An Ode to Flora Macdonald

Not a member of the Quilting Hall of Fame, as far as I know, but I assume she was famous for something. Or maybe she was just the wife or daughter of Mr Macdonald.

Flora Macdonald Needle Packet

My mother allowed me to take this needle packet back home to my house after visiting her just after Christmas. It is a marvel of graphic design and invokes in me a nostalgia for time when needles were made in England rather than China, when notions were packaged in paper and purchased at a drapery and when people had to save up for all sorts of things, even small ones. If you’ve ever heard the expression ‘pin money’ (meaning a small amount of pocket money), that harks back to a day when ladies saved up their money to buy new needles.

We’ve come a long way, baby, but just maybe we’ve also left something behind on that journey.

Masking Tape, an invaluable Quilter’s Tool

The Omnigrid 98L that I ordered to complete my garden trellis jelly roll quilt has gone astray. It didn’t make it from Iowa across the Pacific Ocean to Australia and the kind folk at eBay vendor Getta Notion refunded my money in full. That’s not really what I wanted as I wanted the ruler, but I can’t complain about their customer service.

Yesterday I happened to notice a tip in the Jelly Roll Quilts book that I had overlooked up to that point. It said that if you couldn’t get your hands on an Omnigrid 98L you could put tape across the 6 ¹⁄₂ inch line on of a rotary cutting square. I took a look at that and the measurement didn’t seem right to me so what I’ve done is put tape end to end at the 2 inch mark and the 5 inch mark on the on the Omnigrid 96L. The middle line goes across the seam in the middle of the tube and the long line is a reference for bottom seam on the jelly roll tube. My beloved helped me with the markings last night. It helps if you have a partner who wrote his masters thesis on the measurement of straightness. If you enlarge the photo you’ll see he has even numbered for me in purple marker pen the order in which I am supposed to align the markings.

I’m a lucky woman. Doesn’t mean I can manage to hold the camera straight, though.

This approach allows me to recite the “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle” mantra. I’m all for that, as most of us in the western world seem to have way too much, er, … stuff, myself included. So I’m going to reduce my spending and re-use the Omnigrid ruler I already own, all with the help of a little masking tape. My beloved has his own mantra which goes like this: “It’s not done if it’s not documented.” No surprises that he’s a blogger, too.

Quilting Line marked with Masking Tape

While on the theme of masking tape another use in quilting is to mark out quilting lines. It works brilliantly as it’s quite flexible and I’ve had no issues with sticky residue so far. There are many imperfections in both my hand and machine quilting. I shall be calling upon the magic of water and air (ie the washing machine and drying rack) to make these imperfections less visible.

Tailor’s Awl

Tailor's Awl

My beloved made me a gift of a hand-crafted tailor’s awl. He purchased a second-hand but little used wood lathe on eBay and had a busy day recently crafting new handles for all sorts of things.

This tailor’s awl has a birch wood handle that has been stained and waxed. It’s 5 and a half inches or 14 cm long. The awl as pictured is a slight modification on the awl he first presented me with. I requested a slightly shorter spike and a more gentle angle to the point, changes he was able to make for me very quickly.

I use this awl to guide fabric under the presser foot of my machine, to ease out fullness, and also to hold fabric edges together when piecing.

The other term for this type of tool is a stiletto, but I feel that doesn’t quite describe my particular tool in that I picture a stiletto as finer and more delicate. This awl has the great advantage of having a reasonably fat handle, which is comfortable to hold. It is certainly an improvement on using a hat pin or a standard quilting pin, both of which are too fine for me to get a comfortable grip on. It also has the great advantage of being made of a natural material rather than plastic. There’s not a lot to like about tools made of plastic, in my opinion.

While I sew my beloved likes to tinker in his workshop. His materials of choice are wood and metal. I much prefer the pliable nature of fabric. When we’re not crafting and creating, we occasionally go sailing or camping. I’m hoping to do less crafting and more camping while it’s springtime and the weather is perfect for outdoor activities. It will most likely be far too hot for tent camping very soon.

Fun with Half Square Triangles – Part 2

I was flicking through a coffee table book about Sicily yesterday and saw a picture of some outdoor paving in blue and white.The paving had a wonderful optical illusion of diamonds that seemed to appear and disappear before your eyes. I looked more closely and realised – those are half square triangles. The next question was of course: How did they do that?

For me the only way of working that out was to make some half square triangles in paper and lay them out on the floor.

Paving Pattern Replicated in Paper Blocks

I made up a sheet of six ‘blocks’, printed them out, cut them apart and had a go. You can have a go, too, by printing out the attached files.

I am looking forward to playing with them to see how many patterns I can come up with. I’m sure many others have done this before me, but it’s new to me and it’s fun.

Half Square Triangle Design Templates

Half Square Triangle Design Templates with pale blue Blocks