Happy Harvey Milk Day

Today is Harvey Milk Day in California, honoring the birth date of one of my heroes in the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. We've come so far in the last couple years -- it's hard to imagine the challenges Harvey faced when he won public office as an openly gay man.

Harvey Milk. Photo by permission of Daniel Nicoletta

Two years ago I started a portrait quilt of Harvey Milk, based on this famous photo by Daniel Nicoletta.  I finished in June 2011.

Nicoletta's photo was taken during his campaign for City Supervisor, and his campaign button is prominently displayed on his chest.

We've made so much progress, and there is still so much to do. Thank you for your support in the fight for full equality.

Another Sunrise

It's actually the same Sunrise quilt from a few weeks ago, but I'm revisiting to enter the quilt into Amy Ellis's Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Baby Quilts category. The baby blanket is machine pieced and quilted, and measures 44" x 45".

I quilted horizontal lines in various shades of orange and yellow, with the lines across the center of the blanket more dense and more orange than the sides.

For the density of the the quilting, the blanket drapes beautifully and has a remarkably soft hand

If you have a moment, check out all the great festival quilts.

Orb final, including quilting notes

I finished the binding on the Orb quilt the other day using the same hibiscus purple that appears in strips on the quilt top, only without the orange bits. The final dimensions are 51" x 51".

And I had some helpers for taking photos yesterday.

I'm still quite happy with the quilting on this one.

I emptied several spools of orange and yellow thread.

Several people have asked how I went about the quilting. The short answer is I marked each straight line using various colors of Frixion pens and quilted with a walking foot. Lots and lots of lines.

1. I started by marking (but not sewing) the locations of the circles. I used two small bowls as circle templates.

2. Then I marked a first set of tangent lines -- about three tangent lines for each circle, with each line touching two circles. I quilted the lines with a medium orange thread.
3. I repeated Step 2 several times using progressively lighter oranges, then yellows.
4. When I got to my lightest thread color, I focused on the circles one by one, marking and then quilting lines so there were no large gaps/angles between the tangent lines. Each 2-1/2" circle has about 25 tangent lines, and each 3-1/2" circle has about 30 lines.

The final step was to add a few lines at the edges and corners where the quilting lines were farther apart than in the center of the quilt.

I was nervous about using the Frixion pens, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. My favorite color was bright pink. It was visible on the light and dark colors, but not super ugly like the dark blue and black. After quilting I washed and blocked the quilt. Most of the pen marks washed away, and the few that remained disappeared completely when ironed. And there aren't any white ghost marks on the dark fabrics, as some have experienced. Perhaps ironing before an initial wash can set the ink medium, even as the pigment disappears? I have no idea, but I'm very happy with how this particular process worked.

I've entered the quilt in the Home Machine Quilted category of Amy Ellis's Bloggers Quilt Festival.

Orb quilted

In spite of fighting a nasty cold most of this week I managed to quilt the Orb. This is the second quilt from the improv curved piecing I started several weeks ago. The first is the Sunrise quilt.

The quilting is all straight lines in shades of yellow and orange. The lines go every which way, but meet to form circles at tangent intersections.

I marked the lines with various shades of Pilot Frixion pens. The ink disappears when you iron -- I haven't had a chance to iron yet.

The light was so beautiful yesterday evening, I had to take some photos.

And the shadows do a pretty good job of hiding the Frixion marks.

I backed the quilt with a Ty Pennington print. I was surprised to see a few of the quilting circles framed the print in ways that seemed fussy and intentional.

I'll bind the quilt with the purple solid -- hopefully this week.

Munchkin projects

Last week I spent a lot of time sewing for and with my son. He's working on a Women's History Month research project for his 5th grade class. Each kid was assigned a notable historical figure to learn about. The final output of the project is a "place setting" with all the items in the place setting -- the plate, cup, fork, etc. -- representing something about the famous woman. The objects are not literal representations of what you would find on a dinner table, but abstract artistic interpretations.

Munchkin's subject is Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady of the United States from 1933-1945, delegate to the United Nations, and architect of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For his "plate" Munchkin chose to sew a baby blanket to show that Eleanor was born with the courage of her convictions.

He searched for an appropriate symbol for courage, and chose the Tabono (oars), an Adinkra textile symbol from West Africa. The symbol represents confidence, strength and perseverance.

Munchkin has used a sewing machine in craft class, but this is the first time he's asked me to teach him. I put on the binding, but he did everything else, including selecting the fabrics, cutting and sewing, drawing and applying a fusible webbing template, basting the quilt sandwich, and quilting. It turned out great. I love that he chose a textile symbol, and the fact that it's from Africa reflects Eleanor Roosevelt's internationalist vision.

Last week's other project was a pillow for Munchkin to take to 5th grade science camp this week. He wanted the word "camp" and an Angry Birds pig. He loves those pigs.

I imitated one of Chawn's lettering styles.

The pig pattern is from Le Borse di Gaya via Fandom in Stitches. I enlarged the template 150% and added pieced pupils to the eyes.

And yesterday morning I sent him off to camp. I know he'll have an amazing time, and I can't wait to hear about his experience when I pick him up Friday afternoon.

Sunrise quilt

I  finished a small quilt with those improv-pieced drunkard's path units I wrote about a couple weeks ago. The arcs are set in solid white, symmetrical on one axis, and a bit off center on the other axis.

I quilted horizontal straight lines using 8 or so shades of orange, gold, and yellow. I quilted the first lines on a longarm machine, then filled in on my domestic sewing machine.

The quilting lines are darkest and densest through the center of the quilt -- about 1/8" apart. Further out the lines are spaced 1/4" to 3/8", and the thread color is paler.

The bias binding is a diagonal cross hatch print (with a snip of blue on one side of the quilt). I'm pleased with how it works with both the drunkard's path prints and the dense horizontal quilting.

The back is everyone's favorite Ikea number script print. Munchkin was a good sport taking photos all over town on this beautiful San Francisco day.

The finished size is 44" x 45". I love the play between the looseness of the improv piecing of the prints, and the precision of the circles and the horizontal quilting.

A Little Sunshine

This weekend I did some more work with improvisationally pieced curves. It's the same stack, cut and shuffle technique I used for last week's Nest blocks, except I did two iterations of cut and shuffle.

I started with a stack of yellow fat quarters, and a stack of orange. My goal was to sew some blocks of made fabric for use in upcoming projects. With about 10 gently curving seams top to bottom, the yellow blocks finished at about 17.5" x 17.5" usable fabric.

I cut the orange blocks more densely, resulting in more seams and less usable fabric. Also, I think, a busier and less pleasing effect.

I don't have plans for all of it yet, but my first projects will be some drunkards path blocks, cut on point. The inner and outer units will be paired with solid white, rather than yellow print to orange print, and I have a few layout ideas swimming around in my head. I'll let you know where it goes!