Tag: Project-Quilt
Posts about the piecing, applique’ of quilts. Don’t use for completed quilts or non-quilt projects.
Fabric of the Year Project etc.
I decided to do the fabric project that I discussed in two previous posts here and here. This project uses fabrics I have recently purchased in some project right away.
This is the fabric I recently washed (a light load). They are arranged in no particular order. I cut the pieces and slapped them up on the wall.
Above are the fabrics after I rearranged them a bit and sewed them together. You can see the test block in there as well.
I did run across a few situations I had to decide about as I pressed the fabric, so here are the complete new rules:
- 2.5″x4.5″ pieces of each fabric purchased.
- Fabrics that have been washed, but not pressed are ok to add to the mix, even if they were purchased last year.
- Fabrics purchased twice in the same year should be included twice.
- OK to rearrange fabrics as desired.
- Press to the dark.
I did find it to be fun, as TFQ said it was. I did find one fabric that I really didn’t like and will put in the Freecycle pile.
Needing some retail therapy this week and still having Friend Julie’s post on my mind drove me to the Artgirlz site. I was amazed to find that the creativity pack and the rubber stamps came within a few days, even though it was sen from Rhode Island. Nice service! The thing I have to figure out is how to mount the rubber stamps. I know how to mount them, but don’t have the mounting thingies. Perhaps there is a rubber stamp store somewhere where I can buy some. Artgirlz have some, but they have a variety of sizes in one pack and not enough of the little ones.
A few months ago when I was really trying to get inspired to do some visual journaling, I bought a few writing/drawing instruments to inspire me. I finally tried these NeoColors last week. They are like crayons, but more waxy. I wasn’t that impressed as I was looking for something softer. I probably won’t be buying more of them.
Finally, there is good news and bad news on the Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball). The good news is that I finished another block. I have been working on this one for several weeks, which means that it was mostly languishing in my handwork bag. It is displayed above with some new fun fabrics.
The bad news is that I seem to have lost the templates. In a frenzy of tidying, the stack where the templates lived for months was swept away and no longer exists. The templates are gone now, too, and I can’t think of where I might have put them. Darn! I wanted to cut some more pieces. I can reprint them and start over, but I don’t want to get into a problem with piecing (I have had enough of that!), so I will look for them some more. Cross your fingers that they show up.
Quiltmaking By the Sea
Often, I work almost all the time at one of my two jobs or dealing with other non-paid work type tasks. This past weekend, I threw it all aside, took Friday-most of Sunday off and went to a quilt retreat! Hooray! It was great! I spent Friday night, Saturday and a few hours on Sunday sewing.
I couldn’t completely get away from work, so I worked on the bookkeeping while I watched Law & Order and waited for Friend Julie to arrive. I did go visit Cabrillo Sewing, which is right next to the hotel (how convenient!). Little did I know that downstairs, in the Begonia Room, the other ladies were setting up and warming up their sewing machines. I was pleased that I did this work, however, as I felt a lot better about taking the weekend off.
As you can see, I wasn’t able to follow the directions that I originally set out for myself. The display quilt from Quiltworks Northwest that I saw at APNQ can be seen on the 2007 UFO Report. I am really not sure what happened, but as I drove down to the hotel, it occurred to me that I would rather work with rectangles.
Julie got my act together by arriving. We went downstairs with all of our stuff and set up for sewing.
Here is my mess after cutting a bunch of strips and rectangles. We eventually went to dinner; we tried to go to a restaurant that serves only ostrich meat, but we couldn’t find it, so we ended up at a little Mexican place. It was storming quite hard and they had sandbags around the doors and cloths and things stuck in the windows to keep the water out. Quite the adventure digging for change for a parking meter in the dark in the driving rain where the meters give you 5 minutes for each quarter!.
I was amazed that we sewed as late as we did – 10:30 or so, then we went up and drank Sambuca and Limoncello while we watched more Law & Order and CSI. I am such a junkie for L&O- it is what I do in hotels.
The next day we sewed all day except for a quick dash to lunch and to a quilt store called Round Robin (Portola and 38th Ave). They had nice fabrics and the place was restful and organized. I bought only a few fabrics at the two shops.
I used up about 4 yards of fabric in the quilt and didn’t want to buy more than I used. A novelty, I know, but I really wasn’t in the mood to buy fabric and didn’t see anything I had to have. The dots are nice. I hadn’t seen the one with the white background before. I went back and forth on the one with the black background as I don’t have an idea for a project. The other black-on-whites will be used for the Cross Blocks/Flowering Snowballs.
Aside from a quick dinner at a local Thai Restaurant, I sewed until about 11pm. I really wanted to get a handle on how I was going to put the blocks together. By about 9pm the blocks were finished, but I hadn’t made them perfect squares, so some figuring needed to take place. Terri let me use her portable design wall, which was absolutely necessary and I was very grateful to her for it.
I fiddled with placement a little bit, but mostly worked out how I was going to get different sized blocks together. Once I had about four done, I went to bed and let the process percolate while I slept.
The next morning, I sewed the rest of the blocks together and now have the top you see at the top of the post. I think I’ll call it the Chocolate Box.
So, one thing about this project was that it was not at all precise. I was ok with having to fiddle with putting it together, because I could just mindlessly sew whatever I wanted wherever…basically. I did have a semblance of a plan. Second, I am glad I used the rectangles instead of the squares, because it makes this project mine while allowing me to be inspired by another quilt. Third, there was enough structure to keep me grounded with enough freedom to relieve the stress of the Pineapple Problems.
I don’t have any pictures of it, but Friend Julie is taking a mentoring program from Gabrielle Swain. One thing that she does is “show up”. That means that she gets into the studio every day and works. For her, that is four hours a day. WOW! I am so impressed, I can’t even tell you. I admire her for the commitment. She isn’t just sewing, however. She is noting down her ideas in a visual journal and it is the visual journal I want. My little drawings looks so sad compared to the exuberance of her work. I look forward to seeing more of it and getting to that point as well.
Everyone should really go on a quilt retreat once in a while. Boy! I would love to do that once a month. I can’t believe how much I got done in 17 or so hours of sewing. Amazing!
Snowball and Fabric
I wonder if blogging can get to be like drinking – too much of a good thing? Well, I hope not, though I do feel a bit hungover at all the posts I have contributed lately and am hoping I am not starting to repeat myself. I haven’t even started to post some of the photos I have taken with my phone. Deirdre should be happy about that as she was looking forward to these “on the go” photos and I have not lived up o the possibilities of mobile blogging. Immerhin!
Though I added one measly block, the Flowering Snowball (Cross blocks) piece looks much bigger than it did last time.
I got a FQ pack of the new P&B Pop Parade from Quilting Adventures. Joyce, kindly, allowed me to not buy some of the fabrics from the line that were not cheerful. I want to make something out of just these fabrics, but I am no sure what. I also neglected to decide on the borders and background and buy extra for those. Oh well, I have a bit of time to decide before they discontinue this fabric, forcing me to go on a web/shop hunt for specific fabrics.
As Promised, Completed Flowering Snowballs
Return of the Snowballs
I have not worked on the Flowering Snowballs in a while, because the last time I worked on it I used up the last of my non-red/pink corner pieces. That meant I needed to cut more blues, greens, purples and yellows. I finally did it! Now I can get busy and finish up some of the blocks that I started oh those many months ago. Stay tuned!
I also spent a few minutes of sewing time sewing the binding onto Serendipity Puzzle.
Flowering Snowballs
Had a cruddy day at work today, but came home to some Pineapple blocks on the wall and that made me smile. They weren’t new ones, but I really had a good look at them and was reminded how much I like dots!
In between working like a complete dog on the weekend clearing out my aunt’s craft room, I sewed a tiny bit on some Flowering Snowball (Cross Blocks). I did most of the sewing on the plane, but some in the morning over my coffee. I decided just to do corners, except for one block, because I was running out of the colored pieces and had mostly greens and pinks left. It is a scrap quilt, but I don’t want to have too many greens and pinks. It’ll be a balanced scrap quilt. 😉
When I got home I pressed all of the pieces and, on a whim, counted the finished blocks. I have a total of 22 finished Cross Blocks thus far. WOW! How did I get so many? Just plugging along, I guess.
My next task for this project is to cut blue, purple, orange and yellow corner pieces to round out my choices a bit.
I also talked to AJA this weekend. She lives near where I was working, but we couldn’t fit it in to get together. I didn’t e-mail her in time at the beginning of the week to remind her and she forgot to write it on her calendar. Not sure when I will be back, but we had a good chat. We discussed doing the next color Bullseye quilts. Purple, I think. She put me in charge. I will have to talk to JulieZS and see what we can work out.
A Little More Progress
I spent a lot of the day playing with Flickr, adding a lot of quilt photos so I could organize them in different ways. As a result, it meant that I didn’t sew much. 
I did finish another Flowering Snowball while watching some TV and worked a little on the Pineapples.
I am working on four at a time and I really should cut back to two, but I’d like to get them finished.
Pineapples Return
I did not make a Halloween costume this weekend as promised, but did work on the Pineapples.
I tried to get back into the Pineapple groove by taking the baskets down. I had two Pineapples half finished from before the machine went to be serviced. I started by finishing those and make two new ones. Above are two that I completed and two that I started AND completed. YAY! I only have 4 more Pineapples to go!
Border Pineapples 11 & 12.
Border Pineapples 13 & 14.
I cut strips from some of the new fabrics I bought at PIQF and from fabrics that I washed and the Fabric Queen pressed for me. That freshened up the project and livened things up a bit in the fabric department.
Having a break and doing some different piecing was great, but there is no way that I am stopping this project and putting it away. I really had to get back into the groove and remember my little tricks and tips. The first two I was trying to finish felt like a comedy of errors. I kept cutting the strips too short and putting pieces on the wrong side, etc. I got it all worked out, but jeesh! I can’t imagine what would happen if I put the whole project away for a year or two like some of my other projects.
I ran into the Pineapple teacher at PIQF and was glad I did so. I thought I had to trim the blocks to make them fit together, but she said only to trim the corners, which I have not yet applied to any of the blocks. She said to use the bias to get the blocks to fit together. There is a bit of bias on the edge of each block that I can stretch, if I need to.
I would have done more (and started the Halloween costume), but it turned out that we had a family event to attend today. I thought it was next weekend, so it really cut into my sewing time.
So, I am screwed for the Halloween costume and will have to work on it during the week, but it will get done.
Snowballs Really Flowering
I spent the weekend in LA. No machine. I brought my handwork with me and was able to sew four Cross blocks (Flowering Snowballs)! I have said that each one takes me an hour and a half, but these, except perhaps the first, did not take me an hour and half each. I really blew through them.
One has two pinks, but I tried hard on the others to make all the corner pieces different colors. I started to run out of greens and really need to add some violet or purple to the mix. I’ll work on cutting some different colors this weekend.
Now that I have a good amount of blocks, I decided to lay them out. They are really looking good! I just love the design that is made when the blocks are set together.
Project Progress
I now have 15 Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball). I could have laid them out in a 3×5 grid, but it didn’t look that good.
MavMomMary and I took the Pineapple Quilt Class together back in January. She is already putting her quilt together. I haven’t seen it since she had only done a few blocks and was thrilled to see it today. I think it looks fantastic. And very different from mine.
And a detail.
More Various and Sundry
These are the two hand pieced blocks that I made last week. Different sort of look. Not so cheerful, but not depressing, either. I am not sure what I was thinking when I put the two dot fabrics in the same block? I thought I wasn’t using dots in this piece. Oh well. It is a scrap quilt, so who cares?
More dots.
I went to Britex today to get some fabric for pants. I was on the second floor and remembered that they have quiltmaking fabric. While the girl was cutting my pants fabric, I took a quick peek at the quilt fabrics. Lo and behold! They had dots! Hooray! I picked up the two above. They also had the Robert Kaufman Tropical Pimatex dots in both sizes. I have enough so I didn’t buy any, but it was good to be reminded that they are downtown and do have fabric. DUH!
I also stopped at the Container Store and found these project cases. I have been thinking about something like this since I read Be*mused‘s piece on the scrapbook project cases she found (I looked for the article, but couldn’t find it and can’t find her search button either-DUH!). They are 12 1/2 wide and 17 and something long. I bought two of them just to see how they would work. I filled up one with the Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowballs) + the fabric for the center pieces, which I don’t want to “put away” and never be able to find it again.
I was told today to look at other kinds of art besides quilts to see what I am inspired by. I have some books. I guess I will look at those and see what I see.
I am still thinking about black and white line drawings in a new visual journal. I haven’t done anything about it yet.
The photos of some of the quilts to which I linked (to Artquiltmaker.com) in the past week looked really crappy and I was embarrassed after I posted them. I took 4 quilts including Ocean Ave, Get the Red Out, the Punk Rock Quilt and the Mary Whitehead quilt to be photographed. I want to put better pictures on my website.
The latest baby quilt, which my mom made and I paid to have quilted, is done. It has to be picked up from the quilter soon. She is quilting the Nosegay next.
Creative Journals
I have been feeling, for a long time, how I would like to work on a visual journal – painting, sketching, colored pencils…something. I am an inveterate journal keeper. I have been keeping a journal since about 1980. Perhaps earlier. I have scads of them everywhere. I used to put snippets of things in them and they would get quite fat and I would have to keep it in a big ziploc bag in order to ensure that the bits and pieces wouldn’t fall out. An old boyfriend spent the day reading my journals once and that was the end of him. Jerk. My journals are for my mental health and NOT for sharing. They are not nice, not always pretty, but they are a fantastic exercise.
Anyway, enough boring background.
Lately I have been writing bits and notes in my journal about Thr3fold journal in order to remind myself what I want to write in the review. Putting the notes in my journal keeps all the parts together. Today, I was reading an article in Cloth Paper Scissors. Jane Lafazio, Keeping Creative Sketchbooks, pg.24-27, March/April 2007 issue, writes a little lesson on drawing and the whole article is illustrated with pages from her notebooks. The images are fresh, alive, colorful drawings. They make me want to get closer, to know more. She also writes “The journaling makes my sketchbook more than a series of paintings; it becomes my illustrated personal story.” What a lovely thought. I love the thought of something being my personal story.
Darling Boy made a deal with me to draw every day. This is his picture. Of course it is about war, but I love the little alien in the upper right hand corner. I am tempted to enlarge it and paint it. Something about it appeals to me, perhaps the googly eyes.
Tonya showed a picture of one of her visual sketchbooks, so I have been reinspired all day to figure out how to do this.
And finally, I finished another Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). Two in one week! I am thrilled!
How do you like the fabric with the faces?
43/47
In order to complete a Pineapple block, including the corners, I need 47 fabrics. In an ideal world they would all be different. Without the corners, which, in this project, I have not yet applied, I need only 43 fabrics. As a result, the Pineapple side blocks are really causing me fits. I need so many more background fabrics than I did with the center blocks. I just don’t feel like I have enough.
In reality, I may actually have enough. Currently I have 32 background fabrics in active use. This means I should only have to use some of them twice. But someway, it is not working out out for me.
Contributing to this problem are the marginal fabrics. Of those 32 active background fabrics, 5 are what I would call marginal. If I had more background fabrics, I wouldn’t use them. The marginal fabrics are defined in my head as having too much color or too much concentrated or prominent color. They stand out much more in these background blocks that are merely supposed to frame the piece.
Also contributing to the problem was the arrangement of the strips. I had arranged them so duplicate strips were dispersed throughout the pile. This wasn’t working, because I would come across a fabric that I had just used. I could certainly skip it, but I felt like I was skipping too many fabrics. I rearranged them today so all like fabrics are together. Hopefully, this arrangement will work better.
I keep looking for more background fabrics, but I have found that I need to shop for these in person or I end up with fabrics that I already have. I am tempted by three or four on eQuilter today, such as Lots-A-Dots’ collection from Santee Print Works, but because I am looking for more subtle differences than online shopping can generally show, I am reluctant to click the buy button. I don’t know when these came out so I will have to see. I put them on my wish list, so I don’t have to go hunting for them again.
Despite the trials and tribulations of backgrounds, I managed to make the last two corner blocks today.
Hooray for me! This leaves me 14 straight side blocks to sew. I doubt I will get the block sewing done by the end of the year, but I want to try. I was desperate to start the Chocolate box quilt this weekend. I just wanted something fresh to work on. Instead I got Thoughts on Dots back from the fair and put it on my bed. That seems to have assuaged my need for something new and fresh for the moment.
Other Asides~~
I was looking at Artquiltmaker.com yesterday and thinking about updating it with Thoughts on Dots as a finished project when I realized how bad some of the photos are. I think I will give my mom an armload of quilts to take to the photographer next time I see her. If I don’t see her before the 7th, then I will take them myself. I don’t want crappy photos on my website and don’t have the equipment to take good photos of my larger projects. Thoughts on Dots will be in that batch as well.
Serendipity Puzzle came back from the quilter and it is fantastic!
Here is the whole thing. You can’t see much of the quilting, but this is a reminder of what the quilt looks like.
Here is a detail (sorry for the blur) of the corner and the border. Notice the slight spiral in the white corner flower (just inside the blue border).
Not sure how it shows up for you, but I like the way she did the quilting so the Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks still show up.
Detail of back. Notice how she used at least a couple of different thread colors.
Now I have a second quilt to bind.
Cross Block (Flowering Snowball)
This one is a little dark, but will mix up with the others nicely. I like the way you can fussy cut quite large motifs and have them show up well.