Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I am still cutting squares for FOTY 2013. You can see a lot of the squares from the Round Robin piece in this group.
I was trying to put the squares in color order, which is a good exercise. It is also hard if you are working with what you have rather than being able to select specific colors to fill in. I did pretty well, but was having trouble with the pearl Bracelets purple. It is so dark.
See the last group.
While this certainly won’t be a comprehensive post on everything there is to know about color and fabric choices, I thought I could pass along a little information while it was fresh in my mind.
Above is my completed foundation pieced New York Compass. If I were doing this block over again, I would not choose that specific aqua or that red for the small second foundation pieced strip (next to the corner quarter circle). In the grand scheme of the quilt, it will be fine, but this close up it really takes away from the fine piecing of those spiky triangles. The reds, especially run into each other.
That second foundation pieced part is tricky for my particular version, because my quilt is a two color quilt. I can’t introduce additional colors into the blocks at this late stage and maintain the integrity of my plan. I could have paid more attention to the particular reds and aquas I was choosing and chose fabrics for that small foundation pieced strip that stood out more against the red dot of the spiky triangles.
My mistake?
I grabbed fabrics and started cutting. I did not look at all the fabrics together before cutting. I didn’t try different fabrics to see what the change in look would be. I didn’t make my visual decisions visually. This lesson is a good reminder.
I may cut a few more, but these are probably the last patches for FOTY 2012 you will see until I sew. I made an effort to press and cut some more pieces. With TFQ’s help I made a little progress.
I sorted all of the patches I cut into color groups, so I am pseudo ready to place the patches and then sew. I may not get to sewing this weekend, though I do hope to do enough placement to make some progress sewing.
While I am making progress on preparing to sew the FOTY 2012, I still have a pile of fabric to press, not to mention the other pile I have to wash AND press. There is no way for me to get it all done, but I will get as much done as possible before I start sewing at the CQFA Retreat in January.
I do enjoy this process, however. I like seeing these photos and thinking about what I made from the fabrics.
I have FOTY 201o hanging in my hallway and I keep walking by thinking “I need to find that fabric; it would be perfect with X project.” That is really fun.
I am really not starting this quilt, but it is firmly in the hunting and gathering stage. I have wanted to do another Stepping Stones quilts since I made the first one now that I know the color placement.
I thought this would be a good quilt design on which to use the various Bonnie & Camille lines I have (Bliss, Ruby, some Vintage Modern).
The idea has been on my mind and this week, I just got a bug in my ear to try out the colors. Not sure I like the great. It is kind of dark. I like the tone of the grey in the middle patch on the right, but I am not sure about the other greys. I have another block underway and will see when I put the two blocks together.
What do you think of the overall look?
I know you must all be bored of seeing these checkerboard blocks put together one after another with little variation. I have to say that I am getting a tiny bit bored, but the color work is still interesting enough for me to keep making these pieces.
This quilt is taking me longer to get done. I am not sure why, aside from reasons I have discussed, and the usual busyness, but it seems to be taking forever. I am not working on a piecing project at the moment, so can’t move this quilt along using the leaders and enders technique, so that must be the problem.
I am pleased with the way it is coming out in general, though I do see some specific problems. Nota Bene: I really don’t want sympathy. I am learning by doing and reporting on what I find.
I don’t know why I chose this color combination. It is fun and kind of a trip down memory lane to the late 80s (??) and the Preppie Handbook. I almost never use green, so I needed to use some up. The back will be green as well. I also was kind of feeling like I would scream if I had to sew another black on white square to something else. Good time to take a break.
SIL pointed out that these blocks no longer look like a checkerboard. She is right. I paid special attention to only using the lighter pinks in this piece. I didn’t like the darker batik pinks mixed with the lighter pinks in the Pink Donation quilt. The values of the pinks and greens are mostly the same. That muddies the design. In some cases, I put in some darker greens and they stand out. If I were to make a pink and green quilt like this again, I would use the lighter pinks and darker greens. I might even use the same green for the ‘background’ squares.
I am now putting the blocks together. I sashed them all on Sunday, so it shouldn’t take me long to do the rest. I just didn’t feel like it.
One thing I did differently was cut the sashing down to 1.5″ finished (2″ cut). That means I had to cut .5″ off all of the sashing strips and cornerstones. The leavings will be stuffing for cat beds.
I think the slight change in with enhances the overall design. Small detail.
Perhaps when I make the perfect donation quilt, I will then move on to another pattern!
Two new books.
I haven’t had time to do more than glance through them, but for some reason, I wanted to let you know that I had a couple of new books.
Color Magic for Quilters is all Sandy’s fault. That is Sandy of Quilting…for the Rest of Us. I’ll have to think of something so she will spend her money.
She is doing a mini-project called Total Color Tuesdays post on her blog every Tuesday (stealing all of my glory for the upcoming design episode on color, I would like to point out). You can participate in her exercises. Color Magic for Quilters uses a different system than Munsell or Ives. I don’t know which;you’ll have to wait for my review. I’ll read the book and get back to you.
Fearless Creating is a book I won as a door prize at the last BAMQG meeting. I am not a big door prize fan. I don’t object to them, but I just usually don’t want what people are giving away. This time I really wanted this book and nearly grabbed it out of someone’s hand as we were called at the same time. I told her I would loan her the book. She was on the fence about it anyway, so I don’t feel guilt.
I sewed some of the Corner Store blocks together yesterday in the 87 seconds I had to sew between political events, laundry and general keeping the house together stuff.
I do find that after a quilt has been around for awhile I don’t even notice the colors that cause such drama for me when I am making it. Perhaps, because I gave myself fits, the quilt is so perfectly balanced that it doesn’t bother me.
In the Corner Store piece, there is a lot of blue and red, actually aqua and red. There is also quite a bit of pink. It is a challenge to place the pieces in such a way that all the blues are not globbed together.
I accidentally placed the blue dot and reddish-pink flower print near each other and those two fabrics sing together. I knew I had to sew them together and I did. I placed them together even though there is quite a bit of blue int he neighborhood. I am sure I won’t notice a year after after the quilt is done, but I know now and, at the moment, now counts.
I really like this quilt.
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.
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.
Now I am just waiting with my fingers crossed.
I do not believe in the concept of Quilt in a Day. I love Eleanor Burns, I love various quick techniques and the rotary cutter, but I simply do not believe I can make a well designed quilt with great piecing and wonderful quilting in a day.It is not possible for me.
I do believe I can get a lot done in one day, though, and this quilt is proof.
Short story: the top is finished except for the quilting border; back is nearly finished. I do not want this project to linger. I want to finish the back and get it to the quilter. I want to be done with my part before the weekend. We will see. I don’t want it to become an albatross.
Inspiration is a funny thing. You never know when it will strike or what will spur it on. The combination of Kathleen’s quilt, the Pinterest photo and the oranges that I bought some weeks ago from the quilt shop From Here to Quilternity all coalesced into one big blob of inspiration and I sewed.
And inspiration breeds inspiration.
Susan, of the History Quilter podcast commented on Twitter (yes, I am there, too. You can follow me – @artquiltmaker) that the orange part of the quilt looked like mosaics. As you know, I love mosaics and tile and try to take inspiration from them where I can. Susan is absolutely right and her comment has been on my mind all day.
My mind is whirling with possibilities. Simply whirling. If I had more time, I would explore all of these possibilities. Perhaps someday.
Source: blue-t0paz.tumblr.com via Jaye on Pinterest
Long story: I really got a bug in my ear on Thursday night. I happened to look at a Pinterest photo (above, the door and the orange textiles) I had pinned some weeks ago and that photo, along with Kathleen‘s quilt made got me started.
Did I need another project? No.
Did I care? Obviously not. The muse must be satisfied.
I spent Friday late afternoon and evening cutting 9.5″ squares from the fat quarter group from the From Here to Quilternity quilt shop. I had to press and cut other pieces according to my ‘new fabric regime’, but it went well. The next day I began sewing.
Kathleen had done a demo for making these blocks and she reminded me that this is an Oh! Fransson pattern. I had forgotten.
When I looked at the pattern, I knew exactly what to do. I referred to it for sizes, but I also just went my own way. I have done this kind of piecing before with the Slash Stars. The thing that makes this quilt, IMO is the setting. Brilliant.
I also, like Kathleen, made the quilt a bit bigger. It has to be wrapped around a boy, so it needed to be bigger. If I had had more of the blue fabric, I would have added two more rows to the bottom, but I didn’t.
The only tiny quibble I have with the pattern (perhaps it is just a tutorial?) is the movement of the pieces. You can’t just move one piece each time. You need to move 2 at one point, three at another. I think this needs to be a bit clearer, BUT I should also read the directions all the way through before starting a project. 😉 I looked at my pieces and moved them according to what I thought was best, so it worked out.
I am pretty pleased with my blue plain squares. This sort of blue was my plan all along. I had planned to buy a solid, but didn’t have a Kona color card and wanted to make sure I had the right color. Blah. Blah. Blah.
On a whim, I delved into the fabric closet and came up with the blue fabric above, which is an old commercial hand dye. It is probably a Hoffman, but I don’t know for sure. I love it because it complements the orange perfectly. I like Kathleen’s grey background (the photo above does not do it justice); I am not so fond of the white (I know, Modern quilt blasphemy) in EH’s version. Then again, I am a color girl, someone in love with color, so I didn’t expect anything less.
Now I am in love with orange and blue. Stay tuned for the ramifications. 😉
The title of this post has to do with how Athena was born. Zeus got a massive headache and then Athena sprang, fully formed, from his forehead. Can’t imagine the scar. 😉 That is how I feel about this quilt. I didn’t do much of the work – EH designed the quilt, Kathleen made it and showed it at a guild meeting; I took up the baton and ran with the idea.
The pieces for this project seem to be multiplying by leaps and bounds. It doesn’t seem like I am working with so many fabrics, but I am sewing relatively fast, so, perhaps, I am.
I am trying a new technique for pressing fabric. In between other pressing tasks, I am pressing the fabric I have washed recently. It means a steady stream of cutting and new fabrics to play with. In the second group (left), I was a little dot heavy. 😉
I was also trying to fussy cut bits from the larger floral patterned fabrics. There are also a group of solids for the QuiltCon challenge. I can’t decide whether or not to include a print in that project, so I have started with the solids and we’ll see how it goes.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted triangles since mid September! But it’s true. I haven’t posted triangles since mid-September. I guess if I had actually pressed fabric in the past 2 months, then I wouldn’t be so behind.
It turns out that I have to press fabric, because the chair I lay the fabric over while it waits to be press keeps falling over. I spent a few hours on Sunday, after finishing a big project pressing and cutting the bits and snippets I need for various projects. I got quite a little pile going after not too long. I think the chair is a bit more stable now, but I just need to get the fabric pressed. AND stop buying new fabric.
Bad news. I don’t think I like this triangle shape. What I really want to do is kind of row quilt like the Fons & Porter Kalamkari Strippy. I like the space between the rows, though you can’t see it very well in the size information they provide. Still, I want to be true to the idea of the Fabric of the Year quilts and continue with that series. The bottom line is that I have too many triangles to make that quilt unless I want to make one to cover half of San San Francisco – the City not the people in it!
I considered, briefly, cutting squares out of the all the fabric already cut into triangles. I like the idea of simple shapes and may have just gone too far this year in the shape department. That would cause a problem for the smaller triangles. I know myself and would not pull the fabrics out again to cut squares.
The other idea I had was to intersperse light colored or neutral triangles in between the colored ones so that I can give the fabrics some space.
I think I have decided to lay all the triangles out and see what I am really dealing with and go from there. I may lay them all out on the Pat Bravo Pure Elements white linen solid color fabric and see if I get the space effect I want.
I can’t leave you all fretting and worrying. There is good news. I am almost at the end of the giant pile of fabric needing to be pressed. My machine is back, though, so that effort will be slowed a bit. I do have a pile of fabric to be washed that will also need to be pressed, but for the zillion loads of fabric I did at the beginning of the month, I am almost through it. More good news is that the fabrics on the bottom of the pile had sort of pressed themselves!
I continue to cut triangles for the Fabric of the Year 2011 quilt. I have many fabrics that need to be pressed, so it is a continuing process. My sewing machine is back, temporarily, so my pressing has slowed down a bit.
I am making progress on the pressing and cutting and you can see the quilt that is next in line from the fabrics I have cut. The design wall is getting to be too small these days iwth so many large blocks taking up space.