Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Here is the latest block. Use colors of your choice – 2 or 3 will look good. In case you need them, directions are also posted : 3 Rail Fence #11 Directions.
These are all fairly easy because they will create interest when you put them together. Have fun.
I designed (or think I did!) a lot of blocks at the end of the year. When I looked at this one again, it reminded me of a Merry Go Round, thus the name.
There are a few more pieces in this blocks, but it is still not difficult. The Nine Patch Go Round #10 directions tell you what to cut and how big.
The CPP will continue. I need some people to play with on this project. That means you!
So far there is only one entry for the creativity prizes, so what is holding you up? Do you need a pep talk?
Rules: Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. Do a response while in line at the grocery store on the back of a receipt.
If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110 words so far), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries. You have some drawing friends, right? Poets? Mixed media artist friends? Thread painters? Photographers? Sign them up. BTW, all rules are subject to change at my discretion.
These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes. Like a deck of creativity cards.
Were you planning to wait until the last minute? Please don’t wait until the last minute. My life will be better if you don’t. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
Have you made a Nine Patch? Nine patches are like candy. You can’t make too many of them (though I am kind of partial to Four Patches at the moment). They are great for swaps or to use up scraps. There are a multitude of variations. If you sew the parts together using the leaders and enders philosophy you can use up scraps and have a stash of blocks when someone needs blocks to make a donation quilt.
The Nine Patch #9 for this block are easy to follow.
I plan to post blocks on Monday, but I may not post one every Monday.
The Kona Charm Challenge sponsored by Robert Kaufman is all over the quilt world news. last weekend, after the BAMQG meeting, I worked on my border.
The border took me most of Sunday to put on. I realized later that I should have used EQ to figure out the sizes.
This is one of the secondary designs I was trying to preserve. It is the one I saw first.
Later, as the top came together, I also saw a kind of Ohio Star.
My inspiration came from the Manteca quilt show and this quilt by Traudi King, Fun with Scraps.
Remember I said that the CPP will continue? I need some people to play with on this project. That means you!
I am going to offer some creativity prizes, so what is holding you up? Do you need a pep talk?
Rules: Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries. You have some drawing friends, right? Poets? Mixed media artist friends? Thread painters? Photographers? Sign them up. BTW, all rules are subject to change at my discretion.
These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes.
Were you planning to wait until the last minute? Please don’t wait until the last minute. My life will be better if you don’t. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
Do a little scribble response. It will be quite freeing.
Did you follow the directions for cutting your hexagons? Did you watch the video? If so, you are ready to prepare to piece. If not, you can find the directions and information on my previous post.
Note: my hexagons are 7″ unfinished. We are preparing to machine sew the hexagons using Y seams. Leave your fear of Y seams at the door, please. This is a relatively quick method after you do the step outlined below. However, you won’t be able to chain piece.
Supplies needed:
You will be working on the wrong side of your hexagons at first.
The photo of my piece (above) is similar to what your goal should be. Note that the piece I show is not the final product. I don’t know how large my final quilt will be. That is just how I roll on certain projects. You should check Sandy’s blog and podcast as she has provided some information about sizes and amounts of fabric.
I don’t think in rows, so I don’t always sew in rows (remember the Chunking it tutorial?). This project lends itself to sewing in a circle, which I find very calming.
Take your cut hexagons and turn them right side down (wrong side up) on a surface you can draw on. I do this step right next to my sewing machine just before I sew. Take your rotary ruler and position the edge a quarter inch from one edge.
For example, pretend you were going to slice off a quarter inch and position your ruler that way. Note there is no rotary cutter on the supply list so no cutting, please. The goal is to end up with an X at the 60 degree angle spot on the patch.
On the wrong side of your fabric, take your pen and draw a light line where a quarter of an inch should be.
You won’t see it on the front if you are careful, so using one of the pens mentioned above is ok. You will be doing this at the 60 degree angle/where the corner of the patch is, if the patch had a corner.
When you mark the second side, you will have one X and 2 lines.
Do the same thing at each of the other angles.
If you draw lines all the way around so you have little X-es at every angle of your hexagon. No groaning. I didn’t promise this would be a fast project, but it also doesn’t take that much time. If you are rolling your eyes, go buy the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, because they have a method of doing this piecing in rows. Seems everyone is on the Hexagon bandwagon these days.
If the above process is just too horrendous for you to contemplate, consider the Perfect Piecer by Jinny Beyer.
The 60 degree angle on the right side is perfect for making dots (not X-es) which you can use to sew between. Those circles are actual holes through which you can mark. I bought this to use for my Flowering Snowball and realized it would work with this project as well. I pushed the Sewline pencil lead way out of the pencil and was able to use it with this ruler.
Once you have done the marking, go to your sewing machine.
Do all the normal thread and needle checking stuff necessary for your machine.
Put your machine on the setting for stopping with the needle down. If you don’t have a needle down setting, adjust your sewing so you can stop with the needle down. This isn’t an absolute must, but really helps.
Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.
I backstitch, because there are no seams crossing one another.
Remedy for sewing into the seam allowance: rip out the number of stitches into the seam allowance. Don’t rip out the whole seam, just rip out the stitch or two that went over.
Take the piece out of the machine and reposition the next unsewn side.Same deal: Position the needle right above the intersection of the x. Sew into the intersection of the X and sew all the way across using your quarter inch foot. STOP at the intersection of the second X. Do NOT sew into the seam allowance. Backstitch a couple of times.
Take your piece over to the ironing board and lay it face down. Yes, I know everyone says to press right sides up. Not this time, sweetie. Face down. On the ironing board. You are going to make a swirl with the seams near each other. Look for how the other seams connected to the new ones you just sewed are pressed and press the new ones in the same direction.
If you follow these directions, you will get a little flower at the intersections of the seams. That is why you don’t sew into the seam allowance. The quilt will lay flatter and the seams will be in order.
You see a slightly different method at the Blue Chair blog.
This is reposted from Pam (Hip to Be A Square)’s Flickrstream with only slight revisions/additions:
Srsly guys. They are EVERYWHERE.
Sandy at Quilting for the Rest of Us, Jaye from Art Quilt Maker, and I are loosely doing a hexagon-along quilting type thing this this summer. Sandy and I will be sharing our process and pitfalls on our podcasts, while Jaye will share on her blog.
You can find Sandy all over the web. Click on the link and it will take you to her podcast, Flickrstream- just about everywhere.
You can find Jaye at https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/ (where you are now!) (for her blog) or on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artquiltmaker
You can find me at www.hiptobeasquarepodcast.com for my blog & podcast.
Feel free to grab this button if you want to show some solidarity. The current size is 277×277 pixels, but it can go down to 180×180 without distortion.
Frances asked me to start up the block-a-long again, so I am. She said there were some listeners who would like to do a community project.
Here is Short Columns #8, which I call Short Columns. You can find my original post about the project, which talks about the purpose and the point. I don’t have a quilt design planned, but you can certainly make your blocks into a quilt.
The last set of instructions for the last block were posted on October 11, 2010. You can go back and do the previous 7 blocks or you can start from here. Your choice! If you go back, the blocks won’t take you long at all.
I managed to sketch a study of my response to Illuminate. I decided to show that instead of doing a ‘final’ based on a comment I got from a reader who said she was hoping to get brave enough to join the project.
This is what I do when I work on my responses. I make a mess first and then carefully create the final in the sketchbook with all of the other responses. This one, if I didn’t show it in this form, would probably not make it to the final form. It was in my head, but it isn’t great. I needed to look up some doodles in another journal, because I was out of ideas. I don’t know which journal, so I would have to hunt. I don’t want to spend the time and really don’t have the inclination. That means that the photo above is the final.
You don’t have to do a masterpiece. Just do something.
Remember I said that the CPP will continue? And that I am going to offer some creativity prizes? Anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111 will be entered for a prize. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries.
These will not be quilt related prizes, but creativity related prizes.
Don’t wait until the last minute. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
Did you go and see the show? Primal Green is a show of environmental art quilts at the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. AND! it is still on.
The Wallace Stegner Environmental Center is one of the special collections at the Main Branch and, after a year of work with the Library, CQFA has over 20 quilts and fiber art on display. The quilts all have an environmental theme. The show will hang until July 31 and be available to viewers during the Library’s normal open hours. Hope you can stop by and see it. Check the library’s website for hours. Please sign the guestbook and let us know you saw the show.
Primal Green, the art quilt exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library, has some information on the Green Stacks portion of the SFPL website. Hope you can see the show.
The CPP is still on vacation, but I have decided to continue. I have some work stuff going on so it will be a month or so before I get back into full on CPP mode.
I am going to offer some creativity prizes to anyone who posts a response to any of the prompts between now and the post for prompt #111. Yes, I know it is end of school and vacation time. If you do a response to any prompt (there are 110), you will get into the drawing. Anyone who gets a friend to do a response will get two entries.
I am shooting for beginning of July, but I probably won’t warn you, so don’t wait until the last minute. Do your response NOW and post the link in the appropriate comments section.
See previous words and information on the Creative Prompts Inspiration Page. Do you have any ideas on changes or improvements I should make to the CPP?
Ready? Set? Go!
Wouldn’t you love a vacation this long? I would.
The CPP is still on vacation. Did you do any responses to the previous prompts? See previous words and information on the Creative Prompts Inspiration Page. Do you have an opinion about how I should proceed with the CPP? Are there enough prompt projects out there already? I have listed a few resources on the CPP Inspiration page.
Did you Talkback? I was glad to hear from Angela and Kim and SherriD. I want to hear from you.
The CPP is still on vacation. Did you do any responses to the previous prompts? See previous words and information on the Creative Prompts Inspiration Page. Do you have an opinion about how I should proceed with the CPP? Are there enough prompt projects out there already? I have listed a few resources on the CPP Inspiration page.
Talkback. I want to hear from you.
