I am trying different arrangements of triangles for show. The previous arrangements have left so much design wall space in the photos. It took me awhile to cut enough triangles for this photo as I concentrated on the Stepping Stones top.
Many of the fabrics are from Camille Roskelley’s Ruby line. I have stacked them up as I search for suitable project for them. I have almost decided I will do another Stepping Stones quilt, though perhaps I will scale it down a bit as how many 100×80 quilts does a person need?
This may be the last batch of triangles as I have to start organizing them in preparation for sewing them at the CQFA retreat.
I am making an effort to cut and press fabric so I am ready for sewing the FOTY 2011 quilt. I have started to arrange the squares by color so they look good in the photo. Vanity, I think. 😉
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.
Mid September already! The CQFA Retreat has been set, so now I have a working deadline. I am pretty good in the fabric washing department. The cutting of triangles for fabrics I have used this year (already in my fabric closet) has been spotty. I am not going back to make that up and will try and do better. No promises. It will be what will be.
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.
The triangle collection is growing, but not fast enough. The halfway mark for the year is long past and I have piles of fabric to wash and cut. Sigh.
I pressed a bunch while I was on the phone over the weekend. Being on the phone is an excellent time to press fabric. Get yourself a headset and try it out.
Still I have to cut the bits I need for various projects, too and I am behind on that. I realized that part of what was holding me up was the difficult to read list of patches I need to cut, so I have to redo that. Hopefully, that little project will speed up my process.
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FOTY Triangles, also late July 2011
After writing the above, I got busy pressing and cutting. I have a much larger collection of triangles now and a slightly smaller pile of fabric to press and cut. I got into a routine and ended up getting a lot of prep work done for the Food Quilt.
All the fabric I bought is now washed and just waiting to be pressed.
I have been making a big effort to press the fabric that I have washed recently. First it is really uncomfortable to sit and sew with a big pile of fabric poking me in the back. Also, I felt so guilty last time TFQ was down as she spent hours on her feet pressing my fabric. Of course, I greatly appreciate it, but I’d like to avoid the guilt this time.
I have been trying to press fabrics, in general, in groups based on how I am thinking of using them. I may not end up using these all together, but that is in my mind now. Most of these fabrics are from a Piece O’Cake group called Daisies and Dots. I am not liking it as much as I thought I would. I do like the dots, of course, but some of the designs make me realize I have to be more discriminating when I pick fabric. I am looking for a project for this group at the moment.
I liked the way this group of colors looked together. Even though I didn’t have enough to really make a large picture, I thought this was worth showing. It makes me think about how I want to arrange the triangles.
Here are so more triangles for FOTY 2011. I am not pressing and cutting them as fast since I am working on other projects, but I am working on them incrementally.
Here is the first group of triangles that will end up as Fabric of the Year 2011. I am doing something this year in that I am including many fabrics that I am using this year, but aren’t new. The large triangles are the new fabrics for this year and the small triangles are the fabrics that were already in my fabric closet, but were used in a quilt.
I have already realized that I am not going to be able to cut ALL fabrics that I use. I just am not organized enough. I haven’t developed the habit, but I am getting better.
I have the idea in my mind that I will make this more of a scrap quilt rather than arranging the fabrics carefully in a colorwash kind of order. I may not, though.
The other idea I have is to arrange it like Fons & Porter did in their Kalamkari Strippy.
We’ll see how I feel at the end of the year.
I hung up FOTY 2009 in my hallway yesterday. It can be seen when people walk in the front door. I received a ton of compliments on it, which was very kind of people. I was planning to take it to work, but needed to solve a quick decorating dilema and decided to keep it at home for awhile. I have to think of something new to hang in my office as I am getting tired of seeing Seeing Red when I walk in.
In the meantime, I am still working on FOTY 2010 steadily, though I wasn’t able to do much more than unpick a few yellows this past week.
FOTY 2010: Where I started
Pretty much, this is where I started this week. There were still lots of gaps in the blues, but I had started to piece the smaller pieces into larger. One can ‘chunk‘ this type of quilt in the piecing process, but not as easily, or for as long, as when piecing square or rectangular patches. At some point I had to piece long rows together.
Part of this has to do with the arrangement of this particular quilt. The colorwash type arrangement doesn’t lend itself well to piecing the patches into chunks of four patches, as I was able to do with the Eye Spy quilt.
FOTY 2010: Processing Blues
Aren’t the blues behaving nicely? The placement is not ideal and I would do it differently if I had unlimited tints, hues, values and shades, but my FOTY rule is that I have to use what I have, and so far I am happy.
FOTY 2010: Section Pieced
You can see, above, the whole blue section pieced.
FOTY 2010: Where I am Going
I am heading towards the pink on the bottom. Now that the blues are behaving nicely, the pinks are becoming little brats. It reminds me of the Mandrakes in the book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That big gap has reappeared in the pink area. Grrrr!
I have been contemplating the yellow and pink sections and doing a bit of playing with their arrangement. I am not terribly fond of a big line of greens or yellows or pinks slashing through the quilt. I prefer more of a blob arrangement (like the pinks are in the above photo – more of an organic shape). I am not sure at this moment how I will have them blend into each other – the blue to pink – if I do the blob arrangement. I don’t have enough yellows, greens and oranges to wash very completely. I think the green to yellow to orange is much easier, but there is a space consideration up towards the top. I’ll have to play around and see what works.
As soon as I arrived home from the retreat, I put up the portable design wall and organized the diamonds. They were pinned on the design wall, so I didn’t have to do much for the part that was already sewn. All the unsewn diamonds were just in the bag of pieces.
Progress 1
My next task was to put all of the reds and pinks back on the design wall. Above, I have put all the diamonds I could fit back up on the design wall.
Progress 2
I was really trying to fix that bottom right hand corner, which meant working on the blues.
Progress 3
The blues are getting better. I am making progress.
Progress 4
But not all of the blues are cooperating.
Progress 5
I felt like I needed to take a lot of pictures, so when I have succeeded in a section I have a record. I am nervous that I will need to recreate it if the diamonds get rearranged. I live with creative people and sometimes they think they are helping by rearranging things.
Progress 6
More with the blues.
Progress 7
Minor changes, but the piece is looking better.
Progress 8
Trying to make the leap from blue to green to yellow is proving to be a challenge. I don’t think there is such a thing as a dark yellow and that one green (smack in the middle of the photo above) is really sticking out and doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.
I spent some time yesterday working on the test piece. I wanted to get into the groove of sewing diamonds again. The Eye Spy feels like a long time ago. Now I think I have a better idea of the sewing, though matching the points and sides of the diamonds proved challenging. I found a book that had some tips and will take a look at that before I start the piecing.
Diamond Test Piece in Process
The left hand corner section of the above photo is pieced. You can see the piece getting smaller as I piece it. There are two diamonds in the machine, which is why there is a big white space in the photo.
Aside from matching the points, I also had some trouble with the border diamonds and corners. As a result, I think I will start in the center and piece outwards. I’d like to piece the diamonds in chunks and it might work better to start piecing them in groups of four. I’ll try it and see.
Finished Test Piece with Comparison Diamond
I didn’t measure the finished diamonds, but you can see the significant change in size. It will be interesting to see the big piece develop.
Finished Test Piece with Comparison Diamond Overlay
To give you another view, I have overlaid the patch/unfinished diamond on top of the finished piece so you can see the difference.
