Tag: FOTY

I think I might be ready to start cutting for FOTY 2015. I know. It is nearly March and finally I am getting in gear for 2015. 😉 Sometimes you have to let the process guide you.

I said last time that I wasn’t sure how much more I should cut. I think that I made that comment because I didn’t have a clear view in my mind of how to start FOTY 2015. I hadn’t decided on a shape. I have a better idea now.

As mentioned previously (or, maybe, on Twitter), I have been ironing fabric. when my sewing chair starts to fall over because I have too much washed, but unironed fabric hanging on the back, I have to iron. I ironed a lot while listening to Outlander (long LONG audiobook) and let it stack up on my ironing board, but finally I was ready to cut.

I still have a stack on my ironing board, but Voila! These are the patches I have cut in the past few weeks. I thought there were more, but if there were I lost the photo.

Yes, I cannot help attempting to gradate the patches.

Here are the most recent patches. I can’t decide if I am going to keep cutting until I start laying out the piece on the design wall or if I should stop now.

The CQFA Retreat will be in May this year, but I certainly don’t want to wait that long. On the other hand, I haven’t chosen a shape for FOTY 2015. Lots to do.

Yes, it is 2015 and I am still gathering fabrics. In fairness, most of these were from the end of 2014. In any case, it is my project and I am still gathering fabrics. 😉

I can’t arrange this piece until the Black & Grey Teenaged Boy Quilt is off the design wall and that project is going nowhere at the moment.

There are a couple of things going on. First, there are certain fabrics I want to include in this entry in the series.

Next, I am doing quite a bit of scrap reduction and when I have a large enough piece that I can use a goodly chunk of it, I cut a piece for the FOTY 2014.

Finally, I am annoyed that I didn’t decide on shapes like I did for 2012, which were rectangles and squares. I’ll probably go with that arrangement for the 2015 version. That is still some time off, so we’ll have to see.

Like a bad penny the pieces for this quilt just keep turning up. I purposefully did a load of fabric laundry on Wednesday, even though I was enjoying my unpressed fabric free space, just so I could add some more pieces to FOTY 2014.

I did a load of turquoise/aqua so I could also cut some patches from that color for another project.

The last time I had enough rectangles to show you was in early November. I feel like I am not cutting enough pieces for this project (within the parameters, of course), which makes me feel like it will be 8″x10″. I know it won’t be that small, but I want it to be a nice sized wall hanging.

Also, I look at the fabrics and think they are not that interesting. Of course, I have to remember that they will be completely rearranged and their individual motifs will be lost in the overall layout.

I think I might be experiencing a bit of a creative block. I need to find some rote sewing to do.

Off to cut those rectangles from the fabric I just washed.

I went back in time to look at the tags for my last FOTY post and was shocked to see that it was August that I last posted. I really couldn’t believe it, but I looked at the various Design Wall Monday posts I have posted recently and those same FOTY patches were there with very few changes. I actually took a picture of this group (above) right before the picture of the design wall for yesterday’s post, so next time I do a DWM post, you will, hopefully, see a new batch of FOTY patches.

The reason it took me so long, aside from being really busy during the week is that the last load of fabric I washed was grey and light neutrals, which I found really depressing to press, so I kind of avoided doing it. TFQ saw the pile and got down to business, so now I have newly pressed fabrics from which to cut patches.

I also have a lot of great fabrics waiting to be washed and I should make time so the patches can go into FOTY 2014. The new year isn’t that far away and pretty soon, I’ll be sorting thesepatches into color groups and picking the shape for FOTY 2015. WOW! Time flies.

 

One of my goals for Labor Day was to finish the Fabric of the Year 2013 top. This was a daunting goal, because each piece has to be sewn to another one in a certain order.

That meant that I started in one corner (see below), sewed two pieces together, put a leader/ender in the machine right after the two FOTY pieces, sewed those, took the FOTY pieces out of the machine, pressed them and put them back on the wall before taking the next two pieces. Repeat. There are 306 pieces in this quilt, so I made progress on ~306 pieces from other projects as well.

This project is extremely taxing in terms of piecing. I was pretty much done with the project when I finished top, so I did try to piece the back with large pieces of fabric. I used two pieces of different Philip Jacobs fabric. They go together well enough and I enjoy the large lettuces. They make me laugh. I hope I’ll still laugh when I am liking the project much better.

Normally, I would have put a quilting border on it, but I emailed Colleen and she said just to stitch 1/8″ away from the edge and that would keep the quilt from getting out of shape when it is quilted. I hope it works, because I want the shape of the quilt today to be the shape of the quilt forever. If it works, I’ll have to remember this trick for the future. I do like using ugly fabric as a quilting border, though.

Below are some photos of the project in process.

I needed to take some of the Field Day prints to the store to pick out a good background. I am still working on pressing the reds and snuck Field Day into the wash, so I had even more fabric to press.

I am torn between sewing and pressing. Right now sewing is winning.

 

I has been nearly a month and a half since I posted new rectangles I have cut for the FOTY 2014 piece. Before the past weekend, I felt like I haven’t been in my sewing room much in the past month. I know I have been in there, at least a little bit, since there have been no shortage of posts to prove it.

I didn’t press and cut very much in that time, though, so the wall where I keep new rectangles has looked the same all this time. Then Friday I started pressing fabric and cutting some new rectangles with a vengeance.

I went to put them away and found my container full, so I have to figure out what to do about that. The work room overfloweth, that is for sure.

I am slowly, painfully, making my way through the FOTY 2013 piece. I am nearing the end of the arranging.

Nearing the end.

Not there yet.

I have been looking at the quilt project through the green and red films that come with the Ultimate 3-in-1 Color tool (if you don’t have this, click on the link and buy it RIGHT NOW**). It hasn’t been working out that well for me, so I decided to switch a photo to black and white to see areas that could use improvement. This was a great idea, because 1) it shows me that I am doing pretty well and 2) it shows me areas that I might be able to improve.

I am trying to stick to the idea that the darkest fabrics will go on the bottom because they have a heavier feeling.

I also want the like colors to be mostly together and there to be a smooth-ish gradation between colors.

I thought I would share with you areas that jumped out at me and see what you think.

The areas I have indicated are too dark or too light for where they are currently placed OR do not make a smooth transition. I have not moved anything yet, because identifying a problem creates another problem: where to put the problem fabrics and what to put in their place.

This is where you have to look at the piece and at the colors to make sure that if you move it to the ‘obvious’ location, it doesn’t ruin the smooth transitions between colors.

Once I make the changes, I have to go start the process over.

 

 

 

**You should buy the Ultimate 3-in-1 color tool because it is a quick reference for color work. You can look at the relevant page see the complement, the analogous colors, triadic and split complementary. There is also a long list of colors that would work in a monochromatic quilt. It is a sampling of tints, shades and tones.

Previous Posts that Might be of Interest:

• The Start of it All: Coalescing Ideas
• Falling Water Version of FOTY 2013
• First Version of TFQ’s Fabric of the Year Quilt