Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I finally took a little time to finish the larger piece.
I had sewn two sides of the yellow and red star segment onto the larger piece, but I hadn’t finished sewing the rest of the sides of the two piece segment onto the larger piece.
The folded over bits waiting to be sewn finally started to bug me. I took some time on Friday night to stitch the last remaining sides.
My English Paper Piecing half hexie stars are growing into a giant cluster.
I forgot to rotate the photo. What I think of as the bottom is the line of stars with the dark green and Philip Jacobs flower print on the diagonal on the left.
I have some diamonds that will make the border straight. I don’t know what color I will make them, but I would like to decide and make a few to get the feel of how the piece will look. There will be no black stars, so, perhaps, black? I hoping for a look like those 1930s quilts which just have a spark of black. I’ll have to try it out and see how it will look.
I recently finished adding a whole big section, or what I thought was a whole big section and it really turned out to be about four blocks. I thought it was a larger section when I was doing it, because of the twisting of the stars that needs to take place to get them together. I think I will add one star at a time from now on.
My biggest problem is the background stars. I need to make more and keep forgetting to cut the bright white dot fabrics until I am sitting and doing it.
I have been working on my Half Hexie English Paper Pieced Stars since August of 2012. I really wanted to see if I could actually take out the paper templates and use them again. I sewed four stars together and went from there.
I would have felt a lot better if TFQ were sitting with me supporting me (egging me on). She wasn’t and I needed a stiff upper lip.
I did it. I took out the papers and the piece is fine. I was kind of shocked at how easy it was and how well it worked. It is tempting to take them all out, but I know I can only take out those that are surrounded on all sides by another piece.
I should have been, but I was a little surprised by how well the ‘free’ pieces kept their shape.
I don’t know how many stars I have completed, but I may pull out the box in which I keep them and start sewing them together. I would at least get an idea of how many more I need. I could also start putting a border on, once I decide what fabric to use for a border.
I got all of these stars finished over the weekend. I spent several hours in the car on the way to and from Fortuna/Ferndale.
As an aside, if you haven’t visited Ferndale, it has a lovely Victorian main street (I posted some photos a few years ago) with lots of nice shops. Fortuna is more modern, but there are some great shops and a wonderful Mexican restaurant called La Costa where they make their own tortillas.
Both directions are about a 5 hour drive and DH drove on this trip. It rained and I am not a very good passenger. Having my focus on something else is a good thing.
One thing I did differently was I sewed a couple of the stars together to start a line of them. I want to start putting the piece together. I also have to put some of the stars together, so I can start to take the papers out. I may need to buy another pack of papers.
I don’t have the background nailed down, though I am still thinking of dots on white. I am pretty sure I will use dots on white since they worked so well on Scrapitude. I loved the look. I just need to cut some pieces.
The last time I posted about these stars was September 9, 2013. I can’t believe how time has flown. I have worked on them, but a couple of bindings and the Christmas stockings as well as the Christmas and Birthday thank you notes got in the way.
I’ll need some more of these to work on in the car during an upcoming car trip, so I will need to cut some more fabric. I like the way Scrapitude is coming out and think I will use dots on white background for the alternating rows of this project.
I am surprised at how many of these stars are in the blue range and am wondering if I decided to concentrate on these colors and have forgotten?
This is the block that would not die.
I made the Ribbon Star back in the midst of the Star Sampler quilt project. You might remember that I went back and forth and resewed, had trouble, unsewed and resewed again. I finally ended up with a block with which I could live and put it in the quilt. I also, however, had a second block laying around which was not up to par.
I finally decided to do something about it. First, I looked at the block a lot. I had it hanging on my design wall for a long time.
As an aside, my design wall is completely crammed. That was part of the reason I wanted to work on this. If I could save it (for a pillow? or the start of a different project?), I could get it off my design wall.
Someone pointed out to me that one piece (blue upper left hand corner immediately next to the background square) is sewed in wrong. Someone else said that it looked like the piece you grab to unroll or unravel the Ribbon Star. I really tried to think that was true, but it bugged me nonetheless.
The other thing that bugged me was the placement of some of the fabrics. I thought I read somewhere that this would look more dimensional, if light and darks were alternated. I messed that up and wanted to fix it.
I unsewed.
First, I unsewed a little bit to see if I could make it work with unsewing as little as possible.
I pretty much had to unsew all of the major seams. One survived. I didn’t unsew the units, except one, which was great.
Then I rearranged. I moved all of the pieces and parts around until I had an arrangement with which I could live.
Press. Resew. Voila!
It isn’t perfect, but it is better and all I can do is learn from this and do better next time. I don’t know what I will do with this block, but it will be a good start to something.
In between bindings and hemming pants, I made some more English Paper Pieced Stars. I still haven’t decided on a layout, but I am running out of papers, so I will need to do so soon, so I can reuse the papers.
Thursday, as you may know, was the Fourth of July in the US. We celebrate our independence by barbequing, watching fireworks, etc. We went over to my BIL’s house for a BBQ. It was last minute and very small. We picked up MIL, a friend from the Natives came and an old friend of BIL’s came. That was it. The Young Man was disappointed that his cousins didn’t attend. Since BIL got sick, he is not up for a large event. He said he misses the larger BBQ, especially seeing friends, they used to host, but it just wasn’t possible.
Since the event was small, I had a bit of space to spread out. I finished one EPP star and started and finished another. I was pleased to be able to do a little sewing even though I was away from the machine. It was nice, because I could participate in the conversation. I also made a bit of a sensation. People were really interested in my project. The Natives friend, Dave, brought his girlfriend, Teri. She asked a lot of questions about the process and what I did with the quilts, etc. I encouraged her to look into a class. I doubt she will do it, but I always try and encourage people to learn to quilt.
This group of stars also makes me wonder if I should continue with my plan to have alternate rows be dots on white or if I should make alternate rows warm and cool colors.
You can see the last stars I worked on in a May post.
I guess I am on kind of a star kick. I am showing you MORE stars, after all.
Aren’t the colors pretty? I think they go together well.
This is the miniscule amount of English Paper Piecing I was able to do while we were out with the Natives. I was only able to piece in the car and it was just a 4 hour drive each way.
I thought I would have scads of time sitting by the pool to work on this project, but nope. I was too busy smiling, shaking hands with DH’s constituents to bring this project out. I think I will have a goal of getting it done by the time he ends his term as Grand President in 2017. It will be my political project. Perhaps I’ll have enough for a table runner?
I spent the weekend up on the North Coast with my handsome DH. In the car, I like to work on something. The English Paper Piecing project I started in August is perfect and I was able to finish 4 stars. A few of the stars were done during TV watching sessions.
I forgot how much I liked this project.
I organized the half hexagons in the hotel room on Saturday, so they were ready to put together in the car. It worked out great.
Each star takes around an hour to sew together.
Earlier this week I wrote the Quilt To Do List, because I had these little things rattling around in my head nagging. Also, I had nothing else to write about having not sewn and already gone on and on about the Spiderweb. I mean how much can you tolerate about Spiderwebs?
I had kind of a brutal week at work. It wasn’t crazy busy, but everything was hard and the most difficult partners and associates were asking me for the impossible. I really wanted to just be at home today and rest. I might be getting a cold, but I feel like I need to rest.
No, I haven’t accomplished the whole list. The Hurricane Sandy blocks for Vesuvius Mama are done. I had to rummage around for some fabric like she wanted and found some very interesting stuff in the process. More on that later.
I had never made a Disappearing 4 Patch before, though I knew the concept from the Food Quilt‘s Disappearing 9 Patch Design, so I knew the concept. This was a good excuse to try out the Disappearing 4 Patch. I don’t remember if I thought the Disappearing 9 patch was fiddly. I thought the D4P was kind of fiddly. I think I like the D9P a little better, but I am always up for learning a new blocks and I think the D4P has some interesting design possibilities. And I can make blocks until the cows come home. I don’t need to like them much to make them. You’ll have to wait for photos as I forgot to take them!
I wrote really small all week and made the last few pages of my journal last. I still have about half a page left. I don’t know whether that is an accomplishment or cramping my creativity. Anyway, the first thing I did this morning was start cutting for a journal cover. I decided that I would make two, then I wouldn’t be behind when I ran out of pages next time.
I had already ironed fabric that I bought for journal covers, so I cut pieces. The journal cover tutorial is now really right on in terms of size. I have tweaked it a bit lately and the covers went together with little to no problems in terms of size. Also, no frustration either. Nice.
I’ll put up more photos and info later. This post was supposed to be a quick “hi. hello” and it is turning into a dissertation.
I really should have made the binding today, because I could have watched TV and sewed down the back. I just didn’t think of it. Perhaps tomorrow.
I really enjoyed working on these small things.
I have made some more progress on the English Paper Piecing Project I told you about in August.
I make about one of these stars per night depending on whether I have basted the half hexagons beforehand or not.
Faye did hers with rows of light and dark stars, as I mentioned, but my plan is to use dots on white as the alternate rows. This is a long term project. It is so I have something to do in front of the television when I am out of bindings to stitch down. I don’t know if I will ever finish this quilt, but I might get sick of it and just decide to finish it once I have made thousands of the stars.
I am still kind of working out how large to cut pieces and what pieces to cut. I have decided to leave out blacks and also dark greys, though I do have a medium grey that I will leave in for the time being.
There is a Labor Day Sew-in happening on Twitter. If you are on Twitter, you can add the #LDSI hashtag to your sewing tweets and join the fun. If you do not have a Twitter account (or you want to follow ALL the tweets) you can still follow along via Tweetchat at this link: http://tweetchat.com/room/ldsi . I tweet as @Artquiltmaker. Are you surprised? Hope to see you there!
This phenomenon started sometime last year with the quilty podcasters. I think Sandy from Quilting for the Rest of Us was the first, but the others quickly joined in. There was a Black Friday Sew-in (for those who don’t shop, or get their shopping done early), Boxing Day Sew-in, New Year’s Day Sew-in that I can recall. It is a fun way to have some contact with other quiltmakers and still sew in your pajamas.
I stayed home while much of the family went to see Cal play in their new stadium. I want to see the new stadium, but when given a choice between sewing and watching football with 70,000 other people, the choice is clear.
I had the Young Man, of course, and one of the nephews home with me. They are close in age and hang well together. I worked on the laundry and tidying the house. Feeding those boys turned out to be a major undertaking that I didn’t expect, as well. I went through: 2 bowls of potato salad, 5 pieces of cobbler, 2 pot pies, a bowl of goldfish, a bagel, frozen yogurt and smoothies. WHEW!
As mentioned, I am sewing more slowly than usual, but I did make some progress on various projects.
First, I finished a pillowcase that the nephew (above nephew) started sewing awhile ago when he was home alone with me. I didn’t think he was going to finish it anytime soon and I kind of wanted it out of my workroom and on his bed.I talked to him and he was fine with me finishing it.
What a pain this thing was to finish! It was much too narrow. I don’t know what I was thinking when I cut it. I had to add pieces to make it marginally wide enough. My nephew is an easygoing child/Young Man, so I think it will be fine.
I started to sash the A-B-C Challenge blocks. They are looking good, IMO. I am really liking the grey.
One of the bonuses that I didn’t expect was that after I sashed a number of the blocks, I was able to see how much better the grey sashing looks as opposed to using white. I may not have considered white, but the design wall is white and having the un-sashed blocks next to the sashed blocks shows a big difference. I also think that the grey is really setting off the vibrant colors of the blocks well. Glad I chose that grey.
Yes, the new color scheme is Pink and Green! I like the black on white, but needed a bit of a change. I don’t use green much and after trying out the yellow, I thought green might be a good challenge. someone said that it looked like 1980s Papagallo. I have a vague memory of that store (??) or shoes (??). Not sure, but the comment made me smile.
What do you think? Is using a color as a ‘neutral’/background successful? You can reserve judgement until the quilt top is done, if you like. I do think it looks cheerful.
All of this means that I finished sewing together all the groups of 2 2.5″ patches I need for the next donation quilt, so I pressed and resorted them into groups of 8 and started making blocks. I made a total of 3 blocks yesterday and may be able to finish the rest of the blocks today. I don’t know. We will see.
Mrs. K can see some of the pink fabrics she sent me in these blocks. There are also a lot of pinks and greens from my fabric closet as well. It was kind of fun to pick greens, though looking at these blocks I wish I had stayed with one slice of the color wheel rather than going more scrappy. This is one reason I like these donation quilts. I can try out different combinations, not only of color, but tones of color to see how they work together. I might have another one of this color scheme in me. We will see. I still have a lot of pink squares cut.
As previously mentioned, I make these donation quilts as a leaders and enders project. My main project at the moment is sashing the A-B-C Challenge blocks. This means that I don’t know how long the donation quilt will take. I have a vague goal in my head of finishing the top and bringing it to the BAMQG meeting next week, but I already have the Pink Donation top to bring, so I don’t feel obligated. Still, it would be nice.
My final accomplishment of the evening was to unsew and then re-sew a half hexagon star while I watched football with the family. More info, generally, can be found in the previous post about this project.
The footballers (first game in the new Cal stadium) called on their way home from the game and asked me to bring the boys over to SIL and BIL’s house to watch the Michigan game. We are new fans as a niece attends that school. I agreed to pick up Chinese food on the way. I packed up the boys and my hand work project and headed over at the appointed time. The lighting wasn’t that good, thus the poor photo. I’ll get a better one when I take a photo of a group of stars.
None of these projects are really new or exciting for you, perhaps, but I am fond of them.
A few days ago, I gave a little sneak peek at my newest hand project.My quilter is quilting very slowly so I don’t have a lot of bindings to do and it is very hard for me to sit in front of the TV and not have something for my hands to do. There is only so much laundry a person can fold in this world.
I wasn’t really interested in doing anything using the English Paper Piecing technique until I saw my friend Faye’s stars. They look like the above stars, but hers are a bit bigger (I bought the wrong size patterns). When I saw what she was doing, I thought it might be a good project for in front of the TV, in the car, etc.
Like Faye, I bought my patterns from a company called Paper Pieces. They have GREAT customer service and a wonderful catalog that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of EPP.
TFQ is working on a hexagon paper piecing project, so when she was down, she gave me a little tutorial on how to put the pieces together. I was confused until she showed me that you sew straight through the cardstock patterns. Once I knew that everything fell into place. I also have Lisa at BAMQG and Faye via email as resources.
Faye’s piece is getting quite large. Her idea is to use darks and medium-lights in alternating rows. She said the longest row is 15 stars. I am thinking of using dots with light backgrounds as my alternate rows.
I also want to use some of my newer fabric that has not been earmarked for a project.
This is what my new hand project looks like.