So cutting for the Fabric of the Year 2012 quilt continues. As I have said, I am really enjoying cutting up patches for this quilt. As you can see, I seem to be doing a lot of cutting.
I am cutting for other things as well, which is what I call the Hunting and Gathering stage. For scrappy quilts, it is better to cut for a long time and save up the patches until you have enough to make the size of quilt you want. I am doing that for a couple of someday projects.
The pieces for this project seem to be multiplying by leaps and bounds. It doesn’t seem like I am working with so many fabrics, but I am sewing relatively fast, so, perhaps, I am.
I am trying a new technique for pressing fabric. In between other pressing tasks, I am pressing the fabric I have washed recently. It means a steady stream of cutting and new fabrics to play with. In the second group (left), I was a little dot heavy. 😉
I was also trying to fussy cut bits from the larger floral patterned fabrics. There are also a group of solids for the QuiltCon challenge. I can’t decide whether or not to include a print in that project, so I have started with the solids and we’ll see how it goes.
This week’s patches are from the batches I have washed recently. I have been trying to press a few yards as a warm up for my quiltmaking sessions. Trying to do that means that I am making progress on the ironing and cutting.
I was afraid that I just wouldn’t get to the washing and cutting and ironing this year. I know people say that they get so much fabric that they can’t wash it all before they use it anymore. I can’t imagine using a lot of fabric I haven’t washed. The unwashed fabric stinks so when I press it.
As I mentioned, the squares and rectangles are a pleasure to work with so far.
A lot of the black on white prints come from working on the Flowering Snowball. I cut two of the purples (above towards the right side of the photo), because the motif is so large that the pieces I cut look very different from each other. I like that print a lot, especially the background color. We’ll see if I remember once I start arranging and laying out the quilt top.
There is a lot of white in the prints I have cut so far this year. I wonder if this will be the year of the much lighter quilt? The white doesn’t bother me so much, but we will see once I start arranging.
I also found that I have started to press and cut the larger pieces that have been languishing. In some cases, at TFQ’s suggestion, I am just pressing the edges and leaving the rest of the piece until I use it. Most of them are not very wrinkled, so I think it will work out.
I also have to say that using rectangles and squares makes it much easier to photograph the patches when they are cut.
I have to admit that I am enjoying just cutting squares and rectangles for FOTY 2012 so far this year. I am so glad to be using simple shapes and the squares and rectangles are making me feel much more creative with FOTY 2012. I have been playing with the layout of the little groups I cut as I go along.
I do not regret using the diamonds for FOTY 2010 or the triangles for FOTY 2011. I am pleased with the results. Both were great experiences and I am glad to have worked on them. I do think that it is good to simplify sometimes.
The aspect of FOTY 2011 that I am carrying forward to 2012 is the idea of using smaller pieces of the fabric I have used during the year, but didn’t buy this year, alongside the new fabric. I am being much more diligent about cutting fabric I have used and I have used a fair amount already this year. I love most of the fabric I have bought, regardless of when, so I want to give all the pieces an opportunity to shine. Also, in an ideal world, I would use more fabric than I would buy. Since I like to make decent sized quilts, that means that I would need to include more fabric. Definitely a wallet vs. idea war going on in my head.
I haven’t done anything with Fabric of the Year 2012 yet. I decided that I would go even more simple than last year, but would keep one of the elements of FOTY 2011. I decided that I would go with squares and rectangles. I will cut squares out of fabrics I have used this year (but not bought) and rectangles out of the new fabrics.
A lot of the fabrics in the photo are from the Flowering Snowballs foreground. I only used one piece from each of the fabrics in the Flowering Snowball blocks, but I figured it still counted. They are all great fabrics, aren’t they?
I really like the scrappy look, but think it will be even better when I start arranging the fabrics at the retreat in 2013. Seems like a long way off, but here it is already March, so I know it will be here sooner than I think.
From my brief comment, you might have inferred that I am also working on the Flowering Snowball. I am. More on that later.