It's All About The Process

The green and yellow comforter on my bed has to go!  A quick perusal of several quilt sites and I found Thomas Knauer's Thesaurus line.

You could hear the wheels turning and grinding until I saw a disappearing nine patch quilt and the lights went on.  I had my pattern and I could have used white as a background but white and I don't get along.  Besides, I just made a few quilts using white and I wanted something different.

So the process begins.  Here is the notebook where I plot out how many nine patches I need and how big to make them.

Here are four rows of six nine patches waiting their turn.

 Here is the start of the fifth row.

Here is the last nine patch of row five.  Oh no!!!!  I ran out of red?  What happened to all that careful planning?  I was sure I counted right; carefully cut each square exactly 6"x6". 

Let more cutting begin!

Not only didn't I cut out enough red squares, I need forty-five more 6"x6" blocks of the red and  Thesaurus to make up the five nine-patch blocks that complete the top.

After I finish the last of these blocks tomorrow, I'm going to give the top a rest.  Each nine patch needs to be cut in half twice. That leaves me with 144 blocks to put back together.  That's if I've done my math correctly this time.  The fun part will be re-arranging the blocks and putting them back so no seam touches another seam.

To be continued . . . .

Hmmm

A Cotton Patch Quilt show in March 2015 has inspired me to think about a new quilt.  Although I have several I could enter there was some encouragement from the Modern Athens Quilt Guild to make something new.

While I was thinking about what to make I remembered some batik squares I bought last year at Sewcial Studio.

I obviously had a plan for both of the fabrics since they are partially put together, but I'll be darned if I can remember what they were now.  Do you think Anita could help me remember since I bought both the batik squares and the background fabric from her?

Rather than racking my brain, I think I better come up with a new plan.

I'm Ready For You Now, Michael Miller!

Six fat-eighths of Michael Miller fabrics arrived in March for the newest Modern Quilt Guild challenge. 

 

 I have until July 25 so I wasn't immediately concerned with how the quilt would look.  Time has gone by and still the collection wasn't inspiring me.

Then, a house was bought, sold, and remodeled and the light went on.

 

 

 

The moment I saw this door it screamed QUILT.  

Finding just the right turquoise and gray to coordinate with the prints took a little effort.  Computer screens don't quite match real life.  Luckily I had only one misfire before I found one that would do the job.

Today, I sketched out the front and I'm ready to start.  This is perfect timing because it will involve handwork that I can do while I'm visiting in Nashville.

And, since the front of the quilt is a door; the back is going to be windows.  A perfect use of all the leftover fabrics.

Let the challenge begin!

What was I thinking?

A few years ago I had an event to go to so I started to make Simplicity 2588.

The pattern looked like a good idea but when I actually tried it on, I knew immediately it wasn't a good idea.Thinking at the time that if I couldn't wear it, I might give it to my sister who was a high powered executive that could probably put it to good use.  In my mind she didn't seem thrilled so procrastination set in and I put it away and out of my mind in the what was I thinking category.

Actually, I know what I was thinking.  I'm still a thirtysomething with places to go.

Last week I was invited to join the Every Size is Beautiful Facebook page.  The catch was that you are supposed to submit a picture of yourself in a little black dress.  Except for my unfinished dress from days gone by, I don't have one.  Thinking about it now, if I follow their ideology, I should finish it as is and be comfortable in it.  Not quite ready for that.

This inspired me to dig out the dress and re-style it into something else.  I have a few ideas and I hope to have it done for the opening night of Stacy's Athens theatrical debut in Oklahoma!

The Thrilling Conclusion aka The Butler Didn't Do It

I struggled with how to quilt the batik quilt.  I haven't done enough to know exactly what will bring out the best in my design.  After hashing out some different ideas with my go to expert, Marybeth I decided that I'd like to enhance the rooftop aspect of the quilt.

With a plan in place, I got out my new quilting sewing machine and dug in.

Straight lines around the hand dyes and meandering lines around the batiks.  Thread was another consideration so I chose to match the threads on the hand dyes and use a variegated gray on the batiks (most, if not all, had some gray in the pattern).

A hand-dyed binding made a great finish.

Now was the moment of truth. I knew Anita's  hand dyes wouldn't bleed; she takes great care when making them.  Adding three sheets of
eased my nerves a little but I was still nervous.

A cold wash on a gentle cycle later it looked like success.

The white sheet is the before wash. I can't imagine what the quilt would have looked like if I hadn't used those sheets.

So, without further adieu.  Here's the finished quilt.

I bought some fabric that you can use to make labels in your printer but after reading the instructions I was saddened to learn that you need to use Scotchgard so it won't fade in the wash.  I didn't have any and the local fabric store didn't have the right kind.

Time to break out my fabric pens and design a label.  This was almost as much fun as making the quilt.  I used some Zentangles around the border, printed the pertinent information and voila, a label was born.

On to my next project.  While I've started piecing a couple of quilts, I have some sewing projects that need to be done first.

The Back Story

I heard at a recent modern quilt guild meeting that the definition of a modern quilt is a pieced back.  Since I'm not sure what the real answer is, I'll go with that.

Unless you buy extra fabric instead of using leftovers, a pieced back seems kind of like a depression era idea.  I got that from my mother who was raised during that time and had to make what little her family had go a long way.  Therefore, my mother very rarely threw anything away.

Although I do recycle and donate, I try not to waste if at all possible; drawing the line at teeny tiny scraps, selvedges or thread.  I get inspired when I have small amounts of fabric and stare like a deer in headlights when I'm faced with yardage.

So, without further adieu, here's the back to the batik quilt top I just finished.  It was beautifully breezy outside and I considered re-taking the picture but what the heck, it will look totally differrent when it's quilted anyway.  The back is actually a light gray color.

Another reason I started using pieced backs is that it matches my philosophy that the inside should look as good as the outside.  This may take some time but it's worth it in the end.

Now to go sandwich the top and back together.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember that  if you tape a quarter to the middle of each side that you can center your designs.

Worth a try?

What I Did During the Last Georgia Weather Event

It feels like more than a couple of years ago that I went to Sewcial Studio and grabbed a giant handful of Anita's hand-dyed fabrics.  I put them in a drawer and the back of my mind for later use.

 Just recently Anita had a door buster sale every day before Christmas.

I bought this pack of batik fabrics.  They were pretty but I had no earthly idea what I would do with them.  Into the drawer with the hand-dyes.

I finished the back for the quilt I blogged about in my last post so I was still in quilt mode.

Hmm, what if I put the hand-dyes with the batiks?  That peaked my interest but what kind of pattern could I use?  While looking through my Quilts of Gee's Bend book I stumbled on a housetop quilt.  This was my answer.

I cut the 4" wide hand-dyed fabrics strips down to 2".  Starting with a four inch square for the center I grabbed the batik strips in the same order they were in the package and did the same with the hand-dyes.   Overthinking doesn't make a good improvisational piece so I just started sewing.

The housetop part was finished but I wasn't sure if I liked something that small. Fifty-three by fifty three isn't tiny and it makes a nice crib quilt, but this didn't have a crib quilt feel to me.

So, like my friend Marybeth says, I always do epic quilts.  I added the remaining batik strips to make it a  62" x 70" top.

I think I'll do a gray back to make it really modern and spice it up with little pieces of leftover batik.  Don't know about the binding.

Anita here I come!

Faking It While Making It

Like most people I use a pattern to make a garment.  When I first started sewing I followed a pattern to the letter.  Now they're more like a guideline.  A quick glance and I'm into the project.

Enter quilting.  I'm relatively new to the craft.  I made a baby quilt during my first beginner class.  It was a traditional nine-patch Irish chain pattern in red, yellow and blue.  I like primary colors for babies.  Since there were no babies coming along for a while I put my newly learned quilting skills on the back burner.

My granddaughter entered the world in 2002 and I found a pattern that had a large teddy bear in the center where I could just use simple strips as a border.

A few more babies were born and I developed a pattern where I could display their names and all the pertinent birth information.

 Now I'm out of babies and I've joined the Modern Quilt Guild (online), the Modern Atlanta Quilters Guild (an occasional trip to Atlanta), and the Modern Athens Quilt Guild here in Athens.  I get to make full sized quilts.

My friend Marybeth gave me a jelly roll (Forty 2-1/2" by width of fabric strips).  I just put them in my stash for later use.

Last weekend I went to look at them and all of a sudden I was making a quilt.  I have been wanting to try a tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company by Three Dudes Quilting.  I sewed six strips together and cut them in the appropriate squares.  When I had enough squares I started arranging them for a potential quilt.  No matter how I set them I wasn't happy.  It looked too quilty.  I know that's a word because it's a magazine.  What to do?


Still being relatively new to all the rules of quilting I chose a pattern from Generation Q magazine  that I thought would work.  It's called "Doppelganger" by Thomas Knauer.  I love his fabric designs!  In fact I will be using his Thesaurus line for one of my next quilts.

I'm sure this pattern is expertly written but it all looked Greek to me.  I mostly followed the pictures.

To start off with, his squares were 4" and mine were 8".  I didn't intend to use the same colors as his quilt but I needed a color for the background and since I'm not much of a green or brown fan so I chose to match the purple.

Here are the strips where I could follow his pattern.

 There was lots of ripping and maneuvering while trying to set the strips on a diagonal.  I ran into the problem of chopping off the jelly roll or dark purple squares getting it into quilt size.   The grand kids thought it was hilarious that I had a shower curtain taped to my floor (aka design wall) so I could square the quilt.

Here's a picture of the finished top.  Of course it will look totally different when it's quilted and I promise to have a better picture.  The back will be an orchid color to match one of the flowers in the strips and it will be pieced with my own pattern.

Who knows what will happen this weekend.  I just pulled out some fabric I bought during the pre-Christmas sales at Sewcial Studio.

Or there's the jelly roll I bought after an Atlanta guild meeting.

 

Let's hope I'm not turning into one of those quilters who has lots of quilt tops waiting to be finished.  I will take the challenge from last night's Modern Athens Quilts meeting to make progress on what we showed at the meeting for next month.  There, it's in print now so it has to come true.

A Tale of Two Purses

I don't even want to look at when I last posted.  Partly because it may be another long period of time before I post again.  While reading other bloggers I follow I found this from A Stitch and Dye http://stitchindye.blogspot.com/

Top 5 BS Excuses for my Long Absence:
5. Kept typing in http with just one slash and couldn't get my browser to find this URL.
4. My dog ate my computer.
3. Someone was already parked in my cyber space.
2. Paralyzed by angst over whether to use Safari, Firefox, or Chrome as my browser
1. Too busy corresponding with new-found Nigerian banker friend to post to my blog.

Sew, back to business.  Purses and quilts are now my new focus.

I accepted the challenge from the Modern Quilt Guild to use eight fat quarters of Riley Blake fabrics to make something quilted.  I added some white fabric and this is my interpretation.  It's been featured on the MQG blog and I just submitted it to the Lyndon House Arts Center 39th Juried Art Show.  I'm waiting to hear if I'm accepted.

Then I took an online Craftsy course called "Making Leather Bags".  While I didn't use leather, I followed the pattern in upholstery fabric and faux leather.

I'

 
I'm not usually one to buy small amounts of fabric--especially when I don't have an idea as to what I'm going to use it for so I have quite a bit left.  I also like to make one of a kind items so another red purse didn't appeal to me.  Watch me eat my words because I still have another purse's worth.

This leaves the other side of the fabric.  Enter beautiful granddaughter, Josie, with her modeling pose.

 

Now it's time to work on some leather.  There are several leather jackets and skirts that I can use for re-purposing with some yummy lime green leather and bright blue lambskin in the wings.

For today, there's a jelly roll and a quilting method with my name on it.