Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I finished another MetroScape block. This is the second to last one and I should be able to get a start on putting the quilt together soon.
I didn’t cut my regular Hunting and Gathering pieces, because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough fabric for the blocks. I am pleased that I have plenty and will be cutting the pieces I need for various other projects soon.
I finished another MetroScape block the other day. I am closing in on finishing the blocks and think I am ready to put the quilt together and be done with it.
I am still pleased with the way these pieces are coming out. I am just ready to move on Who Am I? is on my big design wall and it is starting to call to me again.
I finished another block over the weekend. I like the foreground fabric. That light green (sage or light aqua??) is really nice and unusual.
I have 8 of these now and cut the rest of the foregrounds, so I could spread out the colors. I have enough of the dots so that each foreground will be unique unless I decide to make extra blocks. We’ll see how large I want this quilt to be.
As mentioned, I spent a lot of time Saturday afternoon and evening working on the Ends n.6 donation top and back. Before I got to work on that project. I finished the MetroScape block n.5.
I had done most of the work last week, but hadn’t quite has the time to finish.
I am pleased with the way it came out and am liking the look of the Quick Curve Ruler pieces more and more.
While at PIQF, we talked to the Elkhorn Quilt Company lady about the mini Quick Curve Ruler. Apparently, Sew Kind of Wonderful has come out with a new book using the the mini Quick Curve Ruler with a lot of new designs. Julie was attracted to a pumpkin wall quilt pattern, so she bought the pattern and the ruler. FYI, Sew Kind of Wonderful has a free pattern for a pumpkin tablerunner, if those kind of decorations interest you.
It might seem unbelievably boring to see each of these blocks as I put them together. However, they make me so happy that I can’t help sharing.
I am particularly happy with this block. I started out with a cool center, which I love. Adding the dot fabric, which I thought would be warm, fits perfectly. It takes on a warm cast, I think.
I also counted up the dots I have and found 11. That is one short of those needed for the number of blocks in the pattern. I don’t mind repeating one, but I may make more blocks, which means I will have to repeat others. Stay tuned.
I should have started a new project sooner then I wouldn’t have felt so bad. I started on the next block and I really like it.
I’m still sticking to dots in the outer section of the block. I haven’t decided if I will try the stripes. The thought of matching stripes makes me a bit crazy.
I worked on this block at the retreat, too, and made good progress. Having a nice piecing project to work on is awesome.
I did finish the block yesterday and am pleased with the way it came out.
I finished the block and it was very satisfying. I really needed a piecing project.
I also like how cheerful this block is. Those giant dots are great.
I used some Philip Jacobs fabric in the centers of the corners because why not?
One excellent thing about this pattern is that the directions say to trim certain parts. This means that the sections go together really well!
I already started working on the next block!
I wondered about whether I would enjoy making this block after finding the ruler and the pattern the other day.
It has a lot of curves, which can be problematic in general. I also had to use a special ruler. Sometime special rulers create great effects and sometimes they are a disaster.
I started out easy with 4 blocks that create the center. All of the center blocks will be dots and stripes. Sewing four squares together was easy.
I dove in and started cutting curves. I had some issues but it was mostly operator error. Cutting the first block took me a long time as I attempted to navigate the pattern and fabric choices.
I am planning on using dots on the outer part of the block, but I don’t know if I will have enough dots to differentiate the blocks enough. I am scared of trying to line up the stripes, but I might try one block with stripes to see how it looks.
I did realize that the pattern is called MetroSCOPE not MetroScape. Well, I am going with MetroScape regardless. I don’t have a better name and it kind of reminds me of landscape.
I felt like I needed a piecing project. I have finished (or prepared for quilting) quite a few projects this year. I decided I could start something new. The project I started was on my Dream/Future projects list.
I looked at a couple of the projects on my various lists, but the Quick Curve Ruler project floated to the top. I looked at the Goodnight Irene project. This is a project from Missouri Star, though it has been around in other places as well. I have a lot of 2.5 inch squares already cut, so I could have started pretty quickly. There was something about it that didn’t grab me.
I also looked at the Thirty Something project. I have been cutting 1.5 inch squares for the center blocks and have enough to make a start. The problem was that there is a lot of other cutting required. I don’t mind doing some cutting, but I didn’t want to have to spend a whole weekend cutting before I could actually sew. I need to add some different pieces to my cutting list so I can make some progress on this project. I have to say that the 1930s fabrics** used in the project in the magazine are not appealing to me. The fabrics might have been a bit off putting. I don’t know.
I looked in my book and saw the Quick Curve Ruler project. I didn’t have a specific pattern in mind, but wanted to try the ruler. The YM bought it for me a few years ago and it was time to get around to trying it out.
Even though I don’t use patterns much, I have a few for this ruler and thought it would be a good idea to follow one. I chose MetroScape after looking at the two I could find easily.
Stay tuned for some progress.
**Nota bene: I don’t dislike 1930s fabrics; they just aren’t a favorite and this 30 Something project is overwhelmingly 1930s fabrics. The overall look was too….something.
Gerre brought her blocks to the meeting last month and laid them out. I talked about this process earlier in the week (better late than never!). During that process, I realized that my shard was not among the ones she brought. I looked up all the Color My Quilt posts and don’t think I ever made her a piece. I was really sad about that, so I got busy.
This one isn’t as long as I thought it would be and is more buttoned up than the other shards, but I hope she will be able to use it.
Marty tried to torture me this month with her request.
Brown.
Yep. Brown.
I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Fortunately, I didn’t have go to the indignity of beige or baby poop brown. I had a chocolate fabric with the most fabulous lime, turquoise and orange dots. Haha!
The shard is a little bit of an odd shape, but that is ok. Marty will just have to deal. I hope she likes it.
I had made some fabric using browns sometime ago. I can’t remember for what reason, so I just decided to toss that into the pile for Marty as well. Despite my best intentions, I am not going to make a journal cover from browns. I might have been thinking of making another Henry, but that can wait. I want to make a white one first.
Last month, Gerre brought her shards to we could all look at them. Gerre has left her handbag at home, so didn’t have her phone and couldn’t take photos. I volunteered and texted her photos as I took them. There are a lot of photos!
Being the opinionated ladies that we are, we all had opinions about placement. It was kind of fun to work with other people moving shards around. I think Gerre was kind of excited, too, as it gave her ideas about placement.
I had issues with the plum (see upper part of first photo, left). I thought the plum should be dispersed throughout the quilt.
We also tried to move the white around so it wasn’t all clustered in one place (see bottom two rows).
There was advice about putting the pieces together into chunks and cutting pieces up. I think it got people excited about layout.
I worked hard last week on the Aqua-Red Sampler and got the top and back finished. WHEW! I didn’t fight with it as much as I had over the past month, but it wasn’t all peaches and roses either.
I probably would have made the white border thinner, if I had it to do other again, but I am not ripping it out. I think it works.
I ended up choosing the solid border, mostly because I didn’t have enough of the daisy fabric and I didn’t want to fiddle and fight to make it fit. I am pleased with it.
I worked hard on the Aqua-Red Sampler quilt over the weekend. It was great to have a nice long weekend. I made a lot of progress and will be glad to get this quilt out of my hair.
You will notice that I rearranged the blocks since my last layout. I also did not include the Cathedral Window block. It was just too thick. I have another test block from this quilt and I think I will make a pillow from the two of them.
I made a new block and needed to rearrange the blocks because of the colors. I didn’t want all the big red dots and daisy fabrics lumped together in one area. This quilt has been one problem after another and I hope that the borders will cut me some slack.
I found a bright white (Pure Elements Snow, which is different from Kona Snow) that picked up and highlighted the other bright whites in the blocks. I tried not to include too much cream where possible. I’m not sure about the width of that white border (2.5 inches). I may rip it off and make it smaller. That is not my first choice.
I thought the daisy fabric would be exciting, but I would have to struggle with making sure I used every scrap if I can’t find the rest of the stash of it that I know I have somewhere. The solid turquoise would be a solid choice. By that I mean that it would work, it would probably hold in all that is going on in the quilt.
As part of the Sampler Quilt Class and other tutorials I have on this site, I want to add one about putting a quilt together. I thought it would be good to include information about sashing at the same time. Since I have been using this quilt to write the Sampler quilt posts, I thought I would use it to create the latest tutorial.
Process can be a difficult mistress (boy toy??) and she had both fangs and talons out for me on Sunday. I really wanted to just piece a bunch of stuff together, so I took Who Am I? off the design wall and started checking out sashing options for the Aqua-Red Sampler. I thought this would be a relatively easy task and I would be sewing in no time.
HA! I should never think that.
I started off thinking that the version above with no sashing just wasn’t quite right. I have a stack of fabrics that I keep for backs and sashing (larger pieces) so I started to look through them and try them out.
I always use Lorraine Torrence’s rule to “make visual decisions visually”. Well, when I do that I usually get good results. When I don’t, I ruin the quilt.
I pulled out the most likely option and pinned some blocks up on my design wall (2 layers of fabric don’t stick). You can see how optimistic I was that this would work based on the number of blocks I put up. It isn’t terrible, but I didn’t like the way the red was interacting with some of the reds in the blocks.
I thought maybe some blue and I have a nice turquoise solid that I got out. Not terrible, but nowhere near great either. The blocks with the lighter blue backgrounds stick out like sore thumbs and the blocks with the medium blue backgrounds wash out. I wasn’t daunted yet.
I thought maybe I should introduce a new color. I know I wanted this to be a, basically, two color quilt, but I started to think, perhaps, that there was no way to keep that dream alive with the two colors I had chosen. I thought about the green in Stepping Stones n.2 and I picked out a nice floral without flowers that included that green plus the blue.
Hideous.
I couldn’t yank that fabric off the design wall fast enough. It made me think of my man, Phil, though. I tried one of his prints. Also hideous. Well, not hideous, but it really didn’t work. The blue was wrong. The pink was wrong. It looked messy and slapped together.
I decided to try some white. It wouldn’t be my first choice because it is too predictable, but I was starting to feel desperate. Just a little. The white is wrong, too. I am not sure why, but it doesn’t add anything. It was too white as well, as if THAT makes any sense.
Since I liked the dots and was still thinking the white might just too white, so I pulled out a different dot and tried to like it. It isn’t terrible. It does add a bit to the whole piece, but the black dots just aren’t right. There is none of that fabric in the whole piece. I put it aside as a possibility.
Still thinking dots would work, I pulled out a different red dot print. The red wasn’t exactly the shade I would have chosen if I had all the fabric in the world, but the dots were larger and that was promising. Also, not terrible, but also not exactly right.
By this time, I was starting to feel disheartened and needed some input so I posted to Instagram to get some feedback. People were very kind and had some good ideas.
One person suggested navy, which might work, but I don’t like navy much and don’t have any navy fabric – yardage, at least. I might have some scraps. Amanda suggested yellow. I had a nice sunshine-y orange, which I just thought I would try to see. Not terrible, but not right either. It came across as gold in the photos (even the one above, I think). You remember the hunt for yellow in which I engaged for the basket quilt? I really didn’t want to go out and buy fabric. I really felt I had to have something that would work.
I found some cherry fabric, again by my man, Phil, and thought I would try it. The first Philip Jacobs option was still on my mind. I wasn’t ready to give up on him again. This fabric is actually okay. I think ‘okay’ is a step above ‘not terrible’. Still it didn’t scream YES! at me.
Much more sighing went on.
My last option for the day was a grey. I was not hopeful. I really wanted to sew and I had used most of my sewing time on an unsuccessful attempt to choose some sashing.It didn’t work. It doesn’t look much better than the white
I gave up and went to sew the latest donation quilt. I am starting to think this quilt does not want sashing and I’ll have to make the tutorial with another quilt.