Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I know I keep saying that this project is nearing the end of the cutting, but it really is.
I like this batch. There are some really great fabrics in this batch. I cut them during Darla’s March-a-long on a few afternoons when I only had a few minutes.
Darla, of the Scientific Quilter, is hosting the #March-a-long event. The short version is that you do something quilty for 15 minutes per day. I failed last week, but was doing pretty well especially since I have a lot of ironing of fabric to do. After ironing comes cutting and that means more FOTY fabrics. Yes, I should starting putting FOTY 2015 together. I haven’t quite gotten to it, but soon.
I have cut a number of patches for the quilt and it is interesting to see the themes that crop up in my patches.
That purple on the bottom looks a lot better cut into smaller pieces. I pulled it out to cut and wondered what I was thinking when I bought it. Good thing I have no problem cutting up fabric.
I think I have said that I am nearing the end of cutting for FOTY 2015. Here is another batch and I really am about to start laying out the piece.
I just have so many ideas in my head that I can’t seem to corral them in order to make any progress on much of anything.
I have a lot of fabric to press and cut, especially since I washed several yards the other day. I am determined to get busy on FOTY 2015 early in the year. It won’t be until at least February as I won’t be able to sew on most weekends in January. That means no sewing. I wonder what I will write about?
I digress.
I want to do FOTY 2015 early in the year so there is less overlap with FOTY 2016. I am not sure how that will go as this is all the progress I have made since the November 16 post. I should go and count my patches to see how many I had. I really don’t want a repeat of cutting down all the patches like I did for FOTY 2014.
I finished Fabric of the Year 2014 yesterday. I had the quilt done, but took my sweet time in sewing on the sleeve.
It has some similarities to FOTY 2013, namely the light in the middle. I wanted to try to recreate that glowing aspect again.
The back was one of the easiest I have made. Almost no drama, especially since one piece of fabric made almost the entire back. I added the solid so that large motifs didn’t run against each other when I sewed them. I thought it would look too jangly.
I liked pieced backs, but am very happy when I don’t have to piece too much.
The other day I talked about making some pillowcases. I had enough fabric left to make one gift bag. I am glad, because I like the fabric. I am happy to have at least a bit of it around the house. I don’t really need more gift bags, but I also don’t want to waste fabric. Gift bags are a good use of smallish pieces of fabric.
I have put a tutorial up, as long time readers will know, that tells you how to make gift bags. Save a tree: make a gift bag.
I mentioned cutting some pieces for the EPP. When I cut those pieces I also cut patches for the FOTY 2015. This group is, thus, really heavy on the colored dots on white.
I’ll need more colored dots on white for the EPP project so you’ll see more of these types of fabrics.
My DH actually ironed pants when I wasn’t home and messed up a bunch of my fabric. I had to re-iron some of my pieces. I decided I needed to get busy and cut and file some of those fabrics. Thus, I have also been working through cutting the fabrics from my ironing board.
I have been making an effort to cut up fabric I have washed and ironed, so I have another batch to show you.
Some of these are from projects. The black/white print in the middle is from a skirt I had made. The black/white print with the Caesar busts was included in the Red & Black Improv quilt.
Some of the colored fabrics are from the Carpenter’s Wheel quilt blocks.
The rest are new.
When I was fixing the photo above for posting, I realized that I could put the quilt together with the rectangles arranged in a horizontal manner. What do you think?
Another thing I did on PlayDay was to cut up my Ta Dots fat quarters into 10.25″ squares. I did this in anticipation of making half square triangles. As I did that cutting, I took the opportunity to cut up a lot of FOTY 2015 quilt rectangles.
I am not planning on letting these patches lay around all year next year. I am working on cutting pieces I need for various projects from the yardage I have pressed and plan on working on this piece early in the year.
Note that I said “plan”. We’ll see how it goes.
This plan was set in motion by my need to cut a lot of different fabrics for the HSTs and Flying Geese I needed for the Carpenter’s Wheel. The Ta Dots HSTs were an added bonus. Getting fabric off of the ironing board has made me feel like I am making progress, even if I am just cutting.
The black and white stripe at the bottom is one of the stripes that will be used as the other half of the HSTs.
I finally got down to cutting some fabric, especially working on the pillowcases last weekend. You can see all sorts of different projects in this group. This is a good thing as it means I am actually using fabric. Yes, there are some fabrics that will go into the stash. I am working on using fabrics. I really am.
I spent Sunday getting the Fabric of the Year 2014 ready to be quilted. I am taking it to Colleen tomorrow.
I am pleased with how it came out and am excited about seeing it quilted.
The back went surprisingly quickly. I used just one piece of fabric for all except the joins. I wanted some space between the large scale print.
In between other stuff, I spent a lot of time over the weekend sewing the FOTY 2014 patches together. This quilt top has been languishing much too long. I felt like I had a layout that I liked.
There are over 350 patches that have to be removed sewn and put back in order to keep the piece in order. I put a leader/ender in between each set of patches to make it easier to keep the FOTY patches straight in my head.
In the course of sewing the patches together, I also made 19 Octagon 9 Patches and 14 donation blocks. Not shabby for ‘found blocks’.
I thought it was impossible that I would get it done. I got to the point where all the patches were sewn into sets of 8 and I was very happy with that. The other night I sewed those sets together, which took much less time, but required much more fiddling, because of the nesting of seams.
The piece looks together now, but it is in sets of 9 or 12 patches. I am carefully chunking all the sets in order to avoid those long seams and to nest the seams more precisely. My goal is to get the top done before Saturday, so I can show it off at the BAMQG meeting. Wish me luck!
Here is irony: the last time I went to this shop was when the Young Man was a baby. He was in some kind of carrier or sling. I went last week on my way back from dropping him off at college.
This is a small shop, but it is right on the main square of Healdsburg and it is crammed with fabric. I found a few pieces that will work for the Improv quilt.
By this time I was getting into the fabric equivalent of a diabetic coma, but it was fun to stop in this shop and realize how close it is to me (about 2 hours) and worth the drive, because there are other nice shops and good places to eat nearby.
There were two people working and they were watching us the whole time, but they weren’t unfriendly. I meant to ask about the local quilt people around, but I forgot. I wondered if this shop was mainly visited by tourists or if there was a thriving quilt community. Oh well. Next time.
This store is RIGHT next door to an ice cream shop. Kids and spouses can have a nice time there while you browse. 😉
This shop has a lot of panels and kits. A LOT. The panels are great and I bought a couple to make Thanksgiving decorations. I had better get on it!
They had fabric, but not the tons that other shops had. I bought a few pieces.
The store has a lot of gifts, which is what tourist town shops have and that was great. Some of the fabrics were novelty sea related fabrics, which I had never seen before.
The shop also had a lot of interesting patterns.
I think the strength of the shop was really the panels. They had lots and lots of panels, especially in the Thanksgiving realm (it is nice to see that some retail isn’t going straight from Hallowe’en to Christmas!). I bought two panels with which to make some Thanksgiving table runners. Am I trying to fill my time now that my YM is gone? Probably, at least mentally.
Thanksgiving, as you may remember, is ‘my’ holiday in the family. Lately, I have been feeling a bit of a slacker, because I really don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations. One of my SILs sends a flower arrangement every year, which is the sum total of my decorations. I have wanted to make napkins, but the thought of sewing 24+ brown and beige napkins makes me run away from the sewing machine screaming. When I saw the panel with the pumpkins and gourds, I could imagine having it in my house. The colors are a little brighter than normal Thanksgiving colors and it isn’t boring. It is also a bit arty. It also doesn’t need much piecing, so almost all I would need to do is quilt it. STOP laughing! 😉
The one panel will make two table runners. I might piece the leaves to the end of one to make it a little longer. They are supposed to be coasters, but I am not making coasters as we have about 30 sets of coasters. We will see.
I set up three tables at Thanksgiving and I don’t want the ‘kids’ table to feel bad, especially since they usually don’t get china, so I bought another panel for them. What I will do with this one is cut off the smaller panels and sew them together in a long line, then quilt it. If I have time, I will quilt the wreath and make it into a table mat for the coffee table.
These panels are already washed so there is hope for me to finish them.
Like some of the other shops Forget Me Knots was participating in the Row by Row Experience. The lady helping pushed us hard to get the kit. Not my jam so I resisted.
They had a lot of notions, a large classroom and generally a large space. I found this store to have a lot to look at and it took me awhile to figure out that there weren’t as many fabric bolts as I originally thought.
I liked this shop. The lady was friendly, they had fabric and notions I hadn’t seen before and the location was convenient. Look for the ice cream shop. It is huge and that is what we noticed. The quilt shop is in a large building, but they need better signage.
Location: 640 2nd St SE, Bandon, OR 97411
(541) 347-9021
Sometimes a little whining goes a long way. I got down to business after my last FOTY 2014 post and am now sewing the piece together. Yes, the piece is arranged to my satisfaction and I am on to the sewing part.
My driving force: I need all the pieces to be on the design wall. At the moment the very top and very bottom row are hanging off. I also want the whole thing off the design wall and in the hands of Colleen. I need to move on to other projects. I need the design wall for other projects.
Is the piece perfect?
No.
Will I ever make a perfect piece in this series?
Probably not.
Will I keep trying?
Yes.
Before I started sewing, this photo shows the piece as it was laid out in the configuration in which I decided to piece it.
I worked on the layout for hours yesterday and then after I started making dinner, I deliberately did not look at it.
When I got back to my workroom the following day, I decided to look at it and rearrange the patches.
These quilts will never have a perfect gradation. The nature of the fabric, the color combinations in the fabrics and the motifs as well as contrast make perfect gradation difficult. Still, I have done a good job with the parameters of my challenge and I am pretty happy with the layout.
Some process photos. You have to look carefully to see the differences because they are subtle, but that is part of the process:
