I finally finished FOTY 2019 in June, but I couldn’t get a picture taken because of everything going on here.
My pals helped me hold up the quilt at Sew Day. I am thrilled with how it came out. Adding the grey is definitely a different look than Fabric of the Year 2018 with the black squares. It also, obviously, has a different look than the previous years with no constant color.
Fabric of the Year 2019 back
I really like the tulip fabric on the back. I don’t use a lot of green, but that emerald – or near emerald color is very appealing. I also really like that print and would like to see the Kaffe Fassett Collective release it in different colorways.
I am finally posting about a finished FOTY 2018. I actually finished the binding a month or so ago, but somehow it never made it on to the blog 9as far as I can tell!). I finished the top in July and took it to Colleen shortly thereafter.
Once I got it back, I had to sew the binding and the sleeve. The piece is ready to hang and I can move on to getting FOTY 2019 quilted.
I finally finished FOTY 2019. It seems like it took forever. I starting putting it on the wall on September 11, but I had just torn the ligament in my foot and I just couldn’t work on it.
I started to make some slow progress starting around October 4. I didn’t really start sewing anything until about October 31.
These quilts usually don’t take that long, but like many things in 2020, this piece took more time. I am going to move away from UFOs and make something I haven’t started after working on a few bags and Christmas gifts.
Part of the process is ripping and I had to rip as I was very close to finishing the FOTY 2019 top.
The quilt top started out correct. It is not sewn together completely in the photo (left), but all of the pieces are where I wanted them.
I continued sewing -and it is a lot of sewing to get these Fabric of the Year quilts together- to make chunks.
FOTY 2019 – Letters upside down
When I had about 12 seams left, I realized that something had happened. I had reversed a section somewhere along the process.
I can tell because the letters (white on red serif print) are upside down. I try to get the directional prints going in the right direction when I make these quilts. They do have a top and a bottom. I was nearly done sewing the quilt together. I could have gotten the quilt done before dinner if I had just continued. The question, however, becomes “will I notice this forever?” In this case, the answer was yes.
One good thing about this type of quilt is that I could rip out that one section, resew it and finish the quilt, which is what I did.
Except that I also tried to figure out where I went wrong. I know that on November 14 that section was oriented correctly. On November 23rd, it wasn’t. Sometime in that 10ish day period, something happened and that chunk was turned upside down.
It is hard to keep these pieces correctly oriented. By ‘correctly oriented’ I mean in the place I want them. Most people wouldn’t notice and in 10 years, I might not notice either. I notice now, however.
It is fixed and the quilt top is on its way to being finished.
After sewing all the pairs together, I really started to pick up speed. I spent a few hours on Saturday and a few more on Sunday making progress. I have about 12 more seams to sew before I finish the top. Yay!
It is still large, but I am always amazed at how much smaller pieces end up as the seam allowances disappear.
I am making good progress with FOTY 2019 once the pairs were sewn together. There is a lot of sewing, but the larger the chunks I have to sew, the faster it goes. I am hopeful that I will be done with this soon and can move on.
Despite fighting with my blog technology, it hasn’t really stopped me from sewing. Even if I can’t talk about my project, I still want to make the projects. I am happier when I can talk about the projects, but making them is primary.
Fabric of the Year 2019 – mid-November
As a result, I have been working hard on FOTY 2019.
Even if I have only a few minutes, I have been sewing a few squares together. I have most of the pairs sewn together and will work on sewing the pairs into 4 patches over the weekend.
I arranged the squares for Fabric of the Year 2019 to the point where I felt I could start to sew.
I started in the bottom left hand corner as I thought the dark part was mostly to my liking.
I wasn’t 100% happy with the center and the photo shows that I cleared out all of the Slate Grey squares in the center. I thought it might look better, but I am not sure I will keep it that way.
I finally had a good amount of time to work on Fabric of the Year 2019. I had to redo the math. I spent a lot of time on Saturday sticking squares up on the wall, adding rows and trying not to fall of a stool.
This was really the first time I had gotten on a stool since my foot injury. I have a very stable step stool, which made things easier.
As soon as I got going, I really made a lot of progress and I am happy about that. I still have to rearrange some of the squares, but all of the squares are on the design wall so I am much closer to sewing than I was. Perhaps later this week?
It has been a little while since I worked on this, but I finally got back to it. I had to do the math, which I was trying to avoid. Finally, I just did it.
That gave me a structure, so I started putting all the squares up. I had to redo the bottom left hand corner to add some greys that were hiding. I had to remove some duplicates. I still have to rearrange a bit to add more pink and a bunch of purples that came out of hiding as well. Still, I am making progress and will soon be able to put this piece together. YAY!
The first thing I did was start to move the whole piece down and over so I could reach the top better. I also needed to make the top slightly wider to accommodate the various pieces. I am not quite sure how many rows and columns I need since I didn’t do any math around this piece yet.
FOTY 2019 – early October #2
After move what I had down, I started to add more of the colored squares to the design wall. I am sure I will have to cut more greys, but I haven’t done that yet.
I went into a presentation yesterday with the fabric in the photo on my design wall. This was not my intention and I was, frankly, embarrassed that I didn’t have more on the wall when I went into the session.
Life sucks sometimes and this is what I had to work with. Life throws curveballs sometimes and we have roll with them.
Fortunately, I have been in CQFA long enough that people know I am not a slacker and we had a good discussion regardless. Also Maureen was great. She was very encouraging and not judgmental at all, so I didn’t feel as bad after talking to her as I did before.
September 2020- new footwear
My curveball was a torn ligament in my foot, which resulted in lovely new footwear. it also resulted in me spending a lot more time on the couch with my foot up. It could have been much worse, but I can’t help still feeling somewhat disgruntled.
Work is closed for summer break this week. As a result, I worked like a demon all week and was able to finish the FOTY 2018 top and back. I didn’t need to finish it. Since I was taking quilts to Colleen today, I decided taking four quilts is better than taking three.
The quilt wasn’t difficult to piece since all the squares are 2.5 inches. The difficult part was keeping the pieces in order as I sewed. After I got pairs sewed together, I started using the opposite side of the quilt as leaders/enders and that made the process go faster. I also had a lot of time Wednesday to sew.
This isn’t exactly the way I imagined it to come out. I kind of wanted it to be more like Ellsworth Kelly’s piece. I think to achieve that, I needed more black.
Add the black has kind of reinvigorated my interest in this series. I might continue after FOTY 2019. Stay tuned.
Last week, I started on FOTY 2018, which will be my piece inspired by Kelly’s work.
I have to say that putting the pieces on the wall has been a joy. I feel much closer to it with my new design wall. I also really like the white interspersed with the color. It is making me think of doing one with white squares as well as the slate grey I have planned for 2019.
I am also apprehensive about adding the black. We will see, though.
I am also really excited that I am working on a true UFO!!
Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance is a 1951-53 painting (oil on wood) by Ellsworth Kelly. I saw it at the SFMoMA when Julie, DH and I visited a few years ago. I have been wanting to use the idea in a quilt for awhile. Last week, I started on FOTY 2018, which will be my piece inspired by Kelly’s work.
