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soft and crumbly from the washer dryer rumble the blocks above emerged from a desire to use the neutral striped marimekko print of which i had some but not a lot and for which i was uncertain about coordinating colors so it s a very neutral quilt not my usual color scheme but a pleasant experiment with paper piecing of my own devising though perhaps there are comparable blocks out there in pattern land the quilt is ready to send off to its new owner but i need to take pictures and this 3 nonsense to which i awoke this morning cozy under flannel sheets several quilts and a down comforter has not exactly inspired a photo shoot according to my weather app it s 10 degrees warmer now at a whopping 7 which might be sufficient enough for some whole quilt shots outside read more posted by two hippos at 12 45 pm 0 comments labels blocks minimalist negative space quilts sewing projects the baby at the bachelor party thursday january 16 2014 i m taking this opportunity to do a little latergram style blogging this post is brought to you by august 2013 apparently not everyone has gender inclusive bachelor parties complete with the attendance of a baby neither mine nor the bachelor s for the record at least that s what jenny and i gleaned when we served as chief participants in joel s bachelor weekend we got a lot of odd looks when we told people what we were doing which mostly involved gallivanting in a park eating really good food imbibing delicious drinks going to a spa attending live theatre eating amazing cookies and hanging out did i mention the cookies they re amazing i took this opportunity to multi task and give elody her baby quilt improvisationally pieced with mostly modern meadow prints plus a little magenta and yellow for pizazz this quilt came together quickly over a couple days lots of vertical movement and negative space just how i like my quilts and elody seemed pretty content as well even as we wrapped her and unwrapped her for our high class on the couch photo shoot the back has 2 prints both with lots of blues and purples it s all straight line quilting at random intervals i can t really remember why i chose to quilt it like that but i like it read more posted by two hippos at 4 48 pm 4 comments labels baby quilts friends gifts improv negative space nyc quilting quilts sewing projects lurching forward friday january 10 2014 i had forgotten how slippery a ruler could be how hard i needed to press down to keep it locked into place as i cut fabric the rotary cutter glided against the edge and all the sudden it wasn t even it wasn t that perfect 2 and a quarter inch i sought i needed to finish a quilt that had languished for weeks and even months the quilt the many pieces of fabric sewn together just so says a lot about the past 6 months or rather its construction does or really the fits and starts in which it was put together sewn together the long slow crawl in which it was constructed made shaped into being it started in the summer a new project for a friend s baby it started like most of my projects with a glimpse of an idea a passing thought about shapes and color it started with strips of fabric hastily thrown together one warm summer night when i needed to sew when my mind moved faster than my hands and then it sat as these things sometimes do while i took care of the rest of my life i prepared to teach my own class i scurried to meet a bevy of early fall deadlines i marched through a suite of jewish fall holidays i prepped materials for the looming job market that inched closer and closer all the while a large block sat on my futon and ideas about what to do with it flitted through my head finally some breathing room some space between other obligations arrived and i returned to the quilt i attended several sewing events at pink castle fabrics used the huge design wall to figure out the real plan for this quilt learned how to sew a y seam to make the ideas i had work and finally the quilt top was done a month later i pieced together the back splicing and sewing yardage that coordinated with the front it came together in an evening and with more deadlines met i worked again basting and quilting and watching as a glimmer of a thought materialized as a quilt i was almost done the quilt almost finished the gift nearly ready to be sent and then my world crashed down around me not softly but harshly my dad died suddenly unexpectedly without warning it was the sunday before thanksgiving and i was close by in the metro area for a conference he was supposed to meet me for lunch and he never made it the details of that day aren t fuzzy some elements are impressionistic but they re still sharp and painful days marched on time moved ahead and we lurched forward incrementally taking small and tentative steps into a new world one whose contours are still unfamiliar and whose boundaries are not yet charted it had been 7 weeks since i last touched the quilt forty nine days of trying to gather new bearings i knew i would sew again some of the obstacles were merely practical for long chunks of the past few months i was away from my stash from my rulers and cutting mat from my sewing machine i glanced at blog posts here and there i thought about shapes and let ideas percolate i thought about closing the blog knowing that my posts had waned long before november 24 and not really sure when i would want to return if ever i mentioned this in passing to my brother last week and he told me to keep it my brother who may or may not have ever read a blog post told me to keep it so i did last night i finished the quilt i ll wash it soon and mail it and maybe post about it more likely truth be told it will show up on instagram you can find me there as two_hippos and that might be it or i may squeeze out time from dissertation writing winter and post about it here i m not yet sure but i ll figure it out read more posted by two hippos at 9 13 am 10 comments labels process quilting into the blue friday august 30 2013 a few weeks ago about five days before i left michigan for a conference in new york i made plans with my friends josh and adam who as it turned out just returned to the city with their new son josh and i have been friends since high school and it s the sort of friendship sustained over irregular yearly ish visits rather than regular emails and phone calls hence it was only when i announced i was flitting through town that i learned about leo s arrival at which point a flurry of fast sewing and quilting ensued i decided to continue the minimalist monochromatic series with a perennial color favorite aqua also i knew i had enough solids or near solids to make this design work which is not something i can say for most colors aqua it speaks to me and makes me buy it working on a fast deadline meant that simplicity reigned and a giant starbust seemed fun and relatively simply i drafted 4 20 blocks on butcher paper and paper pieced the quadrants keeping giant pieces of fabric in line was a tad tricky but i only had to unpick and resew 2 seams which i considered a victory keeping with the simplicity theme the back consists of two large pieces of fabric from erin mcmorris collections a large red chunk from weekends and a smaller saffron bit from ladeeda i had been waiting for an opportunity to use the large red flowers as chopping this particular large scale print seemed counterproductive i made this quilt a couple weeks after rossie s thoughtful post about gender and quilting and i was particularly pleased to use a giant floral print on a quilt for a boy because seriously flowers are awesome for everyone in fact it was a former male roommate who taught me that sometimes you should just buy flowers for yourself because they re lovely and pleasing to look at and increase joy the quilting is echo plus which is to say quilting lines offset about 1 8 from each seam plus a line through the approximate center of each wedge enough to hold the quilt together but scant enough to keep it soft and drapey when i arrived with the quilt i learned that my color selection was prescient as leo s room has a tiffany blue accent wall black and white chevron striped binding yes please i adore this binding i m convinced it s brilliant so don t tell me otherwise the stark contrast between the soft aquas and the robust black thrills me also i got to sew it with black thread and i so rarely use black thread that i think the spool has been with me for at least 5 years it was crying out to be used read more posted by two hippos at 6 20 pm 8 comments labels baby quilts color design friends gifts minimalist monochrome nyc quilts solids sunspots thursday august 22 2013 i was not really prepared for the summer onslaught of babies lots of my friends had babies few quilts were on their way or even gestating in my brain but this quilt s concept the fabric pull and the mulling over of design started this winter after i made this emerald quilt i thought it would be cool to do a series of minimalist monochromatic quilts all offset by a binding in a different color and since i bound the emerald quilt with orange i figured orange should be next in the sequence at one point i envisioned a giant asterisk quilt but as june turned into july and i decided to make the orange quilt for the forthcoming bebe of my friends sarah and danny 2 actually i was feeling less asterisk y and more linear i wanted to play the oranges off one another and the slats of some blinds provided inspiration some riley blake circles helped finish off the quilt front when i ran out of the darker orange solid measure before sewing why bother to contrast the linear nature of the design i quilted a giant offset spiral which is almost impossible to see but i think conveys the idea of light streaming through an upstairs window i am very pleased with the peppy aqua binding as well the primary backing fabric came all the way from liberia my roommate did some research there last summer and knowing my love of fabric brought me back a couple different pieces the selvage on this one noted veritable real wax super binta on one side and guaranteed real wax on the other so definitely a legit batik print although i m not a fabric pre washer there was a slightly waxy residue on the print and i wasn t sure how color fast it was so i did pre wash it after a washer dryer cycle it feels like old thick cotton sheets and while there was a little bleeding of the navy dye it was barely noticeable danny and sarah departed michigan for new orleans in july and i was pleased to be able to send karl off to the land of beignets and jazz with his new quilt read more posted by two hippos at 11 38 am 6 comments labels baby quilts design fabric friends gifts minimalist monochrome quilting quilts solids windmill thursday august 8 2013 i have learned many things this summer including the fact that mental blogging does not it turns out translate into actual blogging thus i have a bit of a blogging backlog to address which is to say to actually blog rather than contemplate blogging while running showering doing dishes walking dogs or any other sundry activities first up windmill this quilt started as an experimental block initially created to use the blue green stripe a marimekko crate barrel outlet print i had a vision for the block and the eventual quilt but plunged into sewing before i figured out the best way to make the block the best way is not to paper piece the half square triangle with stripe and add a border for as the above image indicates it s very hard to line up correctly had i paused and drafted a paper pieced design for the whole block well that would have been smarter but i didn t at which point the block design changed to fit what i had and what precision i could handle semi bordered squares perhaps they suggest motion more than stasis let s go with that line of argument when my friends ethan and hagit had a baby this spring i decided i should finish up this quilt top and send it off to cincinnati where they ve graciously offered me meals and more when i was there for research last year at which point i realized i could use some fun ed emberley prints dogs frogs for the back and plucked some other coordinating prints from my stash the quilting appears a little more clearly on the back i used elongated squiggles in the spokes of the windmill and stippling throughout the rest of the quilt the thread became unintentionally variegated as the two spools of deep blue were not as it turns out exactly the same but i m cool with variation and impatient with shopping so a mixture of blues turned out to serve my needs perfectly i m banking on daniel not noticing for a long while if ever read more posted by two hippos at 11 11 am 4 comments labels baby quilts design friends gifts negative space quilting quilts solids older posts home subscribe to posts atom about two hippos two hippos thanks for stopping by i indulge in crafts and vegetarian cooking 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