Fairbanks Fancy Goods

Getting back into my regular routine. I finished another Dear Baby Jane block, Melissa’s Cross (B-11). I ended up doing it twice. Both times I pieced it together in a bit of a different fashion than what was suggested by our fearless leader, Anina. Instead of working from the center out, using paper piecing, I built the block in quarters. I followed the book diagram explicitly on the first try. This meant that the diagonal stripes were 1/8″ smaller than the center cross. I didn’t really like the block when it was finished. It seemed off-balance to me. For the second try, I kept with the same approach, but made the diagonal bars and center cross exactly the same width. The finished block is not exactly like Jane’s, or Debra’s or Anina’s for that matter. I like the block I finished though so I will keep it this way.

Rumor has it that we will be doing our first border triangle this week! Very exciting!

So, I just got home from the fabric store and took a fresh look at this block.  **Sigh**  It will have to be redone.  No excuses.

I’ve been needing a pincushion for some time now. Call it “cobbler’s children syndrome”. A few nights ago however, I was digging through a rather deep cabinet in search of some particular beer glasses (Many people don’t know that like wine, there are different shaped beer glasses for different types of beer.) During my search a came across a little piece of porcelain I’ve had, for no particular reason, for about 20 years.

It’s a vintage match safe/striker I picked up at a Marché des Pouces. I think I bought it when I was in a orange period as I’ve never been a smoker. When I picked it up the other night though this little piece of painted porcelain just screamed “Make me into a pincushion!” While the kids were napping today I set to work. Where the match strike was, I covered a piece of Timtex with a little batting and fabric and attached it with red liner tape. I find it easier to deal with than hot glue in some cases and just as strong. The ruffle was attached inside the match safe and then the pin cushion was stitched onto it. Et voilá!

It’s a silly little thing, but it makes me very happy.

I’m officially caught up on Baby Jane blocks! I had one left over from last week and this week’s Thursday block to do. Fortunately, neither were all that hard. I fussy cut the stripes on “Tinker Toy” (B-9). They are ever so slightly wonky on one side but not enough to bother me or make me want to re-do it. I found the easiest way to do the center square (which was reverse appliqué) was to just undo the stitches in the center and fold back the fabric, rather than cutting a hole and using a freezer paper guide. I just measured how the sides of the square are and pressed as I went. The corners are nice and crisp and precise. The other thing that helped with this block are these beauties:

Yes, I have found I need glasses to do a better job on hand work. Now, if I can just manage not to lose them!

Although foundation piecing was recommended for the center of Jud’s Trophy (B-10) I actually did quite well using strip piecing. There’s a very small amount of wonkiness but definitely within tolerable limits.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “if walls could talk…” usually with reference to the people living within those walls. Lately, I’ve been wondering, if walls could talk, what would they tell me about themselves?

We’re still dealing with our broken drain pipe. It has turned into almost a full bathroom remodel (’almost’ because the tub won’t change). Soon we will have a new sink, toilet, wall cabinet and floor. When the plumbers started poking around to decide how to attack the pipes it was quickly determined that the bathroom floor would have to come up. Then it was discovered that there was a very thin crack in the base of the toilet. Out it goes! Add a new toilet to the list. Next, we were informed that the vanity was of a quality that would not allow for it to be taken out and re-installed. Sigh. This isn’t altogether that bad though because we’ve wanted to get a pedestal sink anyway (smaller profile in an already small room). So, we are currently living with a half-bath downstairs, borrowing our neighbor’s tub and shower to keep the filth at bay.

Dismantling the bathroom has been interesting. The bulk of the demo happened during a wisely timed trip to visit friends in Kentucky. When we returned, the room in the picture at the top was waiting for us. At least now I can get that hideous wallpaper removed that was living behind the radiator! We chuckled over the state of the ’sub-floor’, cobbled together with this and that, a really frugal job. At this point everyone was pretty calm and unfazed by the project.

Then the sub-floor came up. What a mess, in every conceivable way. If our walls could talk, they would tell you how this little bathroom hasn’t always been there. The room was claimed from one of the other bedrooms. There had been another bathroom, the one that was built when the house was new. It was in the back of the house and perhaps may not have had running water. Such was life in 1899 when this house was new. The walls would tell you about the man and his wife who lived in the house first. His name was Sidney Bampton and he fought in World War I. He returned home from the home broken with ailments that just got worse as the years went by. When his wife died, her sister stayed with Sidney as his nurse. Sidney left the house to her in his will. She stayed here until the 30’s. That’s when all the changes happened. Electricity! Upstairs plumbing! A coal burning furnace!

To get the plumbing in and around the beams and joists on the second floor a lot of maneuvering took place. A chunk carved out here, a hole cut out there… Basically, in a lot of places, our little home is held together with love and memories. Carpenters will descend on Friday to repair the damage done in when that little bathroom was put together. There’s a shiny new pedestal sink and toilet sitting in boxes in our front hall. The plumbers will be back next week to start their work, which will include me (!) installing a vinyl tile floor next week on my day off. I hope the walls will approve of the changes.

There have been many crafty/sewing ladies in my family. My Mom tells me that my Aunt Mickie was such an avid stitcher that her house could be burning down and she’d say “Wait, I’m almost done with this!” I definitely fall into this category. There were certainly other tasks I could have completed yesterday but instead I decided to get (nearly) caught up in my Dear Jane work.

The block at the top is Wild Goose Chase (B-6) again. I realized after finishing the last version that I had made an error causing the block to be 1/2″ too large. I could have ripped it apart but I chose just to re-do it. Perhaps I’ll turn the wrong block into a pincushion.

This is Hot Cross Buns (B-5). I like my fabric choices but I”m not wild about the decision to alternate the print direction. Opinions? I also am not satisfied with quality of the reverse appliqué. My points aren’t pointy enough. How can this be done better? I may be cutting my allowances to small.

World Series (B-7). Not much to say here. It looks a lot more complicated than it actually was. Again, the points are a little blunt but not too badly.

Completed late last night, Water Lily (B-8). I like this block. The piecing was just tricky enough to keep my attention. The placement of one of the 4 lozenges is slightly off and I may redo just this part. I’ll see what my reaction is to it when I get home today.

I now just have one more block to do before Thursday’s assignment! Hooray! I’ve said it before but I’m enjoying working on these little blocks so much. Each one is just challenging enough to be interesting. I find myself thinking a lot about Jane Stickle (the Vermont woman whose quilt we’re recreating). How did she manage sewing some of these blocks by candle light? She must have had very good eyesight. I had a hard time seeing my stitches on some of the applique (and that’s with an Ott lamp). I may ended up getting some reading glasses before too long!

This little block is called Wild Goose Chase (B-6) which is a very appropriate name. It took 4 (!) tries to get it right.

Here’s the floor just after I finished - I’ve never gone through so much fabric for something so small! I started out trying to paper piece. The little half finished square is as far as I got. It got tossed after I decided it was too wonky and non-square to bother finishing. I had gone so slow! I was so precise! Yet it still went horribly pear-shaped, as they say.

Then I found Wendy’s photos. Ureka! Her method worked perfectly. Thank you Wendy!

I am slightly more caught up with work on my Baby Jane. At the beginning of the weekend, I had four blocks to do. Now, I’m down to two - which I hope to complete tonight. Above is “Sweet Tater Pie” (B-2) and I can honestly say there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The very center of this block, “Starflower” (B12) isn’t as perfect as it could be but not bad enough to make me want to redo it. Reverse appliqué on really small sections is tough, especially when there are sharp corners involved.

Under the needle now is “Wild Goose Chase” (B-6). This one is making me crazy. It’s paper pieced in sections from the inside out. I’m half way through the third attempt and will be starting over again later as I’m so not pleased with the wonkyness of what I’ve got going so far. I’m very challenged with this one but am determined to master it.

I’ve been sewing like crazy lately and surviving a generally chaotic time in our lives. After losing my measuring tape again yesterday morning I decided that enough was enough and started cleaning my sewing area right after picking the kids up and getting them settled with snacks and books and toys.

My sewing space started out in the bay window in our bedroom but didn’t last there long. All it took was dear Hubby rolling over on a pin left on the bed in the middle of the night. So then we moved me down to the basement. Lots of effort went into making it a good space: homasote on the walls, a thick pad and area rug on the cement floor, an industrial blue! work table and lots of extra lighting. At the end of the day though, it was still the basement with spiders and leaks and the occasional flood (yup, that area rug and pad didn’t last long). I ‘gave up’ sewing for a while. I was working constantly, traveling too much, trying to start a family… There just wasn’t much extra time. After the Little Miss was born, I itched to start sewing again. I did do some knitting and a little sewing from time to time but couldn’t really be down in the basement with a wee one upstairs. After Buster came along I really NEEDED to start sewing again - I needed to find something for myself that had nothing to do with anyone else. That’s how the sewing area came to live in it’s current home - the big bay window of the playroom (formally the dining room).

This spot has worked really well now for about 3 years (Buster will be 4! in August). Occasionally Hubby will wonder if the ironing board is ever going to go away but I just change the subject and then produce something wonderful. How can anyone find fault with creative expression, right?

I think I’ve done a good job making use of the space available. My sewing table is actually a console table given to us by by my dear Nana when hubby abd I bought the house. It works great because it is long but narrow. There’s room for my general sewing machine, a lamp and my serger. That’s it there on the right, hiding under a Venezia souvenir tea-towel.

When I could no longer expand out, I went up, down and under! I bought one of those great, inexpensive cube organizers from Target and put it on top of the radiator. It holds my most reached for books and current favorite fabrics. The two drawers are really handy. One contains odds and ends of ribbon and trim. The other holds odd sized tools and other bits and bobs. On top are mason jars full of my button collection. You can see the black white and brown jars there in the front. The colors are in a big jar in the back.

Right next to the radiator is a stack of plastic storage drawers. I try to keep these devoted to their contents. A drawer for cutting tools (far away from little hands). A drawer for thread. A drawer for zippers, bindings and other notions. I’ve arranged many of my quilting fabrics by color in a drawer of their own. My vintage trim collection lives in the drawer on the bottom.

The one thing that I’m unhappy with is the stack of boxes under the ironing board. There’s one for patterns. One for my Baby Jane fabrics and a couple baskets of stuff and scraps that I need to find a better home for. I’d like to come up with a better solution for these things but until they keep me from being productive, there they’ll stay.

I was so pleased when everything was put right that I just had to take some pictures. Hopefully this will help me want to keep it spick and span (I’m not the tidiest crafter in the world). I had the settings wrong on the first photo I took (at the top of this post). It ended up using ambient light (at around 6:30 pm) and a really long exposure. Even though the image is just a little shaky and ’soft-focus’ I kept it because the quality of the twilight outside and the warm interior glow was just a little too wonderful and Maxfield Parrish to pass up and toss in pursuit of perfection.

Sometimes the most beautiful is not the most perfect.

There is an artist named Lenna Andrews who hosts swaps that are always a creative challenge. Back in November, I signed up for a Shades of White quiltie swap. I’m not really a white person but I do have a huge stash of vintage hankies and laces. I thought this would be the perfect venue to use a little from the stash while forcing myself to create in a different direction.

The deadline is Saturday. I finished the 4th 6 in. by 6 in. square last night. The whole package was ready to go at 12:30 am this morning. I must stop leaving things until the last minute. (I am getting better though - the Doll Quilt III submission was done a week early!)

Besides the vintage items, I knew I wanted to work with photos printed on fabric as well. I’ve been sort of obsessed with circles lately so I did a search on Flickr for just that. What an amazing source of inspiration!! Very quickly, I came across the work of a very talented photographer named Jules Lewis. He photographs all sorts of things but really excels at nature photography. I found 3 photos that I liked. (Ok, so one isn’t a circle but it does have curves…) I sent Jules a note to make sure he didn’t mind and downloaded the photos to my Mac. A little Photoshop manipulation and voila! I had my images ready to go. The forth image is by another great photog - James Neeley. (I wrote to him as well and didn’t get a response. Since I’m not selling these little pieces, I believe I’m in the clear, vis-a-vis copyright rules.) This one is the most literal of the group, the only changes I made were converting the image to black and white and altering the contrast and exposure a bit. Two of the group were cut into quarters and reassembled. Another was treated like the oil drums photo and altered in a similar fashion.

My favorite is the first one, using the mushroom gills as the source image. Really though, I am quite pleased with the group. This is definitely something I will try again. A group of 3 or 4 might be a nice grouping somewhere in our home.

Camille Roskelley has a lovely blog called Simplify and a quilt design business called Thimble Blossoms. I’ve been following her work for a while now and just love what she does.

To celebrate the wonderful first year she’s had as a real, live quilt designer Camille has decided to give away one of her beautiful quilts. All you have to do is visit her blog and leave a comment with your name, where you are from, and your favorite place to get fabric, wherever it may be. (Pssst… tell her Fanny sent you!) If you post about the give away on your blog, you get an extra three entries! Spread the word! Quiltie goodness to be had!

The picture is from Camille’s blog. The quilt is called “Bloom” and if you don’t win it, you can purchase the pattern to make your own. I just might do that!