Back to the Nine Patches

Yesterday I decided that it was time to layer up the Disappearing Nine Patch quilt top that has been hanging on the back of the door to my sewing room for way too long. It was the last of a long line of DNP quilts I made. All the others had a planned palette and layout but this one was completely scrappy with no plan except to sew 4 sections together into 12 inch blocks that were all in the same orientation value wise. By the time I got 30 blocks done I was all "nine patched out".  I was ready to layer it without a border and quilt it and be done with it. Now after about a year and a half I am ready to do something more. I spread it out on my bed to look at it and decided to make it a more usable size by adding another row of blocks to every side and put a border on it. That means I have to make 26 more blocks and piece an 8 inch border. The picture above is a 1/4 section of the part that is together. I have a gazillion 4 1/2 inch squares already cut because I cut all of my scraps into squares so they would be ready to use. They have been sitting ready and waiting in a box on my closet shelf  for at least 3 years. I only had to cut about 50 light value squares.

Below on the left are 6 blocks ready to be cut in quarters.I made these yesterday and today .

On the right is a 12 inch block showing the orientation of the light and dark value segments. They will all be made like this one, I find it less confusing than laying out the whole quilt in quarter block segments and sewing it together in rows. I always turn something the wrong way.  On the left side of the block picture, behind my flannel work board,  you can see a small section of my Diva Challenge quilt that is up on my sewing room wall. I am really dying to show it but I am waiting for our group reveal. Actually I am waiting very impatiently to see everyones  challenge piece.

It is a good thing I did not layer up the DNP top because the back I had hanging with it is for one of the QAWM pieces . I didn't hang the top with the back because it is on point and I did not want it to sag out of shape.

Guess how I knew not to hang it.

Oh gee whiz!!! I just noticed the spellchecker. It wasn't there before.I have been painstakingly correcting all my typos and looked up and there it is. For how long have I been missing this?

Moving furniture..........Again

This is what I have been doing this week. It is one of our community quilts projects from the quilt guild. In October we had a Saturday work day for our community quilts projects. We cut 2 1/2 inch strips and made up roll-up kits and had about 3 patterns to use. I wasn't able to be there that day but I took one of the left over kits and made a quilt top using the tube quilt technique. Our CQ group meets once a month and I worked on it on those days for 3 months and finally took it home and finished it. I am not sure I would make this again because of all the bias edges but they probably would not be a big problem if it were done without putting it away severel times. I am not very good at keeping at a project when I am working around other people. I am too sociable. That is a nice way of saying I have to stick my nose into everything.

When I am procrastinating I find fault with my sewing space. Not long ago I moved one printer and my computer to a shelf and moved my desk so my monitor was not right in front of the window. Now I don't have to lower my Roman shade in the afternoon. My husband had to lower the shelf so I could see the buttons on top of the printer/scanner with out standing on a step stool. I had taken this closet shelf unit out of my closet a couple of months ago and thought it would be perfect for my printers but each one had to sit on a separate shelf and had to have enough room to open it in case of a paper jam or when I wanted to scan something. I couldn't put all the things I thought I could on the two shelves we could use. So..... yesterday I went to Lowes and got 2 more shelves. I had them cut exactly 23 3/4 inches so they would fit. Well, that didn't happen! One shelf was 23 1/2 and the other was 23 1/2 at the back and 23 1/4 at the front. I found this out after I made a trip back to the store to get the right size shelf pins. After some thought I took two shelves out of the unit in my closet and put the ones in the closet that didn't quite fit nicely. It doesn't matter there if they don't look as nice. This made it necessary for me to enlist my husbands help in putting a couple of screws through the shelf pins so the short shelves would not fall.  Jack is a nice patient husband and I am not going to tell him that I have to move the one shelf so I can get two baskets on the shelf that he questioned me about putting it where I said I wanted it.  I can fix that myself.

This is around the corner from my re-purposed shelf unit. A couple of months back when I started moving everything around when I ended up this little chest had nowhere to go but in front of my bookcase and it is full of stuff and heavy . Yesterday when I was at Lowes I bought some little Super Slider sticky pads and now I can move the chest around easilyto get at what I want from the bottom 2 shelves. Everything in my room has sliders or casters because everything has to move around for different purposes. For now I am pretty content but I have a few more things I want to change. I almost never move furniture anywhere else in our apartment. I figure out the best arrangement and that is where things stay unless we need to make room for something new.

Getting it done

I am finally getting around to layering the sections of a quilt that I started over a year ago. I am teaching a Quilting In Sections class

for my guild next month and I need to get this to the point where I can use it to demo. The big hold up was getting the sashing and the border strips cut and then the backing. I went back and bought more of the striped fabric because I decided to put it on some of the back sections also. Then I discovered that the backing fabric that I needed was not going to work the way I wanted because I had cut 2 pieces from the fabric at opposite ends on opposite sides. This is not the first time I have done this kind of thing. I finally worked it all out after walking away from it several times.

These are the two right and left side sections all layered up and ready to quilt ,the backing is the same striped fabric.              

This picture shows one of the inside braids and sashing laying on the backing fabric for the inner sections.

The quilt below is a quilt that I made earlier as a class sample and it isthe kind of fabric that I am having fun working with right now. The sections between the braids are not pieced, it is a funky striped fabric that made it so easy to put it all together and quilt.

As I tried to work out how I wanted to make the best use of what I had decided to use for the back I kept becoming distracted.  I moved all the furniture again in my sewing room, I gave the fabric weaving a try, I finsished a community quilts top and I worked on writing some instructions for our stockpile of baby quilt blocks for our group at church. If we teach new quilters to make simple blocks and if everyone in the group makes blocks we can make a baby quilt or quilts quickly when we need them. This sounds good in theory anyway.

These blocks are ones that I made while I was writing the instructions. I also made up about 20 kits to make three blocks each from the same 2 fabrics.

When I got done with that I cleaned up the mess and I knew what to do to cut the backs for the sections of the braid quilt. I guess a part of my mind was working on that while I was doing something else. I love when that happens.

Denim Bag

I finished my little bag this morning. I can't believe how easy the weaving went. The instructions in the book were easy to follow.
I have not fused anything much for a while and even though I read Melody's tips on fusing, I had a few problems but all in all it went pretty well. Maybe  I need to slow down a bit and pay attention to what I am doing.
The photo shows up the marking lines that are used for guide lines when cutting and weaving but I really can't see them "in person". I used a chalk pencil that always comes out by itself as I am working but I had to work at getting it out of this. I will use a lighter touch next time.
I had a new blade in my rotary cutter but by the time I finished this it was beyond dull. The lighter fabric is a pretty stiff and dense fabric maybe some poly in it. I had to use a 100/18 needle for the stitching. I did a narrow zigzag over all the raw edges with medium blue thread.

The bag is about 7 1/2 by 9 inches and has a long strap that I can wear across my body to the opposite shoulder so I can have my hands free and not have to fuss with it all the time.

When I got to the flap I thought the whole thing was looking rather dull so I finished the edge with a heavy cotton varigated Jeans Stitch by YLI.

Weaving

This morning I was putting some stuff away in my sewing room and I picked up a denim skirt that needed new elastic in the waistband. I decided that I did not want to bother with doing that so I cut it up. What to do with it? I didn't want to throw it away, I could have done that without cutting it up. I looked around for some more denim and found a piece of something that is the weight of denim but different.  It contrasts with the denim so it is right.

For a long time I have been wanting to try weaving fused fabrics together. I bought a book last year  "Simply Stunning Woven Quilts" by Anna Faustino. I was so excited about trying the technique I could hardly wait to get started. I bought some great fabric but couldn't find anything I wanted to weave it with.  I bought fabric 3 or 4 times and never used any of it for one reason or another.

This morning it struck me that the denim would be a good choice to start my learning experience. The fabric was "free" not $25 a yard so if I messed it up I wouldn't be upset.

This picture shows my progress with the 2 pieces of denim fabric I am weaving together. I have 2 more strips to weave and then I will fuse it. I am working on a flannel covered piece of foam core that I use for a small design board. The directions in the book say to fuse it to batting but I don't want batting so I am fusing it to a piece of blue print fabric so I won't have to make a lining. I am going to stitch all of the edges with a narrow zigzzag.              I want to make a small bag that I can use for my wallet, keys and cell phone and not much more.  I will show my progress as I go along. I have already learned a few things that have shown me I was right to start with something other than "wonderful fabric".

Playtime quilts

I have been working on my challenge quilt for our basement play group and I got fired up about it and finished it. However I can't post a picture of it yet because I have to wait until we reveal them all.

Our group doesn't have a regular meeting date and we are loosly organized but we have good times when we get together. We learn from each other and exchange ideas and we inspire one another. I think I mentioned before we have wonderful lunches.

The book that started us off was this one. This is a fun book just to look at but the exercises are great to get you started to make your own improvisational quilt. All of the quilts are named for childrens games and the names of the quilts don't always refer to the finsihed quilts so much as to the idea behind the composition. Not everyone did every exercise; there are some that I want to go back and do because I missed them.

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This is Hopscotch, my first quilt from the book; it is about 40 x 40. It has elements also, the checkerboard and piano keys.

This is Tic Tac Toe Whose Move? about 42 x 42

This one is Musical Chairs about 32 x 42. Maybe you can guess one of the elements from another game. Because of some of the fabric it took on an African look so I drew the mask and added the beaded trim and the Icthus.

Busy

I have been busy finishing up some things that have been around a while. I have to move things around and rearrange my room to set up for machine quilting. I like to have more than one thing to quilt so that I am not moving and putting things back too many times. My room is 10 x11  and I have too much STUFF. Last month I changed things around one day but instead of getting rid of something I brought something else in the room for my printers. I had it all arranged in EQ and I could see it wasn't working well but I did it anyway. I like it better but maybe just because it is a change. Everything works OK as long as I can live with my little blanket chest in front of my bookcase blocking the lower shelf.

This is my corner set up for machine quilting or it will be as soon as I move my iron and board and the rulers on my machine.

I just finished quilting this baby quilt for our "new baby" shelf at church. I think this is a pattern we will use for more quilts because it is fast and easy for new quiters. We would like to  involve them in making something for our "Caring Quilts", something that will be a learning process.  

Below is a closeup showing the Baby Signs print. I don't think the free motion quilting shows. I quilted in the ditch around the pieced blocks. I still have to but the yellow binding on, hopefully tonight.

I finished up my Diva challenge and have it layered up but I can't show it just yet. We are going to have our "reveal" in April.

I had some problems with my borders and I think one reason was because my new iron that I was so enamored with did not heat up enough and none of my seams were flat. When my infatuation with my iron cooled down a bit I could see someting wasn't right. I took it back and got another of the same and now I am a happy presser.                                                                                                     

Paper piecing again

My friend Kathy taught me to paper piece last year and it was no small thing. I am not sure why I had so much trouble with paper piecing but I made mistakes that made it hard to figure out what I was thinking. I had taken more than one class and I came to the conclusion that when I turned somethng over to stitch on the back something happened to my mind. But what Kathy taught me clicked and I made 2 sets of migrating geese. So ...........Thursday I was all set to make a paper pieced sun. I finished it yesterday afternoon. The paper piecing went well, slow but no problems; setting it into a circle. not so hot. The hardest part was adding the circle in the center. I decided to applique it with straight stitching on the edge and my stitching went awry. I am going to use it anyway and figure out how to rescue it but I don't think I will make any more 6 inch suns unless I fuse them.

Parts department

I am part of a group of quilting friends who get together and play. We sometimes choose a book and work our way through the exercises and learn new techniques. Sometimes 1 or 2 people will teach us something that they have learned or discovered or created. We are very loosely organized (like not) and we don't really have a name. We are sometimes the Saturday Study Group and sometimes Sewing in the Basement; it depends on who is sending the email.  We play, we encourage one another, we learn from each other and we have wonderful lunches.
We are presently working on a challenge using a Sewing Diva panel and parts from 2 books, "Beyond the Block" by Linda K Johnson and Jane K. Well a.k.a. Crafty Ol' Broads and "Collabrorative Quilting" by Freddie Moran and Gwen Marston. Both of these books are fun, fun,fun but doing this with a group is friends is even more fun.

I can't show my Diva section but these are some of my parts from the "Parts Department" as they are called in the book "Collaborative Quilting". These won't all be in my challenge piece but this is what I have been working on .
The top row is 4 1/2 inch 16 patch blocks. They were my favorite yeterday when I was working on them.
The second row is 4 x 4 1/2 inch log cabins.
The third row is Gwennies Pinwheels.
The fourth row is Liberated Stars.
The fifth row is 2 inch 4 patches on point
The 6th row is 2 1/2 inch HST's  and a "Chunky Churndash" from Bonnie Hunters website and  a Birds in the Air block.


These are a few more parts.

So far I have been using up mostly short strips and small pieces. I don't know why I have so many bright scraps; maybe because I save everything. Yesterday my cutting table was covered with a big tangle of strips but I used a bunch and sorted the rest in manageable bunches.

 

This is an "I Spy" quilt that I am quilting. I stopped when I folded under a corner and quilted it down. I never got back to it after  I took  out the stitching. I think I made these blocks after I got the Collaborative Quilting book but I am not sure. The blocks are the same as the liberated log cabins but they might have been crazy pieced. I made about 100 blocks using I Spy patches that were too small or odd sizes for other I spy patterns.

This is a quilt that I finished using those same blocks. I know I got the idea for the dividing strips from the Beyond the Block book.There was one more quilt pretty much the same as this one with lighning bolt dividing strips. All three quilts are for our new baby shelf at church.

QAWM #3

This is the last of my QAWM quilt tops, it is 42 x 42. The photo below has the real border. I used EQ to determine the number of patches I wanted to use and the size to cut them.  I got my black fabric yesterday and finished it today while the snow kept coming down.

When I get this one quilted I will hang it above my bed.

I decided a longtime ago that black was just too difficult to sew for my old eyes. Probably immediately after deciding that I decided that I had to use black in something or other and I got hooked on black and use it allthe time. It has not gotten any easier to see but it has made me more careful when I use it because it is so hard to see to unsew.

This little 11 x 11 colorwash is what tipped me over the edge in deciding to say good bye to my trays of 2  inch squares and 1.25 inch squares. I found this and another small piece early last month during a cleaning spree. They were all layed out on flannel and covered with tissue paper and ready to sew. They were probably class samples from several years back. I sewed them together at the time I found them and I fused some printed flowers on this one,  satin stitched around the flowers, quilted it and finished it. The back ground might as well be one piece, the prints blend together so well.  I spent some time to lay it all out and agonize over the orientation of each square and then sew it together.  I know I am  never going to make anything again with all those 2 inch squares let alone the 1.25 squares. I have moved on!

Lessons learned

I learned something new in EQ yesterday. I learned how to take a photograph and import it into EQ and set it in a quilt as a block. This way I can audition the border.

The body of the quilt here is the photo and the border is EQ. I see the photo is rather dull and out of square but I can see what I wanted to see. Now as soon as I go out and get some more black fabric I can finish this up. I can't find the 2 or 3 yards of black that  I thought was in my stash. There is no way I would miss it if it was here so I must have used it up.

That brings me to the other things I learned this month.

1 - I work better when I am not working in a mess. I knew this but it was filed in the back of my mind. It has come to the forefront.

2 - It is time to clear out and clean up. I spend way to much time organizing and reorganizing stuff I am never going to use again.

3 - My sewing room is the only way it can be UNLESS I GET RID OF SOME STUFF.

4 - If I have made a quilt with fabrics I like, I still like the quilt 15 -20 years later. If fabric sits on my shelf unused, after a few years I don't like it so much anymore.

5- I don't always have to know everything I need to know in order to get started. (sometimes I do). I still don't know everything I need to know about blogging but I am learning as I go along.

6 - When I can't seem to get interested in starting anything or even finishing anything I need someone to give me a jump start. I am not good at motivating myself.

It looks like the first 4 things on my list have to do with letting go of some stuff. The first thing to go will be the trays of 2 inch colorwash squares and 1 1/4 inch squares. I know I never again going to arrange 2 inch squares on my design wall and sew them together. I like all  of the quilts I made but I know I won't do it again. Maybe the next to go will be the squares and rectangles, lots of old duller tones in those boxes that don't appeal to me anymore. A big part of my enjoyment as I sew is seeing the interplay of color and pattern and some of what I have just isn't that enjoyable anymore.

That's what friends are for

Paper piecing is something that always left me wanting to tear out my hair;.I always did something so dumb that I often couldn't even figure out how I could have done such a thing. If I ever had to paper piece, I complained and grumbled endlessly. When someone in our Friendship (block swap) group gave us a log cabin foundation that she had copied on the copy machine I was worried I would end up bald. It was a little bit off in the sizing because of the copy machine so that I couldn't print another foundation from EQ without first figuring out the size of the blocks and strips. When I finally got that right and printed it I made a really stupid mistake on the last log, not once but more than once. I ended up picking out all those tiny stitches because I knew if I did it over from the beginnig I would be likely to make the same mistake again.

 Well anyway, fast forward a couple years. I get togeher with several ladies who are talented and creative. We get together in the basement of one of the group and learn something new and fun. Someone brought instructions that she got off the internet for drawing a migrating geese block in Electric Quilt. It was just stuck in with some other papers and I found it when I got home. I played with it in EQ and drew out a paper piecing pattern and thought that this was something that I wanted to do enough to make me paper piece. I spent a whole day making one mistake after another and threw the whole thing away. When I said I would swear off paperpiecing, Kathy came to my resue. She said she would teach me to paper piece the next time we got together and SHE DID.

This strip was going to go in a larger piece using blocks from the books "Beyond the Block" and "Collaborative Quilting"; that is our latest basement project. I looked at it yesterday and decided that I wanted it to stand alone. I sewed the borders on this morning and I will quilt in the ditch around the geese.