Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Katy over at I’m a Ginger Monkey has posted her finished Spiderweb. I have been thinking harder about my Spiderweb and, especially, the massive number of random sized strips I have been saving for it.
Katy’s rendition of this pattern is very bright and cheerful. I like the pinks she has used for the background
I didn’t buy the Frosted Stars kit that I talked about recently. I already have a lot of projects going, I have several projects to start, there were some things I didn’t like about it, it was lots of money, etc. You know all the reasoning.
Still I couldn’t get the thing out of my mind, so I went to look at it again today. In addition to p.s. i quilt shop‘s offerings, the Fat Quarter Shop has the pattern as well. I decided to do my due diligence.
Above is an image of all the Fruitcake prints from the Fat quarter shop. I looked there. I also went to the Moda site to look at the all of the fabrics from the Basic Grey Fruitcake collection. Fruitcake is the fabric collection Charlie Scott uses for the Frosted Stars quilt. It turns out, sadly, that I don’t really like most of the fabrics included in the Fruitcake collection. I still liked the pattern, however, and thought perhaps that I would make it anyway.
I looked around to see if the pattern was available. Charlie Scott, the designer, has a website and has a link to the pattern on the Moda Bake Shop site. YAY! This revelation expanded my options. I could make the quilt with other fabrics. I was thinking aqua/turquoise and red with a little green thrown in.
In the midst of all this I emailed my mom with the various links and she said not to buy the kit, but just to get the pattern and use my own fabrics or other fabrics. Sometimes it is nice to have someone agree with me.
Somehow, I ran across the Kate Spain Christmas fabrics. They are bright and cheerful and a definite possibility. I printed out the PDF so I could look at the individual fabrics. I am not fond of the motifs on a couple of them and I couldn’t use the panels, which are part of the collection. I don’t know if they come with the Jelly Rolls and Layer cakes.
I saw this Lumiere de Noel group as I was perusing the Fat Quarter Shop site. I thought that perhaps it might be a nice choice for the Frosted Stars pattern. It has a little bit of a grey tinge in this picture, but looks much brighter in the example quilt on the site. Take a look at the individual fabrics and let me know what you think.
More thinking required, I think.
I showed these blocks last week. I have a lot of finishing work to do, so they are still on my design wall, which means I keep looking at them.
My original thought was that they should but up against each other and kind of blend together. The more I looked at them, the more I thought the blending together idea wasn’t really working.
Since rearranging is free, I moved them a little apart and started looking at them. It is better having them farther apart, but I am going to reserve judgement until I make more blocks. I definitely need more fabrics to add interest, so I am glad that TFQ helped me pick additional colors and designs.
This quilt is not the mind sorbet project I thought it would be. I know I mentioned this in my last post on this quilt.
The Pineapple has been on my mind lately. I took TFQ’s visit as an opportunity to get a new perspective. I laid the blocks out in the living room and we looked at them and talked about them.
One of the problems is that some of the blocks are too big. I couldn’t figure out why some were so much bigger than they were supposed to be until I was fiddling with these blocks on Monday. I caught a glimpse of the black block in the middle and realized that I cut some of the center blocks slightly larger than they should have been.
My idea was to trim the blocks and make them a little wonky. No, they won’t match up perfectly, but the way they are now; they won’t match up anyway. After my discussion with TFQ, I think I will trim the blocks straight and see how it goes. Worse case scenario: they don’t fit together.
TFQ made no promises that this would work. Sometimes, as I have mentioned, it is just good to talk over the process. I like these blocks. I like the cheerful look of the piece. If it doesn’t work as a quilt; I will have a lot of really cheerful pillows.
TFQ came to stay last weekend. She and I wedged a visit in even though we had a family event in the middle of her visit. One of the things *I* like to do when she is here is get her opinion about my various projects. Often I get stuck and need to move forward but seem to be unable to make any decisions. I can ask any quiltmaker I know, but TFQ knows me well enough not to suggest something completely stupid. She also often prevents me from doing something stupid because I am just tired of the project.
One of the things we worked on was the border of the It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap. I didn’t really work very hard at finding a border by myself, to be honest. I was glad, because what was in my head was not what I ultimately went with.
We auditioned a couple of color combos, including my idea, which included a white dotted inner border (no photo, sorry). I had a lot of that fabric and wanted to use it, but it was too stark as white often can be.
TFQ suggested yellow. We looked through a number of yellow fabrics until we found one that fit well with the yellow from the Merry & Bright Jelly Roll. I found the blues and yellows in this group to be off the beaten path. Interesting, but different than what I have in the fabric closet. The yellow we went with is an older commercial print and not part of that group.
I was pretty interested in using a blue/teal/turquoise color. I found the tone-on-tone in my fabric closet (left photo), but we both felt the quilt needed a bit more pattern. I liked the idea of bringing out the blues, but, since I didn’t have any large pieces of blue from the group and nothing I had was the right tone and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy and wash new fabric I used the green. I happened to see some half yards at Rainbow Resource at the EBHQ show, so I had enough.
Truthfully, we didn’t agonize too much over the colors. We did the Lorraine Torrence thing of making visual decisions visually, we picked and then I sewed them on the next night.
I used the new walking foot to sew the borders on and they are flat and I had not problems. The quilt is now ready for a back and to be quilted. My finishing seems to come in clusters!
I will probably use red for the back, since I have plenty. I don’t know if I will longarm this quilt or send it out. We’ll see.
I have been cutting patches for Julie‘s Tumbler quilt for awhile. It seems only fair since she cut a boatload of hexagons for my Eye Spy quilt. Periodically, I get a bunch together and give them to her when I see her. They fit very nicely into a Recchiuti caramel box, so she gets a nice smell of chocolate along with her Tumblers. It occurred to me that I should surprise her sometime and give her a box of the actual chocolates!
I kind of like having a list of patches to cut as I work through new fabric or fabric I am using. There is something nice about collecting a bunch of blocks and then putting them all together at the end of the year or the end of some other timeframe.
The other day, Julie wrote about getting close to the end in a recent post. She is struggling with the same issue I had and that is the edge. When I was finishing up the Eye Spy, I didn’t want to slice off several hexagons to make a straight edge. That is the suggestion that many resources had for the edge of an Eye Spy.
I also didn’t really want to sew a binding around all of those weird angles. I did that once and once was enough. The one weird angle in the Chocolate Box was enough for me. As you may remember, I did some triangle gymnastics on the Eye Spy to finish the edge in order to end up with a straight edge.
I think this is a case of thinking about what design would be best for the quilt. Chopping off hexagons that were fussy cut to include an image would be jarring, I think. If I had thought ahead, I might have made the edge hexagons a solid or tone-on-tone fabric and not worried about chopping them off. Solid fabrics might have provided a kind of border effect.
I am happy with my solution. It wasn’t the easiest solution, but I think it looks good. I am sure Julie will come up with a good solution as well.
I took the Dale Fleming circles class through EBHQ last weekend. Short Answer: AWESOME.
I was a little skeptical when I saw the supply list and began trying to gather the items required for the class. I talked about this class a few times in various posts in the last few months. The supplies required me to get out of my comfort zone, which is good, but never welcome.
The effort was totally worth it. There was nothing on the list that was a waste. This class used A LOT of freezer paper. The above circle steps use two layers of freezer paper and, apparently, I can only use the freezer paper template once, because of something to do with the amount of glue stick glue required for the process. I didn’t really ask, because it was so early in the process I was still floundering a bit. I’ll have to try using the templates over and see if there is a problem. If I were going to make a circle quilt, as I had planned, I would use TV time to make the freezer paper templates.
Ms. Fleming was an excellent teacher. I found out later that she has magnificently minded (LD) children so she was very cognizant of the different learning styles a teacher has to teach. She had detailed step outs for each part of the process, to which we could refer. She also explained the process and then showed us the process.
I didn’t find Ms. Fleming to be a prima donna. She was generous in allowing us photograph her quilts, step outs and her demos.
I feel really confident, after the class, that I can piece a perfect circle. The circle + background above is my second circle and I think it looks great! I used a pairing of fabric that you may be wondering about. I wanted to use fabrics that were really different that I could see well. No, they don’t really go together, but the above block will stay in my class file and not become part of a quilt. Perhaps that circle quilt that has been on my mind for a few months will come to fruition?
If you don’t want to take a class with Dale, or there is not one happening in your area, you can buy her book: Pieced Curves So Simple. If you don’t like that either, check out Becky’s blog where she talks about creating and using a circle stitcher.
Dale taught us a variety of techniques, including hearts (tips and cleavage!), layered circles (see photo below) and waves. There just wasn’t enough time for me to focus on learning all of them. 6 hours was definitely not enough time with her and I really could have spent at least a whole additional day just working on really getting the technique in my mind. I suggested that she have a work day for students who had taken a workshop. She said she had never thought of that, but would contact me if she decided to do it.
One that I tried was the waves. Her version is a lot easier than the version that I learned in 1989 when I was taking my second quilt class at the adult school. It took a lot of freezer paper, but I finally found a use for the freezer paper roll I have had for a long time. Also, it is possible to make the strips on your piece really thin. Borders are rolling around in my head, especially for the Original Bullseye.
Dale said that after making 5 circles, you can make them on your own without notes. I got up to three during the class and in the few days thereafter. I haven’t gotten back to it.
I really like technique workshops rather than project workshops. I like to be able to put a technique into my arsenal and then pull it out when I need it. I think I will be a lot less reluctant to think about adding circles to my quilts now that I have taken this class.
To date, I haven’t gotten back to circle making. The circle above is hanging, all alone, on my design wall. As I mentioned, my original thought in taking this class was to make a circle quilt. I think the above fabrics don’t express the idea in my mind, but I am also thinking that, perhaps I don’t really want to make a circle quilt. I haven’t decided. I think I need to make a few more test blocks just to see. I definitely want to try making a really small circle and see if I can do it.
An unexpected bonus of this class is that I am now not reluctant to change feet.Changing the snapoff feet is not an issue, but changing fee that required the foot holder to be removed somehow stopped me. After putting on and taking off the zipper foot 37 times, I have no reason to worry about changing feet.
Notice the slightly wonky sashing.
This was probably my favorite quilt. She did this using a different method than we learned. I tried to understand it, but my brain was very full.
This quilt was made using the method we learned. After putting on the first circle, the maker uses that piece (circle and background) as the background.
These look like flowers. I really like how the quilts show she is exploring the technique a lot of different ways. I think that shows mastery.
Summary: I highly recommend her as a teacher! Get her book! Take her class! Make some circles!
N.b. I think my camera is acting up, so I apologize for any bleary photos!
As I mentioned the other day, I enjoyed the Jelly Roll, because I was able to work with a wide variety of coordinating fabrics. I think my favorite in this set, though I do like them all, are the pieces with holly and ornaments. I also liked the diagonal striped fabrics as well.
Aside from the grain problems, the Jelly Rolls provide a quick start for a quilt. I am not saying that this quilt is quick since you haven’t seen the finished piece yet! I don’t really believe in the concept of quick quilts/Quilt in a Day for myself. I think process is important and I think that quilts take longer than a day. Why do you think I make receiving blankets as baby gifts?
I have worked with my child a lot on learning styles, and strategies for successful learning. I have learned a lot from his teachers and the other professionals that work with him about learning styles, which has made me examine my own style of learning. I know that I learn best by someone showing me what to do and then doing it myself. I also learn okay from looking at pictures/diagrams. I don’t learn well by reading instructions. This is probably one reason why I don’t use a lot of patterns. It takes me too long to decipher them.
First, I sorted the strips into sets of two. I decided which strips I wanted to be in the same block as package and bow.
I cut pieces, as designated by the pattern, from the Jelly Roll strips and then I needed a way to keep them together. I don’t have the clips that Fons & Porter use, so I used my machine quilting safety pins. They are pretty sharp so they went through 4 squares, 3 rectangles and two strips pretty well.
I had large pieces of leftover strips and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I went back to the directions and, finally, figured out that I needed to cut more bow and package pieces. From each strip needed to be cut enough pieces for a bow and a package.
I did that extra cutting (more TV watching!) and then rearranged the new strips so that they had different mates for the second round of strips.
One step in the process is to put the bow together. This step involves triangles, but uses the square-into-triangle method to create the triangles at the top of the package.
The directions show the following:
I think it is pretty hard to show this step in directions, especially for someone, like me, who doesn’t use a lot of patterns. I don’t know all the conventions that have been established.
First, I marked all the squares so I would know where to sew. This was part of the meditation of this quilt that I alluded to in the previous Jelly Roll post. This kind of step can really get on my nerves. I didn’t let it; I just sat there with my pencil and ruler and drew lines. I didn’t mark all of the squares at once, but did them in little batches as I needed them.
One thing the directions do not show is that the square will overlap the middle rectangle when you lay it out to make the bow. The directions above show that the square fits exactly over the outside package rectangle. I worry about this kind of thing, because I expect directions to be accurate. Now, I don’t know the limitations of creating drawings in a pattern (on my list to find out about!), but words can certainly be included to explain that layout information. This is not a criticism, just an observation based on my style of working with patterns.
In real life, above is how the directions say to add the triangles to the corners of the package part of the block to make the bottom of the bow. TFQ and I talked about this strategy when I first bought the pattern. I think this technique makes it less intimidating for those afraid of bias. I was a little lazy and just did it this way.
One problem I found with working with THIS pattern using a Jelly Roll is that I only had a certain amount of fabric. When I cut something wrong, I was short. This happened twice. Once with these triangle and I was able to use the Omnigrid triangle ruler to cut some triangles instead of squares, which gave me enough fabric to finish. The other time I just had to add a piece to another piece to make the strip long enough. Working through the process.
There is a lot going on in the photo above. First, even though I tried to mix up the fabrics for the second round of block making, I did keep some the same. The two above are an example of how the blocks looks when you just switch where you put the fabrics.
Second, I had to pick the quilt up off the floor earlier in the week where it was laid out while I pieced various bits. Since it is a scrappy quilt, I wanted to make sure that all the pieces stayed in their place. I drew a quick sketch of the block layout and then made numbers to pin to each block.
Third, not all of the sashing parts were sewed together so I sewed all the sashing squares (cornerstones) to the sashing strips and then pinned the larger pieces to the quilt blocks in such a way that I will know how to sew them when I get to that step.
Why, you ask, were these on the floor and NOT on the design wall? Because the Tarts are still on the design wall! Why didn’t I set up the portable design wall? I don’t know; I didn’t think of it. Yes, those are my toes in my orange wool slippers and, yes, I am standing precariously (joke!) on an IKEA stool (highly recommended for their stability) to not succeed in taking a photo of the whole quilt for you.
Somehow I ended up on the Happy Zombie blog. Yes, that is a quilt blog. I loved the turquoise and cherries theme. I was fascinated by everything that Monica, Happy Zombie’s mistress, has done in the quilt world. There are lots of fun links to look at in the sidebar.
While I did love the colors and theme I really liked her version of the Oh Fransson New Wave quilt and am actually planning on making one. I love the way she used a ruler to cut the pieces. I think it is a good use of a Jelly Roll. You can four photos of the quilt on her site, the main one is here.
As an added bonus, Monica and I had a personal exchange about the ruler she used, which was cheerful and nice.
Definitely go to her site to look at the photos. The quilt is awesome.
No, this is not another insane project of mine. The Pineapple is my insane project and I am not starting another until that piece is done.
A few weeks ago my mom and I went to the DeYoung to see the Amish Abstractions Exhibit, as you might remember. In that exhibit was a Double Wedding Ring quilt. My mom has been working on a DWR for awhile. She is a really good seamstress and the arcs, etc don’t bother her. She is also fearless. She was going to give it to someone and then decided it was too much work for that particular recipient. When I saw the DWR I asked her about hers and we decided that hers might be about the size of the one in the exhibit. She was under the impression that she needed to make 190 arcs or some such crazy number. I asked her to bring the pieces over.
A few days later she brought them over and we laid them out on my living room floor to see the approximate size. I know the photos are not the best, but they were hard to photograph given the angle of my living room. You can kind of see the curves in the way we laid out the pieces.
As you can see from the photo (above) she is using foundation piecing. She is having some challenges:
Fortunately, she was able to see the size when she laid it out while having the quilt from the exhibit in her mind. I think she is going to finish the arcs that she has and then start putting it together.
This past weekend was our annual CQFA retreat by the beach. I spent the weekend working on the FOTY 2009. I also relaxed a little even though I spent a lot of time hard at hard sewing. My body is rebelling a bit from sitting so much and standing so much.
First, I found the last few FOTY blocks on my design wall before I left and I wanted to post a picture of them. I didn’t think I would use the one with the earthy brown (middle row, middle block) on the front, but I ended up using it.
I really worked hard on the piece. As with last year’s piece, there is a lot of sewing and pressing. The process, after I figured out the size and laid the blocks out was to sew two Zanzibar blocks together, press, put back on the design wall, sew two Zanzibar blocks together, press, put back on the design wall and then repeat that process 133 times. Once I sewed sets of blocks together, then I sewed two sets of two blocks together to make a set of four. I did that approximately 67 times. Since I wasn’t in my own workroom I had to walk around my table, past another table and into the corner to get to the iron. The distance was inconvenient, but also good, because it forced me to stretch my body. Putting the top together was a lot of rote sewing, but it was the perfect project for the retreat.
I did a few things differently this year. One was to count up the blocks and try to make a plan as to how I would lay them out before I arrived at the retreat location and was standing in front of my design wall. I knew I had 225 blocks, so I thought I would lay them out in a 15×15 format. What I didn’t take into the consideration was the size of the portable design wall. If I placed 15 blocks down, 3 of them were on the floor. I didn’t want to work with blocks on the floor even though I could have. It is hard to photograph the in progress piece. It is easy to forget some of the blocks, etc. I reconfigured the layout and ended up with, I believe, 12 down and 19 across. I prefer a rectangular layout anyway so it worked out. I needed another block, however, so the earthy brown one ended up on the front. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t scream brown out of the quilt.
I also sorted the blocks. Last year, I think I just put them up in general areas on the design wall and then I had to move them around a lot. This time I sorted the fabrics on the table, put them in Roy G. Biv + white and black order and then put them up on the design wall. This strategy was a lot easier. I didn’t have move such large groups of blocks over and over. I had to move some groups, but the whole process was much easier. Below is a progression of how the piece evolved as I worked on the color:
Another thing I did differently this year was ask some of the other retreaters if any blocks stood out to them in an “I am out of place in this quilt” kind of way. Many of the CQFAers are really skilled designers, others are skilled colorists. All of them have something wonderful to offer if I remember to ask and listen.
I was looking at FOTY 2008 last week and found that there were some rectangles I really should have moved. It is by no means a horrible quilt, but I should have played with the layout a bit more. Asking for help was a great strategy, because people mostly liked the color work I did and I got lots of kudos, but some of the blocks jumped out at them. Funnily enough the blocks they noticed, for the most part, did not jump out at me. Almost exclusively, these were blocks that were hard to place – multi-color fabrics, conversationals, light backgrounds almost completely covered by various colors, etc. The CQFA group is great, because they helped me place the problematic blocks to their best advantage. In this way, I also learned.
I spent a good portion of the retreat sewing the quilt top together. Open house at school was today, so I had to leave the retreat early and only got some straps for my next Anna Maria Horner Multi-tasker tote done. I really wanted to stay, but am glad I was able to have a chat with various teachers at school as well. There is always so much to do!
SIL already used up a bunch of the Infinity blocks we swapped to make this quilt. She entered it in her county fair and won third place. I was so pleased for her.
I love the layout as well. Very clever of her to use the various values of the blues to make a design. A you can see from some of my photos, I was thinking more about how the blues and whites touched each other when I put the blocks together.
What I don’t love is that she has already made a quilt and I still have a block or two to go! I had better get busy!
I received another batch of Infinity blocks from my SIL in the mail last week. Here is the large group (about 31) that I received.
It is so interesting to see her fabric selections and the fabrics she has and compare those two points to the blocks I have made and the fabric I have used. I was also thrilled and amazed to see some of the fabrics that she owns/chose for this project. We get along pretty well, but, sadly, we don’t get to spend very much time together since we live on different coasts. See the bottom right, second block in? That is not a fabric I would have suspected SIL of having, yet I am thrilled that she included it! It shows me another side of her quiltmaking.
After laying these out I decided to lay out all of the blocks I had, so I gathered up the various stashes of Infinity blocks and laid them out on the floor of my workroom.
The above group has about 80 blocks in it. WOW! I can’t believe that we have made that many. I realized that there are a few elsewhere that aren’t included. So, there will be at least one more photo of these quilt blocks for your perusal.
I am glad we are working on this project together. I feel like it brings us closer together.
Last Sunday night, I went over and watched a movie with my SIL. We often craft together and this night was no exception. We watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and stitched. I was able to finish the last middle block of the Flowering Snowball/Cross Block project.
Now I need to worry about the border blocks. I haven’t taken the time to make the pattern for those. I will soon.
I know that I ignored you all weekend. I spent about 24 hours over the three days sewing and really got a lot done. It is difficult to be at work today, because I am still desperate to be at my sewing machine. Needless to say, I have a ton to discuss.
Quick recap:
Photos, etc to follow.