of shorter ones).

My plans are always big, though. I managed to get a few really great vacations into scrapbooks or what I had left of the older, nicer albums, but I have some eight or ten boxes (not photo boxes, I mean those heavy, lidded boxes that originally held twenty packages of office copy paper) of photos (and other trip things, like brochures and tickets and maps) from the past decade or two. Some I chose not to put in albums, some I saved for special themed scrapbooks I haven't got to, yet, like a family portrait book or my planned cookbook (yes, I've taken pictures of food and place settings as well as path ground covers, tree bark, and garden herbs) and especially one I think of as from my middle school science class term that I've never heard since - Biomes. The biomes are for my novels, especially the fantasies that take the characters through mountain passes and swamps, mystic ancient forests and endless plains. I've been collecting pictures of story settings forever but never quite managed to put them all together into an album or scrapbook but it will be impressive when I do. (I dream big, even if the reality never quite gets there).

Though I haven't made many books, and would probably be considered by most of the scrap bookers I know to be "missing" the goal of lovely pages that might only have one or two pictures beautifully arranged with my chaotic (but carefully laid out, with story, color choices, and consideration of density and ballence) pages of flowers and waterfalls and wildlife, waves and landscapes and the most vague timelines, being more about place and focus than the sequence in which they were seen; still, I see the fascination of it, and the potential. I quickly learned the delight in sticker shopping and the point of the stickers (which I was slow to incorporate as a substitute for invisible double sided tape, and still rarely use without also helping hold on a picture). I see the art element of it in my efforts to get a page that can b pleasant to look at as a whole while also showing off my photographed memories. And gradually I understand one of the early books I saw that seemed to have no purpose at all: just decorate pages laminated thick with cut outs or vague collages of decorated paper all on the same color theme and no photos, no picture element at all. It was scrapbook a pure art. Something pretty to look at.

My imaginings don't quite go that far, but they might be close, especially in the eyes of someone else, not knowing the meaning I put behind the pages I imagine, the more abstract collages I envision gathering in a scrapbook-as-collage-art. They remain on my to-do list rather than my acted-on list, but the vision is slowly growing and I've made notes about potential pages. I did a collage for a leadership workshop, magazine cutouts (mostly catalog ads, actually, with clothes I would never by, colors I liked regardless of the object, and other things intended to represent my interests and priorities) and I can see doing that for page after page with a better selection of magazine and catalog cutouts, added painting and calligraphy, photos and confetti and other flotsom and jetsom, each conveying a message about me or my interests or my views of the world, even if only I can interpret the message behind it. Is that not the essence of art?

Easter Egg mystery

Exploring the web is always something I lose patience with as heavy graphics slow things down and graphics are popular. Still, a quick look before I back up to a faster page can provide a lot of information. Today I looked for egg dying methods and opted for onions, but a quick scan showed me lots of options for that, too, including free floating onion skins, different kinds of onion skins, holding them onto the egg with rubberbands, coffee filters, old nylon knee highs, and cheese cloth or fabric (it will dye the fabric too but may not be colorfast). I also came across references to adding shapes and colors with flowers and parsley tyed on the same ways. I'll have to try the parsley sometime, especially.

I opted for free floating, not knowing my family's reaction to seeing nylons in the pot, the kind of onions we had in the house (though the skins are rather pale) and have achieved subtle marbling and pale but pretty ochre for a color, and a question about how eggs are handled before they reach my house. About half the eggs I dyed have two very neat stripes of white circling them at about the third and two-thirds points of the height if you stand the eggs on end. It's kind of the effect, in reverse, I might expect of rubber banding if one were very neat and didn't cross the two rubber bands, but what would cause it in the trip from hen to kitchen? And do I want to know? Anyway, it looks like I went to a little extra work to decorate the eggs, so I'm not complaining.

Traditional Hand Quilting tips

These are probably the same tips available in any number of books, but lately books on hand quilting have gotten harder and harder to find in favor of books on machine quilting (typically long-arm machine quilting), and I didn't learn from a book but mouth-to-mouth, so I thought I would share some basic tips and reminders here.

If your thread starts to catch after awhile, use a shorter thread the next time. With tight weave fabrics, even the smoothest quilting thread can get frayed. Looser weaves allow longer pieces of thread.

If you are having a hard time getting the needle through the fabric, find a thinner needle. They are easier to break but work better while they last and a fractional difference can translate to a significant difference in ease of sewing.

Hand quilting patterns can be complex or simple: complex takes lots more time, too simple and widely spaced can lead to bunched up batting:
Cotton battings should be quilted with spacing no larger than about three inches unless they have a strong surface (and those will be stiffer and harder to quilt)
Polyester battings are typically less inclined to bunch but are also poofier and should probably have stitching spaced no more than 4 inches apart.
The spacing need not be even or consistent: alphabets and numbers on baby quilts, quilting that follows pictures are all allowed: just watch for large areas with no stitching and fill with appropriate patterns and shapes.

Shorter needles allow for more closely spaced stitching, especially desirable if stitching will stand out visibly (e.g., white on a dark, plain background, large areas of plain fabric, closely spaced stitched patterns, etc.). On the other hand, if the quilting is simple and merely intended to keep the quilt layers together for the duration, a longer needle will allow more stitches at a time and quicker progress.