Because 2 days is never enough.

I have been enjoying the process of quilting so much more than I had expected. Before I started, when quilting was my fake hobby (along with rockclimbing) and I sat around imagining what I would do, I had envisioned quilting to be a lot of planning and fractions and perfectionism. I thought I would like it for the product. But there’s an element of discovery to it which has been really fun and unexpected. And last night, I finally discovered what my quilt is going to look like.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been thinking a lot about how I write, starting out with some general idea, maybe a character or a scene or a conversation and writing out from there, surprising myself as a plot, a developed character, and ending come into place.

And I realize, this is what I love about cooking, and drawing, and pottery, and even developing projects at work – the blind stumbling, the uncertainty, and then, just around a corner finding that you actually made something you love. Of course, the risk in this is that you can also make plenty of things you hate, and I have piles of embarrassing short stories, lumpy mugs, inedible meals, terrible sweaters, and general craft failures for each victory.

Anyway, it’s probably still too early to declare the quilt a victory. But last night, I pieced together the top and I really love it. It looks NOTHING like what I thought I would make when I signed up for the class. And it looks nothing like what I imagined I might do once I bought the fabric. And it looks nothing like what I was ready to put together when I finished the first big pieces last week (which was overwhelming and terrible and looked like it would belong to someone with a houseboat or a water bed). And that, “nice to meet you, stranger” feeling is, I guess, the fun and astonishing part.

Fabric and tools:

Strips ready to get sewn together:

Squares:

Rows:

Quilt top all assembled (bad lighting, late at night):

Next up is the ultra-laborious hand quilting part of the project.

I’ll probably report back in a year.

I’m taking a quilting class at Brooklyn General. And I love it. Heather, my teacher, is all about telling us the rules and reminding us to feel free to pitch them all out the window.

I keep telling Karl that my quilt is “organic.” This is not because of any natural designs and shapes, but because I don’t actually have any kind of plan of what it will be at the end. It’s much more fun this way and closer to the way I approach writing, and cooking, and pottery, and drawing and everything else creative. For a girl with to do list and after to do list, I’m realizing I’m not much for planning things out.

At the same time, I’m completely compulsive about this whole thing. Last weekend I pretty much just quilted all weekend. On Saturday night, Karl went out and I opted to stay in, which meant biking to a 24 hour laundromat to pre-wash my fabric and staying up until 2am sewing and cutting and ironing and seeing what that left me with. Add to that more of the same, plus buying more fabric, and then more. And that’s pretty much where I am right now. I have no idea what I’ll do with the large squares I’ve made, but I think I’ll cut them into smaller squares and go from there.

Of course, I stopped into Purl Patchwork after work this week, after I had bought the main fabrics and sewed my brains out all weekend. My heart broke. These were the colors I wanted. These were the textile designs I yearned for. I started second guessing everything. Bought more fabric, brought it home. Realized it didn’t look right. Wondered what I was thinking choosing so many bright colors. Wrung hands. Is this what one who “goes with the flow” experiences???

I’m a neurotic, doubting, OCD, free spirt.

Sometimes, I think to myself:

I wish there were a place I could go to make any kind of craft I want. I wish for a huge room with every possible craft material, rows of sewing machines, giant jars of buttons, huge tables, notions, paper, just everything. And I wish for a fridge full of beer there, and wine too. And maybe some music. Nice people would be good. And if I think it would be nice if I could walk to it. Wouldn’t that just be so cool if such a place existed?

IT DOES!!

Mindy and Erik and I spent Friday night at Spins and Needles at Etsy Labs. It was as if I conjured it by magic. This place is pre-school for adults. For five bucks, we got to make, drink, listen to a great DJ, and talk to nice people. I made a stuffed turtle (that I’ll use as a pincushion) and Mindy left with a stuffed monster. Erik provided design consultation and doodled.

The guy featured below was making a beautiful leather book. He specifically asks that you don’t copy his outfit.

Thanks to the event organizers (from Ottawa) Melanie Yugo and Jason Pelletier for a fun, productive night. We also dug this Etsy T.

The MTA meltdown had me trapped in Brooklyn for the day. A day off mid-week sounds like a great proposition, but since it was hovering around 14,000 degrees, I was actually looking forward to sucking up the office AC for the day. Mindy found me among all the commuters adrift in downtown Brooklyn and we sat down for an impromptu breakfast while we waited for the trains to get back to work. Only they didn’t, so I went home and sat in front of the fan in my underwear in a pool of my own sweat for a few hours and felt guilty about not being more productive.

That’s when my industriousness kicked in and I got to work on a new shirt. It was definitely much easier the second time around and I finished the shirt in about six hours (not counting an hour yoga class, a 45 minute conversation with Jody, whipping up some yogurt sauce, and drinking some wine with Karl… so I guess it took me a lot less time that that).

Now it’s midnight. Meet Shirt II.

I might even wear it to work tomorrow, presuming I can actually get there.

Dear Friends and Family,

At 2:13 AM last night after a prolonged labor, I proudly welcomed Shirt into the world. Shirt is a healthy 2 yard shirt and is full of joy. Mom and Shirt are recovering nicely in Brooklyn. Thank you for all your well wishes. No gifts please.

Photos to follow.

UPDATE:

Jess

I just got back from Arizona, where I spent a few days visiting my 91 year old grandmother, Maxine Broad.

I love to spend my time making things and learning new crafts, but this weekend, I realized that my grandma is the real deal. She raised 10 kids on a tight budget by doing everything herself. Grandma didn’t do crafts, she just lived her life. She learned how to sew as a small child, when her mother helped her sew a cooking apron. She spent the rest of her life sewing, looking at fashion magazines and replicating patterns out of newspaper, fitting 10 kids into nearly every piece of clothing they wore, and staying up all hours of the night at her sewing machine. She cooked volumes of food from simple ingredients. She read and played the piano and danced and laughed. And she never let anything go to waste; everything could be turned into something new.
I hope I grow old and have half the satisfaction and joy with the life I’ve lived, half the talent and resourcefulness, and half the love in my heart that she has. If so, I will have lived an amazing life.

Not to my surprise, I found myself up a tree with the shirt I’ve been trying to sew. Luckily, I saw my mom (and aunts and grandma) this weekend. These women are all experienced and talented seamstresses and I needed all the help I could get. My mom took one look at the shirt and glanced at me with an eyebrow cocked as if to ask me, “do you have seriously low self-esteem?”

I cut the pattern on a size big enough to fit, probably, two of me. As my mom said, at least this way I don’t have to worry too much about the tailoring since there is NO way this thing will fit. Oh well, I have to start somewhere.

Mom helped me rip out a confusing seam and showed me how to repair the situation and she also showed me how to make the gathered sleeves. Everything is all pinned together in what mom describes as a “foolproof” way. We’ll see about that. I’m planning to spend some time sewing this weekend and I hope to finish the world’s biggest shirt in the next few days.

Thanks mom!

I was having such a nice day on Sunday, getting stuff done and wandering around Brooklyn, when I decided that I needed a project. To my thinking, it made sense to kill more than one bird with one stone: project, improve my sewing skills, and expand my wardrobe.

Well, we know how this goes: get frustrated, waste money, and add an oddly misshapen item to my wardrobe that makes me feel sad when I see it.

Okay, well I’m not exactly sure which it’s going to be yet. I cut all the pieces and have assembled the front and back yolk for the shirt and made a slightly lumpy mandarin collar. I had to call my mom to help me the decipher the directions. I’m under no delusions that this is going to come out, well, good… but, as long as I make a shirt even if it doesn’t fit quite right or is a bit twisted, I’ll feel pretty good. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Silk was first created in China between 6000 BC – 3000 BC, so it only made sense for Erik and I to visit a silk factory while we traveling in China this March. The silk factory and mini-museum we visited was in Suzhou, which has been an important center for the Chinese silk industry since the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD).

Silk comes from the larva of the bombyx mori moth (silkworm), which feeds almost exclusively on mulberry tree leaves.

The silk strand is generated from a filament spun into a cocoon by the silkworm and can be up to 600 meters in length. The strand is attached to a large machine that “unwinds” the cocoon and then “rewinds” the strands into a spool like thread. The machine typically unwinds and rewinds about 8 cocoons at a time.

The spool of silk thread is then woven into cloth by large looms that create patterns from punch cards.

Suzhou is also home to classical gardens, which are a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Suzhou Museum designed by native-son IM Pei.

View all of our China/Japan photos>

I’ve been dragging out my sewing machine, shopping around for sweet fabric, collecting vintage buttons, and practicing my rusty embroidery skills. The result of this effort, and of the tender pre-thimble fingers and strained eyes (bad lighting in my apartment), is this collection of super cute little ipod/digital camera bags. Hardy’s birthday was last week, and I thought up a little bag for her pod as a nice homemade gift. Turns out, they’re very quick and easy to whip up and each one is so unique… that pretty much everyone I know will be getting one of this for his or her birthday this year. So, yeah, sorry for ruining the surprise.

Hardy picked what I agree was the cutest one (blue with red button), but I love the others too. Be nice to me. These beauties could be yours one day.