Process – Page 30 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Zen Quiltmaking

I had an appointment with Colleen yesterday to talk about the quilting for the Frosted Stars, the Frosted Stars Leftovers and the Purple Quilt. I wanted to bring the Fabric of the Year 2010 top over as well, but I wasn’t able to even start the back. My life felt like it was spiraling into complete craziness this past week as things just continued to get heaped on to me. To add to the general life craziness, my work computer is acting up. It has been for awhile, but it reached new heights of not working on Wednesday afternoon and I lost patience. Nothing would load (web pages, local programs, nothing) and I could hear the hard drive churning away, which I knew was a very bad sign. Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, completely and totally fed up, I went to my boss, told him him the problem and asked him if I could just read my email from home on Thursday if my computer was working the same way. He said if my iPad was faster, I should just go home and use that on Thurs. WOOHOO!

Sadly, his IT staff came in early and did a stopgap fix on my computer. It was much better on Thursday, so I had to stay at work instead of hang out at home with my iPad next to my sewing machine. 😉 Oh well.

The computer problems just added to my stress and in light of the craziness, I decided I had to be okay with not getting the back of the FOTY 2010 finished. I talked to Colleen and will bring it in two weeks when she is back in town and ready to quilt again. That means I have two weeks to finish the back.

This past week wasn’t a complete quiltmaking desert. I did get a break on Monday when I didn’t have to take the Young Man to his regular Monday appointment and I took the opportunity to finish the FOTY 2010 top! Yay! I feel so good about that.

All the diamonds were sewn together and the border strips were cut, so I just had to sew them on to the top. It took me a long time – about 3.5 hours. I never think that borders and backs are going to take long, but they always seem to take longer than I expect. Oh well.

I learned a couple of things making this top. First, my deadline was to piece the whole top at the CQFA Retreat. It turned out that I wasn’t ready to piece this whole top. Diamonds require finding my sweet spot of piecing. I had to develop a rhythm and a method and I hadn’t done it by the time I reached the retreat. Second, this was a top that needed me to take my time. I ripped out much of the piecing I sewed at the retreat. A lot of people don’t care about points being cut off and I am not going to beat myself up about every single point, but I absolutely don’t want my bad technique to distract viewers from the overall look of the quilt. Finally, this quilt needed to be pieced slowly and carefully.

I have been lamenting my pictures (my whole blog, really) lately and these two show great detail, but they are not great photography. I am pretty pleased with the color layout on the pink and white section.

The diamonds are not in perfect positions colorwise, but I have improved since FOTY 2009.

In the photo of the pinks and whites, I am really pleased that I clustered the whites in the corner. In FOTY 2009 I put them along the left side one on top of the other and I decided that wasn’t as effective in terms of the colorwash idea. It is very difficult to get a really smooth colorwash effect when using prints. As I said, I think I improved over last year.

My mom kept telling me to move diamonds AFTER I had already sewn them and finally I had to tell her to make her own colorwash quilt!

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I will be making a block or two from Joel Dewberry fabric. I have the fat quarter laid out on my ironing board (see previous comments about horizontal space in my workroom!), because my design wall is full, and there is no horizontal space.

As I was finishing the FOTY, I kept pressing bits and pieces. When I was pressing the corner of the inner border on top of the JD fabric, I noticed how interesting this particularly corner looked with the JD fabric as the border. I didn’t want that active a print on the outside of this quilt, but I thought it was interesting.

FOTY 2010 Progress: 2/25-2/27/2010

When I started piecing Sunday (the only day I had to piece over the weekend) the above photo shows where I started. I felt a little quilt nervous breakdown-ish. The reds and pinks were really making me a bit crazy. I gave myself the day to finish the top, but part of me didn’t think I would get through it.

I started off by unsewing a whole bunch of patches that I had pieced just to get something done on Thursday or some normally non-sewing day. Unsewing got me into the groove of sewing. Above you can see that I have started to get the reds and pinks under control. There was some kind of shift in my brain and working slowly through each patch allowed me to get into the groove and make progress.

Above: four large chunks left to sew together.

The top above is finished. At least the main part is finished. I haven’t decided if I will add another grey border to accommodate the quilting process. I am concerned that the dots won’t match. As I turned away to come to the computer to write, I thought about piping as a way to accommodate the distortion of the quilting process and the dots not matching.

Not completely finished, but well on its way. If I can get the back done I can take it be quilted! YAY!

FOTY 2010: Week of 2/7 Progress

I hung up FOTY 2009 in my hallway yesterday. It can be seen when people walk in the front door. I received a ton of compliments on it, which was very kind of people. I was planning to take it to work, but needed to solve a quick decorating dilema and decided to keep it at home for awhile. I have to think of something new to hang in my office as I am getting tired of seeing Seeing Red when I walk in.

In the meantime, I am still working on FOTY 2010 steadily, though I wasn’t able to do much more than unpick a few yellows this past week.

Pretty much, this is where I started this week. There were still lots of gaps in the blues, but I had started to piece the smaller pieces into larger. One can ‘chunk‘ this type of quilt in the piecing process, but not as easily, or for as long, as when piecing square or rectangular patches. At some point I had to piece long rows together.

Part of this has to do with the arrangement of this particular quilt. The colorwash type arrangement doesn’t lend itself well to piecing the patches into chunks of four patches, as I was able to do with the Eye Spy quilt.

Aren’t the blues behaving nicely? The placement is not ideal and I would do it differently if I had unlimited tints, hues, values and shades, but my FOTY rule is that I have to use what I have, and so far I am happy.

You can see, above, the whole blue section pieced.

I am heading towards the pink on the bottom. Now that the blues are behaving nicely, the pinks are becoming little brats. It reminds me of the Mandrakes in the book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That big gap has reappeared in the pink area. Grrrr!

I have been contemplating the yellow and pink sections and doing a bit of playing with their arrangement. I am not terribly fond of a big line of greens or yellows or pinks slashing through the quilt. I prefer more of a blob arrangement (like the pinks are in the above photo – more of an organic shape). I am not sure at this moment how I will have them blend into each other – the blue to pink – if I do the blob arrangement. I don’t have enough yellows, greens and oranges to wash very completely. I think the green to yellow to orange is much easier, but there is a space consideration up towards the top. I’ll have to play around and see what works.

CQFA Retreat – FOTY 2010

My retreat project, as you know from all of my preparations, was the Fabric of the Year quilt for 2010. I had high hopes that I would get the whole thing pieced. I enjoy doing the colorwork at the retreat, because I can get a lot of different opinions and I like knowing what other people see. Also, I feel like I have more space to spread out.

Above is the way I started the FOTY on Friday afternoon.

Above is the dark corner. Again, I was trying for the a colorwash kind of look across the quilt from right to left.

FOTY 2010 - more of the dark corner — FOTY 2010 – more of the dark corner

As I laid out the piece, it was interesting to see, visually, the amount of darks and colors.

FOTY 2010 - Dark Corner washing towards Red — FOTY 2010 – Dark Corner washing towards Red

This was the first layout. You can see a bit of the red next to the purple. Eventually, I took all the red off of the design board and put blue next to the purple. I did a backwards ROY G BIV working from right to left, though if you look at it when it is finished, the ROY G BIV will read correctly (see below).

FOTY 2010 - Whole Piece in Progress — FOTY 2010 – Whole Piece in Progress

Above, you can see that I have changed out the red for the blue in the center and put the red on the left edge. Most of the diamonds I have to work with for this project are blue. The design wall was not large enough for me to put up all of the patches, so the reds and pinks only got a representative sampling to begin with. As I worked through Friday afternoon and evening, then Saturday, I came to the realization that this piece was going to take longer than I thought. Putting it together was a lot more of an intellectual exercise than I expected. Part of the reason, I think, was that I wanted to put it together in chunks, which made the spaces created by the sewn seam allowances end up in strange places.

FOTY 2010 - Center detail — FOTY 2010 – Center detail

Those seam allowance spaces became unexpectedly large as I sewed, which turned out to make keeping track of where pieces went really difficult.

FOTY 2010 - Blue detail — FOTY 2010 – Blue detail

One challenge was the different amounts of colors I had. Another challenge was that the fabrics mostly did not consist of only one color. I tried to block out all but the background or dominant color in my mind in order to place the patches, it wasn’t always possible.

FOTY 2010 - Blues washing to Yellow — FOTY 2010 – Blues washing to Yellow

Above, which is the upper left hand section, is the least formed part of the quilt, and still, in the photo above, in quite a bit in flux.

FOTY 2010 - Putting the Piece Together — FOTY 2010 – Putting the Piece Together

In some ways putting the piece together got easier as I sewed larger chunks together. In other ways, it got to be more of a problem, because the spaces, as I mentioned, between the chunks got larger.

FOTY 2010 - Moving Across from Right to Left — FOTY 2010 – Moving Across from Right to Left

The bottom left corner was really my big problem. I don’t know what happened, but something happened early on and I still haven’t completely resolved the problem in that corner. I am working through it, but as I don’t seem to have a photo of the whole piece after I moved the red, it is proving to be a challenge. I am having to lay out that corner again as I go along. Lots of unsewing is required.

FOTY 2010 - Top Right, Middle — FOTY 2010 – Top Right, Middle

Are you bored yet?

The top right and middle were ok and I was able to sew some large chunks together.

FOTY 2010 - Bottom Right — FOTY 2010 – Bottom Right

No matter what I did with that bottom right corner, there still seemed to be large missing chunks of patchwork. Sigh. At this point, in addition to taking big deep breaths, I realized I wasn’t going to get the piece finished. Not what I wanted to face, but I wanted to do a good job and that was the reality.

It was a bit liberating to admit that, because I felt like I could look at the piece and didn’t have to rush straight to sewing.

FOTY 2010 - Moving to Pink — FOTY 2010 – Moving to Pink

I was able to put a few pinks up as the seam allowances shrank the whole piece, leaving more space. I had faint hope that some miracle would occur and I would finish the piecing.

FOTY 2010 - Adding the Reds — FOTY 2010 – Adding the Reds

I was also able to add some of the reds that didn’t fit when I started.

FOTY 2010 - details of placement — FOTY 2010 – details of placement

The large seam allowances seemed to keep moving as well.

FOTY 2010 - Good Behavior — FOTY 2010 – Good Behavior

This was the well behaved part of the quilt right before I took the whole thing down so I could go home.

FOTY 2010 - Orange and Yellow — FOTY 2010 – Orange and Yellow

IYellows and oranges were ignored, for the most part.

FOTY 2010 - Virginia's Picture — FOTY 2010 – Virginia’s Picture

Virginia took this picture while she was visiting. It is really helpful to see what other people see in my pieces.

Julie helped me roll up the piece in the flannel of the portable design wall so I could bring it home and set it up again. My plan is to chip away at the rest of the layout and piecing. Not finishing puts me behind in my mind’s quiltmaking schedule, but I am sure there is a reason that I didn’t finish. I certainly didn’t expect the intellectual piecing challenge of this project. I am sure it is good for me.

Diamond Test

I spent some time yesterday working on the test piece. I wanted to get into the groove of sewing diamonds again. The Eye Spy feels like a long time ago. Now I think I have a better idea of the sewing, though matching the points and sides of the diamonds proved challenging. I found a book that had some tips and will take a look at that before I start the piecing.

The left hand corner section of the above photo is pieced. You can see the piece getting smaller as I piece it. There are two diamonds in the machine, which is why there is a big white space in the photo.

Aside from matching the points, I also had some trouble with the border diamonds and corners. As a result, I think I will start in the center and piece outwards. I’d like to piece the diamonds in chunks and it might work better to start piecing them in groups of four. I’ll try it and see.

Finished Test Piece with Comparison Diamond

I didn’t measure the finished diamonds, but you can see the significant change in size. It will be interesting to see the big piece develop.

Finished Test Piece with Comparison Diamond Overlay

To give you another view, I have overlaid the patch/unfinished diamond on top of the finished piece so you can see the difference.

Diamond Progress

Above is the last group of diamonds for 2010. Hopefully, I have to count and make sure I have the right number to make some kind of even quilt.

My first order of business was to decide on the border fabric. I had an idea in my mind and, luckily for me, I think it worked. I pulled a selection of diamonds and laid them out on a large piece of Michael Miller Ta Dot in Stone.

TFQ suggested that I make a sample piece to test the size of the finished diamonds. I have been working on this piece and really got going the other day. I got out the rulers and started cutting. After cutting a side piece, I realized that the Tri Recs ruler was the wrong angle! Duh!

I didn’t have a chance to get a new ruler before the BAMQG meeting on Saturday, so I went with paper templates and the Fast2Cut rulers. I am not cutting around the paper templates, but used one for a guide for the side triangles. I found a sweet spot on one of the Fast2Cut rulers for the bottom triangles.

I got the idea of cutting this way from all the Fons and Porter I have been watching. I was able to cut about 14 triangles from each strip, which made the cutting go very quickly.

Above is what I ended up with. I am not sure about those chopped off corner angles, but I will see if they when I do the test.

Scraps

Recently, I was thinking about scraps. Part of my thought process stemmed from a discussion I had with a New Zealand quilt friend, another part had to do with the completion of the Cheerful Baskets quilt and, finally, looking and thinking about some of TFQ’s quilts and process.

For me, a scrap quilt is a quilt made from many, many different fabrics. The fabrics do not have to all come from my scrap basket. Cheerful Baskets is a scrap quilt, because many fabrics were used. Most of the triangles are different. The triangles, for the most part, did come out of my scrap basket. The baskets did not, but are mostly different. We purchased a small piece of many of the yellows based on the exact shade of the yellow. There are many different prints used as the background.

Cheerful Baskets is a thoughtfully made quilt, not just in the piecing, but also in the color selection and placement. I do not think that any old scrap should be placed next to any other scrap. Scrap quilts, for me, are not a jumbled mess.

I don’t have a large scrap pile, because I either toss the scraps or use them up. I don’t like to waste, though, so periodically my scrap basket overflows.

One thing that I do is plan a bit ahead for my projects. I have list of pieces I need to cut for scrap quilts. One shape I am cutting now is 2×2″ squares in turquoise and purple. I am making some four patches from these pieces. I put these through the machine in between other chain piecing, so they act as leaders and enders a la Bonnie Hunt (she mentions this technique in a recent post, but I think she goes into more detail in an older post). This type of in between piecing/leaders and enders also is great to warm up your sewing muscles when you start a sewing session.

Along these lines, I also cut squares of various sizes and keep them in a bag for when I need some squares. This is not a well thought out plan and I should probably cut squares all the same size and put them in bags according to their size. I haven’t gotten that far yet.

The idea is to cut regular sized pieces so that you have a selection to choose from when you need some shapes for a project. You can also cut different shapes such as triangles with an eye towards half square triangles, rectangles, etc. This is also a good task when you don’t know what else to do.

The Fabric of the Year (FOTY) quilts are, technically, scrap quilts. They are also charm quilts, but scrap quilts do not have to be charm quilts if you are working TJW. As you know, for the FOTY quilts, I cut a piece from each fabric I purchase or use throughout the year and then make a quilt top from those pieces in January. This concept can be used in general as I am with an upcoming pink quilt and an upcoming blue quilt. I am cutting 2.5×4.5″ rectangles of all of the pinks I come across, either newly purchased or from my stash. When I have enough I will arrange them on the wall and sew them together. I am doing the same for blues.

I don’t do this, but I think it would be useful to sort my scraps by color. I don’t think I have enough scraps to sort by color. I don’t want to devote fabric space to scraps, so I try and keep the scrap pile manageable.

I found a new source for scraps when I started the FOTY 2010 project. I use a ruler when I cut the diamonds and end up with two triangles. After seeing the Corner Store project in Pretty Little Mini Quilts, I decided I could do that with the triangles. The block is shown in the middle. The triangles are added to a square of Kona Snow and then trimmed to size. The triangles are all slightly different sizes and I am trying to take advantage of the wonkiness. The nice thing about this project is that the triangles never even go into my scrap basket. They go into a separate pile and are sewn on to the squares.

The Red Journal is also a scrap project. As longtime readers know, I have been sewing together little slivers of red fabric for awhile to make a new piece of fabric. The technique is called Mosaic quilting, a concept developed by Shannon Williams. It has all the qualities that work for me for scrap quilting. The maker sews random pieces of like colors together to make new fabric. I do this with red and want to do it with all of the colors, but haven’t gotten to it yet.

I think there are a lot of ways to think about scraps. Above are a few of the ways I think about and use scraps. Hope it is useful.

Frosted Stars Top

This weekend was kind of a sewing bonanza. I think I spent about 10 hours at the machine on Saturday, and another 6 or so on Sunday sewing like a crazed woman. The result is two backs and a top, a journal cover, a repaired bag and parts of the Frosted Stars Leftovers quilt. The Frosted Stars top is above. I changed some of Charlie Scott’s pattern, as I have mentioned.

The quilt top, without the final turquoise border is all on the bias and I just don’t believe in giving a quilt to a quilter with a bias edge border. Yes, I am going to send this out to be quilted. I just want this quilt to stay relatively square and adding another border was required. I don’t know why a pattern designer would finish off a quilt with a bias border. Perhaps it is some complicated part of a learning experience of which I am unaware.

Frosted Stars Progress

I spent a good portion of my day off Wednesday piecing the sashing and the borders on to the star blocks. As you can see, I didn’t quite finish, but I am moving forward.

Frosted Stars Color Choices

I made good progress on the Frosted Star quilt over the weekend. Not as much as I would have liked, but I never make as much progress as I would like!

I finished the border piecing for the Frosted Stars. It required that I piece a whole Jelly Roll of strips together in sets of 10 strips each. It was fun to arrange the strips in different and, hopefully, pleasing ways.

I have an amazing amount of leftovers from the above piecing exercise. The pattern refers to a second pattern to use for the leftovers. I am a little annoyed that I would need to buy a Jelly Roll and spend a bunch of time pressing the strips and piecing them together only to find that I needed less than half of the pieces. Isn’t there a better way? It may be that I did need strips that long in order to make the bias sashing/broder strips work. But it may also be that they wanted me to buy a whole Jelly Roll. I suppose I will have to make a second Christmas quilt. Or I could just waste the fabric pieces.

My great feat was that I am now ready to put the whole thing together. Since I need to make visual decisions visually, I laid out all of the pieces on two different backgrounds to see which I liked better. I also got opinions from around the house. One opinion was that the turquoise looks like ice. The stars really stand out in this piece, which I like.

At some show I bought a bunch of a turquoise batik to use as needed. I wouldn’t use it all for the background to this quilt, but I wouldn’t have to piece strips together, because I have a long enough length to just cut one piece. In looking at this layout, I think I would have to add a border strip around the outside if for no other reason than to stabilize all of those bias edges.

The other background color we considered is the snowflake blue that is part of the 12 Days of Christmas line of fabrics. In this rendition, we noticed that the blue bias strips that make up the borders and sashing drop out, because the snowflake blue is so close in color. The look of this piece is much more subtle.

Transitions in Creativity

Sarah Bush on Make Great Stuff blog was talking about transitions while being creative in her blog post recently. She give some great examples, which make this concept easy to relate to our own lives.

I cataloged the techniques I use to being creative. They are below. I think you also need to know some other things about yourself:

when you work best. I am a morning person. By 6 or 7pm, I am done machine sewing and just an accident waiting to happen.
self motivation. I am very motivated, which is good. I can work early when I don’t have anyone around to spur me on. I also don’t need groups (mostly) or to follow something like a mystery quilt project to be creative.
your morning ritual related to your creativity. I like to get up pretty early on the weekends, do my exercises, drink my tea, perhaps write in my journal. If I go to bed at midnight the night before none of this will happen, because I will get up too late. My whole date will be off.
how you get back on track. If I am off track like described above, I need to know my techniques for getting myself back on track.

I keep a lot of different things going so I always have a hard thing or an easy thing depending on my mood.
I keep the creative inputs coming using podcasts and blogs if I can’t be actively engaged in creating personally.
I also do warm ups. My warm ups are sewing squares or random pieces together. Eventually they may end up as something, but their important function is to get me engaged in my work for the day.
Pressing fabric is a good way ease transitions and give me a few minutes to think about what comes next. Pressing is also a good activity when someone calls and they are interrupting, but you can’t not talk to them.
I also prepare work to be done later. Not only is this a good activity in itself, it prepares work for later (see #1 above). For example, I may make the straps for a bag, but not make the bag until later. When I do get around to making the bag, the straps are ready. Also, I often cut all the pieces for a pillowcase or set of napkins or a bag and then sew later. Breaking up the steps of projects eases transitions from one project to another or from a non-quiltmaking task to a quiltmaking task.

I am not sure if the techniques above always help with transitions. I am constantly seeking a way to move smoothly from life to quiltmaking. Many of the items above do help me NOT have to think about what comes next. The podcasts and other “creativity on the go media” help keep me immersed in quiltmaking.

I also have to be strict with myself. For example, I sew first and play on the computer later, or if I finish this journal cover, then I can play on the computer for 15 minutes.

Sarah mentions other tricks and tips that help as well. Clearing off your cutting table or organizing your supplies. Last week, when I felt so grumpy, clearing off the desk in my workroom helped change my attitude. I didn’t even really do a great job.I did, however, go through everything on there and file a few things, which helped make me feel better.

I think humans like rituals. Part of transitioning to getting down to business is creating a ritual that gets you there. What is your ritual?

What’s on my Design Wall

I have mentioned several times recently making incremental progress on a variety of projects, but not any major progress on one project. I decided I would show you some of the projects.

I have to say that the FOTY progress I made on Monday really helped me feel better about my progress.

Above is my design wall over the weekend.

First up are the pieces for the Frosted Stars. Keep in mind where the fabrics are is not necessarily where they will stay in the finished pieces. As I cut them, I slapped them up. A lot of the creams with various motifs were on top. I definitely won’t put them all in one block next to each other.

I added that turquoise in because I thought it needed some. It really makes the piece pop.

The blue in the 12 Days of Christmas by Kate Spain line is more light sky blue. It reminds me a of turquoise, but definitely isn’t. I asked DH what he thought. Being a much quieter person and more fond of earthy colors, he was diplomatic. I could tell he thought it was a little bright. 😉 He suggested a silver.

I want the quilt to be scrappy, but I do want some continuity within the blocks,, thus I want the four triangles that make up the third piece in the star to be the same fabric. Above I have added some Robert Kaufman Fizz to audition for that spot. The photo was a little dark, so I lightened it up a little bit so you could see it better. Yes, I am copping to digital enhancement.

Silver is hard to find without delving into the lame’ realm. I like this Fizz line, as you know, and this silver grey looks pretty good with the other fabrics.

So far, that is my take on the Frosted Stars.

Next up: Upper lefthand corner

I have been cutting 2″ squares and making random four patches out of them. Some of them I stick in letters to my friends. If I make enough of them I will eventually have enough for a quilt. Sandy from Quilting for the Rest of Us did a podcast on scraps. If you haven’t listened to it, please do so, because it is a good one and this sort of dovetails into it. Bottomline: great way to use scraps.

I thought I mentioned these pieces in some detail, but I only found a brief reference. The long pieces are what I am going to make the Zig Zaggy quilt from. The small pieces have to be replaced with other fabrics and they are on the wall until I do so.

In case I didn’t say, this project is no longer a palette cleanswer. Now it is a UFO. I haven’t completely lost interest. In order to generate some interest, I am thinking of doing a Block-a-Long. The idea would be that I would post patterns for each of the blocks at regular intervals and you would make them. Stay tuned!

There is quite a bit going on on my design wall.

Zig Zaggy Quilt Progress

The Zig Zaggy quilt is one on which I made minor progress this weekend. In between other obligations, I worked on two Anna Maria Horner Multi-tasker totes. The whole time I was sewing the bags together I wished that I had some leaders and enders prepared, but I didn’t and I was too lazy, apparently, to stand up, cut some Kona Snow for the leaders and enders.

It seems like such a waste to cut thread after each seam, which is why leaders and enders are great. The sewist can turn a non chain piecing project into a chain piecing opportunity.

Finally, on Sunday, I dragged my carcass to the ironing board, pressed some Kona Snow and cut a bunch of strips for the Zig Zaggy quilt and some squares for the Corner Store quilt. Now I can use the Zig Zaggy quilt pieces as leaders and enders.

I decided that making the small wedges from the 18 degree circle Ruler by Creative Grids and Lynn Edwards that Happy Zombie suggested was not going to work for me. Too much work and not enough bang for my buck. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I saw the 10 degree ruler. One of the things I bought at the Long Beach show was a 10 degree wedge ruler from Philips Fiber Art. The idea clicked in my mind when I saw it. The man at the booth went to the booth next door so he could tell me how wide their Philips Ruler was (I am using a Jelly Roll and didn’t want it to be much wider than 2.5″).

I am using Happy Zombie’s idea, but making the wedges longer. They are approximately 9″. I think this change will make the quilt go faster.

The problem is that I already cut a few patches, which will leave me short of a couple of the fabrics. If I decide quickly, I can get another Jelly Roll in the Me and My Sister Favorites, but I also want to substitute some fabrics for the patches that I cut.

My idea was kind of sparked by some of the antique quilts I saw at Long Beach. Some of them have patches that are completely different colors than related motifs. I don’t want to choose completely different fabrics. I’ll find some similar fabrics in my fabric closet and replace one wedge for each small piece I cut. I found a pink today as I was cutting patches and that will work for one of the pinks I already cut. Th fabrics won’t be from the Me and My Sister Favorites collection, but I hope it will look interesting and not like I am a moron.

Sunday Work

I felt a bit of freedom in my sewing today. I finished the Blue Janus back yesterday (have to write about that, yes) and didn’t have anything pressing to work on. That left me to see how I felt and work on what I felt like.

I sewed two more test blocks for the Frosted Star pattern. My pattern is much easier to follow and trimming the segments before sewing the block together works really well. I used a mostly monochromatic color scheme for these latest blocks so I can also donate them to the Rainbow project. I couldn’t resist using a bit of one of my Philip Jacob prints.

I think I need to test the 9″ pattern rather than the 12″, because the 12″ is just too big and the 9″ is what I would use in the quilt. I am thinking that I won’t make this quilt even though I like it a lot.

I felt compelled to make a back, so now the back for It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap is finished. This back was less arduous than the one for the Blue Janus quilt. Quite simply, it was much smaller. I also made a big effort to use very large pieces of fabric. Rather than days, it was only a few hours in progress. I am happy that it is done, though I don’t have plans to quilt it yet. I’ll have to see about that.

Making the above back gets me farther along in the various finishing tasks I have to do. I still need to make the sleeves for FOTY 2009 and the Chocolate Box as well as the facing for the Chocolate Box.

I don’t know what is next on the list, but am thinking a tote bag is in order. I have this new black and white fabric that is demanding my attention. Half Moon by Moda will be the bag body with possibly a pink inside.

The Kaffe Fassett dot attracted my attention for handles (I think I may be in a monochromatic phase right now). GAQF only had a fat quarter, but I found a half yard in my fabric closet, which will be enough for the handles. I like the combination of big and small dots.

I am thinking I will use the AMH Multi-tasker tote pattern again even though it isn’t exactly the bag I want. I’ll peruse my other bag patterns first. I do know how to make the AMH MTT and it is a pretty good bag pattern.

Zig Zaggy Start

This past weekend I mostly worked on the Blue Janus Quilt, which I called the Blue Quilt in a previous post. Those squares required a lot of chain piecing and I needed something to piece in between so that I wouldn’t have to cut threads each time I wanted to press as I moved farther along in the process.

I decided to start the Zig Zaggy quilt and use the pieces to help with my chain piecing.

First, I looked at the Happy Zombie site again and confirmed the sizes. then I cut some samples. Happy Zombie used a special ruler and cut 5″ long wedges. Elizabeth Hartman from Oh Fransson! blog originally used templates and cut the wedges longer. I decided to use Happy Zombie’s method and trim later.

I cut and sewed a few together, think I would do another colorwash look.

Blech!

I am not doing the colorwash. With just the purples it is too boring. the purples are all the same value and just don’t look like the colors are gradating. I am going to mix up the colors. I just didn’t get very far.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30