Phew, Finally Finished

This one was hard.  Although I made the quilt top quite a while ago, I just recently got to quilting it and binding it.

I had real trouble manoeuvering the quilt sandwich on my domestic machine.  I used my walking foot which was a bear to attach with my shaking hands.  And the vibrations caused the needle to fall out.  Which was, again, a bear to reinsert with my shaking hands.  I had used a duvet cover for the backing but after auditioning all of my fabrics, couldn't find something suitable for the binding.  I went to Sew Sisters and found a fabric which wouldn't compete with the batik frame and wouldn't compete with the may coloured scrap pieces.  

Cutting the 2.5" strips was not a problem.  But then for some reason when sewing them together, I sewed on the diagonal in the wrong direction.  Seam ripped them out, and again had to stop because of shaking hands.  I machine sewed the binding onto the back of the quilt, and then machine sewed it onto the front.  I struggled with the corners until I came to the last corner where I had to rip out the stitching.  I only had about 12" left to sew but again, shaking hands.  I finally finished the last stitches this morning. 

So the quilt is finished and so is my large quilting "career".  And this quilt is fitting as it is made from scraps of 20+ years of quilting.  I can recognize fabrics from the various quilts I have made over the years.  So it is quite meaningful in that it represents the many quilts I have gifted over the past two decades and it is my final quilt gift to my niece.

Now onto smaller creations. 

Last Quilt

Long time no write. 

I returned at the beginning of September from a lovely visit with family in Israel.  Because of war logistics, my flights were through Athens.  It was crazy hot and I had to run from one terminal to another in Athens.   Barely made the flight which was fine but freezing from over air conditioning.  Long story short, I returned home with a terrible cold, sore throat, coughing that hasn't ended yet - three weeks later.  Not Covid - I tested.  Menachem also caught it from me.

Needless to say, I was not feeling up to doing anything and even now am  not overly motivated.

However, my niece, Michelle, moved to Windsor for school and I promised her a quilt.  I already had the scrappy quilt top done but needed to  quilt it.  I used part of an Ikea duvet cover  for the backing.  Pinned it and turned to quilting.  

Did I mention that my hands are now sometimes shaking uncontrollably?  It was very challenging to attach the walking foot to my sewing machine.  And don't even ask about inserting a new needle.

I have,  nonetheless, managed to do half of the quilting.  I'm doing diagonal lines and have finished in one direction.  Now the other.  I find that moving the quilt sandwich under the needle and sewing exacerbates my shaking so I can only do a few quilting lines at a time.  Her;e is where I am so far.

 

 But I have pretty much decided that my large quilting days are done.  I'll stick to smaller projects.

 Update - i finished the quilting.  now i have to figure out what to use for the binding.

Flower Power Fabric Almost Finished

Although it has been almost a month since my last post, and we have been busy waiting to hear if the grandkids would be coming to visit, when and how, I did manage to finish three more "flower power" pieces, each one totally different.

This was  the first one (imagine it rotated to the left, since I don't know how to rotate the image).

 I was not enamored of the finished project.  I relied on fusible to attach the fussy cut flowers.  The fusible did not stay put so I had to tack the pieces down with beads.  Finished result - meh.

The next one I did I enjoyed a great deal more.

 

It was simply duppioni silk pieces, raw edges, sewn one to the other and appliqued on the flowery background, embellished with beads and buttons.

The next one was made using a technique where you lay the pieces, in this case 2.5 inches, on a fusible interfacing and then fold the fusible along the lines to stitch.  Hard to explain but here's what it looked like in progress:

 And the finished piece.  The advantage of this method is that the corners match up perfectly.  Not sure I'd replace sewing row by row to this method. 

 

And for the final piece, I reverted to my favorite embellished crazy quilting, using the flower power colours to determine the stitching threads and beads.

I pretty  much confirmed that I like the crazy quilting process most of all so I may just sew up a bunch of crazy quilting blocks from my wedding fabrics and embellish them depending on what borders I chose.

And here are the four pieces together.  I had hoped that they would all turn out the same size, 12.5 " ish, and unfortunately the "ish" is not the same...

 And I still have a 5.5" by 12" piece and a few smaller pieces of the flowery fabric, so keep posted. I may do something with them.

 

One Down One or Two to Go

 You may remember this fabric from a previous post.

I made these:

 (they are supposed to show vertically but I haven't figured out yet how to rotate them.)

Then I started on a larger 12" ish square.

 Then I stalled.

This week I finished it.

 Aside from some basic quilting stitches in the solid fabrics, the flowers are beaded, more of a tacking them down than a design element but finished nonetheless.

Now I am working on another piece using the fabric, this time as the background with elements of duppioni silk and a little bit more of the flower fabric.  So far this:

 

I will let you know where it goes when I get there...

Blue and White Fabric Colllages on Handmade Paper

I had made these fabric collages in February or March.

 Yesterday, I framed them.

 Quite pleased with myself.

Is it Over Yet?

 The following is NOT to be shared with my mother.

A year or two ago, my shaking hands started to concern me.  I went to my GP who said maybe Parkinsons but I'll send you to a neurologist.

The neurologist said definitely not Parkinsons, probably essential tremors but I'll send you for an MRI just to be sure, not expecting to find anything.

The "anything" turned out to be a meningioma, a benign tumor in the tissue between the skull and the brain.  My meningioma was about 2.5 cm and 3 cm is the size where it may start pressing on the brain.  Treatment advised: radiation.

A subsequent MRI showed no change in the size but after much thought, I decided to go for the radiation because I wasn't sure I wanted to wait until surgery was necessary and I figured 74 is a better age to do it than older.

They recommended 5 radiation treatments, every other day, and the duration is approximately 25 minutes.

The treatments themselves were fine.  They make a mask which fits over your face and is attached to the treatment table.  A little claustrophobic considering you can't move your head and have no concept of how long you've been lying there.

While I was lying there, I tried to distract myself by thinking about quilting/needlework projects.  And I kept time by counting songs of the 50s and 60s playing in the background.

I don't know the result of the treatments - I will have a followup MRI and doctor's appointment in July.

Before the treatment, I asked what they do with the mask when the treatments are over.  Trash unless I wanted to keep it.

And so was born "Is it over yet?" - a mask made from the treatment mask.

I failed to take a photo of the "naked" mask but this is what it looked like, sort or, lying down as on the treatment table.

 And this is the finished mask:

 The top part is 2" squares of different needlework techniques - applique, quilting, mosaic quilting, needlepoint, thread bits joined by Solvy, using leftover bits and pieces from previous projects.

The curly grey hair is from an unravelled sweater from Faigie's estate.

The nose/mouth opening on the mask was not pretty so I covered it with a mask I made from Faigie's felt, covered with eight flowers to represent the approximately 8 songs which played during each 25ish minute treatment.  And I couldn't resist a few beads and seed embroidery stitching.

I am still debating whether to put 5 (for the number of treatments) and 25 (for the length of each treatment) on the sunglass lenses.

I will probably gift it to the radiation doctor when I have my followup.

Stenciling sort of

I recently showed at a POM L&S meeting the matzah cover I made.  Members asked questions about how I did the Hebrew lettering.  I will be demonstrating the technique on an upcoming L&S meeting so I better get my ducks in a row so I can show how I did it.  It may not be the best way of doing it, but it is the way that works for me.

In a recent L&S meeting about the Little Synagogue on the Prairie, there was a "mizrach" on the wall.  It was common in Jewish homes to have a sign or plaque on the wall called a mizrach which means east, the direction towards which prayers are said.

I went to Google and typed in "mizrach".   It sent me to Wikipedia.  All I really wanted was the Hebrew word מזרח

 

  

I highlighted מזרח and copied it into a new document in my word processing program.

 

  

I adjusted the font to "Aharoni" (you can chose whatever Hebrew font your word processor has but I chose Aharoni because the letters are thick).

I adjusted the letter size to 240 pt - this gave me all four letters on one row.  You could make them bigger, or smaller, depending on what you are making.

And I got this which I printed onto coloured paper - I will explain why further on.

  

OK.  So now we have the base for the template.  If you are planning to make a stencil, tape the paper to a window, tape a piece of freezer paper, non-shiny side facing you, onto the base and trace the letter outline with a pen or pencil onto the freezer paper.

 

Remove from window.  Cut out the inside of the letters.  Et voila, a stencil you can iron onto fabric to paint with fabric paint.

 

 

 

If you are planning to cut out fabric letters, cut out the letters, cutting around the black ink.

Now flip the letters over so all you see is the pink.

Trace the letters onto fusible - I used Steam a Seam Lite.  I am assuming you know how fusible works, if not ask someone who does know.

   

There are two steps to the fusing. 

 

You will need to peel off the paper on the unwritten side of the fusible and fuse it to the fabric from which the letters will be cut.  Fuse either

a) onto the wrong side of the fabric; or

b) onto something like batik which doesn't have a right or wrong side, or onto a silk where neither side is discernably right or wrong.

 

 I used batik because I wanted to use up my bits and pieces.

 

Cut the fusible to separate between the letters.  This is where you peel off the paper not written on Then iron the fusible onto the fabric. COVER WITH PARCHMENT PAPER BEFORE IRONING.  Sorry for shouting.

It is much easier to cut out if you don't cut the letters until they have been fused.

 

Once you have fused onto the fabric and cut out the letters, you will have this:

 

 

Now peel the fusible on the back of the letters, place the letters on the fabric where you want them and you will have the final lettering.  I fused onto a goldish synthetic fabric which I will eventually finish off with quilting, embroidery or something else.

 

 Alternative sources for lettering:

 Masterfont - used to have a place where you could try out the font.  I used to try out the words I wanted, then copy and paste into a word document.  Don't know if this will still work.

alefalefalef.co.il - a graphic designs site but they have free Hebrew fonts.