shop update

Finally got around to adding another item to my etsy shop. This has been sitting in my studio for months. MONTHS, I tell you! It was so fun to make and I did plan on selling it, but I had to enjoy looking at it for awhile. And then, I had to bring it to my quilt guild for show and tell. But then I forgot to go to quilt guild for a couple of months. Right. So last month I finally got to Toronto for the quilt guild, and now I can finally post this on etsy.  How fun is that, right? It will look so cute on someone's modernist couch, or in their hip kid's room. Or in the lobby of a very, very cool dentist. 

Here's a close-up. The bright coloured triangles are made of velvet (and a little corduroy) and the grey is cotton. And I hand quilted the diagonal lines that echo the patchwork. You may wonder why I decided to use velvet. You see, I used to work for a company that made velvet. And there were many, many opportunities over the course of my time there to collect bits and scraps here and there. And by bits and scraps I mean meters and yards. Whenever we dyed a new colour line, there would be meter long swatches to approve or disapprove and if they were not approved, they would go into the scrap boxes in the back room. And most likely end up getting thrown away, unless we could figure out someone to give them to, and then we would donate them. Anyhow, sometimes when they were particularly lovely I'd take them home. And after my time there was done, I looked around my studio and found that I'd collected boxes and boxes of velvet. Its such gorgeous fabric and its a shame to waste it. And at the time, I figured one day I'd make a beautiful velvet quilt. 

Of course, that was all long ago, in the days before I actually knew how to quilt. Because almost no one, in their right mind says "oooh, a velvet quilt, that'll be fun to make."

Because folks, a velvet quilt is the opposite of fun to make. It involves a lot of pinning and very slow sewing and then cursing quietly under your breath and then sewing it again, and then swearing again, but much louder this time, and then eventually you wad it all up into a ball and throw it across your studio because you can't. take it. any. more.

Its because velvet has what is called a 'nap'. Those short fibres that stand up on the fabric and make it feel all plush and, well, velvety are they nap. Its basically manufactured fur. And like real fur, that nap is directional; it goes one way more easily then the other. So when you try to sew two pieces of velvet together, no matter how carefully you've pinned it, the two pieces grab each other and sort of travel along, pulling the fabric in the direction of its nap, which is usually the opposite way that you'd like it to go. 

Anyhow, my point is: velvet - not so fun to sew with. 

But I have all this velvet and its so pretty and I want to do something with it.

So my compromise was to sew it with half velvet and half cotton, making the whole 'traveling' thing half as bad. These are half-square triangles, and I use this method to make them. It makes two sets of triangle-squares at once, and you never have to sew along the bias (because sewing velvet on the bias? That is a recipe for disaster.) And I knew that the velvet would be up to its old tricks, so I beat it to the punch. I cut out the squares that I was using to be almost a half inch bigger than I would need them to be, so that when the triangles turned out a little bit wonky (as they invariably did) I could just trim them down to be the right size. So much easier. It was still hard, but not swearing hard, if you know what I mean.

Anyhow, I slapped them all together and this pillow is the result. Very pleased with it, and now I want to make another one, all neutrals this time, because I have so much velvet in various shades of beige and fawn and oyster and mushroom, and as much as I love brights, I know the neutrals would be beautiful too. And I've had this happy colourful one sitting on the table in my studio, making me happy for long enough. Now I can send it off into the world to make someone else happy.

Comments

[Karen]

Wheeeee! I love it! Psst: sometimes swearing makes doing the hard stuff worthwhile.