Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I was looking through some old photos the other day and came across this photo of tile that I saw in Petaluma 6 years ago when I visited the last Great Petaluma Outdoor Quilt Show.
I posted this picture before (thus the link), but it wasn’t until I looked at it again the other day that I realized how much it looked like the Basketweave Baby quilt that I am still obsessing over. You can read about my obsession here or here.
I liked the way this group of colors looked together. Even though I didn’t have enough to really make a large picture, I thought this was worth showing. It makes me think about how I want to arrange the triangles.
Have you made a Nine Patch? Nine patches are like candy. You can’t make too many of them (though I am kind of partial to Four Patches at the moment). They are great for swaps or to use up scraps. There are a multitude of variations. If you sew the parts together using the leaders and enders philosophy you can use up scraps and have a stash of blocks when someone needs blocks to make a donation quilt.
The Nine Patch #9 for this block are easy to follow.
I plan to post blocks on Monday, but I may not post one every Monday.
The Kona Charm Challenge sponsored by Robert Kaufman is all over the quilt world news. last weekend, after the BAMQG meeting, I worked on my border.
The border took me most of Sunday to put on. I realized later that I should have used EQ to figure out the sizes.
This is one of the secondary designs I was trying to preserve. It is the one I saw first.
Later, as the top came together, I also saw a kind of Ohio Star.
My inspiration came from the Manteca quilt show and this quilt by Traudi King, Fun with Scraps.
Remember I said that the CPP will continue? I need some people to play with on this project. That means you!
I am going to offer some creativity prizes, so what is holding you up? Do you need a pep talk?
Rules: Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries. You have some drawing friends, right? Poets? Mixed media artist friends? Thread painters? Photographers? Sign them up. BTW, all rules are subject to change at my discretion.
These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes.
Were you planning to wait until the last minute? Please don’t wait until the last minute. My life will be better if you don’t. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
Do a little scribble response. It will be quite freeing.
Did you follow the directions for cutting your hexagons? Did you watch the video? If so, you are ready to prepare to piece. If not, you can find the directions and information on my previous post.
Note: my hexagons are 7″ unfinished. We are preparing to machine sew the hexagons using Y seams. Leave your fear of Y seams at the door, please. This is a relatively quick method after you do the step outlined below. However, you won’t be able to chain piece.
Supplies needed:
You will be working on the wrong side of your hexagons at first.
The photo of my piece (above) is similar to what your goal should be. Note that the piece I show is not the final product. I don’t know how large my final quilt will be. That is just how I roll on certain projects. You should check Sandy’s blog and podcast as she has provided some information about sizes and amounts of fabric.
I don’t think in rows, so I don’t always sew in rows (remember the Chunking it tutorial?). This project lends itself to sewing in a circle, which I find very calming.
Take your cut hexagons and turn them right side down (wrong side up) on a surface you can draw on. I do this step right next to my sewing machine just before I sew. Take your rotary ruler and position the edge a quarter inch from one edge.
For example, pretend you were going to slice off a quarter inch and position your ruler that way. Note there is no rotary cutter on the supply list so no cutting, please. The goal is to end up with an X at the 60 degree angle spot on the patch.
On the wrong side of your fabric, take your pen and draw a light line where a quarter of an inch should be.
You won’t see it on the front if you are careful, so using one of the pens mentioned above is ok. You will be doing this at the 60 degree angle/where the corner of the patch is, if the patch had a corner.
When you mark the second side, you will have one X and 2 lines.
Do the same thing at each of the other angles.
If you draw lines all the way around so you have little X-es at every angle of your hexagon. No groaning. I didn’t promise this would be a fast project, but it also doesn’t take that much time. If you are rolling your eyes, go buy the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, because they have a method of doing this piecing in rows. Seems everyone is on the Hexagon bandwagon these days.
If the above process is just too horrendous for you to contemplate, consider the Perfect Piecer by Jinny Beyer.
The 60 degree angle on the right side is perfect for making dots (not X-es) which you can use to sew between. Those circles are actual holes through which you can mark. I bought this to use for my Flowering Snowball and realized it would work with this project as well. I pushed the Sewline pencil lead way out of the pencil and was able to use it with this ruler.
Once you have done the marking, go to your sewing machine.
Do all the normal thread and needle checking stuff necessary for your machine.
Put your machine on the setting for stopping with the needle down. If you don’t have a needle down setting, adjust your sewing so you can stop with the needle down. This isn’t an absolute must, but really helps.
Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.
I backstitch, because there are no seams crossing one another.
Remedy for sewing into the seam allowance: rip out the number of stitches into the seam allowance. Don’t rip out the whole seam, just rip out the stitch or two that went over.
Take the piece out of the machine and reposition the next unsewn side.Same deal: Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.
Take your piece over to the ironing board and lay it face down. Yes, I know everyone says to press right sides up. Not this time, sweetie. Face down. On the ironing board. You are going to make a swirl with the seams near each other. Look for how the other seams connected to the new ones you just sewed are pressed and press the new ones in the same direction.
If you follow these directions, you will get a little flower at the intersections of the seams. That is why you don’t sew into the seam allowance. The quilt will lay flatter and the seams will be in order.
You see a slightly different method at the Blue Chair blog.
Mentions and Accolades
My post about the Maker Faire was a featured post on Creating the Hive. It is easy to deal with, because the posts I write here are automatically shared there. Yes, people may see some duplication, but I get a whole different audience there. Are you a member of Creating the Hive? I’ll send you an invite if you want one.
My Sketchbook from the Sketchbook Project has been digitized. You can see it at: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/637. I was able to page through it, but let me know if you are able to do so. Regular readers will recognize the drawings. 😉
Sandy wrote a great review of the Quilter’s Academy v.1 book that I reviewed some weeks ago. She, kindly, built on the review I wrote, which I really appreciate.
Fabric Requirements?
I saw this tool for calculating fabric requirements. I have no idea if it works even though I tried it for hexagons. I just have no frame of reference for using the tool. What do you think?
Robert Kaufman also has a fabric calculator for the Android Market. I don’t have an Android, so I haven’t tried it. Perhaps Sandy will do a review?
Other Artists
Danny Gregory is a writer and journal artist. He did some podcast with artists who were featured in one of his books. I really liked those podcasts, because they talked about creative process, tools and journals. He put a recent blog post that really spoke to me. In it he says “We don’t just want a pat on the head; we want connection, reaction, insight, something that makes us see what we made in a newer light or on a deeper plain.” I try not to want this, but I have to admit that even if I don’t want approval, I do want that connection and a conversation to start. He also says “The true value of acknowledgment isn’t registered in the ego; it’s the opposite, a breaking down of the barriers between creator and audience so that we can unite in a shared appreciation of something that lends beauty and meaning to the grinding metronome of the day. We see a glimpse of the heavens together, a view that appeared to one of us first but is now a canopy over us all.
It’s even true of a joke, a shared laugh, the quick bark of recognition that our minds thought alike, we saw the other’s insight….” It seems to be all about connection.
I took a look at Leah Day site again when mom and I were talking about free motion quilting. She just bought a Flynn Frame so I showed her the site. What I didn’t realize is that Leah has great videos on her site. They are professional, but not slick. They come across as a friend genuinely wanting to share information with another friend. I was inspired.
Nina Johansson is a Swedish artist who does really great drawings. See. Be. Draw had an interview with her recently. Nina is the artist whose coffee cup drawing I adore.
Dan Rouse is a quiltmaker whose blog I found through the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild. He has a great post on pieced circles (just say yes!) on his WIP Wednesday post.
Exhibits and Such
Lisa Call has put up a Squidoo site about Quilt National 2011, which opened last week at the Dairy Barn.
The ‘and such’ part is SeamedUp. Quiltin’ Jenny posted a great interview with the Queen of Everything, Allison Rosen. Quiltin’ Jenny had a great series of posts earlier this year/ late last year (??) about cleaning out various rooms of her house. It was very inspiring and made it seem doable.
Here is a gallery of quilts from Quilts Inc. Who will Pinterest them?
Oops
I have been looking at spelling lately, especially the apostrophe problem, and shaking my head. I found a doosie in a Quilt Market Report today. Not just in the text, but as part of printed signage. I see this as a sign that the apostrophe will be gone before 10 years are over. Sigh.
I am not immune. A kind reader pointed out a date error on one of my recent posts. Thank you! Please feel free to kindly point out spelling errors and such. I want my blog to be the best it can be and am only human.
This is reposted from Pam (Hip to Be A Square)’s Flickrstream with only slight revisions/additions:
Srsly guys. They are EVERYWHERE.
Sandy at Quilting for the Rest of Us, Jaye from Art Quilt Maker, and I are loosely doing a hexagon-along quilting type thing this this summer. Sandy and I will be sharing our process and pitfalls on our podcasts, while Jaye will share on her blog.
You can find Sandy all over the web. Click on the link and it will take you to her podcast, Flickrstream- just about everywhere.
You can find Jaye at https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/ (where you are now!) (for her blog) or on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artquiltmaker
You can find me at www.hiptobeasquarepodcast.com for my blog & podcast.
Feel free to grab this button if you want to show some solidarity. The current size is 277×277 pixels, but it can go down to 180×180 without distortion.
Frances asked me to start up the block-a-long again, so I am. She said there were some listeners who would like to do a community project.
Here is Short Columns #8, which I call Short Columns. You can find my original post about the project, which talks about the purpose and the point. I don’t have a quilt design planned, but you can certainly make your blocks into a quilt.
The last set of instructions for the last block were posted on October 11, 2010. You can go back and do the previous 7 blocks or you can start from here. Your choice! If you go back, the blocks won’t take you long at all.
I went to the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild meeting yesterday. As usual, it was a great meeting. I forgot to take photos, so this is a wordy post not a photo post. (Foreshadowing of posts to come).
The business meeting part of the meeting was pretty long, but it included show and tell. I forgot to bring my show and tell (Frosted Stars), so I played the role of quilt holder.
People brought their Robert Kaufman Kona challenge quilts and they are awesome! Not everyone was done, but pieces that people showed were wonderful. Angela showed an awesome colorwash type of piece that I really want to get a photo of her piece so you can see it. Patti didn’t want to do a quilt, so she painted a canvas black, made yo-yos and glued them in color order to the canvas. It is really a fabulous piece.
I brought my friend, Carol. It was fun to have someone to chat with on the long drive to and fro. She started a quilt a long time ago. When I saw the pieces at her house, I encouraged her to come. I am pretty sure she had fun, since she picked out another quilt she wants to start on. 😉
Chris made more door prizes. She made a piece that was comprised of some blocks stretched over canvas. The person who won them was over the moon. I didn’t win anything, but she has figured out the dimensions for a composition book journal cover. To save me some time, I asked her to send me the dimensions. I’d like to make some journal covers for composition books to give as gifts as composition books are easier to find than the Miquelrius journals.
I have been wanting to recycle old fabric or clothes that are too worn to donate and Amanda came to the rescue. She is making cat beds and wants to use the trimmings from quiltmaking to stuff them. I couldn’t stop thinking about that the whole time I was trimming blocks today. I have to figure out a temporary storage solution to hold the stuff until the next BAMQG.
Julie told us about Market. It was her first time. She talked about how big Market was, meeting with fabric reps, seeing the famous quilters. She brought back leaflets of new fabrics as well as some actual unreleased fabrics. She brought Ruby! I was so glad to see it in person, because I found that I will not be buying the whole line as planned. The greys are really not my style. I might buy the swirly grey, will probably buy some of the aquas and the reds. We’ll have to see about the others. Julie called them warm greys, but, to me, they have too much beige. There are some true calicoes in the line as well, which makes me wonder if calicoes are coming back?
After the meeting is sewing time. I unsewed some blocks that I had sewed together by accident, but mostly chatted with people. Everyone else did, too. I think many of us were tired. It is a tired time of year with graduations and all.
I managed to sketch a study of my response to Illuminate. I decided to show that instead of doing a ‘final’ based on a comment I got from a reader who said she was hoping to get brave enough to join the project.
This is what I do when I work on my responses. I make a mess first and then carefully create the final in the sketchbook with all of the other responses. This one, if I didn’t show it in this form, would probably not make it to the final form. It was in my head, but it isn’t great. I needed to look up some doodles in another journal, because I was out of ideas. I don’t know which journal, so I would have to hunt. I don’t want to spend the time and really don’t have the inclination. That means that the photo above is the final.
You don’t have to do a masterpiece. Just do something.
Remember I said that the CPP will continue? And that I am going to offer some creativity prizes? Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries.
These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes.
Don’t wait until the last minute. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
Did you go and see the show? Primal Green is a show of environmental art quilts at the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. AND! it is still on.
The Wallace Stegner Environmental Center is one of the special collections at the Main Branch and, after a year of work with the Library, CQFA has over 20 quilts and fiber art on display. The quilts all have an environmental theme. The show will hang until July 31 and be available to viewers during the Library’s normal open hours. Hope you can stop by and see it. Check the library’s website for hours. Please sign the guestbook and let us know you saw the show.
Primal Green, the art quilt exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library, has some information on the Green Stacks portion of the SFPL website. Hope you can see the show.
Recently, I talked about my adventures with hexagons. The adventures continue and a few people are joining in, something I didn’t know, or think, would happen. There seems to be something about hexagons that intrigues people.
The above photo shows what I did to test out my hexagon theories.
The test kind of grew.
Now I have to admit that this hexagon piece is no longer a test. This will be a real quilt at some point. At this point, I am just sewing hexagons to each other as a kind of treat for myself in between other ‘must finish’ projects. The hexagon piece really helped me get through the pillows. The colors are cheerful and fun. I am trying to keep it even on all sides, but the edges keep creeping out into long lines of hexagons. I don’t know how big it will be – perhaps as big as the amount of fabric I have?
It is good to look at the piece in a photo format, because it helps me see where I need to put the next colors.
The ruler I used is a Clearview Ruler from Alicia’s Attic. They are a bit hard to find, but you can find them at the Granary. I am pretty sure that if you call them they will send you one. Why do you need this one? Because you need the tip. Any 60 degree ruler will work as long as the tip is not blunted.
I started out using my beloved Pyramid ruler from Fons & Porter and my hexagons came out kind of squashed looking. I love this ruler, but it doesn’t work for this quick cutting hexagon method. You MUST have the tip to use the quick cutting method described in the video by Kaye Wood, which is on Little Bluebell’s blog.
You can, of course, use a hexagon ruler. You don’t need to make hexagons using the quick cutting method described by Kaye Wood.
I bought the Fons & Porter hexagon ruler for the Spin Wheels project. I didn’t start out using it for the hexagon project, so I am not using it for that project. If you plan to do a scrappy hexagon, this ruler (or one like it) is the way to go. The Kaye Wood quick hexagon cutting method uses strips and if you aren’t using strips, there is no reason to use that method. I have an Easy Hexagon ruler by Sharon Hultgren, but it is too big for me and I am getting rid of it. Check Quilt Trader’s Newsletter.
I have 150 or so hexagons cut. I am sure I could figure out how big that would be, but where would be the fun in that? I just want to make sure it doesn’t get too big. 😉
