I have not been making blocks for this project. Not for lack of desire, but I have had too much else going on. With Christmas over and the Young Man off to visit Grandma, I hope to turn my attention to the mess that I call a workroom.
I had the Leaning Tower of Pisa of fabrics on my cutting table and it occurred to me that I had too many fabrics for the Tale of Two Cities piece. I took all the fabrics off the cutting table and laid them out then removed some, which I won’t be using for the blocks anymore.
Tale of Two Cities Fabrics – Dec 2014
My final choices, which may still evolve as I work through the blocks are shown on the left. I may have two many lights, but as I am using my phone as a camera these days, it just may be that they look lighter than they are.
I didn’t really want to keep the octopus fabric in, but it is distinctive. I have used it several times, so I didn’t feel I could leave it out without it being noticed. However, I may have used it enough so that I can spread blocks with it out over the quilt and the quilt will look fine.
I want to get back in the saddle and make a few more of these blocks in the not too distant future.
I forgot to take these quilt blocks to the meeting on Saturday, but that gives me the opportunity to show them to you.
They are the regular postage stamp block pattern the guild does. Even though I am working on the Teenage Boy Black & Grey Donation Quilt, I took the kits for these two blocks at the November meeting and just sewed them up as leaders and enders.
Peggy the Awesome puts them together and I just love these. I know a couple of the fabrics came from my scraps, but it is fun to see them again. I really like the scrappiness of the blocks.
Cheryl’s Donation Quilt
Similar blocks were turned into a quilt by Cheryl. I really like her border treatment. Isn’t it a cheerful quilt? These blocks are great.
Recently Frances posted on Twitter about the name of a block. She posted the picture of a quilt. I didn’t see the thread until several people had chimed in and Nonnie had tried to draft the block. There are three tools I use to find the names of blocks:
Barbara Brackman’s book, Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, published by the American Quilter’s Society, 1993. I have the reprinted edition. This book is out of print, so you should buy it where ever you see a good used copy.
Blockbase, an electronic version of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.
Brackman’s book is the original scholarly block dictionary. It was not the first block dictionary, but it was the first book, that I know of, that attempted to organize blocks into families/type and note their origin.
Beyer’s book went much farther, but, clearly, built off Brackman’s book. There are more references to sources, more drafting information and more of an attempt to group blocks in the Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns.
Grecian Cross Notecard
BlockBase is a wonderful tool for actually drafting blocks and printing templates or rotary cutting directions. However, not all of the information from the Brackman book is included in BlockBase. Many of the blocks have only the Brackman number rather than all of the names. I make an effort to amend the notecards in BlockBase as I come across new or additional information that would improve retrieval. For example, a very common name of the block above is Grecian Cross. This name was listed in the Brackman book, but was not in BlockBase, so I added it.
It is helpful to know something about drafting to use any of these tools. By ‘drafting,’ I mean knowing the basic structure of blocks, e.g. is the basic structure a 4 patch or a 9 patch? The reason this is important is that if you only have a picture of the block, it cuts down on the number of blocks you need to look through if you know the basic structure.
Sadly, using patterns all the time does not foster the understanding of the basic structure of blocks, because the quiltmaker only needs to follow the directions of the designer/patternmaker.
Knowing a block’s structure is also helpful in designing quilts of your own. You may not want to mix 9 patch structured blocks with 4 patch structured blocks as the seam lines won’t always line up nicely. Or you may want to look a a variety of different 16 patch blocks so that you can design a quilt with an interesting secondary pattern.
These tools are not only good for looking up block names, but are also good to learn to understand the structure of blocks, get inspiration for new quilts and see how the authors have colored the quilts. You really need these books, if you have any serious interest in quiltmaking beyond buying fabric and making quilts.
You might notice that blocks have different names. People took blocks and republished them under different names or added a line here or divided a square there and deemed it a new block. This phenomenon is still happening today and it is something of which we just need to keep track.
Can you tell that I don’t know what to call these blocks? I really have to look the pattern up in Barbara Brackman’s book or Jinny Beyer’s book and see if they have a real name.
First PIQF Crosses
I haven’t made a ton of progress since I last talked about this project. I seem to have not had much time to sew in the past week or so. I finally took a few minutes last night while I was waiting for dinner to finish to sew the blocks together. It really only took a few minutes. I finished two of the blocks I have in process, but the others need fabric cut and I wasn’t set up to do that.
I was able to use scraps for most of the pieces as they are small, which is really good since my scrap bins seem to be overflowing. Still, the blocks are small and, thus, a pain to sew. In my haste I cut off some points, which I will need to remedy if we are going to continue making these blocks. I am not sure I like them well enough to make a whole quilt out of them.
TFQ & JHL Blocks
I think they do look nice together. I like the scrappy look. We didn’t intend to use all blues for the crosses, but it seems to have worked out that way. The others I have in process do not have blue or blue green or aqua in the center.
So, my blocks will be winging their way to TFQ today. It is possible that I’ll have more time to sew tomorrow and will send some on Monday.
These are the blocks we saw in the quilt at PIQF. I had a bad start with these blocks.
PIQF Inspiration Blocks
I started making them before I went to Houston and the pain and suffering was almost beyond endurance. OK, I am exaggerating, but I couldn’t understand why the square in a square pieces took so long to make. I really have had very few issues like this with blocks.
While I was in Houston, TFQ sent me one of her blocks. I put on the wall as inspiration for my blocks. When I finally got the square in a square pieces (ONLY the square in a square pieces, mind you, there are 5 additional pieces in this block) finished and up on the design wall, I found they were wrong. Much too small.
Huh?
I went back and checked the measurements and found that I had cut wrong or read the directions and cut wrong or something. Bleah. This was a total head on desk moment.
Once I got the dimensions correct, the square in a square pieces went relatively well. I put the first block together relatively quickly. I was able to cut pieces for the other blocks from some scraps, which was great.
There are lots of pieces in this block, but being able to use scraps is a bonus. I have to make time to sew about 10 more seams and then send them off. Wish me luck.
I thought about posting this under “Doing Good”, but while I think I am doing good for the guild, it isn’t really service to the community. At least I don’t think it is. Hhmm. Philosophy so early in the morning. I am sure you appreciate that.
I wasn’t at the August meeting to get my block kit. Since I definitely wanted to contribute to the support of the guild, I asked for a block kit and Ruth was kind enough to send me one. Sadly she didn’t have any turquoise kits left so I ended up with mauve-y colors. That’s what I get for not being at the meeting.
I left the fabric laying around near me for a week or so. I kept meaning to do it before I went back to work, but didn’t so the weekend before the meeting, I decided it was time. I decided to make a test block for my Tale of Two Cities quilt using the Opportunity block as the tester.
Tester is the wrong word. I knew I could make the next blocks. It was more of kick in the rear end to get me back in ToTCi gear. Just what I needed.
The idea, as I understand it, is everyone makes what ever blocks they want in a 6.5″ size, heavy on the squares and rectangles, and then sews them together into a 12.5″ block. Ruth has a plan and will put them together.
BAMQG Opportunity Block
She must be a master, because I had just enough fabric. The photo (left) shows how much fabric I had left. I should have put a quarter in with the shards so you could see how little was left.
I didn’t make a bunch of different blocks and put them together; I just made one and repeated it. Repeating the structure not the fabric, because I didn’t have enough to make all of the blocks the same.
BAMQG Opportunity Block
This one block design makes up four blocks into a new combination. The block looks different made up from four blocks
I made serious progress on the blocks for this quilt last weekend. As I mentioned, I took photos Friday (a week ago). That really prepared me for knowing what I needed to do to make some progress.
Finding the blocks, which had gotten stuff under a pile of fabric, was a really good start.
I laid out all of the blocks and realized that though it is getting there, I still need more blocks. The layout is 6×5 right now, but I might need to make it skinner and longer. Mrs. K’s quilt is on my mind, though, and putting the blocks on point is skittering around on the edges of my brain.
6 more Black/Grey Donation blocks
As soon as I had an idea of where I was, I gathered up all the parts of blocks that were on my sewing table and sewed them together. That added another 6 blocks to the group of blocks above.
My blocks have a lot of fabric repeats, but I think when all the blocks are put together (like above), the duplicates don’t matter so much.
I also think that Jackie and Cheryl’s blocks blend in nicely.
I didn’t sew any new blocks as I tried to work on the Russian Rubix using parts for a new journal cover as the leaders and enders.
I haven’t made a lot of additional progress since my last City Sampler/Tale of Two Cities update, but I have made a little. Frankly, I haven’t been at the machine much, so little progress has been made on anything.
City Sampler no.21
I was able to sneak in some of the background fabric on this block (No.21), because that one square is surrounded completely by other fabric. I am interested to know how those bits of background will look once I have all the blocks done.
As I look at it, I remember Sue’s (from CQFA) Eat, Play, Sleep, Repeat baby quilts. Blown up this might make an interesting baby quilt. Not that I made baby quilts.
City Sampler No.22
I also made it to No.22, after a couple of tries. AND, Patti and Nicki will be pleased to know that I used strip piecing! I didn’t really get it that the strips needed to be different sizes for different parts of the block. Sometimes I wonder about my brain.
I really hate to admit it, but I think I have too many projects going on that are in a similar stage.
Lots of piecing, no shortage of leaders and enders means that only a little is getting done on any of them.
More blocks was a bit ambitious of a title, but hope springs eternal.
I feel fortunate that I can contribute to a charity that helps people locally by using my sewing and quilting skills. I don’t think that contributing to charity should be unpleasant or painful and making quilts or quilt blocks is an awesome way to contribute.
That being said, this year has not been the most stellar example of charity quiltmaking on my part. Life is like that sometimes. I think I am back in the saddle with my charity-teenager-boy quilt.
I wrote about my whole dilemma a little while ago and got 3 blocks almost immediately from a quilt-mate. I also got a promise of blocks from a Twitter friend. I was so excited that these lovely women just made and gave! Quiltmakers are often such nice people. Thanks, ladies.
4 More Black/Grey Donation Blocks
Their generosity got me going again and I made eight blocks last weekend in between sewing on the facing to See and sewing triangles on to the Russian Rubix octagons.
I was feeling a little stuck in terms of fabrics. I really want this quilt to be interesting even with the limited ‘color’ palette. I dug into my grey box and got some new greys. I had a few black scraps around, so I cut those up into 2.5″ squares and that made the project a little more interesting.
I have over 20 blocks now and if I had even a few feet of space on one of my design walls, I would put the blocks up to look at them and see how large the quilt could be. I don’t expect or want it to be bed sized, but teenaged boys are large and I want to make sure it will cover most of one.
Last 4 Black/Grey Weekend Blocks
I really would like to get this project into a quilt top as I don’t want it to get to the point where it is dragging me down. I want the project to be filled with positive energy. I guess I just have to do it!
City Sampler No.20City Sampler No.19City Sampler No.18City Sampler No.16
I have been making more blocks; I just haven’t had a chance to post them. I only made it to 21 blocks, though I really tried to make 25 (1/4 of the total blocks) before the last meeting.
At least there is no real consequences for not making my goal except for a little disappointment in not trying just a bit harder.
At the meeting, we each showed the blocks we had made. I brought all of mine, though Patti, also in the small group, has seen a few of them. I have to try and remember not to show the same blocks again.
Patti is doing hers in batiks and I love the look.
Nicki joined us and is doing hers with scrappy fabrics choosing fabrics based on her whim of the moment. What a freeing experience!
I finished the crosses and am now in the rectangles. The small group is a great idea as people have good ideas on construction. I showed one of the rail fence type blocks at the meeting and both Nicki and Patti asked if I had made it using strip sets.
I was kind of shocked at myself that it hadn’t even occurred to me to use strips sets. I am not sure why, but it didn’t even occur to me use strip sets. Now that I am reminded, I will try to keep strip sets in mind.
I was looking for some pink fabric and, once I was finished, I rearranged my fabric bins. Now the aqua and turquoise bin was on the stop of the stack. I have a Leaning Tower of Pisa sized stack of fabric for this piece and yet, there is always the possibility that I will need more.
So, the project continues. How are you doing?
Previous Posts
June 5, 2014 – Various & Sundry #5 June 2014 (brief mention)
One problem I had with the previous post was that my Blockbase disk stopped working and I had to get a replacement disk before I could show you the templates or the detailed layout of the block.
I just received the disk, installed Blockbase and immediately looked up this block. Snowball Wreath was there in all its crazy glory.I am so impressed that Laura Wheeler would have the guts to make a block with such crazy templates. Talk about no fear!
They had used colors in the sample that weren’t to my taste, so I recolored the piece to look like the block I made way back when.
Snowball Wreath Block (drawing)
I saw the block colored, but I also looked at it for a long time in the drawing format. Can you believe those pieces? I am reminded why we don’t see very many quilts with this pattern. Of course, I haven’t see every quilt in the universe, so they could be out there waiting for the perfect time to show themselves so I have another blog post. 😉
Finally, you can see from the second block I colored that there are different ways to get different looks out of the block. I don’t think the second one looks quite as interesting, but it would definitely work if you wanted to fussy cut some fabric then put it in he middle.
I think I am back in the saddle with the Black & Grey donation blocks. I haven’t really worked on the piece since February 8 of this year. I feel bad about that, but I can only do what I can do. I figure that doing something slowly is better than doing nothing.
I have about 15 blocks now and am still thinking of making a teenaged boy donation quilt. It feels dauntingly large, though and I don’t know if I can make all of those blocks. Again, I have run out of a lot of choices of different fabrics, which I know won’t matter in 6 months, but now feels constraining.
I’ll just keep plugging away as best I can and see how it comes out. Kelly offered to help and I am hoping she has made some blocks to add to mine to spice up what I have made.
Longtime readers may remember my post about the Snowball Wreath block, a block originally published in the Kansas City Star in the 1930s as a Laura Wheeler design. It is number 1515 in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns with the name “Snowball Wreath.”
This came up again when Kelly found a newspaper clipping of the block on eBay and let me know about it. Since the block came up again, I did a Google search to see if any quilts had come up with this pattern. Lo and behold, Barbara Brackman had done a post on the block in 2009. I don’t read her blog regularly, though I should, and missed this post.
She talked about photos she had received of a quilt from Alabama. She recognized the block immediately as the Snowball Wreath. If you go to her blog, you can see that the quilt is actually made from blocks of that pattern!
It doesn’t look like the maker actually pieced the quilt from the pattern. It is hard to tell from a photo, but I think the ‘wreath’ part of the block was appliqued on to muslin.
Brackman gives information on getting the pattern and asks people to write in if they try the block or know of a quilt made up in the pattern.
The 2009 post is followed up with a January 2010 post with results of the query. In the post she talks about Vivian making the block and the changes she made to the pattern to make it pieceable.
I also found a reference to it in the Quilt Index. You can see a lot of the old newspaper patterns in the Quilt Index as well as examples of quilts and blocks. It is a worthy cause to which to donate.
ScrapHappy, who writes the soscrappy blog also tried the Snowball Wreath pattern and posted about it on her blog. she made it in miniature using paper piecing. This appears to be from some kind of BOM or group project from a shop called Sentimental Stitches. I came across a PDF with a pattern in my Google travels.
Flourishing Palms made a version of the block in 2011, though it is slightly different than the original. She calls the fabrics ugly, though I don’t think they are ugly. Again, to each his own. The interesting thing is that she wasn’t aware of my post or Barbara Brackman’s. She just flipped to it in Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns book. Odd and interesting!
Helen, from the Being, Nothingness and 1000 Quilt Blocks blog, wrote in another blog post, also from 2011, the block is shown with a bunch of others after a discussion of Existentialism! the goal of this blog was to create 1,000 quilt blocks and read 600 pages of Satre in one year. I don’t think she made her deadline, but she is still plugging away on both. It is interesting to read the Satre bits and then look at quilt blocks. The first post of the blog describes the project a bit and, on the Gallery page, she writes “… in my quest to complete all the quilt blocks in Maggi McCormick Gordon’s 1000 Great Quilt Blocks.” I want to do this kind of project some time. The Tula Pink City Sampler could be a warm-up for a larger project. Barbara Brackman’s book or Jinny Beyer’s book? Either would be a retirement project.
I have to say that this block still fascinates me and I might try another version.
I am having a hard time getting into the sewing groove. I am pretty sure it has to do with my ‘depression’ over my sewing machine. All the travel I have been doing gets me out of the groove as well. I know that you don’t notice the travel, because I continue to post, but I have been out of town all but 17 days since May 23.
In order to get into the sewing groove again, I decided to work on the City Sampler/Tale of Two Cities block challenge. I spent almost the entire day last Thursday sewing. I don’t feel like I accomplished much, but I keep reminding myself that it is about the process and not the product.
Before I started working on this most recent batch of City Sampler/Tale of Two Cities blocks, I was thinking that this project was fulfilling a goal in my quiltmaking adventure: to make all the blocks in a block dictionary. I never picked out a block dictionary to work from, but always thought I would do the blocks in Around the Block. I didn’t even realize that I had started to work my way through a block dictionary until recently. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. 😉
City Sampler no.11
I decided I’d like to make up to no.20 before the next BAMQG meeting. I had made 10 before I started on Thursday. My goal would have meant making 10 more blocks. The first block I made was, obviously, no.11. I am trying to go in order to keep everything straight, though I do veer off sometimes
I am not sure if I like this block. I love the fabrics, but the ice cream cones might be a bit much.
Also, the brown is still a problem for me. This is a similar, but different brown than the brown I used in the City Sampler block no.5. The dots are smaller and I was hoping that would help. I am thinking that the brown part of the background fabric will have to stand on its own in this quilt. I don’t think I will use anymore brown. I don’t know that I will remake the blocks I have made with brown, but we will see.
City Sampler no.12
Next up was no.12. I used the octopus fabric again. It is really fun fabric, but I don’t think it is working in this quilt. I actually forgot that I cut the plus pieces and imagined using the background fabric for the plus pieces. When I found I already cut the pieces from the octopus fabric, I put the block together. Then I decided to make it again with the background fabric and see which one I liked better.
City Sampler no.12 (#2)
I definitely like the one with the background fabric (Remix by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman). The background fabric works in this block, because it is surrounded completely with other fabrics, thus the fabric in the plus will not run into the background fabric, should I decide to surround the blocks with sashing or something.
Making sure that the background I use in the blocks doesn’t bleed into the sashing or border is a design choice. I don’t mind using the background fabric in the blocks since I really like it, but I want the blocks to be crisp and distinct. You might make a different choice as you work through design choices in your work. You can create a great effect by allowing one fabric to bleed into another, so don’t be afraid to try it.
City Sampler no.13
One member of our guild made a few of hte plus blocks and then skipped to the rectangles. She considered the pluses crosses and the motifs bugged her. I thought about this while I was sewing the blocks and I have to say that I didn’t think of them as crosses. I began thinking of them as pluses and continue to do so.
Whether you think of these blocks as crosses or pluses, I think there are enough blocks to remove a few from the running, as you prepare to put the blocks together into a top, to create a look that you really like.
No.13 looks odd to me – off balance or something. I realized that the outside still has a seam allowance so the pluses don’t looked balanced at the moment, but will once I put all the blocks together.
I briefly thought of posting new blocks on a weekly schedule like the Block-a-Long and the Creative Prompt. I don’t think I am quite that organized. We’ll see. For now I’ll just write posts as I sew the blocks.
This is a fun project and it is getting me to sew. I feel a small sense of accomplishment as well. All I have to say is that Friend Julie better be working on her blocks!
Previous Posts
June 5, 2014 – Various & Sundry #5 June 2014 (brief mention)
I started a couple of these blocks at the BAMQG Retreat in hopes of adding to the giant pile, but I just couldn’t get them done. I was using a non-quarter inch foot for the Petrillo Bag and that foot doesn’t work when I need a quarter inch seam.
I had a couple of extra kits at home and a set of 2.5′ squares (green batik, middle of top row), so I ran them through the sewing machine one afternoon and suddenly had 6 donation squares. I’ll bring them to the next meeting.
I have also been working on the grey and black donation quilt. We are getting into our foggy time of year and I may not be able to work on it much longer as it is too depressing. Not good for a donation quilt. I have a lot of squares cut, but enough blocks for a baby quilt. I was just kind of hoping to make a teenage boy sized top as the colors would be better for a teenaged boy. I will keep running the squares through the machine and see what happens.
