Sunday, July 01, 2007

Fabric disaster solution(s)

Thank you for all your kind wishes re my fabric problems. I have indeed resolved them, with an added bonus thrown in. As far as the gift quilt is concerned, I have replaced the four planned foundation blocks with two made with the brighter version of the fabric. I used bias binding from it to make hearts and put the initals of the recipients in a heart each. The other two blocks have appliqued figures on showing dates relevant to the reason the gift is being given. ( sorry - still being coy just in case the recipents happen to read this, even though I'm pretty sure I am safe. I will show you in due course). In fact it kind of personalises the quilt so I don't mind too much that it doesn't look like it is supposed to!
I was supposed to be working on the borders today but I got kind of distracted. Ok, majorly distracted! I was frustrated by all the half pieced foundation blocks that were now unusable - what a waste of fabric. I was also reading this book over breakfast
and feeling kind of frustrated that I was not African -American and thus not part of the tradition of improvised quilts. Then I put the two togther and thought - well who says you have to be black to quilt like that. I took a rotary cutter to my blocks and scissors to scraps and this is where I am at the moment
I plan more blocks down the sides and to keep going until it is single bed size. I kind of like the idea that the rather formal gift quilt and this one could one day be shown side by side. Having said that this one doesn't exactly lie flat so the quilting might ruin it yet! Usually I struggle for quilt names but this one just has to be White women can quilt !
The final photo is for all those who wondered if my room would stay tidy when I actually worked in it....

..... I did clean up afterwards though!

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Delighted that your crisis is solved and the new beginning of a quilt has me very eager to see how it grows; it's a lovely piece already and I really like the fabric choices. It would be great to be able to see the two side-by-side so please be sure to get good photos of the whole of both. Maybe you could do a label for each quilt that includes a photo of the other....

Purple Missus said...

Ha! I knew the extra tidy room was too good to be true - now this room looks like it belongs to someone who gets really involved in what they are doing. A true artist!

Unknown said...

I am posting this comment for calandar girl for reasons you will see when you read it.
Helen
This is an email because I've tried four times to add this comment to you blog (which is where it belongs so others can read it) but my internet connection freezes every time - curses on AOL!}
My thought is that the matter of "seconds", cheaper fabric (price, maybe quality) and odd stuff on the selvage suggest that the Chinese are counterfeiting Jenny Beyer fabric and maybe other well known brands.
This is not an out of the blue idea. I've seen a couple of documentaries, read some articles and transcribed CEOs talking about the problem of Chinese counterfeits of everything from Viagra {and other drugs] to golf clubs -- it goes way beyond leather goods, sneakers and DVDs and Polo shirts. They recognize no intelletual property laws at all and will make counterfeits that can fool anyone not looking for tell-tale signs.
You probably know that a few years ago there was a big fuss in the quilt world because they were flooding the US market with copies of quilts from the Smithsonian collection. And you may have seen some of the really junky quilts sold in major department stores -- terrible stitching, inferior fabrics, lumpy batting, but inexpensive and pretty on the bed until they're washed.
I would imagine that your shop with the inexpensive fabric buys it thinking it is genuinely a seconds from Jenny Beyer or any other well known company, and some companies may make seconds or sell ends of discontinued runs.
Maybe you can put you legal mind to work and see if there might be any accuracy to my conjecture. I wanted this comment on your blog because I think your other readers might have some input to bolster or discredit my supposition.
I hope you get the quilt done on time.

Nellie's Needles said...

It took about 3 years to give myself permission to make African quilts. If blond white women can sing jazz, why couldn't I make African style quilts?