Jan 05 11
Tidbits of Work
I made this fabric card today and I kind of hated to cover the backside of it because that side looked kind of interesting:
..but I covered it anyway! I also did something today that I rarely do. I’ve had part of a quilt on my design wall for about 3 months and that quilt just doesn’t excite me. I’ve tried and tried and tried to motivate myself to move forward on it, but it just seems really ho-hum to me right now and I needed that space for another big quilt I’m working on. I felt terrible inside to be doing it, but I labeled all the diagonal rows (it’s made of snowflake blocks set on point alternating with 4-patch blocks set on point) and took it down:
I really do finish almost every quilt project that I start… almost every project. At any given time, I have about 8-12 projects that I’m working on and as long as I keep taking them back and forth in my suitcase, I’m plugging away at them and they will really get done at some point. This project is going into a box and that’s not a good sign! (Either I’ll unearth it in a few years and re-bond with it or someone else will find it after I’ve died, hopefully a long time from now. You know you don’t have much hope for a quilt in progress if you box it up with enough coordinating fabric that an ancestor will be able to finish it!) But I feel like a weight has been lifted now that it’s off my design wall and can move forward with other projects.
I’ve got to show you something cool. You know how you can make cool quilts using celtic knot designs? When we’re in NC, Ernie is working in a woodshop that neighbors my sewing room, and we’re always walking back and forth to see what the other one is making. Well, yesterday, he was turning pens on his lathe and he was creating a celtic knot on one of the pen barrels. Here’s the wood “blank” that ultimately will become part of the pen: (notice that I’m using official woodworking lingo!)
Here, he’s done just some early “rough turning” on the lathe:
..and here it’s a bit further along. Notice how the pattern of the inlaid wood is going through a transformation as the shape of the blank changes from rectangular to cylindrical:
…and here it is close to finished. Those pieces of inlaid wood have now formed a celtic knot:
And here is the finished pen:
Who figures this stuff out?!! Totally cool!
It is really cool!
Yup….woodworking is amazing. You think it looks somewhat managable until you take the tool while the wood is spinning…..I’ve done it and took a nasty chunck out of the wood….yikes….not nice at all. It takes patience and skill to take everything that is not pen away and leave only the pen with the celtic artwork. He does nice work but it does not have any thread on it to excite me….could he just tie some thread onto it too? LOL
Kelly
Ernie works with wood the way you work with fabric….Take something plain and make it into something amazing!!!
Nice fabric card….
Nice pen Ernie! (Mr. Patsy)
Your fabric card is beautiful. So are the snowflake/4-patch blocks. Instead of waiting for an ancestor to complete the project (a hundred years from now)…consider donating the blocks to a quilt guild for their comfort quilts. By next year at this time it could be providing warmth to someone who needs to know there are people who care.
Your husband and mine should get together!! My husband (Bob) also wood turns pens (& pencils) and gave each of the relatives one for Christmas!! Nice work Ernie!!
on the fabric card … is the flower a diecut ? sizzix ???
thanks.
cindy