december by Michael Miller
seen from China

seen from Colombia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China

seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Brazil
seen from China
seen from Poland

seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Armenia
seen from Malaysia

seen from United States

seen from United States
december by Michael Miller
I've grown older. I'm still so young.
Suddenly, it's December, Margeaux Paul || Ellen Warren || From Found, Sarah Kay || December, Michael Miller || Ophelia || Primavera, George Clausen || Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin || Nickie Zimov || Melancholy, Krzysztof Gil
Angelina Jolie photographed by Michael Miller, 1991
Michael Miller
It’s DONE! And there’s a story to this one!
Back in December, I met my friend @natural-blogarithm IRL for the first time, and they asked if I could find a use for this pink bird fabric they’d picked up from a secondhand fabric store, since it was juuuuust about a yard, which was too small for either of us to use for clothing as plus-size sewists.
As it stands, when I looked up the details from the selvedge it’s pretty evident that it is, indeed, quilting cotton. More specifically, it is from Michael Miller’s “Tweetie Pie” collection.
Lucky for my friend, I did in fact have an almost immediate idea for this fabric. You see, I lost my cool a little during the great Joann clearance sales, and among my frantic purchases was this almost luminescently-bright 108” Kona cotton Candy Pink.
Why did I buy that??? It’s so bright! There was so MUCH of it, at over a yard and a half of length! What was I thinking????
But it turns out that pink was in fact the PERFECT solid to marry the orangey-pink birds and the more cool-toned wavy pink 1-yard cut that I also bought from Joann. I will learn nothing from this experience.
This was another first for me in that I did not use any pre-cuts! I looked up Sew Can She’s 3-yard quilt patterns and picked Dream House, since it, too, was pink. I futzed with the cutting instructions to allow me more control since both of my patterned fabrics were directional, and between the tree branches and the waves I wanted to give an impression of upward movement. This also meant modifying the block piecing instructions so each block’s long edge was “flipped” compared to its opposite-hued neighbor. The current effect is less “structured staircase” and more “dancey avant-garde windowpanes.” I REALLY like how it turned out in the end!
I did learn that I need to get better at precision cutting and piecing, but I am letting myself down easy. When I was almost done with my block piecing, I realized my sewing machine needle was a millimeter and a half off the center of the needle plate, which meant I was giving all of my seams a fat quarter inch seam. So I just. Continued doing the fat seam bc I didn’t wanna go back and seam rip like 80% of my blocks. Definitely taking it to the shop to see if they can fix that for me now that this one is done.
I am also delighted to say that one of my friends saw my progress pic of the quilt top and asked if she could claim it, so it’s already got a home to go to! After she called dibs, I used the leftover scraps from when I cut the binding to make a little heart label/hanging flap for the back. 💖
An old Six Fanarts that I made on Twitter
- Michael Miller, "Sunday poetry: December"