As I mentioned in the first post on this quilt (ScrapHappy October 2023), I’ve tentatively named this piece What Direction Do I Go? and it is made from recycled denim jeans and recycled home decorating fabric scraps.
Saturday night I finished up the 81 blocks for this 9 by 9 block piece and I just thought I’d share with you what my design wall looks like with all the blocks completed:
Now it’s time to figure out the final layout and then get the blocks sewn together.
But first I seriously need to clean my sewing machine it was a LOT of lint from piecing denim and home decorating fabric scraps (many of which are synthetic type of fabrics).
It’s the 15th of the month and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong. At the end of this post I have a link to the other blogs participating in this monthly event in case you’d like to check out their ScrapHappy posts.
I’ve completed 51 blocks piecing recycled denim/jeans and home decor fabric scraps; and I put 49 of them in a 7 by 7 square so you could see a sample of a layout:
Yes I couldn’t decide which photo to use so I included all three!
I want the piece to be sort of large, and definitely square and I’ve decided to make a total of 81 blocks for a 9 by 9 square piece. I might hand quilt it, I haven’t decided but I am going to try some sample designs with scrap denim to see how the stitching would look.
There is going to be lot texture in this quilt, primarily from the recycled home decorating fabric samples I used:
Here is a collection of close up blocks to show you the textures:
There are more fabrics I haven’t cut yet that I will be adding/using for the additional 30 blocks I need to make.
The layout you see on my design wall is not the final layout, just a sample layout. When I finish all the blocks and go to layout the quilt, I realized I need to pay attention to secondary patterns that I might want in the piece.
For example I noticed this secondary pattern, from how the blocks lay together, in one of the sections on the design wall and I like it:
I want to make sure the final layout has a lot of “movement” in it.
My tentative name for this piece is What Direction Do I Go?
It is a deeply personal piece, inspired by my first recycled fabric random triangle piece Flying Triangles (2012); but about my struggles for the past 5 years since becoming a widow, selling my beloved house, moving to Colorado (leaving all I knew there), starting the 2nd relationship in my life, quitting my job, trying to focus on textile art, etc. (Yes I like to lump a lot of life changes and drama into one time period, ha!).
It should prove to be an interesting Artist Statement on the piece when I am ready to write it (not until the piece is done of course).
And you thought it was just some recycled denim and home decor fabric sewn together (wink).
As promised, here are the bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
I’ve been itching to work with recycled textiles again and the other day I put together a collection of pieces to work with from my recycled textiles stash (recycled clothing, jeans, home decor fabrics):
I wanted to make a piece that is primarily recycled denim but also includes home decor fabrics in warm colors with lots of textures. I decided to revisit a piece I made in my early days of improvisational/art quilting (circa 2012/2013) where I was working with recycled silk and linen couture fabric samples – Flying Triangles:
Here is my design wall with the piecing I’ve been playing with this evening. Note it is late at night and I did not bring out the “ring light” I use for photographing pieces so the image is dark:
I am going to keep playing, I started out setting recycled fabrics in oranges in denim; and next I will use some browns and golds, and I’ll see what else feels right.
I’ll share more images in the future as the piece progresses and I’ll even take the photos with better lighting!
Upcycling: The act of taking something no longer in use and giving it a second life and new function. In doing so, the finished product often becomes more practical, valuable and beautiful than what it previously was.
The notification I received by e-mail from Public Art Program Coordinator stated:
“Your submission has been selected to be part of Prospectus #268 Southwest Artist Series Purchase Initiative. The submitted artworks will be made available for purchase through the Art in Public Places Program. Your work will be shown to various sites throughout New Mexico with available 1% for public art funds. If your work is selected for purchase, I will contact you directly to begin the purchase process. The work will be made available for purchase for two years…”
Fingers crossed my art quilt gets selected for purchase! If I does I will need to get the art quilt (which measures 18 inches by 39 inches) professionally framed and have it professionally installed at the location in New Mexico it was purchased for. An estimate of the cost to have this done was included in the price I proposed to New Mexico Arts. It would so fun to travel to our neighboring state and oversee the installation!
If you’d like to read the Artist Statement for this piece which was created for a Central Oregon SAQA show several years ago, here it is:
18” W x 39″ L, recycled clothing, recycled denim, and recycled home decorating fabric
THE STORY OF THIS PIECE:
If you peek inside the window to my creative heart you will see it filled with a desire to reuse, repurpose, and reimagine materials which otherwise would have been discarded. Part of my Recycled Denim Stories Series, this piece blends a corduroy shirt and pants, denim jeans, sweat pants, a tweed jumper, an old curtain, and home decorating fabric sample scraps into an assemblage of window-like structures.
This is the second piece I’ve had selected by the NMA for their Art in Public Places program. The first piece was Recycled Hope III: Windows of Conversation in 2020 (see post Recycled Hope and Acclaimed Artist Series). Recycled Hope III: Windows of Conversation however was sold to a private collector in 2021, so I had to pull it from New Mexico Arts’ catalogue of prospective art for purchase.
I decided to quilt is myself and did a combination of hand and machine quilting. I talk more about this (and share photos) on the previous post “Update on Memory Quilt “.
Slogging through machine quiltingMike the mini schnauzer providing emotional support under the table while I quilt
I used a floral fabric with the colors in the quilt top as the back and the binding.
Here’s the completed quilt (which is of course a rectangle, it just looks triangular from the camera angle) in my studio:
A couple more photos:
And yes that is me at the bottom of the photo above awkwardly trying to take a photo of the quilt on my cutting table in my studio while trying to use my ring light.
Something I did not mention in the previous post on this quilt – before I quilted it, we met my friend and her husband for dinner while my sister was visiting a couple of weeks ago. I brought the quilt top (not quilted yet) with me to show her.
At the restaurant I pulled out the quilt top and handed it to her to look at before our food arrived.
She started crying. She was so touched and overwhelmed with seeing her mother’s favorite clothes made into a quilt top she could not contain her emotions. My eyes started to get moist too and I was touch.
She was very happy with the final product which was delivered to her on Saturday. She wants to hang the quilt on the wall but I strongly encouraged to cuddle under it and let it be a “hug from her Mom”.
Thought I would give a little update on the memory quilt I am making for a grieving friend who lost her mother, with her mother’s favorite clothes. Here is a link to the previous post if you’d like some additional background – Update on “The Challenge”.
Here is the quilt top completed that I shared in that previous post:
Originally I was thinking of sending it out for professional long-arm quilting and my friend was going to pay for the professional quilting. Then I got concerned with there being issues over the unusual fabrics I had used in the quilt (acrylic sweater, polyester scarf, velour robe, etc) with the long arm quilting machine.
I discussed it with my friend and she was good with me quilting it myself (though it would not be nearly as lovely quilting as a professional long-arm) and she would give me money for the cost of the batting, etc. She is not a quilter and does not have expectations of super high quality machine quilting on my part – whew!
Last week I was trying to figure out the logistics of domestic machine quilting and thought I better hand stitch some of the blocks that have special logos, embroidery, etc. to secure them instead of trying to machine quilt around the logos. I found some heavy embroidery thread from my stash of thread of Sashiko* stitching and did some lap quilting (in the middle of the hot summer):
(*but wait a minute Tierney: I’ve followed your blog a long time and I do not remember any posts about Sashiko stitching…Why yes, I have the supplies and started a piece like 10 – 12 years ago…but someday I am really going to pick the piece up again and then blog about it..)
It was fun and for a moment (yes only a wee moment), I actually considered hand quilting the entire quilt. But I came to my senses as that would not be very fun in the hot summer and I would like to get this quilt to my friend, who is facing some other life challenges right now, sooner than in 6 months to a year! (Exhibit A – “Seattle Scrappy” which took me over a year to hand quilt – Seattle Scrappy is Done!)
Speaking of hot summer, I recently got my first full sized tomato (as opposed to the grape or cherry tomatoes I have successfully grown) in my little container garden on my upper back deck and I was so happy!
As I joked on my @tierneycreates Instagram account, I wanted to frame it! As of this writing, I now have two full sized tomatoes. Right now both tomatoes are sitting as decoration on my kitchen counter and I better use them before they go bad!
I am also celebrating the appearance of the first sunflower in my garden. I love love love sunflowers and I’ve blogged about them several times in the past especially when I lived in my house in Oregon where I grew sunflowers every year.
Postscript
We are at that point in summer (August), where for me I am OVER summer and the heat, longing for Fall/Autumn.
I was so longing for Fall that I made one of my favorite colder weather dishes – chicken pot pie:
I made two because we help feed John’s recently widowed father (John’s stepmother suddenly passed at the end of 2021) who lives nearby and he loves my chicken pot pie!
Yes it was lovely (not) having the hot oven, in the heated up kitchen due to the hot oven, in the hot weather outside. Brilliant, eh?
Also just sitting around one evening with that memory quilt on my lap hand quilting it made me yearn for cooler weather.
But then I reminded myself that come early March, I am only dreaming of warm weather! I have to always remember to just embrace the current season I am in.
So back to relishing in my 2 full sized tomatoes and my sunflowers (smile).
My friend lost her Mom, who she was very close to, and she is having a difficult time with grief.
She’s kept some of her Mom’s favorite clothes and she asked if I would make a quilt out of them.
I agreed to making the quilt, without knowing what the clothes looked like as she planned to snuggle under the quilt and feel comforted by her Mom’s beloved clothing.
When she dropped off the clothing, I realized I had a challenge ahead:
I’ve made art quilts from recycled clothing; and when my Father passed, I made my brother and sister each a quilt from the T-shirts he used to wear, so I was comfortable with the idea of deconstructing clothing and turning them into fabric for a quilt.
However, I’ve never worked with knitted fabrics such as these in a quilt:
I think I can work the first two sweaters on the left into the design, but I might have to return the black and white sweater to my friend to just keep. I bought some special interfacing (and softer one, not the Pellon SF 101 I usually use that I think would be too stiff). I am sitting outside (lovely day) writing this blog post and sorry I do not feel like running upstairs and seeing exactly what interfacing it is – ha!
I also have this challenge – a scarf, but I think I can just use interfacing for it also and work it into the design:
I have found a pattern that I want to use (I think) that I will share in a future post. Right now I have deconstructed the clothing and sorted them.
I am looking forward to working her Mom’s favorite T-shirt and sweatshirts into the design, as well as her beloved velour robe:
And the embroidery from her Mom’s favorite jean jacket should be fun to incorporate also:
I’ve deconstructed the jean jacket, saving the embroidered flower separately and saving any salvageable denim as fabric for the quilt.
I’ll update you as I make progress on this challenge!
I welcome ANY THOUGHTS on how to best interface the sweaters to incorporate them into a quilt.
tierneycreates 