Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
As I said earlier this month, I went on a jag of ironing and this is the result. These will be on the dark side of FOTY 2014, for the most part.
A number of these are for specific projects, but there is a still a feeling of oddly juxtaposed patterns.
I went on a fabric pressing binge and now have at least one post as a result.
I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I couldn’t seem to get my act together to sew last week. I have spent a couple days on the computer tweaking my blog and reading other blogs, but no sewing. Bleah. I think the machine problems are getting to me.
Pressing fabric seemed my best bet. Aren’t these fabrics pretty? They make me happy. And forced me to sew on Saturday and Sunday. That was a good thing.
Some theatre we visit occasionally has a “First Look” feature. It is one of the half hour’s worth of ads that plays before the movie actually starts! This is your first look at Fabric of the Year 2013.
I want to stress FIRST look. I have a long way to go to get this quilt top pieced. There is a lot of rearranging that needs to happen.
The first step to get to the first look was that I had to get the squares out of the Fabric Closet. That was pretty easy, so I sorted them into rough color piles, e.g. ROYGBIV plus grey, black and white.
Pink Chalk Fabrics sends a post card with an order. It has some gorgeous piece on the front and sizes of quilts on the back. I saw the lifestyle shot on a post card I received from them. After getting FOTY 2012 back, I knew I needed to do something a little different. How could I compete with that quilt? At some point in the FOTY 2013 cutting process, I put the squares and the image on this postcard together in my head and decided to arrange the piece in a similar fashion.
Then I got out the post card that is inspiring this piece and started putting them up on the design wall. I just slapped them up, only further sorting roughly into light, medium and dark.
First observations:
This group of fabric is a lot of what I got on my road trip. Not all, but a lot.
Someone suggested setting the rectangles like subway tiles, so I thought I would post them like that here so you could see what you think.
I really like the charcoal grey circle stitch fabric (last row, 2d from the top on the right). I am very tempted to buy a bunch of it and use if for a background for something. I don’t know what, though. I don’t know whether I am following a trend with all this grey or whether I am shying from other light colored backgrounds.
Do you like the crazy dip to the right? I can’t believe I didn’t see that until after I took the photo. Hopefully I won’t piece them like that.
Lately I have been plowing through a lot of washed fabric. Most of it is blues and greens, which is good for my Blue[berry] Lemonade project and means that the FOTY 2014 will have a lot of blues and greens like the previous versions in the series.
I am a little more excited about cutting for FOTY 2014 now that FOTY 2012 is done. I am really pleased with how FOTY 2012 came out and now I am hoping future versions come out even better.
FOTY 2013? Yes, I will get to it soon.
I am really excited about this finish! I think it looks really good. I keep looking at the center red/orange/pink shape in the middle and wondering if it is the upside down tip of Italy. No heel on the boot, so probably no hidden messages. 😉
I am pleased that I remembered to put the darker patches on the bottom this year.
You might be wondering why I am so thrilled that a two year old project is finally finished. You are probably wondering why it takes so longer for me to finish these FOTY quilts. I don’t quilt quilts of this size myself and my quilter was going through some personal struggles, so she wasn’t as fast as she normally is. She is back on the saddle, so if I piece FOTY 2013, she can probably get it done in a few months. I need to do my part.
I am thrilled that it is done, because, hey DONE is DONE-Finished-Finito-complete! It means one less UFO/WIP. Who wouldn’t be excited about fewer WIPs?
DH was my quilt holder of the evening and as he was getting in position, he noticed the back and actually commented on the Philip Jacobs fabric I used for the back. I used it as an opportunity to expound upon the virtues of Philip Jacobs’ design prowess. My own personal audience. 😉
And, did I say: another finish?!? Hooray!
See all Fabric of the Year quilts on the FOTY page.
I have a couple of projects in mind that require blues, so I have been washing and pressing blues, greens and light purples/violets lately. This is a nice little collection that I am really looking forward to using. I have already cut some pieces for projects that are still in the Hunting & Gathering stage.
I found a sense of peace and not frustration when I was cutting these pieces. It is satisfying to see a little pile of cut patches grow. That was a nice change.
This has never happened before. FOTY 2013 has not even had its chance on the design wall and I am already cutting for FOTY 2014. That is, apparently, the way it goes sometimes.
I like this group, though the greys are a bit of a downer, and think that many of the prints would be considered very modern.
The FOTY 2014 patches are cut 3″x5″. The reason for this size is that I have been trying to achieve a certain size of rectangle in a couple of projects (one was FOTY 2008) . I kept forgetting to factor in the seam allowance, so the rectangles, once sewn, were too small. They worked fine in the quilt, but the look was a little small for what I wanted.
This slightly larger size will also showcase more of the pattern on the fabric.
I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have these two quilts back. Colleen is going great guns on her quilt backlog and I am the lucky recipient.
I was really pleased to get Fabric of the Year 2012 and Fresh Fruit back earlier this week. I was only expecting FOTY 2012 when I dropped off Scrapitude, so Fresh Fruit was a pleasant surprise.
Perhaps it is immodest, but I love the way these two quilts look. FOTY 2012 is one of the best Fabric of the Year quilts so far. I really see how my color work over the years is paying off. I am reinvigorated to get busy on FOTY 2013.
Fresh Fruit was a pattern, as I described in a previous post, and I used the same fabric, but I really love the way it came out. I was planning to give this one away, but I might hang it on the wall for awhile first.
I started in on the binding for FOTY 2012 Thursday night and really got quite far. I do need to make a sleeve, which adds to the time it takes to finish, but I am looking forward to finishing this piece and hanging it up.
It has taken longer this year to get to this point. I didn’t have the Retreat as a firm deadline. I decided that I had to create a deadline and few pieces of fabric I had washed, but not pressed provided the deadline. As soon as I took care of those, I closed the collection.
I haven’t sorted the squares, but I have an idea of how I will sew them. I think I need to finish a couple of projects before I start sewing this one. That doesn’t mean that I will put it off forever, but I have to clear my mind so I can spend time on arranging the squares.
I know it is January 2014, but I am not quite ready to pack in the cutting for FOTY 2013. I’ll start arranging and piecing it later this month, with any luck.
I wanted to include these fabrics, because some of them are from projects in December. I also added a few from Attack of the Hexies and may add a few more, if I have any left.
I also have washed a few fabrics that I thought I would use for pillowcases, but it didn’t happen. I’d like to add those in as well.
It has been awhile since I posted an update on this project. Nonnie asked about it during the Black Friday Sew-in and I thought it would be a good time to do an update.
I am shocked that the last time I posted about this project was in September. I am also shocked that it is December and I am about to need to start sewing this baby together.
One thing that has happened is that I have washed very little fabric this Fall. I don’t want a huge pile hanging around the workroom waiting to be pressed, so I haven’t been washing fabric unless I need it. A lot of what you see in the photo (left) comes from the various projects I have worked on recently, most specifically the Scrapitude project. I’ll need to wash some fabric soon as I’d like to make sure some of it gets in this project.
I am really shocked that in a month and a half I’ll be sewing this project together. That is the plan anyway. I can’t go to the CQFA Retreat (super sad face), so I am going to have to mark out specific time to sew it together.
I spent a lot of time cutting over the weekend, which served a few purposes:
I really wanted to make progress on cutting for my Super Secret project and for the Russian Rubix. I just wanted to see what the fabrics would look like cut up.
It turns out I am using the same fabric for both projects. I like the combination so far. Probably not the same background and I will probably use the more colors (fabrics) for the Super Secret project than for the Russian Rubix, but the base colors and fabrics are the same.
Most of the fabrics on the right (above) are fabrics I am using for the two projects. The group shown is small, because the design wall is full of the RR octagons.
I cut octagons from all of the fabrics chosen so far, but there is a pile of them on my cutting table that won’t fit on the design wall. I need to move them to my portable design wall, but the Attack of the Hexies project is there and I am actually working on it a bit, so I don’t want to lose the momentum by taking it off. I’d really like to get that project out of my life. It was fun for awhile, but I am ready to be done with it. Working on it makes it more fun.
It really has been awhile since I filled up part of the design wall enough to post some squares for this project for you. Summer was busy; I wasn’t ironing. I don’t know what I was doing. Read the blog, then you’ll know.
I am still cutting squares for FOTY 2013. You can see a lot of the squares from the Round Robin piece in this group.
I was trying to put the squares in color order, which is a good exercise. It is also hard if you are working with what you have rather than being able to select specific colors to fill in. I did pretty well, but was having trouble with the pearl Bracelets purple. It is so dark.
See the last group.
There is something I like about this 2013 Fabric of the Year project. I like having a piece of each fabric. Once the quilts are finished, I love walking by them and thinking “that fabric would be perfect for this project” or “OH! I remember that fabric. It was such great fabric.” It is like looking at a scrapbook.
I am afraid I am getting tired of it, though. Perhaps I am just tired. I know I am tired, but having the feeling seep over into fabric is scary.
These are blues from the end of the Star Sampler project. Mostly, I made the 4″ Sawtooth Stars from these fabrics. Yes, I did arrange them purposefully to be only a blue batch. I have a whole additional group that I’ll photograph later that is all different colors.