Here's the story of the other commission I recently had. A woman contacted me and said she had several squares of fabric that people had signed at a family reunion and she wanted them put into a simple quilt to be on display during subsequent family reunions. Sounds simple enough, right? So I said, "Sure!"
When we met, she handed me a plastic bag. All I could see was foil. Strange. It was fairly heavy. I didn't think too much of it until I looked at it much later, when I was ready to make the quilt.
Each of the fabric squares were different sizes, and none were square. They were various shades of yellowish beige. They were all separated by wax paper and foil. They had been "signed" with what appeared to be some sort of puff paint. The paint, or something else, had become very sticky. The wax paper and foil was separating the pieces of fabric. I had to peel them off of each other.
Too make things worse, there were stones, large beads, and plastic jewels plastered all over the blocks. And the writing on many of them went right out to the edge of the fabric. What a mess!
I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to piece these fabric rectangles traditionally. First of all, I'd have to square them up, which would mess up a lot of the wording and designs. Plus, seam allowances would further ruin any legibility. And the glued-on bits were also often right out at the edge. I'd have to remove many of them to maneuver my sewing machine foot. In addition, I was concerned about the paint and stickiness when I went to press it.
So, I decided to raw edge applique. I went ahead and pieced the background fabric the client had given me, as well as the backing and sandwiched everything. I figured I might as well quilt at the same time. This wasn't going to be a functional quilt, after all.
First I tried a zigzag stitch. My foot stuck to the fabric so badly that I couldn't move it! I thought maybe a free motion foot would work better, since it hops up and down. Nope. It also stuck. I couldn't sew a straight line with it. My experiment was on one of the less sticky blocks and my stitches jumped and wobbled. I couldn't charge anyone for the mess that would have been.
In the end, I tied the blocks on. Even that was hard. I could hardly get the needle through the fabric!
I have been struggling lately with not having any sewing desires. This commission added to that greatly. I realized that I haven't sewn anything for myself in years. I think the
Birdie Sling was the last thing I did for
me. Everything else has been shop samples, class samples, round robins, commissions, baby quilts, gifts, auction quilts, and things for Molly. So, fair warning: if I "owe" you a quilt (or anything else), it might not come soon. I really need to do some fun sewing for a bit or I may never enjoy it again.
I have been struggling lately with not having any sewing desires. This commission added to that greatly. I realized that I haven't sewn anything for myself in years. I think the Birdie Sling was the last thing I did for me. Everything else has been shop samples, class samples, round robins, commissions, baby quilts, gifts, auction quilts, and things for Molly. So, fair warning: if I "owe" you a quilt (or anything else), it might not come soon. I really need to do some fun sewing for a bit or I may never enjoy it again. 
The other change is that instead of making the rest scrappy, I just used one fabric, which is a mainly purple batik. If a photo didn't crop to a square well, I used the same batik to fill in to make a square (I've heard these referred to as "coping strips").
It was a graduation gift from some parents to their daughter. I am really happy with how it came out.
Next time: How NOT to make a memory quilt!
And here's a photo of me quilting it. It's simple loops, but I love it anyway. I'm almost done with the quilting. I gave up when my thread mysteriously broke, even though I had changed the needle. It probably has something to do with the fact that many of the non-white fabrics are mystery fabrics, including home dec weight and flannels. It sure makes for an interesting quilt, though. It will have lots of texture for little fingers to explore.
It's actually quite bright in my sewing room, though you wouldn't know it from this photo.
I've been working on a commission t-shirt quilt. It will be a graduation gift for someone finishing high school. I like the way it came out (though I have realized that I have undercharged by quite a bit). This photo shows the quilt finished except for the binding and the label. I'm embroidering a label right now. I'm not sure if I'll be happy with the way it's coming out because I'm using one strand of floss and it looks kind of choppy. If I'm not happy with it, I just hand-write the label.
This is the backing fabric. It's a blue paisley in the Good Earth collection by Alexander Henry Fabrics. It's quilted in a variegated green with a meandering pattern. I meandered right over the t-shirt motifs. It seemed to work fine except for when the image on the t-shirt was especially thick. Then I found that my thread kept breaking unless I slowed way down.
We worked Friday night from 10 pm until 1 am. We got quite a lot of work done, though it's hard to quantify because we were working on three different quilts at once. Here's an arty shot of Allen's hands quilting one of the rows!
So far I'm in the lead as far as individual donations go, but the next person is really nipping at my heels. I really want to be the person with the most personal donations. So, if you've been thinking about it, or if you were one of the people who asked me, "what can I do?" while I was going through treatment, here is your chance to help!
Lastly, I'm working on a commission piece. It's a t-shirt quilt for someone who is graduating high school soon. I have framed all the shirts in a green batik and am working on what to use for the background. Here they are on a solid, but I think we'll be going with something more lively. I do like how the one batik ties them all together, though. T-shirt quilts can be tricky because they don't often have a consistent color to them.
I'll be taking more commissions as time goes on. If you know of anyone who wants a t-shirt quilt made, let me know!
I spray basted with with 505, and added a couple of pins for insurance. The thing is heavy, even though it's not very big. I ended up going with thin batting because of that. Some of the wool is very thick. I also have almost 2/3 of the quilting done. I hope to get more done tomorrow morning before my class so I don't have to change everything on my machine around and then change it back again. Plus, I'm encouraged by how much quilting I got done tonight.
If I do another one of these, I will definitely use half inch seam allowances. All the squishy wools make the seam allowances seem to shrink. And boy, am I happy I used muslin. This is three rows; there will be five in total.
I'm doing a simple square in a square. This block is deceiving because the center pants happened to be patchwork already. In reality, there are only two fabrics per block.
So far I have 14 out of 30 blocks done. I'm trying for contrast between the two fabrics so that in the end I can alternate between light and dark for the outsides of the blocks. They'll be set 5 x 6 and the blocks will be trimmed to 9 inches finished (I hope). I am piecing them on muslin, which is a decision I'm glad I made. You can see here where I've done a little fussy cutting. 
