I had some fun over the weekend piecing the Zig Zaggy quilt. I felt a great deal of joy in my sewing this weekend. I know that sounds weird. It is a weird word to use for sewing, but I can’t think of another word that expresses how I was feeling. I am in love with piecing and color right now and simply, as I said earlier this week, cannot. get. enough.
Zig Zaggy - 4 Rows
I decided early in the weekend to try to piece the entire quilt over the weekend. When TFQ and I are together we can get an entire quilt top done. We do large wall quilts or up to single bed sized in a weekend. I got over the idea of finishing the entire quilt top over the weekend, but I made significant progress. Best of all I had fun.
Zig Zaggy Row 1
The first order of business was to spend some time piecing the first row together. I had to figure out how to do it.This way of putting together the quilt goes completely against what I told Frances not more than a month ago. However, this quilt is not really block based, so it has to go together in rows, I think. I tried a couple of different things, but finally settled on a process for the fourth row.
Piecing the first row together meant that I, first, needed to organize the colors and the fabric designs in such a way that there was variety in the layout. Once I got that task finished, the rest was just rote sewing. Not completely rote sewing, but enough to force me to keep my mind from wandering too much.
Some mind wandering is always in order and I spent some time thinking about the border. I’d like to do a spiky border a la Gwen Marston. The more I think about it and the more I look at the four finished rows, the more I think I won’t do it. We’ll see.
Diamonds, late August 2010Diamonds, early September 2010
My design wall is a mess. It is an even bigger mess than when I showed it before. I have at least four projects on it, which makes it difficult to photograph anything cleanly. As a result, I used the eraser function in Photoshop Elements to erase some of the things surrounding the diamonds in the photo on the left. I wasn’t completely enamoured with the effect, so I left the bits and pieces in the photo on the right. I don’t know how to outline a shape and clear the background completely. I would like to learn that.
I have been intermittently pressing recently washed fabrics and cutting pieces from them, so the diamond accumulation continues. I know I will be needing to cut a lot of the border pieces late in the year, so I want to make sure all the diamonds are cut. I am sure I have said that a thousand times. It is on my mind.
I still haven’t figured out if the Fast2Cut 45 degree half and quarter diamond ruler will work for the side, edge and corner diamonds. I still need to figure that out. I haven’t actually seen it in a store, so it is hard to compare to the Creative Grids ruler that I have. It would be nice if Creative Grids made a ruler to go with their diamond ruler. I did see that they have a Triangles 120 degree ruler. I think it would work for the side pieces, which would be great. It would definitely make an easier time than when I cut the side pieces for the Eye Spy.
I simply do not have enough time to sew. I spent a day and a half over the weekend just sewing. I made a lot of progress on the Zig Zaggy quilt and it was still not enough time. I don’t know how much time would be enough time. I haven’t reached that threshold yet. I simply know that I need more.
The last bit of the Chocolate Box I had to do was the sleeve. I made it in a short amount of time and then it seemed to take me forever to sew it on. I really had a hard time keeping the tucks out of the back of the quilt. Not sure why. Anyway, another project off my plate. Hooray!
Here is another batch of FOTY Diamonds. I diligently pressed and cut for a good portion of the weekend. This isn’t a very lively batch. I am working my way through the stack that TFQ pressed and for some reason this is not a cheerful batch.
I have to admit that cutting the patches makes me think about sewing the project together and that prospect makes me a little bit anxiety ridden. I am thinking about using the P&B Fizz as the anchor colors. I still want to do a colorwash with the diamonds, but thought that if I lined them up in color order across the quilt, I could use them to start laying out the piece.
My other idea was to arrange them like a Lone Star and radiate the other fabric diamonds off of them from the center.
For the moment, however, I need to cut diamonds out of my fabric.
I have written a lot about the Corner Store pattern from Pretty Little Mini Quilts. This block is very appealing especially since I have been thinking about my scrap pile lately. I bought a large piece of Kona Snow and finally cut into it for the Zig Zaggy quilt and for this Corner Store project. I didn’t cut a multitude of pieces in advance (always a recipe for disaster for me), but I did cut some.
You are probably wondering why in the world I am starting this quilt at the same time I started the Zig Zaggy quilt and am still working on the Blue Janus quilt. Insanity? Perhaps.
The true reason is that the box in which I store the triangles for this project is getting full. Also, I thought I would make a few blocks and see how they looked.
My first step was to ask TFQ for the dimensions. She has the Pretty Little Mini Quilts book at the moment. She emailed me back right away with a 3.5″ size. When I cut a few of the squares I thought that looked terribly small. When I put one triangle on, the block did not look at all like the version I saw in Pretty Little Mini Quilts or on Flickr. I must have misunderstood the size. Again, something that should have been a quick chain piecing and trimming start to a project has turned difficult.
Difficult is a strong word. I have to test different squares sizes to see which one will suit the look I am trying to achieve. I wanted to focus on the Blue Janus quilt, so this was put to the side.
This past weekend I mostly worked on the Blue Janus Quilt, which I called the Blue Quilt in a previous post. Those squares required a lot of chain piecing and I needed something to piece in between so that I wouldn’t have to cut threads each time I wanted to press as I moved farther along in the process.
I decided to start the Zig Zaggy quilt and use the pieces to help with my chain piecing.
Measuring
First, I looked at the Happy Zombie site again and confirmed the sizes. then I cut some samples. Happy Zombie used a special ruler and cut 5″ long wedges. Elizabeth Hartman from Oh Fransson! blog originally used templates and cut the wedges longer. I decided to use Happy Zombie’s method and trim later.
Zig Zaggy Sewn
I cut and sewed a few together, think I would do another colorwash look.
Blech!
I am not doing the colorwash. With just the purples it is too boring. the purples are all the same value and just don’t look like the colors are gradating. I am going to mix up the colors. I just didn’t get very far.
I didn’t buy the Frosted Stars kit that I talked about recently. I already have a lot of projects going, I have several projects to start, there were some things I didn’t like about it, it was lots of money, etc. You know all the reasoning.
Still I couldn’t get the thing out of my mind, so I went to look at it again today. In addition to p.s. i quilt shop‘s offerings, the Fat Quarter Shop has the pattern as well. I decided to do my due diligence.
Basic Grey Fruitcake
Above is an image of all the Fruitcake prints from the Fat quarter shop. I looked there. I also went to the Moda site to look at the all of the fabrics from the Basic Grey Fruitcake collection. Fruitcake is the fabric collection Charlie Scott uses for the Frosted Stars quilt. It turns out, sadly, that I don’t really like most of the fabrics included in the Fruitcake collection. I still liked the pattern, however, and thought perhaps that I would make it anyway.
I looked around to see if the pattern was available. Charlie Scott, the designer, has a website and has a link to the pattern on the Moda Bake Shop site. YAY! This revelation expanded my options. I could make the quilt with other fabrics. I was thinking aqua/turquoise and red with a little green thrown in.
In the midst of all this I emailed my mom with the various links and she said not to buy the kit, but just to get the pattern and use my own fabrics or other fabrics. Sometimes it is nice to have someone agree with me.
Kate Spain 12 Days... Collection
Somehow, I ran across the Kate Spain Christmas fabrics. They are bright and cheerful and a definite possibility. I printed out the PDF so I could look at the individual fabrics. I am not fond of the motifs on a couple of them and I couldn’t use the panels, which are part of the collection. I don’t know if they come with the Jelly Rolls and Layer cakes.
Lumiere De Noel Collection
I saw this Lumiere de Noel group as I was perusing the Fat Quarter Shop site. I thought that perhaps it might be a nice choice for the Frosted Stars pattern. It has a little bit of a grey tinge in this picture, but looks much brighter in the example quilt on the site. Take a look at the individual fabrics and let me know what you think.
This is the first part of a quilt I am making as a gift. I will tell you for whom it is intended once it is delivered.
I have been cutting blue 6.5″ squares, in a delusatory way, for the past year. I was sure I would get it done. Suddenly, it was April and I didn’t have nearly enough squares. I really wanted the quilt done by the beginning of June and was, thus, in a pickle. My deadline isn’t going to happen.
TFQ helped with my dilemna by cutting about 100 squares for me. That really, REALLY helped. I cut the rest and began sewing. I hope to have this top and back done in time to quilt it at my longarm appointment on July 30.
I have been cutting and pressing fabrics like a demon lately and here is another group. I have found that this number of diamonds is the right number to photograph, so I have a few more on the wall that will be in the next photo.
One of the things about this group is that there are a lot of the Fizz by P&B fabrics and I am really loving those fabrics. I would love it if they would come out with another dozen colors in between the colors they already have. There are a lot of colors in the group already so that would mean that their colorists would really have to work over time. I would love it if these became a staple background fabric. Fabrics go so quickly out of fashion that I doubt that will happen. I plan to use these fabrics in another Interlocking Triangle quilt.
An idea that occurred to me with these Fizz fabrics is that I could arrange them in a color wheel and then radiate the other diamonds out from them. I think that would make the piecing a challenge, but all ideas are worth considering. It might be a problem with the colors which I don’t buy very often.
I haven’t decided if I am cutting diamonds from the food fabrics for my mom. I am intermittently, so some show up as diamonds and some don’t.
The other thing I am doing is cutting pieces from a few fabrics I have pulled out of the stash. An example is the red at the tip of the diamond. These fabrics have never had a piece cut from them. My project, my rules.
I don’t always start a quilt and finish it right away. Often, I start a quilt in order to work through an idea and then I get stuck on one part. Putting it away is a good way to let the project and idea percolate. Such is the case with the Original Bullseye.
Original Bullseye
The Original Bullseye is back in my crosshairs, mostly because of the Dale Fleming class. If found some directions for the border I want to make in QNM (I think), but the directions were a little arduous, so I didn’t start right in. However, since taking the Dale Fleming class her wave directions have been rattling round in my mind. I think I am going to use them to make the border for this quilt.
Original Bullseye Border Idea
I haven’t done it yet, because I still mulling over colors and whether to put more circles in the border.
One silly thing that is keeping me from doing this is whether I have enough freezer paper. That is not the main hinderance. I have some other quilts higher on the top of the list. I do feel like I am getting close to moving forward on this project.
The Pineapple has been on my mind lately. I took TFQ’s visit as an opportunity to get a new perspective. I laid the blocks out in the living room and we looked at them and talked about them.
One of the problems is that some of the blocks are too big. I couldn’t figure out why some were so much bigger than they were supposed to be until I was fiddling with these blocks on Monday. I caught a glimpse of the black block in the middle and realized that I cut some of the center blocks slightly larger than they should have been.
My idea was to trim the blocks and make them a little wonky. No, they won’t match up perfectly, but the way they are now; they won’t match up anyway. After my discussion with TFQ, I think I will trim the blocks straight and see how it goes. Worse case scenario: they don’t fit together.
TFQ made no promises that this would work. Sometimes, as I have mentioned, it is just good to talk over the process. I like these blocks. I like the cheerful look of the piece. If it doesn’t work as a quilt; I will have a lot of really cheerful pillows.
TFQ came to stay last weekend. She and I wedged a visit in even though we had a family event in the middle of her visit. One of the things *I* like to do when she is here is get her opinion about my various projects. Often I get stuck and need to move forward but seem to be unable to make any decisions. I can ask any quiltmaker I know, but TFQ knows me well enough not to suggest something completely stupid. She also often prevents me from doing something stupid because I am just tired of the project.
One of the things we worked on was the border of the It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap. I didn’t really work very hard at finding a border by myself, to be honest. I was glad, because what was in my head was not what I ultimately went with.
Possible color comboPossible color combo #2
We auditioned a couple of color combos, including my idea, which included a white dotted inner border (no photo, sorry). I had a lot of that fabric and wanted to use it, but it was too stark as white often can be.
TFQ suggested yellow. We looked through a number of yellow fabrics until we found one that fit well with the yellow from the Merry & Bright Jelly Roll. I found the blues and yellows in this group to be off the beaten path. Interesting, but different than what I have in the fabric closet. The yellow we went with is an older commercial print and not part of that group.
I was pretty interested in using a blue/teal/turquoise color. I found the tone-on-tone in my fabric closet (left photo), but we both felt the quilt needed a bit more pattern. I liked the idea of bringing out the blues, but, since I didn’t have any large pieces of blue from the group and nothing I had was the right tone and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy and wash new fabric I used the green. I happened to see some half yards at Rainbow Resource at the EBHQ show, so I had enough.
Truthfully, we didn’t agonize too much over the colors. We did the Lorraine Torrence thing of making visual decisions visually, we picked and then I sewed them on the next night.
I used the new walking foot to sew the borders on and they are flat and I had not problems. The quilt is now ready for a back and to be quilted. My finishing seems to come in clusters!
I will probably use red for the back, since I have plenty. I don’t know if I will longarm this quilt or send it out. We’ll see.
I need to stop with the large quilts. However, I like making large-ish quilts, though. The problem is that I am too short to photograph them. Perhaps I just need to win the lottery and have my own personal photographer at my beck and call?
OK, enough with the fantasy world.
I went to Always Quilting on Friday and quilted FOTY 2009. It has been awhile since I went there to quilt a quilt on their Gammil longarm; July 2009 to be specific. I was pleased that they had tidied up the quilting room. I had enough space to spread out.
FOTY 2009, detail
General Thoughts
I need more practice at setting up the machine.
Photos are better taken by someone else so you can continue quilting while still getting process shots.
I had an easier time monitoring stitch length and speed and am more pleased with both after this quilting effort.
First, I trained for my longarming day. It can be quite hard on my body, because, essentially, stand up for 6-8 hours. I took the day off work on Thursday, so I wouldn’t be exhausted Thursday night and then have to get up and go stand in front of the longarm on Friday.
I also brought a second pair of shoes and switched halfway through. I would love to see them get one of those industrial rubber mats to put in front of the machine. If I see one on Freecycle, perhaps I will get it for them.
So, the biggest problem with my longarming is that I don’t have enough time practice. Time is relative, too, because it involves making a top and a back I want to quilt myself, taking time to spend a whole day quilting the quilt and getting a slot. That being said, I am much more pleased with the stitch length and quality this time around. I felt a lot more comfortable with the stitching than I thought I would. I wasn’t as anxious about ruining my quilt.
I forgot to put a quilting border on the quilt, which sent me into a bit of a panic when I was pinning the quilt on to the machine’s leader, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I let it go.
FOTY 2009, detail
I could just quilt a bunch of pieces of fabric and give them away as comfort quilts, but it still costs money to do the quilting. Perhaps I can find a way to get the details stuck in my head without paying to learn. I did sign up for another longarming day at the end of July. I have to confirm it does not conflict with a trip I am planning.
FOTY 2009, detail
I did the same pattern as I stitched on FOTY 2008 and the Eye Spy. I also practiced during the week before my session. I didn’t do as much practicing as I would have liked, but I think it was enough.
FOTY 2009, detail
I try to be well mannered, which involves not ignoring people when they talk to me. It was a little bit of a problem on Friday when I was either trying to deal with the machine or concentrating on driving the giant machine. Other customers kept walking in and talking to me about the quilt. It was really nice to be complimented, but I just couldn’t concentrate on them and the work I was doing. The fabulous Roberta, one of my helpers at the shop, was annoyed when I mentioned it, because people are not supposed tojust walk into the longarm quilting room.
Lil Sissy stopped by on her way to the airport. She forgot my coffee, but beggers can’t be choosers. It was great to show off a bit for a non quilter. She, of course, wanted to drive the machine. I couldn’t let her, because she hasn’t taken the class. She did take some in process photos, which was great except for the person in them!
The Fabulous Roberta
Roberta and Diane were my helpers. It is so great to have them there to assist. After my needle broke and I had three bobbin changes, Roberta knew I was a bit done for and just took over changing the bobbins for me. She talked me through, but was a godo teacher in that she knew when not to push and when to let the reins out a bit.
FOTY 2009, detailFOTY 2009, rollingFOTY 2009,smoothingFOTY 2009, smoothing underneathFOTY 2009, last row ready to tighten?FOTY 2009, tighteningFOTY 2009 instructionFOTY 2009, last bobbin change
Yes, I ran out of bobbin with a 2×2 grid of blocks left to do. I quilt really small motifs – at least I did on this one.
I am really pleased with the quilting on the Chocolate Box.
The whole quilt came out really well, which was surprising, since I don’t usually use much brown (as you might have noticed). I did like that brown – kind of a warm, rich, chocolatey brown.
Chocolate Box, detail
Colleen of Sew Little Time Quilting did a fabulous job. I told her what I wanted and she executed it perfectly.
Chocolate Box, detail
The quilting looks just as good on the front as on the back.
Now I have a total of 3, yes THREE, quilts to bind and sleeve. I had better get busy!
