Houses

Beth over at Love Laugh Quilt  Is having another house block party. Make one house and send it to Beth and you might win  a set of the house blocks to make a quilt.                                                   

This house on the left is the house block I made last year.

Those of us who didn't win a set of blocks got a consolation prize, a small square with a printed house on it. Below is what I did with mine.

I need to make a house  block for our Block of the Month block for our group at church. It is our last block and I thought it would be a good exercise for everyone to improvise and make their our block. I will just make 2 blocks while I have all the scraps out and am in the house building mind set. I really do like to make houses.

A little progress

I made a little progress  today. I realized that it is almost time to bring out the Christmas dishes and quilts and I have a new Christmas quilt that was not quite finished . I needed to finish the big stitch quilting on these two blocks; that's all that was needed .

 This quilt has been sitting since August, all done, binding and all, waiting for this little bit of hand work. You can see the whole quilt here.

Yesterday I finished up my black and white  9 patch color wash background and fused the edges of the 3 circle doodle to the background. I still need to cut away the background from behind the doodle because all the seams, especially the intersections, create a problem with the stitching. I have to go out and get some Warm and Natural batting; that is the only batting I like for wall hangings.

This will be the largest doodle  that I have quilted and it will take some  time. I don't stitch on every line but most of them will be quilting lines. Up to now every one that I have done I have considered an experiment but I have experimented with several different ways of doing things and this one is not an experiment; it is the real deal.

Black and white colorwash

I have been working on the black and white nine patch color wash background for my circles. It has been slow going. I thought I had it all worked out in my mind and also a chart for cutting but there are always changes long the way when I get the blocks up on the design wall.

This is what is up on my design wall right now. I am moving into the gray area and I may have to shop for some transition fabric or I may work out another solution after I make the next 2 or three sets of blocks. I am not sure about the last set; they have kind of a milky look in the photo but blend a little better in real fabric. I can judge better after I get the next set of blocks made. 

 This is my little pile of rejects; once I got them up on the wall I could see that they didn't work. Some of the blocks are the same combination of fabrics as some I used but they have the darker and lighter fabric in the opposite position  in the blocks. I  had thought I would use each combination of fabrics in two diagonal rows across. I changed my mind because I wasn't moving toward the gray (or blended) area soon enough. These are 3 inch blocks and this will  not be a huge quilt.

I  can see that I will have enough blocks to make a  smaller background square and maybe set one of my small circles on it. I can use it to practice what I think I want to do for the larger piece. I am still not sure how I want to go about it.

I think I need to  take a break  and clean up my work area. I spent 30 minutes yesterday looking for 2 blocks that I knew I had made. I knew I had cut my strips to make 8 blocks and I had only six. I was read to cut some more strips for 2 more blocks and found them sitting under the heel of my iron. The was only one of the times I had to stop everything and look  for something. It is no  wonder that this is going so slowly; between searching and  agonizing over every fabric combination I am spending wasting a lot of time.

Some nine patch colorwash, again

I spent a few days with  the cloth drawing of the 3 circles rolling around in my mind. I knew I wanted to do something different with it than just put a frame around it and quilt it. It is kind of a cockeyed photo because I didn't want to climb up on a ladder to take it down (and more  trouble yet, to put it back up straight); so I held my camera up over my head. It really is nice and square.

I made this  quilt  a few years ago. It is a nine patch color wash that was an experiment in luminosity that didn't show the luminosity the way I wanted but I liked it and added the applique and it hangs on the wall in my sewing  room. I made 9 patch blocks using the darkest and lightest 2 fabrics, then the next darkest and next lightest etc and  layed them out in a  diagonal pattern across the quilt. When I got to the bottom left corner the fabrics had very little  contrast and blended together.

I am going to make a similar background for the 3 circles. I dug around in my black and white fabrics and in my box of assorted mess leftover black and white strips and squares. This is what I sorted out to use. I will press them first, of course. I may shop for some white with black to make a smoother transition in the middle of the lights. I'll see how it looks when I get to the 3rd and 4th fabric combinations. Nine patch colorwash is much more forgiving than  using just squares.

Darks

Lights

I spent a lot of time yesterday working it out in Electric Quilt and making a chart to figure out how many strips of each fabric I need. I do this all the time; when I was teaching colorwash  and nine patch colorwash I had a chart for  everything. I am not sure whether anyone else ever thought they were useful but it saves me from starting something and not having enough to finish. Of course that still happens when I change my mind halfway through. That happens a lot because when I see it in real fabric I see other options. A chart also helps to show the finished size; colorwash quilts shrink dramaticly when you start  stitching the pieces together.

Playing with Circles

I see it is a long time since my last post. I have not been quilting (but I have been thinking about it.) I have been tangling in circles. These are 3 small ones on white fabric. The 2 larger ones are about 5 1/2 inches and the small one is about 4 inches. I have also done a lot of web surfing and a lot of practicing on paper and I have learned some new things. I do a lot of practicing on paper before I draw on the fabric with ink but even so my lines don't always go where I intend.

This is one that I drew  on canvas and it was more difficult to draw on than I expected. The roughness of the canvas took my lines in unexpected directions sometime. I experimented with different pens also and some of my lines are a good bit heavier than what I really wanted.   When you draw with permanent ink "it is what it is." I think I will just frame it with a cheap simple black frame and hang it in my sewing room. there will be no sewing on this one.

I worked on this one on the right all week.  Each of these circles is 8 1/2 inches. I would have to stop and rest my eyes every so often. It is better not to draw lines when you have eye strain and start to see double. I often had to stop and think about what I  wanted to do next before moving on to another section. 

I will be quilting it after I make the background for it. I will applique it (machine applique) and then quilt it.  

I did  some shopping around this week for pens and tools that might be helpful. I have a set of my husbands old drafting compasses but I found these precision instruments much more helpful, when using a pen. I like the glass Crockpot lid in particular because it is glass and I can see through it. If you look closely you can see the refection of my hands and arms as I am holding the camera above my precision instruments.

Friendship blocks

Our Friendship block exchange group meets tomorrow evening. Last month was my month to present a block for everyone to make for me. I will be getting them tomorrow, always fun.
I made my blocks for the September presenter this week end. For some reason I just never thought about making them until everyone else brought out their blocks. I  did miss the meeting when she presented her block so that is my excuse' even though I  knew what she wanted as our friend Kathy always keeps us up to date when we miss.

  These are the  8 inch Triple 4 patch blocks I made. She requested 3 blocks, blue or boys prints. The quilt for be for a new grandson. I made an extra one because I don't like the one on the bottom.  The print was cute and colorful but it already had a patchwork look and cut up and pieced it looked like a mess to me. I made the one with the kids eating treats today and I like it better.
I always second guess myself with my Friendship blocks. It is hard for me to pick out fabric for someone else blocks. When I am following their guidelines for color I  think I frequently miss the mark. However, they are all nice ladies and if they aren't pleased with what they get they never complain.

Quandary

I am in a quandary; I just can't decide what to do about the borders for my all scrappy DNP (you can see more of it here). The body of the quilt is quilted and I will add the borders after I quilt them. I thought I had decided to use my picket fence borders that I didn't use on another quilt but they didn't look right on this one either. I think there is too much white/light fabric in them for this quilt.

I had considered both the blue and the brown fabrics. I am not wild about either one but I lean toward the blue a little  more.



Brown border

Blue border?

I  thought about just putting a binding on it but I know I would be sorry I had not done something more.

 I am still thinking about prairie  points (the black here has nothing to do with this quilt it is the inner border on the quilt that is on my bed where I am auditioning all of these options).

If I use Prairie Points I have to work out how to add them to a quilt that is already quilted to the edge with out having the edge of the quilt feel like it has  steel  band in it. I think I know how I would do it but I  am not sure how it will  look if I  don't do a  good job of sewing a straight  line.

 Then there is the piano key border which would  have a narrow inner border. I guess I like this best but I was hoping to find a different border that was less work. This border is for my spiral  log cabin and if I want one for this quilt I will have to make another one. Too bad that  I decided to put all those strips away and cleanup the mess if I had kept going  I would have it all done by now.

I have to make up my mind and get this done. When I am wavering about what to do, I do one of two things, I either clean or eat. I have already cleaned and cleaned again and I just bought 2 new pair of pants and I don't want to grow out of them.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

This is my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.
I didn't make it this year and I had a post about it last year. Looking through my photos I realised that this was one of my favorite quilts to make. It has a lot of color, many different fabrics, it has some traditional elements, there was some problem solving in putting it together, I used some printed motifs from the fabric I worked with, and the design of the quilt was my own. This is the kind of quilt I most enjoy making.

This was a group challenge quilt and started with the Sewing Diva fabric. We had to use motifs from the fabric and I think 3 elements from a book or two we were all working through at the time. I chose to make mine a self portrait of sorts and everything I used was something associated with something about me or something I like. The motifs from the Diva fabric are the sewing or thread chandelier in the window, the tomato vine and the white haired Diva. The other elements are the 16 patch blocks, the strippy lawn, the paper pieced sun, the lightning bolt and broken dishes (for sun rays). I appliqued some flowers from a Jane Sassaman fabric to fill  in two corners  where  my 16 patch blocks wouldn't fit the center of the quilt. There is always a way around those problems but it makes you have to think if you haven't planned ahead.

The funniest thing about making this quilt was when I told my husband I had to shop for ring for my belly button. He looked at me and paused a few seconds and said "you know.... you ought to think about it before you go ahead and do anything like that." He seriously thought I was talking about my own real life 75 year old body. He probably didn't have any idea about what I was working on or talking about but really...........

Borders

The piano key borders are taking a long time to make. I started on Monday and I only have 2 1/2 borders. 

I am randomly sewing strips together into 4 and 5 strips to a set and then cutting 6 1/2  inch segments from them and adding 1 or 2 strips before joining the sections. When I say random I don't mean I blindly pick up a strip and add it; I want it to have some relationship to the strip to which I am add it. Sometimes I have something in there that doesn't seem to bear any relationship to any set of strips and that is OK, it helps keep the appearance random. Random, to me, means no set pattern, just personal choice. I am putting 2 inch strips in there randomly, most of the time when I join a set to another.



EQ 7 Version



This is the Electric Quilt version of how I will  use the borders. I am going to quilt this in sections by quilting the body of the quilt first and then adding the quilted borders. For that reason I decided to make long horizontal borders instead of adding corner blocks in the border. I can put  2 1/2 inch strips on the ends of the borders to I can be sure I can make them fit exactly. When you add the borders after quilting there is no easing them to fit or making adjustments in the center. I enjoy putting the strips together and seeing  the interaction of the color and pattern. This kind of border is not for someone who wants a more orderly border or to see a nice neat pattern develope but it works for me. A bonus is that I am using up some of my strips that have been hanging around forever. I might make this kind of border for the  all scrappy DNP as well. Maybe when I put it all away again there won't be so much left that I can't put it away in some sort of order. (this is probably delusional thinking). 

I spent a  lot of time this morning trying to figure out how to convert this EQ bitmap file into a jpg file. I hope I remember how I did it.

Borders

I decided to piece Piano Key borders for my DNP quilt and my Spiral Log Cabin quilt. After all, I just straightened up my sewing room and cleaned off all horizontal surfaces. Isn't that when you are supposed to drag out boxes of various size strips, none of which are sorted in any kind of order, so that you can make a huge mess again.

These are 3 of the 5 boxes I dragged out. They are sorted in boxes of  1 1/2 or  2 inch wide strips but they are all different lengths. the boxes say light or dark but it looks to me like there are more medium value strips than light or dark in the boxes. that really doesn't matter to me for these borders as  I am just putting strips together randomly. I am trying to sew strip sets that I can cut into 2 or 3 - 6 1/2 inch lengths.  I want 4 or 5 strips before I cut them into the smaller segments and then I will add some of the short strips  in between the units when I put them together. I am  mixing up the widths randomly also. That way when I make them fit the quilt I will only have  to take up one  or two seams instead  of a bunch of them.



6 1/2 inch segments

Strip Sets

 

This is the other thing I have been playing with. I bought this round papier mache box a long time ago (maybe more than 10 years ago). It is 10 inches high and it is 9 inches in diameter. I painted it off white and I planned to do something to decorate it but I can't even remember what that was. I stored some seasonal  decorations in it I came across it when I cleaned a  closet last week and  decided I need the space more than I needed what I  was storing.  It sat on a table in my sewing room and it struck me that maybe I could doodle all over it. I had been practicing some of the things from a book and things I saw on line. I did the top first and realised that it would not be so easy as my drawing tablets to work  on as it is  not nice and smooth like paper. Nevertheless I like the top. I also found out that I was not so good at drawing on a curved surface, especially a not so smooth one. I decided to go with one design. I'm still working on it. Like every other part of my body, my eyes get tired and I  have to give them a rest.

Long time

Long time, no post. I changed my banner quilt to somet hing fall like and then I got interrupted and never got back .
I haven't done much quilting in the past week. I've had other things going on some quilt related and  others just stuff that had to be done.
My Friendship group was  last week and it was my month  to present the block I wanted everyone to do for me. I don't want to make another large  quit at this time  so I decided  on a book. I asked everyone to trace their hands on fabric in their favorite color and fuse it on a 10 1/2 x 12 1/2 background fabric and then make their favorite block  (6 1/2 inches) in their favorite colors. No pictures of that till next month.

Our group at church met Saturday and I demoed different ways to make Flying Geese for a Dutchman's Puzzle block.
I did not read the directions well (  usual story) and used up all of that yellow fabric so I only have one block to  use for something. I think I will border it with  smaller flying geese and make something. Or maybe I will put it in the "odd blocks" box.

We have taken a lot of foliage rides this  past week. Lake and Geauga  Counties in Ohio are beautiful in the fall and our peak season is spread out over a few weeks due to the diversity of the forestation. The Holden Arboretum has been one of our favorite evening places to visit and I got  some good photos last week. I am not much of a photographer but who could go wrong with this.

Here  the sinking sun lit up one tree like a spotlight. I know that someone else could get better photos but honestly no photo can hold a candle to the real thing. 

One little project

The weather has turned a lot cooler and with the rain and the wind it is not so nice to go out. When I go out and get chilled I don't warm up as fast as I did when I was younger so when I come home I often like to snuggle up in a quilt or throw for a while. Well, actually I often take a nice nap. I have some fleece throws that I like to use and I like to keep them readily available but I have quilts draped over most of my chairs and I don't want to put the fleece throws there. I decided if I rolled one up and put a little slip cover around it, it would stay neat, look like a pillow and be right where I want it. I had one 15 x 9 inch piece of leaf fabric and some gold fabric that I had used recently in the table topper. I made a flat band about 22 x 14 and quilted it. I just wrap it around the throw and overlap it a little. I am going to make buttonholes and sew on buttons rather than sew it closed and stuff the throw inside. That is my QAWM quilt from 2 years ago on the back of the rocker. So..... that is my one small project.

In the last few days I haven't accomplished much  in the way of sewing. I did however get a lot of other stuff done. Sometimes it is good to clean and put everything back where it belongs so that I can see what I still have to finish and also where everything is. I really cleaned up because I am having friends for lunch this week and they are going to see my sewing room. I decided a long time ago that I need to have people over every so often so that I am motivated to put everything away.
I really need to do it more often.

This is I spent my time yesterday; it was my great grandson's birthday party.This is all 5 of the great grand kids. One of them is looking away and there is a lot of red eye that I can't get rid of but they are all smiling and happy and all looking natural. I like this picture! The birthday boy is the one in the back wearing glasses.