Truly, I don’t really know that, but this quilt looks like the same pattern as the block I used for FOTY 2009. What do you think?
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I talked about the selection and the resizing of this block in a post on February 16, 2009.
Tag: Blocks
Last of the FOTY?
I spent Sunday, and a few minutes on Saturday night, finishing up the FOTY blocks so I can take them to the CQFA Retreat. When I return from sewing bliss, I hope to have the quilt top ready to show you.
I really like the warm colors in this group. Some of the darker colors, especially the greens were given to me by my sis for my 2009 birthday.
Getting down to the bottom of the pile made matching up fabrics difficult. I tend to pull out the ones I really like and press and use those first. Some (not all!) of these were my lesser favorites.
In a way the FOTY exercise helps me train my eye and mind to choose fabrics I really love and want to use right away. At the same time, it trains my eye to avoid fabrics that are not my colors. Yes, I did find fabrics that I bought that made me wonder why I bought them. Before I buy, I think I will have to not just look at the fabric next to lovely coordinating bolts. I think I need to take the potential bolt off the shelf and unroll it a little to see more of the fabric. That will make me shop slower, which can’t be a bad thing.
I pressed, cut and sewed the last fabrics on Saturday. Sunday I counted all of the blocks and consulted with DH about the layout. Not the layout in terms of color, but the layout in terms of numbers of blocks across and down. He told me I had to have an even square root number (or something). I ended up needing 14.83 blocks across the top and down the side. I don’t know what a .83 block looks like, but I knew it wasn’t going to fit evenly into my quilt.
I immediately grabbed the fabrics I received for Christmas and shoved them in the washer. Then I went to work on a pencil roll, which you can read about later in the week. When the fabrics were done, I had figured out that I needed to make 7 more blocks to come out with an even 225 (15 across by 15 down). I pick out some pairs of fabrics and sewed them together. Now I am ready to arrange the quilt and sew it together.
I do have one extra, which I will stick on the back.
Some of the fabrics I bought at the very end of 2009 will end up in the 2010 quilt. As the Quilt Mavs say “my quilt, my rules.”
Unrelated notes:
* I have no Internet at home at this time, so if I am a little slow responding to comments, I apologize! It makes it a challenge to get blog posts up as well!
* Remember to leave a comment in the One World One Heart post for a chance to win!
FOTY Progress
I am slowly getting a bit of the FOTY blocks done in between the Christmas gifts. I am branching out a bit as well and not putting same color with same color all he time. For some of the color combinations it just didn’t look right. Not sure how I will handle that choice when I start putting together the whole quilt, but I am sure that it will work out one way or another.
Cutting FOTY strips and putting blocks together is my main project for next week
Snowballs Following Me Around
This is probably the 5th snowball type quilt I have seen in a week. I saw a few last week in magazines and books. One was in the Quilt Sampler magazine on the wall of a shop and made up of strips. It was interesting. I like this pattern because it really looks like the snowballs are round. The pinwheels on the edges and on the cornerstones are a nice touch. Thanks to Vicki and her Field Trips in Fiber post for this link.
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Newest FOTY 2009 Blocks
I took a small hiatus from putting together the FOTY 2009 blocks (Zanzibar from Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle) for a number of reasons. First, the 9k was in the shop and I wanted to use the same machine to sew them. Second, I didn’t have the right fabrics to combine. Third, I was working on other projects. Etc.
Here are the latest iteration of this simple block. I did a bunch of fabric laundry and am nearly done, so now it is on to the pressing, cutting and sewing. I have only 2.5 more months to get the fabrics taken care of as I am planning on putting this quilt together at the CQFA retreat in January.
Last Infinity Blocks
These are the last two Infinity blocks. I had exactly enough white to make two more blocks. I tried, while I was making the majority of the blocks, to choose tone-on-tone fabrics. For these last two blocks, this fabric called to me. I think it is perfect. I really like the movement.
I have sent the last group of blocks off to my SIL. Now I have to add this project to my UFO list and figure out how I am going to finish the project.
Sorbet Blocks
Since I got the 9K back I have slowly been resewing seams that were not adequate. Here are the blocks for the Sorbet quilt that I have done so far. I have the measurements for the next block, but haven’t make any fabric progress yet.
Enjoy!
Last of the Infinity Blocks
Here are the last blocks from my SIL. I got them from my niece who brought them back from Maryland (family-mail). I have had them around for at least two months and I haven’t had a chance to put them up here on the blog.
I still have enough white squares to make at least one more block. I still have to do that. I seem to be distractible lately.
SIL’s Infinity
SIL already used up a bunch of the Infinity blocks we swapped to make this quilt. She entered it in her county fair and won third place. I was so pleased for her.
I love the layout as well. Very clever of her to use the various values of the blues to make a design. A you can see from some of my photos, I was thinking more about how the blues and whites touched each other when I put the blocks together.
What I don’t love is that she has already made a quilt and I still have a block or two to go! I had better get busy!
Sorbet Blocks
The above blocks are the blocks I made over the weekend. Except for the one in the lower left hand corner, which I made last week. I put it in to make the photo square and so you wouldn’t see my ugly carpet.
Last week I made two blocks for the Sorbet quilt (left). They sat on my design wall all week and as I looked at them a new idea formed in my head: a baby.
When I made these, I just wanted to make some of the quickest blocks to cut and sew. I wanted to get some endorphins going and some quick satisfaction.
What I didn’t realize was that these two could be merged to make yet another block. I didn’t need to make a pattern, which is part of the fun and joy of this quilt.
I can’t shake the idea that these two blocks got together and had a baby!
Silly, I know, but it is what it is.
The others I made were from the patterns I already designed in EQ6. I think this quilt will be one that I can longarm myself.
Not really sure why the above block is called Four Patch Corner. I didn’t make up the name, it was in EQ6.
Regular old 9 Patch fits the size and shape requirements. Easy to make and I think it looks great.
Quilt Sorbet Colors
I haven’t had a chance to make anymore blocks since I first introduced this project last week. Some block making is on my agenda this weekend, but in the meantime, I have been looking at fabrics and adding them to the mix. The biggest addition is the purple batik (upper right hand corner). I also added a couple of medium-large scale flower prints to see how they work in the mix.
I noticed that there is a lot of pink in the fabric mix. I hope it won’t be too pink, but I am enjoying the pink.
Quilt Sorbet
Last year I found a quote in Judy Martin’s newsletter by a reader who talked about projects classified as mind sorbet, which I recounted in a post. After the Tarts Come to Tea, I really feel like I need some mind sorbet, something that I don’t have to think about much. The Tarts was a real design challenge: worth it, but a challenge. Now I need a break.
These are the fabrics I have been collecting for the past little while with the idea of making this quilt. There are an abundance of dots, but hopefully enough other designs and scale to make it interesting.
I scanned back over some of the posts showing fabrics that I bought with this project in mind. I don’t see them in the picture above, so I will need to look at them and see if they fit in with the idea I have in my mind.
This quilt was inspired by a pattern by Terri Atkinson called Yellow Brick Road, which I wrote about in a post called Avoidance Issues. The idea was further encouraged by a trip to Texas in April. For once I sat in a window seat and was able to look at the regular patterns created by lots and fences, etc. After that trip, I had a lot of ideas and went crazy putting my own designs “on paper”. EQ6 makes such an exercise really easy. The project is really all about the fabric, though.
This image looks a little weird because it is exported from EQ6. I haven’t colored all of the blocks, but this should give you a bit of an idea of the next project.
I made two blocks today. They took me about 5 minutes each, which is exactly what I wanted.
In order to get the variation, I need to print the rotary cutting directions for the rest of the blocks. We’ll see what we get.
Last Flowering Snowball
Last Sunday night, I went over and watched a movie with my SIL. We often craft together and this night was no exception. We watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and stitched. I was able to finish the last middle block of the Flowering Snowball/Cross Block project.
Now I need to worry about the border blocks. I haven’t taken the time to make the pattern for those. I will soon.
FOTY 2009 Progresses
Slowly, but surely the FOTY 2009 blocks are stacking up. I doubt that FOTY 2009 will be as large as FOTY 2008, however I consider it to be more complex so smaller is better. I know I know, sewing in addition to cutting is part of the quiltmaking process and doesn’t necessarily constitute ‘complex.’
😉 I just like to see if you are paying attention sometimes.
As I said before, these blocks make great warm up blocks before a serious bout of sewing, so that is what I did on Saturday after getting the 9K set up again. If you look at the photo in Sunday’s post, you can see one of the green blocks under the feed dogs.
I decided not to combine the two Ginger Blossom prints that I used in the Striped Tote with Flowers and the Flowered Tote with Stripes. They already had enough cavorting and will get some more time to do so when I make the quilt for which I have been collecting fabric. I really like the effect of the dots with the flowers.
I had some hot pink dots that I hadn’t yet made into a block, so I used that with the flower print. Haven’t done anything with the stripes. I need to press some more fabric and then we’ll see what transpires.
I do really like that pink Gigner Blossom flower print for some reason. It makes me feel happy.
Nearly at Infinity
The Infinity blocks had been languishing for a little while. I needed some test subjects for the tuned up machine, so I sewed a couple. The middle one is of the ones I made on Saturday and the others have been hanging around for awhile waiting for me to photograph them.
The fabric I used for the middle blocks is an old Jinny Beyer fabric and it is really crisp to press and sew. Lovely!
I have only a little bit of the white left, so the block portion of this project is nearing completion. I will have to see how many blocks we end up with, however. It needs to be some kind of normal number and not one that won’t work in putting a quilt together.