Last week, I talked about finishing this piece and how it had no soul.This realization kind of sent me into a bit of a tailspin, because I am not used to quilt tops having no soul. I got a lot of great comments, which you should go and read. Everyone had great suggestions and insights. I really appreciated the comments.
I had a long discussion with TFQ about this piece and I finally came to the conclusion that the ratio of color to Kona Snow is off. That means that there is too much Kona Snow for the amount of color I included. It could be that this pattern, which originally came from Pretty Little Mini Quilts, was never really suited to scaling it up. In my version, the blocks are small, but the piece is still fairly large.
Still, I think that there is not enough color and too much white. I think that white can lighten a piece and give a fresh look, but I think the quiltmaker has to be careful about how much white to use. I think I have to agree with TFQ that too much white can suck the life out of a piece.
I was upset about this quilt and it did make me think, but I am glad I have bumped up against the “white wall.” I am glad I pushed the envelope and seem to have a limit. It is good for my development as a quiltmaker. I also have to remind myself that I can’t make a masterpiece every time.
I worked, over the weekend, on the Garden quilt. I am machine quilting it. I hadn’t really planned to work on it since I have a back for the Corner Store to finish, a back to make for the Super Secret Project #2 as well as a binding and some other miscellaneous random finishing tasks to accomplish. I also have some bags and smaller projects I could work on to keep my mind off of things. Still, I sat huddled over my machine and machine quilted for hours.
Yes, I am in avoidance mode over the Corner Store, but at least I am accomplishing something while I am avoiding something else. That can’t be all bad, can it?
Free motion quilting
This is the first time I have done any free motion quilting in a long time. Admittedly, I didn’t do much on this piece, but I did some and I am pretty proud that a) I am still able to free motion quilt and b) my machine could handle it.
I am really pleased with the servicing the store down south did. The machine works like a charm and I have stopped having traitorous thoughts about replacing it.
I didn’t free motion quilt (FMQ, FMQing) this entire piece, but I did some FMQing in some key areas. In the photo of the sun, I did some FMQing in the ball of the sun.
Annotated Garden
I have annotated the last photo so I can try and show you the differences in straight line quilting vs. FMQing. You will have to make the photo larger to see what I have written.
All of the pinks in the Pink Donation Quilt have a square in the piece on the left. There are a few from some fabrics I bought in the last little while. I also have some patches from the Art Gallery scraps I received.
I have to admit that I arranged the scraps a bit so they look good in the photos I post for you. Look for these patches in the final piece.
It is hard for me to sew during the week, but I am making some progress.The iron issue is not resolved, so I have to figure that out (return current iron, which stinks to high heaven when on), but I am trimming and arranging blocks. My design wall is starting to be too small, but I will have to make it work.
I have 289 blocks to work with and I may make more. I don’t know what size I am aiming for, but my mind keeps saying “BIGGER!!!!”
I probably have enough triangles to make at least 50 more blocks, I don’t plan on making 50 more blocks, however you never know what the muse will scream at me.
I love the blue and orange together. Complements, what could be better? In addition, the orange just makes me happy.
I am trying to think of whether or not I have used this much orange in a quilt before. Looking at my orange scrap drawer, I would say no.
The other interesting thing, which I always find when working with a monochromatic palette, is how different, in this case, the oranges are. Some are peachy, some are more red, some have a pink tinge. There were a few prints (my man Philip Jacobs!) with browns. It is so interesting to me how those browns took on more of an orange cast when used withe oranges.
I know you can also see that some are multi-colored and so non-orange colors show up as well. I think those add some interest.
More Wonky Blocks
I decided to make the Wonky 9 Patch a bit larger. As I said before, the problem is the blue. TFQ said she may have some of the blue, so I sent her a swatch.
I made more of the blocks, so I am ready. One thing I did differently was press the seams open. It made cutting the blocks much easier.
I decided not to sew the one new row to the rest of the quilt, though I did consider it, if for no other reason than to make progress.
I think this project will progress in fits and starts. I made the new blocks (on the right) while I was piecing the Flowering Snowball. I used the Corner Store blocks as leaders and enders. Such a useful, productivity improving technique.
I find that I put the blocks up on the design wall and I become uninspired to make more. Not sure why. I like them; I think the piece works well, is interesting and pretty. As a project I work on steadily, it wasn’t working for me yesterday. However, as leaders and enders in between a different project, I make a lot of blocks. What is that about?
And, the other question is, if I don’t work steadily on the Corner Store, what should I work on? I need some bang for my buck. Can I finish another top next weekend? VIMH#1 says I have to enjoy the process not just go for finished product.
All Corner Store blocks - May
I put all the blocks up. I have quite a few. They are small, though, so it isn’t enough. There is still a lot of red and pink. I made an effort to make blocks with no red or pink, but I have a lot of red and pink triangles, so it is hard.
This is not the final arrangement. I slapped them up on the wall and did a tiny bit of rearranging.
I also have to buy some more Kona Snow as background. The Pure Elements Linen, of which I have plenty, is different enough to be noticeable.
I thought I would work on the Corner Store as my next project. It was calling to me during the dark time while I pieced the Renewed Jelly Roll Race. As soon as I turned my attention to it, it held no interest for me.
I worked a bit on the Garden, as I mentioned, but floundered a bit on Saturday. I made a couple of QuiltCon blocks, did a bit of piecing on the Swoon #6, but finally took myself in hand on Saturday night and planned out my Sunday.
On Sunday, I worked pretty steadily on the Flowering Snowball. Aside from some math issues, e.g. not being able to count, the process went pretty well. I had little to no trouble putting the hand pieced blocks together by machine. I do need a few more blocks, so I can’t finish the chunking until those are pieced. If all goes well, and I have counted properly, I should have them done by the end of next week. We’ll see. Don’t hold your breath.
I feel like doing another version of this pattern by machine with pink or aqua background. It has to wait, though, until many other projects are completed.
My camera seems to be taking fuzzy photos. I wonder what that is about?
I am not sure why I feel compelled to write at the moment , but I do. Perhaps I have been neglecting the thoughtfulness I try to put into my posts lately. Life is busy and that takes a toll on my quiltmaking and blog writing. I try to keep up, but usually it means a picture and a few words. I am still looking for an art patron to pay me to stay home and sew, if you know of anyone.
What I am Reading: Parallel Motions by John Anderson. It is a biography of Nevil Shute, the author of one of my favorite books, A Town Like Alice.
Audiobook on Tap: A Room with a View by E. M. Foerster. You are probably all familiar with the film. I could never get into the book, but it was a free audiobook at some point, so I thought I would try listening. I thought it would be good since I am enjoying Downton Abbey (better late than never) and read The Lady Julia Grey series, also set in Victorian England, earlier this year. I thought that it was the right time since I seem to be embroiled in Victoriana.
What I am Working on: Today, I spent time making blocks and doing the kind of things that need to be done to make progress later.
The Corner Store is in progress and I had to cut a bunch of squares to make more blocks. I have about 60 blocks so far, but they are very small, so to make anything larger than a placemat I need many more blocks. I have a lot of triangles, so I just cut the Kona Snow squares. I went through about 3/4s of a yard of Kona Snow and know that won’t be enough. I probably need another 120 blocks to make anything large enough to satisfy me.
I finished another Swoon block and have to admit that I have a project going. I think I will make another 3 blocks for sure and possibly another 6. I have plenty of fabric, of course. There is something about this project that is interesting to me in terms of color, so I am not quite done with this project yet.
I worked on the A-B-C Challenge blocks and started to prepare for the QuiltCon (what a stupid name, don’t you think?) block challenge. I have the fabrics, they are washed. They need to be pressed, but I need to plan the block.
I don’t feel like I accomplished much, but I know I was doing prep work that needs to be done.
I really can’t figure out how my mind works. Sometimes I like the way it works, because it sends me off in a new creative direction.
I was making the Northwind block for the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild A-B-C Challenge and got to the point that you see in the top left photo. All I had to do was put some larger triangles on the sides and I would have a nice tidy square, but this shape stopped me in my tracks.
I have been wanting to make a Lozenge quilt for awhile, but it hasn’t come up high enough on the to do list yet, but seeing the way this shape went together made me think about that future piece a bit more.
You can easily make this into a square by adding triangles. In this case, the triangles will be part of the design, but they could easily be background as well.
I could change the colors around so that the piece would be really scrappy or use 80% of a line of fabric.
The piecing isn’t difficult – few half square triangles and you are in like Flynn.
Lozenge Example
So, this is an example of a quilt made with this shape/block.It is a quick and dirty EQ7 design and I can already see some changes that I want to make, but you get the idea of what you could with this block. I like the diamond shape. It reminds me of the Stepping Stones quilt.
The question I constantly ask myself is: why do I make quilts?
Why?
I think about the time I spend, the other chores I ignore, the money I spend, the way I arrange trips so I can stop at a quilt shop or sew with a friend.
This is frequently some kind of existential crisis that I just try and live through so I can come out on the other side still sewing. The answer I often give myself is that I am compelled to do it. I am compelled to cut up these large pieces of cloth into small pieces and sew them back together again into large pieces
I often think that if I don’t engage in this seemingly pointless exercise, something really terrible will happen.
I thought about this a lot when I went to the EBHQ show. I walked around and looked at the quilts and wondered why I was at a quilt show. I enjoy quilts, but why was I there? I was looking at a multitude of quilts, but I had seen multitudes of quilts before. I have hundreds of paper photos of quilts and, what seems like, gazillions of digital files of quilts. If you have been a reader of this blog for very long, you have see some of them.
Why was front and center in my mind at the show.
Then I read a recent blog post by Danny Gregory about Senioritis. Answers come from the strangest places.
His son has been accepted at college, but it is only March, so he still has to sit in a classroom and make some effort at doing homework and keeping his grades up. Senioritis. I was glad I read this essay, because one part of one line really hit home:
“…it is expanding your awareness of the world around you…”
Well, really it started as a Kate Spain Terrain Jelly Roll, but then I sewed it into a quilt top using the Jelly Roll Race idea and it ended up looking like a bunch of Terrain strips sewn together.
As I mentioned many times, I didn’t like it. There was no design. The fabrics landed where they landed, which wasn’t always a good spot. I didn’t, however, want to waste a whole quilt top, so it languished while I decided what to do about it.
Eventually I decided that cutting it up into diamonds would be a good idea. I did that and sewed and sewed and sewed. The sewing seemed never ending. Diamonds are not hard to sew together, but you do have to pay attention. I ripped out a lot of seams to make lines match up. There are a few that don’t, but I can live with them.
I realized, after looking back on the process, that I go through stages. One is drama and one is where I am over the crest of the hill and on the downslope. I don’t know why I forget this, but I do. Every time.
Renewed Jelly Roll Race Top
On Sunday, I finished the top. I like it. I like it better than the Jelly Roll race version. I think it has more style and more of a design sensibility. It doesn’t look like I left the design to chance. It looks like I had a care.
I washed more of the Pure Elements Linen and will add a small border of the same around the whole outside. I also got some of the solid Terrain Iris, which looks like a deep purple and will use that for the binding. I need something to stop the white, but I still want the diamonds to float. Of course, I have the back to make to make. It is in process with the leftover diamonds. I will add some purples to the back. I also need to make the label.
Process, for me, can be a killer. I want everything to move smoothly along until I finish, then I want to hang the quilt up and move to the next project. When that happens, though, the project is often boring and uninteresting. The humps are the interesting part.
Jelly Roll Race - March 7, 2012
Earlier this week, I wanted you all to put me out of my misery on the Jelly Roll Race. I was struggling, I was ripping out a lot, I was not happy. Nobody stepped up to the plate to help out, so I powered through. I did something that I don’t normally do:I sewed a little bit in the evenings. I was able to fill in a major missing chunk and somehow that made the whole project come together in part.
Don’t get me wrong. I still have a long way to go on this quilt, but I am making progress. I don’t feel tortured anymore and have some home that I’ll make more progress this weekend.
It is at this point in the process where I just want someone to take me out of my misery.
Obviously, I am being dramatic, but really, I don’t want to do this project anymore and I wonder why I thought it would be a good idea. I have already made 2 diamond quilts (the Eye Spy is essentially a diamond quilt and how could I top FOTY 2010?) – aren’t two enough.
I feel like I barely accomplished anything on Sunday, though I did sew most of the right side into large chunks.
Still, I have it in process and I will finish it before I move on to the next project. I may need to intersperse a new project into the queue before I tackle another UFO just to keep my sanity. The Corner Store, however, is quite appealing.
After cutting what seemed like a zillion diamonds last week, the picture(left) is what resulted. There are a lot of diamonds. As I mentioned, about 158. It would be nice if that left corner was filled with diamonds as well. I know I can’t have everything, though, and I am not about to sew another Jelly Roll Race top!
DH figured out how many I will need to make a quilt top as well as the layout. YAY! So glad I married someone who can do math. I was thinking of putting the question (whether there is a formula for laying out diamond quilts) to The Young Man’s Geometry teacher, but haven’t yet.
Leftover from Jelly Roll Race strips
The only scrap of any size at the end, aside from shards, was the weird wonky shape I show on my cutting mat.
I was ready to move forward and just toss the scraps when it occurred to me that I could piece together the scraps, mosaic quilting style, and make a few more diamonds. I might need them. I might not need them. You never know. The scraps might just be fun to sew together or I could make some cool do Donation blocks. A little too wild? Look for more on that.
Jelly Roll Diamonds
Saturday, I flailed around. DH and I went around a few times about the number of rows and columns. His first calculations rendered a verdict of 10 rows by 9 columns (remember that the second and every other row would have 9 rows and 8 columns), which left me with a really long skinny piece, though I wasn’t sure HOW long or HOW skinny, because I hadn’t put sashing on yet. I was also sick (yes, again!) and tried to take it easy. I don’t feel like I really accomplished much on Saturday, but it was required for the process, I think.
Sunday Work
Sunday went much better. I didn’t have a headache, which was a bonus. The corner is the hardest part to figure out and the fact that I was adding sashing added to the trickiness. I bought a 1.5″ strip cutting die for my Go! cutter and cut 1.5″ strips from the Pure Elements linen I had. Good thing, because I have a lot of it and used up about 1.5 yards so far. Julie of Intrepid Thread will be getting some business from me to replace that fabric. I need it for the A-B-C Challenge.
The photo, left, shows sections of the quilt sewn together. It is going much more smoothly after getting the weird shapes on the right hand side mostly finished. I was sorely tempted just to sew the thing together in long rows across the piece from right to left, but know I would be hating myself midway through, thus the chunks.
Sashing on diamonds
And for those of you who are curious about the sashing, I put it on to many diamonds at once. Cutting the strips with the Go! Cutter really made my life easier. I cut 5 strips at a time and then sewed as many diamonds as I could to each strip. It isn’t that I can’t cut strips; of course I can. The Go! Cutter just made my life a lot easier.
Once I had strips of sashing, I lined up the first diamond, folding back the sashing to make sure I had placed the diamond low enough on the strip so that the sashing would fill the entire angle.Then I sewed, one after another as close together as possible so I would waste as little background fabric as possible.
[BTW, that is my hideous ironing board cover. If any of you have a store nearby that carries Polder ironing board covers with a grid pattern, leave a comment or let me know. This one I got off Amazon and it is too thick aside from being not my color. I will be your new best friend if we can work out some sort of arrangement for you to get me one.]
Right Corner detail
As usual, I wanted to get a lot farther along. I am past the flailing point; I am past the figuring point and now I am just matching seams and rearranging diamonds. I’d like to be done with this project. I will finish it, but I am so ready to move on. No more Jelly Roll Races for me!
This is the piece that I started with. As you might remember, I wasn’t very happy with it. It doesn’t have enough interest to continue with it as a quilt. Still, I suffered through all of those long seams, so I didn’t want to discard it. And the fabric is nice.
Jelly Roll Diamonds
Not sure why, but I decided to cut the piece into diamonds. I worked on that over the weekend. I now have about 158 diamonds, which I intend to sash with something and then resew together.
I also was able to use my diamond ruler again. I got good use out of it for FOTY 2010, but since then it has been languishing.
Now that all of the diamonds are cut, my next task is to figure out a sashing color. I want something that will be different enough so that the diamonds don’t bleed into the sashing. I want them to be distinct.
I won’t be able to achieve that goal completely, but I was thinking white and the portable design wall does a good job showing how that will look. I did a FB poll on my page and on the Artquiltmaker.com FB page(are you a member??) and on Twitter. So far, people like the white, but chocolate and black have also been suggested. Not sure I have enough of a chocolate fabric to sew the whole piece together, but I definitely have enough for a test. I also have a nice piece of black from the Pure Elements line that I can try.
