Quilted pouffe (Πουφ)

As Greece faces crisis afer crisis, I'm just patiently waiting for the tide to recede. There's too much happening on all fronts in this country, creating widely diverging opinions and extremism. In the interim, we have to face the facts and get on with life. Crete is getting ready to become host to many millions of people starting from this week: not refugees, as we were led to believe given the various (non-)agreements between Turkey and the EU, but tourists, as the high season kicks off with an early calendar Easter. Let's see where this will lead...

To pass away the time, I've been working on little creative sewing projects to while away the quiet hours, the calm before the storm, so to speak. I poured out a bag full of scrippy scraps of denim cuts and starting plotting them onto a sturdy piece of age-stained vintage 50s calico cotton mad in Greece, originally used as storage sacks.

In essence I had made new fabric from old fabric.

I liked the idea of not wasting anything, but I have gotten tired of small projects. I still like to keep my creative fabric art functional, meaning that a finished product must have a specific use, hence the idea for a pouffe, which I first saw on pinterest, So I became a bit more adventurous ...

... until I ran out of scraps and needed to 'create' more! The last piece of of fabric had a more traditional patchwork look.

I have plenty of mattressing remnants from my local mattreess maker (which reminds me: it's hotel preparation time - there are probably HEAPS of mattress remnants going to the recycling depot...), which I used to stuff the pouffe. I also made a 'handle' from the wasitline of an old pair of jeans to pull or carry it when moving it around the house.

 

And here is the final product, something useful that will be enjoyed by many people.

It still needs a bit more stuffing, but that can be easily solved by sewing one side seam with a zip - taken directly from an old pair of jeans!!! No fuss sewing a zip on it from scratch!

It sounds easy enough, to tear up old jeans in order to embark on a similar project, but it's not that simple. This project started with a quilt made from large denim squares from old jeans:

The resulting scraps were turned into smaller denim squares form another quilt:

The pouffe was the result of the scraps of the scraps of the scraps.

It takes a lot of creativity to be both sustainable AND functional!

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Book quilt

Dear ______,

How are you? We hope you and You-know-who are both well and happy. At the moment, we are in the middle of our school exams. We know that this is a poor excuse to talk to you less often and we feel terrible about this, but we hope this letter makes up for the lost time(s). So far, we have been tested on Maths, Physics, Biology, Modern Greek, Composition, Ancient Greek, Religion, the Odyssey, the Iliad, English (we didn't have to study for that) and German. (Mum helped us to study for that, but she thinks it's not the most useful foreign language to learn. She wants us to learn Chinese during the summer.)

We also think it's time we presented you with a gift. You've given us so many, and all we say is 'Thank you.' It's time we gave you something more tangible, as a keepsake. Actually, Mum made this gift for you, and not for You-know-who, because she says that if she gave it to You-know-who, then You-know-who would probably flog it on e-Bay. That's why Mum made this quilt just for you, to settle the ownership issue. (If she made a bigger quilt for both of you, You-know-who might divide it into two, take one piece and flog that on e-Bay).



We watched Mum making this quilt over the last three weeks. She was working in the living room, while Dad was watching TV and we were studying. (We like studying in the living room, each of us taking up one sofa. Mum says she now wished she had bought us a desk for our rooms from a second hand shop, like her parents did, because it would have been cheaper, since we don't use our desks. But she remembers that when the bedrooms were being renovated, Hania didn't have second-hand shops. There are lots now.) The noise from the sewing machine drove Dad nuts, so she'd take her sewing machine into the kitchen and do her sewing there. We really didn't know what she was sewing at first. It simply looked to us as if she was cutting up fabric and sewing it back together, with totally unmatched colours. We didn't worry so much because we'd seen her doing this before. She's made quilts for all of us. When she started making them, it looked like she was going crazy, cutting up large pieces of material into smaller pieces and then putting them back together again. We could never really see the patterns in the fabric which she could see.


But as the quilts all grew, we began to see what she was making, and we all really liked them. Even the cat liked them. Since there isn't enough space anywhere to lay out a quilt, as she was making each one, she would spread it out on the floor in the living room. The cat would walk around the room slowly and then take a last step on one of the corners of the quilt and sit there. Then we'd go and pick it up off the quilt and put it on the rug, but the cat would go back to the same spot on the quilt. Eventually, it would get the message and leave the quilt alone. But it really did prefer the quilt. (Don't worry about the cat sitting on your quilt: Mum put the quilt in the washing machine when she finished it - it's fully washable. It won't smell of Mum's cooking, either, when she was working in the kitchen on it. Mum always laughs when she reads crafts sites selling 'pet-free, smoke-free' products. "The Western world thinks it can be so sterile," she says.)

We would really like to present you with the quilt ourselves, but travelling is getting a little difficult for us now. We don't want to leave yiayia alone at home. She's in her nineties now, and looks like she's on course to celebrate her 100th birthday. Now that it's not cold, she goes out into the garden and does some weeding, or she looks after her rose bushes. She always cooks for herself, and she washes and irons her own clothes too (by hand). She doesn't take any medications. She says that if she has to take medicines to keep her alive, she'd rather die. But even though she feels so strong for such an old person, we don't feel we can leave her alone on her own while we go away on holiday to see you. So that's why you'll have to come and pick up the quilt yourself. It's time you took a Cretan holiday yourself, come to think of it.

We told Mum that she can go on holiday by herself and take the quilt to you, but she said that the political and economic instability that Greece is going through right now doesn't give us the luxury of making holiday plans. We told her that if she books flights early, she will get a better price, but she said: "Booking flight tickets for a future date just might mean that our holiday plans may coincide with national elections, or the closing down of banks, or even the airports, if things get that bad." We know what an election is, and we heard about the banks in Cyprus not letting you take money out, but we don't know what she means by the airports closing down. She says it has happened before in Greece, in 1974, while she was holidaying in Greece with her parents (and Cyprus was involved in that episode too):

"After three and a half months, our holiday had finally come to an end: our return tickets to New Zealand stated 21 July 1974 as the departure date. On the eve of our departure, we woke up on a hot summer's day in Pireas. It was a local holiday in the neighbourhood, as the district church was celebrating its patron saint, the Prophet Elias. Our bags were packed and ready for our departure the next day. Peace and quiet is expected on holidays, and the neighbourhood was silent. My father's sister told us to get ready to go to church. She was about to prepare a picnic to eat near a park in the churchyard's garden. We turned on the radio to listen to some music. Every single radio station we tuned in to was playing the same pre-recorded message: "... state of war..., ... emergency... γενική επιστράτευση (mobilisation of military forces into combat)..." Now my aunt was worried. Turkey had invaded Northern Cyprus and the Greek airports closed down to all international flights. Overnight, from holidaymakers, we had officially become overstayers." (http://haniadailyphoto.blogspot.gr/2008/07/bad-timing.html)

It's difficult to believe that things like this have happened in our country. We don't feel this fear at all, but our parents tell us these stories about our country's past, and we try to relate these details to the present, but it doesn't always seem to fit in well. We think we have a lot of freedom here, and we can live pretty much how we want, just like you. Mum agrees with that. She says Greece is one of the most democratic countries in the world, and it is little wonder that democracy was invented in Greece. But she also says that too much democracy is not good. Even Dad agrees with her on that one.

Mum says that you should not think of this quilt as a big present, because she made it entirely from scrap material (even the batting) that would have ended up in the wood-fired heater (ready to be used next winter) if she didn't look up the internet for ideas on how to use fabric scraps. "I could make a hundred book quilts if I wanted to, it won't cost me much at all," she said. She says the same things about the food she cooks, too.

We hope you enjoy the book quilt. Till you come to visit us, we will enjoy looking at it.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Quilting

About mid-March, I decided that it really was about time I started using my fabric stashes, mainly made up of cheap remnants and used clothing whose fabric I liked. A number of items could not be used for The Greek Collection, as they did not feel very Greek to me, even though most of my fabric stash has been collected here. This past winter, I started making things out of my fabric collection, with the internet as my guide, and I still can't believe how fast I am - in just 8 weeks' time, I have made 3 large quilts, and completed a number of smaller patchwork projects in between, recycling and upcycling various items lying around the house.

The arts of quilting and patchwork are not at all well known in modern-day Crete, although there are now quilting groups all over the country (mostly headed by non-Greeks!). Since I've never quilted before, I didn't expect my fabric projects to go so well and get finished so quickly. We usually procrastinate over such tasks. In the past, all I did was small patchwork projects, without any quilting. I've now discovered that quilting using a simple made-for-home-use sewing machine is not at all easy because it involves pushing very thick (and often wide) fabric through a limited amount of space between the machine motor and the needle. This made my arms and back ache. But it was worth it!

My first project was a small mat, as a way to get back into patchwork, after a long break from it. I had made a patchwork armchair cover many years ago, using cheap fabric remnants bought in Athens back in the drachma days from a store that sold sheet and curtain fabric. (Such stores are long gone now.) The cover was all hand-stitched. It had gotten rather tired looking, and was eventually replaced by a store-bought cover. But I didn't want to discard my old patchwork given the amount of time I had put into making it. So I cut a piece and used it as backing material for a quick patchwork denim mat, made from my kids' old jeans. The light padding all came from remnants I had picked up from a mattress maker in Hania when we bought new mattresses for our kids' beds. This whole project took me just one afternoon, thanks to the sewing machine stitching.
Cost: just the electricity I needed to machine-sew it.

I decided to get craftier and tried a more advanced patchwork pattern, again using fabric remnants. I made another small mat for the bathroom based on a design called 'fake cathedral windows', as it is known among patchwork circles. More old denim was recycled, and the 'windows' were made using fabric scraps that were very small and practically useless and would otherwise have been thrown out. Again, the cost was virtually zilch.

My children had been watching me working on my patchwork projects throughout the winter, and they liked the idea of a quilt of their own, made by their mother. They have never had a quilt, mainly because my own mother left me a lot of blankets (we use what we have!). Quilts feel almost like a luxury to us. Having never quilted before, I decided to do a sample quilt using plain fabric which was not patchworked. The first quilt I made was for my son. The whole family loved it!

The designer fabric is called Tournament by Jane Churchill, acquired at a garage sale in Brockley, London, on a balmy September day as I walked through the area last year. My son is a fencer, so I immediately imagined these knights gracing his bedroom in some way. The red fabric has a medieval look to it - it was bought at a fabric store in Athens (more drachma days) and I used to use it as a sofa cover while I lived in Athens. The blue-white floral fabric used for the binding came from an upholstery remnants store in Hania.
Cost: designer fabric - £5; red fabric 1000 drachma; binding €1.50; €20 euro for the batting, from a local mattress maker. 

Before moving to Greece, I had bought a cheap king size quilt made of Indian cotton at a Wellington shop called Narnia. (I don't know if it's still trading - it was one of my favorite stores.) I have been using this quilt since I bought it, but it's now feeling rather old and needs repairing/replacing. During our New Zealand holiday 11 years ago, I bought some NZ-based fabric designs which were found in the remnants stash at the well-known Nancy's Embroidery store. I remember Nancy from her time in James Smiths (mention of this name does age me - James Smiths closed just before I left NZ). I embarked on a rather ambitious project using the 'disappearing nine-patch' patchwork technique. I needed 25 square blocks for the finished quilt top.

 Close ups of the main fabric used in the NZ based quilt. I didn't let any material go wasted by making squares from off cuts. 

Since the NZ designs were not enough to make a king size quilt, I bought some more fabric which had a NZ look to it from ebay sellers, eg shells, pebbles, (green coloured) sea, among others. I also cut up a NZ tea towel with a map of NZ on it. The sashing and binding were made using remnants from the local upholstery store, some cheap fabric bought in Athens during the drachma days, a used clothing item from the street market in Hania, and a batik design gifted to me by an Indonesian student while I was studying in NZ. The mattress maker sold me some more ready-lined padding, which meant that I didn't have to do most of the quilting myself. This was a very big project, so that was quite helpful. Most quilters leave the quilting part to professionals who use long-arm sewing machines, while others have computerised machines which are programmed to create intricate designs. (Maybe my next model!)

Cost: 3 metres of ready to use wadding - €35; NZ fabric designs from NZ - approx. NZ$22; ebay fabrics - £20; remnants/used clothing - approx. €10, plus a thousand (or so) drachma; the batik was bought in Indonesian rupiah. This really was quite an international project. 

The reverse side of the quilts did not need any fabric, thanks to the mattress maker. I took my quilt tops to him so that he could measure them and advise me on what I can use to pad them. In Hania, we have quite a few mattress makers, thanks to the tourist industry. A quick check on ebay confirmed that I would have paid roughly the same price for this wadding. (I'm not sure about how the quality compares - what I bought seems quite good).

The reverse side of the two quilts looks like this - the white cotton fabric was already sewn onto the wadding and I simply quilted the top side onto the ready-lined fabric.

My latest quilt project was for my daughter. It was made using fabrics I had bought on a whim while visiting Brighton on New Year's Day, walking through the Lanes (a bit like Hania's old town), where my eye caught a glimpse of some nifty floral fabric made into pyjamas which were displayed on clothes hangers. I decided to check out the store just because I liked the fabric, which turned out to be none other than a Cath Kidston fabric designer outlet. Rather overpriced of course (8 fat quarters for 25 pounds/30 euro), but I couldn't help myself.

On returning home, I decided that the fabrics looked a little too kitsch for my tastes. but my daughter loved them. I've used some of the CKs in my daughter's quilt - she chose the 'raggedy quilt' design. The CK fabrics were not enough for the quilt, so I had to add fabric obtained from all sorts of places: some skirts my daughter had grown out of, clothes bought from local second hand stores, 'old ladies' dresses (we call them 'robes') bought at the laiki, some fabric remnants that I had since my NZ days (off cuts from a dollmaker), as well as some cheap fabrics from my local suppliers. Some of the fabric that went into this quilt is over forty years old. With the use of so many different fabrics which can be traced to the very beginnings of my interest in patchwork, this quilt quite unexpectedly became a memory quilt.

Although the raggedy quilt design looked rather easy, it proved quite a challenge. It requires a lot of cutting and sewing, and trimming of threads. It becomes quite a heavy quilt to work with piece by piece, and gives you sore arms and backache. But I guess the end result was well worth it. I bound the quilt with fabric from a pink linen skirt in my wardrobe, last worn a decade ago.

When I buy clothes for patchwork, I always buy XL sizes and never pay more than 1-3 euro per item, at the street market and second hand stores (sometimes, the clothes are new, from previous seasons or store clearances). Upholstery remnants sell for all sorts of prices, but again, I go for the larger pieces, selling at 1.50-3.50 euros a piece. The bonus of the raggedy quilt design is that the padding for it could all be made from off-cuts from the mattress maker, so I didn't need to buy any. When I bought the padding for the other quilts, I was allowed to take all the off cuts that I could carry which were strewn around the workshop. Everything on the floor in the photo below went into the boot of my car.

Cost: second-hand clothes - 10 euro; upholstery remnants - 10 euro; Cath Kidston fabrics - 20 pounds; padding - free. 

During a recent window-shopping experience, I checked out the prices of  store-bought quilts. At the supermarket, you can get a simple king size quilt for 35-40€; similar prices can be found in the home stores. These quilts are padded, with one fabric on one side, another on the other side, simple binding and an elaborate machine-sewn design.  I can quite easily keep my quilt costs very low, but the real cost of home quilting is not based on the cost of the fabrics alone. Thank goodness for the invention of the sewing machine, which means that I can sew as fast as I can collect fabric that I like to work with. There are more quilt projects scheduled for the summer when I can work outdoors. These quilts will all be specially designed with certain people in mind. Watch this space.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.