Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Piecing at a snail's pace: WIP Wednesday

Progress on my heron quilt is so incremental that I think it will get monotonous if I keep showing the view of the whole thing, so I'm just going to provide photos of little segments and hints until the entire top is done.  This past week, I finished the top left part, and I put together another unit of curved flying geese:


The flying geese are made from an exquisite piece of yukata fabric that I bought many years ago from Kasuri Dyeworks, the fabulous Japanese fabric store that used to be in Berkeley, CA.  Alas, Kasuri Dyeworks closed when store founder Koji Wada and his wife Debbie decided to move to Wyoming for their retirement, and sadly, Koji passed away just a few years later.  He was a wonderful man, with tremendous knowledge of and passion for Japanese textiles.  Kasuri Dyeworks apparently still makes it to a few select quilt shows, however, and I keep dreaming of going down to the Road to California one of these years in the hopes of purchasing a big bundle of intricately dyed yukata and katazome cottons.  Maybe January 2014?

In the meantime, the heron quilt is slow going because I'm also trying to do more sewing for my Etsy shop.  I managed to make a couple of drawstring pouches, plus I prepped fabric for a couple of ID holder wristlet coin purses.  Here's one of the pouches, in pale green vintage kimono silk, with a gorgeous butterfly and hollyhock design:


The quest for organization continues as well, especially my determination to use every bit of spare space to its best effect.  I noticed that the end of my pine frame bookcase underneath my cutting table wasn't doing anything useful, and I had a scrap of peg board that was just the right width, so I screwed it to the exposed end of the bookcase.  For a bit of perspective, here's the before photo:


And here's the close-up afterwards, underneath the table:


Now there's finally a good place to store rulers, plus a few other odds and ends, including the funny little stuffed brain cell that my sister gave me a while back.  I might paint the pegboard and the back of the cabinetry under my cutting table someday, but not before next summer.  For now, the utilitarian look will have to do.  Kudos to the Ellison Lane Sewing Studio Spotlight, in which so many of the studios demonstrated the virtues of pegboard, not to mention how fresh and cheerful it can look if painted in bright colors.

My day job is about to speed up again, so I might not have any quilting progress to show for a while, especially since I absolutely must put sleeves and labels on three quilts that are going to the Northwest Quilting Expo in Portland, as part of a special exhibit of quilts by the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild.  Hope the rest of you out in the blogosphere will enjoy a lot more sewing time.  Happy quilting, everyone!

5 comments:

  1. I like the fabrics in your flying geese piece for the heron quilt. Peg boards are a great idea. I just use nails on the wall.

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  2. The colors and fabric in your flying geese/heron quilt are gorgeous. That is going to be so stunning when it's done!

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  3. I need to get me some peg board. I think I'm moving in the spring, so I'm fighting everything within me to go crazy with organization until I see the new space.

    And that fabric is gorgeous. I especially like the centers of the flying geese. I struggle like crazy to get nice crisp even flying geese units, so hats off to you for such wonderfully constructed blocks...on a curve no less.

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  4. Great piecing, and an interesting idea for the pegboard.

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