thai stiches & sights

 

hello, hello! i'm home (for a minute). our two weeks of senior tripping around thailand with d4 are done and dusted. i'm a jetlagged wreck, slowly trying to adjust. i can't seem to bring myself to sew anything, but that will come back soon enough.

the epp pouch went everywhere with me and i got some stitch time in a few airports and one slow hotel morning. the 3 days we were on a boat in the islands were too hot and sticky for stitching and the rest was all go, go, go. so my "100 days of stitching" didn't happen with regularity, but i did get some stitching done.

our beach front hotel in phuket had this sweet little "yoga window" where d4 and i relaxed and i did some stitching. i don't know what you call it exactly - it was unlike anything i saw anywhere else or have seen, but it was a small window bay with two mats in it that made me think it would be a great spot to do some yoga, so i called it the "yoga window." and i did some stitching there on my not-yoga mat.

the lighting was great and the view good. it's a design feature i may have to consider for my new house.

i started the trip off strong with basting several pieces in the airport. we arrived more than 2 hours early, so i had plenty of time for basting. i was a little peeved at my husband for making us get there so early, which turned out to be completely unnecessary (the rumored tsa troubles were not an issue, thank goodness), but better safe than sorry, i guess. 

i was irked because in the hour before we left, being fully packed and ready to go, i found myself with time on my hands and i got quite close to finishing the top for "pinky stinky" edna entirely. if only i hadn't forgot to add a few star points, which required unpicking and awkward adding, i would likely have gotten it done in the hour i had. if we had waited another half hour, i would definitely have finished it. so close! but as it was, i had to leave the last row incomplete and get on my way with world travels. so i used the extra time at the airport to baste and contented myself with that.

we first flew into singapore for a few days, then on to chaing mai, followed by phuket, and finished up in bagkok. at the royal palace on our last full day in bangkok, i found several quilt-related things. some of the temple exteriors were intricately decorated with colorful, mirrored tiles in geometric shapes that immediately put me in mind of quilt patterns. 

this tile floor was on a porch at the entrance - definitely a quilt there.

this diamond floor pattern was in the queen sirikit textile museum, which was a small gem with the best gift shop ever.

the queen was a fashion icon in the 1960's. she revived and popularized several traditional thai dress styles, which were featured at the museum. these fabric samples from some of the dresses caught my fancy.

i do love a good textile! they are all thai silk and just beautiful.

these vintage printed cottons were especially nice. somehow i missed the sign at the beginning of this room that said "no photos," so as i was preparing to take a photo of the information badge that told all about the fabric, a guard came up and chastised me. oops!  photos were definitely allowed in the other rooms, so i was confused. but this room had some very old textiles in low light, which may be why they didn't want photos because anyone using flash would damage them. fortunately, i hadn't used a flash. 

i wish i'd found some fabrics like these for sale somewhere because they would have been great for quilting. what i found a little later in the gift shop was almost as good.

a whole section of fabrics for sale! i was swooning and started imagining which i wanted immediately. they were all silks such as those used in the queen's formal clothing, but i have seen quilts made with silk before and knew i could use them if i was careful. the only problem was they only sold the fabric by the meter, no small cuts. it was surprisingly inexpensive, certainly less than liberty, but i didn't want too much of it. i had little to no room to take it home in my luggage, so i made myself pick just two colors and left it at that. i was a little flustered having to pick only two and needing to do it quickly, so i'm not sure i made the best choice. but i did what i did and i have some lovely silks to make into a small quilt of some sort. i can't complain.

i was drawn to the blues and greens first and had several in mind while i waited my turn. when i realized i would only be getting two colors, i picked this pretty blue first (photographed a bit bright) and wanted to get a coordinating woven print, but second guessed myself and decided to just go with another color. so i picked the gorgeous citrine color next. it's the color i like best of the two and now wonder if i shouldn't have picked something other than the blue to go with it. when i decide what i'm making with them, i'll see if i was right or not.

when i asked for one meter of the first fabric, the saleswoman told me i would need two meters minimum for a skirt and i tried to explain to her i was making a quilt, but the language barrier did not compute. it's alright. i know what i needed and got it.

i would have taken more photos of the fabric options on the shelves, but i was pretty sure i'd seen a sign at the entrance to the shop forbidding photos. i couldn't resist these quick covert snaps, but i didn't want to take any obvious ones.

so, royal palace in bangkok was a complete quilting/fabric win, i made my first fabric purchase of the year, and i got some more epp shapes basted on the trip. success!

now i'm home and looking forward to more wip busting.

wip wednesday, 2026.13 - endless refolding

i've been refolding fabric again. a lot.

oddly enough, i got on a cleaning kick after the last bit of organizing i did while searching for my "missing" hexagon paper pieces. it's contagious; once one shelf is clean i want to do another one. i don't particularly enjoy all the folding. when i'm in the middle of it, i get antsy and just want to quit, but i keep at it until it's done. then i'm so happy i did it because i love the tidy shelves and i want to start the next shelf right away  sometimes i have to just leave the room or i won’t stop!

this time i reworked a whole section on the main fabric wall. the middle two shelves above (under the solids) are all the pieces i have set aside for my "gypsy wife" quilt, divided into a few types of fabric i'm using in the quilt: polka dots, stripes, monochromatic, novelty, blenders, busy multicolored florals. this is the only fabric pull i have dedicated shelves for because when i first set these shelves up, there was plenty of room for having these fabrics here and i wanted them handy for making that quilt. once it's complete, these fabrics will be reabsorbed into the general stash and the shelves redesignated to new catagories. but for now, i've cleaned them up smartly. i didn't refold these pieces but sorted and nicely stacked them and that alone looks so much better.

i didn't take a before photo of these shelves prior to fixing them, but you can see them in the background in this photo from last month when i was quilting "frosted forest star" (which is still on this machine waiting it's finish - the thread is breaking again and i’m mad at it). the shelves from the first photo are the top shelves above the machine in this picture. do they look better now? even in the crummy indoor night lighting you can tell they are much neater now.

the lower set of shelves in the top photo is my denyse schmidt collection. i made it all pretty, too, which was a lot more work because i not only sorted by large pieces, color, collection, and a stack of just patchwork panel club yardage, but i also refolded all these pieces to have the single fold facing forward. this is now my preferred way of storing the fabrics because it's easier to identify the fabrics and looks really nice.

i've worked out that if i start with a half yard piece, i first make sure it's folded in half across the width with the selvages together, then into thirds (about 6" across), and then in half again. this is the size and shape that fits on my shelves best.

if it's yardage i'm folding, i get it folded into a half yard across, then proceed as above. this also works for fat quarters as they are the size of the half yard piece folded with selvages together. the skinny quarters are trickier. i just try to get them in a similar shape/size, but it's much less standardized.

i reorganized all my solid fabrics a few weeks ago but i wasn't yet decided on the single fold forward method and it's been bugging me now i've been doing that with the other shelves. if you look in the opening photo, you can see the bottom of the solids shelf (above the blue sticky notes) and notice i did refold the large cuts of green fabrics. the rest will have to wait until the mood strikes, but i will be getting around to them, for sure.

the top of my scrap drawers, which sits just to the right of my cutting table and in front of my design wall, was getting overcrowded and sloppy looking. i'd put a few stray new fabrics there that needed proper putting away and the bin situation wasn't good.

the only items that are supposed to be here are two bins for scraps that need to be processed (one i filled when i went through my backing cuts and one that catches all pieces i don't cut immediately when i'm trimming fabrics for quilts), a bin each for my two sizes of "bonnie lass" blocks, and my rectangular cutting rulers (so they're convenient and handy for when i'm cutting).

i got all the extra things put away, found all my rulers and put them back, and moved the "bonnie lass" pieces into smaller boxes. it's a small change, but it makes a difference in the room. every little bit helps!

next i was drawn to this eyesore. it's an overflowing basket of pieces for "wensleydale." i knew i could make it look nicer by organizing the pieces by type and color and turning them upright in the basket.

i was really surprised when i pulled the basket out to work on it to discover there were actually two baskets there; the second one was hiding behind the towering mess of the first basket.

as i wasn't refolding but just sorting, this project went a lot faster than the shelves, too. i have all the ginghams/checks together, all the low-volume blenders, and the rest of the pieces are now in color order in the second basket. i couldn't fit all the pieces upright in the two baskets, so i just left the extras stacked on top of the back basket. it's still a little messy, but there is a method to the madness. i moved the completed blocks and foundation papers to the same area as the baskets to keep the whole project together. i hope i can get back to this one when fall rolls around as there are some other projects that are further ahead of it in the queue. once i'm done travelling, that is.

you'd think i would spend my time before leaving for thailand doing some actual sewing, but i felt like leaving a tidier sewing room instead. i'm eventually going to be packing all of this up for a move, so the organizing i'm doing now is partially in preparation for that coming herculean task. and it actually makes me happy. i don't know what's gotten into me that i'm being so responsible (relatively speaking) with all my cleaning/organizing, only working on wips, and still no fabric purchasing this year, but i like it!

oh, and there's the "100 days of epp" still going. getting that 13 year old wip moving is another thing i can pat myself on the back for. all this responsible behavior in my hobby is not ruining the fun, it's just a different kind of pleasure and satisfaction i'm getting. i'll get back to my free spirited, start-all-the-quilts ways soon enough, i'm sure. first i'm going to get some finishes, chip away at my stash, and build a new sewing room.

wip wednesday, 2026.12 - missing hexagons

 i'm between trips at the moment, so i'm prepping my epp project for more travel. we'll be taking d4 on her senior trip to thailand for two weeks. it's not going to be a slow destination trip like spring break in costa rica was, so i'll not be taking much with me. at most, i'll probably only stitch while we're on flights or when we're on a boat for a few days. i'd love to take "groovy liberty" with me for handstitching, but that would take up too much precious luggage space. so epp it is!

i was cleaning my sewing room over the weekend, scouring every box, basket, nook, and cranny for some hexagon paper pieces i'm missing and needed for the trip when i found a couple more black-and-white prints i want to add to the project. i cut a single 4" strip of each print and threw them in the wash, so now they're ready to go with the others.

i also discovered that i had some washed strips of those other black-and-white prints i found and wanted to add before. the larger pieces i found weren't washed, but there were washed strips in the milk crate, so those have been cut up and added to my travel pouch, too.

i decided for ease of transport and for the most compact set up to bring along hexagons and squares that need to be basted. i won't be stitching together any pieces this time around, but i will be moving the project forward by getting pieces i need basted and ready for when i can get back to stitching everything together. i'm not doing triangles because their points are more likely to get bent or damamged than the other shapes are and i'm playing it safe with what i'm taking along.

everything easily fits into the "quilting cardio" pouch i chose for this trip. i don't know what airline regulations are for small scissors in thailand and the other places we'll be flying through, but i hope these small dmc snips pass muster. they're a cheap pair that i won't be too sad about parting with if they do get confiscated, unlike my precious ginghers that got taken in australia. the tips on these are more blunted, less sharp, which was the complaint the 20 year old gal who inspected the snips in sydney had. i can still see her holding my ginghers, tapping them with her finger, saying, "but they're sharp." then i had to let her take them. sad day.

as i was prepping for packing, trying to ascertain where i was with basted pieces and what else is needed, i finally broke down and made some notes about numbers for myself. i organized by shape and color, made lists, then counted the pieces i've already used to see what needs to be included more and what i need to baste. it was a process, for sure, but i feel more on top of everything now.

i got out my quilt planning notebook to make my notes in. i already had some notes for the project, which i just added to. looks like this is a page d5 got ahold of ages ago when she added her two cents of scribbled thoughts to some of my notations. i think it's cute.

i was going to add the new hexagon pieces to the end of what i already have done, when i realized it would be better to add them in the middle of the cogs i've got ready to join. i started to lay out those new sections but decided to shift gears to basting first. i'll get back to this after i have pieces basted.

i was going back and forth between all these pieces & notes on my bed and the laundry & packing in the bathroom & closet close by. busy morning, but productive. i like feeling like this is making some progress finally.

i had a real headache over the weekend trying to locate the second pack of hexagon papers so i could make the new pieces. in the main project box i had one bag of hexagons with only 2 or 3 left in it. i was fairly certain i had another pack of 50 somewhere in my sewing stuff (talk about a needle in a haystack!), but i couldn't seem to find them anywhere. i went back to my milk crate in the sewing room that i recently rediscovered, but it didn't have any paper pieces in it. the receipt for my epp order was in the crate, so i was able to confirm i'd actually purchased 2 packs of hexagons, but where had i put them? i dug deep in the back of shelves and opened boxes i haven't touched in years. i found lots of interesting things, but no hexagons. finally i came across the other epp pieces i ordered along with my ferris wheel pieces: the makings for 5 wedding ring quilts and a pack of 2.5" diamonds. i was sure this was it, but there were no hexagons in there. i moved those pieces to the milk crate to consolidate and kept looking.

 

i did a lot of cleaning and organizing while i was looking. i tackled this set of fabric shelves. they weren't too bad, but i decided to organize them by print type so i can find what i'm looking for more easily. the tops of each pile were pretty sloppy because once the stack gets full, it's hard to neatly place a fabric on top, so there were lots of pieces flopping out of place.

i also decided it looks neatest and is easiest to identify a fabric if there is a single fold facing outwards, so i refolded all the pieces that weren't already folded this way. i was bemoaning the non-standard way different shops and vendors fold fabric as i spent an hour or more redoing their work. it makes it so much harder to put away easily when i have to refold each piece to a standard size and orientation, which i haven't been good at doing. so i'm doing it all now, one shelf at a time.

i got these two shelves of neutral low-volumes and solids neatened up. starting on the left, the stacks contain text prints & novelty prints, jen kingwell blenders & polka dots/spots organized by dot size, crosshatch prints & circles, all the white & cream solids (the browns, greys, and blacks got moved elsewhere). i pulled several prints out of other places in the room where i kept finding polka dots or other things that should be on this shelf, which is why i ended up moving the other solids. the text print stack has some colors in it because i'm undecided whether i want to keep them all together regardless of color or separate the neutrals from the colors. to be determined.

i'll work on those other two shelves from the top photo next. they have my checks/ginghams, stripes, and color low-volumes. there were lots of other small changes i made while looking for those darn pieces, but they aren't worth noting.

so what about those missing hexagons? i went back up to my bedroom where i have 3 different boxes with various bits of the epp project in them. i pulled out that baggy of hexagons i mentioned earlier to see if i'd made a mistake about how many were in it. yes, it still only looked like maybe a dozen pieces in there. i got to work on sorting & making all those notes, letting the hunt go for the moment. a couple hours later i moved something around on my nightstand and discovered a baggy with 2 or 3 hexagons in it under a book. huh? oh my goodness, i had both bags in my bedroom the whole time and mistook the fuller one for the nearly empty one, which is why i was searching high and low and not finding them. this has got to be the silliest mistake i've made in a long time. but, hey - there was no unpicking involved! just a couple hours of searching - lol

well, i'm all set to keep at my "100 days of epp" when we leave. i didn't do so much of it as planned in costa rica, but that's mostly because i was doing the handwork on the other quilt i brought along instead. i think i did some make-up stitching on the epp when i got the handquilting done. the biggest news of the week, of course, is that i finished off "cheery (easter) quilt!" that's quite an accomplishment.  

here's the report in full:

handquilting: finished "cheery (easter) quilt"

cleaning/organizing: two shelves of fabric fixed

epp: mostly completed one wheel over spring break, cataloged & organized the pieces, packed a project pouch for basting on-the-go when we travel soon

fabric purchasing: none! but i did see a very pretty new colorway of liberty "betsy" i don't have in jolene's newest post that i will want to look up and order soon. that's two items on my fabric wish list now, but no actual purchases to date.

cheery (easter) quilt, a finish

my eternal spring break handstitching project, which has accompanied me on the last five spring break trips, is actually finished!

the quilt adorned the couch in the bedroom i stayed in, which is also where i stitched on it. there was a full wall of windows looking out on the view of the costa rican jungle and ocean in the distance. i think the brightly-colored boxes of the quilt looked right at home in the modern decor with the tropical view.

i actually finished off the handquilting about halfway through the trip this year, for once underestimating how much i would be able to complete, and was left twiddling my thumbs during downtime when i'd have been happy to be stitching and had none to do. 

here i am, about to complete the last box of handstitching. on this extra-thick blue section i decided to do two sets of stitches on the inner and outer borders of the frame. i considered doing several rounds to fill the frame width completely, but liked the look of just two on each side.

another design switch i made was i opted not to handquilt the hot pink frames. i've never been happy with the thread color i got for this color, so i decided to leave them unstitched. i feel like this was a good choice.

the sun was going down as i finished up. what a spectacular setting to be handquilting in!

after being taken on five international trips. this quilt was ready for a wash. at the beginning of the trip i was a little anxious i wouldn't finish it this time because i knew it shouldn't go any longer without getting cleaned up and i didn't want to wash it before i finished the stitching because that would definitely affect the look of the stiches that came after washing. but i got it done and all is well. as soon as we got home after more than 10 hours of travel, i threw it in the washer, and put it in the dryer just before going to bed.

just look at how fabulous the handstitching looks after being washed! it takes the quilt to the next level, in my opinion, and i love it so much. i'm one very pleased quilter. sticking it out over five years to complete all the stitching was absolutely the right choice. i've been rather ambivalent about the quilt for a long time, but now it's done and washed, i truly love it.

now we're home, i've had it casually draped on the bed in this window so i can frequently look at the crinkle and smile.

this is how the double rows of stitching on the big blue section looked. love it. there were two other frames in different blocks that were also wide that i would have added the second row to, as well, but i didn't have the other colors with me on the trip because i'd already completed those sections. oh, well. this one corner is extra nice.

the back shows off the handquilting really well. again, i'm just so pleased with how this turned out. i thought all the different colored threads would show up against the mostly solid curry backing, but the stitches are so small on the back that the colors don't show as i imagined. however, the look of all the stitches is quite impressive, so i'm happy with the outcome.

this has me excited to do my next color box quilt when i get my wips finished and get back to starting new projects. all in good time!

the binding is a darker cinnamon brown from the top. i think it frames the bright colors well. the post-wash crinkle on it is another textural hit.

i did a beach photo shoot with this quilt in mexico, where we normally spend our spring breaks, a couple of years ago when i got the sun stitched into the top. too bad the crinkle isn't in those photos; these will have to do for crinkle and those show the full quilt.

that's a wrap! the cheery quilt that d4 told me looks like easter colors is now ready for easter season, spreading its sushine in my heart if nowhere else. 

epp progress, wip wednesday 2026.11

i've been steadily sewing a couple of pieces, or at least just one seam, for "london wardrobe" every day now. fourteen out of 100 days, done and dusted. my plan of attack is to put 3 to 4 hexagons & adjoining pieces together, then join those as pairs, and keep upscaling the size of pieces i'm connecting until i have this row complete. one of the original 3 wheel cogs (what i call the interconnected wheels) will be attached to the right of the above pieces, and then there's one or two more sets until this row is done.

looky what i found in my sewing room! mooooore of the original fabrics for this project. when i was gathering all the parts of this project together a few months ago, i thought i had seen some of them in one of my milk crates, but couldn't locate them. today i found it.

so. much. fabric.

there are even some more black-and-white prints i put aside to use as hexagon centers. i like these prints more than some that i've already used, so i would still like to incorporate them into the project.

these are the only fabrics that weren't prewashed yet. all the fabrics in the basket that i purchased for this quilt were prewashed because the book that taught me to epp said you really need to wash for epp projects. so i did. that makes it hard to use the leftovers with other projects because i'm not a prewasher for all my other quilts! so i'll have to prewash these if i decide to still add them in the quilt, but i will only wash small amounts, not the whole fat quarter (or whatever is here of each).

i also came across my travel epp pouch with the makings for two wheels inside. i would just mix these pieces back in with the others, but i already attached all the squares to one of the hexagons.

so i'll be completing that wheel by adding the triangles in, but mix the pieces for the other wheel into the general pile. that's one more individual wheel i'll have to work in now, but it just is what it is.

i did my first bit of unpicking when i accidentally sewed a triangle side to a hexagon. that isn't supposed to happen. it won't even lie flat that way! 

and then i did another unpicking when i turned a partial wheel i was adding onto a cog the wrong way. i let out a sigh or two of frustration with myself and then just fixed it. not so bad, really.

i was stitching during a zoom meet-up hosted by heather ross and denyse schmidt about a quilt kit collab they did. the zoom meeting was fun, but it made for some distraced stitching. maybe it wasn’t the best idea to combine the two activities? . the "crazy star" quilt is a fun one, especially in the fabrics heather used. it's one i'd like to do someday. i'm pretty sure denyse sent me the pattern as part of my prize kit for the fwsg quiltalong, but it will have to wait until my "season of wips" is over. 

epp is the only quilting i've done this week as i've been going hard at house design and i've got some travel coming up, so i've had to work at packing. my sewing projects were packed first because i know my priorities. so no other piecing or quilting for me lately. however, with spring break around the corner, i'll have some handstitching time soon. "cheery (easter) quilt" will get some more colors added.

i'm still strong on the unintentional fabric fasting. i'm just not buying fabric because there has been no need for it and as i've buried my head in the sand from social media, i'm not tempted by what i don't see out there. heather ross did mention in the zoom chat that they've added 35 new colors to the ruby + bee solids collection, which is really tempting. i think i can wait, though. since they're solids, they will be available for a while as part of a permanent collection. i looked at them on the windham site and they are pretty, so they are definitely on my wishlist for the future. but for now, i am not motivated enough to purchase immediately.

i had a scathingly brilliant quilt-related house design idea come to me the other morning. if it actually comes to fruition, i'll share. it involves heather bailey and possibly hsts. that's all i'll say for now. the house won't go under construction until next year at the earliest, so i have time to work on it. until then, it lives in my brain and makes me smile on occasion.

happy stitching, friends!