Border Fabrics for Spirit Song!

Well, I haven't stocked up properly on hand sanitizer or toilet paper, but I did make it to the quilt shop yesterday to select borders and backing fabric for my Spirit Song quilt!

Borders, Binding, and Backing Fabrics for Spirit Song Quilt

The blue print with flowers and birds (at the top of the photo) is for the backing.  The blue-on-blue spotted fabric will be for a narrow inner border, and the glorious pink, purple and orange Kaffe Fassett floral print is for a wider outer border.  That rainbow sherbet kind of batik that you see a sliver of along the left side of the photo is from my stash, and I'll be using it for the binding.  I even remembered to pick out a blending shade of 50/3 cotton thread for hand stitching the binding, which I usually forget until it's time to stitch the binding on a Sunday afternoon, the quilt shops are closed, and I don't have the right color.  Success!  Picking out the fabrics is my FAVORITE part of quilting.''

First Two Rows Sewn Together

I did get the first two rows of this quilt sewn together earlier in the week, and it was fun to see that secondary design emerge, crisp and clean, when I pressed the seam.  HOWEVER, upon closer inspection:

This Needs To Be Fixed!

HORROR OF HORRORS!!  Those two seam allowances are crisply pressed in opposite directions and YES, I pinned on both sides of the seam intersection, but I must not have had the two seams butted up against one another tightly when I pinned them.  I know that a lot of people would call that good enough, and I know that it wouldn't be glaringly obvious in the finished quilt.  I also know that I'm going to rip that bit out, repin, and restitch it because I absolutely cannot live with it like that, not after all the pains I went through to get the blue triangle points as close to perfection as humanly possible!  

That's actually what prompted me to take a field trip to the quilt shop, because I knew I would regret it if I left that mismatched seam alone, but I didn't have the heart to rip it out right then and there.  I was TIRED.  But now, after picking out the border fabrics, I'm feeling more motivated to get back in there with my seam ripper and get this fixed.

By the way, my border fabric is ANCIENT -- from the Philip Jacobs for Kaffe Fassett Collective back in 2012 -- and it was still full price.  Also I left ONE yard on the bolt, so hopefully my brain was paying attention when I calculated cut lengths for my borders.  The quilt shop does not have enough yardage to give me border-length cuts, and it's not a current fabric anymore.  I did find someone on Etsy who has two yards of it left, though.

Painted Daisy Magenta from Free Spirit Fabrics circa 2012

Anyway, I'm slightly annoyed that this discontinued fabric was being sold at regular price, but not because I wanted a discount.  No, I'm annoyed because leaving the bolt in with the current Kaffe Fassett offerings led me to assume that this was a current fabric, too.  When a fabric is current, you know the shop is probably going to get more in, or another shop will have it if you find yourself short.  I would have purchased the whole bolt if I knew that it was an 8-year-old pattern that I can't get more of easily!  This one reminds me of another early Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric by Philip Jacobs that I fell in love with and can't get more of, Iris and Peony.  I just really love those reds and purples together.

Iris and Peony in Red, Philip Jacobs for Kaffe Fassett, Sadly Discontinued

Incidentally, a quick search just turned up a few half yard and fat quarter pieces of this fabric on Etsy as well.  Of course the Etsy sellers have INCREASED the price of these "Hard to Find, Discontinued, Rare Early Prints" so I still got a bargain on my Painted Daisy fabric by paying the "regular" price for it!

In other excitement yesterday, Mister Puppy Wumpus dug up and chewed through a section of fiber optic cable in the back yard while I was enjoying my coffee on the deck, certain he was harmlessly digging up tree roots around a stump.  This is why I'm not getting any quilting done, people!  Puppies have to be watched CONSTANTLY, and by the time he falls asleep for a nap, I'm exhausted from chasing after him and I need a nap, too!

Because Quilters (Like RAMONA!) Are the Nicest People, I Am FINALLY Joining a Quilt Guild

I'm starting today's post with a shout-out to Ramona, who blogs about her quilting and other needlecrafts over at Doodlebugs and Rosebuds Quilts.  I have never met Ramona in person, but she is one of the many kind and generous quilters I've had the pleasure to connect with on the Internet through the various quilting linky parties in which I participate.  So Ramona read my last blog post  where I mentioned that I'd given up all hope of finding anymore of the leaf fabric I needed to complete my eight remaining FrankenWhiggish Rose needle turned applique blocks.  And then Ramona, out of the sheer goodness of her quilter's heart, took it upon herself to hunt down my discontinued, out-of-stock fabric and FOUND IT for me on eBay!!!

This Project Has Been SAVED By the Kindness Of a Stranger

Can you believe that?!  Of course you can, because if you're reading my blog in the first place, chances are good that YOU'RE a quilter and you have heart of gold, too.  I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am.  Of course I had done every Internet search I could think of when I first discovered the fabric shortage a few months ago, but at that time I came up empty-handed and it didn't occur to me to keep checking since the fabric was so old to begin with.  I started working on this in 2014, so the "Sandy's Garden" fabric was LONG since discontinued.

YES!!!  New Yardage From eBay Is An Exact Match to My Strip From 2014!

Seriously, you guys -- my heart runneth over.  And Ramona, if you ever need a kidney or anything, please give me a call.  I owe you one!

I'll probably give this quilt another name if I ever finish it, but for now I'm calling it the FrankenWhiggish Rose because I cobbled the pattern together from different sources like a Frankenstein monster.  The traditional Whig Rose applique pattern was very popular with 19th century quilters, there are lots of variations, and I love every antique Whig Rose quilt that I've ever seen.  The quilt pictured below is a stunning example of an antique Whig Rose quilt from the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum:

Whig Rose Quilt Attributed to Del Patterson circa 1895-1905, International Quilt Museum Collection

Isn't that gorgeous?  Quilter Kim Diehl reinterpreted the traditional Whig Rose pattern in 2004 in her book Simple Blessings:

Kim Diehl's Country Whig Rose Wallhanging, from her Simple Blessings Book (affiliate link)

I hadn't seen Kim's original quilt when I started mine, though -- I was smitten by another quilter's adaptation of Kim's pattern when I saw it published in the September 2006 issue of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine:

Joyce Stewart's Village Gardens Quilt, Adapted From Kim Diehl's Country Whig Rose Pattern

So I started with Joyce's pattern from the QNM magazine, but I am not a fan of hearts so I swapped those out for reverse appliqued tulip and leaf templates that I got from an antique quilt reproduction pattern in another magazine, and then I added the stuffed berries because stuffed berries are fabulous, and the broderie perse rose buds that I decided to put around the center of my main flower were because I'd never tried needle turned broderie perse and wanted to see if I could do it...  See?  An arm from this pattern, a leg from that one...  If Dr. Frankenstein had been a quilter, I'm sure this is how he would have put his quilts together, too.  

Anyway, that's where my quilt block came from, and then after making one complete block, I imported a photo of my actual quilt block into EQ software, using that photo to color plain blocks in my quilt design (the same way you'd import a photo or scan of a fabric and use that to color patches in your design).  I like to work this way, making a single block out of real fabric and then using the design software to try it out in different settings so I am sure I really love what I'm seeing on my computer screen before I go ahead and make all of the blocks, especially when it's something really time-consuming. 

My EQ8 Design for My FrankenWhiggish Rose Blocks

When I made my first block, I didn't have a whole quilt design in mind and didn't know whether I'd be making one block or several.  Once I finalized my design and knew I'd need eight more blocks just like the first one, I decided to do them assembly-line style for efficiency.  So, by the time I realized I had nowhere near enough green fabric for all of my leaves, I had already spent hours and hours and HOURS appliqueing the stems, the large layered petals, and the stacked centers onto all eight remaining blocks.  When I discovered the fabric shortage and wasn't able to locate anymore of it, I got so discouraged that I shoved the project in a bin and stopped working on it.

Now, do you understand why Ramona's gesture of kindness, taking the time to hunt down discontinued fabric for a fellow quilter she's never even met, means so much to me?  I am so excited to get this project back in my fingers again!

And the kindness of Ramona got me thinking about ALL of you wonderful quilters that I've come to know online.  My Internet quilting buddies are the best -- when I asked for help, you have emailed me lengthy tutorials, mailed me samples of your favorite products, notions, etc.  Someone made me a beautiful embroidered needle book and mailed it to me from New Zealand when I broke my collar bone in a bicycle accident a few years ago, just to cheer me up -- from NEW ZEALAND!  

And so an introverted, secretive closet quilter named Rebecca ventured forth to last night's meeting of the Charlotte Quilters' Guild, thinking that if quilters from all over the country and all over the world who've never even met me can be such wonderful people, then maybe it's worth the risk of walking into a room full of strangers to meet some of the quilters who live in my own town.  I'm going to have to play hooky from choir rehearsal on the first Wednesday of the month so I can give this quilt guild thing a try...  Wish me luck!

Do you belong to your local quilt guild?  Any advice you'd care to share with me in the comments? 

 I'm not even 100% sure that I know what one does as a member of a quilt guild besides paying the dues and showing up at the meetings.  But for now, if you'll excuse me, I have 128 leaves to cut out of my green fabric!


Today I'm linking up with:

• Let’s Bee Social at www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/ 
• Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/
• WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com 
• Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/  
• Whoop Whoop Fridays at www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com 

• Finished Or Not Friday at http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/ 
• Slow Sunday Stitching at http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/  
• Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework at http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com
• Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com  
• Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/ 
• Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/ 
• Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/ 

Once Upon a Dining Room: A New Ceiling Reinvigorates an Ever-Changing Space

Finally, my dining room ceiling is finished!  In person, it looks like a midnight sky; pictures (my pictures, anyway) don't do it justice at all.  The ornamental scrollwork design around the chandelier is barely visible in this picture.  It's subtle in real life, but you can see it much better.  It's kind of like a shadow or an echo of the scroll work on the chandelier, and it's embellished with decorative upholstery nails.  The crown molding has a metallic foil finish selected to complement the gold drapery hardware and accents on the light fixtures.

One Designer Fearlessly Battles an Onslaught of Discontinued Fabrics & Trims

Ugh.  That's it; ugh!!  The Great Recession is wreaking havoc in the design industry.  It's not just a question of clients not wanting to buy anything -- even when you have clients wanting to place orders, you have to deal with an unprecedented epidemic of discontinued, unobtainable fabrics and trims.  Fabric and trim mills are going out of business all over the world, and no one wants to keep stock of anything but the most popular, most ordinary fabrics in their inventory so back orders and lead times are out of control.

If you missed my post back in August about how I'm having a discontinued fabric recreated through custom embroidery for a client's master bath project, you can read about it here.  Then in September, I showed you the first stitched sample of the custom embroidered motif on our drapery fabric here.  I selected a darker embroidery thread color in shinier rayon instead of polyester thread and asked the digitizer to make some changes in the way the computerized embroidery machine stitches out the design, and I just got the revised sample in yesterday's mail from the embroiderer.  Much better!

Discontinued fabric on top, two most recent samples of custom embroidery below

I'm very pleased with the way the design is looking now.  The puckering has been virtually eliminated, our thread color is an exact match to the chocolate brown velvet trim, and our new design has better thread coverage and more of a three-dimensional quality than the original design had.  It looks like a beautifully stitched custom monogram motif, exactly what I expected when I hired Richards Jarden of Embroidery Arts to digitize the design for me.  I'm going to give the embroiderer, Kadire Biberaj of European Design, the okay to proceed with embroidering the silk yardage with the revised design.

However, no sooner do I figure out how to get around this discontinued fabric crisis than a discontinued trim rears its ugly head and tries to sabotage another favorite design!  Remember the amazing game room project that I'm working on recreating for the same client, whose home is being rebuilt and remodeled in the wake of a summer house fire? 

Original Game Room Drapery Treatment, Pre-Disaster

We reordered the exact same fabrics and trims for this room back in late August, and the distinctive metallic wrapped bead trim from Kravet was supposed to be a current pattern, just backordered.  I need 45 yards of this stuff for the lead (inside vertical) edges of all the drapery panels in this room, as well as for the horizontal bottom edge of the little door valance. 

Fabricut black silk velvet for drapery panels, graphic woven cornice fabric from Lee Jofa

I waited and waited, and when I called to check on the backorder status I was told that this particular trim had been sourced from a trim mill in South Africa that had gone out of business.  Kravet was looking for another mill to supply the trim, and once they had approved samples from the new trim, my order could be produced and shipped.  Then last week I got the call of doom from Kravet informing me that they cannot find another trim mill with the capability to produce this trim, and it is discontinued.  Period.  Have a nice day.  May we suggest your grandmother's silk tassel fringe instead?

This was not an easy trim to substitute, and I spent days searching every source I could think of.  Then I stumbled across this Stroheim & Romann metallic wrapped bead trim that turns out to have come from the exact same South African trim mill as the original trim -- but Stroheim still has enough of this trim in stock for my project:

Now, how cool is that?!  No, we don't have the black and cream header anymore, but I like the larger, more elongated bronze wrapped beads even better than the squatty little beads on the original trim.  Also, since the replacement furniture that has been ordered for this room is even more contemporary than the original furnishings, eliminating the black and cream chevron tape will result in a cleaner, sleeker window treatment.  The new trim is going to be sewn in-seam this time instead of top applied to the edges of the drapery panels, so the header braid will be completely hidden in the seam allowance and nothing will show except the beads.  It will look something like this:

That red silk fabric is for several throw pillows that will be scattered on the big, black sectional for splashes of color.

Come on, Discontinued Dragon!  Bring it on!

...So, Perfectionism: Is it a Good Thing?

You may be wondering why I felt compelled to extoll the virtues of perfectionism earlier.  Even if you weren't wondering, I'm going to tell you anyway.  Remember my post about our stay at The Sanctuary resort on Kiawah Island a couple of weeks ago?  Well, what I didn't tell you is that I made them move us to another room after the first night because I noticed splatter marks on the walls around the toilet in the first room.  Gross, right?  Vomit, or... I don't even want to think about what else it could have been!  Soon after moving into the second hotel room, I was grossed out by the discovery of black mold between the marble tiles of the shower stall, and we asked the front desk to have it cleaned.  The black mold remained throughout our stay, as did a dirty tissue from a previous guest out on the balcony.  Now, does this tell you more about the hotel, or more about me?  Are my standards just too high?

One thing I can assure you of is that perfectionism comes in handy in the field of high-end design.  As I was reminded on my vacation, it does not feel good to be paying a lot of money for something and then have to complain about everything in order to get things done right.  That's why I finally looked the other way where the mold and dirty Kleenex were concerned -- I resigned myself to the fact that, no matter how much money I paid, no matter which room they put me in, the room would probably not be cleaned to my standards, and it's not like there was another 5-star hotel on the island that I could move to.  I had to make the best of things, but my memories of the trip are soured by the fact that I paid through the nose to stay in a dirty hotel room.  In my work, I obsess about the details in hopes that my clients will love everything the first time, without having to point out flaws and without having to feel bad about complaining in order to get what they want.

Remember the discontinued embroidered silk fabric that I'm having recreated by a custom embroiderer for my client who was the victim of a house fire?  I got a sample of the custom embroidery today, and I spent the better part of an hour agonizing over every little detail.  There it is, on the left in this photo, with a sample of the original fabric on the right.  Isn't it gorgeous?  The thread color definitely needs to be a darker shade of brown, but as I examined the samples side-by-side, and viewed the embroidery file in my computer software program, I found several nit-picky, minute revisions to request.  This fabric is going to be used for ceiling mounted swags that are going to be seen from across the room; no one is going to get this close to the embroidery once the window treatments are installed anyway.  Yet my client is investing a lot of money in these draperies, trusting me to deliver a couture quality product that begs to be admired up close.  There's no such thing as a perfect design, a perfect drapery, or even a perfect fabric, but the goal is always to leave as little room for improvement as possible. 

I have a feeling that my very talented digitizer, who does beautiful work that I am absolutely awestruck by, is probably whipping up a little Rebecca voodoo doll right about now after receiving my feedback on his design work.  Soon I am going to be experiencing mysterious, sharp pains inflicted by stick pins far, far away...  Still, I'd rather spend more time and energy getting the design right at this stage than have 16 yards of silk custom-embroidered and sewn into window treatments, only for my client to be disappointed by the quality on installation day.  Perfectionism: It's A Good Thing!

Refusing to Accept "Discontinued With No Stock Available:" Custom Embroidery to the Rescue!

I posted a few weeks ago about my client's house fire and showed you some photos of the destroyed home office and game room.  All of the upholstery and textiles (including my custom drapery designs) on the main level of the home were destroyed as well, including these embroidered silk Kingston swag valances in the master bathroom.  If you're on my mailing list, you'll probably recognize this room from one of my postcards:

This master bath ended up being one of my client's favorite rooms in her whole home.  This is what it looked like when I first saw the room in the summer of 2008:

Stark white painted cabinets, partially marble-tiled walls that blended into the builder-blah pinkish neutral paint color on the rest of the walls, and builder-grade light fixtures in a much more traditional style than what my client had in mind. 

My client had already purchased plantation shutters from someone else before she brought me in, and was auditioning various rug options in front of the tub area.

The client wanted something contemporary, something with an Asian feel, but very restful and not so contemporary that her traditionally-styled mahogany furniture in the master bedroom would look out of place.  The first thing we changed was the lighting, choosing a dramatic Asian-inspired lantern pendant and coordinating sconces from Fine Art Lamps' Singapore Moderne collection.  The window treatments came next.  I didn't want to drill into the marble tile on the wall above both windows, so I knew I wanted decorative ceiling hooks for these swag treatments.  When I couldn't find stock ceiling hooks with the right look for this project, I designed these geometric wrought iron ceiling hooks to coordinate with the light fixtures and had them custom-made for this client.

And then there was this fabulous embroidered silk fabric from Pindler & Pindler.  The little chocolate brown square embroidered medallions were the perfect complement to the client's silk oriental rug.  We trimmed the swags with this square veltet bead trim from Kravet and papered the non-marble portions of the walls with a chocolate brown grasscloth wallcovering.  The cabinetry was repainted and warmed up with a brown glaze as well.

The textured brown and gold damask wallpaper in the water closet was just a fun little hidden surprise that repeated some of what was going on in the master bedroom. 

So, fast forward to today.  The grasscloth wallcovering needs to be stripped and replaced, and the window treatments were most likely tossed into a dumpster because they were so badly damaged by smoke and soot.  It's sad, but at least with good insurance coverage everything can easily be replaced, right? 

WRONG!!  The embroidered silk fabric has been discontinued from the mill in our colorway, it was exclusive to Pindler & Pindler so I can't source it anywhere else, and there is no stock available.  I begged P&P to custom order another bolt for us from the mill, but the answer was no.  I was told that this fabric was still available in Hot Pinkish Red colorway (no!), Sickly Mint Green colorway (no!), or Weirdly Orange-Yellow Gold colorway (no!).  I searched the designer showrooms for hours, with the assistance of the showroom staff, and we could not find any acceptable substitute for this fabric.

Then, between sobs of desperation, for some reason I thought of my poor, neglected embroidery machine, waiting patiently for me in my studio beneath a dust cover while work and family life pull me in opposite directions.  I started looking critically at the sample of unobtainable fabric in my hand.  The embroidery motif was a simple satin stitched design, very similar to a traditional monogram motif.  The stitch density was pretty light.  It was a single-color design, about 3 1/2" square; I could digitize the motif myself with my Artista embroidery software, and stitch it out in the medium-sized embroidery hoop, marking the motif placement carefully, repositioning the hoop, stitching the motif out about 350 times...  Yes, for a short, crazed moment, I considered attempting to personally embroider evenly-spaced medallion motifs on 16 continuous yards of silk dupioni...  Then I came to my senses.  Princess Petunia's pettiskirt is still exactly as I left it the last time I blogged about it.  Yes, I could probably digitize the motif with my software, but I'm not exactly a professional digitizer, and the thought of rolling out all that fabric, marking it, embroidering it, and re-rolling it without any catastrophes is a bit overwhelming.  Or so the local commercial monogrammer told me when I asked whether she might like to tackle this job.  "You want me to do WHAT?" she stammered, backing away with a look of fear in her eyes...

However, I found a couple of terrific resources, and I am going to have this fabric recreated on plain silk taffeta by a custom embroiderer.  Richards Jarden of Embroidery Arts is custom-digitizing the embroidery motif in a commercial embroidery format for me, working from a scrap of the original fabric.  Then Kadire Biberaj of European Designs is going to custom-embroider the silk yardage in her workroom in Virginia before sending it off to my drapery workroom for construction of the window treatments.  Kadire specializes in custom embroidery for interior designers, and her monogrammed linens are in the current White House.  She once recreated 80 yards of a discontinued embroidered silk fabric for celebrity designer Barry Dixon, who proclaimed that Kadire's version of the fabric was of even higher quality than the original. 

I must admit, I love a challenge, and I enjoyed seeking out and finding these talented individuals.  I also get a certain satisfaction from fighting back against discontinued status instead of crawling away in defeat.  But the best part of all of this is knowing that my client, who has been through so much, and lost so many mementos, photos, irreplaceable antiques and artworks, will at least get to enjoy her beautiful bathroom again, with every detail exactly as it was before.