Finished: Field Day Zipper

Finished: Field Day Zipper
Finished: Field Day Zipper

I did the last bits of the binding on Field Day Zipper on Friday Night. It is finished. I should hold it for the BAMQG meeting, but I want to get it off to the recipient. It is a nice quilt and I hope she will like it.

I showed it at CQFA and people really liked the Sangria background. I was and wasn’t surprised. I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Field Day Zipper Back
Field Day Zipper Back

Field Day Ready to Quilt!

Yes, I finished piecing the back and making the binding over the weekend. I have three projects to take to the quilter today and I am very pleased about that. I am very pleased to get these projects off my plate for awhile and can move ahead to something else.

Field Day Top Finished
Field Day Top Finished

I had thought to put a gold border in between the Sangria borders, but once I put the Sangria on the top and bottom, I thought the top looked finished and I was happy enough to leave it as is.

The ‘coins’ float, which is a little odd, but I kind of like the look.

I had a goal for Saturday to get the whole piece ready for the quilter. As I mentioned, I am taking two projects over and to take a third would be an added bonus.

Field Day Back Finished
Field Day Back Finished

I was able to achieve my goal in the nick of time. We had plans with friends on Saturday evening so I only had about 3 hours to get the piece ready. The back, as usual took me a long time, even though I used a large piece and I used up some of the leftover fat quarters.

Now I can take the third, so BONUS!

Field Day Zipper Top Near…

Field Day Top Sans Borders
Field Day Top Sans Borders

I finally almost finished the Field Day Zipper top. I thought this would be the end, but I decided after looking at what I have that I wanted to add a top and bottom border. Or borders, perhaps? Making visual decisions visually

It feels like the piecing  took forever. It didn’t really take forever, because the last post, which was probably the last time I worked on it, was just June 15.

I talked about the colors and how I was afraid they would be a struggle to work with. They were a struggle. This project turned into a struggle on a number of levels. As I suspected, the colors are a little more muted than colors with which I really enjoy working. Also, the pattern, which I LOVE was just a struggle to put together. You’d think that putting a bunch of squares and rectangles together would be easy. Normally, it is, but I think I must have cut some of the pieces off grain, because the entire top was a PITA to put together. It was rippling and I have been fighting the entire time to get it to bend to my will.

Also, something about the measurements was off. Perhaps I cut something wrong or who knows? The rows did not exactly line up. I am ok with it, but still annoyed.

You’ll probably see another post about this next week once I finish the whole thing.

Attack of the ‘Progresses’

Field Day Top in process - June 2015
Field Day Top in process – June 2015

While I haven’t spent a lot of time at the machine, I seem to have made quite a large amount of progress. I would say that the Field Day top is almost done. I screamed through some piecing last Sunday (not the Sunday that just passed) and was shocked to see how much I had gotten done.

I have a couple of things to decide about this top:

  1. Do I sew top and bottom borders of the Sangria on this piece?
  2. Should I get some of the Goldenrod and put a thin border around the outside and then another border of Sangria?

The other problem is the last row. It was doubled up on top of row 7 and I don’t know if was intended to be row 8 or half of row 7? If it was to be half of row 7, then I added more coins where now it is much, much too long for a row. I may cut it in half to make row 7 long enough or add more to it and make the quilt wider.

If I make the piece wider, it is going to be a weird shape and I don’t know if I want to inflict that on someone.

Field Day Update

Field Day Post Retreat
Field Day Post Retreat

The Field Day Zipper takes on a new view once it is on the design wall. So does my workroom. I need to get this piece sewn together and OFF the wall as it really sucks the light out of an, otherwise, fairly bright room.

This is such a weird concept to me and I spent some timing thinking about it. No, it is not directly related to the making of this piece, but it affects my work in general.

First, sadly, my workroom is still life sucking beige. (Why is a question for a long evening and a bottle of your favorite libation.) The ugly and light sucking nature of the color, if you can call life sucking beige a color, means that all the other colors I work with in that room look different. Also the light has to work a lot harder and I have to be careful to move bits of the projects to other parts of the house. It isn’t a perfect system, but it is working to a certain extent.

Anyway, I still have not put up my new design wall, but I did put FDZ up on the smaller design wall (~4.5′ x 7′). It doesn’t all fit as you saw in Design Wall Monday, but it will fit better once I sew some more of the parts together.

The other thing, unrelated to color, about this project is that seam allowance is affecting the size more than I anticipated. When I laid the piece out, the strips of Sangria were roughly equivalent to the ‘coin’ segments. As I began sewing the coins together into vertical strips, I lost many inches. I added a couple of coins to the first couple of rows to see what would happen and how many coins I would need. I could just cut off the solid strips, but I want the piece to be the length of the Sangria strips. I am going to sew more of the vertical strips together and then see what I need to do.

I am desperate to get back to this project — or really any project. I haven’t been able to sew at all in the past week and am feeling the effects.

Field Day Progress

I am not liking the name Field Day Zipper. It is too long and unwieldy. Anyway, I made progress on this piece at the fabulous retreat.

Field Day- May 2015
Field Day- May 2015

All of the pieces are cut and all of the sections are sewn to the background. As well, sections are sewn to each other, so there is no more than two sections are alone. I worked hard at getting the piece put together, but couldn’t quite do it. Still, I am pleased with how much progress I have made and see the end in sight.

The fabrics, as you may recall, are all from one line. As you also may recall, I usually advise people to to remove about 20% of the line and replace it with other fabrics not from that line. One issue that I had is that I did not add or remove any fabrics from the piece. It really shows. I had to be careful about where I placed fabrics so as not to create big blobs of color or pattern. It isn’t easy to remove certain fabrics and add others, but this is a lesson to me to take my own advice.

 

Field Day Zipper

Field Day Zipper
Field Day Zipper

I haven’t fully committed to this quilt by not really sewing on it very regulary. Part of my ambivalence was that I hadn’t looked at it on the design wall, because I wasn’t really able to find a spare spot on the design wall for it. The other thing I have to admit to is not liking the colors very much. I don’t hate them and they look much better all together than one at a time. I have to admit that I succumbed to a whim and the result was some fabrics whose colors I don’t like much. I am not saying I don’t plan on NOT committing; I just haven’t done it yet.

As part of the process, I put it up on the design wall once I took the Russian Rubix off . I had a nice blank space to put something on, so I split it between the Zipper and the Teenaged Boy Black & Grey Donation Quilt. I had some space leftover so I put up the Zipper to see what I had.Clearly this piece needs some room to breath, so I will do it as a kind of Chinese Coins layout and make sure I put something in between. Perhaps the Goldenrod (gold/sunshiney yellow) I bought with the Sangria.

The other thing that worries me is that I sewed a bunch of pieces and now I don’t know where they are. They could be included in the pieces I have in the photo, but it seems like so much more I’ll have to look around.

Field Day. Hm.

Field Day September 2014
Field Day September 2014

After I took FOTY 2013 off the wall and before I put the Russian Rubix up on the wall, I put the very few Field Day blocks up to see what I had.

Well, it isn’t looking exactly as I expected or anticipated, though there are also not very many pieces yet.

The pattern calls for 5″x2.5″ strips sewn to 2.5″ squares. The top center (2d column) piece is that shape and the correct size. I thought I would make the piece more interesting and vary the sizes of the non-Sangria background and the Field Day fabric. The top left hand piece in the first column is what I came up with.

Hhmm. Clearly I had trouble with the math, even though I measured everything, took the seam allowance into consideration, etc. I am going to use those pieces, but I am not going to make any more of them. I am going to stick with the boring 5″x2.5″ strips sewn to 2.5″ squares.

I also think I will put the Goldenrod in between the columns. I think that would add interest.

This is definitely a dark piece and I wasn’t anticipating that. I’ll have to get it done soon, so that it isn’t on the design wall in the winter when it is dark and cold.

More on Field Day

I really don’t know why the Field Day prints appeal to me so much, but they do. They really aren’t my colors and more than one person has said that they aren’t my colors. I needed to be careful not to use a background that would make the top/piecing too depressing for me to work on.

I found that the backgrounds I posted before were too … too…. too something. Too wrong? Too boring? Too expected. They weren’t right.

I took some of the rectangles, as I said in the Thursday post, with me to Beverly’s to pick out a different background. Maureen met me there and helped.

Kelly suggested some kind of bright turquoise. I went to the store fully intending to buy some kind of turquoise. They didn’t have the new Jamaica colorway, which I thought would be perfect. I wasn’t excited about some of the other turquoises that were available. So, I started looking at other colors. I picked up Sangria and really liked it.

Maureen pulled some other colors and we looked at them as well. I bought more than one background color, because I still haven’t decided. I may make more than one just to use the different backgrounds and see the difference in the look of the quilts.

Field Day Zipper

Field Study Fabrics
Field Study Fabrics

For some reason I became enamored with the Field Day print fabrics by Alison Glass. These are not my colors, they are somewhat muddy and have a flair, or feel,  of the turn of the 20th Century. This ‘feel’ makes it so odd that I actually want to work with them. There is something about them that appeals to me.

My favorite print is the dark blue  with the turquoise kelp-like print on top.

Shortly after receiving the fabrics, I came across a pattern I will use with these fabrics. It came from the Missouri Star Quilt Company and I found it in their Block! magazine (watch for a review soon). It isn’t a hard pattern, but there is something about it and the fabric that went together in my mind.

I washed the Field Day fabric last Friday, then started cutting 2.5″ strips on Saturday. I have about 10 strips cut. I need to cut them into 2.5″x5″ rectangles, but have only done that for one strip so far, because I still haven’t decided what to use as a background. Also, I still have about 10 FQs to cut strips from.

I thought about looking at the coordinating solids that various online shops suggest. I did that, but did not want to chose gold, chartreuse or deep garnety red-purple for the background. I want something lighter, brighter so the quilt doesn’t seem depressing.

I have the following background options:

IKEA large text print
IKEA large text print

I love this print, but think that the large letters will get lost.

Painter's Canvas in Vanilla
Painter’s Canvas in Vanilla

This is my favorite, because it brightens up the muddiness of some of the fabrics.

I also have a lot of grey.

Grey print from search
Grey print from search

I would probably have to use a few different greys as I only have a yard of this one and I think I will need more. I don’t mind using different greys as it will add interest.

The funny thing is that after I started cutting the Field Day, I came across a friend who I think needs a quilt and this one might be perfect.