Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Quilt


And by "quilt", I mean batting sandwiched between printed
fabric.
And distorted circles machine-stitched around
the Maisys to
hold the batting in place.
And a colorful border sewn all around.

This is as far as my quilting goes. I think I should refer
to this as a "blanket" from now on, though.

So this blanket is for Jenna, the one-person-Maisy-fan-club

in our house. Supposed to be a Christmas present, but I was
careless enough to let her see part of it. She said, "I like that
Maisy cloth!" so I know she'll like the finished product
when she finally unwraps it.

Also made her a Maisy pillowcase with the remnants - front:

and back:
I'm not exactly sure how children fall asleep with their eyes
so close to blindingly colorful print like this, but maybe
everything is bland in the dark.

So that's my sewing project for the week. Believe it or not,

I'm almost done with Christmas gifts. More specifically, I'm
not sewing a lot of Christmas gifts this year. Decided it was
a case of been-there-done-that-and-am-tired, and I want
to make better use of my advent season by actually enjoying
it instead of sewing myself blind late into the night. I have one
wallet to make, and I'm done. I started a dress for Emily,
planning to do one of those odd matching girl-and-18"-doll
outfits but I am not in a clothes-sewing mood now. So the
dress is half-done and sitting on my table. Maybe I'll finish it
for Christmas. And maybe I'll draft an 18"-Doll Sloper and
make the matching doll dress.
Or maybe I'll bake cookies and eat them instead.

But back to the subject line - quilts.
Let me show you some real patchwork quilting.
Of course not done by me. These were made by
Auntie Laura when she was visiting in 2006.
She made these for Christmas for us
(on my sewing machine - whooo!):

I know essentially squat about patchwork and blocks and
all
that other quilting nomenclature, but I recognize
precision
and good craftsmanship when I see it. And
these pillowcases
are beautifully made, and the undersides,
where all the threads
are manually knotted are incredibly
neat (I got a peek when
she was making them).
Manually knotted! Do people really
do this voluntarily?
That last design really boggles my mind.
All those curves and overlapping over-under things.
Fascinating in an MC Escher sort of way.

I was especially intrigued by her corners - I only ever
finish my corners at a diagonal. This was new to me:
and this was especially pretty:
There's a matching tree skirt, too, but I didn't take photos -
covered with pine needles and gifts right now.

2 comments:

  1. Whay a wonderfull quilt you´ve made! I really like it!.
    I wish I could make something like that some day...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know anything about quilting, but those pillows are stunning!

    I'm sure Jenna will adore her new quilt and pillowcase =)

    ReplyDelete

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