While I haven’t done a lot on Serendipity Puzzle, I have made a little progress. I cut a bunch of patches and then started creating the Flying Geese elements. I wanted to have enough to be able to move the elements around and have some choices for color.
The other day, I rearranged some of the elements to start some of the other blocks that I need.
I happened to slap the above patches up on the design wall and found that I really liked the color combination. Something about the progression from red to the green stripe appeals to me. I want to figure out a way to keep them near each other in a block.
The good news is that I found out why the yellow pieces were causing me some problems. In the above photo, you can see (on the left) that the yellow point is really sticking out. It was quite a puzzle (no pun intended), but St. JCN helped me figure out that I had cut the squares too large. I switched rulers mid stream and was stuck on the cutting that I did for Thoughts on Dots and cut the same size (6.50″) for the yellow patch rather than the 6.25″ it should have been.
The offensive patch is still in the piece, but not for long. I will unsew it soon. I tossed the other too large triangles into the scrap basket, I can’t accidentally grab them. They will become something else someday.
In case you hadn’t noticed, December and July seem to be bad months for blogging for me. Don’t give up! This, too, shall pass. Like everyone else I am busy, though trying to be relaxed about the whole holiday thing. The cards are done, except for a few “problems” and one where the card and address are never in the same place at the same time. We’ll get there. Presents, pies, TTSP!
Blogger seems to be bleeding quiltmakers. Both Deirdre and DebR of the famous Red Shoe Rambling have defected to other blog services. In any case, I have set up an account on WordPress as well, but haven’t moved everything there yet. Darn! Not a trendsetter this time. Stay tuned.
Whew! A major project is over with today and now I feel like I can breathe with no guilt.
Gift Bags
Gift Bags
Last weekend (when I was breathing WITH guilt) I stopped for awhile and made some gift bags. Every year I make some new ones in addition to the ones we use from previous years. Each year some are given away and we get some new ones from other family members who make them. All of mine are in storage so I have to make a bunch this year or else, God forbid, wrap gifts in wrapping paper. Bleah!
Gift bags are GREAT for the following reasons:
1. No buying gift paper or tape. This saves time, money and energy!
2. You get to use all that quilting fabric you bought for that Christmas quilt you never got around to making.
3. Easy to wrap.
4. Easy to rewrap. If the gift tag falls off, just untie the ribbon, look in the bag and put a new gift tag on it.
5. You get to see your cool fabric over and over each year.
6. Wrapping gifts takes half the time. (Yes, you have to make the bags, which takes time, but once that is over with – and you were going to sew anyway, right? – gift wrapping is easy.)
7. You can get lots of Christmas fabric on sale after Christmas inexpensively.
8. You can use this idea for any gift giving holiday.
9. Your friends and family will be impressed.
10. Use up fabric you won’t use in a quilt, but still like.
11. GREAT for those large conversationals.
12. Quick to make.
13. You don’t have to wash the fabric, because the sizing gives body to the fabric.
14. Great way to try out different embellishments and stitches using your fancy machine.
For those of you who love to wrap gifts, don’t make these. For everyone else: make a bunch and impress all of your friends.
I spent the day in Berkeley walking around. It was a beautiful day, even if a little windy at times. I saw many cool things that were great inspiration, but these were the ones of which I took photos. What can you make with them? I will post an image for anyone who makes something with these photos as a starting point (rated E, G or PG! or at my discretion). Comment to the blog and I will get in touch with you!
Serendipity Puzzle is my new project. It uses the latest group of Piece O’ Cake fabrics, called Serendipity, plus some of the woven plaids from their 4th plaids collection. The plaids I am using are POCP 437G, POCP 437O, POCP 437R, POCP 437T, and POCP 437Z. I bought these fabrics in June at Quilting Adventures during my trip to Maryland and Virginia.
This project is a follow-up to Thoughts on Dots as I am still using color and giving myself some limits (using, basically, one line of fabric). This time however, I am doing more piecing. Initially I am finding that piecing blocks allows me to sew a few seams, even if I have only a few minutes, thus making progress. Thoughts on Dots required larger blocks of time for the staring and arranging part as well as once I started sewing. Neither is bad, just different. It is satisfying to be mindful of the process.
P&B offered a free pattern for this line of fabric, which I liked and provided inspiration. Ultimately, however, I decided not to use it. I am doing a variation on the triangles theme from the free pattern but using the Dutchman’s Puzzle design. I think the Dutchman’s Puzzle pattern is more organized than the pattern they offer. The free pattern has a nice look, just not for me at this time. I guess I need order in my life!
I plan to use the turquoise for the sashing and borders like P&B/Piece O’ Cake does, but am thinking of slight variation. Stay tuned for more info as that part of the project develops.
In the above photo you can see that I have cut and selected some of the fabrics in preparation for piecing.
Above is a detail of the center block.
Several days pass….
On and off since the second week of November, I sewed a few seams as time permitted, steadily making progress. I don’t plan on setting the blocks this way, but wanted to see how they would look together. This also allows me to review the use of fabric and identify any problems that may be developing. As you can see, I have several blocks and have still not used all of the fabrics from the line. I flipped over the stack of fat quarters so I would cut some new ones the next time I cut the larger triangles.
Some issues I want to work through with this piece:
1. Distribution of the red: I think that the red is necessary, at least at this point in the piece, but it seems to be a bit dominant, so I need to take care where I place it. I also want to use different reds. There are 3 or 4 in this group.
2. Mixing up the various prints: I need to think about whether to place duplicates of fabrics in one block or to ensure that all the blocks have different fabrics. This depends on the number of different fabrics that I cut as well as similar colorways in different patterns.
3. Brown: I am afraid that the brown will be a dark hole, but like the chocolately feel of it. I may, in the end, take it out (yes, that means unsewing), but I want to wait to see how it looks when I have more blocks.
4. Number of blocks: I am not sure. I think I will make at least 9 and possibly 16. I am thinking that this will be a baby quilt for a friend. We will see.
5. Variation in blocks? : I am thinking about mixing 1-3 regular pinwheels in with the Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks to add interest. I may make a couple just to see how they look. As Lorraine Torrence says in her design classes “Make visual decisions visually.”
I experimented with pressing on two of the blocks. One I pressed towards the white (example: top) and one I pressed towards the color (example: bottom). I think it is hard to tell the difference online, but in person, if you look, you can tell that the color pops forward more on the bottom one. Ruth McDowell talks about this in her classes and her Piecing book. I don’t think it is relevant for this piece, but it is an interesting exercise.
I am back in study mode and reading a couple of books on quiltmaking and art. One of them is Itten: the elements of color: a treatise on the color system of Johannes Itten based on his book the Art of Color.
If you have not seen Itten’s color wheel, it looks like
Itten’s Color Star
.
If you buy the color wheel (or Color Star as Itten calls it), it comes as a set with covers for the color wheel that allow you to see the complements, split complements and the triads, etc without the interference of the other colors. Buy it at Amazon or your favorite local art store. Expensive, but totally worth the money.
Anyway, The Elements of Color is a condensed version of the The Art of Color. I haven’t yet read the entire book and may not before I have to take it back to the library, but found a few tidbits that are worth thinking about.
pg.8: “Knowledge of the laws of design need not imprison, it can liberate from indecision and vacillating perception. What we call laws of color, obviously, can be no more than fragmentary, given the complexity and irrationality of color effects.”
It seems to be that the author is saying that by knowing the laws of design and color, we can use all or parts or none to liberate us from indecision in the design process. This seems to be that old adage about knowing the rules allows you to make a conscious decision to break them.
pg.12: “Developments in color chemistry, fashion, and color photography have aroused a broad general interest in colors, and the color sensitivity of the individual has been greatly refined. But this contemporary interest in color is almost wholly visual, material in character and not grounded in intellectual and emotional experience. It is a superficial, external toying with metalphysical forces.”
I think this is an interesting statement because it implies that there is more to seeing color that the visual-sensory perception. In fact, Itten talks a lot about the study of color including how color is used, what it means, how other artists used color and the various implications of the use of color. This brings me back to other books I have read about colors being associated with emotion, the meanings of color in different cultures, etc. It also made me think about how colors are associated with different aspects of religion (blue for the Virgin Mary) and different events in our lives (black for death in the West, white for death in the East).
Below is the last iteration of the corner I was working on. It was amazing that when I woke up and looked at it on Sunday morning I REALLY liked the piece. I was lukewarm (and somewhat worried) about it on Saturday, but kept working through it and feel like the work paid off.
I realize that the changes are subtle and those of you in blogland will have to study them to see the differences, but here IRL, there were differences that mattered.
The piece is a monster, so, without help, this is the best photo I could take. I’ll get a better one up.
The two photos above are how I left Thoughts on Dots before Halloween and my trip to Arizona. One fabric (Top photo: 4th from the bottom and 3rd from the right) looked like a plaid and had to be removed. Fabrics that were too beige had to go as well. I did leave a couple that were beige-ish, but still very “dotty.”
The problem with the above layout is that the white background fabrics I added are too active. In this entire piece the white, IMO, is acting like a resting point for the viewer’s eyes. In this section the whites are not doing their job. I separated some of them before I took this photo, but it still wasn’t working quite right.
I think the other problem was the differences in sizes of the dots. I didn’t have them mixed up enough.
This photo is a bit wonky. I am really having some problems taking photos of this large piece, because of the construction and all the stuff being where it is not supposed to be. In any case, I think that this is nearly the end of the design phase. The piece is really coming together, which is great, because I was really unhappy with the layout when I got back to it last night.
I spent a few days in Monterey at a conference and had it on my list to go to Back Porch Fabrics. I missed them by a few minutes on Sunday after my drive down, but went on a lunch break on Tuesday and, even though I only had a few minutes, it was great. What a wonderful store! It is light and airy with bright, bright colors. So different from the dreary browns I have been subjected to recently.
Additionally, Jean, a CQFA member was there working. We were able to have a nice little chat while she cut my fabrics. I got some great fabrics.
I also bought the relatively new Sandra Meech Book, Creative Quilts. It was an impulse buy, but the displays were so good at Back Porch that I couldn’t help myself. I almost bought another as well, but restrained myself.
Creative Quilts
Before I left on my trip, I ordered some more additional pieces of the Serendipity fabrics (these are the Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins fabrics from P&B not the new Robbi Joy colelction) from Joyce at Quilting Adventures. I am gearing up to make the quilt out of the whole line and want to use the turquoise as the sashing and some of the border. Most of these fabrics you have seen before. You can see them in one of my August posts. They were waiting for me when I returned.
She sent them along with a nice little note. What a pleasure to work with her. If you have not been to Joyce’s store, go there on your way into or out of Washington DC. If you can’t go to the shop, at least take a look at the shop blog. It will give you a sense of the shop. You can also take a look at the some June posts to get a sense of my experience there. I did take some photos of the shop, but can’t find them now. If I come across them, I will edit this post, so check back. QA will be moving in December, so any photos I post will be archival footage anyway.
Here it is right before I sewed the bottom right hand side together:
Here is the bottom right hand side sewed together:
Here is the top of the left hand side (the side I have completed) with the joining rows laid out next to it:
Below are the rectangles that I cut for my aunt’s quilt:
After taking this photo, I sewed them together by putting two rectangles together relatively randomly and sewing them. I did try to put a warm color with a cool color most of the time to try and get some contrast going. I didn’t, however, put them up on the design and arrange them. I thought it would be a different kind of challenge to sew two together and then put them up on the design wall and try to arrange them. I also did this in the interests of speed. She is very ill and I want to get the quilt done.
Also, Thoughts on Dots is still hogging up the design wall space. The portable design wall we saw at PIQF is looking pretty good right now!
Books and Media: If you haven’t bought the book, Collaborative Quilting by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston, RUN don’t walk to the nearest quilt shop to buy it. Collaborative Quilting couldn’t be more perfect. It was only $20, had techniques and NO patterns. The BEST part was that it has color photos on at least 85% of the 255 pages. If you love fabric and learning techniques (not patterns) and making FUN quilts and looking at FUN quilts, then this book is for you. This is the perfect book for me! I can wander through it and look at the quilts and the fabric combinations and read the bits on color that Freddy writes, peruse Gwen’s liberating quiltmaking. This is the kind of book that inspires me to be creative. I am going to look out for more Sterling Press books, because I think they are reaching beyond the pattern books on which most quilt publishers are focusing. They are not pandering to the lowest common denominator; they are encouraging us to reach.
We also ordered the Journal Quilt book. It wasn’t ready to bring to the show, so Patricia Bolton of Quilting Arts magazine and Cloth, Paper Scissors offered us (and everyone else, I suppose) free shipping if we ordered it then and there. I can’t give a complete review, because I haven’t seen it yet, but, again, no patterns. Lots of pictures of the journal quilts. I am looking forward to another source of inspiration.
There were a group of Alzheimer’s quilts at PIQF, which were some of the best quilts there. No pictures were allowed, but they had a CD, which we bought.
Fabric and Materials: The Scrappy Appleyard (alas, no website that I could find) can be reached at (702) 806-8918. They were unbelieveably nice to us when we were looking for a certain pink striped fabric. They let us take a photo of one of their quilts and didn’t act like we were taking food out of their children’s mouths for asking. I am not sure why I am so surprised, but the whole (true or not true?) idea of all quiltmakers being friends was highly overrated in the vendor area. The vendors didn’t really seem happy to be at PIQF this year. There were lots of signs saying not to take pictures of their quilt samples. I can understand wanting people to buy the patterns, but the signage seemed very offputting. I am sure there is better terminology. “Please ask before you photograph” provides a way for the vendors to get people interested in their products and makes a connection with a potential customer.
I love the different widths of that pink stripe and also the pink and white diamond. Nobody else knew what the fabric was, but the owner of the Apple Scrapyard did and we were able to find it on the web. We would have called her and bought it from her, but she said she didn’t have anymore. I believe I have a pink quilt in me that is dying to come out. It needs to get in line!
With the information that the Apple scrapyard lady gave us, we were able to find both pieces on the web from a store in Texas. I am glad to have a piece and got that bug out of my ear.
The Good, the Bad and Not the Ugly: On the way home, we stopped at a store in San Mateo called Always Quilting. We had vaguely tried to find the store before, but were in completely the wrong part of San Mateo. The Bad: The store is hard to find! It is in an anonymous office complex with NO signage outside on the street or on the building. My unsolicited suggestion was a sandwich board or something that they could set up on the street. The location seems to me to be big problem in terms of sales. I am not their financial consultant and I hope their online store is making up for the lack of foot traffic. We perservered, however, and did eventually find it. The good part was that there was PLENTY of off street parking. Those office buildings have huge parking lots and with none of the workers there we didn’t have to lug our purchases very far. 🙂 They said that they were planning to move towards the end of the year to a different space. Good plan! I really wish them well. It is nice to know that there is a nice sized store with great fabrics nearby.
The store also looked like a hurricane had hit it. It was a wreck with bolts of fabric every where. Some of it was that they had so much fabric. I am sure part of it was that they had pulled many bolts from the shelves to gear up for PIQF, but I was tripping over fabric and that was not a good thing. I am sure their new space will be better and I look forward to seeing it.
The Good: They have great fabrics and a big space. I found a great group of snowflake-like dots by Moda that we had not seen before. I have already cut pieces of some of them for Thoughts on Dots and have found the colorways to be quite useful for cheering up the piece.
They also have a long arm machine and may be getting a new one. They give classes on how to use the longarm and that appeals to me. While I may not want to longarm all of my quilts, I am interested in the process and think I could work with my quilter better, if I knew more about the process. They will be giving classes after the first of the year and I will try and sign up for one.
Fabric Chores: I got my act together to wash the fabric and St. JCN, kind and generous soul that she is, pressed and folded it all for me.
The chores fabrics on the bottom in the photo above I plan to use in the Women’s Work series. You can see Women’s Work 1 at Artquiltmaker.com. Another piece, Women’s Work 2, is still in process. It uses techniques and ideas from a Gwen Marston class I took a few years ago.
As you can see this series starts with red. Glad I have enough.
St. JCN also helped me dig up my front flower bed, get out the bulbs and replant them. We had to buy a few more bulbs, because many had disappeared somewhere unknown and some were rotten. This is the beginning of the landscaping of my yard. This is not something I want to do, but I want it done and St. JCN is good at it and will lead me through it by the hand. HOpefully it won’t be too painful. 😉
Other Thoughts: The show was very crowded and sometimes I get overwelmed with noise and visual stimulation. I thought that, if I were alone, bringing some kind of portable music device (iPod, Discman, Walkman, Muvo, etc.) with your soothing music of choice might be a way of keeping overstimulation to a minimum. It might look a little unfriendly, though.
I found a photo of this quilt in a folder on my computer. Suddenly, I am enamored of it! I think it would be great with black for the center square, bright colors for the crosses and black on white for the in between patches.
This is what I think one block looks like.
Cross Block -1 Block
Right now I am trying to draft it. I wish I knew the name. This is where image search would come in handy, because I would like to just pull it up in EQ5 and be done with it. The first draft that I did in EQ5 on my own isn’t working.
I need to know the name and whether or not it is a Kansas City Star block or a Laura Wheeler block or one of the other designers, so I can locate it. I may just look through my Kansas City Star patterns and see if I can find it.
It would also be nice to know where I took this picture. I have no clues except that it was taken in 1999. The quilt is draped over something, so I don’t think it was at a show.
