A series of fun potholders

Recently, I made up a bunch of fun, funky potholders to list on Island Retreat, my etsy site.  You can see the whole collection if you click on the Island Retreat Etsy thumbnails on the sidebar.  They're just joyous little mindless artsy pieces with insulbrite sewn between the layers or foundation-pieced on insulbrite, for kitchen chores.  I use them to take cookies out of the oven, or as a drip pad in front of the coffeepot, because you can toss them in the washer and have a fresh one every day.  This one has pyramids made from prairie points, and Oklahoma in the sky.  Check an earlier blog if you would like to learn how to make prairie points.  They are easy and fun.

Tibbits Blue TieDye Quilt

Here's a joyous riot of colors in this quilt made for my husband's father and step-mother.  It features a lot of  fabrics from Keepin U N Stitches at Jay, Oklahoma and the centerpiece is one of my hand-dyed Kona panels.  I machine-stitched the strip pieces and applied custom machine quilting, including a few mysterious words in the stitching.... such as the fact that it was quilted on Solstice 2010.  If you are in this geographical area, rent the longarm machine at the quilt and fabric shop above, for about $10 an hour to do your very own machine quilting--- you can buy back and bat there, and run your backing seam.  Then Keepin U N Stitches will provide you with thread from their choice or you can bring your own tread and bobbins if you have something particularly unusual in mind. 

How To Make Prairie Points

Prairie Points are these showy little triangles peeping out of the seam on a quilt.  You'll find them most often along the edges of quilts.  Unliked scalloped edges, these are easy to make.  Here's how:

Select your fabric.  A dramatic contrast or stark stripes might give your project some punch.  If you choose something that 'matches' too closely, your prairie points may seem like a lot of work for very little visual impact.  (Here, I've used birch tree trunks, with batiks and a festive print.)  You can buy and yard and go back if you need more. 

Snip and rip off the selvedge piece with the fabric's name on it.  Now rip a straight line...  You do this by finding the fold of the fabric, and snipping about an inch in from the edge.  You will rip it from the middle to the edges in both directions at once.  Now you have a true straight line.

Cut Strips... Using a tape measure or the ruler on a cutting board, snip in about an inch on the fold, every 4 inches.  When you get to the last one, it might not be square if the fabric was not cut precisely, so I always throw the last piece into the 'bone pile' in my sewing room floor.  You will have it there if you need it, and if not you may use it later for potholders or pillowcases.

Make the Strips Square... Lay your strip longwise and make a snip every four inches, then rip each into a 4 inch square.  Tip:  If you are precise, lay 2 or 3 strips atop each other and cut multiples all the way thru instead of ripping. 

Stack and Fold... Stack them up on your ironing board.  Get one.  Fold into a triangle.  Fold into a triangle again.  Iron.  Stack 'em in a finished pile.  Repeat till all are done.  Tip:  If you use a stripe, you *might* prefer to fold them with the fold going the same direction.  If you're making horizontals and you get a vertical, turn it over.  Its magic!

Zigzag them Down... Sew these down onto your sashing or border strip using a zigzag stitch.  You'll hide that when you sew the quilt top seam.

Finish and Admire... Now lay your border strip under the quilt top.  Eleanor Burns, author of Quilt In A Day Series, gives this tip and it makes your project move more smoothly in the machine.  Quilt your regular size of seam.

I love these!  This is my first quilt with Prairie Points and they're so easy plus fancy.  When you quilt your top, you may wish to seam along whichever side you wish in order to lay them up toward the top of the bed, or down toward the edge of the quilt.

Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt

Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt

A favorite in my collection of quilts by other women, is this Cherokee Star Pieced Quilt.  I think I bought it at a garage sale and the sellers didn't know who made it.  Most seven-point star quilts are actually appliqued, but this one is the only authentic fully-pieced 7-point star quilt that I have seen in person, except in recent years at the Cherokee National Holiday Quilt Show.  This one is pieced in sometimes-now-ragged prints that appear to be from the 1950s, on a plain white background and it has a white back also.  It is stained in places, faded in other spots, and threadbare too.

The batting is thin white all cotton batt, and the back was pure white cotton fabric.  It is fully hand-quilted and has a petite half-inch folded-over binding.

Happy Lunch Sack

I was feeling guilty about using paper sacks for my daily lunch,.  So I made a tree-free lunch sack with some mojo of its own.  I started with a plain muslin duck cloth commercial lunch bag, then made it "Fluffy-ized" with tiedye colors of fuschia and turquoise, chartreuse and cherry and lemon.  Then I added a batik soy resist hemp peace sign, also hand-dyed.  I beaded the seams with commercial bead fringe and a few scraps, then embrioidered a ribbing along both edges, adding ribbons to make it funky... and beads across the top.  Ooh-la-la.  It makes any food wonderful.  And yes, I do toss it into warm water and hand-wash it, but don't run it thru a rigorous machine cycle.

For many art things that I make, I don't even try to sell.  That is because the hours involved would make the cost so high that no one could afford them.  So I just make and keep some pretty things for myself and to enhance our home.  Or it gift it to family members.

*****

Friedrick and I are going to see Eric Clapton in concert on Tuesday March 12th, so stand by for a real-time review on Wednesday.

Frame Baby Quilt Top

Today's post is a baby quilt top, made with the most joyous fabrics which were left over from a big quilt that I made.  In making the big quilt, I picked out the materials to use, and bought them for that purpose.  For this quilt, my goal was to clean up the scraps off of the floor by my sewing machine.

I don't think this quilt pattern has a name.  In the 1700s on this continent, quilts were sometimes framed in a single border of chintz.  But it is more like the log cabin patterns of the mid 1800s to strip-piece a quilt "in the round" or framing a center.  It differs, because the log cabin pattern repeats in smaller multiple blocks.

So, this top is for sale, $50 in baby bed size.  Or add $200 and it can be batted, backed and machine quilted by me.  It will be listed for sale at Oklahoma Food Cooperative soon, or on etsy at Island Retreat.

Cherokee Quilt Concept- In my DNA

I just finished these wonderful marbled Cherokee Syllabary strips.  Each strip is 45 inches long.  Starting with a plain white cotton, I use soy wax batik to creat a resis, and then practice my Cherokee syllables along with the pronunciation.  Long ago, young girls would learn to embroider by creating an alphabet sampler in satin stitch or cross-stitch.  I've employed the same learning tool to help my ability to read the Cherokee language.

At present, this is not yet a quilt top.  I was just so excited about the pop-art effect that I had to share it.  The calico between hand-dyed strips gives a 3-D depth effect.  This one will be a corker to sew, if those starry little dots don't hold still! 

This top will be $100 as a top only, in the bed size of your choice.  Or it will be $450 fully finished with custom machine quilting, several options for loft and batting content, a choice of stiff like those nice quilts our grandmothers had which lay beautifully or puffy like a comforter, and any cotton backing that you fancy.  This quilt would make a wonderful "Going Away To College" quilt for some special Cherokee student who needs the hug of home while out there in the big old world.  So if you have a May graduation gift to choose, contact me at ktibbits@lrec.org for details.  Yes, you can make payments. 

Gracie Discovers Mudme

 

It makes a world of difference to be able to create hand-dyed fabrics during the day, when natural light helps with color decisions.  Last week I was preparing  fat quarters for a custom order, and found that I had stockpiled some white cotton squares.  It was news to me.  I'd forgotten that I was prepping them for the dyebath.

When I had leftover chemicals that I didn't want to waste, I made up these great cheery color squares.  They are not sewn together... they are just laid out in a possible pattern for a quilt top.  Buy all 9 for $40 and sew them together yourself as a weekend project.  Or pick out which one you'd like for a quilt focal point, just $4 and mailing costs of $1.75.  Note that these are not fat quarters... they are squares, about 21 inches.

My cute lil model is Gracie Piddlewhiskers, our Selkirk Rex female teenager cat and art muse.  She's always nearby to help with art projects.  Your squares will be again prewashed before mailing, so you don't have to worry about allergies.

Look for these squares at Island Retreat or via Oklahoma Food Cooperative, or email me about purchasing.

50's Style Ultimate Kitschen Apron

 

Here's a length of extra skirting that is similar to something I featured in my blog before.  Check out the wonderful stripey waistline piece that extends a bit into the ties.  It is long enough in back to make a bow.  This apron features a convenient left-hand pocket, banked to the inside, because if you've really got a pocket full of snow peas from the garden, you don't want them tumbling out when you bend and stretch.  Its an old physics trick that I learned from trial and error.

When I was a child, my grandmothers were big on aprons.  One grandmother wore an apron as the top layer of her clothes whenever she was at home.  She wore full aprons of the top and bottom kind, usually, and would take them off when going to the store.  They were handy for popping grease as she fried morning bacon and made gravy.  They had big huge pockets for holding lots of clothespins for hanging laundry on the line to dry in the outdoor sun.

My other grandmother wore aprons also.  She wore frilly aprons for serving lovely vanilla sugar cookies.  These cookies were usually pressed out by a granddaughter and sprinkled with white sugar, then served with coffee or milk.  

Both of my grandmothers sewed.  My maternal grandmother, Bigmom, had a dry cleaners and tailoring service.  She had the most amazing interesting things she made from fabric scraps.  She had woolen quilts made from pant-legs of the mens wool suit pants that had been cut off.  She had raggedy towels sewn together in layers to make pads the size of a fat quarter.  These were little footstool or ottoman pads, or to step out onto from the bathtub, or for wiping feet inside the back door, or for babydoll blankets.  When my daughter was a little baby, this grandmother is the one who made me promise not to use disposable diapers, saying they were gross and miserable for babies.  When she passed away, I inherited a wonderful twin sateen quilt top that she had made in pastel blocks in mint, pink, dreamsicle orange, baby blue and lemon yellow.  In her aprons, she looked like Lucy Ricardo... perky and frilly.

My grandmothers' aprons are my inspiration for making fun aprons.  I've taken quite a few to the stomp grounds for kitchen use there.  This style of mixed calicos and pinch-pleats is new.  In old times, our corn dance was performed with the women wearing aprons of simple thin 60-thread or 100-thread count plain white cotton.  These aprons were scant and tailored, and they reminded me of when I was a little girl and my mother would put a bowl of  starch (and sometimes the whites to be starched and ironed) in the fridge.  (Starch and bluing.  Do people even know what that is today?)

There is something practical about an apron.  You drag in from a tough mind-numbingly cerebral day at the office sitting in a chair for eight hours.  You're hungry for something delicious, but still in a black or navy colored suit.  If you cook in it, you'll have more work ahead at laundry time, making sure there isn't any gravy on the tummy.  So, throw on an apron to break the serious mood.  Voila!  You're Samantha, making perfect barbeque sauce from scratch and whipping up something divine in quick time.  Remember... when you are too tired to fix dinner, a magic apron will give you the strength and energy to cook up some strength and energy.

I'm listing a few new things in my online shops, so this apron will be showing up in one of my etsy storefronts for $18 or you can email me if its the perfect match for your cooking and entertaining adventures.

One Square Comes Lately

 

After making a fun quilt, its just as fun to photograph it, because you can see it in a different context. This quilt, I had no intention of creating a pop art effect on. But look at the square on the right hand side in the middle of the picture. See how it looks dropped-in later or on top of the rest of the quilt? Its an optical illusion. Working with stark contrasting colors gives that dimensionality sometimes. This is just a quilt top, but if someone wants it finished instead of doing it themselves, I'll consult with you for an appropriate thickness, batting fiber, backing color and fiber to match your room, and thread in matching or contrasting vivid colors--- which ever you might prefer. Quilt Top $100; Finished Quilt for any size of bed $450

Dance Skirts

Cherokee women look for a couple of things when they make a skirt to wear to traditional dances.  For one thing, a skirt should have the ruffle beginning at the knee.  That's so you have room to move around and you're not constrained by the size of the skirt.  The main part of the skirt should be loose enough to sit in comfortably, with an elastic waist for bending, twisting and moving-- snug enough to hold up the dress and loose enough to breath and stretch in.  The ruffle can be short or long.  If it is short, it is more likely to get caught on your legs if they have something on them.    A deep or long ruffle gives a better fit.  In choosing the best skirt length, I tend to prefer a skirt that hits at about mid-calf.  Shorter skirts are found among Mvskoke and Natchez dancers, and longer skirts are more characteristically Cherokee or Loyal Band Shawnee.   Shorter skirts are better for carrying the sounds of shells and cans.  Longer skirts look better and are warmer.  The dust ruffle can be sewn-in, or it can be sewn on top.  Dust ruffle gathers can be regular or 'chunky' and irregular.

I sometimes make skirts for dancers and guests.  I like to keep a couple of  extra skirts on hand, to give to friends who come to dances.  I just enjoy making them.  Sometimes, a bolt of fabric just "jumps out at me" and I think, "That would make a pretty skirt."

One skirt in this picture is black, grey, blue and white with circles and hearts that make lines.  In first grade, my grandmother made me a dress from some of  the same fabric that her grandmother had.  And this reminded me of that old black, gray and white machine-printed bolt cloth.  Its 28 inches long.  The waist fits 28" to 38".  It is modest and rather short.

The second skirt is dusty rose with dime-sized roses, a maroon border and flounce dust ruffle.   It is about 29 to 30 inches in finished length.  It can be almost any waist size from womens' Medium to Plus, because the elastic will be added when it is gifted or sold.

I have been asked to make skirts like these for Cherokee tribal citizens, and usually charge $50.  If you find them for sale in retail establishments, they will be more like $75 due to retail markup.  There is a certain time of year when all women get a new skirt... either by gift, purchase or making a new one.