Month: May 2007

This Week’s Progress

If you don’t have time to read much today, here’s the short version: not much.

If you do have time to read the entire post today, the long version follows. 😉

Not sure why, but this week seems to have been especially busy. I think I may have accomplished a lot in the realm of quiltmaking and it just may not feel like a lot. Somehow not working on my own project and working on gifts doesn’t feel much like I am making progress. Perhaps, it is just that I am not making progress on my color studies or on my UFO list?


I wanted to put a small border on the above pillow for the Principal, but I was kind of stymied for what color. I originally thought of a strip of white piping, but decided I didn’t want to deal with making one. St. JCN, in all her wisdom, suggested a white strip, but, somehow, that didn’t seem right. As I was drifting off to sleep one night, the little voice in my head whispered: Violet. GREAT! I tried it (see above) and thought it looked good.


The reason I wanted a small border was so that the green border would not “bleed” into the green block. The violet seems to clearly define the block. I am pleased with how it worked out.


I also put a few more rows on to Pineapple blocks 11 & 12. They are getting there. 3 more colored rounds to go. I have the background strips cut for the next round, but haven’t sewed them yet.

Special Whine Redux
Earlier this week, as you probably noticed, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and the state of my pictures. I went back and looked at Yarnstorm‘s post called Square Dance and the photos she included. I realized that while her photos are totally fabulous, one thing about how she structured this post is that she put up her inspiration and then showed the quilt that came out of it. I really liked that. As a brief aside, I like the quilt-to-be she shows, because it is simple, but not boring. She is working with color in a way that I have been trying to do lately (see Thoughts on Dots and some of the other square pieces I was working on last year). She has done a fabulous job with blues, something that I greatly admire.

The other thing about Yarnstorm’s pictures is she has a great eye and she crops very well.

So, I will stop whining, crop my pictures and keep working!

Teacher Pillows – No Torment

Despite the fact that I still can’t measure, 3 of the Teacher Pillows are close to completion. The machine stitching is complete and I only have some final hand stitching to do on them and, voila, fini!

I thought to myself this morning that I should be able to finish three. I am not sure I really wanted to buckle down and do that many, but it got stuck in my head and here I am.

I don’t normally sew during the week, but I did some stitching on Friday afternoon. I was very slow and deliberate and not out to accomplish a lot. I just wanted to make some progress, no matter how little. I think that short session got me to the point where I could put three pillow covers together today.


Teacher Pillow – Front: I am really pleased with the way this front came out. I was not that thrilled with the Economy Patch that the child chose, but piecing more of the design in a smaller format really made it look good. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE the Flea Market Fancy fabric out of which I made this front.


Teacher Pillow – Back: I am not so enamoured of the back. I ran out of the flower fabric I used for the front and grabbed these fabrics. I didn’t just grab the blue randomly, but I am not sure why I chose it. My SIL came over and suggested yellow or pink (well, DUH! Why didn’t I think of that?), so I added the yellow to the outside. The back isn’t great, but done is better than perfect and, hopefully, she won’t look too much at the back.

The variety of colors, however, illustrate the way I made the back. I made two squares and then added a bit of extra fabric to the top of the front, hemmed it and folded it over. I will hand stitch down the folded over part.


Aide Pillow – Front: I sewed this one last (for the day) and it came out the best. It is small enough so the pillow form fills the entire cover.


Aide Pillow – Back


Resource Teacher Pillow – Front: the red, yellow and green color scheme has always been very appealing to me. I am pleased with the way this one came out although the pillow form doesn’t fill up the cover. C’est la vie.


Resource Teacher Pillow – Back: I had extra space on the drawing, so I added a photo. All the drawings and labels were scanned and printed on an inkjet printer.





The above photos show the different borders I tried for t he Aide pillow. It kind of gives you an idea of my process.

Not trying to make the envelope style pillow cover has been a big help. I have to say that I am still not sure what the right way to make pillows are and, as a result, I am wasting a lot of fabric. Part of hte issue is piecing the back using the drawings. For some reason that step adds enough of a wrinkle to make the project complicated. What I really need is a book like Around the Block that says how to make a pillow cover if you have a certain sized pillow form. Perhaps C&T will add such a book to their “Fast, Fun & Easy” series? That is one “Fast, Fun & Easy” tha I would buy.

Still, it makes me feel good to spread some quiltmaking and sewing out into the world.

Kaffe Fassett Confusion

While buying the Pokemon Diamond game guide for the child, I couldn’t help tossing a quilt book for myself into the virtual cart. Both books arrived earlier this week. In a lame attempt to avoid work, I started reading Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Road.

The Good: gorgeous fabrics, wonderful designs
The Bad: The fabrics are only shown in the quilts and referred to extensively as if there were a chart of the fabrics laid out on a page of the book, which there isn’t. After the first page, the text becomes very confusing.
The UGLY: I get the distinct impression Kaffe was just trying to churn out another book to coinccide with the new line of [mystery] fabrics. I dislike intensely ‘cheap dates’ and this book is not up to the others in terms of content and careful editing.

Still, I like this book, because the quilts are happy. He really has a way with those large and vibrant prints. My favorite part of the text is where Kaffe says “…which come from a wonderful antique book of 19th century book [sic] of French prints that we purchased at a textile fair in New York.” Even, though the editing is bad, this comment reminds me to get inspiration from other media and what I see around me.

The quilt designs, and this is mostly a pattern book, range widely and have a lot of styles that I enjoy: big blocks that show off the fabric, mosaic floor tile looking quilts, machine applique and some innovative ways of using simply shaped pieces.

One of my favorite quilts is Wallpaper Strips Quilt by Kaffe Fassett. You can see a picture of it (gorgeous picture, but not showing the whole quilt) over at Yarnstorm. She also has some fab flower photos, BTW. the quilt pattern is simply a bunch of strips lined up and sewn together randomly, then put next to each other and sewn together again. I decided that I will do this with the leftover dot strips once I am done with the Pineapple. Why not? Much better than having a bunch of 1.75″ strips laying around.

I also like the Crosses Quilt, which is made from 9patches, but colored in such a way that tic-tac-toe like crosses stand out. This artist has a view that will show you what I mean. Very clever!

Between this book and the Flowering Snowball (Cross Block), I looked at the Hancock’s catalog in a whole new way today. Those big 1960s style prints were just screaming at me. I resisted, because I would have to buy a boatload of them when I could really be happy with a large packet of 6″ squares. Still, it amazes what looking at something will do to how I see things.

Note from 5/26/2007: I found this link for the Lilies fabrics and the Lille collection here.

Teacher Pillow Torment


I finished piecing all of the blocks, which is great. Above are the block for the Principal and the Assistant Principal, who are both retiring. It is the same block, but Around the Block shows it separately with different names, apparently because the colors go in different places.


My next problem is borders. I made 12″ blocks and bought 14″ pilow forms (aside from the fact that Around the Block does not cover 14″ blocks, what was I thinking???**). As a result, I need to add borders in order to increase the overall size of the blocks. Above is a possible border for the Asst. Principal’s block. It wasn’t my idea, but I like it. It really sets off the cross.


This is what I have already added to the Resource Teacher’s block. I love the dots; they are cheerful (raise your hand if you knew that was coming!).

The good is that part of the back is done. The bad, however, is that now the torment starts. For some reason, I was unable to measure once I got past making the blocks. I wanted to add 3″ borders to the Resource Teacher (RT) block. I got one side that was 3″, two sides at 4″ and one side at 2 7/8″ HUH? I don’t know what is going on with me and this project. As I detailed my sad tale of woe to St. JCN, she said that I had to make this my last year of making Teacher Pillows and if I didn’t she would torment me next year! Dear me! I don’t know what I will do next year, but I have been warned.

Part of what I am doing is trying to get it right: be able to make these in my sleep. It doesn’t seem to be happening and maybe St. JCN is correct in that I should go out in a blaze of glory with these five pillows. We’ll see.

I am taking the week off and then will work on these on Sunday.

**Actually I was thinking about how many extra borders I had to add last year so I wanted to make sure I had enough slack to cut off, if I need it.