This has never happened before. FOTY 2013 has not even had its chance on the design wall and I am already cutting for FOTY 2014. That is, apparently, the way it goes sometimes.
I like this group, though the greys are a bit of a downer, and think that many of the prints would be considered very modern.
The FOTY 2014 patches are cut 3″x5″. The reason for this size is that I have been trying to achieve a certain size of rectangle in a couple of projects (one was FOTY 2008) . I kept forgetting to factor in the seam allowance, so the rectangles, once sewn, were too small. They worked fine in the quilt, but the look was a little small for what I wanted.
This slightly larger size will also showcase more of the pattern on the fabric.
This project has been on my mind since December when Friend Julie suggested it. I am finally making a wobbly start. The start is that I have started to choose the colors.
Julie bought me the book as a gift and after some discussions with her, I decided I would be inspired by the city around me. This, in my mind, fits into the ‘City Sampler” theme that Tula Pink encourages also.
In the winter, the sky is very blue here and, though cold, I enjoy the strong light and clear colors. It should be no surprise that turquoise factors into my choices. I just can’t help myself.
Another appeal of this project is the block element. I miss making blocks on a regular basis like I did for the A-B-C Challenge and the Star Sampler. This project will help me satisfy that craving and, hopefully, will not annoy me.
Finally, shortly after Julie and I talked about the project, Kelly brought it up as a BAMQG small group project. This means I can have fun with Julie and participate more in BAMQG.
I was having trouble getting started. I have been distracted by life and picking a few fabrics (I am sure I will need more) really helps me to get the process out of my head and started.
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 can’t tell you how pleased I am to have these two quilts back. Colleen is going great guns on her quilt backlog and I am the lucky recipient.
I was really pleased to get Fabric of the Year 2012 and Fresh Fruit back earlier this week. I was only expecting FOTY 2012 when I dropped off Scrapitude, so Fresh Fruit was a pleasant surprise.
Perhaps it is immodest, but I love the way these two quilts look. FOTY 2012 is one of the best Fabric of the Year quilts so far. I really see how my color work over the years is paying off. I am reinvigorated to get busy on FOTY 2013.
Fresh Fruit was a pattern, as I described in a previous post, and I used the same fabric, but I really love the way it came out. I was planning to give this one away, but I might hang it on the wall for awhile first.
I started in on the binding for FOTY 2012 Thursday night and really got quite far. I do need to make a sleeve, which adds to the time it takes to finish, but I am looking forward to finishing this piece and hanging it up.
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.
Last year, TFQ gave me a bundle of dots for my birthday. Since then they have been sitting on my cutting table waiting for inspiration to strike. I didn’t want to use them alone in a quilt, because I thought it would be too boring (dots, boring? I know, but my mind works in mysterious ways sometimes).
Tone-on-tone Pearl Bracelets
Recently, I saw some of the tone-on-tone Pearl Bracelets (great imagery in that name, don’t you think?) and these dots came around again in my thoughts. I am wondering if I could use the two of the groups together in something interesting?
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.
The Infinity Quilt is finally finished. I finished it last week and am relatively pleased.
I think it is an interesting quilt from a color perspective. I didn’t really try and arrange the blocks much. They came out pretty well when I laid them out. There is a quite a lot of variety in the fabrics and also a good balance of light and dark. There were a few places where I switch a couple of blocks so that a print was next to a tone-on-tone rather than next to another print.
Colleen did a great job quilting it. It is a little stiff. I can’t tell if it is from the Harry Potter panel I used for the back or if the quilting made it stiff, so I might wash it.
In a effort to stay the chaos, I used some of the parts and pieces of the Russian Rubix as leaders and enders in between the Scrapitude project pieces.
The blocks pictured are still in 4 pieces each. I am not quite ready to sew them together. I want to contemplate the combinations of the colors for a while longer. There is a lot of blue in the left and a lot of orange in the right configuration. On one hand, one skews cool and one skews warm. On the other hand there is a lot of repetition. I haven’t changed them because I will use a lot of blocks in the quilt and I am still deciding whether, in the end, anyone will notice or care. I am also thinking about whether or not having some cool and some warm will benefit the look of the project.
I spent almost three solid days piecing the rest of this Scrapitude top. I say “almost solid” because I went and got a pedicure and ate breakfast, went to Pilates and picked up the Young Man on Friday. On Saturday I worked on the taxes, did the laundry and cleaned the kitchen. Yesterday, I got up late, spent a lot of time eating breakfast and reading the newspaper with the family, went to the gym, and worked on some of Super G’s stuff. It felt like three solid days since I had big plans to work on other quilt and fiber projects.
Finishing this top was more work than I thought it would be. The fact that the top was bigger than my design wall should not hamper me as I deal with that issue all the time. It did, though. As I got to the edges, I couldn’t see when to put a 2.5″ square on the almost-vertical sashing and when to put it on the almost-horizontal sashing. That meant that I unpicked and resewed a lot.
The only thing I really had to do yesterday was put borders on it and that small task seemed to take forever. I put borders on to stabilize all of those bias edges and sewed very carefully while I did it. the borders, of course, are scrappy. I mitered them for once and I am pleased with how they came out.
I still have the back, the binding and the label to make. I will use a bunch of Philip Jacobs fabrics to make the back, which makes me very happy. I don’t know what I will use for binding- perhaps another Philip Jacaobs or a white dot to continue the border and focus the eye on the center. I am pleased with my progress.
I have to say that I am sorely tempted to make this quilt again. I want to play with the look of the 2.5″ squares running across the quilt. I have tons of quilts I want to make and will think about making something with those same squares, but in a different pattern.
I am tempted to start each of the DPW posts with “I blame Sandy for this project.” It isn’t, however, a very positive statement and I do have free will with which to resist her quilty-wiles. I didn’t on this one, perhaps because I had a Layer Cake that really needed to be used as well as a lot of grey from the background tribulations of the Russian Rubix. The planets aligned, all the pieces were available and I didn’t have to leave the house to start.
Disappearing Pinwheel Blocks
I am determined not to let this project languish. I want to sew the blocks, put them together and move on. I thought about giving it to someone associated with DH’s nonprofit, but I think it might be suitable for one of the Niece-phews. I’ll have to ask DH if it is boyish enough. There are a lot of nephews and they get annoyed and confused when I try and give them pink quilts.
On the color front, I am not thinking too much about the combinations of fabrics. The grey that mom chose is good, but some of the fabrics from the Layer Cake do blend into it. I think that is ok. I think it will make the eye of the viewer move around the quilt. The larger prints of the Moda Mod Century fabrics made blocks with a lot of movement as well.
After the cutting, the blocks go together like 9 Patches, which is pretty easy. I used the parts and pieces of these blocks as leaders and enders to Scrapitude, which meant I really got a lot done on the project with very little effort. I think I have nearly 15 blocks by now.
I am using a lot of Mary Ellen’s Best Press, so the blocks feel a little bit like cardstock. They will have to feel that way as I want to keep them as straight as possible since all the edges are on the bias.
I have also decided on the border and started those blocks, simple pinwheels, but smaller than the starting pinwheels for this block, as well.
I really don’t know why I started it except to say that I am interested in the cutting oddly and rearranging of blocks. I was amazed and thrilled at the way the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern created automatic sashing in my Food Quilt and this is even better.
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 got all of these stars finished over the weekend. I spent several hours in the car on the way to and from Fortuna/Ferndale.
As an aside, if you haven’t visited Ferndale, it has a lovely Victorian main street (I posted some photos a few years ago) with lots of nice shops. Fortuna is more modern, but there are some great shops and a wonderful Mexican restaurant called La Costa where they make their own tortillas.
Both directions are about a 5 hour drive and DH drove on this trip. It rained and I am not a very good passenger. Having my focus on something else is a good thing.
One thing I did differently was I sewed a couple of the stars together to start a line of them. I want to start putting the piece together. I also have to put some of the stars together, so I can start to take the papers out. I may need to buy another pack of papers.
I don’t have the background nailed down, though I am still thinking of dots on white. I am pretty sure I will use dots on white since they worked so well on Scrapitude. I loved the look. I just need to cut some pieces.
The last time I posted about these stars was September 9, 2013. I can’t believe how time has flown. I have worked on them, but a couple of bindings and the Christmas stockings as well as the Christmas and Birthday thank you notes got in the way.
I’ll need some more of these to work on in the car during an upcoming car trip, so I will need to cut some more fabric. I like the way Scrapitude is coming out and think I will use dots on white background for the alternating rows of this project.
I am surprised at how many of these stars are in the blue range and am wondering if I decided to concentrate on these colors and have forgotten?
