Frittering

Frittering my life away - or at least my Saturday night.


Frittering: To spend, bit by bit, on trifles
To break into small fragments
First known use: 1728
"whittle away," 1728, from fritters "fragment or shred," possibly from a noun sense, but this is not recorded as early as the verb; perhaps an alteration of 16c. fitters "fragments or pieces," perhaps ultimately from O.Fr. fraiture "a breaking," from L. fractura. Or perhaps from a Germanic source : rags)


Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." Henry David Thoreau


On the other hand, Nietzche: "I feel as though I've frittered my life away for what else is there to do with a life?"

My carry along journal for Italy. Variety of papers, Rollabind(ed?, bound?)

Fabric {Glorious Fabric}

Did you all have a fabulous weekend? It was hot as blazes here until Sunday evening. First order of business on saturday was getting the air conditioners in and cleaning the house; you know its been awhile when that feels great. Then I spent the rest of the weekend creating a whirlwind of a crazy huge pile of fabrics in the diningroom (aka sewing room).

I simply dumped every last bit of fabric I own on the floor, carved a path for us to get through and began choosing fabrics for my BIG FUN SUMMER QUILT PROJECT.  Oh yeah. This is gonna be good. Can you feel it? Alot of people seem to have their fabrics organized on open shelving which would be really great: you can see everything at a glance. Mine is tucked away into drawers, both for dust considerations and, yes, this is a diningroom. So the piles are still there and will remain! I came out with a seven squares, all different and I'm just gonna keep goin' till I'm done goin'. My favorite block so far is the funky sawtooth star from Material Obsession. My plan is to simply make a bunch of different blocks so it'll be a Sampler Quilt. 

I really enjoyed doing a freeform block too. Anywho. I took frequent breaks to read The Wrong Mother; a very suspenseful murder mystery (not a cozy read!) and the June/July issue of Quilting Arts (thanks, Megan for the head's up there).

Well, anyway there is a terrific article in QA, Stitching from the Soul by Victoria Gertenbach, and I meander to her blog where she mentions Boro fabric which is little bits of fabric stitched together to make new garments and household items in Japan. Entrancement. Big Time. Off I go on an internet wander through Boro fabric which leads me to this book, Boro: Rags and Tatters from the Far North of Japan and to this YouTube video. Boro is mightily tempting me and I remember what happened with Coco-Chan's Kimono, by Kumiko Sudo. I totally blew it and didn't order quickly enough. Well, in case you are interested, I emailed the publisher and discovered that it is being reprinted and quickly put an "alert me" order in at Amazon. Of course, I've been down this road before with Coco-Chan so am trying not to get my hopes up.

OK, enough. This has been great; I've missed the regular ole' blogging and for some reason, I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: as if I've been far far away and missed all of you. Thanks for your lovely comments. Note to self: tell you why Sue Pelletier is talking about Johnny Depp in the comments.

Recycle T-Shirts

{Whim Year} I was reading The Alabama Stitch Book over the winter and decided to weed out any t-shirts that gave me that special Winnie-The-Pooh look (you know the shirts that seem to shrink UP, arrgh!) Cutting the shirts up immediately was part of the process: no going back!  These luscious bits of fabric would wait until the right moment. 

Which came recently. T-towel (tee-hee) detail below.

Fun. And I learned some new things. 

1. This is called reverse applique. I was working in this way with my paper collages and thinking of the mola textile art of Central and South America. Look here. 

2. T-shirt material is really hard to sew through. I wonder if there is a special needle? I love my thimble.

Bloom

Spring always brings a great creative outpouring and I've been taking full advantage of this energy by designing new classes and experimenting with ideas that are flooding me.  
So what do you do in the off hours during times of intense focus at work? I love to have something fun and easy to do at the end of a long days. Kanzashi has filled the bill over the last week. I love Kanzashi in Bloom by Diane Gilleland. Although Kanzashi are a bit fiddly at first, once you've made a couple of these lovely fabric blooms it's a surprisingly simple and soothing craft. This is also a great craft that you can break down into steps and the unfinished project can be set aside in each stage. Perfect for those times when you just need a little sumpin' sumpin'. 
If I'm a bit irregular in posting over the next few weeks, you'll understand. 

OoLaLa Fabric!

So here's what happened: I was chatting with a couple of fellow Mamacita artists recently and we decided to make a field trip to Fabric Row in Philly with a side trip to Spool Sewing and their sister store Loop Yarn. I said "well, I'm not buying any fabric but I'll bring my camera to take pictures for the blog." Ahem ... not buying fabric.at the fabric mecca.yep.kidding myself.

(Fabric Row is along 4th Street south of South Street, by the way).
There I was merrily snapping (digitally) away and not buying any fabric. I was perfectly fine. No problem.

Then we got to Maxie's Daughter, 724 So. 4th Street.

I found some nice (great bargain) lightweight suit fabric (1/2 yard) and was content with kidding around with the owner about his lack of a remnant box ("This whole store is a remnant box"). I pawed the trims, sifting buttons through my fingers like gold dust and ran my hands lasciviously over silks and linens. But I was satisfied with looking and the lovely tactile experience. Until ...

Owner: "Would you like to see the basement?"
Us: "The basement?"
(me: "NOOOOOOOO")
Owner: "Yeah, we've got a basement full of old fabric. Good prices."

We follow the guy to the back of the store. A metal gate is unlocked and ratcheted up (we exchange creeped-out glances). The wooden door is unlocked. Twice. We gaze down a set of very rickety steps. Is there really a floor full of old fabrics down there? We carefully descend.

Yes, there are treasures down here: barkcloth, silks, slubbed silks, prints, retro stuff. There was fabric down there from the 40's. You'd have to be a goat to have gotten to some of it but we did our best.

And yes, I caved. The prices were not quite as fabulous as they could have been. In retrospect, we should have done a bit of bargaining. If you are in town, check it out. (You know I love you 'cause I'm sharing this, right?)
Here's a shot of a couple of bolts (the lighting wasn't great down there).

More from Fabric Row soon.

Two Kitties

Shhh... Don't tell Aunt Betty! I found the Pointy Kitty pattern (she's the one on the left) over at Wee Wonderfuls and needed to make it for my aunt who "want's a kitten (but not really)." Before Pointy travels in her shoe box to Christmas with the fam, she and Chopin (the cat on the right) spent a little time bonding. Aren't they cute together?