Friday, February 21, 2014

Rambles

20140216-P1330098 I am nearly at the end of quilting my MapleO, then it will just need binding and I will put up some pictures. I have been staring at the fabrics a great deal as I stuff and drag the bulk of the quilt through the arm of my sewing machine. A lot of them were a new thing for me. I have never used 'low volume' whites and off whites really and I have always avoided 'words'. Rachel will tell you of the conversation we had at The Festival of Quilts last year where I said I just couldn't get into fabric with type on.

It's not that I don't like it, it's just that it reminds me of work. There seems to be a lot of newspaper fabric going about. Columns of text type stuff. I don't know how often most people think about type, let alone newspaper type. All I can say is that if you ever design a newspaper you'll end up thinking an awful lot about newspaper typography. So then when you see some fabric with newspaper text on it, you can't help but look at it from that perspective. I find it pains me to think of putting something like that which isn't 'good typography' into a quilt I am going to spend ages making. You might think the type looks good, but it doesn't, it never does, it just doesn't. It would be like a doctor looking at illustrations of hearts checking the valves were in the right place (but a bit less important). As an illustration does it matter if the heart would actually beat or not? No. It just looks pretty and everyone knows it is a heart. It's the same with type fabric. I am not saying it doesn't look good, just that it doesn't work technically. Who cares? No one? Right? Sigh. It just kills me. If I try to look at it as a non newspaper designer then it is fine. So that's what I have been doing. Punching myself in the face and telling myself not to be such an idiot. But I worry. I look at it and I worry. I worry that I will snap back and suddenly hate it.

I should probably stop whinging about it and just go and design my own, but then I might as well be at work! I don't know. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. It doesn't inspire me. So poor Alison Glass' Text in Charcoal Fabric is getting my full not to close attention. I like it. I do. So I have bought it. And some 'Ledger' from Architextures by Carolyn Friedlander. As the interior grey fabric I bought some 'Scratch Rows' from Botanics by Carolyn Friedlander. The pattern is a bit feint, but I think it will look nice. Everything is from Sew Fresh Fabrics.

20140216-P1330094 Enough rambling. So I have stared at my fabrics and I STILL like them! Gulp. So I have bought some more! I really want to make a bag so I thought I would start with something simple. Something that uses up some of the leftover Catnap fabric.

Meow! So I am going to make this bag from Fresh Modern Quilts. I just need to buy the zip and I am good to go. I have been waiting for the instructions but, well, they haven't surfaced yet so I might have to make it up. It is going to be my practice using zips. I have never used a zip. Well I made a pencil case for school, but I can't really remember much about it. Mumple probably did it for me. So if the pattern has not appeared by the time I have finished binding the MapleO then I will have to wing it!

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