I have been working on cutting up the fabric on my ironing board. It was getting pretty fat and hard to use as an actual ironing board for piecing. As a result, I got a full design wall of squares.
There is a lot of orange because I have been working on the Orange Improv donation top, but other new fabrics as well.
I am moving slowly on gathering fabrics for FOTY 2019. It might be a small quilt! This slowness is because of working with the scraps for the strip and improv donation projects and also because of how long it is taking me to piece Flying Around.
Most of these are light and I know you can tell what I have been working on from what you see. This is sort of the beauty of the Fabric of the Year projects. I can remember the fabrics I bought and used that year. It reminds me of various projects and trips to great shops.
After having to redo the sleeve (too long), I spent some time away from the half hexie project stitching away on the binding and sleeve of FOTY 2017. The piece is finished!
Others were able to see the skyscraper/tall buildings that I was intending when I created this layout. I am pleased that it is finished.
For once I also photographed the back. I know I have been slack on that lately.
At the end of a crazy week, I headed over with Friend Julie, to get my quilt from Colleen. Julie and I had planned to have lunch anyway. She was good enough to add 2 hours of driving to her day to come with me. She quickly finished a quilt back during the week and brought a quilt top to be quilted.
All I could do was pick up FOTY 2017. I didn’t have a quilt to bring and no hope of finishing anything suitable in the near future.
FOTY 2017 looks great. Colleen quilted the windows into the columns so they look like buildings like I wanted. I am pleased.
Now on to sewing down the binding and adding a sleeve. The binding is on the front as usual and I will hand stitch it down. The sleeve is made, so ditto.
I have been cutting away at my patches as I use fabrics, including the squares I need for FOTY 2019.
Some fabrics are the result of a bit of leftover fabric from my scrap pile. This means I am getting a bit away from the new and used idea from the recent versions of this quilt. All the used fabrics were used in some way, though, so perhaps not.
Well, I did it. After what seemed like a lot of trauma, I finished the top last Wednesday in a couple of hours of free time after I finished my chores and work.
I thought I would just sew more chunks together, but it turned out that the quiltmaking goddess smiled on me and all my seams were straight and there was no (or minimal) ripping required.
Now we can really see the gradation and I make no bones about how hard I worked at it this time. It is interesting to see some areas that appear lighter IRL appear darker in the photo (check on the blues next to the bird in the middle of the quilt). I do like the way it looks like the columns are fading in and out. It also has that skyline effect, which is great.
I buckled down and made the back, binding and sleeve on Sunday. Yep! Even the sleeve. I feel quite virtuous.
This is a really hard exercise and I challenge you to do something similar.
There are a lot of pieces to sew for FOTY 2017, but I have, slowly, but surely, been making progress. I thought I could finish the top this past weekend. Even if I hadn’t worked with DH to replace our horrendous jerry-rigged, 20+ year old living room curtain rod, I wouldn’t have had enough time. There are just too many seams.
I am not being super precious about placement this time. I would never have started if I held myself to that standard this time around. I do still tweak placement as I go along, for better or for worse.
I am really looking forward to the whole thing being together as I want to see if it looks like a skyline.
I have been tired all week, but FOTY 2017 is progressing. I am sewing so I can arrange further. As per usual, the design wall is too small, though I think DH is happy otherwise I might make a quilt as large as the house. 😉
The piece shrinks a lot due to some trimming and also the seam allowances.
Yes, I started to sew. Yes, I started to sew even though not all of the patches are on the design wall. I don’t have the space and am letting go of a little bit of the control.
I am fairly pleased with the overall layout. I think the colors are pretty much in the right place except for the light blue/blue-green. The gradation seems ok at the bottom, but might not work towards the top. I still have time.
I do end up having to trim blocks. It is fine as I will do it a little at a time. I am still figuring out the math on this one – what size to cut, so I don’t ruin anything.
I rearranged all of the patches for FOTY 2017 and am feeling much better about the layout. I still have some design problems, but I feel like I am finally making good progress and am not feeling so much design despair.
The white and light patches will fill in the top of the piece to make it square.
Yes, colors need to be rearranged a bit and I need to slip in a column of turquoise, but otherwise I think this is basically the layout I will use. It is much better than my previous idea.
I know Angela loved the subway tile layout, but as a design concept, it wasn’t working. I may try that layout with smaller patches.
Again, my design wall cannot contain this series of quilts. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. I have to figure out how to add 3 more columns to this piece without design wall support.
This might be the beginning of FOTY 2019. The pieces are the same size as FOTY 2018 as I have the Ellsworth Kelly idea and I might want to do one with black squares and one with slate squares. I could also combine the two and do a FOTY 2018/19. I am getting behind now that FOTY 2017 is not jelling. I could probably skip FOTY 2017 and get to FOTY 2018, but that seems wrong to me.
I resorted the patches and have started to arrange FOTY 2017 on the design wall. It isn’t going well.
Why? I don’t know. It just isn’t working.
I did some math and am thinking I need to make the piece 18 rows by 18 columns to make it square, though that does not use all of the patches. I could make it a little off square and make it 19 rows by 18 columns, but that would use more patches, which is my goal.
This particular grouping looks really nice together – the attraction of a fabric line, I suppose.
My quiltmaking supplies and tools are put away while I care for the YM, so this may be the last group of patches for FOTY 2018. There are still a few days until the end of the year, so we will see.
I really should have been packing for two trips I was taking, but instead I cut fabric. Now I have a completely empty ironing board and a lot more pieces to add to my various boxes. Future projects: here I come!