The Infinity blocks had been languishing for a little while. I needed some test subjects for the tuned up machine, so I sewed a couple. The middle one is of the ones I made on Saturday and the others have been hanging around for awhile waiting for me to photograph them.
The fabric I used for the middle blocks is an old Jinny Beyer fabric and it is really crisp to press and sew. Lovely!
I have only a little bit of the white left, so the block portion of this project is nearing completion. I will have to see how many blocks we end up with, however. It needs to be some kind of normal number and not one that won’t work in putting a quilt together.
I stayed away from the computer all day yesterday and sewed.
Janome 9000
The 9000 is back and better than it has been in a long time. It is quieter. I can punch any button I want and the machine reacts instantly. It was a pleasure to sew.
I did a lot:
made a receiving blanket
finished the last bit of the Tarts
Tarts cups
almost finished the machine quilting on Beach Town
made some Infinity blocks
worked on some FOTY 2009 blocks
FOTY detail pink
Normally, I sew early in the morning and stop in the evening. I am a morning person and I have learned the hard way that when I sew tired I make mistakes. Last night, however, I stayed up late and sewed. It was wonderful.
While you were sipping your cappucinos this morning, I was finishing the edges of my very first ATCs – Artist Trading Cards – and dashing off to meet with my fellow CQFAers.
Maureen had suggested that we do a swap of ATCs. In the spirit of the Creative Prompt project, I decided that making them would be good for my creativity. And it was! I did them when I came home from work on Tuesday after one of the most grueling work days I think I have ever had. Immersing myself in some fiber took my mind off of the lunatics downtown. I didn’t have much brainpower and, thus, didn’t overthink the design. All of the fabrics came out of my scrap basket. I wasn’t sure what to use for the center so I used two layers of Pellon Stitch and Tear, which I use for stabilizing machine applique’. The ATCs felt right in terms of stiffness and I didn’t have any problems with sewing through the 4 layers. It all seemed to work just fine.
ATC backs
The ATCs are 2.5×3.5″ inches and I know that there are a zillion sources for instructions all over the web. Typical of me, I didn’t look at any of them. 😉
Sometimes I just need to do the work. I figured they were small enough and I could toss them if I didn’t like them.
I grabbed more fabric out of my scrap basket for the backs. The red dots and the Denyse Schmidt flowers are my favorites. One of my criteria was that I had to be able to write on the back, so my favorites weren’t ideal. The other plainer fabrics were better. I tried to use the stitch lettering that I used to use for labels on these ATCs, but my machine is starting to act up 🙁 and I couldn’t get it to work.
MPL's ATCs
Maureen’s ATCs include the car in the group. Maureen is a quiltmaker I really admire, because she is constantly trying new things.
Her ATCs were a revelation, because they were all different! Mine are sort of different, but really the same. Maureen created different designs on each card. WOW! Not sure why I didn’t think of that, but perhaps I will do something similar next time.
Terri let me know that Diane and Nancy’s ATCs were mixed in with Maureen’s. I didn’t pay close enough attention to know whose are whose. Sorry ladies!
I thought I would make more of the same for next time, but after doing the swap, I think people will be looking for something new and exciting.
Terri's work
Terri is a mystery writer who incorporates quilts and quiltmaking into her stories. If you haven’t read Ocean Waves, Old Maid’s Puzzle, or Wild Goose Chase, get yourself to the Library or bookstore! Her ATCs had a mystery theme and were business card size. Terri used the business card sized advertisements as the backing! Clever!
In addition to paper and fabric, Terri also added 3D ribbon and rubber stamping to her cards. I have rubber stamps! Perhaps I will drag them out for the next round.
LC's Work
Linda‘s ATCs look marbled to me. She is a talented machine quilter. She produces lots of small works frequently by participating in such challenges as the Fast Friday Challenge. She has recently been doing succulents, which she says are too dark for her tastes. Most of her work is very bright – lime green, fuschia, bright blue, etc as Linda uses lots of hand dyes.
Linda talks about her ATCs on a blog post from a few days ago. It looks like she made a big piece and then cut it up. Another great idea!
Bron's ATCs
I haven’t seen very much of Bron’s work and was really excited when she laid out her ATCs. Bron’s raven piece and her stamp piece both caught my eye. I couldn’t stop staring at them during the entire swap. I am not sure why. I guess Amy over at the Creative Mom podcast is on my mind both because of the ATCs and because of the birds.
Bron also chose to make different designs. Her media varied quite a lot as well. She used fabric, paint, paper, beads and different ephemera such as stamps. I picked up the stamp card from Bron’s offerings.
Bron's Stamp ATC
The colors drew me to this piece. They were really vibrant and attractive. I am like a bee in spring, I guess. 😉 I really liked the textures on this card as well as the airmail stamps.
VS works
Virginia is a quiltmaker I really admire. She has a quiet presence that smolders. When she finishes a quilt or a set of placemats or something, they set the room on fire: excellent stitching, perfect corners, wonderful fabrics and a great design. I really wish she lived closer as I would try to spend more time learning with her.
Virginia did photo transfer with fabric, paper and stitching. I wasn’t as excited about them because of the black and white. I did love the stitching around the edge.
Diane brought some as well and somehow I missed photographing them. Perhaps next time.
While I am not particularly interested in ATCs, I found this to be a good exercise. Not so much in what I made, but in seeing what everyone else made and getting inspired by their work. I may have a chance to try out some of these ideas as Maureen suggested that he group make this activity a regular part of the meeting. Hhmm…
These are the blocks that my SIL sent to me via DH-mail. I think i will be interesting to take a photo of all of the blocks together.
I made another couple over the weekend, but am writing for an even number before I photograph them. It is more interesting if I have a few to show you.
I got a little behind photographing and posting blocks from my Infinity project. (I think last week was just a bad sewing-posting-making week). Anyway, here are some of the newer blocks. I made a few more after I snapped this pic and will post those later.
I was attempting to try out a different layout from the layout in the May 13th post. I like the four white squares together. I am a long way from the end, however, so we will see once I get more blocks.
SIL said she was sending me some blocks via DH-transport, so I expect those on Sunday. As usual, stay tuned!
SIL and I are doing a swap with blue and white fabrics.
First Always Quilting Block
This is the block we are using. We didn’t have time to really organize ourselves while she was out for a brief visit a few weeks ago, so we did some organizing via email. I finally felt organized enough to make some blocks. The above block is one of the first group that I did. I plan to make two of each fabric and send one to SIL, in little batches.
Three Always Quilting Blocks
I made the two batik ones later and will send SIL one.
The motif that the squares and rectangles make looks like some kind of knot. Since I didn’t know the name of this block, and I didn’t want to call it the Always Quilting block, I looked up the design in Barbara Brackman’s book, The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I couldn’t find this particular block (Barbara, won’t you please update your book with newer blocks??? Thanks.), so I found a couple that looked like they were related.
Tam's Patch, BB:1117
BB:1117 is called Tam’s Patch. It has two corners with the rectangle/two squares combination, but the other two corners are just plain square patches.
Squares upon Squares, BB:1104
BB:1104 (page 156-157) is called Squares upon Squares from Farm Journal.
I’ll look through some other block dictionaries to see if I can find a name for it.The reality is that you change one line and you have a new block. New blocks are invented every day.
I’d love to hear if you know the name of this block, or have a creative name for it.
Be*Mused also talked about a swap post by Calamity Kim that I thought was useful if you are thinking about participating in a swap.
I haven’t participated in a swap since the advent of Web 2.0, so I don’t remember what it was like except for the stress I felt. If I were on the receiving end of Jan’s doll quilt (from Be*Mused blog) I would be thrilled, but we all know it isn’t always like that. Review Kim’s tips and tricks before you sign on the dotted line.
I am waiting to get an appointment to deliver my quilts – YES, quilts plural!!! – to my quilter. I have to call her and get a date. Last time I tried she was out of town on all the days that would have been convenient for me. I almost finished a third top last night, so I may wait to add the last two borders, and get the back done before I make the appointment.
Above is the back of the purple Bullseye. I was really pleased with how well this back went together. The whole quilt really went together well, but the back was especially easy. The fabrics I used are much lighter than the front. I wanted to use some fabrics that I owned and liked and had also been around for awhile yet hadn’t yet made it to the front of a quilt.
It is really a thrill to have three quilts (almost) ready to go to the quiltmaker. Sadly, two of them were not on my 2007 UFO list, so that list won’t be much smaller unless I get really busy.
The last update I gave you on the Bullseyes was on September 8 and I was slowly working through the trimming and sewing the patches together to make blocks. I went through this process kind of slowly because I was enjoying the fiddliness and taking my time. Above shows the quilt top as it was sometime in the last week or so. You can see that patches are sewn together to make blocks and some blocks are sewn together to make. During the past week I have been sewing chunks together and this morning I had only seven seams left. I finished this morning after wrestling with those last seams.
Finished top!! Hooray.
I hope to be able to finish the back today as well. I already made one piece of it with some leftover quarter circle/triangle patches.
One of the things I tried on this quilt was sewing the seams open. I saw in the Kerr/Ringle color book that they press the seams, on all of their quilts, open. I thought this would be a good project to try it. I was pleased with how easy it was to deal with several seams meeting at one central point. Because of the layers of applique’, it was a little tricky to get all the little bits to lay flat. I also found it easier to press from the back when pressing the seams open. My points matched up pretty well (at least no worse than normal). I did use pins to help that process. All in all, I liked pressing the seams open. I’ll have to read a little more of what Kerr/Ringle say about their reasons and report back.
Last week I noted that I wanted to get moving on the Bullseye, because I wanted to get it off the design wall and to the quilter. Yesterday, I got busy and began sewing blocks together. This is a project, because I need – well, want – to keep the patches in the order I have laid them out. As TFQ pointed out, in the future nobody will notice and I won’t remember, but there is no sense in laying them out and not, at least, trying to keep them in order.
I spent several hours yesterday sewing blocks together, trimming applique and squaring up the blocks. I decided that it would be a lot easier to square the blocks as I went along rather than waiting. It did take longer, but I am happy that I am trimming and squaring now since it will be a lot easier to put the blocks together later.
The sewing part is a little tricky, because, while I was sewing blocks, the blocks I was sewing together have nothing to do with the design on the quilt. Groups of blocks make up the design.
You can see from the photo, above, how much the piece will shrink once all of the sewing is completed. Right now there is about a 2″ gap between the sewn block (left) and the unsewn blocks (right). It never ceases to amaze me how much fabric seam allowances take up. There will be more once I start sewing blocks together.
After magnificiently struggling with the layout for the Bullseye, I believe I have settled on a shape I can live with and one that is successful. The difference between this and the others I have done is that the ‘knots’ I have created are self contained. I keep thinking of them as Lovers’ Knots, but I know that term may confuse people who know the actual Lovers’ Knot quilt pattern.
I have more patches on the wall and am finalizing fabric placement now. I hope to get to sewing today as I would like to have this piece ready to take to the quilter with the Chocolate Box. I am itching to get back to the Pineapple (amazing, but true). I need to move a couple of projects forward first.
I have a sinking feeling I already posted this picture, but I can’t find it in the blog, so either I am losing my mind or imagining things. Either one could be positive. 😉
This is the first arrangement. It will work, areas I want to stand out stand out. With a few more blocks the self bordering will work as well.
I know I rearranged the pieces after I took this photo, but, once again, my camera is upstairs, so it will have to be a post for tomorrow.
Julie has posted her bullseyes. The post shows how they look with the ones I sent her. She spray starched hers, which is a great idea. I am not sure why I didn’t think of it! I guess I learn something new every day.
I couldn’t stay away from my workroom on yesterday. I found a playmate for the child and left them to their own devices (except for an occasional admonishment to go outside away from the screens) while I sat and sewed. I sent Aja’s Bullseyes off to her, as I may have mentioned, last week. She received them Thurs or Fri, so I only had my blocks to work on.
This calling business was a bit disconcerting, because it seemed like my mind had a mind of its own. Normally, I will sew a bit, do the laundry a bit, sew a bit more, make my weekly phone calls, sew a bit, change the laundry and do the dishes and sew a bit more. Yesterday my body and mind were united and they were having none of it. I went to the workroom and basically stayed there. No dishes, no laundry and the dinner didn’t get started until almost 7pm. IT WAS FABULOUS!!! This is one of the blocks and I really liked it. I fussy cut the last circle and was sad to slice it up, because the flower is so perfectly displayed.
These are my blocks after I have added the last circle. The blocks in the upper right hand corner are blocks that weren’t in the photo I posted the other day. My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate all of the blocks.
These are details of the blocks from the upper right hand corner.
Now my Bullseye blocks are nearly complete. I have sewed the last circles on and trimmed all the blocks down to 9.5″. This is how the back of a block looks after I have sewn the last circle and before I have cut the back of the second circle out. You can see that Julie and Aja have cut out the backs of the background and the first circle.
Here is how the above block looks after I have cut out the back of the second circle. This reduces bulk and provides lots of lovely circles for another project.
I finished the process of cutting out the backs of the second circles, and I have sliced the blocks into quarters. I am preparing them to be sent off to Julie and Aja.
Here is how I set up the blocks to slice them. I love the Creative Grid rulers, because they have a lot of different markings that allow you to line up the ruler so the block is sliced very precisely.
I keep two quarters of the block and send one quarter each to Julie and Aja.
Here are my slices. I just slapped them up on the wall, but I like the internal maze surrounded by a larger maze and may go with that type of design for the final design. I think I will have to put some of the stronger colors, perhaps red, in that internal maze so that it stands out. I will also want the self bordering technique to give the piece a finished look You can see it in Seeing Red.
Friend Julie sent me a second package of Bullseyes sometime last week and I decided I needed to get my act together and sew them up.
Adrienne’s blocks detail. The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after I put the circles on. Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle. The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle.
The rest of my blocks. I was surprised at how much non-purple the other girls used, but then I remembered that that is the fun. DUH! I have cut all the squares for the last round and hope to sew them on this weekend. I recut a lot of them so that most, if not all are purple. I want to cut them up and send them off before I start off on my travels.
