Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
After playing with the blocks a little, I am now ready to continue working on the bullseyes.
Then I looked through the bullseye blocks. Some caught my attention and I was sad to cover up the second fabrics with more circles. Still it had to be done.
The blocks above are my favorites after looking through all of them. I know that will change when I sew the last circles on.
Peggy took a bunch of quilts to a longarmer, Laura, who quilts some of our donation quilts for practice. One of them was my American Jane Plus Quilt.
It is not yet bound, but having all the small quilts quilted by a longarmer makes the process much shorter. Tim is the only one with a longarm, that I know of, in the guild and he has been busy recently so hasn’t been quilting.
I like the pattern Laura used for the white and red thread was kind of inspired.
I finished the back of the Diagonal Nine Patch Saturday morning before I drove to the BAM meeting. I found a piece of fabric that comprises the main part of the back (top left). The large print works well for a back and I am glad I didn’t cut it up for the front.
I used up a number of pieces of fabric that have been hanging around for awhile, which is always a good feeling.
I am pretty pleased not only that the whole package is ready to go to Colleen, but also that there were no tasks hanging around for after the meeting. It felt like a clean finish.
I chose a black and white stripe for the binding.
I worked on the back for 20 minutes or so on Friday after cleaning out the garage and that 20 minutes put everything in place for finishing on Saturday. Every minute counts!
I dragged out the bag of bullseyes yesterday that had been languishing because of my travel and life. I wanted to look at them and match up the last circles, but instead I started appliqueing them to the blocks.
I did look at them all. Then, I did match up the small orange circles with the rest of the block, but I didn’t do as much looking and rearranging as I thought I would. I really just wanted to sew. I wasn’t lax, I was just faster than I thought I would be. I have never been much of an agonizer where it wasn’t necessary, especially with quiltmaking.
I thought I would try and finish the top and back of this quilt and take it to Colleen as well, but then (head to desk and a big DUH) I realized that I need to wait for the parts of Julie and Adrienne’s blocks before I can go farther. Not a problem! I will use this quilt to make up the second batch of quilts I plan to take to Colleen in a few weeks. I am on another finishing mission.
Julie has a Picking favorites blog post on her blocks.
This is a pretty easy quilt so as soon as I finished all the bits and pieces required to make Pies & Points ready for quilting, I turned my attention to the Diagonal Nine Patch. I talked about the size in my last post and, as you can see, I increased the size. I think this size will be fine, but am still reserving judgement.
With 7×7 blocks, the quilt top will be about 42 inches square and my hesitation is whether that is a large enough quilt. I think it is on the verge of being large enough, but I may want to add another column and row.
I have about 7 more blocks to go in this configuration. The issue is that I am eager to get this quilt done and move on to Orange You Glad. I also want to bring this quilt to Colleen.
On my way back from a recent trip, I saw some quilt art in the airport. Yes this was my first airline trip since 2019. I actually don’t remember my last airline trip.
I am always pleased when textiles get their day in the sun. While the Phoenix airport is not the Met, it is still a venue that has a lot of possibilities for people to view the artwork.
In this case, I saw a quilt and a chair with quilted and embellished elements in this exhibit.
The quilt has photos printed on it. This is not a favorite technique of mine, but I applaud the work the artist, Margit Kagerer, did on this quilt.
N.B.: sorry about the reflection. The quilt was under glass and, although I tried a lot of different angles, I could get rid of the reflection. I was playing with some photo manipulation, but haven’t succeeded in getting rid of the reflection.
Getting some detail shots helped and also made it easier to see what was going on in the quilt.
This quilt has a lot of detailed machine quilting.
You can also see that the piecing looks like a kaleidoscope in the flower photo, left.
I am pretty sure this is piece is not longarm quilted.
Again, this photo has a reflection, but you can see more detailed quilting in the bottom of the photo.
I am interested in what Margit’s original photographs looked like. In order to answer that question, I would have put the original photographs on the back of the quilt. I had no way to see if she did that and I don’t see more information about the quilt on the web anywhere.
This work really reminds me of the fearlessness of Friend Julie‘s work.
I was more interested in the chair that also has some quilted elements. I have been interested in reupholstering chairs with quilts or quilted panels since I made the Tuffets and also since I saw Tula’s Elizabeth chair* as well as her Monkey Wrench chairs.
The chair was well protected, so I had some trouble getting detail shots.
This chair is definitely art and not seating. The seat had beading in the flower, which I don’t think would be very comfortable.
I really like the idea of upholstering furniture in patchwork. I think it would give the furniture a unique appearance.
The artist used the entire chair for her artwork, including the back. The sun reminds me of the sun in Beach Town. I really like the thistle-like flowers. The background texture kept me looking at the piece for awhile.
I have mixed feelings about airport art, but I did enjoy seeing these pieces.
*N.B. 12 July 2022: I wasn’t able to find a photo of the Elizabeth chair, but you can see it some of her Tuesday videos. I will add the link if I am able to find one.
I am sad to say that Natalie is ending the Happy Box subscription due to supply chain issues. I am sad even though I don’t really need most of the things that come in the box. It was really fun to receive the boxes and see what was included. I really liked the make-up/skincare products she provided. I don’t often buy those types of things to try, but when I have them in my hands, I use them.
This month’s box arrived slightly smashed, but everything inside was ok.
The theme was strawberries. Natalie didn’t include an info sheet this time as I guess it wasn’t needed. Everythign was pretty self explanatory.
The first think I saw was a mini lunchbox. As you can see the front has a tomato pincushion with the little strawberry attached, so definitely sewing themed.
Everything was in the little lunchbox and the various items are all strawberry themed.
I am thrilled with the coin purse project, because I have wanted to try creating using the metal clasp frame, but have never spent the money to buy a frame.
The pen is a smelly pen, but it smells of some strawberry like fragrance, which I kind of like. I am smelling it right now.
The strawberry fabric in the middle is actually a microfiber cleaning cloth and the fabric on the left is the fabric for the coin purse. The card, as usual, will come in handy.
I look forward to seeing what Natalie comes up with next.
I got this idea from Peggy at the June BAM meeting. It was so simple that I slapped my head and wondered why I didn’t think of it.
Peggy is font of good ideas. The quilt she showed was scrappy and had a rose background. It was great and made me start thinking about my newest great niece-phew. S/he is expected in October.
I wanted to make the new baby a quilt, but nothing was generating any excitement. I wasn’t finding the mix of interesting patterns, ease of construction and appeal in the millions of patterns I have. When I saw this one, I felt a flicker of interest.
I decided to try some blocks in black and white and see what happened. I made them while working on Pies & Points.
I am really pleased with how they look. Most of the fabrics came from my bin of white on black dot fabrics. I got those out after I rummaged through my 2.5 inch square bins and pulled out all the white on black squares. Recently I have pulled out another bin of white on black fabrics to make more blocks. This is a great quilt for scraps, as you can see from Peggy’s version. Also, my black and white blocks are a controlled scrappy.
I started with the idea that I would make 18 A and 18 B blocks. I made most of the 18 blocks using the leaders and enders method while I worked on Pies & Points. Once that baby was finished, I put the Diagonal Nine Patch blocks up on the design wall. The blocks aren’t sewn together, but I decided I needed more blocks. I need to make at least one more column and one more row, but maybe two. I like generous baby quilts.
Once the blocks were pointed out to me, I could see how easy the quilt could be. The A block is highlighted on the left and the B block is in the middle.
You can certainly use all squares, but I decided to save myself some time and figured out the size of strips I needed to use for the A blocks. It makes those blocks sew up a little bit more quickly.
The beauty of this design is that it can be made with 2.5 inch squares, 5 inch squares or any size really. One inch finished would take a lot of blocks unless you were making a doll quilt, but would be a great leaders and enders project. If you used blocks that were larger than 5 inches, it would be a great way to make a large quilt quickly. I am not sure if the design would show up very well, however.
The Pies & Points top and back are done! I really could have used TFQ’s help with the piecing, but I am pleased with the overall design. Quilting won’t solve all of it’s little piecing challenges, but quilting will flatten it out and give it some structure.
I used all the blocks I made and am happy with the look. I like the Points blocks and how they look like flags. The Pies blocks and half blocks add a bit more interest and give the piece a kind of pink circus feel.
I am also happy I used a non neutral background. I like that look and need to get back to doing it more.
The back is done, too. I should have done yoga that day, but instead I pulled fabric off the background stack and made the back.
I plan to give this away so I didn’t choose any of my Philip Jacobs fabrics. I did pull some fabrics from Queen Street. I have some leftover after the BAMQG IRR and thought they would work.
Friend Julie and I started a project together. This isn’t the first project we have worked on together. We have worked on Bullseye quilt projects together, the Windmill quilts and Julie’s Tumbler quilts. I enjoy working on projects with her.
This project started with me asking for the Pantone Postcard Box for a gift. Friend Julie got it for me, then we started talking about doing something quilty with it.
We threw ideas back and forth, but recently we got together for lunch and laid out our guidelines. It was a lot easier to make the list when we were together, though I suppose we could have done it on the phone as well.
We decided we would use the units Doreen Speckmann recommends in her Pattern Play book. I LOVED Doreen Speckmann’s classes. I have had the book for a long time, but Friend Julie bought it recently. It is a technique book, though there are a few patterns. Doreen shows readers how to make and use different units to make quilts look more personalized. These were the types of books that were written in the past whereas now people just write books that tell you how to make a certain quilt with certain fabric. I don’t see that I have written a book review on this book, but it might be time.
That being said, this is a block based book and, thus The Pantone Project will be a block based quilt.
“Supplies” Needed:
Decisions to Make:
Every week or so we send each other a postcard. The interval is pretty random, but we aren’t letting months go by. I was on a trip recently and didn’t send any that week, but sent one as soon as I got back.
The postcards have a certain Pantone color. From the color we will choose a solid, tone-on-tone or ‘reads as solid’ fabric to use for the block.
We decided to use the same background and bought some together the other day. We bought a cool grey called Blossom by Riley Blake. Christopher Thompson is the designer. I don’t know why it is called Blossom since there is not one blossom-y color on it. Some of the other fabrics in the line are more blossom-like. Anyway, this is a really good grey, which is now washed and waiting to be incorporated into blocks. You can see more of the design of the fabric on Julie’s blog.
Our units will be 4 inches finished (4.5 inches unfinished).
We will make two blocks, plus cut two squares and send one block and one square to the other person. At the moment, I am behind and won’t be able to get started until later this week or next week. Julie has a nice picture of the postcards I have sent on her blog. She also made one block already. I need to get busy, and will soon.
I hope you find a friend and play along.
Resources:
**Obviously, you should shop at a local quilt shop. However, I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
Carina Gardner’s Simply Modern Patchwork Quilts: 12 Posy Garden Quilts and Sewing Projects for the Beginning Quilter by Carina Gardner
I received this book for free as an affiliate of Creative Fabrica. It is a self-published ebook, which you can find on the Creative Fabrica site. I was able to download it as a PDF, which opened with no problems in my normal PDF viewing software.
The table of contents contains an Introduction, Guest Pattern Designers and then Patterns in Section 1 and Finishing in Section 2 (pg.4).
In the Introduction, Ms. Gardner talks about how she came to quiltmaking and relays that she designed a fabric line for Riley Blake which debuted in 2016 at Quilt Market in Salt Lake City. She names the guest designers who are all new to me. There are brief bios of these designers on page 6.
Patterns start immediately with a design called Modern Granny Pillow. This design, made with larger squares, could be a donation top design really easily. The pattern is 3-4 pages long. The page numbers disappear when the patterns start.
An eBook makes it hard for me to flip through and decide on my favorite pattern. I like the first pattern for the possibilities. The second pattern, however, a Sawtooth Star mini quilt, appeals just because I love Sawtooth Stars. Gardner calls the pattern “Clean Star”.
The patterns use a variety of different techniques. The Starburst Paper Pieced Pattern is paper pieced and the paper piecing patterns to make the project are included right with the text, not at the end of the book, as with most commercial publications. That is a nice feature. I notice that there is no ‘square’ included with the paper piecing pattern to help readers figure out the size. Of course, you can make it whichever size you want.
Some great quilting is shown in the Garden Prairie Mini Quilt by Christine Cook. This is the last pattern in the book and does not include instructions for quilting.
All of the patterns are fairly easy and very appealing, especially when using bright fabrics contrasted with bright whites or cool greys. More traditional calicos and even Civil War prints would look good, too.
Section 2 about finishing starts immediately after the patterns. The first part talks about backing. The author discusses how much is needed depending on the type of quilting. She also talks about how to finish pillows and discusses challenges with ending up with different sized projects.
The Binding subsection follows. Ms. Gardner makes clear that she cuts all bindings on the straight of the grain. She mentions bias binding and how it stretches, but does not compare the two types of bindings or enumerate the benefits of bias binding. In the book, they are considered equivalent.
Ms Gardner shows how to bind a quilt including creating a mitered corner and creating an invisible join. The Finishing section also talks about piping. I have not seen piping included in very many books I have reviewed. She uses width-of-fabric (WOF) strips whereas I might use bias strips. Clearly WOF strips have worked for the author.
There is no supply list for this section and I think that might be helpful because she springs the fact that the reader needs a zipper foot midway through the process. Still, the instructions are basic, but clear and make me want to try piping again.
There are two full quilt patterns in the book as Easter Eggs (like in video games). Both are expanded from other projects in the book.
If you need quick, satisfying and relatively easy patterns, this book will satisfy your desire. Pull some favorite fabrics out of your stash and any loss of sewing mojo will be quickly restored.
Month 12 arrived and I did a bit of cutting, but thought I could do the rest when I went to Sew Day. I was almost able to finish, but not quite. I spent some time that same day to finish after I got home, but before dinner. That was exciting because that meant I could start working on M12 right after dinner. ( yes, I lead a simple life. Partying for me is an evening with John Barnaby and my DH. 🙂 )
It was a bit of a trial to cut and baste. I didn’t want to use the Squirrel or Raccoon fabric. Because I am determined to use the fabric, I tried really hard to fussy cut around the squirrels and raccoons. I couldn’t find an appealing angle that would give me enough of the shapes I needed. It didn’t help that that shape I needed was the largest pentagon.
I switched the fabrics out when I got home. I used the coneflowers instead of the raccoons and the Daydreamer flamingo fabric instead of the squirrels. I alternated the flamingos with another part of the fabric that included more blue and green to help with the transition between rosettes. Apparently, birds are not animals in my crazy mind and I don’t mind them looking at me through eternity.
Anyway, I am super excited to be working on this project again.
I finally finished the blocks and laid out the quilt the way I pretty much want it. I am still fiddling with the Pie half blocks, but otherwise this is how the quilt will look. Obviously, I have to fill in the background.
I am a little concerned about the large spaces of background, but I can’t really process how they will look with the white of my design wall showing through.
The Rainbow Color Strip donation top has been stalled, mostly. Since the last time I posted about it, I have added some blocks, but the top is not done. I haven’t made much progress, which is frustrating.
I blame yellow.
You might remember I finished the Yellow Improv donation top in April. When I made that piece, I used every speck of yellow scraps in my yellow scrap drawer. I don’t always use a lot of yellow, so that was years worth of yellow scraps. Since April, I have cut only a few, oddly shaped yellow scraps. In order to make the above blocks into a true rainbow quilt, I need yellow.
I can just cut some from yardage, right? What’s the problem? That is definitely the problem. What is holding me up from just cutting a few strips from yardage and making the dang yellow strip blocks?
I have no idea, but that time is coming to an end. I want these blocks off my design wall and into the hands of a quilter in the guild. I need the space for another project.
As a side note, I don’t put these donation tops on my UFO or WIP or to do list. I only work on one at a time, mostly, and I never take them off my design wall until they are done. You are probably thinking “hey, what about the American Jane Plus top and the Ends n.14 (Typewriter) top?” Yes, I made both of those while this Rainbow Strips top was on the design wall. That is why I said ‘mostly’.
I am still working hard on Pies & Points. I have mostly finished the blocks, except for a couple of seams. I am also closing in a layout about which I am relatively happy, too.
There are a few adjustments I need to make.
I didn’t have enough of the right pieces to make all the blocks I wanted. I should have gone over to Friend Julie’s house and cut them using her Sizzix (we got the Sizzix die in the class), but I didn’t think I would need many pieces, so I cut a few by hand, then cut a few more and a few more. I still have a few more to cut.
Once I get the layout done, I’ll have to start putting it together. You can see from the shapes that I won’t be able to put it together in rows exactly. I see some Partial Seams in my future.