Nacho Mama's Quilt

My son and I watched a dvd together.  No, not Elf.  We watched that three times the other day.  I needed something new, like Mastering the Art of McTavishing.

So we watched it.

And then I gave it a whirl.

Now I’m wondering why I didn’t try this sooner.  Karen McTavish, you’re a genius.

I found my new hobby.  Making pillows.

It all started with these two Dia de Los Muertos pillows.

This led to the largest hunt for jumbo pom-pom trim ever.  I’ve scoured most nooks and crannies trying to find more for good prices.  No luck– however, I did find some for less than desirable price-points.

And I was so into making these pillows that I needed an excuse to make more, so I planned a holiday pillow exchange for my quilt guild.  So I made this one.

The one I received is from Marilyn.  Marilyn is known for her beading and handwork.  The pillow I received is perfect for our home and for me.  It truly was my favorite pillow there– although I would have gladly left with any of them!

No, I don't normally keep it on the floor. It is just there for staging!

You want to see a little more detail?

I love Marilyn's embellishment and handwork!

Beautiful, right?

And then the neighbor next door had us over for cake to celebrate her birthday.  Did someone say cake?  So I had to make her a pillow, too!

But that wasn’t enough.  Nacho Baby’s teacher sent a card stock gingerbread man cut out to decorate for homework.  So while Ethan was making his beautiful, I traced the template and made the teacher a crazy-patch gingerbread man.  I was going to appliqué it on a school bag for her (because every teacher loves bags and who else has a Christmas school bag??), but then I opted for a pillow at the last minute.

And now I’ve decided the whole world is getting one for Christmas… or until I run out of pillow forms.

Oh, and if you are related to me, act surprised on Christmas Day.

A finish!  And this one has a story…

La Dolce Vita, king size, 36 blocks

This is a commission that has been a year in the works.  Maybe even longer.  It started as a cute little pile of Dolce by TanyaWhelan.  One of my clients, (let’s just call her my generous benefactor) has  had several quilts made for her family, but none for her.  This was going to be her quilt for her bed in her bedroom.  I needed a little more fabric, so I threw in a few others to make it look a little less match-matchy.

For the pattern, I wanted to do something a little less traditional, and I wasn’t sure she’d go for it.  But she did.  And when half the blocks were made, I was so tired of this quilt.  Then eventually I made the other half a few months later.  And then I let it sit because I knew it needed some improv piecing on the back.  So that took a couple months since I work so quickly.  And then it took a couple weeks to quilt.  And then a week to bind.  Have I mentioned this quilt is HUGE?  It’s super duper king size.  36 blocks in all (plus the ones on the back).

La Dolce Vita, back

So, 11 months later, I finally have it done, and I took some pictures– getting it a little dirty in the process.  So I took it home throw it in the wash.  Orange streaks (from a hand-dyed fabric) appear throughout my quilt.  I died.  I hyperventilated.  I was going to have a panic attack, but I wasn’t sure how. Hypoxia, anoxia, somatic cell death.  Funeral.

And then I remembered the chemical Synthrapol.  It’s a chemical that you put in the water when you are worried something might run.  Synthrapol molecules (or some chemistry type of word) wrap around the dye molecules floating in the washing machine water, and then they carry those dye molecules away so that they don’t get absorbed in the fabric, kind of like a color catcher.  So I held my breath, bit my nails, and gave it a whirl.  It worked.  I slowly came back to life and started breathing again.  Lesson learned.

By the way, I did pre-wash all my fabric (because I’m nuts and LOVE using pre-washed fabric), and it still ran.  When you are working with hand-dyed fabrics, sometimes, there are excess dye molecules that haven’t set in the fabric yet (or something like that).  Next time I’ll pre-wash my hand-dyed fabrics with Retayne, my other fabric chemical.  My advice to you:  buy each of these to have in case of emergency. (I’m not an amazon affiliate and will not profit if you do, fyi.)

Where did I learn all this?  From my art quilter friends Laurie Brainerd and Leslie Tucker Jenison.  They are brilliant at all things dye-related, fabric-related, and at talking me off the ledge when I most need it.  Where did I find these awesome ladies?  My quilt guild.  Go join one if you haven’t already!

Another valuable lesson was learned from working on this quilt.  Pick out your fabrics in natural light.  I used a different white for the outer border than for the innards of the quilt.  And one white is so white that it’s almost blue, but it isn’t.  It’s white.  And the other one is just white.  But when these whites get together, they aren’t jiving like I planned.  When did I notice?  When I was photographing the quilt outside after I finished it.  So now I’m contemplating setting up a card table and sewing outside instead of in my studio.  What am I going to do?  Leave it.  If my client wanted a perfect quilt, she would have called Pottery Barn, right?

The Amish always make a giant, intentional error in their quilts, like flipping a block upside down.  They call this a humility block because only God is perfect, and they don’t want to compete with that.  I love their confidence assuming that if their quilts didn’t have a humility block, they would indeed be perfect.  So, when I make a mistake, I usually refer to it as my “humility block.”  Well, I could have left the orange or went with mis-matched white fabric.  Whatever the case, this quilt has definitely given me a dose of humility.

Close-up of some quilting. I can't get enough of feathers.

Thanksgiving is over.  In my dreams, I have a food blog, but the reality is that if I had one, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my quilting blog.  Or quilting.  Or doing anything but hanging out in my kitchen, which is what I do more often than I should anyway.  So here’s the non-Instagram recap.

Thanksgiving Breakfast- crustless quiches

I’m not sure why we didn’t take a picture of dessert.  Mom made a pecan pie cheesecake.  Lord.  The angels sang the hallelujah chorus with every bite I took.  The beef tenderloin was dreamy, too. Oh, and my smoked Gouda mashed potatoes were on fire (seriously, with chipotles in adobo sauce!).  My cousin and his wife brought a salad with arugula, strawberries, Gorgonzola, and candied pecans.  I’m still thinking about it now.

As you can see, we aren’t real traditional. But hey, the Pilgrims were there.

I finally got around to quilting my Jellyroll 1600.  Remember the quilt contest we had at our guild retreat?  With its simple design, I didn’t want to over quilt it, so I made a large meander (stipple) and then I did the humpty-hump on each side of that line.  Like this.

I think I’ll name this quilt design “The double humpty-hump.”  Hope I won’t be sued for copyright infringement by Digital Underground.  I also hope “humpty-hump” isn’t something obscene.   I didn’t make up the term, but I did make up the design.  Well, I kind of made it up.  All I did was rearrange the stipple, really.  I do have another design that I haven’t seen elsewhere.  Have you tried McNacho-ing?

As for the scenery, my family and I took a camping trip to Lost Maples Natural Area (state park) to check out the fall foliage.  I heard that some folks didn’t realize Texas had autumn, so I’m here to show otherwise.  Here’s some pics of the fam experiencing fall.  Not sure how it compares to the rest of the country or world, but we sure love what we have here.

Don Corleone liked it, too.