I am not ready to piece yet, but I am so much farther along than I was when I last checked in.
I know a number of you liked the falling water/color gradation effect, but process wins and it wasn’t working for me.
This is so much better. I couldn’t have done it without the work I did on the first version. I did extensive sorting of the colors, as you may have noticed if you enlarged the photos and looked carefully. I expect that most of you didn’t have time and will just take my word for it.
The extensive sorting that I did really helped me leap frog over the preliminary shuffling that I have done in the past. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future.
I still have a lot of work to do, but I am feeling better about the piece.
As I mentioned, I was avoiding the Petrillo bag on Saturday and ended up working on this project.
One of the annoying things about this project is that it takes 36 seams to make a block. This means that I sew and sew and sew before I make any progress.
On the good side I sew and sew and sew and then, all of a sudden, I have 6 blocks done. It is nice to see the blocks once they are done.
I have been trying to work through each color and then attach it to a different color to avoid duplication when making the 2-octagon subunits. It doesn’t always work and will look better once I have all the blocks done. The problem is that, in a picture like the one above, it looks like I have used the same fabrics in all the blocks.
To a certain extent I have and it bugs me, but then I remember that I am not going to, necessarily, put the blocks above next to each other in the quilt.
I also get bored with the same fabrics, so I try and move through the stack of colors so I have more from which to choose. As a result, I have some quarter block units to put together still and octagons waiting to be paired with other octagons.
The progress continues, though I only have 10 blocks at the moment. I will keep sewing and make more.
I have been piecing parts of the Russian Rubix blocks together, but not putting as many blocks together as one might expect.
I am trying to sew grey to all of the octagons, so I have a lot of choices when I go to make the blocks. It is a good plan, but doesn’t always work, because I get bored and want to make blocks.
So, I make a few blocks then admonish myself for having no self control and go back to making the pieces and parts for awhile.
Russian Rubix Booboo
I am pleased with the group of fabrics I put together. It is fun to see the different fabrics next to each other and in different combinations. I made one small booboo on one of these blocks: I put the same fabric in one block twice.
In the grand scheme, I don’t think it will matter since there will be several octagons next to each other and the different quarters of the blocks will create new rings when they are put together. Still, I want you to know that mistakes happen and life goes on. I did consider ripping it out and putting in a different quarter block (2 octagons). I may still, but for now I am going to leave it. I really don’t think people will notice much.
Also, SIL said that the light blues dropped out because of their value on the grey. She was right, but there is something in leaving them in that creates a bit of movement. I plan to space them away from each other, if I can, when I lay out all the blocks.
I had three of the four shown finished for a long time, but I couldn’t seem to get the fourth one finished. Finally, I did and wanted to take a photo so I could remove these blocks from the design wall and fill up the space with new blocks.
Susan is back in action and that means I need to get back to the Russian Rubix. I haven’t been completely ignoring this project, but I haven’t been as focused as I need to be. I haven’t completely been ignoring the project, though.
I am working on the Super Secret Project #4 and I am at the point where I really need to keep things in order so I am piecing parts of the Russian Rubix in between the SSP#4 parts.
I was thinking about combinations of colors as well. In each block there are 8 octagons. I was wondering, as I mentioned, if I should put more cool than warm colors (and visa versa) or if I should put all cools in one or equal out the warms and cools. In the end, I don’t think it matters very much, because there will be many blocks and many opportunities for combinations of colors, temperatures and fabrics.
It is going very quickly. I thought of sewing octagons in some sort of orderly fashion, but then I didn’t. I don’t want to sew all of the patches at once, because I want to see blocks as well as parts.
No joke. I worked diligently on Saturday and finished the top of the Disappearing Pinwheel. When I last wrote about this project, I didn’t really feel like I could ever finish it. I may not have conveyed my feelings in the post, but I was feeling pretty low about it. I don’t know why.
Then Friday, I had a lot of paperwork and boring stuff to do (e.g. sign Young Man up for ACT test-bleah!) and didn’t work on any quilt anything. So, Saturday was the day. I had to get up at 5am to get the Young Man to a Drumline competition (do you sense a theme here?), so by 9 I was ready to sew. I spent most of the day sewing the top and got it done.
Disappearing Pinwheel Top
I am pleased, though a little disappointed that I ran out of the background fabric. I could have gotten more (thanks to Kelly O! for the offer), but I decided to use what I have and get the top done, so I can move on. I didn’t want to wait for an order, or for a friend to send the fabric.
It turns out that I actually like the way the second background drops out and the first background looks more highlighted.
I plan to have Colleen quilt the second background in a slightly darker grey so that the lightness is toned down a bit. When I talked to her about it, she said OK.
The smaller detail shot shows a close up of the second fabric. It was also one of those I bought with an eye towards using it for the Russian Rubix. Too beige for that project, but it worked ok for this one.
Disappearing Pinwheel detail
Vital Statistics:
Size: 84”h x73”w
By Jaye A. H. Lapachet, 2014
For the collection of Pierce Lapachet
Pieced by Jaye A. H. Lapachet
Longarm quilted by Colleen Granger
I also finished the back. It was a pain, as backs are wont to be, but I wanted to get it to Colleen yesterday, so I powered through. I thought I would get a lot more done on Sunday, but I didn’t. I just got the back done and then I had to clean up my workroom. It made me cranky to work on it, so I am glad it is finished. I continued pulling from my grey bin and a lot of greys you see have been in my fabric closet for over 10 years. I am happy they are finally getting an airing.
Disappearing Pinwheel Back
I still have to make the binding. What color do you think would work with this top?
I had hoped to show you a finished quilt by now, but that is not yet to be. Perhaps over the weekend I will finish. Despite being off of work, I have been quite busy this week and whenever I haven’t been busy, I have been laying on the couch or face planted in bed. Neither of those activities are conducive to finishing the DPW! ERGH!
Still, I have to remind myself that there are no prizes for finishing and the process is important. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Finally, all the blocks I am going to make are finished. I am pleased with the blocks. They look fun, are a bit off and not my usual style. The background adds to that idea. I am wondering if this is stretching my fabric choices. If so, then this quilt pattern was a good one to use to stretch, because I wasn’t in love with it.
DPW Block
Don’t get me wrong. It is a fun project, but I didn’t have a good reason for doing it, so using fabrics I wouldn’t normally use was a good thing. It also used up the Mod Century layer cake which was an impulse buy and not slated for another project. I also used that grey background, which was sort of an unfortunate purchase (online), but worked out for this project.
I really enjoy seeing what other people are making with the same pattern and this project was no exception. There is a lot of variety in the DPW projects the Twilters are making and it is interesting to watch.
I am really glad I had little bits of this fabric to work with. I don’t think it ever caught my attention in a quilt store, but I like the different prints and think the shapes and colors are interesting.
I think the border will be very interesting. You’ll have to wait a bit to see that as the piece is in such disarray at the moment as to prevent me from taking a photo that would be anything but embarrassing. Soon, trust me.
The bad news is that I probably won’t have enough background fabric to finish the borders. I am going to look around and see if I have more. If I do, I certainly want to dig it out and use it, but if not, I will find something else. No, it won’t be the same, but I want to use what I have on hand.
I have had a few busy weeks plus Scrapitude to prepare for quilting so I haven’t had a chance to work on the Disappearing Pinwheels. I thought I remembered taking some photos of the latest group that I hadn’t posted.
I made a lot of progress on my last session of making these blocks and will need to get busy on it again soon.
The orange and red block to the left really caught my eye when I was looking at the whole group. I noticed how well the pinwheel in the center of the block stood out. Some of the blocks are very subtle, but that one has god contrast.
In the group photo, I noticed how the background stripes have a subtle stripe, but it does add a lot of movement. Friend Julie and my mom both said the same thing when they saw the blocks.
I may take Scrapitude over to be quilted next week and I have some idea that I will take this quilt over as well. That is a lot of work between now and then, but we will see. It would be nice to get this out of my hair.
After finally settling down over the weekend, I decided to start piecing Scrapitude into a top. The top is not yet completely pieced, but I did get a rhythm going and I did make progress. I might be able to finish it this weekend, which would go a long way towards alleviating some of the chaos.
The piece looks really cheerful, which is nice. Sandi said it reminded her of confetti. It does, so I might use that as a name.
As I was piecing the seam allowances were shrinking, I noticed how the lines of squares ran through the whole piece. I think it would have been good to make those all one color and not use that color anywhere else in the quilt — or only in selected locations that didn’t touch the squares.
After years of this project being a UFO and a WIP, the end is in sight. Colleen is back in the saddle and she did this quilt as soon as she returned. She has had it for a year. I didn’t believe her, but when I looked back in the blog, I had to agree that she was correct.
Five more quilts will follow quickly over the next couple of months with one coming, perhaps, next week. I am not quite sure what to think! I had better get to binding; that is for sure.
I expect the next clue to be iminent, so I checked, after piecing the blocks together, that I had all the piecing done for all the Scrapitude parts.
Ooops!
Scrapitude Triangles
I forgot to finish some of the triangles. There were two kinds of triangles detailed in Scrapitude Clue #4 Part 2. I had finished all of the smaller version units. I think they must be blocks for the corners. I suspect that the blocks will be placed on point.
I had not, however, sewn all the larger triangle units. I got busy on that and sewed them wrong, so I ripped and resewed. It turns out that I had not changed the ink in my printer, so there was no blue or yellow and I couldn’t see the proper colors. Now they are all finished, nice and pretty.
Scrapitude Setting Triangles?
After I finished those larger triangles, I played around with settings. If the quilt is put together like I suspect it is, there will be a lot of bias edges. I am really hoping that I am wrong.
Scrapitude Setting?
I have to be because there are some background squares leftover. I am sure Charlotte has some clever setting in mind for us.
I didn’t expect to spend the better part of last Saturday finishing up Scrapitude blocks, but it seemed like the right thing to do when I realized the next clue would be coming out soon. I don’t want to get too far behind and have more travel coming up. It was also pretty easy to work on.
I started by testing out the 9000 by putting one block together on Friday. I had an idea that I would need to take the machine to a new dealer and Friday was my day to do it.
I ended up spending quite a while sewing and the 9K machine acted fine. I went to the quilt store anyway (also the machine dealer I plan to go to for service and repairs next time) and talked to them about the machine. I just didn’t bring the machine in. They are skeptical that they can fix it, if it continues with the same problem. The dealer I went back and forth with 100 times (or what seemed like 100 times) has more experience. While talking to them, I told them that they might have a different perspective since they are quiltmakers. For the moment the machine is at home and working fine.
Saturday I started in again on Scrapitude blocks and just worked on them until they were finished. I have gotten a lot of nice compliments on them, which are much appreciated.
I went to Memphis for work last week and really missed sewing. I arrived home on Saturday around 8. No sewing that night, but Sunday, I got to it. Sandy posted the next clue on Scrapitude sometime last week and people were already finishing up their blocks – yes, that clue included the blocks layout – and I was chomping at the bit to sew. As soon as I got some Sunday chores out of the ay, I started laying the blocks out.
Scrapitude: Don’t Do This
I realized pretty quickly that I would have to rip out the units I had sewn with the large plain triangles and the complex corner units, because that combination was completely wrong. Duh. I didn’t rip them out before, because I was hoping I was ahead and not wrong. Sadly, Charlotte has another plan in mind and I was wrong. I ripped a little and sewed a little and finally got enough of the Jester Hat blocks (I’ll have to look up the real name sometime) to make up 25 blocks. I slowed down on the ripping and started to sew in earnest.
Scrapitude: Missing Jester Hat blocks
As you can see, I laid out the various parts into blocks. Most of my Jester Hat units are not 4.5″ and that really bugs me. I think it is because of switching machines, what feels like, several dozen times.
As I arranged the layout, I did a the pieces around to maximize the colors and spread like colors across the piece. Mostly I just laid them out. There is enough variety so, for the most part, no two fabrics are next to each other. Still I thought the piece looked like a bit of a jumbled mess.
I went and got my machine on Monday and used it to make some of the blocks, but after about two hours of sewing, it is acting up, so I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. 🙁
I can’t be too upset, because I did get quite a bit done. I also had fun on my birthday, got back in the workout saddle AND I was thrilled to be back and playing with fabric.
Scrapitude: Too dark?
I am still thinking about the piece as a whole. With Mystery Quilts, it is hard to figure out a cohesive look for the whole when you don’t know what the whole will be. I guess that is the nature of Mystery Quilts. Rather than exciting, it is causing me some anxiety. I think, because of the amount of the turquoise and pink that there is an element of cohesion. Or I might be wishing strongly.
In terms of the scrappiness of the piece, I have been concerned all along. It is easy not to be too concerned while grabbing fabrics and cutting them up. What could go wrong, right? There are a lot of different fabrics and, though most are really clear, there are some dull ones (see that yellow with sailors towards the bottom of the above photo?). I think they are ok in the grand scheme, but I would be happy if they were gone.
I think the dots-as-background pull the piece together, even though the background is made up of a lot of different dot fabrics. Still I have some concerns about some of the darker fabrics. I have arrows pointing to the fabrics that are really B List fabrics, in terms of this piece. There are some others. I am going to leave them, because Maureen said they would be ok. I also don’t want to rip anymore. I am trying to spread them out so that they do not clump together to create a dark spot or hole in the quilt.
Scrapitude detail
And so, I ended up with these blocks. To the right are the completed blocks. they are bright and cheerful and I am glad I used my dots for the background. I think it needs to be the Year of the Dots, a year where I will use my dots.
I have also made some of the triangle units designated in Clue #4 part 1 and Clue #4 part 2. I think this piece will be set on point, but I am not sure how as there are still sashing strips. I do like the look of the two triangle (corner??) units.
Scrapitude: Large Triangle Unit
I had to finish ripping the rest of the wrongly sewn blocks in order to make the piece above. It looks fairly complex, but is pretty easy to put together.
One good thing about a Mystery Quilt is making all the units upfront. I didn’t like all that cutting, but it really makes this step go fast.
Scrapitude: Small Triangle Unit
These also look fairly complex, but the same applies. I am getting a lot of bang for my buck!
Yes, yesterday I finished the last details I needed to do to prepare the top for quilting. The tasks required were:
Finish back
Make binding
Trim top
Stay stitch
Saturday was a busy day, because I attended the CQFA meeting. I stayed after the meeting to sew with Sonja, Angela and Rhonda. It is good for me to hang with others and talk sewing. I am tending to work alone lately and am trying to get out of that rut.
During the sewing time, I worked on finishing some buttonhole stitching on one of the stockings and making progress on applying the sleeve to the Original Bullseye top. When I returned my mind was buzzing with an idea using the technique that Caroline taught based on Susan Carlson’s book, Serendipity Quilts. I worked on getting the design to the size that I wanted. That was about all I had energy for before I needed to go to bed. In the process, I ruined the cropping tool on Photoshop Elements. I know there is something I clicked, but I don’t know what it was and will have to take some time to find it and undo it. Ergh! All this is to say: 1) I didn’t work on the Attack of the Hexies on Saturday and 2) I have an idea for a new, small art piece, so stay tuned.
Yesterday morning, I had big plans to get up early, go to the gym, take a shower and get going on Attack of the Hexies by 10am. Famous last words! I didn’t get up until nearly 9 and I felt creaky. I have been dealing with a cold. While I am on the downslope of it, I am stilling fighting it off. I didn’t sleep well a few nights in a row and am trying to make up for that lack of sleep. I cut myself some slack.
After writing in my journal for awhile, I went upstairs and started sewing. I had to add a bit of fabric to one half of the back before I could sew the whole piece together. I did that and had to trim the whole back so that the piece was essentially square.
Attack of the Hexies Back
The line of bricks on the horizontal in the center of the back used to be hexagons, but I cut the leftover hexies up into rectangles and used them to add a little interest. The rest of the back is leftover yardage from the Flower Sugar line of fabric. I still have at least 5 yards of yardage left from that line. Not sure what I will do with it, but it will go into the stash and will show up again. There are two pieces that I really like.
Next, I made the binding. I used one of the pinky-reds from the line to provide a frame for the entire piece. I also made it a straight of grain binding. A lot of the border is on the bias because of the way I placed the hexagons as I added them to the piece. Basically, I didn’t pay attention to the grain line. I should have, but didn’t. I don’t do straight of grain bindings very often, because they tend to get kinks and near-folds in them as I hand stitch them on to the quilt. I like the ‘give’ that bias bindings have. It makes them very easy to apply by hand.
In this case, I want the edge to be stable. I don’t want it to get out of whack when it is quilted, thus, a straight of grain binding. We’ll see how it goes.
Trimming Border
Finally, and I don’t know why I did this last, I trimmed the border. It wasn’t straightforward, but I had to trim half of each hexagon one by one. I used the lines on the Clearview Ruler I discussed in the Hexagons Follow-up post to keep the who piece as straight as possible.
It wasn’t straightforward, because of the bias, so I just did it slowly and as carefully as I could. The piece will not be as straight as the Quilt Police would want, but they never made this quilt and I am happy with it. As you can see from the photo above, the border looks a little odd, but I like how it looks different.
The piece is now ready for quilting. I’ll take it to Colleen for quilting as soon as I can. I look forward to getting this completely done.
As I mentioned, all of a sudden, I am working fast and furiously on the Attack of the Hexies (Flower Sugar Hexagon). I spent all weekend trying, in vain, as it turned out, to finish the top, back and binding of Attack of the Hexies.
Attack of the Hexies border – in process
As I have said, Y seams are not hard, but they do take time. I decided to put a border on the piece and I needed to do it using hexagons. I don’t know another way to piece fabric into a hexagon piece without using hexagons. I could have cut off the hexagons on the edge, but I have always disliked that look for my own quilts and didn’t want to do that for this piece.
I also didn’t want to buy new fabric. Fortunately, I had enough of the Art Gallery solid Linen to use for the border. I didn’t even use all that I had, though my stock is significantly diminished.
The border is on the piece. I intend to trim it so the edges are square and still need to do that. I am all for wonky borders (Case in point: the Zig Zaggy Quilt), but not in this piece. I want the border to be square and subtle so that the center looks like it is floating on the border.
I am partway through the back as well. I lounged around for a long time on Sunday and didn’t have enough time to finish it. I had big pieces left over, so I didn’t have to piece a lot of small pieces together.
For months I didn’t work on the Hexies project, then on the first I just dove in and added rows. I am not sure why except that it didn’t require cutting. The hexagons were there, the piece was there and I needed something to sew.
I got my head around the Y seams and did it. I didn’t want to sew one hexagon on at a time and I had a row started, so I finished the row and worked on sewing the whole row on at a time. It was a lot of stopping and starting, but I just did it. I developed a system and kept at it.
Things I have to figure out:
How big to make it. It seems small now, but I know that if I fill my design wall it makes a pretty big quilt.
Whether to unsew a section where I sewed two of the same fabrics together.
How to finish the border – to square it off or leave it jaggedy. I am not sure I can face all those mitered binding corners
I plan to just work on it until I am done with the top.
